Archive for October, 2008
I’m hardly an expert at NaNoWriMo, having only completed it once (though I did finish up All That Death in less than a month this summer). But I keep finding myself offering advice to first time NaNoWriMoers this year, so I may as well post some of it here.
Though 50,000 words seems like a lot, I was able to get there with time to spare last time. Mainly, this came through a couple days where inspiration hit, and I was able to crank out 5,000+ words in one go. My goal for Day 1 on Saturday is 7,500–though that’s really only attainable because of my outline.
Avoid research, if you can, or do it in October (or make it up and come back to it later). It simply takes too long once you get into November. That was one of the nice things about After the Service—the two settings were a small Baptist church and a small Christian liberal arts school. Since I was already so familiar with those settings, all that was left was sticking my characters in there and making/watching them do things.
My most important piece of advice, though, is “don’t take it too seriously.” That’s really the beauty of NaNoWriMo—writing is such a personal thing, and we invest so much of ourselves into anything we spend large amounts of time on, so that it’s very easy to get too attached to our writing. This sometimes mean that we obsess over getting it perfect the first time, or (more frequently, in my case) it means that we resist needed changes once we are finished.
But the idea of cranking an entire novel out in a single month, while working and doing everything else, is so absurd that it forces you to take a step back, get some perspective, and allow yourself to write badly, just to get fill the pages with a beginning, middle and—most importantly—an end. You’re going to have to go back and rework it later anyway, so it may as well be something you realize right away isn’t actually God’s gift to the readers of the world.
So, be prepared for some long nights, try to avoid research, and above all, enjoy yourself. Just over 24 hours until the show begins!
Filed under: General Writing | advice, NaNoWriMo|No Comments
This year, I planned to do something different from my last NaNoWriMo—and, in fact, different from any fiction writing I’ve ever really done before. I planned to outline my entire book before I started.
And I may yet—I have three days after all, until the big opening Write-In here at Casa Goddard (CAH-zah, because it’s Portuguese). But it will take some doing. So, naturally, here I am blogging about it instead of actually doing it.
In previous books, I’ve sketched out the general events I knew I wanted to happen, broken them up into rough chapters, and then started writing, updating and adding to those general events as I got closer to them. This worked fairly well for me, for about 2/3 of the book. At about that mark, I found that I had caught up with my planning, and was left with an empty space that encompassed about 25% of the book. It lasted until the climax, fow which I usually had a pretty clear plan. And I knew the things that had to have happened by then, but not exactly how they were going to play out.
To avoid that this time—and also to deal with the fact that I actually have a full time job this time around—I planned to try out this outlining thing. So far, I think I like it—or at least, my own strange version of it.
My outline has turned into a kind of free-writing exercise, ranging wildly from incredibly detailed, line-by-line conversations and events, to incredibly vague “then, such and such happens.” Occasionally, I’ll write actual dialogue that I want to use. There are no scene breaks, no chapter breaks, nothing but lines and lines of pencil-written chickenscratch. Occasionally, I’ll throw in some indentation, when I’m feeling particularly organized.
The original plan was to take that pile of chaos (it currently stands at 19 pages of a spiral-bound notebook) and turn it into a real, honest-to-goodness outline using Liquid Story Binder, which has a pretty handy outlining tool. That part, I’m a little more skeptical about being able to complete—but for the moment, I’m going to get back to my outline, and try to make it happen anyway.
Do I recommend this kind of outlining? I have no idea. Ask me again in 33 days.
Filed under: Prewriting | NaNoWriMo, outlining|No Comments
This post on Open Wardrobes got me thinking about names in the run up to this new book (working title: The Murder School). Names are one of the weak points of After the Service I will freely admit to. I usually slap a name on my characters at about the same time I think them up, which leaves me with some rather dull character cognomens. My main character’s name is “David,” his roommate is “John,” his editor is “Jane,” his pastor is “Rick,” and his police detective is named “Anderson.” (Anderson might take offense to being called David’s police detective, but that’s what he gets for being a supporting character.)
Jim’s poetic ruminations on the importance of naming, combined with my own innate laziness, have actually combined to force me to take a bit more care in the naming of my supporting cast in The Murder School (hereby called “TMS“).
As I’ve been outlining, I’ve been neglecting to give any of my new characters names, with the exception of the victim. Instead, I’ve been referring to them by initials or abbreviations. My hope is that, eventually, I will come up with stellar, creative, descriptive names that illuminate the nature of these characters without being overly heavy-handed or–even more important, with a mystery–giving anything away!
I don’t know when I will actually give names to these folks, so I may end up posting excerpts with these nicknames still intact. So, without further ado, I present to you the new characters to be found in TMS:
- JL: Jenny Lee: This is the one character I’ve named–the victim. She’s a Christian music star and alumna of Seattle Pacific University. She was supposed to give the commencement address for David’s graduation, but she’s found dead in her hotel room a couple days before. I like this name, because it’s the kind of short name a pop star should have, but it’s actually her real name.
- AG: Alumni Guy. SPU director of alumni relations, or something like it. He contacts David on behalf of the school, asking him to investigate JL’s death–and hopefully to prove that it had nothing to do with SPU, which is getting tired of the tag “The Murder School.” (Get it?)
- Mgr: Jenny Lee’s Manager. He also contacts David, having read up on his earlier exploits while doing advance work for his client. He, too, wants independent eyes and ears on the investigation.
- Rep: Reporter. A reporter and SPU alum David knows vaguely from way back. He’s still trying to hit the big time, and also asks David to investigate, hoping to get some cheap labor that will give him a major scoop.
- PA: JL’s Personal Assistant. A young, cute, freckled Tennessean with an accent David finds adorable. She’s devastated by her boss’ death, and by being stranded alone in a strange city. Or is she?
- KB: JL’s keyboardist. A hip young musician, who, while he was feeling creatively stifled in his current position, is worried about the loss of his steady gig, and mourning the loss of his friend. Or is he?
- JLM: JL’s Mother. A Korean immigrant who has lived nearly her whole life in the States. I imagine she has a Korean name, but that she hasn’t used it in years, and goes by a more American-sounding one. Not very close to her daughter, but angry and distraught by her sudden and mysterious death. Or is she?
- HSBF: JL’s High School Boyfriend. A former jock, who the years have treated a bit less well than he may have hoped, he nonetheless could be said to have some rugged charm, if you overlook the small paunch and receding hairline. But while he still thinks his former girl is smokin’, he hasn’t seen her in years. Or has he?
- VA: JL’s Violin Adviser. First violin for the Seattle Symphony, and one of JL’s music professor at SPU. A young prodigy grown into a less-young hotshot, he maintains more familiarity with his female students than David thinks appropriate. But he also hasn’t seen her for quite some time. Or has he?
- AP: JL’s Accountability Partner. A friend from Tennessee, she knows more about JL than any other person, and loved her anyway. Or did she?
- DKM: David Kelter’s Mother. Or is she? Yes, actually, she is. This isn’t the first time she’s appeared–she’s in the first scene of the forthcoming All That Death, but never got a name. The time has come. She’s kind of a flighty sort, but sharp in her own way–usually having to do with baseball statistics. Hates that David keeps finding himself involved in these murders.
- DKF: David Kelter’s Father. The owner of a fairly successful printing business in the town of Mount Vernon an hour north of Seattle. Covertly fascinated by, and even a little envious of, his son’s escapades.
If you have any suggestions for these names, I’m all ears. At the moment, I’m considering taking names directly from the Washington State voter rolls, for some verisimilitude. But this time, I’m determined to make sure the names fit the characters well–and that will mean I’ll have to actually start writing the book, and get to know them.
Filed under: Characters | David Kelter, fiction, names, NaNoWriMo, The Murder School, writing|No Comments
About this time in 2006, on something of a whim, I decided it was finally time to write a mystery that had been bopping around in my head for a while. Taking advantage of National Novel Writing Month and some impending underemployment, I wrote the story of David Kelter, a college student who gets wrapped up in a murder mystery when he stumbles across a corpse in his church’s office.
Two years later, that story is After the Service, a real live book with real live binding and everything–one half the current offerings of Goddard Publishing, a nascent experiment in author-driven publishing. And David Kelter, as it turns out, isn’t quite finished. This summer, I wrote a first draft of All That Death, which should be available from Goddard Publishing in Spring 2009.
And this November is, again National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as it is affectionately named). And it turns out that David Kelter is just about to graduate from Seattle Pacific University–and investigate another murder at the same time.
And what better time to crank up the new Goddard Publishing blog than at the beginning of a new book? I’m hoping this blog will serve as an insight into the creative process and an outlet for throughts about writing and art for myself and T. James Belich, author of Edelsha. It will also be an opportunity for sneak previews of the next two still-in-process David Kelter mysteries, and perhaps some other tales, as well. Enjoy!
Filed under: Site News | After the Service, David Kelter, mysteries, NaNoWriMo|No Comments
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