Fiction Writing: Create Flow through Outline and Initiate Helpful Editing

I finished my daily NaNoWriMo word count today and wanted to veer off that topic for my next blog post. I’m sure after the first few weeks those who chose not to participate are ready to hear about something other than reaching a word count.

This is the third installment of my Fiction Writing Series here and here.

The first one spoke to plot and how to gain enough content for a full novel. The second one provided content on character development and good ways to know and understand them before you start.

For this one I have given two final preparations before you start the novel. These will help your story fly and soar to the finish.

Step Three:

Outline and Edit

Yeah, these two are a strange grouping. Outline comes at the beginning and editing at the end. So why place them together? Well, I consider them both a necessary preparation of a novel.

The Outline

Unless you are a discovery writer (writing until you “discover” an idea and then build your story from there,) you will write an outline.

Answer this question:

How much information do I need to write a complete story?

The beginning, middle, and end are easy place cards to initiate an outline, or main plot, arc, and climax are another option. The outlines most important section is the ending. If you can identify the end then the body and the beginning lead there. Successful books wrap up the plot and sub-plots, especially successful first novels. Established authors can change that up.

After the ending is decided, then look to the conflict. Each scene needs conflict, which is why an antagonist is important to a story. Without conflict readers begin to drift from the book. Something needs to happen and not the same thing over and over. I once read a book where the protagonist went for a run every single day as the important scene and the small amount of conflict came off as repetitive instead of intriguing.

The amount of information in your outline depends on the type of novel you write. A story with many characters, sub-plots, and dramatic conclusions need more detail, yet books with wiggle room for creative development during the writing can have a lot less in the outline.

For me, I write about 12 bullet points and fill in the basic pieces I want to include in the story. As I write I pull from it and expand it as I go. It has worked for me so far.

Editing

Arm yourself with the editing knowledge. My list mostly gives things to avoid.

Editing list:

Avoid “to be verbs”: they are linking verbs that can be replaced with action verbs
- Be, am, is, are, was, were, been, has, have, had, do, did, does, can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must
Avoid adverbs: they are usually telling words instead of showing words
Avoid too many adjectives: one before every word it becomes too much
Avoid common words:
- Beautiful, pretty, really, seriously, literally
Avoid too many metaphors and similes
Avoid redundancies: especially common phrases like sit down, stand up, turn around, etc.
Replace wordy sentences with action or stronger words
Avoid too many propositions
Avoid present participles
Avoid dangling present participles
Make sure your paragraphs and sentences have first word variance
Switch up paragraph and sentence lengths
Have every scene contain a beginning, middle and end
Avoid too much back-story and flashbacks
Avoid large amounts of description of your characters: you should show it instead of telling it
Avoid clichés

First drafts are much cleaner when you apply editing techniques as you write. Some writers like to type their thoughts down without any restrictions for their first draft, and if you don’t mind re-writing almost every sentence of an 80K – 120K word novel, then go for it.

For me, I want to focus on consistency of plot, characters, and structure instead of a ton of re-writing. For my NaNo novel, I’ve attempted to write cleaner. It takes a little longer, but I know the editing will take less time. I’m happy with the trade-off.

With all the prep in place it’s easier to get started and keep on your way to the end.

How do you like to prepare for a novel? A lot of outlines? No outline? Something in-between?

I would love to discuss with you about this and I love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading my blog.
A.G. Zalens

NaNoWriMo: On Track to Meet the Word Count

This month is like the bunny hop, pour coffee, write a few hundred words, complete chores, write some more, run some errands, finish the writing goal, and rest until the next day.

For NaNoWriMo my goal is to write and integrate editing techniques.

Such as these 5 Worthy Tips for Effective Editing. For my recent novel I poured words into my document without any real consistency. Once finished I moved on to edit. Luckily, I took the time to read books and articles before beginning. The only thing that saved me was that I thought to incorporate these two preparations: Fiction Writing: Prepare Before You Start and Fiction Writing: Top Character Creation.

After I edited my novel a third of the way through, I decided to change from present tense to past tense. The reason came from many examples, which showed how past tense moved the sentence along faster than present tense. Even though it’s a young adult/new adult novel I decided I liked the past tense style better.

This set me way back in my editing. I started the edit over and re-wrote just about every sentence. My biggest disappointment was that I waited until I finished to research editing for fiction.

I hope I learned my lesson. So far the prequel I’m writing incorporates what I’ve learned. It takes me a little longer to write. I think of a sentence, and then rewrite it in my head before I type it out. However, I expect this will save me a lot of time and effort when I start my edits.

I’m excited that I’ve kept pace with the suggested 1,667 words a day. Day five and I have 8,579 words written. Several of those days have been hard. I only wrote a little all day and barely finished before I went to bed. However, I think of this Winning Strategy to Beat Editing Blues and now I’m getting into a groove of finishing before noon.

The choice to write the prequel has helped a lot. I’m filling in scenes mentioned in my novel. It’s working out beautifully. I have subplots and fun characters. The twitter account @NaNoWordSprints has also been a huge support in this endeavor. Their prompts and time frames give me that pressure I need to speed up my writing.

I expect to keep up my productivity until month’s end.

Have you found any techniques that help you write? Let me know about your thoughts! I’d love to hear any NaNoWriMo stories, or any writing challenges you have experienced.Thanks for visiting A.G. Zalen’s blog.

Fiction Writing: Top Character Creation

This is the second installment in my Fiction Writing Series and it’s all about characters.

“He’s such a character.” A phrase people say to endear a quirky action by someone they like, and a wonderful way to understand what to include in our fictional characters. Readers need those attributes to inspire a fondness for the overall story, like the ugly duckling who turns into a swan. Many times when a reader anticipates the next scene he or she will skip the description and move to the dialog. The setting can wait while we find out what happens to the character.

Step Two:

Swan Character Development

A book reviewer, who references the fictional character as if he or she is a real person, gives the biggest complement to an author. The author made the writing decisions, but the reader attributes those decisions to the character, and it shows how well-developed they are.

As writers we should look to other authors as motivation for those times the writing gets hard. We need to remember they are normal people just like us who struggled with their writing as well. I like to read or watch author interviews as a reminder and it seems to help me move forward with more confidence.

Reading is another great way to see what works in a character and why people love or hate them enough to recommend the book to other people.

Answer this question first:

What are your characters?

In most cases the answer is human, but there are other choices in fiction writing.

Human
Witch/Wizard
Mythological character
Werewolf
Space alien
Vampire
New unique creature

Once you decide it becomes easier to decide their characteristics. For the non-human characters develop a list of characteristics that differ from humans. Their speech patterns, the way they walk, their interactions, and anything else you can think of to make them real.

Next, answer this question:

Who are they?

Each character will be identified by their everyday lives. An interesting plot puts some disruption into their normal routine and takes them forward into the story. Decide what each character does. Are they in school, or police officers, thieves, painters, ranchers, businessmen, fire fighters, serial killers, or any other profession you can image?

Once you know what they do every day it’s easier to keep track of their interactions with others, their speech patterns, and for world building.

Then, answer this question:

Where do they come from?

A wealthy character will react differently than an orphan. Someone who just went through a loss acts different from someone with no major losses. Every unique culture has differentiating opinions, taboos, norms, and motivations. The knowledge of a character’s background gives a writer what they need to make big decisions in a story.

Not every character needs a ton of details, but the main characters need that extra development. Also, when you have uncertainty about the actions or dialog you can go back to the background to make those choices.

Finally, answer this question:

What are the specifics?

This is where you decide the gender and names of your characters. With gender you have two options. However, the name choices are extensive. The internet and resource books make it a lot easier. You can go to baby name websites and search for definitions, first letters, nationality, or other criteria that will help you decide.

The one rule to remember in choosing a name: unique names are more difficult for readers to keep track of and remember. The more common or short the name the more likely the reader can relate to them and recall it when they review the book or tell friends about it.

In order to decide how your character will react in many situations you could fill out personality quizzes and answer the questions as your characters. Tons of websites offer quizzes from Facebook to teen magazines. Other avenues for questions are media interviews, Reddit’s AMA (ask me anything) with celebrities, or twitter ask hash tags. Just take the questions and answer from your character’s perspective.

Of course, the best way to develop a character is to incorporate personality traits from people you know. The exact replica isn’t necessary, but if you know how someone will react in life then you can decide how your character will respond in your story.

What are the best ways to develop interesting characters? Is it important to know about the character before you begin writing? How do you tackle this process?

I would love to discuss with you about this and I love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading my blog.
A.G. Zalens