Tag Archive for: writing fiction

New Year, New Decade, New Direction

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by AB Plum

Welcome to the New Year, a New
Decade, and a New Direction

No writer’s block here. 

Gazillions of potential blog topics cry for the
Stiletto Gang’s “insights” over the next 365 days. This year, the
Gang has decided to add a new subject: the craft of writing fiction. We expect to
learn a lot from each other. We hope you’ll learn a lot about what goes into
writing word after word after word to evoke an emotional connection between
writer and reader.



First
Wednesday of each month

Look for a new craft post the first Wednesday of the
month.

I’m up first—sort of like the first baby born each New
Year.

Not
characters but names …

For me, the quintessential element of all stories is
characters (not necessarily human). We could do twelve months on developing
fictional characters, but I’m going with names—a subset, really, of that fictional
element.

Also, I’m sort of a names nut. I collect unusual names—from
fiction, celebrities, and movies—pop culture at large. Magnus, The REal McCoy,
Risa, Ryn, Pierce, Detective Nick Ketchum, Bo “Peep”, The Stoned
Wall, and Lavender comprise some of the characters I’ve introduced in various of my
books. Here are a few basic ideas that drive me in finding the
“right” name: 

Names bring characters alive.
I have never written a novel or a short story for
which I didn’t have the main character’s name before
I started writing. Knowing that vital information adds dimension to other
aspects of that character I’ll introduce to readers almost from page one of the
novel. Examples of what a character’s name reveals to me: inner drive, personality,
goals, past secrets, childhood, disappointments, celebrations, etc.
Two
of the best examples of characters whose names fit, IMO, appear in Gone with the Wind.

Scarlett
O’Hara and Rhett Butler leap off the page when we meet them. The meaning of her
name is obvious (to native English speakers). His Old English name means
“small stream.”

“Small
stream” for a force of nature? Scarlett for a woman whose reputation as a
flirt grows worse throughout the novel.
Hmmm.
You decide if the names fit the characters.
Names connote animals, places,
position, status, ethnicity, and more.
Wolf, Paris, Judge, Yuri.
I’m still waiting for a character to step
forward for whom I can use Wolf. I know the character type, but I’ve yet to
meet the specific fictional bearer of the name.
Names reflect culture, time, power,
ambiguity, certainty, subtlety and quirkiness.

Octavia, Charity, Reina, Madison, Moxie
Crimefighter, Eulalia, Audio Science
I’d love to tell a story featuring a character
named Audio Science (the first-born son of actress Shannyn Sossaman). Maybe he
and Moxie in a romance?
Names reinforce gender, family,
history, religion, values, trends, imagination.
Caesar, Murphy, Napoleon, Lourdes, Peace,
Hannah, Pilot Inspectkor
Pilot Insectkor apparently comes from an indie
song and definitely sparks my imagination. I am still waiting for the right
character to claim the moniker.
Deciding on a name for a character—especially
for the Main Character(s)—is like naming a child. Making the name meaningful is
my first criterion in choosing a handle.

Risa, the heroine in my romantic comedy Prince
of Frogs, means smile in Spanish. A pediatrician, she’s never met a kid she
didn’t like. Her smile is so big and genuine that her patients never cry when
she gives them their shots.
Nicknames and pet names can add depth,
complexity and insight to a character.
Risa enters the world with a mop of orange-red
curls. The nurses tie a big pink bow on top of her head and present her to her mother with a flourish, proclaiming: La Ti Da! From then on she’s called La Ti Da because she’s so full of life, energy, and joy.
A few of my favorite names for fictional
characters include:
Elvis Cole (Robert Crais)
Stephanie Plum (Janet Evanovich)
Spenser (Robert Parker)
Temptation, OH (J. Crusie)
Chili Pepper (E. Leonard)
Scarlett O’Hara (M. Mitchell)
Sookie Stackhouse (C. Harris)
Hannibal Lector (Thomas Harris)
What about you—what are some of your favorite characters’
names? Any you hate?

Check back on Wednesday, February 5th
for the next blog on Writing Craft.

****** 
AB Plum, aka
Barbara Plum grew up in Southern Missouri. She knew she was in trouble
whenever her mother used her first and middle names in one breath. All three
names (usually yelled) meant a potential time-out until age 21. Her love of
names may have begun with her first puppy, Pickle Puss. Later, ThatCat and
YourCat became favorite felines.
Check out her
dark psychological thrillers and riveting mysteries :  https://abplum.com/
In the mood
for mood for paranormal or contemporary romance:    https://barbaraplumauthor.com/
 


How Much is Too Much? The Art of Subtly –by T.K. Thorne

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      Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        New places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

“Don’t give too
much information” is one of the tenets of “good” fiction writing, i.e., writing
that avoids the slush pile. A positive way to phrase this is—write subtly.



According to Noah
Lakeman, author of The First Five Pages:
A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile:
•    An unsubtle MS will have an inflated
feel—inflated with superfluous words, phrases, dialogue, and scenes that are
far too long.
•    Less is more; Leave some things
unsaid; be a minimalist.
•    If you underestimate your reader, you
alienate him/her.
•    Discipline yourself to withhold
information.
•    Embrace confusion; leave a little mystery.
But now we are back to the dilemma—how
much is too much and how do you know when to stop? For some people, that skill
comes naturally, but others struggle with it. Recently, I was reading over my
latest novel manuscript and decided I wanted to drop some back story in the
first chapter of book three of a trilogy. Backstory is always risky because too
much can pull the reader out of the story world. They “hear” the author
“filling them in.”
Setup: Rose, a police detective, responds
to a homicide scene where a construction worker has fallen seven stories to his
death. She looks at the body and hopes she isn’t going to get sick. 


I inserted:
“The only time I’ve been sick at the sight of a dead body was the night I had
my first vision, a glimpse of the future that made me fire two bullets into a
man’s back.”
Works. 
Why? 
1. It’s relevant and fits the context.
It’s a natural thought proceeding from her hope that she won’t get sick.
2. It doesn’t give too much information. It
leaves the reader with questions—Why did she shoot a man in the back? Why
wasn’t she fired or convicted of murder?
3. It adds to plot or character. We now know
that Rose had a traumatic incident in her past and that bodies don’t usually
make her nauseous. Important stuff.
What if Rose looked at the body and
thought instead: “This reminds me of the time when I had a few drinks with
Harry and got sick all over the floor.”
It’s shorter, so “too much” is not about
question of how many words you use. This version also flows from her thinking
about getting sick, but it is too much information, because–who cares if she got
sick drinking with Henry? It is not important to the story and adds nothing to
the plot or character development. Unless it is an important part of her
character that her mind wanders willy-nilly, it pulls the reader out of the
story narrative.
Not every piece of narrative has to do
all three of these things, but if you have a suspicious piece of writing,
analyze it to make sure it is (1) relevant and in context, (2) leaves questions
open, and/or (3) adds to the plot and character.
P.S.  HOUSE OF ROSE, a paranormal mystery/thriller and the first book in a trilogy is coming out in November.  Rose is a Birmingham police officer who discovers she’s a witch of an ancient House, the prey of a powerful enemy and the pawn of another.  I’ve had such fun writing this!  Sign up for my newsletter to stay in the loop and receive two free short stories.



T.K. has written two award-winning
historical novels, NOAH’S WIFE and ANGELS AT THE GATE, filling in the untold
backstories of extraordinary unnamed women—the wives of Noah and Lot—in two of
the world’s most famous sagas. The New
York Post’s “Books You Should Be Reading” list featured her first
non-fiction book, LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE, which details the investigators’
behind-the-scenes stories of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing case. Her next
project is HOUSE OF ROSE, the first of a trilogy in the paranormal-crime genre.
She loves traveling and speaking about her books and life lessons. T.K. writes
at her mountaintop home near Birmingham, Alabama, often with two dogs and a cat
vying for her lap. She blogs about “What Moves Me” on her website, TKThorne.com.  Join her private newsletter email list and
receive a two free short stories at “TK’s Korner.”

Heroes Vs Villians

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by J.M. Phillippe

There is a saying that no villain really knows that they are a villain. We are all heroes in our own minds. But in fiction, it is also often true that heroes don’t know they are heroes. They resist the title. They push back against the events that would take them to heroic destiny. The good ones, the ones we relate to most, never really feel heroic so much as overwhelmed by the circumstances they face.

I have broken the main rule of the Internet: never read the comments. In reading the comments I find, over and over again, people so opposed to each other, they resort to insults, each side assuming the other is the biased one, the stupid one, the one who refuses to get it (or is incapable of getting it). Each side has painted theirs as the one full of heroes, the other the one full of villains.
How can this be?
It is enough to give me pause and wonder how I see myself, how I live my life, even how I write my characters. How have I decided what is heroic and what is villainous? What criteria was I using and why was I so sure I could tell the one from the other?
Maybe it was just circumstance — the heroes had the most bad things happening to them. Maybe it was just perspective. The heroes are the ones that get the most time spent on their thoughts, feelings, and motives. Heroes are the ones whose pain audiences are supposed to relate to, their reactions more justified, their mistakes made smaller with familiarity. They are allowed remorse, guilt, shame, and insecurity. They are the ones fighting for hope.
Or maybe it’s just about likability. Heroes are the ones we like — they have the charm, the talent, the special magical ability to make audiences want to find out more. 
If I can’t say for sure which characters I have created are truly heroic, how can I say which people in life are truly villainous? Particularly when people on both sides are so determined that theirs is the side to be on?
After much thought and consideration, I finally came up with the only definition (and a working one at that) which could even start to help me make sense of the world: heroes are the ones that are willing to admit they are wrong, and they are the ones most likely to change and grow over time. Heroes are the ones looking to be redeemed, in whatever way they feel they need to be. Villains are the ones who aggressively refuse to change.
It’s not a perfect definition, and the distinction between heroes and villains, as much as there is one, is, I’m sure, much more nuanced than can be contained in one simple line (or three). But I need some measure, some way to determine if I actually really am on the right side, something that isn’t an appeal to authority or tradition. I need to know that flawed people can be heroic, and that not all villains have to stay that way.
Because the truth is that things in the world often feel very overwhelming. Life often feels full of obstacles I feel less than equipped to overcome. And I don’t feel like a hero. Yet I also know my thoughts and views have easily painted as me someone else’s villain. It gets murky, here the middle, in the real world, away from fiction (and non-fiction) organizing events to make one side seem better than the other. It’s hard to know what side I stand on, and I suppose throughout my life I will flit from the heroic to the villainous and back again, depending on circumstance, perspective, and context. Just because I think I’m right doesn’t necessarily mean that I am. 
I’m prepared to be wrong though. And I think that is a good sign that maybe, just maybe, I lean toward the heroic. At least, that’s what I hope. 
***
J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.