Worderella Writes

Personal Themes Shining Through

Cynthia from Creative Writing Corner wrote an interesting post about how her life and history shapes the themes in her writing. It’s an interesting exercise, looking at how your life defines your writing.

For instance, I’m sure many authors have written about the relationship between fathers and daughters. But I only realized last week that both of my books (Catching the Rose and the WIP, Trentwood’s Orphan), discuss the topic. What happens when a daughter loses her father? How does that influence her and her decisions for the rest of her life? And what about the characters who haven’t lost their fathers… what am I saying about their relationships? A doubly interesting question, as I haven’t lost my father. What does this say about me?

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Researching Your Setting Using Google Earth

If anything is lacking in my research, it’s details about setting. Not for lack of trying, though; it’s something I tend to obsess about, if you’ll remember, but the resources about my little village is sparse at best.

Enter Google Earth. I finally caved in and installed the free application on my computer. This, despite my misgivings that I would waste hours studying the landscape rather than studying how the structure of a material changes depending on the number of vacancies at the atomic level. (I’m so glad I graduated.) Heaven help me, I was at the computer for two hours squealing about all the little physical details that, without technology, I would have had to journey to the UK to see it myself.

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Finding the Time to Edit

This summer is the first time I’ve ever had a full-time job. Shocking, I’m sure. It’s led me to realize how spoiled I’ve been. As a student, I could stay up late writing and go to an early class without a problem, because I’d scheduled a two hour break in my day where I could eat lunch and take a quick nap to recharge for afternoon classes. No such luck with a full-time job.

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Developing Villainous Characters - Part 3

Give your villain/character a fatal flaw.
There are multiple movies that showcase this trick (Pulp Fiction, Scarface, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone), and often it is the fatal flaw that brings the villain to their downfall, rather than the hero being the ultra-smart, ultra-handsome hero that we know he is. It adds complexity if the villain is the reason why he doesn’t win.

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Developing Villainous Characters - Part 2

For part two, we’re going deeper into the mind and actions of the villain. We’re going to try to see the entire plot from the villain’s perspective, push ourselves to the limits, yet attempt to moderate how far we push our villain’s actions. So let’s get going! First and foremost, here is something that really helped me get into the mind of my villain: I suddenly realized that…

The villain in your story is the hero of his own story.
We always hear how we should write each scene from a single point-of-view, that is, no head-hopping to get multiple perspectives within a single scene. This fact helped me realize that, if I were to switch around each chapter so that I told the story from the villain’s perspective, rather than the hero’s, I would have a greater, more realized understanding behind the villain’s actions.

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Developing Villainous Characters - Part 1

Due to finals, graduating, and spending time with the extended family, I’ve missed about 75% of Eliza’s villain month over at Tales of a Fantasy Scribbler. I did want to participate, but couldn’t commit due to my, uh, other commitments. So here is the first of my three-part series on developing villains, as my way to contribute.

First, research villain archetypes and decide which is the basis for your villain.
To do this, read Stella Cameron’s wonderful villain archetype summary or Tami Cowden’s sixteen villains, and pick your villain’s basis to your heart’s delight. Every character, and therefore villain, most likely fits some sort of generic archetype, at least to help you begin molding.

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Paper Evidence of a Writer’s Mind

I briefly mentioned, a little while ago, that I have a paper journal. This past year, my paper journal has been a lifesaver, especially when I had to drastically cut back the number of hours I sat hunched over a computer. I mean, there was a time where sitting in one spot for ten minutes would cause pain. No good for programming or writing.

So I turned to a paper journal, which I could write in while laying on my stomach and giving my back/legs a break. I’ve never been able to fill a paper journal, and I blame that on the journal. Really, I do. Because the journal I have now, just looking at it inspires me to write. The paper is smooth, with large lines so I can write new ideas between sentences. The cover has a magnetic seal, but lays flat when open. And, in the newest journal, I decided to draw a bit. Below are a couple of pictures of my journal.

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Villain Month

Since I cheated my usual schedule and made my real post yesterday about finishing First Draft B, I’m dedicating this post to a fellow writer-blogger, Eliza W, who’s dedicating her blog to a month of developing villains in fiction.

Jump over, take a look, join in!

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First Draft B Complete

The title of the post says it all, but here are some details.

Saturday night, I couldn’t focus on homework. So instead, I daydreamed about my novel.

At midnight, I decided I would tape the show I had been staying up to watch so I could write, instead.

By three in the morning, I had a draft of the last chapter that I liked better than the six other half-starts I’d saved in the file, and the other almost fully-drafted chapter that I had in my paper journal.

Sunday morning, I woke up to re-read the chapter and found I still liked it. A good sign.

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WIP: A New Beginning

A little over a week ago, I added a new scene to the beginning of the WIP. It shifts the moment when the reader joins the story from the original scene to fifteen minutes earlier. Amazing, what a quarter of an hour can do, right? This new scene completely changes the tone of the opening chapter, yet still is in keeping with the tone of the entire work. My problem is that I feel the original scene also sets the story and tone correctly. Which should I choose?

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