Little Cottage in the Northwoods

Well, it’s the end of May and it’s time for me to blog about my monthly submissions. I’m proud to say I submitted four manuscripts this month. One of them was a picture book submission. If I submit 5 manuscripts a month until the end of December I will have successfully met my goal of 52 submissions! Stay tuned to see if I can stick to this schedule.

When you first sit down to write, you might ask yourself where do I start? Do I start with a plot? Or a character or a title?
When you build a house, there are blueprints you have to follow step by step. You can’t build the roof before you dig the basement.
Some writers start with outlines (like blueprints for a house). They set it up and follow it step by step. Some writers don’t use outlines(I’m one of those writers).
That’s best part about writing is that there’s more than one way to do it! You can write anyway you want. If you want to work from an outline, you can, and, if you don’t, you don’t have to. You can still create a story doing it either way!
I don’t like to work from outlines. When I write a short story, I never use an outline. When I write a novel, I don’t use an outline during in the “creation stage.” But during the “revision stage” which is the “work stage” to me, I write an outline of the information that needs to be added to the story. By using an outline during this stage I make sure I don’t miss anything.

You can start with the beginning, the middle, or the end. J.K. Rowling wrote the last chapter of book 7 before she started writing book 1.

You can start with the character, or the plot, or the title, or just a line of dialogue.

I always start with what inspires me. If I have an idea in mind, then I create characters to fit that idea. If I come up with a character first, then I write an adventure for that specific character. I have a notebook with a list of titles that I look at when I need inspiration. When I read the titles, sometimes I come up with a plot, and sometimes a character.
In “The Cookie Caper“, I started with the plot, then created the character, Sam Sleuth. In “The Missing Valentines,” I already had the character and just wrote another adventure for her.
Whether you’re working on an outline for the story you’re going to write, or whether you’re jumping right in and writing a scene for the story in your mind, the most important thing is to write, and create! You can work out the details later!

The revision stage isn’t as much fun as the creation stage. So, unless you’re trying to get your work published, don’t worry about it too much. If you’re just writing for yourself for fun, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

I write my scenes out of order. I write them as I’m inspired, then during the revision stage, I put them in the right order. That’s what’s so great about computers, you can just highlight the scene and move it to another part of your manuscript. When I was writing a novel, I had the chapters in different files so I could move the scenes and the chapters around. If I wanted something that happened in chapter 10 to be in chapter 1, I just moved it to the other file. If I wanted to add another chapter in between two chapters, I started a new file for that chapter. Sometimes, during the revision stage, I’ll make a list of everything that needs to be in the story just to make sure I don’t forget anything.
During the revision stage, you make sure that the scenes are in the right order. You make sure your story makes sense, and that you’ve included all the information you needed to make you story interested. Then you correct the dreaded grammar (Or maybe you give your story to your mom or dad to edit the grammar. That’s what I do!)

What I like most about writing is that sometimes there really aren’t any “rules.”
There are grammar rules, your story also needs conflict and sequential scenes so the story makes sense. But none of those things have to be done until the revision stage which I’ll talk about in the next post. In this post, I want to talk about how there are no rules. When you’re “creating” your story, you can do whatever you want. In fact, the scenes don’t even need to go in order. You can take care of all that in the revision phase. My Mom always wants to read my work while I’m creating it. It gets on her nerves that I won’t let her see it! But the creation is the fun part for me, and it’s the part I like to keep secretive–for my eyes only!

Knowing how your character feels in situations is what’s important in a story. Let’s say your character meets a secondary character. Let’s call the main character, Sally, and the secondary character, Jane. In the opening scene, Jane is standing by her locker, and Sally, who is just coming into school, sees her. What is their relationship? Are they best friends or rivals? Does Sally hate Jane or visa versa? Are they trying out for the same part in the school play? Maybe Jane wants the part so badly, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to sabotage Sally. She will sink to any level, but maybe Sally wants the part just as much, but Sally won’t sink as low as sabotage; or visa versa, Sally is willing to sabotage Jane, and Jane isn’t willing to sabotage Sally. All these are important when creating your characters.

Characters are the heart of the story. Let’s say your idea is: A girl runs away from home. Who is the girl? If you don’t tell the readers who the girl is, they won’t care why she runs away from home. Sometimes I lose interest in a story, I’m ready to put it down and read a different story, but I’m so attached to the characters that I have to find out what happens. Of course you have to have an exciting story, but don’t focus just on the story. Focus on the characters, and the plot will take care of itself.

The best way to make characters real is to come up with little details as well as big details. The character’s favorite food or favorite color might not seem important to you at first because there might not be any scenes in the story where the character is eating. But there could be a scene where the character says. “If I wasn’t on a diet, I’d get a hot fudge sundae.” Without knowing that little bit of information, you wouldn’t know which food to put in that line. This shows the reader a little bit about the character: She has a sweet tooth and a lot of self control.
You might never tell your readers specifically that your characters favorite color is purple, but if you’re describing the shirt she chooses to wear in one scene and the shirt is purple, that will tell the readers that she likes that color. Otherwise, what color would you make her shirt?

For example: In “The Ace of Clubs,” I wrote a scene where Sam is doing her homework. Her favorite subject is Science. By knowing that little detail about her, I was able to include that in her story.

I’m always getting those surveys through e-mail. When I get them, I fill them out from the point of view of my characters. That way I can find out those little details that I add into the stories.

Another way of creating characters is basing them on real people, family, or friends. Be careful when doing this. If you ask permission and they say it’s okay, then go ahead and write about them. The best thing to do is create an entirely fictitious character with a characteristic you like about someone.
When they say, “That’s something I would do! That character is me!” then they look at the rest of character and say “Oh no, that’s not me at all.” If you create a character that is too much like a real person, you could get in trouble. But if they only have one real characteristic, in common, and the rest are fictional, you’re okay.

One of my favorite parts of writing a story is developing the characters. I get to know my characters so well, that they become my best friends. I even dream about them.

I know writer’s who have based characters on themselves. I don’t do this mostly because I don’t think anyone would want to read about me. What I think is fun is creating a character I’d like to be and putting myself in her place in a story. Pretending I’m her as I write the story and that I’m living the adventure.

Conflicts: Adjusting to a new school, trying to catch a thief, an argument with your best friend.

For example: “Places to Go, People To See”
Stephanie wants to keep Molly with all her heart, but Molly already has an owner. That’s a conflict.
In a mystery story, the detective is trying to catch a thief, but the thief is leaving clues behind that leads the detective in another direction. That’s a conflict.

There is always conflict(s) or obstacle(s) in a story to make it more exciting.

The conflict in Harry Potter is Harry trying to defeat Lord Voldemort while trying to stay alive.

Let’s remove the conflict: Harry’s parents were never killed, and Lord Voldemort isn’t his enemy. When Harry turns 11 he goes to school at Hogwarts to become a wizard, just like his mother and father did. There are never any attempts on Harry’s life. He dies of old age. The end.

In real life, you wouldn’t want someone trying to kill you, but in a story it’s exciting.

There needs to be obstacles for the character to overcome, and there needs to be a conflict that’s resolved at the end.

In a short story you don’t have the time to introduce a lot of characters, but in a novel you do. Which characters do you want front and center? For example: In the boy-girl battle series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Caroline and Wally both have a point of view. If you think the two main characters should have point of view, then write the story in third person. If it’s a short story, about 1,000 words, there isn’t a lot of time to see into the minds of two characters, so there will only be character who has their mind “read,” so consider writing the story in first person.