Purple Prose [Search results for concept] 

©Stina Lindenblatt

With NaNoWriMo starting next week, I thought I’d pull out some quotes from my pile of writing craft books to help get you ready. Today, I’m focusing on concept.

CONCEPT + CHARACTERS X CONFLICT = NOVEL

Concept is the big idea, the basic premise, the one-liner that will explain your story. . . . Now, knowing this, can you guess the formula for a great novel?

Here it is:

CONCEPT^X+ CHARACTERS^X x CONFLICT^X = GREAT NOVEL

Where x represent some factor beyond the average. You take each element and make it more. Stronger, better. [Who knew writing fiction could be so mathematical???]

Revision & Self-Editing: Techniques for transforming your first draft into a finished novel by James Scott Bell.

If your story concept contains the potential for your hero to become a more evolved, individuated person, then both the commercial and artistic potential of your story increase. . . . [The] character arc means finding not just the physical courage to achieve the outer motivation, but the emotional courage as well.

Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hauge (great book for novelists, too)

It’s not really the situation that drives a great story concept; it’s the desire that grows out of it. Without giving your hero or protagonist some compelling goal to pursue, your story will have no forward movement, your audience will have nothing to root for, and your reader will have no compelling reason to keep turning the pages of your script.

Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hauge

One last reason you must have a good premise is that it’s the one decision on which every other decision you make during the writing process is based. Character, plot, them, symbol—it all comes out of this story idea. If you fail at the premise, nothing else will help. If a building’s foundation is flawed, no amount of work on the floors above will make the building stable. [Yeah, no pressure there!]

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

Do you usually start with a story concept/premise first when planning a new project?

When I heard Aerosmith’s song Angel, I knew it was perfect for my current novel. All I had to do was weave some of the verses and the chorus into the scene to show how the song triggered a terrifying flashback for my protagonist. The results were awesome, and a little creepy. Yes, I would have to get copyright permission, but that was okay. It beat writing my own, which I knew would end up sounding sucky.

Okay, not so fast. I did some research at a writer’s suggestion. Turns out, it would be expensive and time consuming to try to get permission to use the song, and in the end the band might not even grant it to me. Oh great! Now I had no choice but to write my own lyrics.

As it turned out, writing lyrics is similar to writing a story, because that’s what a song is, in a way. You still need to have a concept and a hook. You need to be concise with your details, and use imagery to add texture and meaning. Plus, you need to write a beginning that grabs your listeners. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to write the whole song, just a couple of verses and the chorus. The added bonus was I could incorporate part of the concept of my novel, which unified the whole thing. And the result was even creepier than with the Aerosmith song. What more could I want?

Granted, the song won’t top any charts. Nor will any musicians be banging on my front door, pleading with me so they can use it. But that’s okay. At least now I’ve given an agent one less reason to reject my manuscript. Yay!

Has anyone else had to write lyrics or poetry for their novel? If so, was this a new experience for you?

Today's letter in the A to Z challenge is...

L is for Listening.
I like to talk.
A lot.
I like to get my opinions out.
And since they are *my* opinions-- they are always right.
I will answer my kids' questions before they get finished asking them (because I know what they are going to ask).
When I pray to God, I tell *Him* what I want answered and how I want it answered-- specifically and with great detail.
I'm a talker--- who REALLY needs to be more of a listener.
When you take time to listen, you realize that your daughter isn't just asking for a piece of candy for the 15th time-- she is actually learning negotiating skills (she has learned if she can get down to 1 I usually give in.. sneaky girl).
You realize that God has much more important things in store than what you tell Him you want-- If you just take time to listen.
Everyone likes to be heard. Everyone-- from the greatest to the smallest-- they want to be heard. They want to feel like they matter and that there ideas/thoughts are important. How can we give that to someone if we don't listen to them.
And not 'Uh-huh' 'Yeah' while we do things we want to do-- but actually stop what we are doing, focus on the speaker, and listen.
What a novel concept!
Much Love,
Kelly
Linked with: Faith Filled Friday and A to Z Challenge 

In the past, I’ve talked about using movement as a way to emphasize the subject of your photo. This week I want to introduce you to the concept of panning. It’s frequently used in pictures of moving race cars and horses. As you can see, the subject looks stationary while the background is in motion.

To pan your shot, you need a tripod or a camera with image stabilization since you will be using a slow shutter speed. This picture was taken with my point & shoot camera. Unfortunately, not all cameras let you adjust the shutter speed. Your subject then moves around you as you pivot while keeping them in the shot. It does take practice to get used to the technique, but it’s worth it.

In this photo, I sat in the middle of the merry-go-round with the boy facing me. My husband then spun us around fast while I took the picture. The boy had to sit still (yeah right!); otherwise, everything would be blurred. Naturally, this took numerous attempts because he couldn’t stop laughing. (Geez, I'm getting dizzy just looking at it.)

When creating your characters, consider their humor. I’m not talking about their sense of humor. I’m referring to the concept Hippocrates (the father of medicine) came up with. He claimed the humor was responsible for each person’s typical mood. In Breathing Life into Your Characters, Rachel Ballon described these moods as temperaments and each temperament is made up of various traits. The four temperaments are:

Sanugine (cheerful and optimistic)

source

Melancholic (depressed)

source

Choleric (too aggressive and impulsive)

source unknown

Phlegmatic (Cold-hearted)

source

For a complete list of traits for each temperament, check out this brilliant post by Misha Gericke (it’s the same one from Cool Links last Friday).

Depending on the situation, a different combination of traits will be expressed. This reveals characterization. If you know your characters’ temperaments and traits, it will make writing the scene so much easier. And when you pit two characters together with contrasting temperaments, you create conflict.

Here’s an exercise you can try when creating characters (main and secondary):

1. Select several characters from the story and assign each a temperament and several traits.

2. Come up with an idea for a scene. It doesn’t have to be from your story, but do keep to something similar to what you would find in your book. For example, if you’re writing YA contemporary and your characters’ lives are never at risk, you might not want to do this exercise with a life of death situation. Or maybe you do.

3. Now write the scene, but write it from each character’s point of view. No, I don’t mean you can go head hoping. If you have three characters, write the scene three times, each time from a different character’s point of view. (Hint: Identify the Goal, Motivation, and Conflict for each character first).

Not only will you get to know your characters better, and how they would deal with a situation similar to what’s in your story, it will help you develop each character’s voice for their dialogue. If you’re having trouble getting the emotion right in a scene, you can always try this exercise, too. It will help put you in the secondary character’s head.

(Note: this exercise isn’t the same one in Rachel’s book. Her exercise inspired this one.)

When creating your characters, have you consider their temperaments?

Fortunately photography talk is a lot easier than French and physics. And best yet…there are no verbs to conjugate or mathematical equations to puzzle through.

Aperture really is an easy concept to learn. It relates to the amount of light that travels from the lens to the film or digital chip. Think back to biology and the human eye. In dim light, your pupil dilates so that most of the colored part of your eye looks black. That allows for more light to hit your retina, and allows you to see what’s in front of you before you stub your toe. In bright light, your pupil shrinks to cut down on the amount of light that hits the retina. In photography terms, the camera lens works like the pupil. The film and digital chip are similar to the retina.

For most camera lenses, the aperture ranges between 4.5 to 32. Faster—and subsequently more expenses lenses—go down to 2.8. The smaller the number, the wider the lens opening, and thus, the more light that hits the digital chip—or film. When you select a larger number, the amount of light that hits the digital chip is much less than before.

So what does this have to do with your photos? The depth of field effects how much of your subject and the surrounding area—both in front of and behind the main point of focus—will be clearly seen. A piece of paper is two-dimensional. It can be thought of as having a shallow depth of field—okay, an extremely shallow depth of field. In this example, a cardboard box would have a wide depth of field. If you adjust the aperture to a lower number such as 4.5, your depth of field will be limited. Everything behind and in front of the subject will be blurry. If you adjust the aperture to 32, the depth of field becomes wide and everything in the picture will be in focus, which is why this setting is perfect for landscape photography.

In the above two photos, I focused the camera on Stephenie Meyer’s Novel, Eclipse. I set the aperture to 4.5 for the top photo, and increased it to 32 for the bottom one. Do you see the difference?

Are the numbers between these two extremes really important? Yes. There are some subjects that do better when taken in the middle range. Experiment with a variety of apertures on different subjects, and see for yourself the benefits and disadvantages of both.

And one final point. Usually, so you can see clearly in the viewfinder, the camera is automatically set at a wide aperture (small number) before you take a picture. This allows in more light so you can see the image you’re shooting. It also means that if you’re using a small aperture (large number), your friend might develop a tree growing out of her head that you hadn’t seen before taking the photo. Some cameras have a preview button; otherwise, you’ll need to check out the subject and surrounding area with the naked eye before taking the picture. If you’re using a digital camera, it isn’t as big a deal as compared to with film.

We know we’re supposed to show and not tell (most of the time), but do you really know how to show what you want to say? Or do your critique partners keep getting on your case for telling instead of showing?

Jessica Bell recently released her new book Show and Tell in a Nutshell. In it, she presents sixteen examples on how to show different attributes instead of “telling” them. For each example, she lists the key points she wants to show (for example, boredom, living conditions, mess) and turns it into a telling paragraph. She then presents the same information, but in a scene rich with “showing."

If, like me, you need a list of rules and explanations, then your best bet is to first read Rivet Your Readers with Deep POV by Jill Elizabeth Nelson (I reviewed the book here). Jessica’s book doesn’t share a list of dos and don’ts for showing verses telling. Instead, it provides you with before and after examples that you can analyze to see how Jessica improved the scenes with showing.You then apply the results to your own writing. The two books complement each other in this way. If you are the type of writer who prefers dissecting examples to see why it worked, and aren’t into a list of dos and don’ts, then Jessica’s book is perfect for you. Either way, Show and Tell in a Nutshell can benefit your writing if you struggle with the concept of show and tell.

In addition to the above, Show and Tell in a Nutshell provides a list of different attributes (e.g. alcoholism, anger, flu, lust, panic attack) so you can see examples of how you can show them in your story. This is a great starting place if you’re not sure how to do it.

What’s your preferred learning style? Studying lists of dos and don’ts, analyzing excerpts to see how authors performed their magic, or a combination of the two?

If you’re interested in winning a copy of Show and Tell in a Nutshell, Jessica is giving away a copy on Goodreads. Good luck!

***

And the winners of the New Adult giveaway last week are:

Meredith
Christina Lee

Both winners have already been contacted. I hope you enjoy your books. :)

I was at a pool party yesterday when a young lady came and stood next to me. She seemed shy and was hugging her self tightly. I asked her what was wrong. And she said, "I don't want to take this cover off. I don't like my body."

She was 10.

My heart sank and I told this girl, "Listen, God loves you and made you just like you are supposed to be. Don't ever feel bad about that."

She did end up going swimming, but I could tell she was very aware of all the other girls there.

I got to thinking-- *I* have 3 girls. My oldest is 5 (she'll be 6 next week). That's only 4 more years before she is the shy young lady in her swimsuit... afraid to go into the water because of her low body image.

I don't want that to happen, and I decided to do everything in my power to help my daughters... and yours... or any friends you migh have who are going through the same things.

Titus 2 says, "Older women, train up the younger women... " And this one way we must train them up.

About a month ago, my oldest daughter came up to me and said, "Mama, why are mothers always fat?"

I went, "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... " And I think my face got red because, I mean, was she calling me fat????

I asked why and she said, "Because Mamas are always trying to lose weight... because they say they are fat."

And...

It hit me.

I, myself, don't have the best self-concept when it comes to my body either. After 3 babies, I've learned to love every stretch mark, but still...

I got to thinking back on all the times I said, "Mama's fat. Mama doesn't need to eat any more because I'll be fatter." Oh. my. Gosh!

It makes me CRINGE when I think back on that!

I decided then and there when she asked me that to NEVER say that again. To tell my ladies at least once a day that they are just as God wanted them... and just right so that, hopefully, when they get older it will stick.

Now, I'm not totaly naive in all of this. I realize that between tv and their friends at school, they will get a tiny bug in their ear that will grow and they will probably learn that a "size 0 is the only perfect size."

However, I want to give them some tools to HOPEFULLY help them fight those bugs. To be confident young ladies... just as they are confident young girls.

So, what should we do?

I looked up a site called How to Raise Girls with Healthy Self-Esteem.

Some of the things they suggest are:
*Monitor your OWN comments around your kids or other girls
*Watch your own stereotypes. Let your daughter help fix the stove and not just cook on it. Give them that sense of "I CAN do it."
*Encourage her to speak her mind (BUT I'm going to add... speak your mind, but in a nice, Godly Manner.)

Some things I'm going to suggest are:
*Spend time playing with your daughter. Find ways to say that ALL women/people are beautiful.
*Watch TV shows with them and discuss what you are watching. We watch "Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss" And talk about how pretty the girls are in their dresses. My girls love to watch them play dress up... and how pretty they are in their dresses. We don't discuss 'size', but hopefully the visual of a beautiful woman who happens to not be a size 4 will help them later in life.
*Not just tell them that they are pretty (which I do... because they are and I don't want them to think their Mama never told them that)... BUT also add at different times how smart they are/How kind they are. Not just focusing on the physical.. but on the inside too.

We, as older ladies (yes, WE are older) have a responsibility to teach the younger ladies about a healthy body image... and our BEST way it accept our OWN body. You are beautiful... and 50 diets in the world won't change that. You should want to be a healthy weight (which I'm not lol) for the healthy of it... not for the physical appearance (yes, I know how hard that is... ).

We obviously can't control how our girls feel, but we can give them the tools to hopefully help them along the way to see that they are beautiful just the way they are... that is my hope for my 3 ladies.

Our kids will learn from us... and if they don't learn from us... then they will learn from the world (from magazines, tv, kids at school... ). How scary is that?

Much Love,

Kelly

(linked at Women Living Well and Titus 2sdays and Word Filled Wendesday Blog Hop)

How many of you have followed back someone on Twitter, only for the individual to send you a Direct Message to tell you to buy his book? For me, this is an instant #promotionfail. Every time this happens, I de-follow the individual and it’s guaranteed I won’t buy the book.

I’m a member of a support group for writers. It’s an awesome group, except for one problem. One individual, prior to the launch of her novel, spammed the Facebook site with daily reminders to pre-order it. Instead of creating excitement (and potential sales), she annoyed a number of the members. One even suggested a better way to do this, so to avoid our inboxes being filled with spam. The writer chose to ignore this, and continued spamming the site.

So what’s a better way to get your book seen among the onslaught of others?

Support Other Authors

I love what Susan Kaye Quinn did last week. Her self-published book, Open Minds (which I’ve read and thought it was great), was launched yesterday. Instead of annoying everyone with her “Buy Me, Buy me” message, she put a post together promoting upcoming (or recently released) books. These books are either self-published or published through a small press. Other authors have done the same, thus increasing their likability factor ten-fold. There’s something appealing about supporting authors who give to the writing community by promoting other books and not just their own.

Form a Support Team

The online banding together of several authors to promote each other books* is another way to help you promote yours. Face it, promoting your book is a scary experience. Working together as a team helps to give you a boost of self-confidence, because you’re not going it alone. This concept has also become popular with traditionally published authors involved in book signing tours.

Having a bunch of blogging (or Facebook or Twitter) friends is an awesome way to go. They are usually more than happy to get the word out about your book. It’s one of the many benefits to social networking (as if you didn’t already know).

Widget Love

One of my favorite marketing approaches, when it comes to promoting books, is the countdown widget, which you and your blogging buddies proudly display. Due to a blogger who displayed the above widget on her site, I became excited to read Jessie Harrell's book (I’m such a cover girl). Since I tend to skip over blog tours, this is a great way to grab my attention (if you have an amazing cover and widget).

What things annoy you the most when someone is promoting her book? What do you love the most?

(*note: this isn’t necessarily the same as a group blog)

<<<3

Be sure to check out Susan Kaye Quinn’s book launch. A great way to see what works is by studying what others have done. :)

On Monday, I talked about weaving symbolism into your story. No matter how small the detail, symbolism can enrich your writing.

In the post, I mentioned the book Symbols, Images, and Codes: The Secret Language of Meaning in Film, TV, Games, and Visual Media by Pamela Jaye Smith. I recently discovered this book and love it. If you’re looking for a deep book on the meaning of symbolism in our culture (or anything along this line), this book isn’t it. If you’re looking for a reference book to help you pull more symbolism into your story, this is what you’re looking for. Or at least it’s a good starting point.

Pamela divides the book into twenty-three categories. These include:

Astronomy and Astrology
Composition (i.e. the concept photographers, cinematographers, artists consider, and you will too after reading this section)
Numbers
Codes
Earth
Air
Fire
Water
Animals
Color
Anatomy
Clothes
Architecture

The book begins with a brief introduction on how symbols, images, and codes work. Each chapter (category) is then broken down according to:

• What the symbol means. For example, air means freedom, spirit, superhuman power, and understanding.

• How it’s been used in history, myth, and contemporary times.

• Examples found in movies, along with explanations as to how it worked in the movie.

• How to use it in your story. There are all kinds of cool ideas listed. Some are more appropriate for certain stories verses others.

• Written descriptions. Words that are great for creating powerful prose and imagery.

• Cinematic techniques. Not relevant to most of us, but this section is really cool too.

No matter what genre you write, this book is a great resource.

<<<3

If you want to know more about writing symbolism in fiction, I have a very special guest post coming up in a few weeks. This author KNOWS about symbolism.

(How’s that for suspense?)

Okay, so what does this picture . . .

. . . and this picture . . .

. . . have to do with writing?

Some photographers love the post production work done on photo editing programs such as Photoshop Elements.

Not me.

I prefer to take the time to set up the perfect shot. This involves preplanning, not to mention a heavy dose of creativity.

I don’t take the picture and hope for the best (most of the time). I spend time figuring out what I’m trying to achieve, the mood I’m going for, and how I’m going to do it. Same deal with my writing. I figure out the concept, the characters (which includes the characterizations of the major players), and the outline. I know what my character wants (goals), her motivations for going after her goals, and how these clash with the goals and motivations of the other characters in the story (conflict).

Plus my novels require extensive research, which I also do before I start typing the first draft. But that’s me, I’m a planner and proud of it.

According to Roni Louren, there are four levels of plotters/pansters. I’m the Military Precision Plotter. What about you?

Okay, so do you want to see the real craziness behind these pictures?

Yep, this is it. Nothing fancy. Just like me.

I don’t use any special photography equipment, nor do I use any special programs for planning my novels. I only use Word. What about all you planners out there? I’m curious, what do you use? Do you like it, or would you like to try something more sparkly?

There’s a trick to seeing the world in black & white, which I’m going to share with you. This is important to know when you’re taking black & white photos.

The first thing you need to understand is the concept of tones. Colors can be light toned or dark toned. Easy enough. But different colors can have the same tone. For example, yellow and orange are both light toned (yellow is the lightest of the two). Both red and green are considered middle toned. And Blue and purple are dark toned.

Now compare the color picture with the one taken in black & white.

Once you’ve learned which colors are which tones, you can use it to your advantage when taking black & white photos.

Your assignment is to experiment taking color and black & white photos of the same subject. Then study the effects the different colors have on the overall picture.

Please note: These pictures were taken with a digital camera and then converted to black & white (I’ll discuss how to do this in next week's tip). The result maybe slightly different compared to black & white film.

Not long ago, I started sending out queries for Lost in a Heartbeat. I didn’t expect a lot of agents to jump on it since it deals with a tough issue. It really isn’t for everyone. Fortunately, among the form rejections were two personalized ones. The agents liked the concept (yay!), but my voice was an issue. Groan.

I also entered last month's Miss Snark’s First Victim Secret Agent Contest (see her blog for more info on future ones). The Secret Agent was intrigued with my first 250 words, but thought the voice was bland. Talk about a left hook to the ego. Luckily, one of my brilliant crit partners had also read the entries. She told me the ones that grabbed her attention were the ones written in a chick lit voice. She was envious because that wasn’t her natural voice—it was mine.

Now the thing is, I'm jealous of her voice. I also love the voices of Sarah Dessen, Alyson Noel, Lisa McMann, and Richelle Mead. The trouble is I love their voices so much I lost sight of my own. It wasn’t like I was trying to emulate them. Now that would have been a huge disaster. But my Voice Envy had seriously hurt me.

Finding your voice is tricky, especially when you’re a new writer. It’s so easy to want to write like someone else. But even when you’ve established your voice, it so easy to let Voice Envy sway you. Sometimes it works. And sometimes the results are disastrous—as I’ve proven.

For more information on finding your voice, check out the blogs of Mary Kole (agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency), Elana Johnson (contributor of the Query Tracker Blog), and Christine Fonseca for their brilliant insight.

Has anyone else struggled to find and keep their voice? Or is there an author whose voice you envy? Just beware of that nasty old Voice Envy. You never know when it might strike.

So I’ve learned my lesson. I’m now storing my voice in a safe place so I don’t lose it next time. Somewhere safe from Voice Envy.

(I didn't take this photo.)
Are you ready to get your butt ready for bikini season manuscript in peak shape for querying?

Are you ready to sweat and feel the burn?

Then I have the workout for you. It’s guaranteed* to whip your butt manuscript into shape and leave agents drooling. And a drooling agent = The Call.

First, you’re going to need some equipment:

• Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. You don’t have a copy, you say? Then stay tune. It will be one of the prizes in my upcoming contest to celebrate reaching 500 + followers. (note: if you don’t want to bother with the workbook (though I highly recommend it), you can still do some of the workout. Adjust accordingly).

Workout

Warm up:

1. Characterizations

2. Outline

Some people (also known as pansters) prefer to skip the warm up. I’m not going to make you do twenty push-ups if you do. Just remember, you may need to do more work to get your manuscript into shape compared to the outliners.

Donald Maass’s workbook has some great exercises to do for the warm up (found under Character Development and Plot Development). However, I did them after I finished the first draft of my current WIP. With my next project, I’ll do them during my preplanning, to make sure my characterizations and outline are properly warmed up before I start my first draft.

Light Aerobic Exercise:

1. Write your first draft. I don’t care if you speed through it or if your internal editor is peeking over your shoulder (like mine). Just do it!

2. Read through your manuscript and write notes about things you want to fix (like inconsistencies) or things you’re questioning. Go back and deal with them now if necessary.

Intense Aerobic Exercise:

1. Go through your WIP using the exercises in Donald’s workbook under the section Character Development. With my WIP, I went through the entire manuscript doing this step.

2. Go through the remainder of the workbook (Plot Development and General Story Techniques), completing as many of the exercise as you can. Some will have to wait until you analyze the WIP at the scene level (next step).

3. Now we’re going to do interval training. Divide your WIP into chunks, each containing about three chapters (depending on the length of the chapters). Why? Because after each chunk has gone through the interval training, it’s send off to your CPs. Of course, you don’t have to do it this way. But this is how I did it.

a. Go through each scene doing the exercises in the workbook (under Plot Development and General Story Techniques). Not all exercises will be necessary for each scene. Only you can decide which ones apply to a given scene.

b. After editing the scene according to the above step, do a dialogue pass. I talked about this last week on my Query Tracker Blog post (Strengthening Dialogue).

c. The final step is to Toss The Pages. Okay, I don’t actually toss anything. I randomly select the pages. But the main point is I don’t edit these pages sequentially. This enables me to focus on the writing and not on the story. I also use the RWA handouts list under ‘equipment’ during this part. Doing it this way helps me deepen the layers of the story (setting, emotion, etc). Check out the handout, From First Draft to Final Manuscript, and you’ll see what I mean. Really push yourself on this step. Don’t gloss over it, thinking the page is fine. I bet you can make it better.

d. Continue the above three steps then read through the chunk of chapters you were working on and edit if necessary.

e. Send to CPs (optional but recommended). Edit based on their suggestions.

f. Repeat steps a-e for next chunk of the WIP.

Cool Down

1. Once finished—and after you’ve given it some distance—read through your manuscript and deal with any areas you feel could be further improved on (like pacing).

2. Send to beta readers. Edit as needed.

Celebration

(I didn't take this either)

Yay! You are now ready to query. Just make sure you’ve put your query and synopsis through their own intensive workout.

Good luck!

Any other suggestions? How do you usually edit?

* Fine Print:
1. I’m using this workout with my current WIP, so I don’t actually know if it will work when it comes to querying it. But it has made MAJOR improvements in my manuscript, hence why I’m sold on it. Of course, both the writing and a unique concept are important too. This workout won’t help you there. Sorry.
2. I lied about it being a twenty-minute workout. But it got you to look, didn’t it? ;)