More fun with words

If you like to play with words, and I know you do, check out corpus.byu.edu. This is a linguist's dream. Search for a word and you can see how frequently it was used at ten year intervals from about 1800 to the present. You can also see how the word was used in context to see how meanings change. It's fascinating and fun.

The corpus also has a practical use for writers. Worried that a word you want to use sounds too old-fashioned or too modern? Want to make sure a word had the same meaning in the time when your story is set? This corpus, the brainchild of BYU Linguistics professor Mark Davies will give you much more info than most dictionaries can.

It really is a word lover's dream come true.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In writing it's all about words,
Tales of princesses, heroes and nerds.
Then get published you must,
Though it's mostly a bust,
When they tell you your writing's absurd.

I'd add the history of the limerick, but I'll leave that to Alexander...

"Miles from Ordinary" the latest and greatest by Carol Lynch Williams

Have you heard about Carol's latest book? Check it out. It's on Amazon.com.

From Booklist

Thirteen-year-old Lacey hopes that this summer day will be a new start. She has gotten her mother a job at Winn-Dixie because they desperately need the money, and Lacey will be following in her aunt Linda's footsteps by working at the public library. Lacey craves an opportunity to be normal, to flirt with her neighbor Aaron and not have to watch over Momma, who seems so much better these days. But the day quickly spins out of control when Momma disappears. Seeing things afresh through Aaron's eyes as they search for her together, Lacey comes to realize that it's impossible for her to help her mother on her own. This gripping story by the author of The Chosen One (2009) is as suspenseful as it is painful. Lacey's love for her mother, mixed with resentment and frustration over Momma's mental illness, is thoroughly believable (if a little sophisticated). Provocatively dark and at times downright scary, this novel will have readers rushing to the unforeseen, achingly authentic conclusion. Grades 6-9. --Melissa Moore

Review

"Absorbing....[Williams] has crafted both a riveting, unusual suspense tale and an absolutely convincing character in Lacey. The book truly is miles from ordinary, in the very best way. Outstanding.” --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In a novel spanning a mere 24 hours, Williams takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride....Poignant." --Publishers Weekly

"Gripping....Provocatively dark and at times downright scary, this novel will have readers rushing to the unforeseen, achingly authentic conclusion." --Booklist

Metaphors Should Flow from Character

by Deren Hansen

Jael McHenry, writing on Writer Unboxed, answered a reader's question about generating metaphors.

I was so delighted with her "lightbulb moment" that I've reproduced the two key paragraphs here:

"I had a HUGE lightbulb moment about metaphors a few years ago, thanks to Sands Hall, whose workshop I took at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival (that same program I mentioned above.) Before that I just considered a metaphor a metaphor: they were either lovely and apt or dead and clumsy. But when Sands described how she made each character’s point of view distinct in her book Catching Heaven, she mentioned how important it was that each character’s metaphors were true to that character. And that was the lightbulb. A rancher will use different metaphors than a schoolteacher. Even if the book is in third person and not first, if the point of view is close-in to the character, you want to apply that character’s “filter” to everything – including the metaphors.

"I took this to an extreme in my book The Kitchen Daughter, where the narrator Ginny is so obsessed with food and cooking — and so uncomfortable dealing with the wider world — that she filters absolutely everything through the lens of food. She bumps into a shoulder and it feels “like the shank end of a ham”; the voices of the people in her family she compares to orange juice, tomato juice, spearmint, espresso. In most cases your characters will draw from a larger pool, but still, the idea that there is a pool, and that it comes from that character’s particular bias and experience, that’s clutch."

One should probably resist the temptation to rely too heavily on idiosyncratic, character-based metaphors, particularly in a fantasy where the reader doesn't know the character's referential context. (Does, "He was as happy as a skurlump on a fringbol," say anything to you?)

That said, not only are a few well-chosen character-based metaphors a great way to contribute to the voice of the narrative, this is also a good way to avoid anachronistic metaphors if you're writing about another time or place.


Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.

Utah Children's Writers Very FIRST Writing Contest

For the first three weeks of March, this blog will host its very first writing contest! All entries will be posted to the blog and voted on by blog readers. The winner gets a $20 gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon and their winning entry posted here and on the UT Children's Writers email group. We also have a signed copy of VS Grenier's picture book and two writing reviews/edits by Scott Rhoades and Julie Daines.

Just added! Scott will review your MSS *or* he will turn your book into an e-book! 

Here are the requirements:
  -write a short story or poem, any age, any genre
 -500 words or less!
  -use the phrase "he had it coming to him" in the writing (you can change it to she/her)
  -post your writing as a comment to this or the previous blog post
  -check back to read others' entries
  -vote for your favorite story

All comments must be submitted by 11:59 pm on Saturday March 26th. Voting will take place the last week of March. Winner(s) will be announced on April 1st.

**if you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
**if you would like to add something to the prize collection, please let me know!

Tracking with a Timeline

By Julie Daines

Keeping track of timing when writing a novel can be tricky. Using a timeline can help you remember what happened when, and other details that add continuity to writing.

A typical timeline for me consists of the following:

The time of day events occur, including the specific date, day of the week, and the duration of those events or scenes. Even though most of that detail never makes it into the story, I refer to it frequently to make sure I’m not stuffing too much into one day while leaving other days mostly empty. I check the timeline to make sure scenes are occurring in a natural way. It helps when my characters refer to events that have happened in the past, I can easily remember when they occurred. Keeping a timeline helps ground the story in real time and draw the reader in.

The weather. I keep track of the weather so when I’m writing about events that occur at the end of the day, I maintain continuity in the weather.

What the characters are wearing. Again, this is usually a detail that doesn’t make it into the book, but just in case I want to refer to it, I can easily remember. This includes what items they have with them, if they are traveling or something.

Sometimes I indicate on my timeline emotions or paradigm shifts that my main characters have, just to see if the timing feels natural. It also helps when revising a scene to look at the timeline and remember whether this scene is before or after a certain emotional moment.

I find the timeline very useful in writing, but it comes in handy especially during the revising process. It saves me a lot of time when I need to remember what happened when. Keeping track of scenes like this also helps me notice if I have repetitive scenes or if the cycle of events is becoming formulaic.

I know this is basic stuff—writing 101. But if you don’t do this, give it a try. It’s makes a difference. 

Setting Writing Goals

We all know how important it is to set writing goals, but do we know how or what type, especially as a new or beginning writers?

Goal setting can be done in many different ways and each writer/author has their who style and technique. I’ve shared some of my thoughts along with others here on the Utah Writer’s Blog, but today I asked co-authors Tom Listul and Heather Listul Hewitt to share a bit about their goals as they worked on their recently published children’s book, Monkey Made Dreams.

Setting Writing Goals with Tom Listul and Heather Listul Hewitt

Write Every Day

A simple goal to have is to write something everyday. Even if it does not seem like you are accomplishing much, write a couple of lines or a couple of pages. Some days ideas will flow freely and other days not so much.

Keep a List of Ideas or Lines/Scenes

If you have written down ideas or lines, you can go back through your ideas, on those off days, to help you move forward or spark a new thought.

Draft Ideas or Scenes Out

Another goal that might be helpful is to draft out ideas you may have. You can write down a topic sentence or main line and list multiple ideas after that about different directions a story can go.

Keep Your Personal Goals Small (Baby Steps to the Bigger Goal)

It is always good to set goals for yourself about what you want to accomplish, but it is important to start small. You do not want to get discouraged or frustrated if you are not reaching the goal you set. Think about other ways you can break your project down into parts, such as having a goal to write one paragraph or one page in a certain amount of time. It really depends on how you work as a writer and what inspires you.

Look for Inspiration and Take a Break

Some days you might not be able to sit and write, and you might need to find inspiration. While keeping your goals in mind is important, you should also feel free to take a break and find that inspiration when needed.

Do not put too much pressure on yourself, because writing should be therapeutic and fun. You should try to enjoy the process as much as possible. 

Tom Listul wrote Monkey Made Dream with his daughter, Heather Listul Hewitt, when she was eight years old. A farmer from southwest Minnesota, he is also a singer/songwriter. Listul made Monkey Made Dream into a children’s song and has sang it at numerous coffee houses and children’s classrooms. Hewitt is now a speech-language pathologist, who works for a school district with students of all ages. She enjoys helping children develop literacy skills and a love for reading.

 

You can learn more about Tom Listul and Heather Listul Hewitt at their World of Ink Tour page or Facebook Fan and Event pages.

Event site: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=198703490158349

World of Ink Tour: http://storiesforchildrenpublishing.com/TomListulandHeatherListulHewitt.aspx

Fan page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Monkey-Made-Dream/119130761489469

Update to Yesterday's E-Book Post

by Scott Rhoades

As an example, I'm making my short story, "Danube So Blue," available as a free ebook for readers of this blog. I created the epub book from a Word file, run through the OpenOffice Writer2ePub extension with no editing or cleanup of any kind. I then ran it through Calibre to create a Kindle version (MOBI format). Leave a comment here to tell me and the other blog readers how it looks in your e-book reader.

Create an E-Book the Easy Way (and it's free!)

by Scott Rhoades

There is a very easy way to create your own e-book from any Word file. The Writer2ePub extension for OpenOffice (it also works in LibreOffice, by the way) creates an epub file usable by most e-readers. (Note: The Kindle does not read epub files. However, you can use an application called Calibre to convert an epub to a Kindle file. Search the Net for more info.)

You'll have to install OpenOffice or LibreOffice to use the extension, but those are both free and powerful alternatives to Microsoft Office. Even if you prefer to use Word, you have nothing to lose but a little disk space by installing this alternative.

Once you have your new office suite, open it and click Tools > Extension Manager > Get More Extensions Online. This takes you to the extensions repository. Scroll down to the bottom. Near the end of the page, you'll see Writer2ePub. Click the link, then click Get It at the bottom of the extension's page.

Now, go back to Tools > Extension Manager, then click Add and browse to the Writer2ePub extension you downloaded, accept the license, and install the extension. To complete the installation, close the word processor and then open it again.

After the extension is installed, it only takes a few clicks to create your epub file. Three epub icons appear in the toolbar of the word processor. They look like a lowercase e tipped partway over. Just open the file you want to turn into an epub, make sure it looks OK, then click the first epub button, fill in the title and other information in the form that appears, click OK, and wait a few seconds.

The epub file is ready to open in your reader.

This extension creates a simple e-book. You can create a cover for your new book, but support for images is limited or non-existent, so keep that in mind if you have pictures in your book. I haven't tested it with images, so I don't really know how well it works or doesn't, beyond what I've read. But it will work fine for moving most manuscripts to your reader to carry with you or share with your friends or writing group.

UPDATE: As an example, I'm making my short story, "Danube So Blue," available as a free ebook for readers of this blog. I created the epub book from a Word file, run through the OpenOffice Writer2ePub extension with no editing or cleanup of any kind. I then ran it through Calibre to create a Kindle version (MOBI format). Leave a comment here to tell me and the other blog readers how it looks in your e-book reader.

a Field Guide for Writing

Last week, I finished "The Danger Box" by Blue Balliett. I loved it! The author did a masterful job of weaving the history and personality of Charles Darwin into the lives of a boy and his grandparents. One of the main focuses of the story is a field guide kept by Charles Darwin on his famous voyage of the Beagle to the Galapagos Islands.

The idea of a field guide has always appealed to me-- to take along a notebook and record what you see through drawings and notes sounds like great fun. There's only been one problem for me. I don't draw that well (or well enough to want to fill a field guide). That got me thinking.

What if you had a writing field guide? A simple notebook that you filled with brief, written "sketches" of the people and places around you.

"Tall and lean like a tree stripped bare by a wind storm, as weathered as a rock in the canyon." 


"Shrieking and howling, the small boy lead his mother on a chase through Aisles 4 and 5, managing to knock over a display of energy drinks."

Sometimes writers become so fixated on the ultimate word count for their book, they forget the magic of creating little nuggets of writing. There is great fun in taking the scene around you (real or imagined) and reducing it to as few sentences as possible. Each blurb can stand independent of those before or after; there's no need to worry about the flow and pacing!

So try it. Grab a new notebook (aahh, is anything more exciting than a brand new notebook?), a pen or pencil, and head somewhere with some action and create your own "Field Guide" to life. Let me know what exciting things you discover.

Cool Websites for Research

Google has made "exploring" from your home easier than ever. I love Google Earth where you can see any view from almost any street in the world. I just read on an art blog that Google has been using the same concept with art museums. The Art Project powered by Google is taking pictures of some of the world's most famous museums and posting them online. Now can you imagine you are walking the halls of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art while scrolling the pages with your mouse. Plus, these websites have the benefit of allowing you to "see it with your own eyes" instead of relying on someone else's narrative.

 In an age when kids are learning about Vermeer through books (to name one book), this is a great resource for writers, teachers, parents, and anyone who wants to kill time on the internet while still being productive.

What other websites do you find invaluable for research, teaching, or fun? Post them below in the comment box!

The Second Rule of Two: Two Choices

by Deren Hansen

In a recent repost of an observation about character catalyzed by "some old guys at [the] gym," Nathan Bransford helped clarify something I've also observed:

A character doesn't show any character unless he or she has two real choices.

You might object that regardless of the situation the character can always choose to act differently. While true in principle, in practice many of those choices are not real choices: if the space aliens come, demanding that you obey or be exterminated, choosing to be exterminated is a choice that generally accomplishes little more than taking you out of the story.

We have a lot of stories in comics, TV, and movies, where the hero does the right thing because they're the hero. I can't deny that simple stories like that have an element of fun. But consider how much more it says if a character, whom we've seen behave with both cruelty and kindness, chooses, at a critical moment, to be kind.

The key is to establish that the character has the capacity to go either way. Only when they're free to choose and capable of carrying out their choice do we see real character.


Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.

Making the Unknown Appear Known

by Scott Rhoades

Note: This article I wrote first appeared in "Vision: A Resource for Writers," in 2008. I thought it might be useful here.

"Write what you know." Writing teachers drill it. The writing magazines repeat it. Our mentors and writers groups won't let us forget it. But what if your story needs to go somewhere you haven't been? How do you write about a place you've never seen?

The best answer, of course, is to go there. Travel inspires fiction like nothing else. When you're in a new place, your senses are wide open, you enjoy new cultural experiences, and you get an appreciation for the planet that can add tremendous depth to your own world view and, thus, your writing. But most of us can't just pick up and go. It costs money, and we have obligations that make it difficult to jet-set around the globe. Plus, for some reason, the places we think of are usually exotic.

Like Iceland.

I've been fascinated with Iceland since I first read about it in a Hardy Boys book when I was about eight or nine. It's one of my dream destinations, but I've never been. So naturally I chose it as a major location for my first novel.

When writing about Iceland, I used a variety of techniques. First, I read everything I could get my hands on about the place: history, culture, literature (classical and modern), anything to give me a feel for the area and the people. Next, I looked at a lot of pictures. Descriptions based on pictures are filtered through what I learned while reading, so the culture influences the descriptions.

Then, I did something that some people might not think about. I contacted a professional photographer who has worked extensively in Iceland, but is not native. Not being native helps a person see things that natives don't necessarily see. I had questions about light at different times of day in the season when my story takes place, and I figured nobody pays attention to light like a photographer does.

While I had his attention, I asked about other things that a photographer might look at differently than a tourist or native. He was also nice enough to look over some of my descriptions and comment on them. Next, I had a native check my details to make sure they felt authentic. This helped me find errors in my description of a storm and helped validate that other things were correct. If you can convince a native, you've won the battle.

If possible, visit a restaurant that serves foods from the area you're writing about. Don't be afraid to be a little adventurous and try some authentic foods that might be outside your comfort zone. Short of traveling, there are few better ways to experience a culture's sensual richness.

I'm fortunate to live within easy driving distance of Spanish Fork, Utah, a town that was settled partly by a community of Icelandic immigrants, and was the setting for one of the classics of Icelandic literature, Paradise Reclaimed by Iceland's Nobel Prize winner, Halldor Laxness. Every year, the descendants of these immigrants celebrate Thorrablot, the midwinter feast where Icelanders sample traditional foods that their ancestors ate to survive the isolation of a long Icelandic winter.

This gave me the chance to taste such delicacies as putrefied shark, pressed ram scrota, and singed sheep's head, and to surround myself in Icelandic culture for an evening. Trust me when I tell you there's no way to describe the "pleasure" of eating shark that has rotted underground for several months in its own body fluids without actually tasting it for yourself. Suffering through four pieces of that stuff--it took that many tries to be able to get over the shock enough to concentrate on tastes and textures--provided some authentic details that I would otherwise have missed.

Finally, remember that long descriptive passages are much less common in modern fiction than they used to be. You don't need to describe anything in exact detail. As with any research, you'll probably only use a little of what you learn. That little will be informed by the material you don't use, so you can make a little detail do a lot of work. The important thing is getting a sense of the place so your setting feels real and authentic. So climb aboard the research train, and have a pleasant journey.

the Prizes for the first-ever Writing Contest are building!

A signed book by VS Grenier
A manuscript edit by Julie Daines
The gift card

It's worth it! Enter today!

500 words or less (or a synopsis) with the phrase "he had it coming to him" in it.

Questions?

Thou mammering tickle-brained joithead!

Want to chew someone out but in a "classy" way?
How about, "I throw thy name against the bruising stones!" That sounds like something out of Monty Python, doesn't it? It's from The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Try another: "Thou errant weather-bitten wagtail!"
Or: "Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes." (Richard III)
 

Want more?
Try Shakespearean Insulter! Then come back and insult me. Wait. Never mind. Come back with your favorite insult and if you're feeling brave, tell me who you would say it to.

Roller Coaster Story: Just Say No!

by Deren Hansen

Roller coasters can be loads of fun if you ignore the fact that you're simply going round in circles and that the ride is exactly the same every time. Indeed, there's something nice about being able to pretend you're doing something dangerous while knowing that the engineers have done everything humanly possible to make sure the ride is safe.

Just make sure you keep your roller coasters in the amusement parks where they belong. Don't let them sneak into your plot.

"Wait," you object, "roller coasters are exciting. Don't we want our books to be equally exciting?"

Yes and no.

Clearly, if your story doesn't offer an experience that is compelling or enticing, few people will give you their money and invest their time to read.

On the other hand, if your characters have as much influence on the course of events in your book as the riders on a roller coaster have on the direction in which they travel, you don't have a story. Story is about cause and effect. We love good stories because we learn something about how to solve our problems by going along with the characters as they try to solve their problems. A roller coaster story teaches us nothing more than, "Sit down, hang on, and enjoy the ride."

I've argued elsewhere that you don't have a real character unless they have two real choices and the ability to go either way. There's an analogous rule for plot: you don't have a story unless there's the real possibility that things could go either way.

This is why you'll often hear people characterize the three act structure in terms of try-fail cycles. In act one, the protagonist tries something that fails to solve the story problem. They try something different in act two, which also fails. It's only in act three, where we're afraid the protagonist is going to get their third strike, that they succeed.

Of course, in an objective sense, a story is just like a roller coaster because every time you go they take you to the same place. The difference is that while we can see the roller coaster's tracks the tracks of the story can disappear beneath the interplay of cause and effect, the verisimilitude of characters that have real choices, and situations that could go either way.


Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.

Posting Entries for the Blog Writing Contest

You can post your 500 word (or less) writing entry as a comment to THIS post or to the one below that announces the contest (and lists the details).

Be sure to include the phrase "he had it coming to him" in your entry!

Good luck! We look forward to reading your stories and/or poems.

announcing Utah Children's Writers Very FIRST Writing Contest

(drum roll, please) I'm thrilled to announce our very first writing contest for the blog!

For the first three weeks of March, this blog will host its very first writing contest! All entries will be posted to the blog and voted on by blog readers. The winner gets a $10 gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon and their winning entry posted here and on the UT Children's Writers email group (hopefully more prizes will be added throughout the month!). 

Here are the requirements:

  -write a short story or poem, any age, any genre
  -use the phrase "he had it coming to him" in the writing (you can change it to she/her)
  -post your writing as a comment to this or the previous blog post
  -check back to read others' entries
  -vote for your favorite story

All comments must be submitted by 11:59 pm on Saturday March 26th. Voting will take place the last week of March. Winner(s) will be announced on April 1st.

**if you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
**if you would like to add something to the prize collection, please let me know!

2011 Writing & Illustrating for Young Readers Conference

Check out the information on the conference at their website:

http://www.wifyr.com/

And become a fan on Facebook too!

Conflict Should Not Be Contrived

By Julie Daines

Conflict. The driving force behind the novel. The peril that pursues our main character through crisis after crisis. The element of the story that keeps the reader turning pages or reading late into the night. The only problem is, it has to be believable.

I recently read a novel where the first two-thirds of the book was driven by conflict that just wasn’t believable. A high school girl starts to fall for the wrong guy. He’s bad—as in not human.

The problem is that her father, mother and brother, who all love her very much and want to protect her, know the truth about the guy. They tell her over and over to stay away. But they never explain why. I don’t buy it because if they really loved and worried about her, they would tell her the truth about the guy.

I call this secret keeping conflict. Other people know the truth, but for whatever reason—usually to protect the main character from becoming upset or scared—they just don’t tell. It can sometimes work, and often not. Because it feels too contrived.

So, I guess my advice for this post:  Make sure your conflict feels real and not contrived.

How do you do this? You have to constantly question your character’s motives. Why would he do this? Why wouldn’t she just…? What is preventing him from simply…? Would she rather…? Wouldn’t it be easier if he…?

If the answer to any of these questions is because it would mess up my story, you might have a problem.

This is where the critique group comes in handy. They read your chapter and say, why wouldn’t they just tell the truth? And you ask yourself, why indeed? Then you snatch your manuscript out of their hands and head back to the drawing board to fix it. Hopefully.

This post is dedicated to the Sharks and Pebbles, who ask the questions I seem to miss.