Wicked Wenches

When I started writing I was totally unorganised. By my second novel I was merely disorganised and now I mainly reorganise or keep track of the details as I go along…

It seems, reading the other blogs that many writers start out the same way, as full blown pantsers: with a burning desire to get that story down on paper, they rush off and hit the keyboard with no planning. For my first novel, I just rushed off and wrote the story. It sounds like a great idea, but I spent a ton of wasted hours trying to remember things like whether Tom (or whoever) had blue eyes, his address, how the characters met and other small details which took hours to locate in the story.

Since my first attempt, I’ve learnt a lot. Now I am a hybrid – part pantster and part plotser/planner. I start with a basic outline of chapters and sequence, but so far no story has stuck with the plan – my characters normally surprise me by going off in directions I never expected – but I love that about writing. I also start an excel file when I start the book and as my characters interact or grow, I add all the details to their character sheets – I open a separate tab for each character. It seemed tedious at first to go and jot down the receptionists eye colour but it’s saved me loads of time in the long run.

Well, on my first book, I didn’t really do much organizing at all. I just started writing and by the end of it, I definitely had areas to cut. I went back in and created an outline detailing characters and events so I could keep track of everything. Now that I’ve managed to land an agent, she had a series of changes she wanted to see in the manuscript so I’ve just now gone through and added more rather than taken away. At first, my book was 90,000 words then it crept to 95,000 and now with the agent’s changes, it’s 115,000.
And I’m sure that won’t be the end of it. If I’m lucky enough to get a publisher interested, I’m sure some scenes will have to go and others will have to be expanded. I’m preparing myself for that.
So, on to my next book–I’ve completely outlined this one. I know what will happen from chapter one to chapter twenty. And I think it will make for much easier writing. I included such things as character traits as well as events in the outline. But, who knows, as I write more, I will probably have to come up with a better way to keep it all organized!

Okay so I’m not totally unorganized. I don’t use a fancy program like Silke though. I have a notebook for each story and a folder file on the computer which contains at least 20 Word files. I’ve tried notecards, storyboarding, and finally outlining for my plot. For me the outline has worked best and has refocused my work thanks to Morgan Hawke’s website. Her articles on writing are really straight forward and good. I’m a plotter. My notebook is for my original ideas to slap them down on paper in an unfocused manner. This includes scenes, characters, snippets of dialogue, and anything else that strikes my fancy. I also put any research in that notebook as well, making sure to reference where it came from in case I need to go back to it. Then I structure them into the outline. I liked how Morgan Hawke described how the events went and also from Holly Lisle’s website learned a lot. I’ve taken classes and read articles and read books, all to arrive at this time when I feel confident that I can write an effective story. Or at least try to. My first novel, lovingly tucked into the hard drive for safe keeping, I began with a list of scenes which ran out only half way through the novel and then I pantsed the rest of the story. By the time I was finished, the story was definitely better toward the end as my writing skills improved. My current WIP is my second which received a hack and slash job after Nano. I went from 51,902 words down to 6180 words as I realized what would be the best thing for my novel. So sometimes even planning doesn’t help. A lot of times you have to rethink your strategy and painfully cut off the excess.

So what’s your plan of attack? How many novels are hiding under your mattress? What’s the most painful cut you’ve made to a MS?

(We normally agree on Weekly Topics to blog on, but I got bored…) Anyway. I always have a ton of different characters running around in all manner of different settings.It gets tricky telling them apart and not losing track of some secondary character somewhere along the line.

So here is what I do: (I use OneNote, but different pads/binders will work for this too)

• I have a tab with the name of the hero. Here I note down all his specifics. Birthday, Place of Birth, Age, Family connections, Friends, Appearance… things like that.
• I have a second tab for the heroine, organized the same way.
• A third lists all the secondary characters and what their purpose is (I often end up culling some of them, but it helps to keep track of them.) I also note any specifics (older / younger brother of XYZ etc) against their names. I wouldn’t want to have one start as a school friend and then later discover they met in college.
• I have a sheet with place names, areas, relevance which I (try to!) link with the names of the characters so I know who is where and uh.. when. Which brings me to the next bit.
• A tab for the timeline, where I list - Chapter by Chapter - when things happen. i.e. If Chapter 3 starts on Thursday morning, then I can’t have Chapter 4 start on the previous Monday. Well. I could, but unless it’s a time travel novel… it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
• I have a reference tab, where I put snippets, books (title / page numbers), web links etc.
• I keep a tab with Chapter info, page counts etc.

So that’s the basics. I expand on all of those, usually a lot, but those are my basics.
Hope it helps someone.

Like Amanda, I find that I might tune the music out once I really start getting into the scene. But, I do think that music can help shape a mood for you. Music can be very emotional.

 I listen to everything from Classical–now I have Clare De Lune playing to Nine Inch Nails to Bon Jovi. And everything in between.

My current mix:

Julia: Beatles
Scarborough Fair: Sarah Brightman
Think of Me: Phantom of the Opera
Ravel’s Bolero
Bon Jovi: Wanted Dead or Alive
Duran Duran: Ordinary World
Bob Segar: We’ve Got Tonight
Chris Isaak: Wicked Game
Outcast: Dracula’s Wedding
Spiderman: The Cure
Pat Metheney: Last Train Home
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Destiny: Zero 7
Dead Souls: Nine Inch Nails

That’s just to name a few!

  Well, I like my music. It gets my creative juices flowing, inspires, gets me thinking.
But occasionally I like silence, too.

I have uh… 16 gigs of mp3’s on my machine, some 6000 tracks or so. I’m not usually stuck for something to listen to. I’d have more, but my turntable is in the attic and I haven’t converted all my vinyl to mp3’s — yet. First thing I do with a new CD is to rip it to mp3, though.

My tastes vary. A lot. I like my heavy rock. I have very odd things I like, I can listen to Metallica and follow it up with Vanessa Mae. No sweat. Tschaikovsy or Grieg, followed by Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister and a bit of Beyonce thrown into the middle of it. I like Evanescence as much as I like Kate Bush. Basically I like music, period. If it sounds good to me, then I’ll listen to it. Linkin Park or Beethoven - I don’t really care, as long as it fits my mood.

I don’t so much have a soundtrack for a WIP, but I have mood music playlists.

I also know my characters musical tastes, btw. One of my gals, while preparing christmas dinner, finds out the hero likes to listen to Van Halen — extremely loud. A decibel below deafening is just right for him, while she likes quiet soul music. Another one in the mix likes Christina Aguilera, while the hero prefers classical music.
Musical tastes say a lot about people. I may never mention what my characters listen to, but I know it anyway. I’m sure yours do too. It’s part of their character, like their favorite food, drink, color.

Metallica tends to be the noise of choice when it’s kicking to the curb time, Linkin Park gets dragged out for torment (So does Faith No More and Alice in Chains). Darren Hayes’ “Insatiable” is still one of my all time faves, as is Christina Aguilera’s “Hurt” and Natasha Beddingfield’s “Soulmate”. I really totally love the first ever Phenomena Album, and “Broadsword and the Beast” by Jethro Tull. “Old Man River” has been known to reduce me to tears, and I cannot listen to a rendition of Amazing Grace on bagpipes without getting incredibly homesick.

Basically, I have mood music, period. And it can be anything at all.

Every writer approaches writing differently. Some wake at the crack of dawn, others burn the midnight oil. Some write on legal pads, others bang out words on keyboards. Another difference is tolerated noise level. Sound, silence, something in between. Sometimes I prefer silence for writing. I’ve been known to plug the headphones in, put them over my ears and then forget to turn on the music as the story sucks me in. Other times I just can’t get a feel for a story until I make a playlist specifically for that story. Other times I’ll develop a new playlist just to write by. I have a number of playlists on my iTunes, here’s a few:

Kicking butt and taking names includes Prophecy by Remy Zero, Pump It by Black Eyed Peas, Make Yourself by Incubus, Stronger by Kanye West, and more

God, I’m so in love includes The Night is Still Young by Billy Joel, Ride by Cary Brothers, Have a Little Faith in Me by John Hiatt, Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel, Answer by Sarah McLachlan, Secret Smile by Semisonic, Wild Horses by the Sundays, and more

Race against time includes Tonight, Tonight by Genesis, What I’ve Done by Linkin Park, Bitemarks and Bloodstains by Finch, Teardrop by Massive Attack, These Things by She Wants Revenge, and more

Sad song mix includes Come What May by Nicole Kidman & Ewan McGregor, Tell Her This by Del Amitri, Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World, Sideways by Citizen Cope, The Weakness in Me by Joan Armatrading, Rest Stop by Matchbox Twenty, I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt, Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap and more

Movies have soundtracks and if you listen closely so do books. So here’s the current soundtrack to my WIP -

Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace, Teardrop by Massive Attack, Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins, When We Dance by Sting, Elsewhere by Sarah McLachlan, Cautioners by Jimmy Eat World, Closer by Nine Inch Nails, Apologize by Timbaland, Sooner or Later by Switchfoot, and You by Fisher.

Actually it was harder than I thought. The hard ones were the end and the lead into the black moment.

So what’s your preference, sound or silence? What do you listen to? Does you book have a soundtrack?

I used to write vampires. A lot. I got deep into it all, did research, read everything I could get my hands on.

Which Vampire stuck out for me?

None of them. All of them.
Even Vamps have the good, the bad and the downright horrible. There’s Sebastian, in Michelle Hauf’s Dark Rapture. The musician… and, oh, he’s SUCH a fiend! He’s not nice. Not really. I love him to bits.
There are the vampires in J.C. Wilder’s series. Damn, I loved them. I really did.
There’s Nosferatu. Now, that fiend couldn’t be called romantic or nice, or sexy by any stretch of the imagination — but I still like him.
Laurell K. Hamilton’s Jean-Claude… I will never forget that bathroom scene. But alas, here is a writer who has gone too far for my tastes. I used to read everything she put out — then I read Narcissus in Chains (I was already apprehensive after the previous one) and that was the end of it for me. I just couldn’t get into it anymore. Where earlier there had been sexual tension, we now had the other extremes which looked too much like orgies. It turned me off an otherwise very well written series.
Silhoutte Nocturne has a series within the series — Bewitching the Dark — which puts a great slant on what hurts a vampire.
Kreseley Cole’s Vamps are kinda cool too, but her books span so much more than just vampires.

There are a lot of facets to Vampires, I haven’t really found one I didn’t like and I can’t wait what others will develop. I don’t really have a favorite, other than I like them dark and a bit nasty. Vampires shouldn’t be nice. They should have an agenda. They are predators after all. It’s a bit like taming a wild beast, with a bloodsucking evil minion from Hell being possibly the most dangerous of all the beasts you could try to tame. It might just end deadly.

But if I absolutely have to pick one… At the moment it would be Michelle Hauf’s Nikolaus Drake, who got suckered when he drinks from a witch who got drenched in a love potion. The whole concept made me giggle, and watching a lovesick vampire try to romance a witch who’d rather kill him… oh my. LOL.

My all-time favourite vampire has to be …. Count Dracula himself. You can’t mention the word vampire without this quintessential alpha male hero popping to mind. And he has everything … fame, fortune, money, the title of course, not to mention that deliciously dark bad boy vibe. There isn’t a vampire story that I’ve read, that I haven’t found myself, at some stage comparing the hero to the inimitable Count himself.

Sorry all you young contemporary vampires, but its got to be said. He set the standards, and still does for me.

I definitely love vampires–love their strength and the fact that they aren’t good. There is always some bad in a vampire–something that probably comes from their need to feed.
I think you could probably extend this out to encompass all creatures of the dark–demons, werewolves, the whole lot of them. They all harbor their secrets and their sense of self hatred that makes them the flawed and brooding heroes we have come to know and love.
Throw into that mix a vampire hunter or a woman who doesn’t know what she’s in for and you’ve got a great story on your hands.