Craft Challenge #3 – Choosing your protagonist

Anna snoozing on Sunday morning

I love Sundays.  It’s the one day a week where I’m pretty much guaranteed a good long sleep in.  I love waking up slowly, drowsing for a while, waking again, dozing off again… you get the idea.  Most days the alarm goes off and I have to go from zero to sixty in just a few minutes.  On Sundays, waking slowly, I find my mind wanders to whatever writing problem I haven’t had time to mull over properly.  I find that long rise from sleep to waking leaves me in that middle ground, that dreamy but able to direct my thoughts stage that seldom presents itself otherwise.  I find myself easing up to ah-ha moments about things in my stories that I sometimes didn’t even realize I was thinking about.

I’ve been struggling with a story for a long while now.  I’ve written various versions of it, but it’s never quite worked.  Yesterday, in that lovely long waking period, I realized that perhaps I was trying to tell the wrong person’s story.  Maybe my protagonist isn’t really the character who drives the story.  Maybe, if I tell the story from my major secondary character’s point of view the stakes will be higher, the conflict bigger, the story more compelling.  Once I started thinking of the secondary character as my protagonist all kinds of plot ideas started flowing, complications started to arise, and suddenly I could see a possible set of turning points.  The shape of the story started to coelesce out of the muddle in my head.  I haven’t worked it all out yet, but my gut instinct is that I’m on to something here.

So, this week’s challenge is really more of question.  How do you decide which character will be your protagonist?   Do you dream up a cast of characters then audition each of them to see which one will serve best as your protagonist?  Do you develope a character, then find a story to tell about that person?  How can you tell when you have the right protagonist for the story, or, conversely, the right story for your protagonist?

I know there are a lot of folks peeking in to my challenges here without joining in the fun.  Please, take a minute and share your experience.  How do you know when you have the right protagonist?

Have a great writing week!

Laurin

P.S.  I’m not nearly so cute snoozing on a Sunday morning as Anna the wonder dog is!

Golden Heart and RITA finalists!

Congratulations to all the finalists in the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart (unpublished) and RITA (published) contests!  I’m sending out a special “atta girl” to all the wonderful writers who have been honored by their peers by being included in these select groups of romance writers.

If you want to know more about either contest or to see complete lists of all the finalists check out the RWA web site.  Winners will be announced at the annual conference in Washington, DC this July!

Craft Challenge — Setting the Mood

Good morning! 

I’ve just returned from a beautiful place – the Ozark Mountains in northwest Arkansas – and it’s got me thinking about story settings.   Not everyone cares as much about setting as I do, but I have to have settings for my stories that speak to me at a deep, gut level.  My settings are as much a character as any person in my stories, and they have personalities, just like the people.  Neglecting your setting means you are neglecting a layer of your story that can reflect mood and emotion, provide symbolism, help you develop your character subtly, or even provide you with a marketing hook.  Yes, I prefer craft, but a writer these days can’t ignore marketing.

So, what do I mean by this?  Think about your childhood home (or another place that you know very well).  If you were to return there today what would you see?  Smell?  Hear?  Remember?  What emotions would you feel? Is there a place that holds a special meaning for you in the house or yard (good or bad!)?  Were there things in the house that symbolize something to you?  Did the weather of the place effect (or reflect) your feelings about it?  The architecture?  Take two or three minutes and make a quick list.  Don’t think too hard. 

Now, in a paragraph or two set the scene for a story in that house.  Imagine your protagonist returning there.  Reveal (show!) how the protagonist feels about this place through your description as much as possible.  Set the mood for the story with your setting.  You might even try using the same setting for two different sorts of stories (mystery vs. quirky comedy, for example) and see how you either choose different details or describe the same details differently to reflect the different moods of the stories.

Here’s an example from my book Daring the Highlander.  AiligMacLeod is returning home after a short, but life altering, absence:

Assynt Castle crouched amongst piles of soot-encrusted snow.  Its gray imposing bulk uncomfortably straddled the narrow strip of land between the glorious open freedom of the white clad mountains and the dark, frigid depths of the frozen loch.

Heavy gray clouds raced across the sky, spitting icy pellets down his neck, pulling his attention from the castle and what awaited him there.  He watched the clouds flee the glen, driven by the rising wind and, for just a moment, he considered following them.

Can you tell what Ailig is feeling about his home?  Is he happy to be there?  What sort of welcome is he anticipating?  Is he arriving with good news or bad?  This is at the very beginning of the story.  Can you tell what the general mood of the story will be?

I’ll post another example or two tomorrow, in case you need a little more inspiration.

Okay, show me what you can do!  Please share your exercises in the comments!

Laurin

Quick note

I’ve been traveling south for my nephew’s wedding for the last 5 days so my Monday challenge will be a bit late posting tomorrow.  I’ll have it up by noon at the latest!

Check out my brother’s wonderful rental cottage where my son and I stayed for a couple of days.  It’s truly a magical spot:

http://www.myblueheavencabin.com/

My nephew was married to a wonderful woman at this amazing place: 

http://www.thorncrown.com/

We had a great trip and the wedding was wonderful but my brain is fried from all the traveling!

Karen — you are the hands-down winner of last week’s craft challenge.  If you’ll send me your mailing address (laurin@wittig.com) I’ll send you an autographed copy of Charming the Shrew.  THANKS for playing last week!

Laurin

Craft Challenge – Embellishing Dialog

My first drafts end up being almost all dialog.  I don’t know why but that’s what comes to me first — people talking in my head (and no, I’m not crazy!).   Then I have to go back and layer in all the other information during revisions.   Dialog is a fine start, but there’s setting, action, body language, interior monologues, plot, conflict, and so many other options to weave around the dialog.

So here’s this week’s writing challenge:

Take the following dialog and layer in all the other information that will show the reader who the two speakers are, what their relationship is, some clue as to time and/or place (where and when this happens), and why they are having this conversation.  Think setting, 5 senses, who is the point of view character and what is he or she thinking and feeling as the conversation goes on, and what is the real conflict in this exchange?  I’ll give you the dialog and an example, then it’s your job to run with it. 

There’s a prize this week!  Post your work in the comments and next Monday morning I’ll randomly choose a winner to recieve a copy of one of my books.

The dialog is:

 “I can’t.”
“Loser.”
“Seriously. It’s just not possible.”
“It’s possible. You’re just afraid.”
“And the problem with that is?”
“No problem.”
“You’re disappointed.”
“Angry, really.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be a super hero like you.”
“No one can.”

Now here’s an example of embellishing:

“I can’t.”  Kelly wiped the sweat off her upper lip with the back of her hand and looked down the shear clif face at the green sea water far below.  She knew better than to accept a dare from her sister?  This was crazy.

“Loser.”  Sarah stepped forward, curling her toes over the rocky edge.   Her exquisitely cut chestnut hair whipped about her face, the sneer that marred her classic features a familiar taunt to Kelly.

“Seriously. It’s just not possible.”  Kelly shivered in spite of the tropical heat.  No one could survive that drop. 

“It’s possible. You’re just afraid.”  Sarah turned her head to look Kelly in the eye.  Anticipation swirled there, a surge of adrenaline clearly already coursing through Sarah’s veins.  It was what Sarah lived for.  It was what Kelly feared.  She had to stop Sarah before she did something really stupid and killed herself.

“And the problem with that is?”  She held her breath.

“No problem.”  Sarah shook her head then looked out at the horizon.  She raised her arms out to her side like a platform diver at the olympics.

Kelly’s fleshed crawled.  She had to stop her.  “You’re disappointed,” she said, making it a challenge, desperate to start an argument, anything that would draw Sarah back from the edge.

“Angry, really.”  No emotion.  Nothing, as if Sarah was empty of everything except the single moment before her.

Kelly reached out, putting a hand on her sister’s outstretched arm.  “I’m sorry I can’t be a super hero like you.”  Never has she spoken the truth more.  She wanted to tell her to stop, to step away from the edge, to think this through, but she knew from long experience that Sarah would only race into madness even faster.  She had to settle for the tried and true — she needed to make Sarah feel superior, give her a different sort of rush.  It was the only way to stop her.  She held her breath, waiting for a reaction.

Sarah smiled, then wrapped her hand around Kelly’s wrist.  “No one can,” she whispered as she launched both of them over the precipice.

Okay, now see what you can do!

Laurin

Craft Challenge Mondays

I’m having so much fun with JA Konrath’s 70 word story challenge and all the amazing stories that have resulted that I’m going to continue on this great start.  Every Monday I’ll offer a Craft of Writing Challenge here at Between the Lines.  I’ll have guest bloggers on occasion, and prizes on occasion, but regardless of who posts there will be quick exercises or writing prompts to get your writing juices flowing at the start of the week.

I hope you’ll stop back by Monday for the next Craft Challenge!

Laurin

Seventy Words or Less — Guest Blog by JA Konrath

I’m very happy to welcome guest blogger author JA Konrath here today!  He’s got a great writing exercise to share.  Give it a try and post your results in the comments.  Also, check out Joe’s blog and his new book (links at the end).

Seventy Words or Less
a guest blog
by JA Konrath

As writers, we’re told that every word counts. But how can we tell, for sure, which words are necessary?

Here’s a fun writing exercise that will teach you what is required, and what is extraneous.

Write a complete story, with characters, a setting, a conflict, and a resolution, in 70 words or less.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Once you have an idea, you’ll discover that you go way over the word limit.

That’s where craft comes into play. Paring down your story to just seventy words takes a great deal of thought and skill. It makes you aware of how valuable each word is, and forces you to defend your choices.

My horror novel, AFRAID, comes out at the end of March. It’s written under my pen name, Jack Kilborn.

Even though it’s a regular length novel of 90,000 words, I tried my best to be economical with my words. As a result, it has more action than most 120,000 word novels.

Because AFRAID is scary, here are two examples of 70 word stories with some delightfully twisted themes.

After you read these, I encourage you to post a 70 word story of your own.

Less is more. So show me less.

———

DISCIPLINE
by Jack Kilborn

How long? Three days? Four?
No light. No water or food. The closet door is thick. Solid. He’s banged on it until he bleeds.
This isn’t punishment. It’s murder.
He cries. No tears come out. Dehydration.
“Please open up.” His voice is hoarse, raw. “I promise I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.”
The small, precious reply:
“You haven’t learned your lesson yet. Be brave. That’s what you tell me, Daddy.”

Available March 31, 2009

THE CRAFTSMAN
by Jack Kilborn

The first layer comes off easy, using a fine grit sandpaper. Things start to get sticky, so I have to use steel wool. By layer seven I’m using a wood planer, shaving off a quarter inch at a time.

Sweaty, achy, and cramped, I’m finally halfway done.

Now I need someone to help me. With the other side.

I can’t hold the planer in my skinless right hand.

———

Now it’s your turn. Show me what you’ve got.

Let’s make this a contest.  Post your 70 words or less entry in the comments section, and the winner gets a signed copy of AFRAID.

Contest ends on Friday the 13th.

Joe
http://www.JAKonrath.com
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/jakonrath

12 Reasons I Love My Kindle 2

Last week my Kindle 2 finally arrived!  I’m in love. Totally, completely, head-over-heels in love.  So I thought I’d share a few of the reasons I’ve fallen for this book gadget so hard.

 

Kindle 2

1. Instant gratification.  I can buy a book anywhere, anytime, and have it downloaded virtually instantly.  Okay, so it takes a couple of minutes, but still, that’s pretty darn close to instant gratification.
2. It’s cool.  Yes, I’m something of a gadget geek.  The first computer I ever worked on had a single-sided single floppy disk drive.  If I needed to print I had to go through a ten step “hand-shake”.  If you don’t know what any of that means, then you know I’ve been into computers way too long.  This Kindle 2 is simply way cool.
3. One less suitcase to pack for my summer trip to Maine.   One of the joys of our annual jaunt to northern Maine is the long lazy days filled with, among other things, lots of reading.  However, the only place to buy books most years is the WalMart, which has,  shall we say, a limited selection, so I always take a lot more books than I can actually read in two weeks, just in case.  Now I can order from Amazon and don’t have to wait the extra two days it takes for mail to get up there, followed by remembering to drive ten miles into town to check my in-laws PO box.  I can plan ahead, or order as the mood strikes me.  Instant gratification AND less grousing by my husband about how his next wife is going to be illiterate (so he doesn’t have to haul books around for her!).
4. Cell or Internet connection and I’m good to go.  Okay, this one is connected to the Maine item.  Even if I don’t have cell service (which I don’t at the camp in Maine) if I have internet service (which I do at the camp in Maine) I can easily plug in the nifty dual AC plug/USB cable and lickety-split I’ve got my book.  This goes for my parents’ house in North Carolina, too!
5. No more hand cramp.  I read in bed.  Sometimes I read elsewhere, but then my family tends to interupt — sometimes just to see steam hiss out of my ears — but mostly I read in bed.  Some of my favorite authors write BIG books, even in paperback.  I get a pain in my hand from holding those books night after night.  The Kindle 2 is very, very light and I don’t have to hold it firmly to keep the pages open.  After less than a week of reading on the Kindle I can already tell a difference.
6. Did I mention it’s cool?
7. It’s driving my uber gadget geek husband crazy that I have a toy he doesn’t have.  Even better, I got to play with it first.  Mwa-ha-ha.
8. Newsletters!  I belong to a number of organizations that send out monthly newsletters (writers do like to write).  The switch from paper newsletters to electronic formats has meant that I read less and less of these newsletters, even those I find most useful.  Why, you ask?  Because if I’m sitting at my desk computer, I try to be working.  If I’m reading email on my laptop in the living room, I tend to be interrupted, so I stick to quick reads/replies mostly.  Newsletters take more time.  I have 5 Novelists Inc. newsletters in my in-box, waiting for me to make the time on one of my computers to read them.  I forwarded each of those emails with attached newsletters to my free.Kindle email account where they were converted and emailed back to me.  A quick trip through the USB cable and they are now on my Kindle where I can read them… in bed, at the doctor’s office, while waiting to pick up my son from band practice, you get the idea. Now I have the ease and portability of the printed and stapled version but better because the Kindle is smaller than the printed version.   For ten cents I could have sent it to my regular Kindle email and it would have been automatically converted to Kindle format and downloaded directly to my Kindle, but I wanted to see how it worked downloading it myself.  I think it’s safe to say I’ll be reading more of my numerous newsletters again, now that I can put them on my Kindle.  I can even set up a rule in my Outlook to automatically forward the newsletter emails to my Kindle acount.  I’d better put that on the to-do list right now!
9. Font size.  I have reached that certain age… okay, I reached it a few years ago… where I cannot read without reading glasses.  Most of the time, that’s not a problem, but there is are occasions where I’ve either forgotten my glasses, or can’t wear them (hair dye and glasses just don’t work well together!), and I want to read.  In the past I’ve been stuck looking at pictures in magazines I wouldn’t otherwise read.  Now, with a couple of clicks, I can increase the font size so that even I can read without reading glasses.  Nifty!
10. Word files (converted the same way newsletters are).  I find myself reading more and more manuscripts before they are made into books.  This is very cool but does tie me to a computer to read them and comment on them.   Don’t get me wrong, I could never critique a piece on the Kindle, but if I’m reading to give a cover quote, or I’m doing a first impression read (before doing an in-depth critique read) I could easily do that on the Kindle.  Also, if I’m reading a nearly finished draft of my own work, it seems the tiny keyboard necessary for making notes on the Kindle would encourage me to just read and not edit as I go.  I can see it giving me a little more distance so I can read the manuscript with a more objective eye.
11. Book prices.  Generally, the price of a book is a little less than the mass market paperback edition or a lot less than the hard back paper edition.  Now I’m an author who depends on royalties to be paid for my work and generally speaking, discounts imply lower royalties, so at first glance this looks bad for an author’s bottom line.  But here’s the thing, there are a lot of my favorite authors who have moved from paperback to hardback releases (with paper generally following a year later).  I don’t buy the hardback.  I wait for the paperback for two reasons.  First is price.  I can shell out $18 to $26 for a hard back or I can buy 3 to 5 paperbacks for the same amount of money.  As a voracious reader, that’s a compelling reason to read other books now and enjoy my favorite author when she comes out in paperback next year.  Second, I read in bed.  See point 5 above!  So, when I can get the hardback version on the Kindle for $9.99 I’ll plop down my money and enjoy that read a year earlier.  The price is lower than the paper hard back edition, but higher than the mass market edition that I would have bought.  Seems like a win-win to me.
12. The end of stripped books.  You may or may not know that the end of life for an unsold paperback book is a horrible, heart rending, and incredibly wasteful thing.  A bookseller literally cuts off the cover to return to the publisher for a credit for unsold books, then THROWS THE REST OF THE BOOK AWAY.  It makes my book-loving heart hurt just to think about it.  It makes the environmentalist in me cringe.  Mostly, it just makes me ill.   You can’t strip an e-book!

Kindle 2

I know this gadget isn’t for everyone.  For one thing, it’s pricey and for a long time I’ve been talked out of buying an e-reader because the price didn’t justify it.  Fair point.  But I know a lot of people who will shell out a lot of money on a game system or a fancy cell phone that does way more than make phone calls because it’s cool.  I don’t like video games much or fancy phones (heck, I don’t like phones at all!) but I do love my books so I choose to spend my splurge money on a book gadget.

And did I mention it’s cool?

 

Laurin