Things My Characters Learned (the Hard Way) #6

That's right. Every Friday, I'm going to share with ya'll a lesson my characters have learned sometime earlier that week while I wrote their story. Because we all know that sometimes the best lessons are ones learned in a more painful way than not (usually). It also serves to act as a way to share vague plot devices: what are the many ways you can get your characters into trouble? Read on to find out.

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Project: UNTITLED (Hansel + Gretel retelling)

Genre: Short Story

Lesson Learned: Always be sure of your way, or at least make sure the person in charge is sure of their way. And if you still don't trust their sense of direction, take some initiative and bring something to mark down your path? Or at least a map? Because getting lost is a sure-fire way of getting into sticky situations.

Really, you never know who you might run into when you can't find your way home. Thieves, beggars, a witch or two...there's troublemakers of all kind in unfamiliar territory.

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Do you write? Can your characters relate? Have your characters learned an important life lesson this week? Leave me a note in the comments! 

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TMCL: looking to get your characters into trouble? You never know who they'll run into when lost... (Click to Tweet)

Navigating the Twitter-sphere: Getting Started

So, random note: I registered for Fall 2015 classes this morning. My last semester at college. It's so weird and nostalgic and freaking wow. Which is probably why I figured I'd talk about Twitter, since I get nostalgic thinking about when I started using it (and i can easily compare that feeling to when I started college, so, see? Connection!).

Anyway, I know. Posts about how awesome Twitter is for writers and readers have been done over and over again. But I'm going to do another one because Twitter's just awesome, only I'm going to address a different thing about Twitter: getting started.

Once upon a time when Rae was but a lowly college freshman, she wanted to see what the big deal about Twitter was. She made an account in October 2012. Then she didn't use it for a year and a half. Come April/May 2014, she said, "I'll give Twitter one more chance."

I've kind of been hooked ever since.

For me, the most intimidating thing about Twitter was the sheer volume of tweets, and the large number of intelligent people sending those tweets. Where do you begin, and who's the best people to follow? And how do you actually find those awesome and intelligent people? Here's some steps to getting started on Twitter as a reader/writer (or both):

• Add a bio on your profile. It's just kind of nice to let people know that you're not a robot. Say a little something about yourself! You'll be surprised how that can help you make new acquaintances.
• Add a picture to your profile. Again, people like to know that there's a face or a person of some sort behind the computer screen.
• If you have a blog or a website, add it. I don't know about others, but I am a notorious link-clicker. I look at any websites people have on their profiles before even deciding to follow them, just to see who they are and/or the kinds of projects they're working on (yeah, I'm nosy like that).
• Follow your favorite authors. No-brainer, right? Just follow your favorite authors. So many of them are so quirky and fabulous. They talk about their books, their writing, their lives. Some of my personal favorite author-tweets come from Maggie Stiefvater, Lauren DeStefano, and Ksenia Anske. Of course, that's an extremely shortened list. Moral of this point: follow your favorite authors. You won't regret it.
• Follow bloggers. There's a bunch of awesome blogs on writing; there's even more awesome book blogs. Coming from a writer's perspective, this has been invaluable because bloggers are a great way to find out new things: writing tips and processes, new books, author interviews, giveaways, etc. Basically: it's an awesome way to find different perspectives on basically anything. Of course, finding a place to start with bloggers is a little more complicated than simply looking up your favorite authors, so I'll give you a heads-up: every writer should follow Ava Jae's blog, Writability. Ava's got great insight to the writing world, both hints and tips of the craft, maneuvering social media, maneuvering editing and publishing. Start there. I also recommend Kristen Kieffer, who runs She's Novel, and Christine Frazier, from Better Novel Project. Also take a look at the right side of my screen, under "Notable Blogs" - that's a short list of some of my favorite writing blogs, in case you need a place to start. Awesome book bloggers that I like checking in on include Bookish Broads and Book Nerd Reviews; again, though, there's far too many of either of these blog types to list out all of them. Explore, and see what happens!
• Follow publishers, agents, editors, etc. Here's something awesome: the kind of general advice you can find from people actually working in publishing right now (and publishing the books that you read) is kind of awesome. Not only can you get updates on the books that you enjoy, but if you're interested in delving deeper into the writing world as a career (writing, editing, agenting, etc.), you'll find fantastic insight and advice from the people who are currently there. Some agents will tweet about what's currently on their MSWL; editors will tweet about some of the most common mistakes they find in manuscripts. If you need a place to start, try agencies: P.S. Literary and New Leaf Literary are two of my favorites to check in on, and from there you can research the individual agents who might also have a Twitter account where they talk about bookish things.

If that all looks a bit daunting...well, I'm not going to lie to you: I was daunted. I think what you'll find, though, is that once you have a place to start, you'll see all of the threads that reach out to different corners of the reading/writing world. What you'll find is that it's actually incredibly easy to find people you can connect with on some level - personal or professional. If you're active, you'll even find like-minded people in the same place in your career that you are (for example: there's a handful of other blogger/writers out there that I've connected with and that will never be able to get rid of me, no matter how hard they try. I'm like a leech, only in a non-weird and non-blood-sucking way).

So there's my extremely simplified version of how to get started on Twitter. Have any questions? Recommendations? Other comments? Ya'll know the drill by now; leave me your thoughts on how you got started navigating on Twitter!

**Note: I can talk about general Twitter etiquette at a later date; if I put it in this post, then I'd be writing a miniature novel, and nobody wants that.**

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Twitter can make your head spin. Blogger @Rae_Slater talks a few general tips on getting started for readers/writers (Click to Tweet)

Navigating the Twitter-sphere: a few tips for readers/writers who want to make the most of Twitter (Click to Tweet)

Writing Multiple POVs: Separating Stories

As I've been trying to wade through the ginormous mess that is my WIP, I did a thing last week: I read through the entire 97 k thing so I could attempt to figure out where the heck I've been going wrong in every attempt at editing I've tries thus far.

And I learned something.

I wrote a blog post last December about Writing from Multiple Perspectives, in which I explicitly state that if you're going to have more than one (major) character narrator, then you need to make sure they each have a story to tell that's theirs and their own. There's also this quote from this awesome article, Tips When Writing Multiple POV Novels, in which the author points out that each perspective "compliments two or more story arcs."

What does this have to do with my re-reading adventure?

I'm writing from two points of views. I came to realize that one of the perspectives had a far stronger voice and journey than the other. I also came to realize that one of the perspectives was relying on the other heavily instead of telling its own story. I spent the weekend thinking about this epiphany and wondered if this happened because I wrote both POVs at the same time (basically: I'd write one scene/chapter in one POV, then write the next in the other, and progress the story that way).

If anything, this little adventure of mine has reminded me how important it is that each perspective - and each character - has their own distinct story to tell. While they might interact with the same environment as another, they have their own unique experience that exists at a distance, an experience that doesn't depend on another (or, at least, shouldn't).

In my experience, if one character's POV is too heavily dependent on another: then what's the point of having two POVs in the first place? Yet something I've been positive about from the very beginning is that both of these stories need to be told on their own.

So my next step has been to divide the POVs of my WIP into two different documents. I'm going to attempt to rewrite the narrators' stories from there, one at a time, from beginning to end. By writing their stories separately, I'm hoping to maybe capture their stories and their motivations without the frame of another POV on the next page. By focusing on one at a time, maybe I'll have better luck pinning them down and discovering what they're really after.

Because, to be honest, right now it feels like a competition between the two voices and stories, both of them trying to one-up the other with their adventures. That's not really conducive to my writerly mind, though.

If I'm being honest, I'm experimenting. I'm going back to an early draft of this WIP - the most recent, finished draft that I've actually been happy with - and I'm hoping that something comes out of it because, like I mentioned, it's kind of a mess right now. But these characters' stories need to be told.

So if I wind up needing stitches because I've banged my head into the wall a few too many times, you'll know the reason why.

If you're writing from multiple POVs, maybe you'll consider writing out each story separately, as well. What's your strategy?

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Blogger @Rae_Slater talks her biggest challenge in revising her WIP: ensuring her two narrators have their own story (Click to Tweet)

When writing multiple POVs, make sure the narratives aren't overly dependent on each other (Click to Tweet)