"What If?"—A Most Useful Writing Tool

Occasionally, the characters that lead the stories I write come to a halt, peering in every direction, confounded. Or they stand still, staring blankly into space, unable to move—and I experience the dreaded writers' block. My muse has abandoned me. But, rather than sitting and wracking my empty brain for something to write, I know what to do.

The remedy for my ailment is to draw a tool from my bag of writing tricks and put it to use. I call that tool my what-if list. I've just come to a standstill that threatens to turn into a writer's block in my current novel, "Fugitives on Planet Eden" (working title). Instead of turning away, I pick up pen and paper to write in longhand, as fast as I can, listing all the "what-if" scenarios I can think of to get my characters moving again.

The "what ifs" can be as outrageous or as mundane as my mind can conceive them. I keep the pen moving, writing everything I think of. When I run out of spontaneous ideas, I evaluate the list and choose one—or two or three or four—of the scenarios that my brainstorming suggested.

This is exactly what I did just now, and voila! I'm back in business. Not only do I see the path my characters will take and the situations they must confront in chapter 24, I also know what is likely to happen in two or three subsequent chapters.

I may even be looking at a sequel or two. And that's okay. It's happened to me before, giving me a six book series, Miranda and Starlight, and the trilogy of twins about Kendall and Kyleah Ralston. (Kendall's Storm and Kyleah's Tree)

Yep, I predict that David and Lletia (my protagonists)—and their possible offspring—will confront many more obstacles, dilemmas, and dangers on Planet Eden. But, we'll have to wait and see.

Daily " tudu"(to do) list

I love it when I hear rhymes in my head. Sometimes I write them down. This one has become my daily to-do list. Let me explain how it works—at least how I am applying it today.

Schedule for each day:

Something new, something old,
Something quiet, something bold
Something selfish, something kind,
Something strengthening the mind.


Something new: write a portion of my new novel first thing every morning.

Something old: edit and rewrite one of the two novels I have finished but need to prepare for publication.

Something quiet: reflect and listen to my thoughts and my subconscious mind (meditation or at least rumination.)

Something bold: Promote Raven Publishing titles! Put my company and my products out there for the world to see. (Marketing seems frighteningly overwhelming, so for me to venture forth in this endeavor is bold.)

Something selfish: It seems as if almost everything I do is selfish, for I love my job, my life, and all the people in it. I'll just list three specific things I do for myself each day. 1) I soak in a warm bath in the beautiful, spacious, and well-lit bathroom my husband designed. It is here that many of my ideas, thoughts, and stories are born. (2) Some days—and I strive to make it every day—I enjoy hikes in the nearby hills or walks in the country side. Not only is this good for my health, it stimulates my mind as well. 3) I go to bed early each night so I can read another novelist's story, as much as I can each night, before falling asleep.

Something kind: These are usually just little things, a kind word, a comforting hug to a grandchild, a sympathetic ear, and time spent looking after the little ones when parents need a break or have to work.

Something strengthening the mind: There is always so much to learn and I enjoy learning. I research facts to support ideas that come up in my stories and I learn a lot from just that. Also, I read and study to improve the skills I must use everyday. Right now, that is mostly focused on areas of marketing and promotion.

With a lot going on in my life, organization—something that does not come easily for me—is a must. This little ditty helps me plan my days.

A planned schedule is important, a daily writing habit, essential.

The more I have to do and the more varied the projects demanding my attention become, the more I realize the importance of a plan of action. Being a morning person, I reserve the earliest morning hours of each day for creative writing time. Or, at least that is the plan. However when other duties are on my mind, it's easy to skip the writing, "just for today," and jump right into the marketing or design or editing or whatever it is on my mind that "must" be done right now.

I have learned, though, that skipping my morning writing wastes time, because the longer I am away from my book, the longer it takes me to get back into it. I have to go back and reread what I've already written. If I've missed a day, it may not take a few pages of rereading to get my mind—and muse—back into it. If I've missed two or three days, it will take longer. If I've missed weeks or months, I will have to reread from the beginning, or keep going back as I write to check on what I've already said or haven't said.

So, my renewed resolution is to write EVERY DAY. Even if it's only a few minutes to a half-hour, it will keep me in touch with my characters and their place in the plot. I find it's best if it's two or three hours, but that isn't always possible. Not having a big block of time, does not mean that I cannot write at all. Making writing my first activity of the day is very important to me. If I don't write then, the chances are slim that I will get to it at all.

Only after I've finished writing, should I move on to other activities. Then I must, to the best of my ability, keep to a schedule that will get it all in. (More on a daily schedule tomorrow)

HOW LONG MUST TWINS BE SEPARATED BEFORE THEY FORGET?

HOW LONG MUST TWINS BE SEPARATED BEFORE THEY FORGET?
Two new novels follow the separate lives of twins whose parents thought it possible.

The twins are fraternal, a boy and a girl, with very different personalities. What could be more natural when Mom and Dad divorce than for Mom to keep the girl and for Dad to take the boy? “And never the twain shall meet” is the parents’ decision for the four-year-old brother and sister.
Kyleah’s Tree, by Janet Muirhead Hill, begins when Kyleah is eleven years old. She lives in a foster home because her mother died when she was five, and the grandparents she was sent to live with moved to a retirement home a year later. “We’re sorry, they don’t allow kids,” she was told before someone took her to a family of strangers. Is it any wonder that Kyleah has trust issues and determines not to make close friendships? “If I love them, I lose them,” she believes.
Many hair-raising adventures ensue when she and a thirteen-year-old foster brother run away, trekking from Kansas to Canada in search of families they have lost.
Kendall’s Storm, the companion novel, begins when the boy is ten-years-old going on eleven. His dad takes him from town to town and state to state, leaving each without notice or any time for Kendall to gather up his belongings to take with him. He is the timid twin who fears both his father’s wrath and just about everything else. He longs for his sister and carries a faded photo of the two of them taken just days before their fourth birthday—and their separation.
When Kendall rescues a dog from a hail storm, his loneliness is somewhat abated, his courage begins to grow, but his fateful adventures are far from over. Kendall has learned that when he dares to ask his father questions, he might not get an answer, and that when Dad doesn’t answer, it’s bad news. Two questions he’s learned never to ask are whether or not his sister and mother are alive and, if they are, why can’t he see them?
When Dad decides to settle in southwest Washington on Long Beach Peninsula, Kendall is not happy. He hates the cold dampness and is afraid of the ocean. When he learns that his father’s job is not with the FBI as Kendall liked to believe, but rather a drug dealer, Kendall is devastated and runs away only to be lost in the rain forest. After he’s rescued, Dad is arrested, and Kendall goes to a foster home where he lives with three other boys until a typhoon sweeps the area.
Kendall and Kyleah, twins with different innate traits, travel journeys that have almost no similarity. They live in very different settings, experience different life styles, and are influenced by different kinds of people. The foster homes they each live in are opposite—one kind and responsible, the other abusive and negligent. Yet, they share a bond like no other, a bond formed before birth and strengthened in the first four years of life. Book reading groups will find fodder for lively discussion as they compare and contrast these children’s stories. The comprehensive discussion guides in the back of each book will stimulate thoughtful debates for adult readers as well as for middle-grade students in classroom settings.

Each of these novels is an exciting, stand-alone read and both are now available. A third book will be released next year, completing this trilogy of twins.

For more information about these novels or to schedule an interview or a school visit, please contact the author at 406-685-3545 or e-mail her at author@janetmuirheadhill.com. These books may be purchased for $12.00 each at www.ravenpublishing.net, www.amazon.com, or in many fine stores.

Writing the Ending

I have always maintained that the ending is the hardest part of the book to write. My style of writing is to develop characters I care about and then hand the reins to them, so to speak. Beginnings are usually easy, as I place these characters in the middle of some action with a dilemma to solve. Then I ask them, "What will you do, now?" and the story takes off. I don't outline. I don't plan the end until my characters take me there.

However, in a recent assignment, my Fiction Writing instructor gave the class an interesting assignment, which I just completed. "Write three possible beginnings and three possible endings to the story you are working on." Each of the three was to take a different approach from the types of endings and beginnings outlined in the book, Ficton Writer's Workshop, by Josip Novakovich.

Although I am only about two-thirds to three-fourths of the way through the novel, Kendall and Kyleah (working title), the third book of the twins trilogy, I found this assignment both useful and fun to do—especially the endings. This was a surprise to me. Knowing the possible ways I might end the book gives me a target—a beam of light in the distance I can use to keep my focus. I still don't know which of these three endings, if any of them, I might use. But writing them has energized me and made me want to get on with the journey, over whatever rough roads lie ahead, toward that beam of light.

Third Person Omniscient Point of View

In my last post, I talked about point of view, particulary, third person limited subjective POV, where the reader views the story only through the senses of one character. Another effective method, when done well, is to write from the omniscient viewpoint. The point of view is not that of a character in the story, but of an unseen other, usually the author, who tells the reader everything that is in the history, hearts and minds, of all the characters or a certain few of the characters in the book.

George Eliot used this technique in her book, Middlemarch. So did Lemony Snicket in his "Series of Unfortunate Events." Rather than losing the reader with too much switching between characters as writing from multiple viewpoints can do, this technique makes the reader feel included. The author or whatever omnicient narrator is telling the story, is confiding in you, the reader, and you feel privileged, somehow, to have this god-like knowledge shared with you.

The first book of Lemony Snicket's series, "The Bad Beginning," begins in a most unusual way, speaking directly to you, the reader, as if he cares deeply about your well-being.

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings," he says, "you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning, and very few happy things in the middle."

This conversational style from the omniscient narrator's POV continues throughout the book, telling you what is happening in the lives, minds, and emotions of the three Baudelaire children, as only an all-seeing god would be able to do.

I have not used this approach in any of my novels, but find it a very fun and intimate style to read.

Let me know what you think? What is your favorite POV style to read?

Clarifying a Confusing Concept—POV

I'm jumping into the middle of an issue with this post, and will come back later with more background from my workshop lesson on POV. For now, I want to relate an idea that I hope will help writers who struggle with this concept, hence this post.

When writing fiction, you must decide who is narrating the scene and stick with that person's point of view. You also have to decide how many points of view there will be in your book. There are many skilled authors who write from multiple view points successfully, but it's tricky for those who don't quite get what POV is all about.

I prefer to write entire books in third person but strictly from one narrator's POV. In the book I'm writing now, I switch viewpoints from chapter to chapter, but never mix them within a chapter. That will change when I get to the middle of the book and my two main characters meet and interact. Then there will be two points of view per chapter, but never more than one per scene.

I admit that I'm a stickler for adhering to one point of view per scene. You may ask, why bother? The advantage of a single or limited number of viewpoint characters, is that the reader finds it easier to follow the story, as well as to know, relate, and get into the body, heart, and mind of a character. As a general rule, the greater the number of characters from whose point of view you write, the less your reader will care about any one of them.

That isn't as important in the book I'm currently editing, because the protagonist is not a person, but a principle. The author has peopled his narrative and dialog with many POV characters. This actually makes writing and editing more difficult, because it becomes easier to mix points of view without realizing it. But for the sake of clarity and ease of reading, it is imperative to write each sentence, each paragraph, and each scene strictly in a single point of view.

When I've conducted workshops on fiction writing, I've found that the lesson on Point of View is often the most difficult for my students to grasp. As I lay awake last night contemplating this problem, I came up with an idea that might help writers who are grappling with the concept.

When struggling to see where you may have inadvertently mixed points of view, try this. Choose one character in the scene. Be that character. Switch to first person. Change every thing he does, says, or thinks to "I" and rewrite the scene. By doing so, you will more readily see from that character's eyes and eliminate other viewpoints. When finished, rewrite the scene in third person, with the corrections you made while writing in first.

For example, the following paragraph mixes two points of view.

Mary wanted to meet Paul, the new boy in her literature class, so badly she could taste it. And then, voila, just as she turned the corner on her way to Mr. Egland's Spanish class, she ran smack into him. Books flew. He stooped to pick up the papers scattered from both his and her notebook. He sorted them as quickly as possible, all the while worrying that he'd be late for Chemistry. Mrs. Dohner tolerated no tardiness.

Choosing one of the characters, I'll be Mary.

I wanted to meet Paul, the new boy in my literature class, so badly I could taste it. Then, voila, just as I turned the corner, heading for Mr. Egland's Spanish class, I ran smack into him. Our books flew. He stooped to pick up the papers scattered from both our notebooks. I knelt to help, searching for eye contact, but he would only look at the papers. Finally, thrusting a handful at me, he muttered as he sprinted away, "I can't be late. Mrs. Dohner will have my hide."

Then change it back to third person. (Mary, we realize, can't know what Paul is thinking unless he tells her.)

Mary wanted to meet Paul, the new boy in her literature class, so badly she could taste it. Then, voila, just as she turned the corner, heading for Mr. Egland's Spanish class, she ran smack into him. Their books flew. He stooped to pick up the papers scattered from both of their notebooks. Mary knelt to help, searching for eye contact, but he would only look at the papers. Finally, thrusting a handful of papers at her he muttered as he sprinted away, "I can't be late. Mrs. Dohner will have my hide."

I hope this helps. I'd like to hear your questions or comments.