Naming Minor Characters

Once again a long gap between posts. I feel my apologies are getting repetitive.
But a belated Merry Christmas is due as well :)

Writing has been going ahead steadily over the past couple of week and I now have one chapter completed and five more on the go - not all in chronological order. I seem to be adopting the technique of writing what comes to me at the time, rather than doing all the chapters in order; but this way seems to get stuff done for me (it's the method I also adopt with schoolwork - though it doesn't always work).


The topic I've picked for today is the naming of secondary and tertiary characters; the ones who aren't as essential to the plot. These for me are those that I need to fulfil a certain role eg. the one who steps in to fill a place on a sports team or the owner of a shop.
Most of my main characters so far have been named after family and friends, just a few have been completely made up, but this - for me - is slightly harder to do with less major characters; as I like to have names that fit the people, but for the background characters I haven't really had chance to develop enough to know what names would fit. This has led to me leaving blanks for names which I really do not like, as a chapter that would otherwise have been complete now looks like bits are missing.
So far I've been fairly lucky and only had a few of these problems with names; meaning I feel I can leave them for now as they aren't piling up, but I know that the further I progress with writing the more these things will crop up.

I have therefore decided to come up with something to tackle this:
As of today I will be keeping a list of all my family and friends' names that I have not yet used. This means that if I cannot easily come up with a name myself, I simply need to flick through the list: to find one that isn't taken and that fits the person I've created so far - I can always change it later if I change my mind.
I know this approach will be far from fool-proof, but I know it will solve at least part of the problem.

Let's just hope that all these people I've pinched names from don't end up objecting later on, eh?
Well if they do... tough!
Haha!
Hope you enjoyed this xxx

Woah! Big format change!

Again apologies for the long gap (if indeed their is anyone actually reading my blog). Back to the topic at hand:

In the last week my book has undergone some pretty major changes to it's structure. I'm the type of person who goes back and edits throughout the entire process, rather than just leaving it until the end and then meticulously working through it page by page, so I think this will probably be happening fairly often.

Change 1:
Despite having finished the intro and being happy with it on first reading, I have since decided to scrap it for now. It was too generic and not all that attention grabbing; I found myself almost falling asleep on re-reading it, and I'm the one who wrote it!
Who knows? I may change my mind later on and add it back - with some editing of course - but for now it just wasn't working and so has gone.

Change 2: (this is the bigger and more important of the two)
I said before that my book would be divided between my two main characters, each of them living out their own storylines and interlinking with each other throughout. Now I've decided to have my first protagonist having her storyline as before, while my second will be taking on a more narrative role.
She will still have some small pieces of her own story but these will be set after that of the first girl, more of her looking back on what happened and in some cases providing explanations of things that will appear in the other storyline. My story is also set in a rather complicated world and so the second character will also be explaining how this world works and the rules that govern it, while the other lives in it.

I have a feeling there was something else but it seems to have slipped my mind at the moment. Maybe I'll remember it later and add it to this post.

What do you think of the new format?
Tschuss!
W-O

Your 'Writing Voice'

Again, apologies for the long gap between posts: life is not giving me much free time at the moment and I'm not one for stealing (unless from my sister).

Back to my topic of the day.
As anyone who's been looking to become a writer will know - or if you didn't you'll definitely find out some time - having your own voice is essential for keeping the reader interested and stopping them abandoning you due to boredom. This is different for every writer and it takes time to find it, lots of practising and lots of changing styles. I think, now, that I have found mine and believe me it is very different from how I first started out.

Here's a short tale of how my writing voice has developed and changed:
I started off like everyone does as a child. The usual:

One day Dave got out of bed and looked out of the window. It was raining outside.
"Well," Dave said; "I'll have to wear my coat to work today, then."

In other words truly awfully, with no personality at all.

Then I started reading more, reading real books with plots and well developed characters and I started being more descriptive in my writing:

Hannah stared blankly out of the window at the pouring rain, that was running down the glass pane from a leaking drainpipe above and showed no sign off stopping any time soon.
"I hate rain." sighed Hannah.

Not much better but a lot more interesting than Dave and his coat. However, still no real personality to it.

A few more years and books passed, and with each my writing got better. Then, finally, I read the first book in my favourite series of all time: Across The Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn (a true masterpiece of a book that should be read by everyone). Hearn's style is a very poetic one;thick on descriptions and making even the most mundane things seem poignant and beautiful. Her style really stuck with me and from then on I also tried to add a more poetic quality to my writing and started using my complex language from my very over-developed vocabulary (note that when I read this book I was only nine years old, while the book itself is rated for teens and young adults). From then on my writing became more like this:

The air was warm, but not still. A cool breeze ruffled the bushes and swept through the smooth, long grass so that it rippled like the waves out at sea. Below, a long, wide river ran through the valley, like molten silver in predawn light occasionally splashing up against the bank sending a spray of foam over the cattle grazing nearby, but they only flicked an ear. There were many other creatures too; a family of field mice stirred in the grass at the top of the valley, a lone hawk hovering above them, waiting for one to emerge. And there was the girl. (This was actually written a few years after I first read that book, but you get the idea.)

Much, much better, but still not me. It was too formal and almost cold, not as friendly and emotive as I would have liked - though at the time I though it was brilliant (ah, my poor over-sized ego).

 A few more years passed and I read more teen fiction and popular books, but as well expanded my reading to some other adult authors such as Phillipa Gregory and worked my way through some more classical novels such as Pride and Prejudice. In other words, I read just about anything I could get my hands on. It was during my perusal of teen fiction that I picked up on a more colloquial style of writing, a way of keeping things informal and light but at the same time keeping the audience emotionally involved with the story.

This was where my writing voice really started to come into being. I kept my vocab and my love of Hearn's descriptive style, but made it less formal; only using the more complex vocab where appropriate and not superfluously, as I had before. I learnt how to use different lengths of sentences and ways of phrasing things that worked for me and the story. This took several years to truly come into being, but now I feel like I have a voice that is entirely my own and what I want it to be:

I never found life to be empty; there was always something new to enjoy or to learn, something to fascinate or enthrall. It felt good to work towards my goals – to feel I was achieving something – and to do well was an undeniable pleasure.

But things change.

I changed.

Now life seems pointless. I watch other people enjoying it, revelling in it, but I can no longer join them; I envy them and long to feel the way I used to, but that isn’t possible. I barely pay attention to my daily life any more; just go through the motions, like a bored audience at a play – a play about me.

This is something I wrote only a few months ago. It is far from perfect I'm sure, but I know it is so much better than what I started with and it's sounds how I want it to: to me and hopefully to you too.

I hope you've enjoyed my little life story. The first two samples of writing were not really from when I was younger, just something I thought would give you an idea of how I was (I was probably much worse than that, but I have no evidence of it - hehe!). Please do not use either of the other samples as they are mine and I may use them later on.

See you next time.

W-O xx

The Perfect Love Interest

First of all let me start of by apologising for the long break between posts (I know it's not long by some standards but since I'm trying to update this fairly regularly I felt very guilty about it). I've been a bit caught up in my real-world happenings this week; particularly due to the fact that - according to my birth certificate anyway - I am now legally an adult and have spent the past few days celebrating that fact (surprisingly with very little input of alcohol - never really been my thing). I am now supposedly meant to be more mature and responsible, though that in no way means I plan to actually be so.

But back to my current topic of thought, which is: why are love interests in books always perfect?
Believe me I love reading a good romance as much as anyone and when the male character happens to be extremely charming, good looking, witty and always says the right thing it's all the better. I always manage to get shivers from a good bout of flirting and it's one of the things I most enjoy reading. But why does every time have to be so strikingly similar? When you think about it, how many guys do you know who have no faults whatsoever? Not every guy can be a good flirt and certainly not everyone is a complete dream to look at. It's simply reality. So why do authors always feel the need to emphasise how gorgeous all of their characters are - and not just the potentially romantic ones.

So, why is this? I know we want the readers to like the person our character falls in love with but it seems to me that we're trying too hard and it can make things a bit boring. I rather like the idea of a story where the two lovebirds hate each other to begin with but are forced together and end up liking each other in the end or manage to work through their differences, or else aren't really aware of each other until about halfway through the story, then they hit it off.

One final point: do all stories have to have a romance?
I know we all enjoy it and it adds an extra flavour to the story, but is it necessary? And is there a risk of it taking over the whole plot? I have read some books where the story turns from an adventure to just endless speculation about whether two characters will get their happy ending or not, rather than the main adventure plot with the romance as a main subplot.

I have decided in my story to leave the romance out for now and add it later if I feel the story is missing something. I still have the potential partner planned out and ready to go but I'm not necessarily going to include them yet - maybe I'll even save them for a sequel! But I'm keeping my main story main and trying not to distract from it too much.

What do you think? Can love interests become over-the-top perfect? Should the romance take precedence over the story?

Hope you enjoyed this little rant. Don't worry, it's over now.
Bye
W-O

First person vs third person

This is always something I've had conflict with: whose perspective to write from.
Both have their plus points but others also have their downfalls.

First Person
Good: It's easier for the audience (and often the writer) to connect with the character and understand them better. If you are the sort of reader who imagines themselves living the story it is easier to get in the mindset and you are seeing through the character's eyes. You can follow the character's thought processes easier and see more clearly how they come to some conclusions.
Bad: It can be harder to write as you have to keep including the character's opinions and thoughts instead of getting on with the story. Sometimes the audience can get annoyed with the character or just bored of the inner monologues. It's hard to take an objective view of the story if you're constantly being bombarded by opinions (though that may be what the writer intends to happen).

Personally I find first person is easier to write, but it tends to make the story a bit slow moving and I often end up writing pages and pages of nothing but thoughts. I am working on improving this.

Third Person
Good: Tends to keep the story moving faster. You can still use character's thoughts but only when you feel it's necessary. It allow you to use the points of view of all you characters, rather than just your protagonist. It can be better for a reader who just prefers to view the story objectively and not get too emotionally involved.
There is less chance of the audience getting sick of the inside of the character's head.
Bad: If badly done it can make the story read very dryly and not be as engaging, stopping readers from empathising as much.

This is slightly harder for me as I like to really get inside character's heads, but for some things it can work really well for me: it depends what sort of mood I'm in.


For my story I've come up with a compromise, taking a leaf from the book of one of my all time favourite authors. I'm going to switch between the two.
The half that centres mainly around my original protagonist will be in third person as I want to be able to view how other people perceive her rather than how she views the world. She is all about images and how people treat her differently compared with other characters.
My second protagonist - who, oddly enough, seems to be becoming slightly more of the main character than the original protagonist - will be written from the first person as hers is more of an internal struggle and how she reacts internally to what goes on around her.

Well then, that's my thoughts on perspectives.


I am feeling fairly proud of myself today: I have finished the prologue (for now - things will probably revised later) and have added a lot more the my first chapters of each section (the first and third person sections).
I am also hoping to get some more planning done tonight so I'm going to end this nice, long entry here.

See you
W-O

Keeping it going

I know one of the main problems us aspiring authors have is writers block, or simply just letting things taper off. Yesterday morning I was in a position where I hadn't written anything in several days and I was feeling very guilty and annoyed at myself: I used to write a little every day, even if it was just a few words. When this happens I normally just get myself to buckle down and get something - anything - down on paper, but yesterday it was taking me ages to do it.
So, my advice for this situation, and what I ended up doing, would be to take a break for a little while: it's no good to just sit there in front of a blank piece of paper or computer screen waiting for something that isn't going to come. Go and do something around the house, get all your other jobs done so there is nothing else you could be doing except writing. No distractions. Once everything is done or you've done enough to bore yourself silly, then go back to writing. This way there will be nothing else weighing on you mind and stopping you from getting down and writing. You may even come up with a couple of ideas while slaving away. If you are indeed bored out of your mind from the work then you will find the writing a lot more enjoyable than before and will be more willing to get down and do it.

This is what I ended up doing and I now have a new character profile written and some more planning done. A lot more productive than sitting staring.

Character development - how I create people

This is how I go about creating and developing my characters.
I start out with a basic layout:
Age: (this doesn't always work as ages can change throughout the story)
D.O.B: (I normally just have a month and day)
Natural hair colour:
Eye colour:
Parents: (include mother's maiden name)
Siblings: (include rough ages)
Pets:
Known Powers: (this for when the characters are magical folk)
Subjects: (if the character is still at school)
Profession: (if the character has a job)
Weapons of choice: (should my character ever end up in a fight)
Martial arts grade: (same as above or in case I want them to have some cool fighting moves up their sleeves)
Characteristics: (these range from 'bad liar' to things like 'hates disappointing people')
Querks: (any funny or interesting habits the character may have, like hates red foods or believes in ghosts)

This gives me a basic character profile and an idea of who this person is. I don't always fill it all in at once: sometimes I just start off with the basics like name and appearance and add the rest as and when it comes to me.

Sometimes I create the characters on whim and then add them into the story later. Other times, I start writing a scene and suddenly introduce this character that I've never even thought about before: I then go and write them a character profile in my little planning notebook, filling in everything I've included in the scene with them and then add the rest (then or later on).
My main characters are, obviously, ones I thought about before writing them. However, I originally started my story with just one main protagonist in mind, but as I continued I reaslised I wanted somebody else to express a different point of view and have different ways of doing and thinking about things: someone who was more than just a sidekick or secondary character. I then developed this new character to have her own plot within the book and to have equal importance to my original main chracter.
So now I have two protagonists whose stories I can weave together and two separate points of view that I can write from: this lets me choose what I feel like writing, as the two are very different people and have their own distictive moods and atmospheres.

Well, that's my character development for you.
Hope this was helpful
Bye
W-O xx

Having a pseudonym. Good or bad?

OK, so, at the moment my plan is to use a pseudonym for writing, but I'm going to go over what are my main reasons for this and what the draw-backs might be.

Part of the appeal for me is that I'd only have to tell people it was me if I wanted to and possibly not tell anyone at all, but to me this could also give the impression that I am not proud of what I've written and don't want to own up to it.
Another big pull of a pen-name is the idea of having a secret identity. I'm sure at some point in our lives we've all fantasised about leading a double life and having to keep the secret. I know the main attraction for me in this would be people's reactions, if and when they found out the truth: reactions are some of my favourite things to imagine and write. However - as most TV shows and movies
 portray - keeping up the secret isn't the easiest thing in the world and can lead to trouble.
And finally I may have to adopt a pen-name out of necessity. Unfortunately I am not one of those people blessed with an unusual or memorable name and  - much as I do like my name - I don't think it would be a good idea to go ahead and write under it if I want to stick in people's minds.

And so I came to the conclusion that I would use a pen-name.


The next step came in choosing said pen-name:
Surname change
Some writers may simply choose to change their surname
Possibility 1: Other family names.
This option did not work for me. Again I have been rather unlucky in the naming scheme of things and ended up with all my relatives having either very common surnames or ones that would be fairly obvious to anyone who knows me or ones that I simply would not choose freely.
I found this fairly frustrating, as what are the chances of having your main surname choices being Johnson, Smith and Brown?!

Possibility 2: Unrelated surname.
I found this the more effective and appealing option as gives you all the world of choice. Some difficulties may arise in picking one name out of the millions possible or in making a choice between several that you like (for me a very common problem), but other than that I found little wrong with this.
One method I used of selecting a surname was to take the same first letter as my own and then choose from there; it allows you to keep a bit of your own name in there but still leave you with plenty of choice.

I fneither of these yields a name that you want you can always be original and create a brand new one.

First name change
Some people may choose to go the whole hog and change the first name as well, or just change the first name while keeping you own surname.
Possibility 1: Middle name
As with surnames this was not a great choice for me as my middle name is not one I would normally pick for myself, nice name as it is. However this may work for some peopl.

Possibility 2: Family name
Use the name of someone else in the family, be it parents, grandparents etc. It keeps it a little more personal than a completely made up one.

Possibility 3: Unrelated name
As with surnames: pick one that you like. I went for this option but, again, went for one with a matching initial to my own.

Again: if in doubt, make something up.

So that's how I came up with my pen-name (which I will not put here). I also spent about an hour messing around with anagrams of my own name but these never really worked well with my names, it may do for others though.

Yikes! That was a long post!
Hope it helped some of you
Bye
W-O

Why a blog?

Ok, so now you know a little about my life and goals I'm going to tell you why I'm really writing the blog.

As I have already said, I like to express myself through writing - be it poetry or stories - and this is another way for me to share my thoughts with the world.
I'm not the most confident person in the world and I have only just admitted to myself that writing is what I really want to do: my family don't have a clue and they think I'm off to study at university and become a scientist and acedemic - but maybe I can still do both! None of my friends or family will know about this blog until I am ready to tell them.
I hate missing out on opportunities and like to have my fingers in as many pies as possible without being too greedy. This is one of the reasons I wouldn't admit to wanting to write, as I believed I would have to give up on so many things and miss my chance to go to university just to follow this dream - who knows, it could still happen! - but I've decided I have to be true to myself and give it a go.
My other problem is I hate to disappoint people. It feels to me as if everyone expects me to go off to university and focus on my studies, rather than throw it all away on a creative whim, and this is the real reason I haven't told anyone about my writing yet. I'm afraid that they'll be disappointed and say they expected more of me than this, that I shouldn't risk everything for what might not come true.
I'm probably just being paranoid or worrying to much and they'll support me just the same as before, but the fear is still there.

I hope that realising, myself, what I want will help me carry on and maybe sharing a little on the interweb will give me a bit more confidence to be more open in my everyday life.

Hope I haven't bored you all with my sob-story.
See you
W-O

First Blog - An intro

Wow my first ever blog!
I guess I'd better start at the beginning then:
As the title suggests I'm an aspiring author - a fantasy author to be exact - and am in the process of writing my first book. I'm not that far with the actual writing of it, it's mostly planning at the moment but I'm writing snippets as I go.
This blog is basically going to be a record of my writing progress: how far along in the story I am, when I start sending it off etc.
I find writing is my way of escaping into another world and expressing my feelings through characters and what they experience. It's something I've always thought I'd like to try and growing up I've found that I'm able to write fairly well and recieve good feedback. My least favourite part of writing is ending the story, as I know that it is never really the end and I want to carry on following my characters in their lives. I don't intend to write for money and I fully expect to end up working another job, with writing taking a back seat, but I can still give it a go.

As for the book itself:
I have the main idea and a basic idea of the plot, my main characters are fairly developed now and some of the secondary characters are starting to take shape. I have a setting and some very detailed notes about the environment, fundamental laws and a little history of the location.
The book is currently divided into three sections and I have written the start of the first chapters of two of these.

And finally a little about me as a person:
I am actually in my last year of secondary school at the moment and am currently waiting for replies from universities: I am sitting pretty on two offers but still waiting for three more replies. I am not studying and subjects at the moment that in any way relate to writing.
I am - naturally - an avid reader of just about any type of fiction you can shove under my nose and have a huge arsenal of fiction books under my belt.
I have a number of obsessions ranging from books to films to sports and skills.
I also write a little fanfiction every now and then and have my own DeviantART account where I post photos, drawings and digital art. These two accounts are not under the same name as this blog: I want to keep them separate for now.

Well, I think that's about it for now.
Toodles :)
W-O