Guest: Jan Christensen with TRICKS OF THE TRADE

I'm delighted to host my old friend, Jan Christensen today! She not OLD, we've just known each other in cyberspace for quite a few years now. She's an excellent writer and she's revealing how she does some of her magic for us today. Pay close attention! (Links and bio are below.)

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

No, not that trade. The writing trade. I have a few tricks about writing novels to help you keep track of those pesky details. And some in particular for those who write series. Some of these hints can even work very well for short stories. Since Kaye and I write so many of those, I don’t want to leave them out. These tricks help me both save time and feel organized. I hope you’ll find at least some of them helpful for you, too.

The second thing I do after starting a new story, short or long, is to open another document for notes about that story. This has become a catchall for me. Here are some of the things I include, after first naming the document: “Title of Story notes.doc.” (I put my titles in caps for the story itself, and the notes document in small letters to tell them apart easily.) Here’s what I include in the notes doc:

·         If I don’t have what I consider a good title yet, I list as many as I can think of, adding to it until I’m done with the story unless something seems perfect before then.

·         I make a table for character names. The first column is for simple number. As I introduce a character, I put it in the table in order of when the character showed up in the manuscript so I can find it more easily later, if I’ve resorted the table. The other headers include First Name, Last Name, Age, Description, Car (but I don’t bother with that column for short stories), and Notes. When I first introduce a character, I take a minutes to fill in the info in the character table. That way I don’t have to look for it when I need it again and don’t remember what page it was on in the document. Also I can sort by when introduced, and by first or last name to make sure I don’t have a lot of characters whose names begin with the same letter.

·         Next, for novels, I have another table that I use as an outline after I write each chapter. Obviously, this won’t be needed for a short story unless it’s very long and involved. In this table the headers are: Chapter #, Day (of week) (if exact date is needed, can put that here), Time, Where, and Events. When I finish each chapter, I fill this out. This way I never get caught up with timeline problems. I’ve had timeline problems in the past, and it can be horrible to fix.

·         Underneath that table, I put in research. Often, I find something on-line I can just copy and paste there. I admit, I don’t do a lot of research, so this might not work for everyone. I make big, bolded headers for each piece of research so I can find it easily in the document. Of course, I can use the search feature to find it, too.

·         Last, I put in ideas for plot points after I’m about a quarter of the way through a novel. I don’t plot before starting to write, so by the time I’ve reached that point, I need to take a break and lay out some ideas of what can happen from that point on. I add to these as I think of them, and when I start to feel blocked, I go to that list and see if there’s something I can use.

So, that takes care of the notes file when I’m writing the story. After it’s finished, though, I continue to use that file. I now list all kinds of things at the top of it. Date of publication, where pubbed, if it’s a short story, ISBN numbers, links to it for on-line bookstores, the zine where it was published, and so forth. Anything I think will come in handy down the road.

For short stories I have yet another table to input where I sent the story. The headers for that form are: Where, Date Sent, Date Back, Time Frame, and Comments. In comments I note accepted or rejected. If I get a personal rejection, I might copy and paste the comments right in the table, if they’re not too long. If they are long, I put them underneath.

All this works tremendously for writing series. You can go back to any notes file to find out details about a character you’ve used before, or some research you did, or to jog your memory about exactly what happened when in an earlier book. If you’re more comfortable with printed material, you can make a notebook with each note’s file to flip through when you need it.

It can be odd what turns up. For example, I use a character in the Tina Tales, Professional Organizer books, who loves to use odd, funny words and clichés. I have two pages of funny words in my note file. For that one, I copy and paste it for each new note file so can quickly find one when needed. Words like cattywampus, gobbledygook, higgledy-piggledy, and kerfuffle. Words that even spell checker doesn’t like.

I think if you’re an author who does a lot of research you might find a better way than my way of dumping it all into the notes file. But I do think it’s great to have everything else in that one file. Easy to find, all available with the click of a key or two on your keyboard.

That said, I’m always open to other systems, and would love to read any hints anyone has in the comments. Happy writing! And organizing.

BIO: Jan Christensen’s published novels are: Sara’s Search, Revelations, Organized to Death, Perfect Victim, Blackout, and most recently, Buried Under Clutter. She's had over sixty short stories appear in various places over the last dozen years, two of which were nominated for a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society, where she was just elected President. She also writes a series of short stories about Artie, a NY burglar who gets into some very strange situations while on the job.

CONTACTS:

Website: www.janchristensen.com

Amazon author pages: http://www.amazon.com/Jan-Christensen/e/B004XTXSYO/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jan.christensen.9275

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/463095.Jan_Christensen

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanSChristensen

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/janchristensena/

Short versus Long

I had a conversation with a fellow writer recently about short stories versus novels. He wondered if people, because of the hectic pace of modern life, would be giving up reading novels in place of short stories. I thought no, that just the opposite would happen. People with busy lives would turn away from short stories. Neither of us have data to support our positions, so all of this is speculation.

I reasoned this way. The novel is the only art form that cannot be consumed in one sitting. Anyone starting a novel knows they will put it down at some point and pick it up later. Not so a short story. Yes, you can put the story down and pick it up later, but I think that most people commit themselves to finishing the story once they begin. People with fragmented lives and smaller chunks of time for reading might be reluctant to open a short story if the probability of finishing is small. A novel, on the other hand, can be consumed in sips. There is no time commitment to finishing a novel. One simply reads while one can and resumes later.

Writing a short story also takes a large commitment of time. I find that I will start a short story with the expectation of finishing it quickly. I usually won't begin a short story unless I have large blocks of time in which to write. Thus I think of short stories as vacation writing. Not because they are relaxing, but because I can tackle them without work or other commitments interfering. I write my novels on the other hand in the mornings before work and whenever I can steal time at my desk. I know the novel will be a long-term project, no matter how large or small the blocks of time for the project.

I find that, page for page, a short story takes more time and effort than a novel. The reason is that every word has to count. Writing tight is not easy. A case in point is a short story I began last year about this time. I wrote it during a six-week period in which I worked at my job only four days a week, so large blocks of time were free to write. Getting the first draft was easy, but then I had to edit it.

This particular short story is quite long. The first draft came in at 18,000 words, almost a novella. I had to cut it. After six drafts, I had it down to 12,000 words and I was pleased with the result. The story had good pacing, good character, good action, and tight writing. I queried an editor who expressed interest in the story. However, he wanted 10,000 words. If longer, he said, it had better be exceptional. I decided I would do both; I would shorten the story and I would make it exceptional. When you go from 18K to 12K, you get rid of most, if not all, of the fat. Trying to go from 12K to 10K, after all the fat has been cut away, is like polishing bone. After two weeks and two more drafts, I've manage to cut 600 out of the 2,000. Maybe I'll make it, but I suspect it will take me the rest of the summer.

What's your experience with short stories? Do you read them? Do you write them? Do you prefer them to novels?

Mark Troy
Hawaiian Eye Blog
Game Face from Ilium Books, on Kindle, Nook, and other ebook readers.

To Outline or Not?

By Mark W. Danielson

To outline, or not is a question frequently asked at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference. The answer not only differs between authors, it depends on whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. SF Writer's Conference speakers repeatedly emphasized that nonfiction writers must use outlines. This makes sense because their facts must be accurate, sequential, and have relevance. To properly convey a topic, nonfiction builds like a math problem. I’m no mathematician, but I do understand that X times Y equals Z. In writing, if the reader doesn’t understand the X or the Y, they will never come up with Z.

In fiction, the principles remain the same except that fiction allows more twists and turns. Because fiction writing is inventive, many authors feel an outline will stifle their creative thoughts. But then you have James Patterson, one of the best outliners in the business, who cannot work without them because he has others writing his stories for him. The more detailed an outline, the easier it is for Patterson’s co-writers to mimic his thoughts. But what about the writers who have had stories gelling in their heads for months or years, and when he/she finally sits down at the computer, their stories flow like molasses? Judging from the raised hands I saw at the SF Writer’s Conference, it seems the majority of fiction writers prefer shooting from their hips than using outlines.

The “pro” of no outlining is the freedom to write uninhibited. The “con” of no outlining is authors must go back and create their outline to ensure everything flows, makes sense, and summarizes their story for queries and book descriptions. In this regard, outlining seems inescapable. So, for the benefit of other writers, let’s take a poll. How many draft their novels using outlines, how many don’t, and why?