Notes on Plotting

Okay, I have stopped and started, stopped again, read a bit, opened back up my files and glared menacingly at them, transferred things to work so I can plot during lunch, ignored everything and then neglected to keep all my files up to date so I have a string of plots wondering throughout my building *oy vey* written and discarded, changed direction, performed a sex change on a main character that I am not sure I am happy with, found and lost motivation for my main baddie and figured out a new and better way to make a mutant, and just generally found myself in a quagmire of my own making where things that I need are scattered to the four winds and buried inside my over stressed and very tired brain

Whoever said writing is easy needs to be kicked in the shin

But, my loyal invisible followers I have learned a few things

1) LESSON: Do what makes you comfortable not what you think you should.

For whatever reason it is 100 times easier to write things out in a notebook rather then on the computer, especially for plotting purposes. I think this is especially important due to my historical writing based background, I am used to having to write research papers and political position papers and when you do that you always start with notes. All through college I took notes in a cheap dollar store notebook where I would buy 1 for every paper and then fill it with notes I took from articles. Then once I sat at the computer it was time to write. Simple huh? So why it took me the last 2 months to figure out why I couldn’t bring myself to write outlines in word is beyond me. Call it professional blinders, other people were writing on word so by god I would to.

2) LESSON: People are always gonna judge the big dog harsher.

As a part of the ridiculous amount of success that the paranormal genre has experienced lately, it is currently the top dog of sub-genres which means it is constantly under attack. I have heard people, people that actually want to write the genre mind you, say how much paranormal annoys them with its sameness and how they wish they could write something else. Face it, the market is saturated and new ideas are rarer then a Ben and Jerry’s cartoon at weight watchers. I think the market is shifting away from paranormal in general and that means soon it’s gonna be harder to sell a book in that genre but does that matter? Check lesson 3

3) LESSON: Even if you don’t think you can sell it, write what the voices in your head tell you to.

Writing is hard!! No matter what anyone says, it is not a Zen experience where words flow full formed from a secret place in your brain down to your hands while angels sing chorus in the background and god himself (or herself or themselves) massages your weary muscles. (What? Sitting in a computer chair all day sucks) It is in fact work, and it takes a lot out of you so why on earth you would want to write about something you don’t like is beyond me. Not only will you suffer, your product will suffer, your characters will be flat and your readers will rebel!

Mini Lesson: Always remember that your fellow writers are also readers before you rag on something, people are always watching and they have big mouths.

Any who, if you really want to be doing historical then BY GOD do not write about vampires, because they will likely be crap. I am an avid fan of everything undead and bite-y but I can’t tell you how many books I have read where it just doesn’t work because the writer obviously doesn’t have the hots for a good vamp and therefore suppresses all the things that a vamp lover like me WANTS!! I don’t want to listen to my hero lament his existence for 20 pages, I don’t want his quest to be to find a way to be human. Humans are boring, I want mad, bad and immortal!! (Phrase stolen from Sherilyn Kenyon, who is one of my favorite writers) So please, just stop because reviewers will make it their mission to make sure no one buys your lame-o book anyway and then it defeats the purpose of writing what “hot” doesn’t it?

4) LESSON: Listen to the voices in your head.

When you get stuck (and you will) go talk to your characters. Writing is a little bit like undiagnosed Schizophrenia in that your characters will “sit down” and “talk” with you, or won’t depending on how you treat them. Because I have been trying to focus myself to just a few characters at a time I have missed connections that I need to have in order to make sure everyone meshes, by avoiding these I stalled myself out. Your world is not an independent one and everyone needs to be nurtured at once, characters need to come and go as they please and they don’t fit into well ordered boxes. So talk to them and let them tell you about their families, their pasts and what they want for their futures themselves, don’t try to ignore things that might be important. Otherwise they won’t live on your pages, they will just exist and no one will be happy


So that’s the words of wisdom for today, let’s get this train back to rolling!! TOOT TOOT!