Old Rides, New Roads

In four weeks National Novel Writing Month begins, and I'm sure at least a few of you are thinking about spending your November NaNo'ing. It's hard work, lots of fun and a great opportunity to spend four weeks getting acquainted with what it is to be a working writer. It's also a time when you can give yourself permission to write whatever you want; from my POV always a good thing.

Many NaNo'ers take the path of pure spontaneity, but others raid their files for story ideas they've already jotted down, outlined or otherwise saved in some form. Most writers have stories waiting to be written somewhere in their minds, their hearts or their notebooks (I keep mine outlined and locked in the filing cabinet where they can't cause much mischief.) But given the chance to write a novel for NaNoWriMo (or any time, for that matter), should you always go with something shiny and new, or return to that old ghost of an idea that still haunts you?

Whatever you choose to write, I think the number one priority is that you feel passionate about it. Enthusiasm is the fuel for your writing vehicle, and if your idea bores you, worries you or otherwise makes you feel negative toward it, that comes out in the writing -- assuming you get any done. There is no better writer's block than the one we build ourselves with our apathy, doubts and fears. Remember too that no matter what their vintage, some story ideas need time to ferment and mature.

Here are some of the litmus tests I use on old story ideas:

Is the model still timely? I think the novella I wrote in the seventh grade based on the cold war between the US and USSR was very inventive. Not especially relevant anymore, though.

Does it have training wheels? Sometimes we get ideas that are subconscious attempts to work out something in the storytelling process. My first Darkyn short story was like that; I wrote it like most traditional vampire fic. It was literary and sad and I absolutely hated it; no way would I make it into novel-length (actually I destroyed it before anyone could read it.) But once I got that idea out of my head, I started reworking the world building and the characterizations, and a partial chunk of that original story idea that I didn't hate stayed with me to influence other choices.

Is it real life in disguise? We all go through tough times, and certainly they influence our work. Often they give us ideas of things we need to write, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's extremely healthy to work out your woes on the page. That's what diaries and personal journals are for. Also, there's always the memoir. But if you're going through a bad breakup or divorce, a fictional story idea about an evil clone of your ex who does terrible stuff before s/he dies a prolonged and horrible death while everyone else in the novel is having sex or wants to have sex with the protag is probably more a coping mechanism than something you want other people to read.

Can I write the last chapter right now? When I first started writing books I just sat down and wrote until I ran out of steam, got tired of the idea and moved on to something else; usually about halfway or two-thirds through the novel. This is also why I have about forty unfinished manuscripts packed away in boxes. Via trial and error I eventually discovered this was directly related to my lack of plotting and planning; I hadn't thought out the story completely so I didn't know how to end it. Of course there are organic writers out there who don't need to know where they're going to write great stories, but if you never finish anything you might be in the same boat I was.

Whatever type of story idea you choose to go with for your NaNo novel, I hope it's one that will allow you to have some fun with it. The pressure of putting together all those words and having them make sense in such a short amount of time is enough to shoulder; don't add to your burdens by forcing yourself to arm-wrestle a stubborn idea onto the page. In my experience, the story usually loses.

Max Your Dreams

Pepcid AC is advergaming the new maximum-strength version of their product with Max My Dream*, which takes a brief description of your dream and generates a visual interpretation of it. I tried it several times, and while they were right on the money with my I-can-fly! dream, they didn't really nail me witnessing the Apocalypse via incurable plague or the one where I'm conscious during open-heart surgery. For which I'm pretty grateful, actually.

Visualization of a concept is an important part of writing for me. If I can see a scene in my head, I can write it, and my imagination is already pretty well-stocked with faces, places and things. Painting, sketching and photo-shopping also help when I have an idea I want to turn into a visual reference, particularly with settings and characters (as was the case with creating this watercolor from a StarDoc novel scene for a long letter I sent a friend.) Creating art is a great way to get to know the story element you're depicting and serves as a jog for little details that might otherwise slip your mind while you're at the keyboard.

Mood and style are integral to vivid visualization. For mood, I always go to music because it fires my imagination and sets a tone in my head. Instrumental tunes work best for me because I'm not distracted by a singer's voice or derailed by the lyrics. They also offer a wider range of interpretation; often I can use one piece for several different scenes or books. Poetry is also another mood-setter for me, and I have a collection of poems and poets I'll read specifically to tap into different parts of my emotions.

Style is all about the forest, not the trees, of imagery. One thing I really enjoyed about all the Underworld movies was the intricacy and consistency of the dark, bleak dystopian world of the vampires and the Lycan. Here's a still of Selene, the protagonist from the first two Underworld movies, and even something as simple as the marble balcony has that blackened, neglected look to it. Battlestar Galactica (the new series) was another show that offered incredible styling which suited the storyline and bucked the traditional bright-and-shiny Utopian soft-serve SF television shows generally deliver. Battlestar was gritty, realistic and very, very human, especially with the cast choices.

Mood and style are not about perfection, btw, unless you're writing a story about the perfect world of pretty people who all live in palaces. My skin is crawling just typing that line. Sure, I've written my fair share of Pretty People -- most under pressure from editors who didn't like the originals -- but the older I get, the less I want them in my books. They're like Barbie dolls, all smiling and staring at you with those creepy blank eyes. No, give me characters with scars and tattoos and bad haircuts and handicaps. Five foot tall heroes. Heroines who will never ever shop at te 5-7-9 store. And make a few of those Dudley Dastardly mustache-twirling butt-ugly antagonists pretty and perfect instead. Would mix things up a bit if the to-die-for guy is actually the homicidal one, yes?

Some other ways to boost your story visualizations:

Create a visualization journal for your project. Divide it into sections for different story elements: characters, settings, time period, theme and detailing are all good, but tailor it to what you want to explore visually. Then start filling it up with images that illustrate in any manner that particular element -- body models, architecture, paintings, sketches, found objects, fabrics or anything that relates directly to and/or enhances your vision. If there are keywords or notes you want to add, write them as captions to the images. Before you begin writing a scene, go through your journal and refresh your imagination as to the specific look you want.

Build a slideshow of images to follow your storyline. Open it with an image that captures the beginning of your story, and then progress from there (to do one for free online with different formats and theme music, check out Slide.com. The music doesn't seem to play anymore, but you can see the slideshow I made of Darkyn cover art over on the stories blog here.)

Take one location from your story and try to find one that is similar to it in your area. Pay a visit with a camera and notebook, and take some snapshots of details that you can use in your story. Write down notes on things you see that you didn't think of, and pay special attention to things like light, sounds, smells, textures as well as how being in that place makes you feel. This is a shot I took one night recently while getting some visuals on what a small country town feels like after the shops close and everyone has gone home for the night. Feels a little spooky, especially when dozens of bats began pouring out of one restaurant's chimney -- one place I don't think I will be in a hurry to make reservations at anytime soon.

For those of you who like book videos and have the technical means and know-how, consider making a visualization video that relates to your story. Readers are always making dream cast videos, why not do one of your own for your story? Hunt down photos of models or actors who are good matches for your characters and intersperse them with pics of your setting or places that fit into your world-building. Try finding one image for each chapter.

Do you writers out there do anything interesting or fun to help with your story visualizations? Let us know in comments.

*Link found over at The Presurfer

VW#3

The winner for the VW#2 Left Behind Goody Bag is Amanda, who should e-mail me at LynnViehl@aol.com with your full name and ship-to address.

Virtual Workshop #3:
Writing to Concept

I. What is Concept Writing?

A concept is defined as an idea, thought, notion, scheme or plan. For writers, it's a bit like story shorthand. When we write, we have some concept of what we want to write before we start putting words on the page (extreme organic writers who write off the top of their heads and plan nothing in advance are exceptions.) That concept helps us create, develop and eventually transcribe the story onto paper, and the stronger and clearer they are, the easier it is to do our job.

"Big" or "high" concept books are what we often call fiction and nonfiction works that sell fabulously, or transcend genre, or that have wide-range appeal, or stay on the lists for years, or all of the above. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and Rev. Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life are regularly invoked as examples. I like how Paige Wheeler defines high concept, as "a premise that can be boiled down into one sentence and sets it apart from other stories by its unique hook or angle."

Thinking up a concept for a novel is easy. I have the power to make complete strangers do it spontaneously. All someone has to do is tell them I'm a published author, and like magic that stranger tells me about their own novel concept, usually in under a minute.

Writing a novel to concept is a bit harder. First there's all that dreary writing involved. Big hassle. Then you have to build a story around the concept, and that means expressing it through setting, plot, dialogue, characters, and all that miscellaneous stuff involved in book writing. So many details to keep track of; a real pain. But if you aren't satisfied with simply thinking about being a writer, and talking about being a writer, and planning to be a writer, then learn to write to concept may be the next step.

II. The Concept Game

You must first clearly define your novel concept before you can write to it. This is also good practice for pitching your novel, because you want to offer a novel concept line in your query and submission letters.

If you have trouble with this, trying practicing on other authors' works. One of my favorite teaching games is "Name that Concept." I name a well-known book and have my students put together a novel concept in fifteen words or less off the top of their heads. I give bonus M&Ms to anyone who uses a reference to another story, novel or myth upon which the book is based, i.e. Carrie by Stephen King: "Psychic Cinderella goes psycho at the School Prom."

Well-known novels have slamming concepts, startling concepts, concepts that grab the reader's imagination and won't let go. These are easy to put into words, so my students rarely have a problem playing the game. After we've tagged a dozen or so blockbuster books, I then challenge them to give me concept lines for their own work. Because they're already having fun thinking in concepts, they have an easier time putting theirs into words.

III. Centering the Concept

Very often writers create what seem like wonderful novel concepts, start writing, and end up with three chapters and no idea of what next to write. Here are some of the reasons that happens:

1. Weak concept: the idea doesn't support a novel-length story.
2. Supersize concept: the idea is too big for a single novel.
3. Lost concept: the concept falls by the wayside during the writing and is forgotten.
4. Tangent-squashed concept: the novel deviates from the concept too often to successfully support it.
5. Fuzzy concept: the concept is not defined clearly enough for the writer to translate into the story.

Your novel concept is the center of your book, the story glue, the thing that provides navigation through the plot, colors or touches every character in some way and brings all of the story elements together. If a book was a body, the concept would be the brain, because it runs everything.

One reason I think books like The Da Vinci Code become mega bestsellers is not only the high concept of the novel, but how closely the author sticks to it throughout the story. Everything in Dan Brown's story is tied tightly to the concept, serves it in every chapter, and never once strays from it.

When you outline your novel, the concept should help you make all of the story decisions. When you're writing the novel, the concept should always be in the back of your mind, ready to jumpstart things when you stall. If you find it difficult to keep the concept present in your head, type up the concept and tape it to the top of your monitor, typewriter or legal pad.

IV. Misconceptions

Some writers seem to take pride in claiming their novels are too complicated to be defined by a novel concept. I always wonder how they compose their query letters. "Dear Editor, I am pleased to offer you the opportunity to enrich your existence by reading my new novel, The Inexplicable Sorrow, Struggling Ovidicus and Cold French Fries in the Melting Wheel of Timex. I won't attempt to condense 250,000 words into a single, vulgar line, so let me merely assure you that it is magnificent, will take several weeks for you to read and adequately ponder, and will sell a ba-zillion copies, provided you offer me an appropriate advance, somewhere in the high six figures. Yours etc., Charle-Dante Wrytah the Third."

Editors simply don't have the time to read 250K word manuscripts to grasp their writers' concepts, or lack thereof. Not being able to relate the novel concept in concise terms implies that you don't know your own work; not the kind of thing you want an editor to think about you. Plus if you wrote the book and you don't know how to properly express the concept, how is the publisher supposed to market it? "Buy this book, we have no freaking clue how to describe it, but we promise it's terrific"?

If your concept isn't working, you don't have to toss it out the window immediately. Work it, hone it, sharpen it, twist it, stretch it, and you may find the changes help get your novel rolling. But if a concept proves completely unwritable, let it go and start over with something new. It's not a wasted effort. You'll find that you learn as much from your failed concepts as you do from the ones that end up in print.

Post your thoughts, comments and questions about writing to concept in comments to this post by midnight EST on Saturday, July 29, 2006, and you'll have a chance at winning today's Left Behind Goody Bag: signed copies of all three of my Darkyn novels If Angels Burn, Private Demon and Dark Need, and unsigned paperback copies of: Closer by Jo Leigh, Last Girl Dancing and I See You by Holly Lisle, Deep Breath by Alison Kent, The Writer's Book of Hope by Ralph Keyes, as well as unsigned hardcover copies of Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helene Fielding and Cover of Night by Linda Howard, all packed in a reversible multi-color tote bag. I'll draw one name from everyone who participates and send you the goodies; giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something here at PBW in the past.

Related links:

PBW posts related to novel concepts: Pitch Tools, Wattage, Practice.