Lowering Word Count Goals

Like many writers, when I'm working on a first draft, I give myself word count goals. It's a great way to feel like something has been accomplished that day in the draft. Personally, since I outline quite heavily before I ever start with the first draft (which sometimes makes me wonder if I'm right in calling it a first draft, but that's a topic for another post), I don't throw big chunks of words away, so the final word count of my draft is almost always in the same ballpark as my finished product. This makes the word count goal that much more important to me (in my mind, anyway, and at this stage in the game, that's what's important, right?).

I tend to set my word count goal at 1000 words daily, though when it's all said and done, I make it a weekly goal. Therefore, my word count goal is actually 7000 words a week. Or was.

When I'm being productive, 1000 words are usually what I'm producing, on average. But at times that number gets to be intimidating. If I fall behind one day, it takes a lot to get back to my goal the next day. And two bad days in a row? It might spell disaster for the week, and I may decide to give up for the week, which is stupid, but that's how the mind works at times.

So what can I do about it? I've cut my goal in half. Instead of writing 1000 words a day (or, more appropriately, 7000 a week), I now put my goal at 500 words a day (or 3500 a week). I'll admit that it looks like I'm much less productive, but I've actually found the opposite to be true. 500 words a day, for me, is easy. And on days where I can't get to my draft for whatever reason? Making up those 500 missed words isn't nearly as hard as making up 1000. Heck, on good days, I write 2000 or more words, which instead of making up for one missed day now makes up for 3! Sure, it's all a mind game, but I'm guessing many of you know exactly what I'm talking about. And what's more, I've discovered I continue to write about the same number of words as before with the lower word count goal - it's simply that I have much less stress now, which makes for more pleasant writing experiences (which usually means a better quality writing session).

You may find this helpful, too. You might not make 1000 your goal, but whatever number of words you choose, halve them. If you normally write 2000 words, make your goal 1000. If you choose 500 words, now make it 250. Easy! But here's the kicker. Don't just stop when you hit your word goal. Keep going! You'll do so with the knowledge that you've already conquered your words for the day. Everything else is simply gravy! Try it for a few weeks. If you find you need the pressure, the stress, of a higher deadline, no one says you can't go back to your original word count goal. The whole key is getting your draft done as quick and efficiently as you can!

A Few Things That Kill a Story

There are plenty of things that kill stories and make you put down a book or turn off a movie. Today I'm going to cover just a few based on a film I watched last night (or the half of it I watched before I couldn't take anymore.) I'm not going to outright name the movie, but I'll give examples right from it.

This movie actually had a pretty cool premise, and I was excited to give it a view on Netflix Instant. A man accidentally kills his wife, puts her in his trunk, and drives a sparsely-traveled road to dump her in a lake that she'd loved in life. While he's driving, he's not sure if he's being attacked by supernatural events or if he's losing his mind. Dark, and if done properly, it could be really neat, especially since I enjoy stories where it's a mystery as to if it's all in someone's mind or not. The beginning was actually pretty cool; it drew me in. A few seemingly supernatural events happened that opened my eyes and made me realize I made the right choice in choosing to watch this film. I was invested and wanted to see where it all went. Too bad the storytelling made me realize quickly that my first impressions were wrong. Hopefully my reactions can help others in their writing.

The main character drives down the sparsely-populated rural road, and a few strange occurrences leave him doubting his sanity. Because of this, he speeds through the winding mountain passes. A police officer pulls him over, which is a bad thing because he has his dead wife wrapped in a sheet in his trunk. So far so good. The police officer is quite suspicious, not just because our anti-hero is acting strange due to his wife being in the trunk, but because the officer received a report that he behaved oddly back down the road in another incident. This is still good storytelling; a real-world problem has come prove a real menace to our main character. The scene escalates to the officer wanting to search the car. Our main character obviously does not want the officer to look in the trunk, and the officer has taken note of this. He's about to force the man to open the trunk when he gets a call on his radio. Here's where the scene takes a nose-dive.  The officer tells the dispatcher on the radio that he'll be right there, and he very pleasantly tells our main character that he's free to go, but please slow down next time. And that's it. With how suspicious the cop was, coupled with the main character desperately not wanting the officer to look in the trunk, there's no way that scene would have ended like that. It was unbelievable, and it drew me right out of the story despite the fact that I was all in up to that moment. Take that advice, writers; even if your readers love how the story is going, a blunder can still take them right out of the story. I continued, but with less enjoyment. Some readers (or viewers, in this case) won't.

At one point, our main character was 90 miles away from his destination. A few minutes later, which didn't skip much, if any, time, he was 45 miles away. There was no way he was going that fast, especially on that road. He also calls his mistress (the center of the problem with his wife), and leaves a message for her to call him as soon as possible. He then sets his phone down on the seat next to him and turns on the radio, cranking up the volume. No problem, right? Music, especially loud music, can help calm the nerves. Where this movie goes wrong, however, is that he leaves the radio on only long enough to miss the inevitable call seconds later. Little things like these matter. These again drew me right out of the story, and the great feelings about this movie I had at the beginning were quickly evaporating. I almost gave up right there, but pressed on. The lesson here for you is to make sure all of your details, even the little ones, match up. If your reader stops thinking about the story and instead questions your, the author's, motives/style, you have trouble. Question a character's motives is one thing, but a reader should never question the author's.

The thing that ultimately got me to turn off the movie was not only a cliche I knew was coming, but the way it was handled. The car ran out of gas. Sure, it could happen, but how often does it? I'd have had a better reaction to a flat tire or some other minor malfunction. That simply seems more believable to me. But, ultimately, it wasn't the running out of gas that got me; I could have stuck that out. Once he's stopped, he opens the trunk and whispers to his dead wife that she's not going to make it to the lake, but he's going to have to bury her in these woods because he doesn't want to get caught there with her. Good, good, he's thinking again. But then a car speeds by and he can't flag it down. So he stops and smokes a cigarette. I'm still okay with this, as he's calming his nerves. But then one smoke turns into a half-dozen, which is showing a passage of quite a bit of time. Wait, why did his plan change? He was all hot-to-trot about getting her out of his trunk, but now he's completely abandoned this plan? If he'd given a good reason, maybe, but he doesn't. Sure, you can infer reasons, and I'm sure the screenwriter and/or director was hoping the audience would, but that's a sign of poor writing. There are times when writers need to give the audience credit and let them piece together ideas, but this wasn't one of them; this stank of poor, lazy writing. This did nothing but allow the story to get to the next part of the scene.

Someone finally comes, and he manages to flag them down. When he tells the driver that he ran out of gas, not only was there a gas station not far back, but this guy had actually stopped, put some in a gas canister for his generator, and he's willing to give it to our main character. What luck! My finger went to the stop button on my remote, but I didn't push it yet. I waited until the main character looks back at his car and sees his dead wife's bloody sheet flapping about out of the trunk right by where the gas cap was. The Good Samaritan will see that for sure! The only problem is that there was not only no chance of her sheet getting in that position, but very little chance he wouldn't notice it while he was standing there smoking for the past hour (or however long). This reeked of lazy, desperate writing, and I'd been taken out of the story for the last time. Maybe these problems were something that was explained later in the movie, or maybe they weren't. All I know is that I hit stop and didn't finish watching.

Learn from these mistakes. Don't be a lazy writer. If you need your character to do something, make it believable, not a cliche. Give reasons for your character's actions. Pay attention to little details in your story. Never take your reader out of the moment to wonder if such a thing is possible or plausible. Don't make your reader want to close your book before the end. That's our goal as authors, right?

The Underpants Gnome Problem

If you're like me, beginnings and endings to novels come relatively easy. Maybe a great opening scene and a bang-bang, satisfying to everyone ending take some thinking, but the general opening and closing of the novel are there almost from the inception of the idea. But, of course, more than half the novel is neither of these; it consists of the middle of the book. While I usually have a few ideas of how to bridge the gap, most of this chunk of the book is a mystery to me as I start planning. Thanks to South Park, I like to think of it as The Underpants Gnome Problem.



Sometimes this middle section of the novel seems like it'll never materialize. Little scenes come, but nothing major, nothing that will wow the reader. But fear not, there are things you can do to defeat this dreaded Underpants Gnome Problem. Here are a few things I like to do.

1) Freewrite: If you're not sure what comes next, simply grab a blank sheet of paper or open a new file in your word processor, and write. Don't worry about making much sense, simply jot down ideas that come to you. Keep your pen (or fingers) moving, and put down ideas that come to you, no matter how silly they seem. Sometimes those silly ideas turn out to be gold, either on their own, or with a bit of tweaking. Or those silly ideas might be blocking the golden ones. Whatever the problem, often freewriting will help.

2) Work on something else: Maybe your brain simply needs to marinate the idea. Work on a short story, watch TV or a movie, or read a book. While you're concentrating on these, your subconscious mind will be playing around with ideas for your novel. Give it a day or two, and then go back to it. You might find that you now have a nugget of awesomeness waiting for you!

3) Start plotting: You know how you want to start, so plot that first act. When you get to the final scene, you might be surprised to see you know where you want to go next. And if not, plot the ending. If you're still blocked, plot minor scenes from the middle, ideas that have been floating around but aren't those big blockbuster scenes you need to bridge the gap from beginning to end. Put all of these scenes on 3x5 cards and spread them out so you can see them at the same time. Chances are, something will click. You'll see ways to put these scenes together, and those big blockbuster scenes will come.

4) Know your characters: Get to know your characters. Often they will dictate how the middle of the novel should go. You know the major problems, so give your characters quirks that work with or against these problems in interesting ways. Your characters could very well be the key to getting your novel from beginning to end seamlessly.

If you try one or all of these tips, you should be well on your way to bridging the gap between collecting underpants and profit. That big dreaded question mark should fall away. Remember, whatever you choose to do, it can always be changed later, either while you're writing (there's no rule saying you can't amend your outline) or during revision. Since the middle is the biggest part of the book, it can be daunting, but these simple tips should help you out. So get out there, collect those underpants, and make a profit. I have no doubt you'll figure out how it works!

Revision Tip

Since I finished my first draft of my novel not too long ago, I thought I'd give a quick tip about revision during the draft process. Namely, don't. If you polish your first draft while you're writing, it's just keeping you from getting all of your initial words on the page. One of the best tips I've ever heard about the first draft process (and I have this taped to my bookshelf next to my writing desk) is: All first drafts stink. Just keep writing.

What this means is that you're not going to get a polished, publishable piece on the first go-through. You'll need to revise. Give yourself permission to write bad in the first draft process. Why? Because you'll be able to fix it up, make it wonderful, in the revision process. Let yourself get to the 2nd draft by finishing the first.

How many times have you heard of writers having unfinished novels filed away somewhere. Why are they unfinished? Because they didn't give themselves permission to simply write the story. Their inner critic told them it was stinky, that this idea would never fly, so the writer just gave up on the project. I know because I've done it. If we ignore the inner critic and realize we don't have to put our best prose out in the first draft, we'll finish a lot more of our work.

First drafts should be about experimenting with the story. Even if you're a heavy outliner, you still need to play around with the words to make everything authentic in your story. While you get these words down on the page, don't go back and fix things you've already written. Finish what you started, and fix it later.

What happens if you come up with a stroke of brilliance that will help the beginning of your story? Make a note to yourself to fix it in the 2nd draft. If you know the change will be made, write the rest of the story as if you already wrote it. That'll save some of your revision time.

Finish your first draft, and fix it in the second draft. In this early part of your novel, the most important thing is to get that initial draft done. If you don't, there's going to be nothing to revise later. What good is a polished first chapter with nothing following it? I hope this tip helps. Until next time, keep reading and/or writing.

Some Writing Tips

I've decided to occasionally post some tips that have helped me out in my writing. I hope by presenting these, they might help others. I don't profess to have come up with these tips, but I feel they're important enough to pass along. Without further ado, here are my first few writing tips.

--Sit down and write. In theory, this is the simplest rule of all. Otherwise, how would you ever get any words down? How would you ever finish your story? This can be, though, one of the hardest things for some writers to do. It's daunting to realize you need to pour your soul out on the page. A writer needs to get over that, however, and get the words on the page. Sit down, pick up your pen (or open your word processor), and start writing. Whether you have an outline or not is irrelevant for this tip. Get the words down!

--Don't forget to freewrite liberally. Freewriting can be used in a number of different ways. If you need to get into a rhythm and flow before you start on your day's work, freewrite until you're ready. If you're stuck in a tricky scene, freewrite possible solutions. If you don't know what sort of story you want to start on next, freewrite ideas. In all of these exercises, and more, freewriting will help focus your writing.

--My last tip for today is a bit quirky. I've recently discovered this one works for me. If I'm writing a story or scene in my novel, I sometimes get stuck even though I know what comes next. How do I say it? Why doesn't it come out the way I want? If I pick up a pen with different color ink (I'm one of those strange people who still writes longhand), for some reason it jars my brain and the words flow again. You can try this in your word processor, too. Try writing the next few paragraphs in a different font or color. I'm guessing the change of appearance on the otherwise bland page (esthetically, of course, not your word choice) brings a feeling of fun to your brain. (Don't forget to go back and change the font and color to your story's default!) Whatever the reason, it works for me, and it just might work for you.

There you go, three tips on helping you write. I wouldn't share these with you if they didn't work for me, so I hope they help. I'll bring some more tips up in future posts. Until next time, keep reading and/or writing.

Twitter

I've found Twitter to be a very handy tool for writers. I'm following a bunch of different authors, publishers, and the like, and very often they post great links to articles, blog posts, and other great material that helps with various phases of writing. Check various writing sites to see if they have a link to their Twitter page. Often writing sites offer the best Twitters because they're the ones giving the tips, not tweeting about what's for dinner or the like. When you look at the links they post, check the site for more Twitter feeds. You can get a good list of writing people to follow in a short amount of time. And, hey, maybe you'll pick up a good number of followers, too, so when you post things about your own writing, you'll have people that can check your stuff out. Easy networking, right? For example, I use Twitterfeed to get a link over to my blogs when I finish updating. After the initial set-up, it goes in automatically every time I post here or at Weird Happenings. Simple.

My advice is get yourself going in Twitter as a writer. If you already have an account, great, find some writers and publishers to follow (for example, Writer's Digest is a great place to start). If you want to follow me, feel free. My handle on Twitter is therav.

That's it for today. This was just a quick intro to get you to some of the great articles you may have missed other places online. There are a ton more ways to make Twitter work for your writing. Have fun in the Twitterverse! Until next time, keep reading and/or writing.

Bad Writing

I tried to start reading a book earlier this week, and I just couldn't get through the first half-dozen pages. It usually takes a lot for me to put down a book without giving it much of a chance, but this one destroyed many of the rules writers are told not to do. I'm not going to name the book or author, but I figured it'd be a good chance to go over some things to avoid when writing.

The first thing that screamed out at me was the banter between the two characters. The author feels the need to get some background information out to the reader, so he has the characters using the "As you know..." method. This writer doesn't come right out and have the characters start their lines with those three words of death, but the intent is the same. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it means the characters feed each other lines that are common knowledge to each other. If these characters were real, they would have no need to say these things to each other, yet there they are in the book, spewing common knowledge. It does work at getting the information to the reader, that's for sure, but it shows a lazy writer.

I also had a few other problems with word choices and techniques that forced me to put the book down. Believe it or not, some words are basically invisible to the reader, something the author can sometimes struggle with. As a writer, we are taught that we should not repeat certain words too often. Some words, however, are okay to use over and over. One of those is "said," as in showing who is speaking in dialog: "I didn't like this book," Eric said. Said can be used over and over, and it won't be overused. The sign of an amateur is one who uses describing words instead of "said." (For example, "I didn't like this book," Eric grumbled.) Even better, of course, is using action to let the reader know who is talking, and I must admit the author of this book did that quite often in the few pages I read. (An example of this is: Eric closed the book without marking his place. "I didn't like this book.") But remember that "said" is just fine. You won't lose readers over using it, while you run the risk if you substitute adjectives and other describers for it.

One other thing that jumped out at me to mark this author as a lazy writer was the use of adverbs. Adverbs can be helpful and even add something to some writings, but fiction isn't one of them. The author should find other ways to show what those adverbs are showing. If a character says something joyously, sure we get that she is thrilled, but actions and word choice would be a much better way to show this. Having said that, though, know that this isn't a deal breaker. I might not even have noticed if the other two things above hadn't grabbed me by the throat and made me look for reasons to stop reading this book. Even authors who profess that adverbs are evil in fiction have at least one or two of them in their stories (I've looked). If they are not overused, they'll go unnoticed (or might even gain power they shouldn't have), but if they're in the story often, they show amatuerism and lazyness.

Honestly (adverbs are fine for blogs, in my humble little opinion), if the characters hadn't employed the "As you know..." dialogue, the non-use of said and the adverbs wouldn't even have phased me. Once I saw the author being incredibly lazy, though, other things popped up into my consciousness. I believe this is a great lesson for me and anyone else who wants to write. You can get away with little things if bigger things are done right. Remember, a reader is more likely to put a book down after the first few pages because he or she is not invested in that story and characters yet. Deeper in, the reader will likely stick with it to see how it ends. Of course, that same reader may not be happy with the writing and may not pick up another of your books if the middle was lazy, so the lesson here, I guess, is to take the time to make sure the finished product is good all the way through. Adverbs and other lazy techniques are fine for a first draft, but make sure you get rid of them in the revision process.

That's all for today. I hope this article helped you; I know it helped focus me a bit more on the importance of strong writing. Until next time, keep reading and/or writing.