How to Save a WIP: Tension

Last week (or 2 weeks ago really) Danielle wrote a post on tension and how lack of tension can kill your WiP. Today, I'd like to give my thoughts on how to increase/add tension to your WiP. Keep in mind these are just my thoughts and what I do. I'm not, like, The Master of Tension, or anything. :) [Bear with me, this might be a long post, but hopefully it'll be helpful if you read it!]

For me there are two types of tension that I look at when I'm writing.

The first is story-based tension. This is when you need to think about stuff like the stakes and conflicts that your character(s) have to deal with. What are the things that matter most to them and are the obstacles in their way high enough to push your characters after their goal and keep the reader engaged?

I don't know about you, but I love it when I'm holding my breath, itching to turn the next page of the book I'm reading to find out how in the world this character that I've fallen in love with will overcome to this crazy obstacle! (I'm assuming you like books like that too!) I get so bored when reading a book if the tension is just...lacking. Who wants to read about a character whose main obstacles are something I could overcome blind folded with one hand tied behind my back? Kinda boring, right? So, if the goal of your character is this amazing thing (which let's hope it is!) then make the stakes for them to achieve it just as intense as the goal or more!

Two other story-based ways to increase tension are foreshadowing and having a timeline. Adding in little hints of foreshadowing can really increase tension/suspense to areas that might be lacking and can keep your readers engage. And adding a timeline, like a countdown, to when your character has to have something done by automatically adds tension to the story because some terrible thing is going to happen by the deadline if they don't succeed and that terrible thing looms over the character the whole time. Now, that's not to say let's all just go crazy adding in random foreshadowing and deadlines. You don't want to confuse your readers, so make sure your story calls for those aspects before putting them in--and the only person that can know for sure if you should do that is you (or, ya know, you can seek advice from your crit partners too if you have them)

The second type of tension building that I look at in my stories are the technical aspects of my writing. How can the way I string together these words amp up tension? (I especially focus on these tension builders during action scenes.)

• Word choice: (especially with action verbs) Punch up your word choice. Instead of saying "He took my hand and pulled me away." You could say, "He grabbed my hand and yanked me away."

• Short/choppy sentence: This is a technique I use a lot during action scenes. Keeping your sentences short and sometimes choppy increases that tension your looking for. Action scenes aren't the the time for overly flowery writing or lots of backstory/information. Keep those for other areas where you want the tension to cool down and give the reader a breather.

• Character action: What are your characters doing? Are they all lazing about (is lazing word? it is now). When you're in an intense situation, your body is probably reacting to it, right? Let your characters' bodies react too. Are they tapping nervously, running, fidgeting, taking a swing, ect. The list goes on and on. Don't forget to let them react.

• Dialogue: 1)I am a greedy withhold-er of information when it comes to my dialogue. My character's questions get ignored or cut-off. They get answered in a roundabout way that doesn't actually give them any info. I love keeping my characters (and readers) questioning. They don't always need straight-forward answers to their questions. That'd be kinda boring, wouldn't it? 2)Maybe your MC wants something from another character w/out that second character knowing? Something like this can add underlying tension to a conversation that would be seen as a plain old innocent conversation to the 2nd character. 3) Just about any dialogue that is expressly confrontational will add tension to the conversation. Just make sure the scene calls for a convo that aggressive like that before you throw it in.

• Scene/Chapter endings: The best way to end a scene/chapter, I think, is to make your reading tearing the page to turn and see what happens on the next one. Don't end your chapters with a nice little wrap-up or ya know, your character peacefully falling to sleep. Stuff like that halts tension. And when that happens, I generally want to do what that character is doing...set the book down to curl up and take a nap too. Instead, keep your readers begging for more and staying up late to read that next chapter!

Keep in mind you don't want action, tension, action, tension, action, tension and nothing else in your story. Your readers still need scenes that slow down enough to give them a breather too and give them necessary information as well. You have to learn to balance scenes and, for me, that's something that I've only started learning after lots of practice. (But all that plays more into pacing, so I won't really get into that right now.)

Also, because I don't want to leave it out and I love it so much, how about a short note on sexual tension, too? You ever read a book where you're yelling at the love interest to Just Kiss Her Already! Yeah? Me too. But as much as I love it when they finalllllly do kiss...sometimes (most times) the build-up is what is actually better. All the almost kisses, the glances, the "innocent" touches, the flirty dialogue, or the awkward crap I like you and don't want you to know moments are what MAKE that scene when they finally kiss so great! Right?! Well, guess what? It also adds lots of tension in the characters' relationship. It makes the readers root for them and keep reading until that final moment when those two crazy kids finally kiss--or more, depending on how racy you wanna get ;)

Here's a snippet of a scene in my own WiP with some sexual tension. (Uh...keep in mind this is my first draft, so it's not amazazazing! or anything, but I hope it shows what I'm talking about with the tension aspect. This is a scene shortly after the 'love interest' thought my MC might have been dead.)

He stops walking and looks down at me with an intensity in his eyes that makes my pulse throb faster. His words whisper against my skin. “You can’t imagine how glad I am that you’re back.” I lick my lips, tilting my head up. He draws nearer, until I can almost taste his lips on mine. Suddenly I’ve never wanted anything more than to know the flavors of his mouth. The fear of how a kiss might change our friendship is nothing compared to the yearning building inside me.

“I thought—” Declan’s voice breaks as he cups my face, gaze searching. “I thought I lost you.” His lips part, eyes close, and I follow, leaning my body into his.

I can feel his warm breath mingling with my own, his mouth almost on mine, when a scream rips through the moment, tearing us apart. I jerk back. My head whips around. I look [down the corridor] just in time to see a large shape charging at my little sister.

So now that I've written my longest post ever (thanks to everyone that made it through all that), I hope this helps you with knowing how to add that necessary tension to your stories so you can keep your readers screaming for more!

How to Save a WIP: Getting Stuck in a Corner

Last week, Kristi Cook told us how she tends to write herself into a corner. Today, Kathleen Foucart tells how she writes herself out of the corner!

I have tried being a plotter. I buy books on structure, I fill out beat sheets and read copious blog posts on plotting. In my head, these are the tools I will use to write faster first drafts. There’s just one problem: my writing-brain won’t cooperate.

I think part of this is based on the fact that I don’t consciously “pick” my next WIP. My last two projects started from me typing the wrong sentence in another WIP, realizing it didn’t fit there, opening a new document, and having a completely different character & story come pouring out. I’ll know nothing of the plot. All I know of the MC is what happening in that particular sentence that I’m writing. The stories I have a plan for prior to writing tend not to get written.

Now, what I do isn’t entirely “pantsing.” Once I’m in the thick of the book (usually after about 10,000 words) I have a better idea of what’s going on, where I need to take the MC and what their “ever after” will be like. This is also where things start to go wrong-- because I want a pretty draft. Who doesn’t? Who wants to write things they’ll just cut? So I start to plot. And that’s where I stall out.

Let me be clear here: I’m talking about a first draft. I don’t edit recursively (much) because for me that’s a sticky trap of perfectionism that added at least a year to writing my MFA thesis. I might fix a few typos, a name I changed, etc., but generally, IMO, a first draft is for going forward.

So what do I do when attempting to plot stalls out my brain? I write myself into corners. I write total crap. My characters sit around drinking coffee and eating cereal. I once sent characters towel shopping (FWIW I didn’t finish that particular book). I’ll let the characters lie around and talk, or send them into the forest with no idea how they’ll get back out. I realize that to a lot of writers, this sounds insane. Why would I do that to myself?

I’ve finally come to admit that I’m both a pantser and an over-writer. I write huge first drafts because my brain needs connecting scenes, random dialogue, learning how my characters take their coffee or when they get up in the morning. I need to write myself into random corners-- be they boring corners or “oh, crap, how the hell am I going to get them back out of that???” corners. I can edit out those scenes in the next draft (something I’m working on now, actually), but to make the connections my brain needs to create a cohesive story, I have to have them there to start with.

Basically, this quote sums up how I’ve come to view my first-draft process:

“...I discovered that if I trusted my subconscious, or imagination, whatever you want to call it, and if I made the characters as real and honest as I could, then no matter how complex the pattern being woven, my subconscious would find ways to tie it together -- often doing things far more complicated and sophisticated than I could with brute conscious effort. I would have ideas for 'nodes', as I think of them -- story or character details that have lots of potential connections to other such nodes -- and even though I didn't quite understand, I would plunk them in. Two hundred pages later, everything would back-fit, and I'd say, "Ah, that's why I wrote that.” ~ Tad Williams

 
So if you’re a fellow pantser, take heart. Writing yourself into a corner will not necessarily kill your WIP. In fact, it just might save it. Who knows where your imagination will take you if you let it off the leash? It could be to the perfect answer your subconscious has been working on the whole time. (And if not, you can still edit brilliantly!)

Kathleen Foucart is a YA writer on the path to publication. According to last count, she owns 2,460 books in an 1100 square-foot house that she also sharse with her husband and Great Dane. She lives in Southwest Virginia, has an MFA in Children's Literature from Hollins University and went to undergrad at Virginia Tech. You can find her on her blog and on twitter.

The Story Makes Sense Now!!! ....Goodbye Hot Gypsy Boy's Sister Who's a Half-Dragon Viking Princess in Love with a Fire-Breathing Pirate

Last week, Patricia told us the story of the time-traveling viking pirate and the last shape-shifting dragon's daughter. It started out as this simple idea: a young girl’s journey to discover the parents that abandoned her when she was a baby. And then it morphed and escalated into this mess of wibbly wobbly timey-wimey overplotting!  By the end of her story, the whole idea was overcrowded and lost in the unneeded subplots.

So what do you do when you are faced with wibbly wobbly overplotting? You have to unravel it. My plan in this post is to show you how to do that. Hopefully, by the end, you'll be able to tell when you've over-plotted and have an idea on how to figure out the important stuff. This will keep you from doing it again--or at least being aware of it. (Note: This is just my opinion and one approach so it may not work for everyone, but Patricia's one my CPs so we do this all the time!)

HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU'VE OVER-PLOTTED

There are some tell-tale signs that you've over-plotted your WIP.  The biggest way you can tell if you've over plotted: start writing. If you find yourself frequently stuck, due to being overwhelmed by complexity, that's usually a good sign. I mean, if your story looks something like this in your head---How would you even know where to start? Over-plotting 101.

Ways to combat over-plotting:

Talk it out.

This is the most accurate way to tell:  Finding another real-life person to talk to about it is best--because they'll usually tell you when they're lost. Either it will be a glazed over look in their eye, a fidgeting, or a point-blank "I'm so confused" to let you know it's too much. If you don't have a real-life person, you could always record yourself talking about your story. I bet when you're listening to it, you'll be able to see a little more easily that there's too much going on.

Write it out.

Not in story form, just in notes. Grab a piece of notebook paper and write out the story from beginning to end, with a new thing on each line. This will allow you to see the whole story plan and avoid a mess like the one above. Plus, at later suggestions, you can refer to this plot list. You could also use index cards, if you'd rather have those than a single paper. In fact, if you wanna go really crazy---do both. Seeing everything laid out will allow you to re-group things as you start cutting subplot points.  

Draw it out. 
Some people are really artsy (or just like markers!) and if you're one of those people, you can draw out your story. Think flow charts or stick people or cut outs from magazines or lots of really colorful words. It doesn't matter what "draw" means to you. Just make your own chart. Get a really big piece of paper and go to town. if it starts looking like above, then it's too much.

HOW TO FIGURE OUT THE BASIC PLOT

What the character wants and what stands in the way of him/her getting it.
I once saw a tweet, way back when I first started reading agent blogs, that said: Every query would be more successful if it told me who the protagonist is, what she wants and what stands in the way of her getting it.

Since that day, I always think about this exact thing. Before any project is started--and especially when you're trying to figure out the plot of a novel--you must know these three things. Who is the MC? What does the MC want? What stands in her way?

In our example: MC is Girl (we'll call her Sam). Sam wants to find her birth parents and learn why they abandoned her as a baby. So far, so good. But then we get to question three: What stands in her way? Everything! Vikings, pirates, dragons, long-lost cousins five times removed who breath fire and have tea with pirates.

Ridiculous. That's the part you have to fix. Once you know these three basic elements of the story, you can move on to the next one. 

Elevator Pitch. (aka. one sentence)
Ah, this is a term we love to toss around in the publishing industry--and basically speaking (if you don't know) it's a sentence. It's a single sentence that encompasses your book. The theory is you meet someone in elevator and you have only the distance of a few floors to tell them about your book in an intriguing way. This is the elevator pitch--the one single line that is your story. I know, it seems ridiculous that this is an expectation, but the elevator pitch is very important for agents, readers and even, when you're an over-plotter, your story.

How so?

Well, this is the story at its most basic, most simple and intrinsic point in time. So, especially when you've identified the other two steps here, it will continue to give you focus. If the story trails away from this sentence as the "theme" of the story (meaning the overarching and unending motivation of the story) then you will know. But you have to know this sentence.

(Note: Motivation can change within a story. Example: Girl can now want more answers about hot boy's life, but they have to stem from her original motivation (finding her family) and/or add to her overarching story--otherwise, you are telling a different story. Each motivation presented must be supported and reached in some way before moving on to another. *Think of a series, where each motivation is a new book but there's something in common happening in each book. The Hunger Games is a great example of this idea*)

Query letter summary
Okay. This is my favorite. (I'm sick.) A query is basically a simplified version of a book jacket. There are usually no sub-plots mentioned--and if there is then it's only a hint. It's the three things we just talked about, only with more emphasis on the second and third part. it clearly sets the conflict, the goal and the obstacles in two or three paragraphs. Seriously. Go pick a couple of your favorite books and study the book jacket. I'll wait....

Now. Write your own.

This isn't something you'll query---do not do that! But it is something that can guide you. If you already know who the MC is, what she wants and what stands in her way, then it should be no problem to start developing a bigger story. The purpose of this early "query" is to create a structure that will keep you on track. Then, when you're writing later, you can make sure it's all still working together.

I know, this may seem confusing. Write three sentences and then one sentence and then a couple paragraphs? Maybe it's weird, but when you're so bogged down by too much plot you need to get it simple again before you can start to repair and rebuild a story. But you definitely shouldn't do the summary step until you've figured out the main plot, because when you start tossing subplot into the mix it can all get messy. It doesn't mean the salad will taste better just because there are more ingredients,

HOW TO DECIDE WHICH SUBPLOTS ARE BEST

Ah....subplot. How do I guide in this? Well, I'll be honest. No one except you and your story can tell you what subplots to add/get rid of (aside from agent or an editor, but that's a different story.)

How do you choose when they're all so CUTE???

 The best help I can give here is a list of questions to ask yourself and your characters. Hopefully, they'll help eliminate some of the unneeded plot points. 

• Which subplots are moving the story forward? 
• Subplots run parallel to the story. You must be all be working together to get the same place or you'll never get anywhere.
  
• Which subplots are most relevant to the MC and her goal? 
• Which subplots are driven by internal conflict vs external? 
• With my last WIP, I outlined this in blue vs pink index cards. It's good to know what conflicts/subplots are being done to your character and which are being done by your character. Its a random thing, but it's important to know where the story happens more--internal or external--and which element carries varying weights.
  
• Can any of them be deleted/combined/substituted without losing an aspect of the story? 
• Say you have a character who wants to win find a treasure and the MC is in the way. And you have a character who wants to steal the MC's magical aura. And a character who wants to save everyone. Why not combine all these into the same person? Deleting/combining/subsituting scenes or characters or subplots can be all you need to save a WIP. Of course, with something like the example Patricia gave us, it's only the start.
  
• How many subplots do you need?
• This varies with each author and each story. I have a rule of thumb that only lets me plan for three. Why? I'm a pantser (usually) and when I know I need to figure out three subplots, I do. But when you write more and more things can pop up. It's good to have less to start, so if you wanted to take on one or two of these other elements, then you could. But beware, because that's how we get to where we were in the beginning.

HOW NOT TO DO IT AGAIN

1. Be aware it's a problem. Awareness is the first step to recovery. 
2. Find people who will tell you the truth.
3. Read A LOT of books. Craft books, fiction books--any and everything. Take notes. Mark the pages. Sticky note your problem areas. Use the experiences to learn.
4. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you're stuck. People love sharing opinions.

Whew!

Fixing a WIP that's been overplotted is not easy work. It requires sacrifice. But it means the difference between killing a WIP and saving one. Sometimes, like the heroine in our story will learn, it's better to say goodbye to the hot gypsy boy's sister who's a half-dragon Viking princess in love with a fire-breathing pirate...and just search for her parents who abandoned her with a ragtag team of friends on a summer vacation in Europe. Too bad for the hot boy....

Are you an over-plotter? How do you combat this? Have you lost stories to over-plotting?

Please sir, may I have some more (confidence)?

This post is going to involve a lot of pictures and quotes… because I am CONFIDENT that other people have expressed things about confidence way better than I ever could. It also contains a ridiculous amount of ALL CAPS. ;)

I don’t know about you guys but I spend MANY a day doing the exact thing that Cindy talked about here last week. Making excuses that aren’t true (“I don’t really want this anyway”) to help myself feel better about the fact that I’m letting FEAR of the unknown block my path to SUCCESS.

And today I want to talk about two types of confidence: internal confidence and external confidence. Having a healthy dose of both will save not only your writing but pretty much everything you do. Please know that, for me, almost every part of this post falls into the “SO MUCH easier said than done” category. 

INTERNAL CONFIDENCE

Some days you just wake up feeling like it’s not going to be ok. Some days you start out feeling like it’s  all going to go your way, but then you start writing, and the words just aren’t coming and you dissolve into a puddle of “I SUCK AT THIS”.  The only way to battle both of these moods? Internal confidence; you must have confidence in you. 

Whether you believe it or not, THESE are the times you have to look at yourself in a mirror and tell yourself that YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR! That feeling like all the world is little black rainclouds? IT’S A RAINBOW WAITING TO HAPPEN! That feeling like you suck? IT DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT’S TALKING ABOUT. But…? NO BUTS, YOU. ARE. A. ROCKSTAR. 

EXTERNAL CONFIDENCE

Then there are the days when you take your writing out of the cave and into the world. And this type of confidence is a little bit trickier because you need to project that you believe in your ability to succeed without SHOVING your belief in other people’s faces.

Whether you are showing your work to critique partners, querying agents, or sending a new draft to your editor, it is important to make sure they know that you are proud of what you are sending out it into this world. Do you need people to believe you think it is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT? Of course not, and that’s ok because in all likelihood it’s not. But hopefully it is YOUR best and if it is you should be proud and own it! 

So let’s make a pact! To tell ourselves we are AWESOME, to remind each other we are AWESOME, and to show the world just how AWESOME we really are!

Now I want to hear from you! What is the most amazing thing you've done in your writing this week? this month? this year? What is the thing you are BEST at? What do you do to combat anti-confidence attacks?

Hagrid! Alice! Finnick!... Save me!

Happy Valentine's Day! Since one the topics that frequently comes up when talking about WIP problems is flat secondary characters, today I'd like to share some LOVE for everybody's favorite sidekicks and adversaries.

Top of your head....someone says, "Make a list of "great" secondary characters" who do you think of? (You really can make a list. I did.) Here's a few from my list, which includes TV and books.

Hagrid (Harry Potter)
Finnick (Hunger Games)
Bobby (Supernatural)
Alice (Twilight)
Mickey Smith (Doctor Who)
Matt (The Vampire Diaries)
Magnus Bane (Mortal Instruments/Infernal Devices)
Ethel (Downton Abbey)

Each of these characters are very different, but they all serve the same purpose. Let's make a list of what some of those common threads are. (You could even, if you wanted, make an individual list for each character.) I'm only going to use a few here too.

• Bring some sort of conflict to the story 

• Maybe this "conflict" is personal within the character's own arc. Maybe it's in direct opposition of the protagonist. Maybe it's more that it's a past reflection of the protagonist. Perhaps this character knows something that the protagonist doesn't or knows how to get what's needed. Whatever the purpose, a secondary character usually brings conflict. My main thought on this that every character is a person with his or her own wants and desires, and since he/she is a person, he/she is flawed to some degree/has something to offer--be that good or bad.
• Offer support for protagonist
• How does a secondary character add conflict and support? Well, two ways. One, there can be just a character who is conflict (antagonist) and one who is support. BUT even an antagonist needs all these things I'm listing. Plus, whatever is happening, it's happening in support of the protagonist's story line. What does that mean? Well, if I used Voldemort as a great secondary character, he would still fall under all these points I'm listing here. He's clearly the antagonist, but he's adding conflict--which ultimately builds Harry's story. Without Voldemort, we wouldn't care about Harry Potter. Thus, he's offering support for the protagonist.
• Have complexity
• Can you always predict/understand what a secondary character is going to do? Like...take Finnick or Mickey Smith. Can anyone say they new (insert Finnick spoiler here) when he did it in Catching Fire? Or can anyone say they new Mickey was going to show up when he does and do what he does/how he does it? I don't think so. I think our characters should be complex enough to surprise us.
• Have motivation beyond the main character's goals
• Again, this ties into above where he/she is her own person. This can add to the subplots and conflict and push the story in new directions, but I think it all needs to be very clear.
• Have their own story arc
•  This is the most important piece of all this. Every character must have a story arc. If all the things before this point are reached, then the arc builds itself. But if there is no arc for a character, then why does the character exist? What's the purpose? Does he/she need to be in your story? Because if they're not adding anything to move the story along (which is what arc does) then why are they there?

One of penultimate examples in TV. Each one: story arc.

This is not, in any way, all encompassing. And honestly, I know I'm not the only person who talks about this. In fact, check out these three posts about secondary characters: 1) how they add depth to protagonist 2) how they add to a story and 3) 3 questions to ask a secondary character. Characters are something I'm learning more about while I'm watching all the TV and revising a novel.

Characters matter. Everyone from Harry Potter to Voldemort to Bellatrix to Mrs. Norris (the cat). Make sure you're using them effectively.

Did you make a list? Who are some other secondary characters you've come up with? Do they (or the ones that you're writing) follow these "guidelines"? What are some other things that make great secondary characters?

How To Save a WIP and Check In

Hello again! *waves* It's Monday! Here's what we were up to last week and what we want to do this week.

Danielle: Cindy and I were on a writing retreat with some of our other friends. It was awesome and very productive. I kept working on my new WIP and wrote 10k over the weekend. Now, I'll spend the week polishing that some that and working on crits for friends--as well as sleeping. I'm really excited about the work I did and where the story is going!

Cindy: Had the most amazing time at the writing retreat Danielle just mentioned. My goal was to write 6K over the course of the weekend and somehow, miraculously, I was able to actually accomplish that goal. I'm so very excited about this new WIP and after such a great weekend, I'm ready to keep writing.

Christina: So last week I said I wanted to get between 4-8k done and, yeah, I didn't get that much written. I wrote about 3k though. I didn't have the weekend to write because I was so busy, so that's part of why I didn't get as much done. This week, I am gonna try to actually get 4-8k written! (hopefully closer to 8k)

Patricia: This week was a tough one for me, a variety of things kept me from writing (some tangible, some in my head). I did get my outline finished, so not a total loss. Here's hoping that next week is better for my book. :)

This week starts a new segment--6 Ways to Save a WIP. Over the last two weeks, we each shared a struggle, and now we're going to talk about fixing those issues. Check out the issues we'll be addressing.

Confidence |||| Pacing |||| Tension ||||| Writing into a Corner |||| Overplotting ||| Shiny New!

What are you doing this week?