Fear and Writing in California

This week, our blogging topic is All About Me.

I was trying to think about what to tell you guys, and the word fear popped into my head. Fear plays a big part in my writing life. Right now it’s the star of the show.

Last week, I turned in the final book in the UNDER THE NEVER SKY trilogy to my editor. I won’t see the book again for a few weeks, when I get copy edits back. For the first time in three years I find myself with no looming deadline. No pressing story to write. And honestly, guys, I thought it was going to be awesome.

My plans with my newfound freedom were to sleep, spend time with my kids, exercise, read, read, read. I was also very excited to get going on my next series, and while I’ve done most things, I haven’t done that. I can’t because of fear.

See, in my head, New Series is perfect. A balance of adventure, romance, and fantasy. Epic in scope, but deeply personal in its character struggles. It is, essentially, a Platonic Ideal. (Perfectionist much, V?) It’s like when someone tells you about Iron Man 3, and how amazing it is. And OMG it’s so good. Best Iron Man movie yet. You have to see it. And all you’re thinking is, “it’s going to suck.”

I’m doing all of that by myself. Or I should say to myself. Instead of writing this shiny idea, I let it live in my mind, untarnished, sitting right on its pedestal on the mantle.

I have this book called ART & FEAR. Here’s one of my favorite quotes:

“… Fears arise when you look back, and they arise when you look ahead…. Fears rise in those entirely appropriate (and frequently recurring) moments when vision races ahead of execution.”

That’s pretty much me. Vision galloping ahead at mile twenty-six while execution has stopped for some PowerAde and a chat with the marathon spectators at mile two.

I keep calling friends and family and whining about not writing. (Sorry, friends and family.) I'm reading, and spending time with my kids. Relaxing some, definitely, but I am a writer and writers write. The minute I hit send to my editor, my creative appetite was no longer being fed. I want to go. I just can't.

In one of my whiny phone calls, my dear friend Lia told me that a book wouldn’t be worth writing if you weren’t afraid of it. Fear means you care deeply, she said. Fear means it’s the right story. That’s all true. My passion for this story has created the wall that’s in front of me. My intense desire to write it is exactly what’s stopping me from writing it. (Hey, no one ever said I was sane, all right?)

But I know that my will to create is more powerful than my fear of failure. My love of writing is bigger than the flaws I perceive in my ability. I saw Iron Man 3, and it was amazing, and how would I have known that, if I hadn’t given it a chance?

I’ll get past this wall. Soon, I tell myself. Maybe today I’ll set the PowerAde down, and jump in the race. Just thinking about it makes me want to run around the house screaming at the top of my lungs with joy.

So, that’s my ALL ABOUT ME. Fear has a pretty good hold on me right now, but not for long, friends. Not for long.

Have any of you felt this way? I’d love to hear how you deal with it.

My Secret Journal

When I first starting writing, I had one goal in mind:  I wanted to write a book.  A book. The book.  I spent a long time trying to figure out what that book was, pouring years worth of ideas and pieces of me into that one manuscript.  But now that I've written several books I realize that I have more then one story to tell, and more shockingly, more than one way of viewing the world.

My books are not about me, but my stories and characters often tell me what my subconscious is thinking about.  I actually can't think of a better method of self exploration than to create stories, because what ends up on the page is often something I didn't even realize I believed until it showed up. Every once in a while, a line will appear in a manuscript that catches me off guard, something that I can't remember ever consciously thinking about, but something that resonates with me as something I believe wholeheartedly.

Yet another cruel irony in my twisted life.  My weakness is not the killer inside me at all.  It's the girl.- Silver.

 Sometimes these ideas become themes in a story, but more often than not, they're just lines of interior monologue that not only help me to understand and connect with my main character on an emotional level, but that help me to understand a bit about myself.

I cling to the memories while I still have them.  I know too well how good-bye can steal more than just the future.   -Spies and Prejudice  

I've never kept a journal, but for me writing novels is akin to keeping a secret journal- there's a bit of wish fulfillment, a dash of venting, and a liberal dose of angst in everything I write.  Every now and then, something comes out that causes me to step back and take stock of what's important to me. Of course, my "secret" journal is very public, since anyone can read one of my books once they're published.  Still, the key is well hidden, and no one but me knows which parts of the story I personally identify with versus which belong to the characters alone.


The themes I end up writing about are rarely the ones I think I'm writing about when I begin a project.  I thought my current manuscript was going to be about faith, with criticism of both blind faith and lack of faith.  I liked that theme.  It should've fit well with my plot and characters, but my characters had other ideas.  By the time the first draft was completed, I had a story about finding the will to live and self forgiveness.  And while I don't consider myself depressed or someone who dwells on the past, there were questions and answers posed that forced me to question what I did believe made life worth living.  This led to the realization that a big theme in Gold is what it means to live, and more importantly, how death can give life meaning.

Death is what makes life matter.  Perhaps life can only be appreciated because it ends. - Gold


Have I been contemplating the meaning of life?  Whoa.  And, while I don't profess to have "the" answer, I've come to some conclusions about what life (and death) mean to me that I don't think I would have ever come to without my stories.

Is it possible that the answer is so simple? That miracles are about life and nothing else? Or is it that life's the miracle, and we just need to be reminded of it every once in a while? - untitled manuscript

As my characters face life and death situations, love, betrayal, heartache, happiness, or anything in between, I'm forced to confront their feelings, and in turn, my own.  Do I agree with this character's view of the world?  Sometimes yes, and sometimes no, but I love that I learn new things about myself in the process.  

My Luckiest Charms (from the Archive)

Originally Posted by Katherine Longshore on 3/13/2012

When I think of lucky charms, I think of all the things athletes and actors and others do to bring them the best luck possible.  Lucky underwear.  Not saying the name of the Scottish Play (which I still have a hard time saying out loud, despite the 11 years since I last set foot on a stage).  Touching the ceiling of the car when driving over railroad tracks.  A rabbit’s foot.  The four-leafed clover.

Interesting aside – my grandmother could find a four-leafed clover without even looking.  She had a gift.  You would be walking somewhere with her – say, down the sidewalk in her Pikesville neighborhood – and she’d stop, bend over, and hand you a four-leafed clover. The only ones I’ve ever held were found by her.

Now, I don’t have much I keep around me for luck, but I do have a few things that help me remember how lucky I am.

Several years ago – before I even began writing GILT – I took a trip to England with my family.  My husband is English and both of my kids were born there, so we try to return as often as we can.  On this particular trip, my kids were both still quite young.  We gave them each a sum of money to spend on mementoes – t-shirts, toys, pencils, what-have-you.  And in the Tower of London gift shop, my oldest bought a little statue of Henry VIII.  I’d been reading about him for years and probably talking too much about him on the trip – through Windsor, Winchester Cathedral, Portsmouth.  So I was delighted that some of my interest had rubbed off.  But when we got home, he handed me the little statue and said, “This is for you, mum.”  Henry has watched me write ever since.

After GILT sold, I wanted to treat myself to something special to commemorate it.  In fact, I think Donna may have suggested it, clever girl that she is.  So I searched the interwebs and found a pretty little pendant with Catherine Howard’s emblem on it – the crowned rose.  Of course, historians have discounted that it was her emblem specifically.  It could have been a Tudor symbol and evidence points to Catherine not having enough time as Queen to have her own emblem.  But I chose it anyway.

I often wear this necklace to conferences and events.  I like the feel of it around my neck. And I love to talk about it when people ask.

The pendant is actually a locket.  And inside it, I keep photos of my two luckiest charms. 

Summer - All About Me (from the Archive)

Originally Posted by Donna Cooner on 2/20/2011

I'm currently in the midst of rough drafting. It's the part of the writing process that is at the same time exhilarating, yet completely overwhelming. The idea of creating something where nothing existed before keeps me frozen with hands perched over a keyboard... waiting ... to create a scene or characters that no one but my own mind has ever seen. Yet hopefully, when someone does read what I have created on that blank page, the reader is able to see it, too. Perhaps the reader will create an image in her own mind that is even clearer, more connected to her own reality, than what I imagined in the first place.

Thinking about all that can be daunting, and the pressure to get it right certainly doesn't help the creative juices flow freely. So rough draft writing requires quite a bit of mind games on my part to support the process. One of my favorite ways to convert the blank page into a novel is through journaling. There is something a little bit comforting about giving yourself permission to fill up an empty page with ANYTHING you want to write about a scene or a character. It doesn't have to be the "real" story, although I have discovered it often turns out to find a place somewhere. I start by thinking of a scene or a specific character and I just write. I try to keep typing even when I don't know what's next. Sometimes I even write, "I don't know what the next line is supposed to be" just to keep me going.

Today's journal was going to be about the weather. Or at least that's what it started out to be about. I wanted a scene where the weather had a part in the action, so that's where I began. I grew up on the gulf coast of Texas and had rarely seen snow before moving here to Colorado, so the below zero temperatures this winter have turned my thoughts to warmer, sunnier times. Below is a snippet of a journal entry about weather that, as so often happens, turned into something else entirely. Maybe something of this will become part of a bigger story someday, or maybe not, but it was a wonderful memory for a Colorado February.

Summer sounded like the ball park. I loved the sound of a softball whacking into a glove with a loud pop. The louder the pop the better. I was the catcher in the fast pitch league. My father, the coach, had taught me long ago not to flinch when the ball hurtled through the air so fast you could hardly see it slap into the glove with a resounding pop.

"Get in front of it," he would yell, "Don't let it get past you."

I remember the sound of the crowd and the announcer calling out that someone had just earned a free snowcone if they would just return that foul ball to the concession stand.

And I remember the sound of my Dad's voice, I could pick it out of all the others, yelling, "They're going to steal second."

My dad was a real coach. Not the part time, summer special kind of coach with a regular job at the bank. No, my dad was a real coach. He coached football in the fall and basketball in the spring at Lake Jackson Junior High school and ever since I could remember boys had been showing up at our front door with a tentative reverent knock to see if my father could come out to play.

Summer also sounded like the ocean. When the heat became more that we could bare, and the bottoms of our brown bare feet had blisters on them from dancing across scalding sidewalks, the family would pile into the old car and head for the beach. After only a few blocks, we would burst out of the green tangle that was Lake Jackson and onto the salt grass plains of the Gulf Coast. Passing the huge smoke belching Dow Chemical plant on the right, we would take the overpass out to Surfside. As we got closer and closer to the intercoastal, I could feel the pull. The salt air swept in the open windows and something inside me moved higher. It's hard to explain how I felt, still feel, about the ocean. I always understood why people said they were "called" away to the ocean. It was like that for me. I would crane my neck from the backseat of the old Ford, for the first glimpse of blue from the top of the intercoastal bridge and then, when I saw it stretched out below, I would breathe again, deep gasps of salt air, never realizing I had been holding my breath until just that moment. It was like coming home.

But it was the sound I missed most - that glorious, roarious sound of the sea. First out of the car, I would run to the water's edge and stand arms outstretched like the seagulls above me and drown in the wonderful roar of the water. I couldn't hear anything else. I didn't want to hear anything else. Sometimes I could almost hear the sound of a mother calling to her child, or a man to his dog, but it was so close to the sound of the seagulls that it didn't matter. You didn't have to answer anyone. They all knew you couldn't hear them calling to you.

The ocean drowned it all out.

Tensiontrons & Quasicrystals (from the Archives)

Originally Posted by Bret Ballou on 7/20/2012

Well, the Nobel Prize committee has snubbed me once again, denying me my award for both the DNA of a beginning and of an ending. But I’m not bitter. Nope. Not-at-all. Obliviously, the discovery of quasicrystals was more important than my identification of what makes a good story tick. I mean, look how many people use quasicrystals as compared to how many read or write novels.

Anyhow, a good scientist does not dwell. No, he does not. Especially not about something as important as quasicrystals. A good scientist moves on and keeps sciencethising (yes, I just discovered that word – I’m that good of a scientist – eat your heart out, Dan Shechtman and your quasicrystals). And I’m here to report my latest findings.

I decided to look even smaller than the “-ines” (Care-ine,  Voice-ine, Theme-ine, and Hook-ine) which are all present in books. I wanted to examine what, if any, particles comprised these “-ines”, like certain atoms form the building blocks for organic DNA.

I poured over the best books, picking apart their narrative structures and super-colliding their “-ines” (a very expensive endeavor). Sure enough, I found one of these more basic building blocks: A tensiontron.

A tensiontron, in the most layman of terms, is the particle which makes a reader want to know what happens next. Add in enough of them and a reader will have to know. Pump it all the way and they’ll bedying to know. At the max, a reader cannot sleep, eat, or perform basic functions until they’ve finished reading.

As some of the other Muses and commenters pointed out this week (in not as scientific terms), tensiontrons exist in a wide variety of formats: Emotional, Physical, Sexual, etc. They seem to coexist – even thrive – when in combination with many variations.

Interestingly, tensiontrons dictate much more than just story content. They govern grammar and sentence structure. Many times, I found shorter, punchier sentences as the number of tensiontrons increased. At times, grammar was the first to decay with an abundance of them, allowing for fragments and run-ons alike.

Please, use caution when experimenting with tensiontrons yourself. In order for them to create a proper “-ine”, they must be added in manageable doses. Shooting too many into a story at once becomes jarring for the reader and they’ll toss the book out the window.

I apologize if you’re struggling with my scientific jargon. Let’s work through a simple example together.

Shelby Snarfenburger was in Savannah on a hot summer day.

This statement has no tensiontrons, so let’s add a few, but not too many at once.

Shelby would’ve killed for a soda. Any soda. Diet or full-carb.

Now, there’s a definite charge to the story, but why stop there?  

As it happened, Danny walked by with a whole ice chest full of refreshing sodas. Tons of dietand full-carb.

More. More.

“Hey,” said Shelby, wiping sweat out of her eyes. “Gimme one of them sodas.”

“Sure thing.” Danny grinned as he passed by. “For five bucks.”

              Don’t stop now, but also don’t forget that you can add more than one variety at a time. Let’s spice this sucker up with some Emotional tensiontrons too.

“Ya stinker. I just lost my job,” Shelby hobbled after Danny, the effort making her thirst that much worse. “I don’t got stinking five bucks.”

That’s the ticket.

“Ain’t my problem.” Danny shrugged and left Shelby in the dust.

Shelby didn’t watch him go. Instead, she rubbed her head and mumbled to herself.

“Can’t a gal just catch one little break? Just one – stupid – drink. I worked so fricken hard and I can’t get one fricken sip?!”

Now, let’s jack the tensiontrons all the way – light the sucker up like the 4^th of July.

Danny, whistling a little tune to himself, crossed the street, completely oblivious to Shelby who’d just reached into her purse.

“All I wanted was just – one – stupid – drink.”

The Compact semi-automatic Smith & Wesson .45 ACP Chief's Special glinted in the blistering Carolina sun.

Whooo-wee. Now, I know it’s not the best writing in the world, but enough to demonstrate the power of tensiontrons.

Take that, quasicrystals. If this discovery doesn’t win me next year’s prize, nothing will.

Ratcheting up the Tension in your Manuscript

When I draft a novel, I have a tendency to let my characters hang out. Maybe it’s just authorly wish-fulfilment, but I really want to be somewhere safe and comfortable, listening to Roar tell stories, smiling as Aria and Perry do something adorable. Sigh. Anyway, because of this subconscious desire, my first drafts are full of what my dear friend calls low temperature scenes.

A low temperature scene has little tension, and lacks stakes—emotional or physical. In a nutshell, it's not compelling. My job in revisions is to identify these scenes and add sources of conflict. Basically, I have to break up the party and bring the pain.

You want to feel like you're reading a book with this guy staring you down.
Tense, right? Or is that just me? It is? Nevermind.

I don’t have a real science for spiking the temperature to a fevery pitch in my scenes. Sometimes, the problem is a global issue. I might need to rethink the entire central problem, the foundation of the book, which then allows me to lift every scene’s temp to where it needs to be.

Many times, I find the problem is that I’m making my characters reactive. The plot happens to them, instead of them being the masters of their own story. This tendency spreads boredom and flatness through a manuscript like a plague. Characters who take charge (or even attempt to take charge) energize a story. Think of the people in your life who are active and involved. They didn’t start that business, run that marathon, travel to Fiji, by sitting around, did they? And how can high-impact stakes exist for characters who aren't striving and wanting?

What’s the solution to this problem? Goals. Characters need goals for each and every scene. The hang out party with my characters mentioned above? It would improve right away if I were trying to get Roar to tell a specific story. Character goals are a story’s turbo boosters. Use ‘em.

The above are macro changes, but tension and conflict should exist on the micro-level, too. This is an example of me revising:

• Are my characters agreeing too much in this scene?
• Why the heck are they agreeing? This is fiction!
• Are they facing a problem?
• Darn it, I need a better problem. What can they wrestle with here?
• Is there a sense of pace, of time chipping away, on each page?
• What-Why—Dangit! Why isn’t there a sense of urgency in this scene?

And so on and so forth.

So that’s me. How do you add tension and conflict to your stories? What are your secrets?

JUST ADD CONFLICT

One of the primary elements in every great story is conflict.  More often than not, when I struggle to figure out why a scene or a chapter isn’t working, it usually comes down to conflict, or more accurately, lack thereof.   Without a conflict, a scene can read as boring, slow, or just plain pointless.   Even a subtle infusion of conflict can rescue an otherwise flat scene from the cutting room floor.

The online- Merriam-Webster Dictionary has three definitions of Conflict all of which apply to storytelling.

The third definition is the general definition of conflict as it applies to storytelling, so I’m going to take it out of order.

Definition 3: the opposition of persons or forces that gives rise to the dramatic action in a drama or fiction.

Opposition! Dramatic action!  All things we want to infuse in our fiction, right?  But how?  That’s where the more traditional definitions can guide us.

Definition 1: fight, battle, war

This definition is the literal application of conflict, reduced to its simplest form: an actual battle, physical fight or climactic showdown.  Battle scenes are conflict personified, full of action and opposition at every turn.  But not every scene in a 300 page novel can or should be a fight scene.  If we want to infuse every scene and chapter with conflict (and we do!), we need to delve beyond the physical manifestations of conflict into deeper territory.

Definition 2 a : competitive or opposing action of incompatibles : antagonistic state or action (as of divergent ideas, interests, or persons)

Now we are moving into more subtle territory.  Conflict can arise from differing ideas, interests or characters who oppose each other.  Opposing ideas can provide tension without devolving into a physical battle.  It is enough that the characters want something different, believe something different, or must compete for something they both want.  This type of conflict appears in novels in the form of opposing forces or ideas that directly conflict with the protagonist’s ideas or goals.  

Our protagonist’s path is paved with obstacles which must be confronted, and possibly overcome.  I say, "possibly," because obstacles that are easily overcome are not much better than no conflict at all.  Tension doesn’t come from obstacles alone- it comes from doubt.  If the reader doubts the outcome, they become invested in finding out how things turn out.  If every obstacle is easily and obviously defeated, there is no real conflict.      

            

"Opposing forces" conflict can arise when characters want different things, but one character can’t have what she wants without compromising what the opposing character wants.  Or the characters want the same thing, but only one can have it.  Or the characters have opposing ideas about how to get something they both want.  Or the characters want the same thing, but have opposing reasons for wanting it.  

Opposing forces do not necessarily come from other characters. The government, poverty, weather, wars, illness, and death are just some example of opposing forces that characters must deal with on their way to their story goal.

Although the definition calls this type of conflict “antagonistic,” you should not assume that this type of conflict is limited to conflicts between the protagonist and the antagonist.  Conflicts should exist in every scene, and so there must be conflicts between allies and supporters, as well as with the primary antagonist of the story.  That’s not to say that allies must always oppose the main character’s ideas or goals, but supporting characters are more interesting when they sometimes do, particularly if they have a good reason for doing so.   The conflict between allies can be more limited and subtle than the primary story conflict.  Sometimes it’s as simple as an ally supporting the primary goal, but disputing the protagonist’s chosen method for accomplishing it.  The characters could disagree over the reasons for taking a particular course of action, or they could just each need something different.  These sub-conflicts can influence the choices the characters make with respect to the primary conflict, and enrich your story on a deeper level.  
 

Definition 2 b : mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes, or external or internal demands.

This is the most subtle, and I think the hardest kind of conflict to nail. I don’t usually have a problem with boring fight scenes or scenes where the characters have diametrically opposing views or ideas.  But what about quieter scenes between lovers, friends or allies, where the characters want or are working toward the same thing?  Or how about scenes where the character alone must make a decision or take some action. Where does conflict come into play?  

The clue is in the definition- “the mental struggle.”  This type of conflict stems not necessarily from opposing characters or forces battling the character (although it certainly can be informed by those things) but comes from opposing needs and desires within the character.  This kind of conflict manifests itself where a character must choose between competing needs and desires or competing demands on the character.  And, this kind of conflict is often the most gripping in a story, because it usually involves a moral or emotional choice.

Imagine a character falls in madly in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.  There is conflict inherent in the character’s competing desires- the love for the girl and the love for his best friend.  He can’t have one without sacrificing the other.  Neither the girl or the friend may be aware of the situation, so the conflict doesn't come from others.  Still there is conflict built right into this type of scenario, and I’m willing to bet it will play out with tension in every scene.  The character can’t interact with his best friend without feeling conflicted about his feelings for the girl.  And, he can’t interact with the girl, without feeling like he’s betraying his friend. Every choice the character makes will be informed by the conflict between his competing desires.

Everyone can relate to having competing desires or demands on our time.  Conflicting demands and desires lead to hard choices.  Hard choices mean sacrifices, big or small.  Sacrifices have repercussions.  And repercussions lead to more conflict.  Are you detecting a theme here?

The bottom line is that a scene without conflict is just not as interesting as a scene where something is at stake for the characters.  If you want the reader to be invested in the scene, than the character has to be invested in the scene; i.e. the outcome has to matter.  If you can keep the reader in doubt as to how the scene will be resolved, and make the outcome matter?  That's the definition of a page turner.