Shortly after the two of them first meet, Shrek tries explaining to Donkey that ogres, like onions, have layers.

Novels have layers, too.

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been writing some of my scenes in almost a short hand style of writing. Something like:

Skip pours a drink. Monica stares at the sea. Skip does something. Monica throws her glass out into the ocean.

Usually this happens when either (a) I’m tired, (b) I’m not really in the mood to be writing, or (c) I’m writing an action scene, and my fingers can’t keep up with my brain.

Within a day, I go back through that stuff and convert everything into full sentences.

Skip poured himself a drink. Monica, ignoring him, continued to stare out at the sea. Skip said something. Monica picked up her glass and tossed it into the sea. “How’s that?”

At this point the scene is coming together, but the writing isn’t. I know that by the end of the scene I need Skip to say something to upset Monica and I want Monica to toss her drink into the ocean, but I haven’t finished it. Maybe I’m more interested in the next scene, or I just haven’t figured out exactly how it’s going to work. Eventually, I get to what I call phase 3. This is where all the text has been cleaned up and paragraphs have been broken up and so on.

Monica poured another glass of wine and set the bottle back on the table. “Eventually, you’re going to have to face your past.”

“Oh, look who’s talking! You’ve done nothing but drink away your past since we got on this cruise!”

Monica looked at Skip and without looking away, tossed her glass over the balcony’s rail out into the ocean.”

So here we have a scene. It works; I’ve got people interacting and it begins and ends “kind of” the way I wanted, but… ehhh, it’s not great. It’s missing a theme, some joke or word or action or something that ties it all together. That’s where Layer 4 comes in.

Monica poured the last of the wine into her glass, placing the bottle back in the bowl of melted ice between them. “Eventually, you’re going to have to face reality.”

“Oh, look who’s talking! You’re done nothing but chase down drinks since we got here.”

Monica turned toward Skip and, without looking away, tossed her wine glass over the railing into the ocean. “Why don’t you chase that one?”

So, I like this version a lot better, for a few reasons:

01. Monica drinks the last of the wine. It’s a tiny change, but mentally, I think it signals the “end” of something.

02. In between them you now have ice (there’s ice between them), and it’s also melted, which tells us they’ve been sitting out there for a while without having to tell you they’ve been sitting out there for a while.

03. We’ve now got a connection between the last two sentences. Skip says “chase your own pain” and Monica follows with “chase that one.” If you think about it, this is how people talk when they fight — they quote each other and repeat key words.

Again, I’m not saying this is right or wrong. I’m simply documenting the way I go about writing novels (or at least went about writing this one).

I have to turn in 25,000 words by 3/22. As of this morning, I am at 22,000. My goal is to meet my word goal by the end of the week so that I’ll have enough time to go back and get my layers in place.

One on the (hundreds of) things other kids made fun of me about was how much I enjoyed doing homework, specifically writing assignments. I loved reading books and writing book reports. I looked forward to writing essays almost as much as going out on the playground.

That being said, let me tell you what the worst part about being a writer is.

Continue reading The Worst Part About Writing →

One of the things we’ve learned in class is that character names matter. Imagine two princesses, one named Priscilla and the other, Ivana. Chances are, you didn’t imagine identical twins.

George Lucas may be the master of obvious names. The lone smuggler’s last name is Solo, and the alien who shows up to collect money from him is Greedo. One particularly nasty enemy is named General Grevious. Luke comes from the Latin word for light, and may be related to Rey (of light) as well. The overweight X-Wing pilot was named Porkins. You get the idea.

Here are the character names from my current novel:

Continue reading What’s in a Name? →

I never was much for group projects at school. Assign me a project and I would dive into it, working on every aspect until everything was perfect. Stick me on a group project however and watch me curl up into a shell. The problem with most group projects is that everybody in the group feels like they are smarter and do better work than everybody else in the group. The best group projects were the ones where I ended up with one or two people who didn’t care about the project at all. I was not one of those kids who would complain to the teacher about doing more than my share of the group’s project — no way! I would gladly do all the work and put everyone’s name at the top of the paper if it meant not having to haggle, argue, and compromise my way through a project.

Continue reading The Lone Writer →

A couple of years ago, I got assigned to a couple of projects at work where I ended up writing a lot of code and scripts. I didn’t know a lot of the commands I needed off the top of my head, so often I wrote what we called pseudo-code before writing real code. Pseudo-code isn’t real code that a computer can understand, but rather a summary of what you want the code to do. For example, if I were quickly sketching out what I needed a script to do, I might write something like “do SQL database query here,” and then later go back and replace that with working code.

There are times when I have time to write but don’t feel like writing. Sometimes, during those times, I end up pseudo-writing. For example, last night, I wrote the following: Continue reading Pseudo-Writing →

A couple of days ago, my primary desktop computer died. I had some concerns, like long was it going to take me to replace it and how much money was it going to cost me, but one thing I was not concerned about at all was, “is my novel backed up?”

Continue reading Backing up your Words →

Many years ago (back in the mid-90s), a friend of mine and I started a monthly electronic magazine. The magazine consisted of original short stories and poems. Along with copy editing everybody else’s submissions and assembling all the electronic code, I was also on the hook for contributing a few original short stories of poems each issue. After only a few months, “the well was dry,” so-to-speak. I had already printed all of my previously written stuff, and began to experience writer’s block.

And so, late at night, I would go for a walk.

Continue reading The Gazebo →

In the original outline draft of my novel, I didn’t tell the protagonist’s back story until chapter three or four. The back story was revealed to the reader through dialogue that takes place between the protagonist and a secondary character. The back story, save for the climax, is one of the most action packed scenes in the book. My professor suggested that I move this scene into the prologue. After completely agreeing with her, I went home and searched Google for information on how to write a prologue.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Continue reading A Prologue Emerges →

Yesterday in class our professor returned the synopses we wrote for our novels. I got a “B,” along with a few suggestions and critiques. Not so many years ago, I would have flared up after receiving comments on something I had written, but not anymore. Over the years I’ve learned a few techniques that help type A people such as myself handle critiques.

Off the top of my head, here are a few things that help me deal with criticism:

Continue reading Handling Criticism →

This is kind of silly, but I wanted to save (and share) it.

The beginning of my novel takes place in a bar located just off the beach. Before writing, I went back and looked at some of our vacation pictures we took in Cozumel a few years ago to set the scene in my head.

Then, I opened Pandora (the free music streaming service) and searched until I found a music feed called Laid Back Beach Music. With Ziggy Marley playing softly in the background, I really got into the mood and began to visualize just what this little dive bar on the beach looked like in my head.

I can’t always listen to music when I write (and podcasts and talk radio are right out), but this really put me in the mood!