by Crystal Caudill | Dec 28, 2021 | Writing Craft
As I’m still trying to read through my book for the challenge, I’m going to post another answer to one of the questions a local 8th grader posed to me during her “Ask an Expert” project. As a reader, I thought you might find it fascinating, and if a writer, I thought it might be helpful. So here’s this month’s question:
How do you decide how to form the book? Notes, pre-made plans, etc?
In the writing world, we have two classifications (technically three) of writers. Plotters, pantsers, and what I like to call plansters.
Plotters are the people who plan out every event that is going to happen in their book before they write it. They look at the structure of story, and determine what needs to happen when. Some do high-level plotting and just look at major turning points in the story. Others go down to the nitty-gritty of what will happen in every scene of the book.
Pantsers are those who sit down and write without anything more than a general idea in their head. They see where the story takes them, which can mean lots of revisions and edits as they get rid of rabbit trails or dead ends from the book. These writers tend to have a natural feel of story, and I really recommend new writers don’t just sit down and write. Try to think through the story and plot things out so that you can learn to understand the important elements of Story and when they happen. I spent two or three years studying story structure and plotting things out before I discovered that plotting wasn’t how my brain worked.
Plansters is a category name of my own making . We are the rogue black sheep of the writing world. We want to be plotters, but our characters just won’t allow us. I’ve discovered I cannot plan out an entire book even on a high level without my characters taking over, laughing in my face, and taking the story in a different direction than I expected. What I have discovered is I can do a high-level plan of where I need my characters to be in the next 1/4 to 1/3 of the story.
For right now, I’m shooting for my hero to join the board of a house of refuge where possible counterfeiting may be taking place so he can investigate the institution. However, I only have general ideas of what is going to happen to get him there or the order of those general ideas. So as a Planster, I am working toward that goal, but often sit down with no idea of what is going to happen in the scene I am writing until it ends up in words in front of me. This makes for slower writing, but I enjoy it.
All writers do brainstorm though. Before I sit down to write or plan, I’ll think through: What are the possibilities of this chapter? What are the promises to the reader that I need to fulfill? Are there clues I need to drop? What problems need to happen? What is expected in this chapter? What would be unexpected? I don’t always do it, but when stumped, I’ll write down every single idea that comes to my head, whether ridiculous or not and push until I have no other ideas. Then I look back at my list for anything that might be unexpected and would push my story forward in a fun and exciting way. I also do a lot of brainstorming with other writers. They help to push me to think of things in ways I never would have before. They help my stories to become better.
One thing to note is NO writer is the same. Every writer is going to develop their own methods and comfort zones for developing Story. It might even change with every story they write. If you are a new writer, spend some time studying writing craft and trying to plot out the various parts of your story. If you want to know more about story structure, I have a few posts on that on my Writing Resources Page under Story Structure.
Now, I’m off to let my characters look at my plan, laugh at me, and then go their own direction while I follow behind trying to make sense of their actions. At least every day writing is an adventure!
What questions do you have about writing and the writing process? Maybe your question will end up as a post. 🙂
by Crystal Caudill | Nov 26, 2021 | Writing Craft
Hi readers! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family. I very much appreciate you and your willingness to read my little reviews and other thoughts. One of my favorite delights is giving back to the writing community, and this week I had the opportunity to be the “expert” for a local student’s 8th Grade project. She presented me with a whole host of questions which I answered for her, and I thought maybe, as a reader or writer, you might be interested in some of the answers I gave. Therefore, mixed in with my Endorser Spotlights on Fridays, I’m going to share the answer to a few of her questions and then add them to my writer’s resources tab. I’ve edited it to fit the general population, as she also had specific questions about her particular story.
How do you write a book most people would find entertaining and enjoyable?
The first thing to understand is no book is for everyone. Each reader has their own preferences for what they like or dislike in a book. No matter what you write, there will always be someone who thinks it’s the most awful book on the planet and it should never have been written. However, there are people who will adore your books and call you their favorite author because you write what they like. A person who loves horror books along the lines of Stephen King is not going to enjoy a romance book by Nicolas Sparks.
That being said, if you know who your target audience is, you are more likely to write in such a way as to make them happy and enjoy your book. Every reader who picks up a certain book type has specific expectations that match the genre.
So for a reader who picks up a historical romantic suspense novel like my book, they are going to expect to have a hero and heroine set in a historical time period with rich details and a plot that puts them in danger as they fall in love with one another. Readers are going to expect a villain, dangerous situation, and a happily ever after that leaves them satisfied.
In a mystery story, the reader expects to have something happen right away that leaves your characters trying to answer that question for the rest of the book. For example, who stole Mrs. Clark’s favorite songbook from her choral collection? Readers expect to have the questions who, why, and how answered. The character who stole the book must have believable means (How did they commit the crime? What abilities did they have?), motivation (Why did they do it?), and opportunity (When did they do it?), and the reader must have all three answered by the end of the story.
Keep your target reader in mind. What things do they like? What things would they be upset if you included in the story? Avoid those. If your target audience is 10-15 years olds, you are going to want to have main characters who are likely in high school and encountering some of the things high schooler students encounter as a teenager–mean teachers, too much homework, friend drama, family drama, awkward moments, sports, or anything else that works well with your story.
Your job as an author is to know what your target audience wants in a book and to provide it. You aren’t going to please everyone, but you want to strive to please the ones who enjoy your type of story. Even then, you won’t make everyone happy.
Question for readers:
What books do you like to read? What do you expect to find in those books?
Question for Writers:
Who is your target audience? What can a reader expect when they pick up your stories?
by Crystal Caudill | Nov 24, 2021 | Writing Craft
Two of the most important things to realize as a writer are 1) Your first draft is going to be awful. That is what edits and revisions are for. 2) You need the help of others to push your story to become better than it would be on your own. This involves friends to brainstorm with, critique partners who read your work, and making suggestions on anything from storyline to sentence structure and grammar. Each critique partner will have different strengths. I’m really good at looking at the big picture and tightening up fight scenes. One critique partner is really good at helping me cut out unnecessary words. Another is super amazing at grammar and punctuation. Even when we’ve gotten it the absolute best we can make it , I send it on to a professional editor who takes it through everything from big-picture revisions to word-by-word edits. My book has passed through at least a dozen people’s eyes before ever going to publication, and even then, typos will happen. No book is ever going to be perfect, but you have to get it to the best you can, and then let someone on the outside look at it and help you push it to something even better than you could do on your own. Writing is both a solitary and team sport.
Another thing you should know is there is a difference between revising and editing. Revisions are where you are looking at the big picture of the story. You are making sure that it fits story structure, the story makes sense, the characters are behaving in a believable way, your facts are correct, and that your story is engaging. Edits are were you zoom in and look a little closer. Is your sentence structure the best it could be? Are there better words you could use? Should this paragraph go somewhere else? Do you need to delete this part and expand on this part? Is your grammar and punctuation correct? There are all sorts of levels and nuances to this, but this is just the big picture look at what happens after you finish a rough draft.
When you finish your rough draft for the first time, I recommend setting it aside for a week (or really a month) or more if possible. Giving yourself some distance from your story will allow you to see things you wouldn’t have seen before.
Another important thing in writing books is realize you are never done learning. Good writers are constantly studying writing craft books, taking classes and workshops to improve themselves, and allowing others to sharpen them into better writers. This is a HUGE thing, honestly in whatever career you pursue. Learning is neverending. If you want a list of writing craft books, I can provide those.
One last bit of information that is important when writing a book: Remember, your story will not be liked by everyone. It’s going to hurt when someone doesn’t like it–maybe even hates it–but the important thing to remember is everyone has different tastes.
by Crystal Caudill | Nov 24, 2021 | Writing Craft
How do you decide the setting?
When choosing a setting you want to make sure it’s a location that makes it so if your story were set anywhere else, it wouldn’t work the same way. For example, in my book coming out in early 2022, my setting is set in Cincinnati during the flood of 1884. Without that flood, the climax of my story couldn’t happen. If I moved it to another time and location, my story would change.
The best advice I ever heard was to consider your setting a character. Your setting is going to influence your story, and you get to decide how. Think about how your story would be different if it were to take place in Winter instead of Summer, in a big city versus a small town. Figure out what your elements need to be, and pick the setting that will best support those needs and impact your characters.
How do you pick the main character’s name?
There are lots of ways I do this. Since I write historical, I look up the census records for the time period and region that I want to write in and sometimes pick from there. Sometimes a name just comes to me. Sometimes I look up the meanings of a name and have it connect to my character in a special way. Sometimes I just want to be humorous. For example, in my current story, I have a character who is murdered off screen very early in the story. I named him Mr. Farwell because it’s close to Farewell. Corny, but I get a chuckle out of it. 🙂 I also take into consideration the characters nationality, family heritage, and names that were common when they would have been born.
How do you pick a book name?
For books, I try to look for a theme, or even a single line that really resonates with the book. For my first book, Counterfeit Love, I (and thankfully my publisher) chose the title because counterfeit had multiple meanings to the story. Money, reasons for marriage, and where love comes from were all being counterfeited. Love was the main thing being counterfeited, so that is what we stuck with. The subsequent books are Counterfeit Hope and Counterfeit Faith. All these tie in with the theme and lessons of the book. Sometimes names, especially with cozy mysteries, have cutesy, whimsical, or even funny names. Search cozy mysteries on Amazon and you’ll get all sorts of funny, cheesy titles. You want to take into consideration your genre as well. If suspense, you want to have words that hint at suspense. Same with mystery, romance, and comdey.
by Crystal Caudill | Nov 24, 2021 | Writing Craft
Hi friends! I’m continuing my series, Ask the Author. Feel free to send your questions through the contact form and yours might end up on my blog. Don’t forget to check out my questions for you at the end.
Where do I start my story?
I always end up writing more than I keep. Usually what happens is I write in a lot of unnecessary background, about a chapter or two, so that I have a chance to get to know my characters and the storyline a little more intimately. However, when I go back to edit, I have to ask myself where does the story actually begin? Where is it that my main character faces the incident that is going to send them on their “quest” to achieve their goal? In a mystery, you usually start with the crime happening or having just happened off-screen. Oftentimes, you start the story as the amateur sleuths are about to discover the crime has occurred. In a romance, it is often around the first time the characters meet, or if they already know each other, during the something that proceeds them being forced to be together more often than they would have been otherwise.
When you start with too much background information, that is called an info dump. As a writer, we are told by those older and wiser than us that readers need that background information sprinkled in throughout the story. Readers are invested when they have questions they want to be answered. The character screams when she sees a picture of a snake. The reader might wonder, why is the main character deathly afraid of snakes? Later on, they find out an incident where someone dropped a pet snake on her that bit her… maybe even the hero if they were friends or enemies early on when they were kids. It all depends on how you want to build your story out and how you want the character to change over the course of the story.
Bottom line is, don’t be afraid to delete words from your story. Sometimes you need to write it just for the sake of you as the author. Once you have that solid in your head, you can reevaluate your story for where the READER needs you to start your story. If it makes you feel better, you can cut and paste those lost words into a separate document labeled deleted scenes or scenes to use later. You may never look at those words again, but you will always have them. I promise you, a lot more writers than you think do this. Many of has have files and files of such documents.
by Crystal Caudill | Aug 25, 2020 | Writing Craft
This month’s “From the Author’s Desk” is a long post about researching for your novel that I wrote for another blog meant to help other writers. I wanted to post it here too, so I could include it in my For Writer’s Tab. I hope you’ll find it an interesting look a the practical side of preparing for a novel.
Research: Love It or Hate It, You Gotta Do It!
Research. You either dread it or love it. Regardless of your sentiment, as a diligent writer, you have to do it and do it right. Whether new at the researching game or old hat, it is my prayer that this post will give you a little bit of guidance, a few resources, and a “whole lotta” inspiration.
I will be tackling this from the historical fiction angle, but anything written here can be applied to any genre’s research needs.
Where do I start researching?
Think of the act of researching as similar to drawing a tornado—you start with wide broad spirals that narrow down to a very focused point the closer you get to the ground, or in this case, your story.
With this in mind, I recommend starting wide and shallow before you ever write the first word of your story. Get a feel for what the politics, economy, culture, major events, fashion, etiquette, industries, technology, and social constructs were like for the setting of your story. These could have potentially content-altering information that can cripple a story if you find out too late.
Honestly, my favorite way to get a broad overview is to find children’s history books on the topics. They often have lots of interesting tidbits while giving you a broad sense of what is going on. It also helps to guide you in to more narrow and deeper research.
Once you have a general understanding of the times, then you can really narrow in on the specifics of your character and situation. Below I’ve listed some topics for consideration and some guiding questions to help you determine what is going to matter most to your character.
Major Topics for Consideration:
Each story is going to have unique needs, so you need to gauge your research based on those needs. If your story isn’t going to have a huge political influence, stop researching politics after you have a general feel for your story’s need. If your story has a rich socialite and a poor man, you are going to need to know the intricacies of upper-class society’s expectations and how they differ from someone who has never experienced it. I think you probably get the idea. 😉
Politics: What major political events were going on during the setting of your story? How might they affect your characters? Most of us don’t live in a bubble, and what is going on in the world filters into our lives and our discussions. Take that into consideration to be sure that there isn’t something that would greatly impact your story’s plot.
For example, if you have your character’s father the owner of a railroad during the railroad strikes, that is going to affect your character in at least some manner. If your heroine lives during the era of growing awareness of women’s rights (a much longer period than you might realize), how will this influence what your character believes, thinks, and says?
Culture: This means looking at the region and locale of your story. What foods, activities, and sayings are common to that area? Are there certain expectations that aren’t included elsewhere? Do they have certain fashions? Are there certain people groups common to that area that would influence the culture of that city?
Cincinnati is heavily German. When I moved here, I experience lots of new-to-me foods, building styles, and a TON of Catholic schools. There were two for the area I’d grown up in. Do your research and you’ll be surprised about what will really add richness to your story.
Economics and Social Status: Different social classes have different expectations and behaviors. How are those going to affect your character? What obstacles will that create? Consider the careers they would be likely to have. What industry do your characters rely on? What is going on in those industries which could affect their lives? The more you know about these things, the stronger your story will be.
When researching my manuscript Counterfeit Love, I discovered there was a “Long Depression” lasting from 1873 to 1896. At the time, they called it the “Great Depression.” What I learned changed and set the baseline for the struggles my heroine faced, even though I never directly connected the two for my reader.
Organizing the Research
As much as I hate to admit it, taking notes which are easy to reference is critical. It is really important to keep a running bibliography so that you can back up your research when questions, and you can reference something if you get confused as you look over your notes.
I use a program called Scrivener, and under the research tab, I create folders. My “big folders” are named by the topic: Setting, Etiquette, Fashion, Gardening, etc. My broad needs are labeled for quick reference.
Inside each folder, I break it down to it’s smaller component topics. My current character is a master gardener, and I am a black thumb, so under my gardening folder I have topics like Master Gardener (which will include examples, requirements, real people, and their gardens which I can reference), Plants Heroine Works With, etc.
Beyond that, each book resource will get its own folder. Each website gets a single text document. I name these text documents and book folders by the name of the resource, and also by the topic if the resource is focused on a single topic. I take my notes in a table format:
|
Page Number
|
Exact Quote
|
Personal Notes/ Observations
|
Possible Plot Points
|
|
1
|
“ABC”
|
It’s the alphabet
|
A letter goes missing
|
It is a bit tedious, but I do find that it has been invaluable in brainstorming, reviewing information, and finding a specific fact quickly.
Each person has their own method, this is just mine, so do not feel like you HAVE to do it my way. Do be sure to keep track of your resources though. You never know when you will have to justify something you wrote.
Conducting Research
When it comes to conducting research, it is easy to get lost in the mire of possibilities. You can visit museums, websites, historical societies, read history books or primary sources, travel, or even search satellite maps.
Most of my research is done from home and online. To find my resources, I usually start with a search of my local library’s catalog or a Google search to find some reputable resources. Yes, I even go to Wikipedia—but only as a starting point to direct me somewhere else. I get what information I can, and then I look at their bibliographies. This is how I narrow down what I am going to read.
I prefer diaries, books, and newspapers written during the era I’m writing. This can be difficult and expensive if I’m not careful. I highly recommend seeing if your public library has a subscription to Historic Newspapers websites. Mine has several. From home, I can read newspapers and search for topics in those newspapers for free. It is marvelous.
For books, there has been a wonderful movement to digitalize old books and most of them are free to read. Below I’ve given you a list of my favorites. You can search by title, year, subject, or even keywords. It has been a lifesaver, especially during these strange times which makes research extra difficult.
While finding books from eh 1880s can be expensive and difficult, there are a lot of books that have been digitalized and can be searched for free. Below, I’ve given you some of my favorites.
Online Resources
https://babel.hathitrust.org/ – This is my favorite resource. It can take some weeding through, and you’d definitely want a specific title, but I have found countless resources here.
https://books.google.com/ – They list them all, whether you can read them or not, so just make sure they say Free E-book when you click on it.
https://archive.org/ – This one has gotten in trouble lately for pirating current books, so make sure you are only looking at books printed before WWI. Generally, I only go to this website once I have a specific title in mind. There are usually multiple copies of the same book and it does take some weeding through.
Search for the historical society of the area you are researching. Some of them have online resources, some will be thrilled to talk to you and help you out, and some will never answer back. Either way, they are a go-to resource for information you would never have imagined.
How to Avoid Rabbit Trails
Oh, the wonderful things you can find when researching! And oh how much time you can waste. What helps me to not waste hours down a rabbit trail (and I still do often), is to keep the specific thing I am researching in mind.
When I come across something else that strikes my fancy but isn’t what I need at that particular moment, I add a note and the website link to a folder I title “Research This Later.” 90% of the time I don’t go back to it, but having it tucked away for later helps me to release the rabbit trail and stay focused.
It’s a simple trick, but it works well. You could also set a timer for how long you are going to research this topic, but I find I turn those off and just keep going.
While writing your actual manuscript, I recommend you do not go and research something the moment you find you need it. Just make a note in your manuscript like this: [RESEARCH FASHION]. The primary concern with drafting is getting the story down as quickly as you can. Research can cause you to lose that momentum.
How do you decide what to use?
Throw all you want or find interesting in your first draft. This is your place to just see where the story takes you. Once you begin the revision process you can decide what needs cut. To make that decision, ask yourself: “What does my read absolutely need to see and understand the story?” and “Does this slow my story down?”
If it is needed AND slows your story down, see if you can change up the presentation of the information. Can it be communicated briefly through fascinating dialogue?
If it isn’t needed, even if it doesn’t slow your story down, you’ll probably need to cut it. You can always leave it and see what beta readers think. However, what I’ve observed in today’s readers is the more concise you can be, the better.
Cutting that beloved material from your first draft can be hard, but you can still use those materials in blog posts, social media posts, and promotional opportunities later on. You already have the content, and readers may find it interesting.
There is really is so much more that could be said about research, but I have surpassed my word count. If you have questions or want to learn more, feel free to contact me.
