Lost in Translation - Plotting

Have you ever tried to explain something to someone and the harder you try to get your point across, the harder it is to make sense?  You start to confuse yourself and YOU know what you were trying to say to begin with!!!  Somewhere amid the twists and turns your translation from idea to explanation got lost.  That can happen pretty easily with writing, too.  Doesn’t matter if it’s a book, an essay, a research paper or a letter you are writing to someone (seriously...go back and read some of the letters you’ve written...it's not hard to get off track).  The point is, to keep your writing on track you need some guidelines.  A map of sorts. Or a roller coaster. Both apply.

Now, now....all of you who are directionally challenged...take a deep breath and calm down.  This isn’t one of those OnStar maps that take you into the darkest alleys of downtown on the wrong side of the tracks when you were aiming for grassy meadows in the country somewhere.  This one you have control of.  And I do realize we are all different and our minds will need different types of maps to process things our own way.  Keep reading...there’s something for everyone (or at least something you can modify for yourself).

Regardless of its appearance....I’m going to call this map a Plot Map.  J  Plots can be a difficult thing when you're trying to write a story.  You start out with this great idea in your head but can’t seem to manage to give it a shape so that it is not only emotionally compelling but also holds itself together to the finish.  I’m going to try to make this as simple as possible...you can complicate it all you want to suit your taste when you start using it. 

Let’s think about your book the way Shakespeare would have.  Those who know me well know I adore Shakespeare. He was a genius, so he had to be on to something with this idea.  

ACTS.  No, I’m not referring to the book in the Bible (though I do recommend reading it), I’m talking about how to break your story into sections so it’s easier to fill in what’s going on.  If you break it into three Acts you’ve simplified right there.

Act I – 25% of your story

Act II – 50%

Act III – 25%

(Side note:  I did get the idea for the three Act format from reading somewhere, but I seriously suck at citing and it was something someone said to copy and use. I honestly would love to give credit where it’s due, but this is widely available and used on the internet, so cut me some slack.)

Ok, I’m going to add in a little to make it move along.  Feel free to copy and use the outline below.  Here goes:

Act I (25%)

Setup (Happens immediately. We meet the protagonist(s) and we get a glimpse of who they are and what they’re about.)

Plot Point 1  (Where the fun begins...the events that set the protagonist on his/her path.)

New situation  (Self explanatory...protagonist is presented with something new to deal with.)

Plot point 2  (Everything changes...first major event that sends the status quo spiraling into oblivion.)

Climax for Act I  (This climactic event makes it impossible for the protagonist to turn away from this new situation and go back to the life they led a mere 25% ago.)

ACT II (50%)

Seeming progress (the protagonist is at a point of making a plan to get out of the mess they’ve found themselves in.  The Antagonist is planning their own ways to achieve their goals.  More allies likely are introduced for both sides.)

Plot Point 3  (Point of no return.  The protagonist learns the full extent of what he/she is facing.)

Midpoint Climax  (An unexpected twist of events that should really be close to the midpoint of the book...and just when the protagonist seemed to be making some progress.  It’s about to get complicated.  Think Murphy’s Law....what CAN go wrong SHOULD go wrong.)

Complications and higher stakes  (The protagonist is tested.  Faces harder obstacles, harsher consequences if he/she fails.)

Plot Point 4  (Major setback for the protagonist.)

Act II Climax  (Increase the stakes and decrease the hero’s abilities...even set a deadline that has to be met.)

ACT III (25%)

Final Push (Crisis. Things can’t continue as they are.)

Plot Point 5 Climax (The final showdown between the protagonist and the antagonist.)

Aftermath/Wrap Up: (Ties up loose ends and foreshadows the future...because you KNOW you want to write another book)

Keep in mind...this could easily be changed to a FOUR Act scenario.  Just split Act II in half and use four 25% Acts if you feel you have more Plot Points and more climactic events to add.  It’s whatever works for you.

You can use any method you want to map this out: notecards, a story board, napkins from McDonald’s, that little triangle-mountain looking chart thingy they taught us in 8^th grade English...whatever works for you.  

I personally use MS Word and this outline.  It’s easier to add thoughts & details into Word than trying to rewrite the whole thing in my writer’s notebook.  That’s just where I jot down the ideas as they come to me.  But...like I said...everyone’s mind works in various, mysterious ways.

If anyone has any thoughts or tips for plot or character outlining they’d like to share that could help someone...let’s hear them!!!  Contact me or comment and we can get them posted so that other writers can benefit from your ideas as well.

Happy plotting everyone!!!  Try not to get lost. Or throw up. 

From Plot 2 Published

We all start with a PLOT and work toward being PUBLISHED.

Many of you reading this are not only avid readers, but also authors yourself (even if you aren't published yet), and you know the road to published is a long and sometimes overwhelming one. 

It includes plotting, writing, revising, editing, finding someone to Beta for you (and praying they will actually finish the book and get you some feedback) then revising again...and again...and so on.

My point is—it's a process.  A much more complex process than most people (who don't write) imagine it is. 

As some of you may already know, I've been Editing for a while.  I love it.  After all, if I'm not going to be writing at least I can be reading.  I also love working with graphic design.  Visual Communications (a fancy way to say Art) was my first major in college.  Of course, I didn't think I'd make any money with it and changed to Journalism and Mass Comm.  Because, ya know, I make sooo much more cha-ching now.  ::insert eye roll here::

What many of you may not already know is that I've also been trying to put together a website platform for Indie Authors to help with this journey that would make even Frodo Baggins think twice.  Because the road to published—traditional or self-pubbed—can be a daunting one. 

I know the struggles I've faced personally, and I've had training in the troublesome areas.  I want to help others who might be struggling too and do so at a cost that we struggling writers can actually afford.  I mean, we are called starving artists for a reason, right?  And so, from my own struggles and my desire to help fellow authors Plot2Published Author Services was born.

P2P offers affordable services such as:

• Editing
• Blurb writing
• Formatting

To celebrate the website going live...I'm having GIVEAWAYS for the entire month.

Join in on on the Grand Opening month long event.  I'll be giving away the following:

• $25 worth of services on April 5th, 12th & 19th
• $50 worth of services on April 30th

You can enter each week, I'm not restricting the winner to only win once.  So you could possibly win all 4 prizes.  Hey, stranger things have happened.

I also have a SPECIAL PRIZE for the person who SHARES the MOST!



The April 12th Prize is up and running!!

Enter here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ideas for Marketing Your Book: Part 2

Repeat after me:

I love marketing.

I love marketing.

I love marketing.

I’ve read somewhere that if you repeat something for at least 10 seconds, you’ll remember it.  Maybe if you repeat it enough times, you’ll start to believe it as well.   Who knows . . . the human mind is a strange and wondrous thing.

As I mentioned in part 1, you realized once you have made it to getting your book published that the work has only just begun.  Writing your book, editing it, publishing it – that was the easy part.  Those things have a sense of closure to them. 

Marketing . . . well, marketing is like that painful, angst-ridden breakup with your ex – closure isn’t an option.  It goes on and on.   (Tweet this comment)

Ultimately though, marketing brings with it a satisfying end – much like running into that ex months later and seeing that you are 10 times better looking than their current arm ornament and likely more mentally stable.

Here are more ideas for getting you to that ultimate reward.

List # 2 – Send, Send, Send

1.      Send a copy to review sites or book review blogs (I am in the process of putting a list of these sites together . . . stay tuned for that).

2.      Find a top reviewer (I’ve linked to the site for you) of books in your genre on Amazon.com and contact them, asking if they’d like a copy of your book.  Reviewers LOVE free books to read.

3.      Send a copy to local book clubs in your area (and surrounding areas too). 

4.      BONUS:  If the local book clubs have regular meetings . . . set up a “Meet the Author” night with them . . . have a Book Signing while you’re at it. 

5.      If you still have them in your area, send a copy to your local independent bookstore as part of a marketing kit or press release.  Bookstores love to receive advanced free copies and often give them to their employees to read and suggest to customers.

6.      Offer free copies on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – whatever social media outlet you can get on – as a raffle.  Create fun contests for your readers all while building a contact list to send updates too.

7.      Give away free copies on bookmooch.com.  Ask readers to only mooch your book if they are willing to review it for you on Amazon.com.  You can gain more reviews which will in turn help sell books.

8. College Campuses! Don’t forget your campus bookstore, campus library, campus clubs, writing groups, historical societies, etc.  Especially if your target audience is YA!

Well . . . I have way more marketing tips than I had realized.  I’ll have to make sure I have a Part 3 very soon.  Until then....Happy Marketing!!!

Dear John,   Dear John:   Dear John;   Dear John?

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend of mine (who happens to be a published author) about grammar and how, even as a writer, it can be a bit daunting.  Most writers are not editors as well.  We WRITE.  We don’t really think about where the semi colon should go or when it’s appropriate to use an emdash instead of an ellipsis.  In truth, starting out, many of us don’t even know what an emdash is!!!

Friends Don’t Let Friends Perfuncturate Punctuation

(I know you’ll look it up if I don’t tell you.... Per*func*tu*rate\, v. t. To perform in a perfunctory manner; to do negligently.)

So...here’s the catch, I do edit for this friend of mine.  Each week he writes a newsletter to send out to his readers, I edit it before I let him send it (because friends don't let friends abuse grammar).  Since I began editing for him, the newsletter has gone out once before I was able to work my magic. It wasn’t pretty.   (It was also redistributed after I got my hands on it.)  I say all of this to get to this point...

I have decided to create an addition to my blog I’m going to call GRAMMAR 101.  The first subcategory will be PUNCTUATION 101.  I think we will start with the :::drumroll:::

Emdash ( — )

The emdash is a versatile little bugger.  All the functions of the comma, semicolon, AND colon! 

It can be used to create pauses, join two independent or dependent clauses, or introduce a list.  

It's a less formal version of the aforementioned marks which are typically preferable in more formal writing—luckily for us, we aren’t that formal around here and the emdash is right at home.

In narrative writing, I think of it as more vivid and more invisible than those marks all at the same time.

While it is long enough to create a pause, there generally aren’t any spaces around it, and therefore your text will have a more continual flow.  

Because of this it can easily be used for scenes where you want a flow unbroken by real stops, especially in stream-of-consciousness writing or action scenes:

(I’ll use characters from my book for examples because—well—I can.)

Aedan reached one hand for the door—Halle dangling lifelessly in his arms—he stretched with all he had toward the handle—but it was too far.

Compare that to:

Aedan reached one hand for the door, Halle dangling lifelessly in his arms; he stretched with all he had toward the handle, but it was too far.

Ok, so the second example is most likely more correct from a formal standpoint, but the emdashes cause the reader to slow down which makes it more dramatic.  On the flip side, the first example is probably too dramatic, so I would recommend balancing the scales between the two:

Aedan reached one hand for the door, Halle dangling lifelessly in his arms.  He stretched with all he had toward the handle—but it was too far.

In this last example, the emdash creates a brief pause just at the peak of suspense:  Will Aedan get the door open in time? And then the dash's length drags that moment out until the question is answered for us.  

A semicolon would’ve been wrong there (aka incorrect grammatically), and a comma or colon just wouldn't have had the same feeling of suspense.  Personally I love dashes if for no other reason than the dramatic effect they can create and their flexibility.  It’s not quite an addiction (that would be the ellipsis . . . which we will get to) but I probably overuse them in spells.  So, if you share my tendency to use them, keep in mind, like all highly dramatic marks, they should be used sparingly or they lose their punch.

If a period is a stop sign, a semicolon a rolling stop sign, then the emdash is the yellow light you pause at, then speed through.  

Click To Tweet

But wait....there’s more... (I’ve always wanted to use that line)

The emdash can also be used to highlight interruptions.  It doesn’t matter if this occurs within a sentence or at the end of it, still works.

The unconscious Hellion—the only somewhat tolerable kind, as far as Halle was concerned—lay motionlessly on the concrete floor.

Matt, I swear, I have no idea what you’re—HEY! What do you think you’re doing?

For those parentheses addicts out there...yes, parentheses could be used in these examples just as easily, BUT keep in mind that parentheses create a little commentary world off to themselves, closed off from the rest of the world – I mean sentence, in my opinion the emdash doesn’t cause as long of a pause.

**Practical Tip for Authors**

Character Q is talking and Character Z interrupts her, it is highly useful to end Character Q’s speech with an emdash to indicate Q’s getting cut off mid sentence.

She attempted to mask the sound of her voice failing and her words came out in almost a whisper.  “What is it that I need protection from, Dad?  Because I can’t imagine anything more than – ”

“Me, Halle.”  Noah interrupted. 

Why is an emdash called an emdash you ask???  Excellent question!

My studies tell me there are actually three kinds of dash marks when it comes to typesetting:

1. hyphens, like so: - , hyphens join two words into one closed compound
2. endashes, which came about during the time of hand-typesetting using two hyphens (the length of an “n”, hence the name), and are used to join open compounds (like “the North Carolina–Virginia border”; “North Carolina” is an open compound because it is one word with a space in it) or to replace the word “to” (as in “1999–2010,” or “our Australia–Ireland trip”)
3. and emdashes, well, they are composed of three hyphens (the length of an “m”), and we’ve already covered all the fun they can have.

Word on the street is that writers are typically not expected to know about endashes – which is probably good for most of us!  My research also tells me that if you have a pretty decent understanding of how to use hyphens and emdashes correctly, most editors aren’t going to thrash you with the red pen on the endashes, they will leave those to the copyeditors.

Join the clan! It’s fast, easy, and oh yeah....FREE!! 

To keep up with the latest on PUNCTUATION 101 sign up as a follower in whatever way works for you.  There will be more coming soon.

Ideas for Marketing Your Book: Part 1

Ideas for Marketing Your Book: Part 1

Ok...so you’ve written what you are sure is the next NY Times Bestseller, you have a publisher (either traditional or self), now you need to market it. Let’s face it, all the thousands of hours you spent writing it and getting it published was EASY!!!  

The work is in the promotion!! Over the course of the last two years, I’ve collected ideas from hence and yon, as well as come up with a few of my own, that I think would be an excellent help to any author from any genre. 

There are a LOT of ideas, so I won’t drown you with them all at once.  If you are like me, too many ideas means feeling overwhelmed. Feeling overwhelmed means friends will finally come and check on you after days of you not returning phone calls only to find you staring at your computer screen and mumbling incoherent jibberish under your breath while rocking slightly back and forth in a mindless state. 

I don’t want to be responsible for that. 

So...without further adieu...(feel free to imagine a drumroll here)

List # 1 – Oh the places you’ll go....

1.      Donate a copy of your book to your local library...and maybe any local library within a short driving distance.  (Word of mouth is still the best advertising method).

2.      If your book is geared toward children or teens...donate a copy to school libraries in your area.  (Again...word of mouth & we KNOW how teens like to talk.)

3.      BONUS:  If the local school in #2 happens to be a school you attended...set up a “Meet the Author” night with the PTA or one day with the librarian...have a Book Signing while you’re at it. 

4.      Send a copy to your local newspaper OR the regional paper in your area along with a press release.  (Better yet...send it to BOTH).  Be sure to send it to the Attention of the Arts and Variety editor or Local Interest section.  If you aren’t sure who that is...Google it or call the paper, they will point you in the right direction.

5.      Speaking of newspapers... Send a copy to at least one national newspaper (I’d send it to as many as you can afford to send books to) along with a press release.  Again, to the attention of the Review Editor.

6.      Bookmarks!!!  I know...it sounds s little odd, but have bookmarks made with your book cover, title, website info & so on to leave at libraries (local & school), bookstores (they might put them in the bags of purchases for you for free if you ask nicely or at least let you leave them on the counter), any place that might relate to your genre or topic (like churches for religious books) or keep some to hand out like business cards when people ask about your book. They're inexpensive.

7.      Waiting rooms.  If you find books in your doctor’s office, dentist’s office, at the hospital, or any other waiting room you’ve frequented (or choose to stalk for this sole purpose), why not “conveniently” leave one of your own books there in the mix? You never know who will pick it up. (Remember...word of mouth)  This is an excellent opportunity for anyone who wrote a book specific to a field too, such as: nursing biographies, doctor advice, dental, self-help, etc.  (I’ve been in waiting rooms, and I would have LOVED to find something to read besides things related to the office I was in...don’t let that stop you from leaving a fiction book in a doctor’s office).  Heck...leave some bookmarks in these places too!

OK....those should keep you busy for the next week (or so).  I’ll bring List #2 out when you’ve had time to let this one sink in good.  Until then....

Happy Marketing!!!

Character Development - Hold on Loosely

Recently I began taking a writing class.  Because you know...I just had sooo much free time on my hands, I felt like I needed to fill it with something.  Actually...I wanted to take it way more than any of the college courses I’m taking.  Helloooo...it’s a WRITING class.  I LOVE writing.  Biology...not so much.

Anyhow...It’s being taught by author Candace Havens (you should absolutely check out her work!  http://www.candacehavens.com/  ) & I am only a week into it, but I can tell it’s going to really give me a push in the right direction with my literary endeavors.  (See...using professionally sounding verbage already)

Our assignment this week partially focuses on character development. Now, as we all know, I am not yet a published author...heck, I’m not even finished with the first manuscript...but I am an avid reader, and for me...the characters pull me into a story quicker than the plot does. I’m easily fascinated by a complex character. Characters can make or break a novel.    

One of our questions this week was “What do you want your characters to say to the reader?” My first response was that I want my characters to say “I am real.  I exist.”  I want them to get in the reader’s face and say “Do you get it yet? Don’t you want to know more?” In other words...I want the reader to feel so engrossed by my characters that they think of them as a REAL PERSON. Someone they know. Someone they can relate to.  I want my reader to become emotionally involved. To me, THAT is what will make my characters come to life, make my readers want more.

The truly great characters aren’t the perfect ones. They are flawed. They have limitations to overcome. They have to grow into who they are meant to be. If they were perfect...well, they’d just be completely unrealistic and boring. I don’t like boring. Not in real life and not in my writing. Besides, perfection is highly overrated.

So, in order to try to keep my characters as imperfect as you and me...I use the character development tools that I’ve acquired and refined over the past year or so. I have a few that help me flesh out the deep, dark complexities of my fictional entourage. The one I always start out with is my Character Development Sheet (click the link to download it & use it yourself).

I’d love to be able to give credit where it’s due, but the truth is...I got ideas from so many different places, Frankenstein would be jealous. Some thoughts are mine...some are from other minds far, far away. (Susan...be nice...I can hear you from across the state line – my mind isn’t THAT far away) Regardless of the sources...hopefully, the final product will be useful.

Planning your characters out is super important. You need to know how their personality factors into the story, how they will move the story along. Just like in life...it’s hard to know which way to go to get where you’re going if you don’t have some direction. Your character needs direction. However...don’t smother them. Hen pecking your characters will only turn them into teenager-like mutineers who roll their eyes at you and make faces behind your back when you try to force them in a direction they don’t want to go. You have to let them be free to express themselves and find their own paths sometimes too...much like teens. Hold the reins too tight...you’ll lose them.

Thoughts to ponder...

If a cow laughed would milk come out of its nose?

If a turtle doesn't have a shell is he homeless or naked?