Writer’s Tool: Props

Tags

building character, Chekhov's Gun, foreshadowing, props, tension building, what makes good fiction, world building, writer's tools, writing with props

One of the best tools for character building, world-building, tension building, and creating beats and foreshadowing. When used with purpose, it smooths over that drop into the dream and helps keep us there.

My favorite use is to replace dialogue tags and build character. Showing a character rub the hem of their shirt so much they rip a hole in the bottom creates an image, indicates nerves, and suggests a repeating habit. It shows their true feelings. This type of prop, when used with specific intent, can signal a certain emotion that relates scenes and build foreshadowing.

The more unusual the prop, the greater impression the character has on the reader, like a green, shoe-shaped stone that links a protagonist and her recurring savior. Or a metal tuning cuff around a boy’s ear, almost hidden beneath his hair, that he uses to hone his alchemy skills.

An equally important and better used prop will remind the reader of the world and the rules present. A silver charm with the dirt from a grave serves a twin purpose of pulling an old vampire myth to showcase genre and what type of rules govern these creatures. As a secondary element, it functions to remind readers of werewolves’ aversion to silver, especially if used in a fight.

A particularly tense scene might use a prop to build tension. A ring in a young man’s pocket, might feel like such a weighty object—one he brushes to ensure is still there, when he might have the confidence to ask the question, avoids when his conviction plummets; a prop can signify a defining moment.

Here’s a great example of real-life drama using props. A woman takes a pregnancy test and tricks her husband into finding it. The test stays front and center for most of the exchange as he tries to uncover her trickery until, finally, he comes to terms with the positive result. The test itself signals a wide variety of tension—shock, pain, denial, acceptance, humor, and ultimately the new addition to their loving family. The scene would not be the same without it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lms9d3eo1g

Also, one can create foreshadowing in several ways, but foreshadowing with props is essentially using Chekhov’s Gun. This technique signals the significance of an object early on by the amount of attention it’s given. The rule is that it must be utilized by the end of Act II within the three-act structure and play an important role in the plot. Like a character finding a pendant in an old box of her mother’s things, which she recognizes in her mentor’s office and knows to use it help save a dozen kidnapped children.

I love props and how versatile they are for adding depth to a story. How do you use them in your writing? Tell me in the comments below.

 

 

Sources:

https://www.mentorless.com/2015/09/01/how-writing-props-help-adding-layers-to-your-story-and-characters/

https://flyingscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/props-in-writing-how-and-when-to-use-them/

https://www.lightsfilmschool.com/blog/surroundings-props-screenwriting

Varying Heroines in the BLOOD PHOENIX Saga

Tags

diffuse situations, femininity, kick-ass female, make a difference, mother's sacrifice, strong female character, strong female lead, writing advice, writing characters, writing tips

I love creating strong female characters—if not already evident by the way I typically describe my protagonists. Ria is a semi-typical kick-ass personality. She’s learning to balance the evils of her vampirism with her morality, which means she gets beaten up and beaten down on quite a regular basis.

But she’s not the only heroine in the series, even if she’s put out front.

What I’d like to do instead is highlight some of my other strong females in the series to explore the depth and variance of what makes a character “strong.”

It’s hard to start anywhere other than with Ari, Ria’s long-time bestie. She’s mentally tough and able to surf through chaos since it’s unavoidable given her childhood friend. Her ability to navigate people is her best asset, dissecting and diffusing a situation before it escalates.

Her weakness is her boredom—with the several jobs, with the cycle of men, with the struggle to stay afloat. Yet, Ari comes into her own when she arrives at the training facility, traversing an entirely new world without the veil of safety.

Is she a kick-ass-and-take-names heroine? No, but most of us aren’t. She is the kind who steps up when she can, and she makes a difference. That’s something to celebrate.

Next would be Tahe. Although she can fight well and came to help Ria save her seven-foot-tall leprechaun, her ability to embody femininity and eschew traditional depictions of it gives her a different kind of strength.

She is a lipstick lesbian, who loves to tinker with cars, learned to harvest a field with a scythe, worked with an old-school magician, had tea with Nikola Tesla, and has a trend of back-sassing authority. Tahe’s got a hell of a complex backstory to showcase how she uses others’ natural tendency to underestimate her to her advantage.

Tahe represents the long-term fight to be a woman any way we want to be. Something I have struggled with for decades.

Finally, I want to showcase Ria’s mom. Writing more about her in the last few stories I’ve explored has revealed a lot of what I think about motherhood and what I know about Ria. Tatiana is excited to be a mom; scared, too. She has to shift from the new adult freedom to a real adult so quickly. Then, she has to come to terms with her mortality and the knowledge that she’s going to die from childbirth.

It takes a hell of a strong woman to give her life for her child. Complete selflessness. Honestly, I don’t think I could do it, but I’ve also never been put in that situation. Regardless, that type of decision makes Tatiana all the more heroic to me.

Three very different types of strong females, and there are plenty more worth exploring, like Julia sacrificing herself instead of taking down her lover, like Deanne’s unwillingness to give up on escape even when it’s hopeless, like several other characters who use their motherly instincts and life experience to help themselves and others in bad situations. What I’m getting at is that muscles and fighting skills aren’t the only way to make a character strong.

 

Do you have a favorite strong female lead (whether someone else’s or your own)? Tell me about her in the comments below!

Re-Evaluating My Writing Process with Fun Templates

Tags

brainstorming, Heart Breathings, plotting, pre-planning, project booklet, Rachael Stephen, Sarra Cannon, The Writing Process, three-act structure, writing templates

For every new project, I seem to check my system, tweak it, revise it, see if I can’t improve my writing process. Well, let’s take a fresh look at it, shall we?

 

Pre-Writing

I have a couple stages for my pre-writing process, and it really depends on the length of the piece as well as if the characters are completely new to me or not.

If the world is new, I like to do some character and world building first, and I’ve created a document based on Rachael Stephen’s videos on brainstorming. Download the free .pdf here if you’d like to add it to your pre-writing process.

Here’s what my first page looks like, filled out:

For a world that I’m already familiar with, I do incorporate some of those elements in to my pre-planning. Yes, I pre-plan before I plan, and maybe even pre-pre-plan. Is that a thing? Is it all just planning? If it is, don’t burst my bubble. Okay?

Here’s what my first pass at plotting looks like. I use another template. The left has two long boxes for me to note the conflicts and tension, the big themes and threads and scenes. Aka, the shit I know already. This is where I may also use a shortened version of the brainstorming template, simply listing their main motives, what they avoid, what’s at stake, and their main conflicts. It helps focus what thread is there for what reason.

In the next four columns, I split the three-act structure up the same way Sarra Cannon from Heart Breathings does—separating act two into two columns. She focuses on the main beats in each act, like so:

This is the finalized version in my project booklet. Ignore some of the fuzz, but I haven’t written the book yet, and I don’t want to reveal who done it.

One last step before I dive into my drafting process. Plotting out the chapters. Can you guess it? That’s right. I use a template. This one in fact:

Four pages, one for each column from the three-act structure. The left column is for the main themes, the scenes I need to hit, some that I may not know where they go yet. The fifteen boxes are for chapters. I try to put the points in order for each chapter.

I transfer this into a booklet with six chapters to a page because I like the clean look of it.

 

Drafting

When I drafted the first book in this series, THE GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR, it was the first time I planned each chapter in such detail. Last time, I had to wrangle a few extra chapters in the middle for the pantsing ideas, but I stuck pretty solid to that outline. The first time I used my current templates with INFERNO, I combined a few chapters instead.

Because I’m basically a pantser. Yes, with all of this planning, I still feel like a pantser. My bare notes are enough to provide me with an idea, but I still have to hammer out a lot of details in draft. I just have fewer links to make.

Once I’ve begun the drafting phrase, I pretty much put butt in seat and write. I have a set amount I want to write a day, and I stay at it until I’ve hit my word count.

Sometimes, this is really easy. It got easier by building a habit: 250 for two months, 500 for three months, then July’s Camp NaNoWriMo pushes me to finish what I have left. Last year, my goal was 2 hours a day. It worked, and 500 a day would have been so much easier. But I enjoyed the torment, too. You know, in retrospect.

Also, I’m one of those writers who HAS to write everything in chronological order. Some people jump around, but I won’t even let myself flesh out a scene stuck in my head. I mean, I do jot notes down sometimes. I phrase or two. An image. But only on paper.

I find that I can’t move forward until I uncover the details of difficult scene. If I don’t, what I write from there is too up in the air for me. Too much could change. Although this takes me longer because I can get stuck, the revision process goes so much more smoothly.

 

Revision, Editing, & Publication

I’ve written about my revision and editing process before. Here, in fact. And not much has changed in this regard. Publishing changes per project. I’m still finding my way around marketing and launching books.

I do always write blog posts, create book trailers, send out newsletters, and work through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo for distribution.

The rest is up in the air, depending on time and resources. When I sell hundreds of thousands of copies, I’ll tell you how I did it. Until then, I’ll keep playing around.

 

Welp, that’s it. My writing process. It took a lot of books and stories to find something that worked for me more than once. One of my favorite things about talking writing processes, is that every write does it different. So, what’s yours look like? Tell me in the comments. Write a blog post and tag me.

Hybrid Humanity | Mixing Phoenix and Vampire

Tags

blood phoenix saga, duality of man, good and evil, hybrids, phoenix themes, rebirth, resurrection, sacrifices, the broken world series, vampires

If you’ve read my Did You Know…About the Phoenix post, you’re aware that the phoenix is a symbol for rebirth, renewal, and resurrection. It only makes sense that my Blood Phoenix saga begins with Rebirth and ends with Resurrection (or at least, it will).

Besides, vampires have a similar cycle of death and reanimation (or being born into a new life) and the struggle of immortality. I’m sure plenty think I’m crazy for comparing the two since phoenix are the epitome of light and life and purity, and vampires are the epitome of dark, death, and debauchery.

What happens when you mix them? Well, you get my main character, Ria.

The thing about hybrids that interests me the most is the ability to play with the line of morality. What is good and bad? Where does one transform into the other? Can one do evil things for the purest of goods and great things for the darkest evils?

Yes.

It’s a powerful philosophy that I haven’t begun to explore, and I doubt I could truly understand it with eons to explore its possibilities, but duality will forever intrigue me.

That’s why I love to play with characters like Ria, and her antagonists. Phea, my big bad and first-ever vampire, was once a sweet and innocent girl that loved a god. She destroyed an evil that plagued her people, but killed hundreds of thousands of them to save her baby.

Wickedness seems to taint those who set out to do well in life. Even Ria feels the affects, learning to take life swiftly as a mercy when hundreds of captured people are tortured in prolonged dramatic sacrifices. But when she runs to save her own baby, she refuses to let Phea murder the innocent people around her to get away. Ria would like to think her humanity makes her empathetic, but it’s her phoenix.

That’s why I like the mix of phoenix and vampire. They balance each other out and make Ria all the more human.

 

How do you feel about good and evil, hybrids, and using paranormal creatures to reflect on humanity? Let me know in the comments below!

PTSD: am I handling it appropriately?

Tags

Boot Camp for Vamps, crime drama, dealing with trauma, disabled veteran, dynamic characters, PTSD, PTSD Symptoms, the broken world series, triggers, Writing about mental illness

As aware as I am of what PTSD can entail, I sometimes forget how little most people know about the disorder, other than the stereotypical depictions of flashbacks, withdrawal, and violence.

That’s usually what I see in my crime drama binge-watching tendencies, although I’ve been surprised a time or two at how spot on some do manage. Perhaps, I’m not convinced because TV doesn’t allow for the same type of emersion that reading does.

I don’t want to seem like I’m an expert on the subject. I certainly am not, but I have lived with a multitude of my husband’s symptoms for the last twelve years: loud bangs inducing flashbacks, sleeping with his arm propped on his ear, violent nightmares, pacing the house from anxiety, complete shutdowns of emotion and personality, and coaxing him inside from his stakeout when the drug addicts down the street were stealing from the neighborhood cars.

The biggest thing I’ve learned—and relearned several times—is how unfair it is when people, including myself, expect him to behave like he doesn’t have a mental illness.

This is probably the most influential component to the overall dynamic of a character, like Ria. She can’t behave like everyone else because her pain is so new. The trauma from the first leg of her journey bleeds into the others: the girl she failed to save, being staked in the side, being staked in the heart, the human she got changed and had to kill to survive, the car crash, a child she had to let die, slicing the throat of an enemy, and so so much more.

I, too, lean toward that stereotypical flashback move. Hers overlap each other, too similar not to impact her when new trauma strikes. Unsure of how accurate I’m being, I never put her flashbacks in the way of her ability to fight. Instead, they seem to fuel her.

Some studies have found that the heightened awareness and constant adrenaline from a combat zone overpower the effects. After all, PTSD is predominately categorized as being unable to turn this feeling off when returning home to presumable safety.

With the Celampresian Camp—or Boot Camp for Vamps—there are enough lulls for the symptoms to pop up and retreat in cycles. Most of this manifests in anxiety for Ria, an never-ending feeling of doom. Granted, she’s not wrong. Being hunted can do that to a person. It can also lead to a lack of sleep and withdrawing from outside world.

Checking off as many boxes as I could in the first four books, book five will have a different pace, and PTSD will be more prominent for my main charrie.

Overall, I’m happy enough if Ria holds her own kinds of truth amongst the variables that come with something as immense as PTSD. Have you tried to tackle in-depth psychological trauma in your stories? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Figuring Out Fictional Motherhood

Tags

blood phoenix saga, cat-mom, Mom experiences, Motherhood themes, step-mom, tatiana's diary, the broken world series, The Writing Process, writing what you know

As a woman who lucked out, getting to take part in raising children without having to push them out of my body, the idea of motherhood for me is a bit skewed.

This creates a challenge for me as I begin writing my way toward motherhood for several characters. Luckily, I have plenty of friends and family to question about what pregnancy and child-rearing is like; plus, the internet has a buttload of information—both medically and anecdotally.

I got to learn about those super long needles used to test DNA, called an Amniocentesis Test, the stages of baby bump, what sonograms look like, what it’s like to establish a connection with the baby as it grows. Yup, lots of things that I’ll never experience.

That’s the fun thing about writing a wide range of characters, with enough research and imagination, I can nail motherhood. At least, fictionally. I’ve known Ria wanted kids throughout her entire series so far. Several of her past lives featured kids. Each of the books, so far, has put her in the position to instinctually save children, and she naturally wants to save people, especially the innocent. It’s in her nature to act motherly. Her mother, Tatiana, has to get used to and give up on being a mother in a matter of nine months. Kaia is barreling towards motherhood and step-motherhood with one last novel to wrap up her saga.

I’m hoping I can vary them enough to show a spectrum of mom experiences.

So, yeah, here comes the babies.

Wow, that’s so awkward of me to say.

Here’s to tapping into my own step-motherhood, auntiness, cat-motherhood, and teacheriness to pull these varying moms off in a realistic way.

 

Got any tips for handling the many moods of babies since I got my yahoos in the threes and fours? I’d love to know how you handle character experiences that drastically differ from your won. Leave me your advice in the comments below!

Creating the Stages of Grief in Fictional Characters

Tags

character development, creating complex characters, grief in characters, stages of grief, story arc, types of loss, writing about grief, writing advice

Grief has been long understood as the eventual progression of steps we walk through after a loss. Most think of it as a straight route through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, but the truth is that grief is a mess of loops and tangents and backtracking through these emotions without a specific or defined trajectory.

It also has more parts than we once knew, adding shock before denial and testing before acceptance. Let’s break down the steps to better understand real grief so that we can write about it with better accuracy.

First, every person—and therefore, every character—experiences grief differently, and we grieve over many types of losses: a loved one dying, the end of a relationship, losing a home or a job, amputation, terminal health diagnoses, and having to drop out of a program, etc.

Second, grief is cyclical and has no specific rhyme or reason. We can jump around, repeat, and remain stagnant in several stages before we make progress in dealing with our losses, and the process will take longer for some than others.

Here are the stages:

Shock | Initial shutdown at receiving the bad news. This typically comes with numbness, fogginess, or disbelief. This is when we run on autopilot, protecting us from that early pain.

Denial | Avoiding the inescapable. Although psychology has deemed denial as a negative symptom, in grief, denial is healthy in moderate quantities. It’s the brains way of making itself feel better until it can fully face the loss. Easing into the difficult reality is denial’s job, ensuring that we don’t face it all at once.

Anger | Aggravated outburst of bottled-up emotion. This may be anger at the source of our loss—the person who died or left or fired us, etc. Sarcasm or increased irritation from minor problems is caused by the energy needed to move on. Anger can happen at any period of grief, and it often cycles.

Bargaining | Futile pursuit of getting back what was lost. This is when people beg god or the universe to reverse the tragedy, promising to live better, do better, and end bad habits in exchange. These can generate uncomfortable conversations that lead nowhere.

Depression | The final comprehension of the unavoidable. This is accompanied by sadness and crying, loss of appetite or disrupted sleep patterns, unexplained aches and pains, and it seems like this could be the end of our life. And it is the end of an old normal.

Testing | Pursuing genuine paths forward. While in that dark pit of depression, we recognize that we can’t stay there forever. Thus, we start experimenting for ways out, doing things to relieve the despair, crawling out of the dark hole toward acceptance.

Acceptance | Finally establishing a new normal. Recognizing the importance of the person or thing lost, we lack the anger once harbored for it or the need to barter for its return. Instead, we begin building our new lives. This comes with absolute peace, but the stage is so hard won that most never fully reach acceptance.

Managing each of these states accurately within a character’s story arc takes careful planning. Or, at least, that’s what I like to think. I planned each bit for my new diary story where a mom realizes she will die to give birth to her baby. I’m sure they’ll change slightly for organic developments.

We also naturally understand these steps when we cause grief to our characters, leading them through their own loops without planning, but there’s something to be said for a little structure, even if it comes afterwards, in revision.

The most important thing to note is that reality comes in variety—not just excessive crying or vowing revenge. Some process internally and others externally. We all cope differently, so this means creating distinct reactions that don’t simply end, no matter if the world needs saving. This is why reactions sprinkle through a person’s life instead of stopping it.

My point is, if you’re going to tackle grief with your characters, be sure to keep it in sight as your creations interact with the world.

Have you tackled grief in your stories or plan to? Tell me about how you’re tackling it in the comments below.

 

 

Sources:

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/grief/understanding-the-stages-of-grief/

https://www.griefandsympathy.com/whatisshock.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/supersurvivors/201707/why-the-five-stages-grief-are-wrong

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/testing_stage.htm

https://storyembers.org/six-tips-for-writing-grief-realistically/

 

 

Camp NaNoWriMo Week Five and Final Update

Tags

#authortube, blood phoenix saga, Blood Phoenix: inferno, Camp Nanowrimo, Finishing the first draft, NaNoWriMo, The Writing Process, writing update, writing vlog

Hello, lovelies!

It’s done. Oh my shit, it’s done. Camp. The book. All of it.

But believe me, the book did not want to end. I kept plugging and plugging and plugging, and the book got longer and longer and longer. It finally wrapped itself up at 94,500 words, and fifty-three chapters.

I sat for a day in disbelief that I’d finished it and rewarded myself with a few chapters of reading for pleasure.

Want to see me try and talk my way through the ending? Check out my Camp writing vlog below.

In my last four days of camp—because my week starts on Sunday, not Monday, fight me about it—I racked up close to five-thousand words and all of my remaining minutes. Actually, with the last day, I got an extra five hours in because I wouldn’t let myself plug in those last ten minutes until the book was done.

Okay, let’s be honest, I would have by midnight because I like checking off the box that says I’d complete something, but the prolonging of button-clicking gratification pushed me to find that ending.

So, here are my number so the week:

Minutes Completed: 585/480

Words Written: 4,989

Total Minutes Completed: 3,720/3,720

Total Words Written: 27,964/20,000

Final note: I WON!

It feels nice to win Camp NaNoWriMo again. It’s been a while. In fact, this year has reminded me just how important writing is to my life. And now that I’ve made it a focus, I’m certainly not letting go of it again if I can help it.

 

Well, I’ll be back next week with a project update and an editing vlog, where I dive back into INFERNO to take a full look at it. In the meantime, let me know how you celebrate when you finish a project in the comments below.

 

Killing off Characters |Camp NaNoWriMo Week Four Update

Tags

#authortube, Camp Nanowrimo, catching up, end of the book, Killing off characters, NaNoWriMo, The Writing Process, writing goals, writing obstacles

Hello, lovelies!

Holy shit, y’all. I got close to another 7k on my word count this week. Who is this person Camp has turned me into?

And I’m hovering 500 words shy of 90k in my manuscript. This isn’t including parts that I have to go back and add to, and I have another two and a half chapters left!

Okay. Wait. Breathe. Yeah, I’m almost done. Which is what I wanted. But when I get here, nerves and excitement and the end-of-the-draft crazies descend upon me.

Want to see me freak a little about having to kill one of my main characters? Check out my Camp writing vlog below.

I hope in the next two days that I can hammer out the last few chapters. The end has thrown a few obstacles at me, and some new plot points that I didn’t think of in the plotting of this. Fun thing about my outlines is that they’re usually vague enough for me to squeeze other things in there if I need to, or condense a whole bunch of shit I thought was important but, really, wasn’t.

Yup. Even with all the moving around, I keep racking up the words. I also got to catch up on quite a few minutes, too. Far less behind than last week, and I’m confident in hitting my Camp Nano goal of 3,720 minutes written.

So, here are my number so far:

Minutes Completed: 995/840

Minutes Behind: 105

Words Written: 6,830

With four days left of writing, I have to up my daily goal from 120 minutes to 150. Easy peasy.

Time to win. You with me?

 

Well, I’ll be back next week with another update and another writing vlog. In the meantime, let me know if you’d ever try NaNoWriMo in the comments below.

 

Camp NaNoWriMo Week Three Update

Tags

#authortube, Camp Nanowrimo, closing circles, exceeding word count goals, killing characters, NaNoWriMo goals, sympathizing with the enemy, writing goals, writing vlog

Hello, lovelies!

This week I got so many words! I careening towards the end, but it’s taking a little longer than I thought it would. My original goal was 75,000, but as I’m closing in on 85,000, I have to wonder if I’m looking at 90,000 or 95,000 words. What??

Want to watch me dance around after reading my initial goal? Check out my Camp writing vlog below.

I got rolling, and learned a few new things about my world and characters. Ria’s even sympathizing with the enemy! It makes killing the character I need to feel off. Here’s hoping that as I run into that necessary scene, I can get the details right.

But while my words are ranking up like crazy, my minutes are still way behind, and my math from last week was off by a hundred. Oh well, if I can reach the end of this book by the end of July, I will be one happy camper.

Get it? Okay, it was a bad pun. Sue me.

So, here are my number so far:

Minutes Completed: 810/840

Words Written: 7,932

So, I’m behind by 200 minutes, which is roughly three and a half hours. Still banking on making those minutes up, even if I have to get 140 minutes each day. I’ve got this.

I’ve totally got this. Right?

Well, I’ll be back next week with another update and another writing vlog. In the meantime, let me know what you’re working on or what you’re reading in the comments below.