P is for PLOT

I'm going to keep this uber short tonight.  It's been a looooong day!

Plot is tiny word with big meaning.  It's the timeline of events in your story.  The map of how and when your book unfolds.

The most basic plot can be dynamic.  It's mainly comprised of five phases including:

 INTRO - INCREASING ACTION - CLIMAX - DECREASING ACTION - EXIT

There are other models out there that break it down and define it well.

And that's it.  Short, sweet.  


I'm worn out from all that pan-banging yesterday.  Tomorrow will be another fun letter, though.  


Please come back for:  Q is for QUIRK.

See you then!  ;0)

O is for ONOMATOPOEIA

               "Holy polysyllabic Greek words, Batman!"

            A long fancy word, Onomatopoeia is the BOOM! BAM! POW! of writing.  Simply put, it’s the spelling out of sounds.  

            Oddly, I catch myself tossing out onomatopoeic words all the time.  In an earlier entry I told you that my learning curve tends to make me “go splat.”  When I rule out or cite something, I refer to it as getting dinged. 

            I’ve gonged options that don’t appeal to me. 

Hit it, Chuck. 
(image source)

             

           And the great part about onomatopoeia is that you don’t have to wield a striker or don a batsuit to use it.

I believe writers utilize onomatopoeia pretty effectively, plus we have an official weird license—a get-out-of-funny-looks card for when we have to perform unusual research or ask strange questions.  Or, say, drop an inexpensive ceramic platter out a window to document what kind of breaking sound it makes.  I’m just using that as—you know—*cough*—a random example. 

Okay, moving on…

            I did have another onomatopoeia experiment just this week.  One of my characters is going to get a little beat up in the not-too-distant future (please see C is for CONFLICT for rights to character provocation), and I needed to know what being hit with a saucepan sounded like. 

Yes, I’m a bully.  Luckily that’s part of the author package, too.

            Sooo, I moseyed downstairs to the kitchen, notepad in hand; weird license at the ready, to discover in what ways a saucepan could Ka-DONG!   

            I'll say that, similar to entertainment street acts, a crowd forms quickly when you're inexplicably beating on Revere Ware.  Within five minutes my cat, little niece and sister were all in attendance as I noted the various dongs result from hitting the pan with:  a serving spoon, a small melon, the bulb end of a turkey baster… (It’s surprisingly difficult to replicate a human noggin.)

     

    Granted the cat was drawn in by the funny noises, staying with the expectation that tuna would miraculously appear.  Little Niece was there to pet the cat.

       

              My sister was there to laugh at me. 

                          

And so is the beauty of onomatopoeia.   

                       
*Note: No siblings, nieces, felines, fruit or turkey basters were harmed in the making of this blog.

            Please join me tomorrow—P is for PLOT.

            Goodnight!  :0)

N is for NARRATIVE VOICE

In books, there is one goal—the suspension of disbelief. 

            As a writer you want your reader engrossed, submerged, so entrenched in the story that they are a part of it.  Once they’re sucked in, you want to be careful not to interrupt the magic.

Narrative voice is what you use to do this.  It’s the VOICE of the storyteller.

            The styles of voice are complex, so it’s advised that you pick up a few good books with writing exercises to help you get comfortable with them if you’re just starting out. 

But here’s a rough summary:

            Before you begin you want to decide which voice would best tell your story.  Third person narrative voice is the most traditionally used in fiction writing, although in the last decade first has made a big comeback. 

The one exception to this rule is prologue and epilogue.  Those are seen as separate “bookends” to the main story.  You can have a first person story and a third person epilogue, that’s fine.  It’s just important that throughout the main event you keep one narrative and do not switch voice. 

  

This is usually the point where someone shouts, “But in Ethan Frome…!”  Yes, Edith Wharton's ETHAN FROME is one of the rare examples where the story is structured to have two voices.  Reading it, I believe it to be crafted that way.  The difference is that most modern books are going to follow the standard, and the voice switch has to serve a purpose.  It can't be there to make-up for anything the voice you picked initially didn't cover.  Unfortunately, voice is one of those "learn the rule, then you can bend it" principles.  

The guideline isn’t put in place to be stodgy or to thump the rulebook, it’s to say that jumping voice halfway through disrupts the flow.  It puts ripples in the suspension of disbelief.

Essentially you’re putting two narrators in one story: the character’s voice and the omniscient’s and that’s going to startle your reader.

Imagine that you’re riding along in the character’s first person perspective, it’s “I felt,” and “my life.” Then out of the blue, a loudspeaker turns on and starts calling the character “she, her…”   The story shifts, doesn’t it?  You look around and start to ask questions: Who in the heck is this other voice??

It’s funny but true.  The last thing you want is your reader questioning who's telling the story.  There’s a fine line between creative freedom and inconsistency, and you don’t want to sink your manuscript by being too avant-garde.

Sticking with one voice is the way to go.

Tomorrow’s letter is one I’ve been looking forward to—O is for Onomatopoeia.

I promise to keep it short and fun.

Goodnight.  ;0)

M is for MANUSCRIPT

The first time I’d heard the word manuscript was in a FB conversation with another author. 

            “How’s your MS going?” she said.

            “My MS, what's that?” I asked back, completely clueless.

            She patiently went on to explain, at which point I felt greener than pre-ripe banana, but I'd much rather be informed by a friend than say, an editor.     *facepalm*  


            I warned you in the beginning that I learn things the hard way.  

            And so MS stands for manuscript.  You know, that stack of paper that when published is your book. 

Image Source

Kinda important to know, right?

            At the time I’d written for an online website for a couple of years prior, at the beginning of my journey to try to get published.  The lingo used in the digital publishing world differed slightly, like the variance between AMA and MLA writing formats, so I hadn't heard the term used much before.

Since that discovery however, I’ve noted that manuscript guidelines are pretty straightforward:

·        Single page, front only

·        12-pont font

·        1-inch margins on all sides

·        Double-spaced (to let your copy editor work his/her grammar and syntax magic)

·         New Times Roman and Courier font are the most commonly used.  Possibly Georgia.

·        Check with your publisher as to the max/min word count required (typically based sub-genre and story type).

  

That’s it wrapped in a bow.  MS--know it, live it.  Don’t get caught without it.

Please come back Monday:  N is for NARRATIVE VOICE.  

See you there!

-         SNG

L is for LITERATURE

Keeping it super simple tonight.   Literature. 

Required reading in school and the staple of intellectualism in life.

I’ll confess that I’ve read many of the great works solely because a teacher made me. However I understand, looking back, why they're important to slug through.

It’s not every day that a book comes along that manages to capture a time, a principle or human state of mind so poignantly that the reader is forever transformed afterwards.

I took a quiz on Facebook one time called “Have you read 6?”  Out of one hundred titles of classic literature, it turns out that I'd had read twenty, the list including authors Austen, Bronte, Dumas and Steinbeck.

Such themes:  Love and caste systems, suffering and strength, loyalty and vengeance, poverty and survival.

The way literature captures the conflict and character, it’s the kind of writing that teaches and makes you think.

There are a few books that have opened my mind that aren’t on the list, but that’s okay.  Even if not seen, the principles remain. 

J

Tomorrow – M is for MANUSCRIPT.

Goodnight!

J is for JOURNAL

There are no limits how, where or what you write.  

            For years I wrote only for myself, journals of my thoughts and memories.  I pull out my notebooks every once in a while, and appreciate them anew.   Some entries are written when happy, contemplative, frustrated and pensive.  Many document an event that I’d long since forgotten about, bringing out a smile at the memory.  


While the mind is a powerful instrument, it doesn’t retain everything.  Journals are a way to hold on to it all. 

             Randomly flipping open one notebook, I revisited a day when I stood in line at the craft store, a little boy playing nearby with a rubber glitter ball that bounced my way.  Catching it with my free hand, I returned it him, for which he politely thanked me.  A simple memory, but one that I’m thankful to have preserved.  

             This blog is like a journal, too.  It’s a place to document my reflections.  The A to Z challenge has enabled me to practice and helped me become diligent in getting the writing done. 

            The only side-effects with journaling (and blogging) is that I do find it hard to get back into manuscript voice.  Third person drafting is primarily He, She, It, while journals allow for more freedom. 

            As much as I preach about being consistent with narrative voice, I’m a hypocrite with it while off-stage writing.  I consider this blog and my journals to be “no holds barred” areas.  Commonly referred to as “Stream of Consciousness” writing, where it follows your train of thought.  I call it my “stream all over the place” writing because I'm a weird thinker, bouncing in and out of First, Second and Third voice.  It’s weird and informal, but it helps me differentiate from character script. 

I treat blogging like I’m talking to a friend; part personal opinion, part advice, part storytelling.

            And whether you journal, diary, scrapbook or blog, it’s a great outlet.  Keep at it and watch your style and expression develop.

“Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you.” ― Mae West

;0)

Tomorrow is another interesting letter:  K is for KINK.            

I is for IMAGERY

            The cursor blinks at me.  Blink-blink-blink.  Ignoring it, my eyes are preoccupied with the rectangle of cotton peeking out from the dog pile across the room. 

            Rotating my head to back to the computer screen, I try to concentrate. 

Imagery.  IMAGE-ry.  The verbal photograph. Poetic description.

The selection of words used to create written texture.  

My eyes find their way back to the bed.  Pliant, touchable, like the striped pillow sitting king-of-the-hill atop of the decorative throw pillow heap.  A good pillow.  Mid-weight fabric, but not scratchy.  The run-proof, stain-resistant, take-a-beating kind that your face still glides against when you grab it for a ninja nap (Sarahism ©2012). Blissfully squashy, as if hand-packed with cotton balls, neither too firm nor too flimsy.  Just right for mid-Sunday stuffs behind my head while watching TV, late night prop-ups of the neck when settling in to start that anticipated new book.  Great for elevation of a sprained ankle… 

What a good pillow.  Who’s it made by again?  Waverly.

That's right.  Expensive but worth it.

The blinking cursor is more like an impatient tapping foot now.  Asking, “Is your tangent over?  Care to get this entry finished sometime tonight?”

I let it blink, noting the similarity to my equally blank mind. 

How do you describe imagery?  You don't.  It's too intimidating.  Too—big.  

Full, vivid.  Colorful and illustrated.  Crafted in letter box format. 

I grab a steno pad and a pen.  Maybe I can hash this out Old School-style. 

Ten minutes pass:  I jot.  I scribble.  I draw.

Five minutes more and I have a paragraph of bad poetry that reminds my sister of Pink Floyd lyrics.   No imagery.

The pen taps on the edge of the paper now, in step with the tyrant cursor.  My fingers are quick, my eyelids heavy.  The mental egg timer of my brain ticking out the final marks before going off.

A few feet away my bed sits made.  Still.  Serene. The carefully tucked covers no barrier to the understated siren song drifting up from its cozy center.  My head gravitates towards what awaits me.  When I fold the corner of layers over, the triangle will reveal an angled line of poufy head pillows, the convex dominoes crowning muted green cotton sheets.  Regular sheets, nothing fancy, but organic for certain.  Soft as satin, a cushion of heaven against my legs after I’ve shaved.  Topped with a ruffled knit throw in case any of the other twenty blankets aren’t enough to keep warm, the frilly edges beckoning me to come rest.

Yes, when I’m done I’m going to burrow in like a groundhog, nestle up to a pillow or four, and then sleep for as long as it pleases me.

That is my reward— as soon as I think of some imagery…

Tips:

·        Imagery doesn't imply the use of flowery words or over-the-top dramatic prose.  Powerful description is often made up of simple words.  Play with pairings and meanings then see what comes of it.

  My favorite line of imagery comes from a college classmate’s poem: “Fetal Pink.”

·        I’ve read somewhere that a majority of writers begin their stories with setting imagery.  This is a moving way to start, but it’s also a common opener.  If you want to rock your editor’s socks, you might want to experiment with your first page.  Maybe start with action or a strong line of dialogue, and then use that as a springboard into the imagery.  

      As my HS journalism teacher used to say, “Reach off the page, grab the reader by the sweatshirt, and pull ‘em in!”

Now—bed.   Tomorrow—J is for JOURNAL.

Hope to see you there.  Goodnight!