What to do when you hit that creative wall

So every now and again (read frequently and soul crushingly) :) you are going to run into a part in your story that no matter what you do to it you just hate it.  Whether it is how it sounds or how it depicts an event, you just hate it.  Re-writing the section from scratch is the obvious thing that comes to mind, and often this does help.  If it doesn't here are a couple of things I do to try and break down the creative wall.

The first trick I have in my book is to ask myself questions.  Although it seems very corny and a trip back to elementary school I write down the questions and the answers.  Start broad, for example: what am I trying to say?  Why am I telling you this? What is this going to effect?  From there just keep asking specific questions: Why is George so eager to steal the gold now? How is he going to steal it without getting caught? What is he going to do with the gold?  Keep going until you have a full page of useful information.  Once you have read through your own responses a couple of times re-read what you have already read (unless you already deleted it in a rage!), and then beef up what is missing.  In this case lets say that George has to steal the gold now because he is going to get captured and executed in a couple of chapters time.  The first thing I think of is to give George a good send off and probably be a bit more descriptive in his final pages in the the book.  Sometime just writing down that he is going to be killed makes me rethink it.  Maybe he has more of a role to play.  Nine times out of ten I find that this method works for me.

For that horrible tenth time, feel free to move on to a different part of the story.  Although Microsoft Word can make us feel like we have to start at the beginning and just keep writing until we smack the period on "The End." we can actually write it anyway we want.  Have a great idea for the middle of the book grab a blank page or hit Crtl-Enter and just start with a whole new event.  Sometimes it can cause you to have to alter other things in the book to keep the continuity solid, but let's be honest you are going to read this story cover to cover more times than you can count before it is done.  Identifying that a couple of things need to be changed or adjusted later on is not going to be a major problem.  Once this new part is on paper then return to your problematic section and try it again.

Check in on Friday March 7th for my next update.  Hope you are enjoying the insight to my process.

A big cheer for James who makes his debut on my blog :)

Check out my Historical Fiction Novella at: http://store.payloadz.com/details/1941573

How to be descriptive without prattling on ...

This is a really fine balancing act and it is not easy.  I certainly have plenty of issues with this.  How can I give enough information on people, places, and events without putting the reader to sleep.  On the other hand how can I keep the reader interested without giving them all of the details.

In my opinion you are trying to put together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and leaving out 200 pieces.  Anyone looking at the jigsaw will know what the picture is, but they will use their imagination to put the missing pieces in.  I try and use words and phrases that are familiar to most people to cut down on wordy descriptions.  For example, most people have an idea what a medieval village looks like.  Even if they are a bit off the mark most people picture a dirty grassy area with a miller, a blacksmith, a farmer, and some sort of fortified structure nearby.  By using these stereotypes to your advantage you don't necessarily have to spend 2-3 pages describing the village in detail.  Instead you can get into why your character is in the village and describe the more important items.  A full example would be:

The King's men arrived at Fordham Town, a small medieval village just north of Bristol.  They soon identified the miller's house from the line of people with bags of grain and the unmistakable sound of stone teeth grinding together as the mill produced its precious flour.  However, there would be no more bread today as the King's men pushed through the peasants and prepared to arrest the miller.

On some occasions you will have to go into lots of detail.  If you and a handful of scholars are the only people that know about the period or item you are talking about, it is unavoidable.  When I have situations like this I try and go back to elementary school English.  Instead of writing paragraphs that have longer structured sentences, I try and break it up by throwing in the occasional choppy part.  For example, the King's men returned to Bristol with the miller shackled in irons.  He was led slowly through the castle, passed the old stone kitchen, and down the stairs to the dungeon.  It was cold and dank.  The large wooden door slammed behind them creating an eerie darkness as the air brushed against the candle flames.  The other prisoners looked on with anguished faces as the miller was marched to his cell.  The revolt had failed.

As usual just my two cents on tricks that help me when I am writing.

No prizes for guessing the photo: New York City from the Liberty Island Ferry

Check out my Historical Fiction Novella at: http://store.payloadz.com/details/1941573

Getting from the start to the finish without boring everyone!

So I promised to update my blog and give you my tips on how to keep your story interesting from start to finish.

In my opinion the ending of a book can be fantastic but that is not always important.  Lets take a classic like "The Lord of the Rings".  In its most basic form it is a book about someone delivering something.  However, the story is made by what happens in the events while attempting that delivery - the middle of the book.  You might have the most amazing ending in your mind before even putting pen to paper (or finger to key) but if you can't get your reader there it is all for nothing.

Let's be honest, a story cannot be written as one action sequence after another.  It needs to have time to set things up and develop what is going to happen.  One of my favorite lecturers at Rutgers University, Dan Moran, tried to drum into us that almost everything in a book has a meaning.  It may be very small but if it didn't set something up it wouldn't be there.  During the planning stage I advised that you create folders for events as well as characters.  The event folders should be well researched with plenty of notes to keep your mind working.  This will allow you to tease the upcoming event and almost dare your reader to guess what is coming.  For example, you are writing a story with a scene involving a shepherd who has to protect his livestock from a vicious wolf.  While you may have that scene created so vividly in your mind you also have to think about how to keep the reader's interest while getting to it.  Write a scene earlier in the story that involves the shepherd happily tending to his livestock when in the far distance a wolf howls.  This short simple passage both informs the reader that there are wolves in the area and teases that this could be a problem later on.

This, again in my opinion is how to keep your book interesting though out.  The scenes that will make your story memorable are certainly important.  When your main character unexpectedly falls down a well that is a crucial part of the story.  However, setting it up is equally important to create a smooth transition and keep your book in someone's hands.

Next week: a tricky one! how to be descriptive without getting too wordy

For anyone wondering about this photo? King Edward's Bay and Tynemouth Priory

Check out my Historical Fiction Novella at: http://store.payloadz.com/details/1941573

Who am I and what do I know?

First off, thank you for clicking on my blog.  With all of the options out there I am very happy you clicked on mine.

My name is Roger and I work in the healthcare industry in the great state of New Jersey :)  When I am not pushing paperwork from one side of my desk to the other I take an interest in writing short stories and novella's.  I have always had an interest in books since a young age and was always encouraged to read by my parents and grandparents.  As a teen in England I started to write my masterpiece!  That went down in a fiery crash pretty quick being that I was attempting to write something equivalent to Stephen King's "The Stand" off the top of my head.  Not smart.

Fast forward a few years and I now live in the United States.  With plenty of free time due to immigration restraints I started to dabble again.  This time with a plan.  I cannot say enough how this is the most important step you will take.  My first recommendation would be to decide what is this book going to be?  Is it something you want to write for you and a small number of family and friends, or is this something you might want to make a few dollars on?  If it is the latter do a quick online search and make sure that the topic is not over saturated already.  I recently was thumbing through my stack of inspiration and came across the Nika Riots of 532AD.

From Wikipedia: The Nika riots, or Nika revolt, took place over the course of a week in Constantinople in AD 532. It was the most violent riot in the history of Constantinople, with nearly half the city being burned or destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

This sounded like a fascinating topic to write a fictional component to go along with.  Well quite frankly it is!  From books, ebooks, fiction, non-fiction, and movies this has been covered a lot.  Again, if you are looking to write something for yourself and have your heart set on this topic, it would be a great time period and event to use.

Back to the planning stage.  In my opinion don't stray from a very broad storyline at this stage.  Plan each character one at a time and make a folder full of notes on each one.  The more descriptive your notes are the easier it is to develop the character when and if you find yourself stuck.  If you think your main character is a bit grumpy write down the reasons why he is this way.  It seems so simple but just checking back to this periodically can add so many layers to a story.

Keep up this process for any major events you want to happen in your story.  Maybe you know that the hero is going to swing from his ship to board a pirate ship and rescue the heroine.  However, do you know anything about ships or pirates?  This is where your ethos is important.  If I were to tell you that healthcare in NJ is convoluted and mostly led by insurance coverage you would probably believe me.  It says in the first paragraph I work in healthcare in NJ.  If I told you that the easiest way to diversify and balance your stock portfolio was to invest in New Zealand oil you would be much more skeptical.  Writing is the same thing.  To engage the reader you have to at least sound like you know what you are talking about.  By doing a little research into pirate ships I can tell you that the hero sailed his sloop after the pirate galley and once along side he boarded the vessel by swinging on a rope from the main sail mast.  This one sounds a bit clunky but hopefully you get the idea.  It is never a bad idea to simply head to a library and look through lots of non-fiction books to gain the knowledge you need on the historical event you are using for a background story.  After all that part of the book has to be accurate.

Once you have all of this planning done start to create ideas for what is actually going to happen.  Often I have a good idea of how a story is going to end, by the end of the planning stage I know my characters and how the story is going to begin.  From there it is simply being creative and finding a way to get from A to B while making sure there is enough going on to make it an interesting and entertaining read.

I will post tips next time on how to find ways to keep it interesting and entertaining for the duration of the story.

For anyone wondering about the house? The king of lit himself - William Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Check out my Historical Fiction Novella at: http://store.payloadz.com/details/1941573-ebooks-fiction-a-franks-tale-roger-thornton.html