What’s that? I can’t hear your story; too much filtering.

What is filtering? I consider it a form of ‘telling’; when you tell the reader what the character saw. It’s most prevalent in first and tight third person P.O.V’s and a very common mistake among new writers.

Example:

She saw the bird fly past and watched as it landed in a nearby tree.

Take out the filtering and you have this:

The bird flew past and landed in a nearby tree.

The reason it’s annoying is because the reader is already immersed in the character’s POV, and stating that said character is ‘looking’ or ‘hearing’ or what have you, is pointing out the obvious. We now she saw the bird and would watch it, because we’re it’s already established that we’re seeing the world through the character’s eyes.

The first time this was pointed out to me, I was stunned. I’d never heard of it before, and I’d been writing this way for a while. For my critique partner to tell me that I was filtering was new and very unexpected.  More importantly, why had no one else mentioned this to me before? I felt so stupid. Here I was, beating readers over the head with obvious prose.  I try to watch it now, but I’m sure some slip by. *NOTE* Must tell beta to be on the lookout for future filtering*

Something else about removing this process from your work; it tightens up the prose nicely. It allows for a better description of what is going on.

Example:

With but a whisper of sound, the bird flew past and landed in a nearby tree; its colourful feathers a stark contrast to the green of the leaves.

One of the biggest and most often problems new writers have is a large word count. If you’re attempting Trad. Publishing, and have a high word count, you might want to go through your manuscript and check for filtering. Omitting the obvious could help you out.

Here are some other links with more examples.

http://callejbrookes.webs.com/apps/blog/entries/show/8829356-filtering-in-fiction

http://writerleigh.blogspot.ca/2009/12/filtering.html

What about you? Did you filter? What was your reaction when someone told you? 

Friday Writing Update

Friday Writing Update

Three weeks after my surgery and I’m finally getting back into writing blog posts again. I did a bit in the days/weeks afterward, but I just didn’t couldn’t get into the feel of it. No motivation at all. I haven’t felt like that in years.

 

The Watchtower Series: Sympathy for the Demon (book four)

I sent the MS to my editor. I’m still on schedule for a May release. I must drive her nuts. She’s American (I’m Canadian, btw), and she email me this morning and asked if I wanted the American wording of certain words or Canadian, as I’ll use both. Whoops. Sorry Karen.

 

Omens and Portends (book five)

I have one chapter written so far and I’ll start working on this again come Monday.

 

The Saints of Belvedere Road (Side novel)

I’ve gone through the first five chapters, and so far, there’s not much that has to be revised. I’ve gone through this novel I don’t know how many times, that I hope I’ll remember to add in where it needs to connect it to The Watchtower series.

 

Scifi Series: The Carriers

A slight boo-boo with this. I stated one character’s name at the beginning of the story was Marcus, but then, somehow, I changed it to Alan. Not good. Anyway, easily fixed. There’s supposed to be two adult male characters so I’ll just make them brothers.

 

Steampunk Series: Gutterchilde

I re-wrote the first chapter of this story. I took out the rape scene, and killed off a character. The character death was something I didn’t expect, but as I was going through the revised outline, I realized I would have two characters doing the same thing. Can’t have that. I’ve also introduced both romantic leads in this chapter, and the paranormal element as well. It’s a big chapter.

 

Erotic Romance Series: The Possession of Mercy Moreau

Re-wrote the first chapter of this story as well. I put the MC in more of a dire circumstance that forces her to take the job in the mansion. I’m still unsure about the haunting; whether the spirit should be Victorian era or not.

 

So how is your writing coming along? Anything interesting pop out at you this week?

 

15 Cliché Character (And How to Un-Cliché Them) Pt. 2

You remember the article I found while I was cleaning out the Writing file for my emails.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-stock-characters-and-how-to-restock-them/

Several weeks ago I took a look at the first seven, then came down with an appendicitis which is why I’m finally getting to the rest.

~~~~~

8. Hooker with a heart of gold: The article calls this a stale stereotype. I mean, what’s the first story that pops into your head when you hear this? PRETTY WOMAN. Yeah, me too. It almost feels like an oxymoron; call girls or a high class escort are one thing, but how many hookers do you hear about who do things from the kindness of their heart? Maybe if something traumatic happened to her, something that made her realize the bad choices she made.     

9. Knight-errant: These goodie-goodies might not be prominent in literature, but for good reason. The knight in shining armour, with his perfection is not a realistic character, unless you’re writing a historical romance, but even then, what drives him to be so charming? Is there a darker side? A good question to ask is; what would happen if this character failed in his quest?  

10. Manic pixie dream girl: This character drives me nuts. Honestly, I don’t like them. Perhaps because I don’t see them as a relevant character. How to un-cliché this? Perhaps, give the character a darker side; something that would contradict what others would see. A Jeckle/Hyde type thing.  

11. Nerd: With today’s more sophisticated readers, a nerd is no longer considered the social outcast it was say, ten or twenty years ago. As a matter of fact, I’d say the word ‘nerd’ is outdated  as just about all main characters have to be smart, or at least very knowledgeable about in his or her chosen profession, to make the story believable. So what can we do to fix this? Is there something about him that makes him unlikeable? Arrogant? Maybe he’s not as smart as people think he is, or he’s pretending to be something he’s not. This could get the character in all sorts of trouble. 

12. Sidekick: Seriously? A side-kick? Why is it every time I hear this word I think Superhero? Do people even write novels with a side-kick? Traditionally, the side-kick was the Hero’s right hand, but what if he wasn’t? What if he had an agenda all his own? Perhaps something that went against what the Hero was trying to do? I’m not talking Antagonist, but helping out the Hero for his own good and not for the overall cause. 

13. Tomboy:  Ah yes, the girl-next-door-who’s-more-of-a-jock-than-the-jock character. Changing her into the beautiful girl next door is boring, but then conformity is rarely exciting. I have to agree with the article and say maybe it’s a good thing to be stronger or just as athletic as the guys. Why is that so wrong? Why is that something that has to be changed? Maybe explore her reasons for not wanting to conform. There might be a hidden idea there.     

14. Tortured artist: Where does it say that one must suffer for their art? What handbook is that written in? Seriously, how can you write or paint or create anything if you’re starving? The idea that one must suffer to understand or delve more deeply into their creative side, to me, is bullshit. What would happen if the artist had success easily? What would his/her life be like then?    

15. Wise man: All fantasy stories have one of these; the elder of the clan who is revered for their years of knowledge about life and other things that are important to the story.  Many stories need this character to help our Hero determine just what he should or shouldn’t do, but I’m wondering if we need him anymore? How can you un-cliché this trope when his whole purpose is to help the Hero? You can’t even have him deceive the Hero, because that is also cliché. Sorry, I’m stuck on this one? Any suggestions?

So, what do you think about all these cliché characters?

15 Cliché Character (And How to Un-Cliché Them)

I found this article while I was cleaning out the Writing file for my emails.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-stock-characters-and-how-to-restock-them/

Go ahead, I’ll give you a few moments to scan the post over.

*waiting,waiting,waiting*

Read it? Good.

There are fifteen, but I’m not doing them all today. Just the first seven.

The one thing that struck me with this article was just how encompassing it was, but apart from a few ideas, it didn’t really expand on good ideas as to how to re-create them. Not the writer’s fault. Probably had a word limit. So let’s do it here.

1. Antihero: We’ve all seen these. Books are full of these characters now, because we’re told no one wants a ‘real’ hero anymore. I think making your antihero more hero-like;  showing that he wants to make a difference, maybe allowing him to show he cares in a round-about way, could breathe new life into this character.

2. Absent-minded professor: I never understood these characters. In order to be a professor, I would think you’d need your wits about you, especially if you’re character is dealing with volatile chemicals or situations.  Being absent-minded raises doubt not only about his competence (and if you need a professor, you need a competent one), but about the realistic sense altogether. The blog post suggests this trait should be as part of a deception, but that’s just as predictable. Why not have him with odd quirks instead. Perhaps something over-the-top when it comes to clothing or character trait. I think this would make him more appealing to readers, and more fun to read.

3. Boy/girl next door: I think this character type is the only kind you can use as a front for something more devious. The Norman Bates, as it were. Other than that, I agree with the original post and relegate it to a secondary character.

4. Clown/fool: I’m not too sure about this type of character. I would think the constant joking would get on my nerves. You would have to show a deeper side of this character to counter act the joking.

5. Damsel in distress: I agree with the original post, but I’ll add this–let’s just get rid of this stock character all together. No one wants to read about some poor, weak woman who needs a man to come rescue her. Put some balls on your female characters, fer cryin’ out loud!

6. Everyman: I think everyone has written at least one of these characters. I’m pretty sure I have. Like the original article states, make sure the character possesses enough distinguishing characteristics to be interesting, even intriguing, but I wonder, if you add these traits, does it then change your character from an Everyman to something else? Would you lose the appeal?

7. Femme fatale: The exact opposite of #5, I think showing a softer side, something that makes her look less dangerous than she is, would add depth to this character. Give her a heart, but make sure she keeps her softer side in check. Strength often has nothing to do with muscle.

Next week, the last eight!

My Kingdom for a Thesaurus!

How many of you have screamed this after reading a book written by an author with a less than stellar grasp on their vocabulary? I’ve heard a few readers say they’d like to beat the authors of these books over the head with a thesaurus. That conjures an interesting mental image, isn’t it?

One thing that permeates the self-publish world is authors who use the same word throughout their novel. Some call it ‘crutch words’, and every writer falls prey to this at one time or another. I do, but only in the first draft and revisions take care of it. No, I’m not picking on self-published writers, it’s just many of them either don’t have the money for a copyeditor to point these things out, or they’re in such a rush to make those millions of dollars that they don’t bother.

A writer’s job is to portray a story through the use of words, but how we use those words is a strong indication of our ability to craft a an interesting plot. This isn’t word-building where you use descriptions to paint a picture of a scene, but rather (I find) the action words that give characters a more life-like and real appearance.  For each action, there are several different words. Everyone is looking in my stories (no, not filtering. That’s another blog post); he looked at her, or she looked at him. Look, look, look, look, look. The word has now lost all meaning to me and probably to you too, so let’s get rid of it.

Bring in the all-mighty THESAURUS!

http://thesaurus.com/

Writers, meet your new best friend, the thesaurus. While most writing programs have one built in, but sometimes we need to stretch our vocabulary even farther. Unique words are good, but don’t make them so unusual that the reader has to go online to look up their meaning. I’ve found a couple sites that are wonderful for finding new words

http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.ca/ and  http://www.dailywritingtips.com/

The Bookshelf Muse is full of useful links and the best thing about both these sites is you can have their posts sent directly to your inbox.

My writing friend April Brown gave me this link;

http://hiveword.com/wkb/search

I’m curious, are there genre-specific ones? Now THAT would be cool. What links do you have?

EDIT: Here are more links from commenters.

KM Cambion suggested Tip of My Tongue

Enhanced Ebooks; Fact or Fiction

I heard this buzz word about a year ago—Enhanced Ebooks. Have you heard of them? Ebooks with links embedded within the text of the story, that take you to online to pictures or more information about a word or scene.

Enhanced Ebooks are supposed to be the natural evolution for ebooks. With cell phones and tablets becoming more than just something to browse the internet with, some feel that future readers will want to look at more than just words when they read a book; they’ll want to see map[s of the fantasy lands their reading, or pictures of what places or characters look like.

Geez, and just when I got the hang of formatting books. I’m a little apprehensive about these books. I can’t add a working ToC to my books, how the hell am I supposed to enhance them with other links? Not only that, but what about the really new writer who decides to go it alone and can’t afford formatting? You know enhanced books are going to bump up those rates.

There is some drawback to enhanced books, especially if you own an early version of Kindle. The first one, from what I’ve gathered, does not support any enhancements. Not a problem now, but if these evolution continues, it could be.

Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen overnight. It will probably start off slow, but as more ebooks are uploaded with these enhancements, it may very well take over. Much like the Kindle did.

You have been warned.

Five Things I Won’t Do On Twitter

I love Twitter. It’s a real-time pulse of the world, or at least, my part of the world and I like to keep it relatively simple. People do a lot of stuff on Twitter, some good, some bad and some down-right nasty, but I give this to you, today, a list of things I WILL NOT do.

 

1. I will not ask you to ‘like’ my Amazon/Facebook/Smashwords book page.  I do click ‘like’ buttons on things that I know I like. If I read a book and I like it, then I’ll click, but I don’t go around spamming people to like my stuff when I know they haven’t read it. In my opinion, it amounts to begging, and I don’t beg. Period.

 

2. I will not #follow4follow. Honestly, I have two words for people who do this – fuck off. People F4F irk the crap outta me. I find it hollow and self-serving. I have a rule; I follow people I’m interested in, but I’m not going to drop them if they don’t follow me back. Grow up. This isn’t high school.

 

3. I will not spam hashtags with annoying pleas to “Read my book!” “Read my blog!” A link to my new posts come up on Twitter and I do a bit of promo around the time my books come out, but that’s about it. I won’t bombard you with this shit. I saw this a lot in hashtag groups, so much so that I no longer visit these groups. Thank you assholes, you ruined something for me.

 

4. I will not constantly re-tweet. I don’t mind sharing tidbits or info from people I follow, but I won’t fill my stream with just re-tweets. I like to talk to people too.

 

5. I will not #MM and #FF. I haven’t seen many of these lately and I’ll explain why I don’t do it. I used to, back when I was first on Twitter, but then I thought, my preferences of what I like is different to other people’s, and what if someone follows someone else and it turns out they DON’T like that person? How do I look to that follower now? I suggested they follow someone that wasn’t a match? I don’t know, I understand the concept, I just don’t like it.

 

Are You Afraid of the Zombies?

Well, are you?

When I was twelve, I watched a movie called Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. Scared the crap outta me. I didn’t have a good night sleep for three months. Sure, it was cheesy as Hell, but it was about DEAD PEOPLE!!! It was the first time I was really scared of something, but as I look at my offspring, I realize he’s not as frightened of movies like that. Not like I was.

Something changed over the years. Things that used to scare us have become likeable or even romanticised. Thanks to movies like Resident Evil, Zombieland, and The Walking Dead, people aren’t afraid of zombies anymore. At least, not the way they used to be. Like vampires, people see them a game of hunter/prey, and I understand that. What bothers me is what kind of horror will it take to frighten those who don’t scare easily. Will it be a supernatural being? Or something more mundane; something that is pulled from real life.

Just how far will future writers go to scare their audience? I don’t know, but I ain’t reading it. I like to sleep at night.

Favourite Child Syndrome; Loving one writing project more than the others.

I never thought I’d succumb to this. I thought I was better than this, but with three WIP’s on the go, each in a different genre, I’m pretty sure it was bound to happen. I have developed a strong fondness for one WIP over the others. I feel embarrassed and I’m sure I’ve hurt some character’s feelings, but it wasn’t like I did it on purpose. It kind of…evolved.

I’m not one for favouritism in real life. I think it’s cruel and demeaning, but I can’t help it when one project speaks to me so much more than the others! I work on the favourite last as a way to force myself to work on the other two and make progress with them. This way there’s a nice satisfaction after I’ve written a thousand words on the ‘favourite’. For me, it’s like watching TMZ at the end of the day. A nice reward.

What is so appealing about this one WIP? Do I want this world I’m creating to be real? To actually exist so I can stroll through and get a real sense of what it’s like to live there? If anything it’s more dangerous than the worlds of my other two WIPs, so what’s the attraction?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the other projects, far from it, so you can understand my confusion when I became obsessed with this one group of characters. I’m putting the MC through hell right now, so I doubt the feeling is mutual and I know, once the others are complete I’ll be ever so excited about them again, but for now, my thoughts, my desires lie solely with this WIP.

Does this happen to you? How did you deal with it?

Character Myths; A ‘bad boy’ hero?

[This is a repeat blog post from over a year ago. I thought I'd see what kind of reaction I'd get from it now. - Darke ]

Is there such a thing?

At some point in the last few decades, someone came up with the idea that a ‘bad boy’ can be a hero or romantic interest to a female lead in a story. Whether this notion came from the angst-ridden, mysterious vamp persona (a.k.a Angel, Spike) or ’misunderstood’ teen (from the now defunct show, The O.C.), I don’t know, but let me say right up front (and you can argue with me if you want), but a true bad boy is NOT someone want fraternizing with your female characters.

A true bad boy is the antagonist; the person you don’t want your readers, or your female characters, fantasizing about. They’re the drug addicts, cheaters, violent people who only care about themselves and what they can get from the other characters. They’ll steal from you as soon as you turn your back, and have no remorse about it. Make no mistakes, the only person who can fall in love with a bad boy and make it work–is a bad girl. They understand each other, probably because they grew up in the same environment.

Bad boys aren’t polite to parents, peers or anyone in authority. They don’t think about ways to help your female MC out of a jam because they don‘t respect her enough to even care. They dominate and control everyone in their sphere of influence and use them to their full advantage. Does this sound like a character you want your YA character to fall in love with?

Please don’t tell me your bad boy isn’t like this; that he’s the exception to the rule, because there are no exceptions. They’re called ’bad boys’ for a reason. If your male love interest falls into the above category, then you’re not writing a bad boy character; you’re writing a wannabe, and personally, I think they’re worse. Wannabe’s are whiny, and the few bad boys wannabe’s I’ve seen are emasculated by the female character. They’re created to show either how strong she is, or for romantic interest, and I don’t know about you, but nothing pulls me from a story faster than an oddly placed romance scene with a character that is weaker than the lead.

If you’re going to have a male interest in your story, make sure he can stand on his own. Strong does not mean ’bad’ or ’tough’, it means ‘intelligent‘, ‘loyal‘, ‘trustworthy’; someone your female character can depend on should the going get rough.