4 Tips To Get Your Story Back On Track

Every choice your character makes leads to whatever is going to happen next. As an author—the evil mustache-twirling mastermind behind the story – figuring out what that thing is will undoubtedly fall somewhere between semi-perplexing and bang head against the wall until your eyes cross. And it will happen over and over and over again, because what are stories if not a constant string of What Comes Nexts?

So how do we wade through the murky territory of story decisions without turning into Artax in the Swamp of Sadness—overwhelmed and despairing that we’ll never come up with a kick ass plot?

I won’t tell you that I know the 7 words that will make a woman love you* how to eradicate Swamp of Sadness Syndrome, but I can share a few tips that may help you out if your story gets stuck.

1)      Goals & Motivation.

In the current scene, what does your character want and why do they want it? This is the first thing I look at when my characters start bumbling around and the plot feels like it’s going nowhere. A good amount of the time, I’ve lost sight of what the characters want and why any of it matters. Making sure this is clear on the page and focusing your scene around it will go a long, long way toward getting things back on track.

2)      Conflict.

If you have lost sight of your characters goals and motivations, chances are there’s not a lot of conflict going on either. Things can’t really oppose your characters in a meaningful way if they aren’t actively working toward something. Once you’ve reacquainted yourself (and the story) to # 1, it’s a lot easier to find inherent conflicts to torture your characters with.

3)      Stakes.

Your characters can have a goal and firm motivations for achieving it. Things can stand in their way — even big scary things with lots of sharp teeth – but if your characters have nothing to lose if they fail, any conflict you establish will feel contrived. The reader won’t care whether the characters achieve the scene goal. So, if  you don’t a ton of work setting up Goals, Motivation, and Conflict but you feel like your scene is still falling flat, it might be time to reexamine what your characters have at stake if they fail and make sure that it’s coming across on the page.

4)      Putting it all together.

In my opinion, this can be the hardest part because on the scene level, there might be several options goals, motivations, conflicts, and stakes. If I’m going to get really, truly stuck, there is where and when it happens.

So how do you decide THE BEST course of action? If you’re anything like me, it’s right about now that you:

* stare at the screen

* write a few words

* stare anxiously at what you wrote

* pound the delete key

* gorge self on *insert favorite snack and/or wine here*

* wash, rinse, repeat, and/or decide that you totally suck at life and go watch TV instead

* sink into the Swamp of Sadness

Here’s what I’ve figured out, though. Your stuckness (yeah, I know stuckness isn’t a real word) isn’t for lack of NOT know what comes next. Which, is actually a pretty awesome problem to have, because nine times out of ten there are bunches of possibilities floating around in your head. I call this brain freeze. It’s a state of being overwhelmed by too many potential story paths, and the only solution is to sit down and sort it all out.  

This is when I bust out the pen and paper and move away from the computer. Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for the What If list.

I don’t why, but I have to write “What if…” before every idea I have, like a promise to myself that whatever I come up with is only a suggestion that I’m in no way obligated to run with. Now I’m ready to put it all down, bullet point style. What if character makes X decision? Then I note the possible outcomes. Or what about if she makes X decision instead? Then I note those outcomes. I do this for all the possible choices I can think up.

Next, I pick the most intriguing options and bullet point their consequences, conflicts, and what my character stands to gain or lose from making that choice. Eventually, I find myself with one or two options that really take off. Connections between what I’ve already written and what I’ve outlined for future chapters are made.

If, by the end of this process, there’s still more than one really good choice, I evaluate each based on steps 1, 2, & 3 in relation to the current scene and also the story as a whole. Which path aligns itself more closely to the direction I want the plot to take?  99.9% of the time, I’ve not only worked out what I need to happen next, but I can’t wait to start writing it!

*Bonus points if you get the reference and say so in the comments. J

                         

Winning NaNo (even when you fail)

For the first time in many years, I participated in NaNoWriMo, and in doing so I learned a little something. 

Let me start by saying that I had stayed away from NaNo in years past because every time I tried to reach my 50K word goal, I failed. And even though I knew that 50K in a month was a giant task, (and one year my town lost power for eleven days after a major Halloween snowstorm) it stung to not meet the goals I had set for myself, especially when so many others seemed to cruise right through to the end. 

I didn’t just fail. I felt like a failure.

 

Even though I didn’t really think about it in these terms, feeling like a failure is what kept me from trying NaNo again. And thus, I broke up with NaNo in a very it’s not you, it’s me fashion.

Fast forward a few years to NaNo 2014. I’m about 20K into a new WIP that I’m pretty excited about, and I decide that I want to give NaNo another try. Maybe it would be just the thing I needed to finish that all important first draft so I could start fresh with revisions in 2015. 

Of course, the first thing I do is tell my CPs. Apparently, the stars were aligned just right that day as I found out that all of us intended to participate this year. Yippee!! We all vowed to support and cheer for each other. We talked about our goals and how we planned on accomplishing them. This had me super excited and shot my motivation bar up to 11. 

Next, I made a plan.  I knew myself much better than I did during NaNo’s past, and so I came up with a plan that would give me the best possible chance to win. Monday through Friday, I was going to go to bed at 7:00 pm and wake up at 4:00 am every morning. That would give me two hours to write before I had to get ready for The Day Job. 

It was going to be AWESOME.

And awesome it was. For a time. However, November is a notoriously busy month for my family. As November flew by, I fell behind.  And behind. Aaaaand behind. That old familiar feeling crept it’s way into my consciousness. Despite my best efforts, I’m failing. Then, I’m a failure.

However, this year, a bigger part of my brain squashed that train of thinking immediately. Maybe I won’t write 50K new words, but I HAD written new words. Quite a few of them actually, and I was damn proud of those words. I also realized that not meeting a goal in a certain time frame was NOT synonymous with failure. It’s not even close. NaNo (as well as most other things) is not about winning or losing, or judging your achievement by another person’s progress. 

When I used a different perspective to consider what I had accomplished -- I  wrote way more in November than I had any other month in 2014 – then in reality, I kicked NaNo’s a$$. I was a word producing machine! My NaNo 2014 was a major success. 50K or not, I could feel good about what I'd done and look forward to doing it again next year. 

Thinking this way is motivating instead of discouraging and demoralizing. If you don’t try, you can never succeed, so never beat yourself up for trying. 

So, I guess the point to my story is this – be proud of what you’ve done, not what you haven’t yet accomplished. Give yourself credit for trying. Learn from your experiences and, in the end, do the best you can and allow yourself to feel good about it. 

 

 

Lost that Lovin' Feeling?

Before we jump in, I’ve recently discovered something: a majority of my posts are either pep talks, or advice on how to get through being stuck.

I GET STUCK A LOT, FOLKS.

But I think that’s normal. Roadblocks in a manuscript can come from so many different things: your plot may have taken a wrong turn down a dead-end road; you may be hitting a complete blank on what happens next; good, old-fashioned fear may have you paralyzed. And then there's the super-sad explanation: you just don’t feel the connection to your story. 

I’m working on a new WIP, and I’ve hit every single one of these roadblocks over the past month. Hard times in the Smith house, y’all. So, I dug into my arsenal of roadblock-bashing material. The most recent blockage I hit was that super-sad one I mentioned: lack of connection to the story. One thing I’ve come to embrace is the Manuscript Love List. I can't take credit for this one; I got the idea from Stephanie Perkins.

Here's the idea: you make a list of all the things you love about your manuscript. Easy, right? It may sound super-basic and you may be wondering how that can possibly help, but I urge you to give it a try—you may be surprised! For example, here are a few of the love list items from my upcoming YA Contemporary, PLAY ON.

Ponds

Starry skies

Flowers

Pick-up trucks

Wide-open fields

Baseball games during cool springtime nights

I jotted these down in the early stages of the story, and as the story grew, so did my list. Just reading over the things I love about the story gets me into the mindset of its atmosphere and, most importantly, of why I wanted to write it in the first place. So if you’re stuck, give it a try! You may just fall in love all over again. J

Owning Your Happiness: Getting A Grip on Extreme Emotions

"An emotional roller coaster" Cliche, yes? But isn't it also the most apt description of a writer's life? I sure think so.

Sometimes I find myself wondering why can't I just be normal?! Gah! 

Of course, I already know the answer. There is no such thing as normal. There's just me and you and every other person out there in the universe handling our ups and downs as best we can.

The thing is, I'm floored by how fast I can go from a *mostly* balanced human, to ecstatic OMG my words are AWESOME, to OMG I suck so, so, sooooo bad.

It can happen over the course of a week, a day, or even minutes. It can strike at any time - drafting, revising, querying and, though I haven't reached the next phase in my journey yet, I'm sure it continues through submissions, publication, reviews, writing that next book, and so on.

I call these extreme highs and lows writer's bipolar syndrome, and I think what it comes down to is letting outside influences define who I am as a writer. It's giving up control of my happiness (and my sanity) and putting that responsibility on someone else. And that's not fair. Not to me or anyone else. It's not anyone's job to convince me that I'm a good writer. It have to believe it. If I don't, why should anyone else?

I've *known* this for a long time, but knowing it and really believing it, aka putting it into practice, aren't the same.

If you're in the same boat as me, or if you ever find yourself rocketing from one extreme to the next, try to remember:

* Celebrate success without letting it go to your head.
* Understand that rejection is not personal. It is not a reflection of your ability as a writer.
* Do not let rejection diminish the successes you've had. One doesn't not cancel out the other.
* Enjoy YOUR journey. Everyone's path is unique. Don't compare yourself to anyone else.
* Believe in your talent. Don't try to be like, or write like, anyone else.
* Publishing is subjective. A compliment or a rejection does not change the value of your words.
* Confidence starts and ends with you. Take responsibility for it and know that you are the best you can be at this moment.

So basically, what I'm saying is this:

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

And when you need your spirits lifted, watch this video of badassary. http://youtu.be/n4ihPazJFrQ

And when you need a smile, I give you: The highs and lows of querying in Buffy .gifs

Waiting after you've sent off a batch of queries.

More waiting

Every time your email dings

When you get a form rejection

Getting support from your CPs

When your email dings after you've received several form rejections

Your first partial request. This is totally gonna be it!

Your CPs cheering you on.

The next time your email dings

Rejection on your partial

Email dings

Full Requst! Yeah!!  THIS time is it, for sure.

Email dings

Rejection on your full

Email dings. (you're starting to lose it now)

Request! (happy, and also a little bit crazy)

When your CPs pull you back from the edge