A Tangent in Writing...

by Casey Alexander

 

Sometimes, I feel like I sit and stare at my screen or notebook waiting for inspiration to hit when really, it’s always there. Stream of consciousness and/or tangent writing are the best ways to bust through a sturdy writer’s block. Always remember, you’re drafting a novel. The first, second, third drafts don’t have to and won’t be the first thing you send off to a publisher so let your mind wander. 

Two roads diverged in a - yadda yadda yadda, stuff it Frost.

Writing my initial draft this year I hit a wall. I had almost two days were I only eeked out two thousand words or so where before I’d been hitting three to five a day. Needing to get more words done before class I sat and wrote whatever happened to come to mind. Physical descriptions, personality quirks, and other little things for minor characters, after an hour or two the ideas started flowing again. Now, forty thousand words later, that minor character is becoming a main character and the little details I was using to pad my word count for class have turned into essential bread crumbs. Instead of having to go back and add in the details, cramming them in wherever I could find a place, they’re already in the fabric of the story.

So, let your mind wander. If it’s useless scrap later on you can always go back and delete it. But, if it proves to be fruitful you will have saved yourself a lot of time and headache.

[Editor's Note:  Tomorrow, the last class blog posts will go up!  Be sure to check them out.  - Lauren Burch]

Your Kid Will Grow Up to be a F** if They Read This: Addressing the Lack of Queer Children's Novels

by Spencer McNelly

When I heard of My Two Super Dads release, I thought the literary world would change overnight. No more will queer youth grow up without any literary idols! But while brainstorming for my novel writing course this fall, I realized I was sadly mistaken. Nothing had changed.

My novel focuses on the tribulations of a five to seven-year-old boy struggling with gender identity disorder. I asked my professor if she could direct me towards some novels that focus on growing up queer.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know of anything like that.” We both looked pitiful for five minutes, complaining about the lack of queer representation in novels, specifically children’s novels. Well, mainly she listened as I rambled.

Published over 20 years ago.

When I went hunting, I found zero novels on children dealing with queer issues. Sure, there are some young adult novels about queer youth. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking little kids, elementary school-aged tykes. Where are their stories?

We’ve heard the questions about the origin of queerness. When did you first realize that you were attracted to the same sex? When did you first realize that you were different? Not like the other kids? Wanted to wear the other sex’s clothing? Et cetera. Et cetera. I want my novel to address these questions.

Even though I’ve dealt with queer issues my entire life, that doesn’t mean I’m fully equipped to write a novel about queerness in children. I’m certainly trying! But the point is that when I looked for inspiration, I found none in the literary community. That has been the biggest struggle for me while writing this novel.

Another rare picture book dealing with queer issues.

Where is the queer Junie B. Jones? The gay Tuck Everlasting? The transgender Ramona Quimby? These children’s stories don’t exist yet. I know of a dozen reasons why they don’t, but my frustration is working on this novel truly by myself. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I don’t feel a sense of community when it comes to queer literature, let alone something as specific as children’s queer novels. When there are no books from which to draw inspiration, no stories that get into the mind of little queer kids, it’s a lonely experience trying to write something for an audience that doesn’t exist or a market that isn’t ready for something that “risqué.”

Although I could go into a full essay about this, I’m going to address the dumbest argument against queer literature. I’d like to touch on the topic since I complained about why these stories I’m wanting don’t exist. I can think of a dozen reasons people would give me about why they shouldn’t exist, but here’s why they don’t at the moment:

Argument: Spencer, wouldn’t you say that if children were going to read about gay kids, they’d grow up to be gay?

My Answer: Well, now that you ask, a youngling picking up a queer-themed story would no more make them gay than the Twilight series would make me straight. Maybe not the best example but you get the point. Queer novels don’t begat sexuality. They’re stories. If you believe stories have the power to change or create sexuality, then why do I still like boys? Hmm??

[Editor's Note:  Be sure to check out today's other blog posts: One by Casey Alexander dealing with tangent writing, and one by Chris Smith about creating a voice for characters.  Tomorrow the last two class blog posts will go up! - Lauren Burch]

Researching the Historical Novel: Advice For Next Semester's Novel Writers

by Maye Ralston

I’ve been researching for the historical novel I’m writing. This has created several issues. First, I encountered more information than I expected and found my story actually covers a much larger period of time, necessitating three books rather than the original one. Naturally my original idea was shot, sank, and I started over under the deep blue sea in a rusty, barnacle encrusted, shell of a ship.

KEY: Stay open when researching. If you find a lead that takes you someplace you hadn’t intended to go, follow it anyway. It could lead to a wealth of information that may cause you to rethink your novel, but your novel may be better for it.

Second, in researching via the internet and historical records, I encountered (for one particular historical character) four different names. I have found several other historical events or characters that have similar problems. Which begs the question, how do you vet sources if you wish to remain consistent with history? In particular, when your monetary and time resources preclude traveling, and when you are under the constraints of acquiring and using this information within a university semester?

This is how I did it.

I searched for the oldest historical records and scoured them for the information I was seeking. For now, I am using these names and event versions for my story. Later I will attempt to vet that information by finding and comparing other reliable sources with the information I have now.

KEY: Discern which sources are likely to be the most reliable and understand that all sources (with the exception of factual data) have agendas and that makes them all suspect. Enter creative license.

Unless you are writing a history book, few of your readers will be interested in being bombarded with facts. Those are for you to create your story ambiance.Readers just want to get lost in your story. When you feel you have a basic sense of what was going on in your chosen time period (how people dressed, spoke, what was happening in their world at the time, etc.), put your research on the back-do occasionally-burner and start writing your novel.

Third, I am reading at least three other versions of the story I chose to write—something I do not recommend doing because your own story idea gets mixed up with the stories already out there.

KEY: If you feel you must read other novels about your story characters, time period, or historical events, read them early in the summer and let them percolate while you ground yourself in the facts of your story, then take the novel writing class in the fall semester.

I am also reading several historical novels by other authors (set in other time periods or cultures than the one you are writing about). In addition to some old favorites, I found a few that were new to me, through my local library, and my novel writing professor (Cathy Day)suggested several. This I highly recommend doing as it provides a sense of how other, usually more experienced writers, have blended story with history.

KEY: You have to weigh writing time against reading time. Some reading is helpful, the rest will only interfere with your writing time, especially if you are taking a full load of courses (and especially if those are mostly writing courses). Read a couple, even three, then save the rest for the summer and semester breaks, when you have more time to do research, analysis, and rewriting.

      Some of the books I am currently reading (or putting off until semester break) are: Dune by Frank Herbert, A civil war series by Michael Shaara, The Other Boleyn Girl: A Novel by Philippa Gregory, Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore: A Novel by Stella Duffy (I finished this one).

      Fourth, my novel has a lot of characters or place names that are difficult to pronounce. It is difficult to keep the names of all the non-main characters straight and correctly spelled. Ditto with the place names. So?

I devised a cheat sheet.

KEY: Create a character sheet or location sheet for each of your characters and locations. List the name (correctly spelled), descriptions, local happenings there, character flaws and strengths, personality type, a few notes about how this person or place fits in the story, who this person interacts with and in what manner (enemies, lovers, etc.). You get the idea. Later you can use it to include a genealogy, or list, of characters to aid your readers.You will want to summarize your information for that. Here’s another free character sheet.

Last, I sometimes find it hard to remember all the historical event timelines, when this or that character enters and leaves the scene, etc. Add to that the events and characters I have created from my imagination and I could end up spending most of my time trying to remember instead of writing. This is especially important because I am working on a trilogy and I want to track my characters ages as they come and go in the story so I don’t make a stupid mistake later.

KEY: Create a timeline of events from the beginning to the end of your storyline. You can do this on paper, but I found free software to use. Here’s one for the Mac called Aeon Timeline. Here’s a list of free multi-platform timeline software.

I hope you find this helpful. Good luck next semester. In the words of Red Green, “I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.”

[Editor's Note:  For advice on handling personal history in writing, check out Ashley Ford's blog post on writing memoir.  Tune in tomorrow to read Spencer McNelly's post on queer literature! - Lauren Burch]

Just Keep Writing

by Anne Haben

Just keep writing. Just keep writing. Just keep writing, writing, writing, writing. What do we do? We write, write, write.

I know what you’re all thinking “how am I supposed to write a novel in a semester?”  Well in all honesty you probably won’t.  Instead what you will have is a pretty solid first draft but that’s only if you can crank out enough words to get you there.

Writer's block: It's kind of like that.

What about writers block, or lack of focus, or losing interest in what your characters are doing?  Yes these are all obstacles you will have to face but there are ways to get past them — trust me I’ve done it.

           

You need to find ways to keep you motivated and keep yourself invested in telling your story.

1)      Try writing at different times in the day to figure out when you’re most creative.  Unfortunately for me this is usually really late at night when all of my roommates are finally asleep.

2)      If silence doesn’t work well for you try listening to music.  TVs can be too distracting for some because there are images you want to see but with music a single lyric can spark an entire scene.  Music can also get you into the right mind frame to write.  Say you are a generally happy person but one of the scenes in your novel is particularly dark listen to music that portrays this mood.

3)      Go to different places to write.  It isn’t good to just sit at the same desk day after day staring at a blank screen.  It gets frustrating and you feel like you aren’t accomplishing anything because you probably aren’t.  Take your laptop to the park, or a coffee shop, just go somewhere different.  You never know who you are going to bump into or what you may see that will spark your imagination and have you writing a thousand words before you realize where they are even taking you.

4)      Search the internet for random pictures. Inspiration is just waiting to be stumbled upon so go find it.

5)      Look up famous quotes and even some that aren’t so famous.  Sometimes all you need is a line and then all of the sudden you have a full conversation between your characters.

All of these can help with writers block.  It isn’t about writing something perfectly at first chance or about sitting in one place to get things done.  You have to explore what is around you so you have more to write about.

Don’t bother constantly revising what you wrote either.  Concentrate on the new.  Get your words down before you lose them for they may never come back.

Try writing without thinking, sounds strange I know, but when you write without thinking you don’t second guess yourself and what you write may surprise you and what your characters do can surprise you.  This is something you want because when you surprise yourself you have a better chance of surprising your readers. Having the element of surprise is one of the things that will keep your readers invested in your story and causes them to want to read on.

Maybe for some sitting in silence in the same place at the same time works for them but we are all different writers and need different things to keep us chugging along.  I hope these suggestions/tips will help some of you in your noveling process and if you have any other advice on what keeps you writing and focused please share them in the comments.

[Editor's Note: If you're having trouble managing your inspirations, check out today's blog post by Aaron Wittwer.  And be sure to tune in tomorrow for Spencer McNelly's post on queer literature! - Lauren Burch]