Points of View

Point of view. Everyone has one. But I’m not talking about those points of view. I’m talking about character. Every story needs to be told from someone’s point of view. The author has to decide if first person or third person is best for the story. For me that’s an easy choice. I’m not a fan of first person so all of my stories are in third person. Even the urban fantasy I came up with is third person. That surprised me because most urban fantasies lend themselves to first person. The only thing I write in first person is my diary. Maybe that’s why I have a problem with it. Who knows? My friend is writing a book that takes place in the past and the present. She’s using first person in the past and third person in the present. I liked the idea of keeping them separate. Using first person in the past gives that part of the story an immediacy you might not get if the whole novel was third person. Even though I don’t read first person much I’d read her book to see how she pulls it off. But first person, third person those weren’t the points of view I was talking about though.

I’m talking about how many POVs you have in your story. Who gets one? Do you stick with just one or do you have multiple POVs? And it doesn’t depend on if you’re writing first person or third person. My friend isn’t the only writer who uses a combination of first person and third person in their novels. James Patterson writes a number of his books using a combination of first and third. It all depends on the kind of book you’re writing.

A mystery might only have one point of view. The ones I’ve read have been first person. A lot of category length books will only have two points of view. You don’t have a whole lot of pages to tell the story so five points of view is probably not your best option. Category suspense might incorporate a third point of view for the antagonist. Again, they’re short books so you don’t have a lot of room for lots of points of view. Mainstream and single title novels have more wiggle room. Bigger stories, more plot, more characters, .more opportunity for more points of view. So how do you decide?

The ghost story I’m working on now has the protagonist’s point of view of course. The next victim of the serial killer has a point of view because I want the reader to understand how unthreatening the killer seems. The killer might have a point of view. The protagonist’s best friend has a point of view. The lead investigator for the murders has a point of view. I’m trying to decide if the protagonist’s boyfriend should have a point of view. So far I can’t come up with a reason to give him one. The reader won’t get any new information about the murders.

My post apocalyptic suspense has heroine point of view, hero point of view, various and sundry secondary character points of view – the waitress who has a secret, the antagonist who also has a secret, the law enforcement officer bent on capturing the heroine, a teenager in jail who has information for the heroine. I think that’s it. So far. The book’s not finished yet so there’s no telling how many more there will be.  Seriously, though they’re all needed. They all give vital information to the story and it would be confusing if I took them out.

So how many are too many? Do you like only one? Only two? Do you like a lot of different points of view?

I’m off to work.

Until next time…

Cindy

25 Words or less – go!

With the RWA National conference coming up almost everyone has pitching on the brain. Writers are frantic trying to boil their story down to a twenty-five word log line that entices. Log lines seem to be the new buzz word in publishing. I don’t remember hearing about them years ago. The only place I heard them used was in the screenwriting industry. But a log line for your book is a great idea. It gets your concept out there in a short sentence that will hopefully garner interested questions.

I just finished giving my log lines workshop in June. The consensus was it was much harder to come up with the twenty-word word log line if you’ve already written the book. The frustration a lot of the students felt in another log line class I sat in on was because they didn’t know their premise. They knew their story but story and premise aren’t the same thing. That’s why I always preach in my log lines class that you should come up with the log line first. It’s so much easier than coming up with it after the fact. You want to put in all the story and you just can’t do that in twenty-five words or less.

So what is a log line? It’s a sentence, preferably twenty-five words or less, that conveys the essence of your story. The idea, the concept. Not the story itself. Of course you can go over by a few words but less is more. And the less you have the easier it is to memorize. The easier for the agent to pitch to an editor. The easier for an editor to pitch to the senior editor. You get the idea. It should have no names. Protagonists would be described using an adjective and a noun. Also, don’t try to keep the best parts out thinking you’ll intrigue an agent or editor. The best parts are what they’re looking for, what they need to know so they can decide if they want to know more. So no secrets.

Since I started writing screenplays as well as books I come up with my log lines first and go from there. I run the log lines by people before I start writing. The log line that gets the most positive feedback is the project I work on.

I’m giving my log lines workshop over at Celtic Hearts Romance Writers in August. Too late for National but there are other conferences coming up. No matter how you get your pitch ready, be ready for when you get asked that question every writer gets asked. So what’s your story about?

Off to work. They never ask what my stories are about. I bombard them with log lines anyway.

Until next time…

Cindy

Tracking those submissions

Since I haven’t submitted anything in a while – five years at least – I haven’t had the need to track anything. If there’s nothing out there there’s nothing to monitor, nothing to follow up on. Things have changed. I’m submitting again. One chapter out to an agent already and more submissions will be going out this year. So I wanted to start keeping tabs on things again.

I pulled out my copy of Write Again the submission tracking software. I’m not a reviewer. And granted this is the only tracking software I’ve used with the exception of my own Excel spreadsheets. But I do love it. It has so much I can do. I haven’t used it in over 5 years. Last thing I submitted was a novel targeted to Blaze. Since that rejection I’ve been working on other things. Scripts, non romance type books with plenty of murder and mayhem. And this year the occasional short story. I’m pleased to announce I have now finished a second short story. So, I decided I needed to start using Write Again again. I installed it on my laptop last night. I didn’t want to lug out my old desktop.

I could play with new software all night. Okay, so it’s not really new, I used it before, but it’s been so long it felt like new. I was able to pull up my old information from the backup of the database I had done. Now the real fun begins. Getting all my market and contact information in the software can take some time. I want to start inputting all that this weekend. And update it with all my new projects.

Let’s see, what can I do with it? I can keep track of my progress on all of my projects. It has a task manager so I can see how much of each task I have completed. I can track my submissions and be reminded when I should be expecting a response. I can track deadlines. It will send me notices if a deadline is coming up. It can keep track of how much it costs me to send out submissions and how much I’ve made per project. I can add my own genres if a genre isn’t in the list provided. I can have it start with start up which I haven’t done yet but will change that tonight. If you submit a lot and need to keep track of where everything is, what responses are due, what deadlines you have, I highly recommend it.

I’m very excited to be using it again. I will be (fingers crossed) emailing a submission tomorrow and I will be inputting that into the software!

Now all I need is an actual office again and I will be one happy writer.

Off to work.

Until next time…

Cindy

It’s not you. Really.

Creating three dimensional characters isn’t easy. Writers tend to draw on real life experiences so our characters experience those universal emotions. It’s tempting to draw on real life people as well. Much easier than coming up with three dimensional people from scratch. And it can be so freeing. Yesterday at work something happened that really ticked me off. It wasn’t completely this person’s fault. I was anxious to leave so I could go swimming, I was already running behind and then I had to stay a lot longer to deal with something. So on the way home from work I decided this person would be the next victim in my serial killer book. Putting people like that in my books is how I blow off steam so I don’t get angry. And sometimes they actually give me good characters.

But do I do that all the time? No. As hard as it is to come up with sympathetic, three dimensional characters, I do create most of them from scratch. I use various methods for getting to know my characters. And I’ve discovered, partly with the help of Karin Tabke’s advice on characters, that I need to REALLY know them before I can write my stories. I use a template that is a mash up of a number of different templates. I list the basics like height, weight, hair colour, eye colour. Then I go further and pick three positive traits and one negative trait. After that I decide what secret the character has. Now this secret may never come out during the course of the book but they’ll still have a secret that they don’t want anyone to know. I figure out who their family and friends are. What their childhood was like. I figure out their favourite food, colour, music. Then I decide what their personality is like. Are they funny? Depressed? Serious? No matter what role they play in the story I give them a Save the Cat! moment. Something that makes them sympathetic.

After I do all that I figure out the really important stuff. The stuff that will drive the book. I figure out what their goal, motivation and conflict is. Internal and external. What the character wants and why will drive the story. What are they willing to do to get what they want?

One of the reasons I can’t wait to write my new urban fantasy idea is because all of that, down to who her best friend was in college, came to me in a flash. Literally. I was driving home from work and suddenly I just KNEW her. She’s really damaged but she’s going to be a lot of fun to write. I’m sure she’s hiding a few secrets even from me but I’ll find them out.

Anyone out there use real people as the basis for characters? How do you change the character so the people don’t know? If I base a character on a real person I always change something about them so even if the person who the character was based on read it, they wouldn’t know it was them. Except the protagonist in my ghost story who is actually my best friend. But she knows about it. I told her. I did change her name.

Well, off to work.

Until next time…

Cindy

Goals check

Every year I make goals. Writing goals and personal goals. I think everyone needs goals. In books the characters’ goals combined with their motivation are what move the stories forward. If only it could be so easy in real life. But goals are needed to keep you on target. I’m lucky because I belong to a great community of writers dedicated to achieving their goals. Being in WritingGIAM is the best thing that could have happened to my writing. Being accountable every week for what I accomplished has me almost always pushing forward. Being able to check off things from that goals list feels really good at the end of the day. The support, encouragement, tough love, concern, friendship on that loop keeps me going.

It’s mid year so I thought I would look back at the goals I had in January and see how I was doing. I posted a short version on the blog but a longer version for my goals loop. The writing goals I posted there were:

Writing goals

1. Write 100 words a day every day
2. Read 24 books
3. Watch 100 movies
4. Read ten scripts
5. Critique more
6. Take at least 2 workshops (done – taking 2 in January)
7. Give screenwriting workshops (Five already booked)
8. Submit something
9. Continue to grow the in person writing groups
10. Participate more in all the loops I belong to

I did well with the 100 words a day until two weeks ago when workshops took most of time but I’m back on that wagon. And it should have been write at least 100 words a day. I usually go over that when I’m on a roll. I’m behind with the book reading. So far I’ve read five books. The goal is still doable but I have to up the number of books I read a month. I’m halfway through the 100 movies. Well, almost. I’ve watched 49 so far. The script reading hasn’t happened at all. Still have all 10 of those to do. I have been critiquing more when needed and owe one of my CPs a critique that I have to get done this week. I went way over the two workshops I wanted to take. I think I’ve taken five already. Big check mark on the giving workshops goal too and I still have two more to give. I did submit a first chapter to an agent and I will be submitting short stories in the near future. Once I polish them. I’m happy to say my in person writing group is doing very well. Check it out here. And I have been participating more in most of my loops.

I guess I’m not doing too badly so far. Still lots to accomplish before the end of the year. But there’s still six months to get it done.

On the personal front I have been spending time with family. Since moving in with my boyfriend I don’t see them as much as I used to but I do visit once a week. Sometimes twice if we’re going over for dinner. I’ve been saving a little. Doing the WiiFit rarely. I need to get back on that and the points. I did get a membership at a hotel so I can use the pool.

So that’s it. Goals are coming along and I hope to have check marks for all of them by December 31. Do you have goals? How are yours coming along?

I’m off to work.

Until next time…

Cindy

100 Words a day is back on

In January I started a 100 words a day challenge. The goal was to write at least one hundred words every day for one hundred days. I didn’t know how it would work out since I was pretty busy at the beginning of the year. But I managed to do it. Sometimes it was like pulling teeth. Sometimes I did my words in five minutes. Usually I kept going if it wasn’t too late. Sometimes all I could do was those hundred words but that was okay. I was doing them every day. I reached my one hundred days in April. So I started on round two. I got to day sixty something and then nothing. The workshop I’m giving, family, work, the local writing group took my attention away and I missed four days in a row.

But the challenge is back on! I’m starting back at day one but I wrote 908 words tonight at the write in. It’s probably all crap. I’ll probably end up deleting most of it and only keep fifty of those words. But I don’t care. It felt good to write new words on my story. Because I have to finish this book so I can work on the next book. And then the next book. I have far too many books to write to miss days. So no more missing days. One of the ladies in my GIAM group reminded me that it only takes ten minutes to write one hundred words. And she’s right. That’s about the average. No matter how busy I am I can take ten minutes, write one hundred words. And if I’m on a roll I can keep going.

I’ve been remiss in encouraging my group members of my one hundred word challenge. They’re doing great. Some of them had to start back at day one. Some are still going strong on round two after getting through their first one hundred days. Having to post your word count every day helps keep you going. When you’re accountable you don’t want to miss a day.

Now, I must see if I can get in my 100 words before I go to work.

Until next time…

Cindy