Posts By Lindsey Loucks
Why I Write, Part II: Real Life Sucks
There are times in life when I’m reminded why I like to live inside the world I create on paper. Last week was one of those times. A young woman died of cancer, and while I didn’t know this woman, I know her family. The entire community felt the crush of this family’s grief. All we could do was weep with them and wonder hopelessly how we could help ease their pain.
This is why I need to escape from reality and be in control of something. In real life, I’m not in control. Not really, anyway. Too many things can happen. Death can happen.
While writing The Grave Winner, I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose my mom since my main character had just lost hers. I didn’t want to face that kind of reality, and after awhile I didn’t have to since my MC took over for me. But at the beginning when I was trying to find my MC’s voice, I wrote what I imagined it would feel like. And it broke my heart.
I kept repeating, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real” with tears streaming down my cheeks. Thank goodness it wasn’t real. But I was in control of my fictional world. The MC’s mom’s death happened because I willed it to happen.
Real life doesn’t work like that, which is why real life sucks. And so does cancer.
P.S. Sorry for the downer post. Next week, I’ll puke up rainbows like this guy:
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“Research, Girl, Research.”
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When I got the idea for Pause, my BF said to me, “Research, girl, research.” I took that to mean I could sit on the couch, eat a giant bowl of ice cream, and watch tons of James Bond movies. Why? Because Pause has a lot of spy gadgets and spy speak and spy worshipping in it.
I wanted to be in the FBI when I was a kid. Kendra, one of my characters, wants to be in the CIA. Coincidence? Nope.
Kendra developed many of the gadgets in the story herself. I love undercover gadgets. They’re neat. Back when I wanted to be in the FBI, my friends made me a bullet proof vest out of maxi-pads. Believe me when I tell you it was not made for stealth, but it was still the coolest thing ever.
Besides getting fat while watching James Bond movies, though, I also scoured the internet. Cool stuff, that internet. Here’s some spy related stuff I found:
1. dead drop – secret location where materials can be left for later retrieval. (I actually kind of used this in The Grave Winner, but it was mentioned only briefly).
2. dead telephone – signal or code passed with a telephone without speaking.
3. FINESSE – disguises developed by CIA using Hollywood consultants.
4. microdot – photograph reduction of a secret message that’s very small.
5. PLASMA – device used to pick a lock
6. spy dust – a chemical marking compound used to keep tabs on people.
7. window dressing – used in a cover story to help convice the opposition or casual observers that what they are observing is genuine.
8. brush pass – something is passed between a two people quickly and without notice.
So yeah, cool stuff!
What about you? What kind of research have you done for your novels?
863 Words Closer to ‘The End’
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Anyone who’s read some of my stories knows that I have a strange fascination with putting numbers in them. I’m not sure why exactly, but numbers have always been interesting to me. When I was younger, my parents would drive places, and I would add or multiply addresses on the houses we passed. So I wrote Willow Road about someone who did just that.
Anyway, while I was enjoying my Christmas vacation, I got in some good writing/editing time. Yay! But you know what I noticed? I wrote 863 words day after day. Not more, not less. 863 again and again. No, not 863 repeated all over the page! I’m not that crazy!
So, what does this mean? Why did I stop at exactly 863 words? Did I spot something shiny? Did my brain explode? Did I have to pee? All of the above? Maybe. Or maybe I just felt in my bones that 863 words was good enough for me.
863 words isn’t a lot for a daily word count. Some people can blast out 5,000 or more in a day. I’d love to get over 1,000, but… 863 is pretty close. It’s 863 more words than I had the day before. It’s 863 words closer to ‘The End’. I’m good with that.
What’s your daily word count goal? Is it really the end of the world if you don’t reach it?
Oops, I Forgot Our Anniversary!
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Yep, I did. Our anniversary, as in me and this blog. My first post ever was December 10th, 2010. It was about how much fun I was having while editing my WIP. Here’s the post: http://jessesaidyes.blogspot.com/2010/12/editing-revising-fixing-im-fixer.html
I was a silly, silly girl back then because editing eventually turned into a hate letter here: http://jessesaidyes.blogspot.com/2011/04/dear-book-im-writing-lovehate-letter.html
So anyway, for a year and some change I’ve been rambling. Some people stop by and ramble with me. I heart those people.
The post that has been visited the most is the one where I declare my love for my critters: http://jessesaidyes.blogspot.com/2011/03/ode-to-critters.html It’s been viewed 97 times!
Critter is the number one search keyword that has brought people to this blog. Everyone loves my critters!
Here’s to another year and much more rambling! 🙂
Can You Pull Your Characters’ Pants Up?
So I’m back from my Christmas trip to visit my brother and his family. My parents flew out, too, and we all had a grand time. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a houseful of little children with adorable dimples, devilish grins, and unexpected (though cute) things falling out of their mouths every minute.
Here’s an example of unexpectedness from my youngest nephew: “Windsey, Windsey, Windsey! (even the letter L sounds cute!) Can you pull my pants up?” I just don’t hear that everyday. The BF is perfectly capable of pulling up his own pants, and Jesse doesn’t wear pants, at least that I know of. He does slip into my closet every once in a while, and I have no idea what he does in there.
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| This is not my nephew. It’s Justin Bieber, whom my niece looooooves. His pants need pulling up, too! |
Anyway, pants were pulled up, and later on when I became the nephew-designated sippy cup holder, I thought about character arcs. Yes, I know it’s weird, but I can’t turn off my writer brain, and said nephew was playing with a brand new Christmas present so quietly, my brain took over.
So there I was holding his sippy cup and thinking about character arcs. My character needs to have one. She needs to come into the story with her pants down (figuratively, of course), and come out of the story with her pants up. There needs to be some sort of change within her, some sort of growth. Now all I have to do is figure out a way to do this.
First, I probably need to show that she’s capable of change through memories, dialog, and things that are important to her. Jasmine (that’s my MC’s name) runs away from her problems because of a tramautic experience in her past. By the end of the story, I need to have her running towards her problems. So far, I’ve slipped a locket and a poster into the story that are both important because her sister gave them to her. That’s about it so far, but I’m hoping that these early clues about these items will help show the reader that her sister is important to Jasmine, which hopefully will help facilitate the change.
Second, an outside force should put pressure on the MC to make/help them change. According to Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress, “… change is threatening to most people, and they won’t do it unless something drives them to it, usually pain or conflict” (201). Those would be all those boulders you throw in the way of your MC to make a good story. After all, a happy character is a boring character, in my humble opinion. Yay for me since I already know what outside forces and boulders I’ll be using!
I sure hope I can help Jasmine pull up her pants by the end of the story and make it realistic. The whole bending down thing, grasping the waistband, and pulling up isn’t as simple as it sounds.
So how about you? Can you pull your characters’ pants up?
The First Line/Page – Bleep the Rules!
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I’ve been reading a lot on the Internets lately about the importance of first lines and pages of your novel. If it doesn’t pluck reader’s/editor’s/agent’s eyeballs and hammer them into the pages (how’s that for an image?), they’ll stop reading.
Umm, I’ve never done that, and I’ve read some pretty boring first lines/pages. I give the story a chance beyond the first 250 words. Yes, I know I don’t read billions of stories a day like some editors and agents do. But I’m not looking for an excuse to stop, either.
Let’s examine the first line of my novel The Grave Winner: Dad, Darby, and I stood rooted in place long after Mom’s funeral. I don’t think it’s eyeball-plucking stuff, but I do think there’s emotion hidden away in those twelve words. One reader told me once that I should start with a zip-bang-pow (my words, not hers) kind of line, but I respectfully disagreed. Actually, my main character Leigh disagreed. She whispered in my ear, “I’m at my mom’s funeral. Do you really think I’m in a zip-bang-pow kind of mood? The story starts here. This is where you start the story.”
I told her to breathe, then I told her I agreed.
Let’s move on. The first paragraph reveals what Leigh sees, and tucked away inside those words are what she feels.
In the second paragraph, she sees something else that makes her wonder if she’s hallucinating. No, I won’t tell you what it is. ; ) Some people had a hard time with this, though. They wanted more of what Leigh was feeling. But did they really? I could have gone on for pages about Leigh’s memories of her mom, about how her life will be so much different now. But nothing would be happening. It would all be an information dump flashback. I’ve read that’s a no-no. So I weaved all of these memories in throughout the story.
Other “rules” I’ve read about first pages are:
1. Start the story with action.
2. Don’t start the story with action so the reader can get to know the character.
3. Don’t start the story with a line of dialog.
4. Set the scene first.
5. Don’t use too much description/internal thoughts.
6. Don’t start the story with your MC waking up/looking in the mirror/sitting.
7. Don’t start your story in a house, school, graveyard because it’s all been done before and it’s now cliche.
8. I’m sure there are hundreds more, but I’m out of caffeine.
Did you notice that some of these are contradictory? Can you think of books that break these rules? I sure can. I get that these aren’t technically “rules”, just guidelines to make your writing stronger. But you know what? Bleep the rules!
Writers need to write what’s in their hearts and heads. Writers need to listen to their MCs or risk being punched in the face. (Leigh has a wicked fist, and she isn’t afraid to use it.) Don’t worry so much about pleasing others and following the “rules”.
My mantra in high school was the title of that Biohazard song “F@&* the Rules”. It still is. Feel free to disagree with me.
P.S. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy December! 🙂
YA Highway Winter Giveaway
Ooo, there are lots of great goodies up for grabs at YA Highway’s Third Annual Winter Giveaway. Check it out here!
First Book Trash, Second Draft Treasure… Maybe?
There’s a battle in my brain. Story ideas are throwing spitballs, shouting obscenities, and scratching their chins with their middle fingers at each other. It’s quite rude.
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But the one that has my attention now is my first novel called Pause. Maybe because it’s been sitting quietly in a drawer for so long, acting like an angelic first novel. It’s total crap, though, and I can’t believe I queried it. Yet underneath the meandering plot, the crybaby main character, and way too much internal dialog, there are some real tense moments and several plot twists. I still like the story.
So, I’m rewriting it.
Does that mean I’m not going to write every other story idea in my head? No. What Gifts She Carried and everything else will still be written.
Does that mean I’ll like Pause after I’ve rewritten it? It kind of depends on my critique partners. If they give me permission to like it, then yes, I’ll like it. 😉 (I’ll post a few chapters to Critique Circle soon).
Wrap It Up With Pretty Ribbon Or Give It To Your Cat
It’s that time of year when I bang my head against the wall and hope to rattle ideas loose for gifts to give everyone. Yay.
But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about story endings. Lately, most everyone has been dying at the end of all my short stories. Am I being lazy? Is that a cheap way out? Yes and yes. But these stories weren’t search-inside-your-soul types, then suddenly a bomb explodes and limbs are piled on top of souls. Eep, sorry about that image. Nope, these stories were dark to begin with, and if readers thought at the beginning that everything was going to be okay, then maybe they’ve been banging their heads against walls too hard.
I have been known to write a story or six where no one dies. It’s crazy, I know! The endings to these are tricky, though, probably because I’m lazy. Am I supposed to make everything pretty like that present up above? Because I suck at making things pretty.
Or can I leave endings looking like my cat got ahold of it? Maybe something like this:
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| This is Christmas after Jesse took over. See his butt?
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This picture doesn’t quite capture it, but wrapping paper was everywhere and kids were crying. It was messy. This kind of resembles my current novel’s ending (that’s how I see it anyway) where everything is all over the place and down is now up. A few loose ends have been tied, but most dangle loose. Is that okay?
I suppose I could detonate a bomb at the very end and kill everyone…
What are your thoughts on endings? Do you wrap everything up nicely? Or does it look like a cat pounced on your ending? Any ideas for gifts for people who already have everything?
Happy Thanksgiving!
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I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Let’s be thankful for family, friends, and the food on the table!