Tag Archives: overcoming barriers

On Daily Word Counts

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Experiences

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When I wrote my first completed novel, I had a goal of 10 long-hand pages a day. When I wrote my second novel (my first NaNoWriMo), I had a goal of 1667 words a day. Continuing on through several other novels, I had daily word count goals, and most days I met or exceeded them. I participated in word-count challenges with fellow writers and I had fun.

But then I stopped making my word count goals. I tried again, on and off, but it didn’t stick.

What happened? I’ve been thinking about this for years, trying to find the answer, and I think that I’ve finally found it–the fuel ran out.

Daily word counts are a tool–and whether a good or bad one depends on the writer. They are a measuring stick designed to get us to make progress. We like quantifying and numbers and charts. We see them all the time, and in something like writing a story, it’s nice to be able to quantify it, isn’t it?

It is, but at the same time, I think setting word count goals need to be combined with other motivations. In my past prolific novelist life, when I could write nearly as long as you’d let me, it gave me a stopping mark. A place to say, “Okay, I’ve done it. Time to fold the laundry.” However, without the fuel of passion, word counts became a grind. During past NaNoWriMos, I’d heard people telling others that if they got stuck on their words to (literally) throw non-sequitor ninjas into the story or an explosion. And if that works, that’s fabulous. But it also impressed on me that when you’re doing that, you might just be writing for the numbers, not the story. In that case, I think it’s more valuable to not worry about your word count and spend some time figuring out what happens next, or why you’ve hit the stumbling block you have.

Storytelling is an art, and art can be difficult to formulate into numbers because numbers are far easier to grasp and understand than your imagination. Word counts are made with good intentions–a goal post to make deadlines–a sign of progress–but they aren’t the end all of storytelling.

So if you aren’t writing to word count, what is the alternatives?
1) Writing until you feel done (or you run out of time).
2) Writing to the end of the scene.
3) Writing until the end of the chapter.
4) Writing until you reach the end of the event in the story (which may or may not fall under 2 or 3).
5) Timed writing.

Options 2-5 still have a feeling of “word count” goal writing, and while Option 1 is my preference, I recognize that it’s vague. Yet I still think of the days when I set 1,000-word goals, and regularly got 2,000-3,000 words in a sitting–on those days, I simply wrote until I was done, and I was satisfied–and satisfied with what I got. Nothing felt forced or invented just to keep the words coming.

Not all parts of storytelling are activities we look forward to–revising seems to cause a common procrastination malady and needing to set goals to gain progress (which I also found hard–if I do 10 pages a day and those 10 pages are clean, does that mean I get the day off?). At the same time, many of us are telling stories simply because we want to tell stories. I want to believe that if we are truly excited enough about this story that’s in our minds, we won’t need number goals to get us through the story. Idealistic? Yes. I’m not saying that word count goals are, in themselves, terrible, but they can be a crutch to be aware of. In recent years, a hard goal of X words a day hasn’t worked, and neither has something vague like “write when I want to.”

Yet, I remember those days–those days when I had word counts, but they weren’t the point. Telling the story was. I haven’t found the path back there yet, but maybe when the right idea steals me away again….

Start Again?

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Inspiration

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We as storytellers often get very attached to our words and ideas. We write something, and even if we’re willing to revise it, we still won’t change it that much. If we’ve written words, we want to fix those words. If we have written a character or a plot point, we try to shape those over and over again, to get the right image.

What if you started over completely?

Author Jodi Meadows mentioned recently that she had wholesale “deleted” the first draft of the third book in her series. Why? She had made so many changes to the first and second books after they were edited and revised for publication that the third book would require an intense amount of revision just to fit with the other two books. Instead, she decided to start over.

Are words sacred? Sometimes it feels like it, especially when we’re carving out time to tell our stories and just starting. Every hundred and thousand words feel like they were written in blood. But the truth is, they weren’t. Storytellers are creative people, and although it might not always feel like it, our creativity is endless. However, that creativity can be stifled, and it can be stifled by our own stories when we stubbornly hold on to a story that isn’t quite right.

A while back I realized many of my stories had the themes or plots or other elements in common. The stories themselves probably wouldn’t be recognizable as “same” to someone else (unless they were really analyzing them), but I saw those similarities. I realized–no, not that I had a limited amount of stories in my head and I was completely unoriginal–but that there are themes, plots, and other elements that I will hammer out over and over. Why? Near as I can tell, it’s because there is this formless, unspeakable idea in my mind, and I keep writing it over and over again in different ways until I finally hit upon it in a way that will satisfy my subconscious and my muse. Then I will theoretically move on to something else.

(It might also be that you’re attracted to a certain theme or story type. The advice still holds true.)

Are you stuck on a story that just doesn’t seem quite “right?” Try approaching it in a completely different manner. Change characters, settings, or story arcs, and see what happens. (If you’re feeling really brave, you could even change your medium.) You aren’t wasting words. You’re exploring ideas. You might not keep one or the other, or you might keep both. What you discover in your multiple versions might help another, or they might be completely distinct to one another. You might even find yourself able to take a story, such as Jodi did, and restart it from the beginning–same world, same characters–and turn it into something new.

Be brave. Every time you challenge yourself, you improve yourself as a storyteller and you are not wasting your words.

The Myth of Multitasking

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann

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Multitasking is one of those buzzwords that came out in the last couple of decades–what it means is that you can switch from one task to another with minimal gear-shifting (and understand that there’s always some gear-shifting). Some people shift quickly, others don’t.

I’m not going to talk about multitasking between your stories. I’m going to talk about what happens when we hit a block on our stories.

What do you do? Check your email or RSS feed? Load up Solitaire or Plants vs. Zombies? Twitter? Frenetically switch between windows and documents, unable to add more than a word to any at a time?

Stop. Take a breath. Take several. Only look at your story. If that’s too painful, close your eyes or stare into space. Pick up a pen and paper and start brain-noodling or making lists. But don’t immediately do something else. Chances are you’re avoiding the problem rather than “taking a minute to think about it.”

So don’t do anything else for 5-10 minutes and see what happens. Sometimes you really do just need to walk away from the story and let it sit in your subconscious. Sometimes, a meditative task will help. But when you go to do that, ask yourself and answer honestly, “Do I really need to ‘think about it’ or am I just avoiding the issue?”

It’s easy to get distracted at home or on your computer. (I’m telling you, GoogleDocs is both a blessing and a curse for me.) If you suffer from frequent window-shuffling, try taking a notebook and pen out somewhere for an hour where your only options are going to be to write or stare into your coffee cup and try to train yourself to push through the issue, rather than immediately decide to go do something else–no matter how innocuous it might seem.

Ninja Ambush!

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Inspiration, Mike

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You just hit the wall, stuttered to a stop, became bored by where your story is taking you, or just can’t find the transition from where you are to where you need to be. Whatever the cause, your productivity on your story just ground to a halt. You are stuck.

Now what?

I have two words for you, my friend, guaranteed to get you out of any logjam or smash through any writer’s block…

Ninja. Ambush.

If you’re bored or lost or uninspired at this point in your story, imagine what your audience is going to feel! It’s time to up the tension level and kickstart your story back into high gear.

Because the ninja are here to ambush.

It’s possible but unlikely that a literal ambush of ninja is appropriate for your story. Chances are, you’re going to need to be a little more liberal with your interpretations, here. What the ninja ambush really means, of course, is to throw in something unexpected that can stir up the story, raise the tension, and shore up any lagging interest on the part of your audience or yourself.

Your Regency romance, for example, is probably not the best place for Japanese warriors to suddenly attack. In that case, maybe the “ninja” in your story are visitors from another country (no, it needn’t be Japan). The “ambush” here, then, is their sudden appearance in your characters’ lives and the ripple effect of their arrival.

Actually, a fair number of stories begin this way, when a stranger shows up and disrupts the protagonists’ lives. That’s not what I’m getting at here, though. What I’m talking about isn’t something to build your plot around but rather to give it a kick where it’s lagging.

And, of course, the “ninja” needn’t be people at all. The sudden arrival of anything that might give your protagonists pause can serve as your ambushing ninja–be it escaped animals from the zoo or the sudden discovery of some artifact.

Let me throw out a few words of caution about using the ninja ambush technique, though.

First, the ninja ambush doesn’t need to make sense to the characters (or your audience) when it happens, but it needs to make sense within the larger context of the world you’ve built. If you are telling a Regency romance and suddenly murder a character with an actual ambush by ninja, you are going to lose your audience. Even if you never bother to explain why the ambush happened, you at least need to know and have a good explanation for it.

Second, the ninja ambush needs to help push the story forward, not derail it. Don’t use it as filler. Remembering my first cautionary point above will go a long way toward helping you with this second point. The point of the ninja ambush is to give your protagonists a new obstacle that nonetheless helps them advance along the plot once they’ve overcome it.

Third, this is a trick. It’s meant to help you out of a tight squeeze, not a replacement for a plot. If you find yourself needing to use more than one ninja ambush in a story, unless your story really is about fighting and warfare in a setting where ninja are appropriate, you probably need to do more work on your plot. Just like how you shouldn’t live off energy drinks and four hours of sleep, neither should you fill your stories with sudden and inexplicable events–no matter how exciting they might be.

Want some examples from existing media? (There are spoilers beneath the cut for The Last Samurai, Dracula, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, and Inception. You’ve been warned!)
Continue reading »

Lists and Possibilities

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Ann, Inspiration

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“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” -Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

We use lists all the time–to-do lists, shopping lists, bucket lists, etc. But what about lists as a set of possibilities for your story?

When I’m feeling stuck on a certain situation or character in my story, I oftentimes just start rapid-fire listing all the possibilities I can come up with. All of them–good and bad, serious and silly–and seeing which strikes me the most.

For example, if I’ve created an event in a story, but I’m still not sure who is responsible for it, I might start by listing potential suspects. (I’m notorious for coming up with problems before I assign people to cause them.) Or, in reverse, I have this cool antagonist group, but I’m not sure what to do with them, I might start listing ideas about them–their wants, their motivations, their fears….

Perhaps I’ll do a list for my protagonist, too. If I later compare those lists, I might find intersecting points in which their interests cross or conflict, which will be the impetus for a story to happen. This might even happen between two protagonists and two antagonists, depending on the depth of your story’s characters.

Listing can also be used for plot points–simply writing out all the scene or moment ideas you have and figuring out how or if they fit into the overall story you want to tell. One exercise in the Donald Maass Breakout Novel series (which I highly recommend) has you listing out the stakes of a story, and then, when you think you’ve thought of all the ways the situation can get worse, to list out even more things. And when you think it can’t get any worse, think of even more things that will make it worse. It’s quite the exercise, and I’ve applied it to other parts of my storytelling as well.

There are a hundred ways you can use lists for your writing–but I think one of the most important things to remember is that you don’t have to keep anything on your list. It’s an exercise, not a contract set in stone. By using lists and whipping out ideas in short form as fast as you can come up with them, you’re able to exhaust your possibilities and find the ones that work best or are the most exciting among those that might be bland, predictable, or otherwise undesirable.

When you are listing, I suggest free-forming it. Don’t bother with what kind of numbering or lettering or which bullet-points you should use (unless that will help spark your creativity). Possibilities might be as serious as the death of a protagonist’s loved one to as whimsical as unicorn farts. All that matters is that you exhaust your ideas, and when you think you’re done, come up with even more. Anything. Everything.

Ideas are a dime a dozen and we’re under no obligation to use every idea that flits across our imagination (I suspect even the most prolific of storytellers would have trouble doing this). For all of the awesome ideas we have, we usually have had a thousand zip by. But sometimes all those extras come in as noise that block us from hearing another possibility (or they might even belong in a different story). Use your lists to get everything out–the good, the bad, the irrelevant–and then keep only the ideas that really sing for the story at hand.

And don’t censor yourself–you’re the only one who is ever going to see it, and sometimes our best ideas are the ones we’re afraid to write down. That might not be the case every time, but you’ll never know if you don’t try it, right?

Writing a Love Letter to Your Story

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Ann, Inspiration

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A couple of years ago, I had this idea for a reincarnation story set in an art school.  I wrote a lot of notes, abandoned it, remembered it existed every few months, but never got anywhere with it.  In the last few weeks, I’ve been going at it fervently and it has gone through a series of revisions.  For example, it includes neither an art school or reincarnation anymore.

At least, I don’t think it does.  It has ghosts now, and I think if they’re still ghosts they’d have trouble reincarnating (Geoff would know the answer to this one, I think).  I think it’s a haunted house story now, but I’m not sure.  There are still artists.

This is one of the many issues I’m running into to.  The themes have been changing, too.  The characters have largely stayed the same, but their evolutions are getting stunted as I figure everything else out.  I even changed the working title, and that’s a big deal because the old working title was the culmination of the story.  If I changed the title, does that mean the entire point of the story has changed?

Um, maybe?  I’m not sure.

There’s a lot in this story that’s just not going right for me at the moment.  I’m doing a lot of free-writing, list-making, and brainstorming trying to figure it all out, but I’ve run into a lot more walls than doors.  Yet I still want to tell this story.

It’s at this point in a story that I need to stop and evaluate it.  I don’t need to evaluate what’s wrong with it–at least not right now.  That’s too large of a subject, and I don’t have any direction.  I need to evaluate what I love about it.  I need to sit down and gush about what gets me excited about this story, and why I so want to see it come into fruition.  This is where I talk about themes that speak to me, the characters who drive it, and the scenes that inspired me to want to see how the rest of the story unfolded.

This is where I write a love letter to my story. Instead of throwing myself against walls and going through doors just because they appeared–and not because they were the door that would lead me back to my love–the love letter tells me what’s right about the story and re-kindles the passion. And once I know what I’m in love with, I can better figure out how to build the rest of the story around it. This is not a time to be critical.  This is a time to be completely subjective and self-absorbed with your story and characters.

Are you working on a story right now that you’re stuck on?  Feeling like you’re not getting anywhere or want to give up or put it away for a while?  Do you not even remember what the point of the story was that inspired you in the first place?

Try writing a love letter to your story.  It might help.