Writer's Workshop Part I - Day 1

Welcome back to my Writer's Workshop! Again, I am using notes from Nancy Kress' Characters, Emotions, and Viewpoint. This book is extremely helpful, and I am planning on buying the entire Write Great Fiction book series.

For Day One, we are going to focus on you becoming the best writer you can be. First, you have to come to terms with the fact that not everybody is going to love your work. If someone only reads sci-fi, you can't be mad if they don't like your historical fiction romance. If they only read Shakespeare, they aren't going to like your modern lingo. Once you come to terms with the fact that you will, eventually, be receiving both good and bad reviews, you are ready to be a writer.

The KEY component in all fiction is your characters! Characters make or break a book. Have a great plotline but a deadpan MC? Good luck selling that book. The first part of this Writer's Workshop is going to concentrate on your characters, and hopefully help you build them to the best they can be. Or the worst. It depends on your character.

Alright, to start, let's look at how choosing to write from the perspective of different characters could ultimately (WILL ultimately) change your story. I am going to use the three main characters from my newest book, Oblivion, for this exercise.
I am writing Oblivion from Wynter's point of view. She is inside the Dome, loves going to school, and has a "dead" twin brother whom she has just learned is still alive somewhere outside the Dome.
Jeremy is Wynter's twin. He supposedly died a year ago, but he actually got swept from the Dome and, at the beginning of the book, is being held prisoner in a Resistance Camp outside the Dome.
Ryder is Wynter's long time best friend. He hates school, hates the Dome, and wants to leave to find adventures.

Imagine how different Oblivion would be if I were telling it from Jeremy's perspective. If I started the novel at the same place, we would never see the inside of the Dome. We would start in a Resistance Camp, something Wynter doesn't learn about until later, we would know only what Jeremy knows about the Dome (a lot of things that Wynter does not), and Wynter wouldn't arrive in the story quite a while.

If we told the story from Ryder's POV, Wynter wouldn't be as drawn out, we wouldn't understand her sudden knowledge that her twin is alive (because the Twin Telepathy wouldn't be seen as well), and we would be Hell bent on getting out of the Dome and finding adventure instead of having Wynter's worry about authority and leaving their "parents" in our minds.

Do you see how amazingly different the story would be if told from different perspectives? Of course, you could always write in third person and have ALL of the perspectives, but for the sake of this exercise, we assume you are writing in first person.

The next concept is learning how to be three people at once: the writer, the reader, and the character you are portraying.
To be the writer, you mainly worry about craft choices. Do you need more description, less dialogue? Or the other way around?
Being the reader, you don't care about the craft. What you care about is how the scene comes across to you. Do you understand what is happening, or do you feel the writer left out something that they assumed you would know? To help with this, have a friend or family member read the scene and see how it comes across to them. Getting another perspective helps a lot in writing. It's why editors are so important.
Being the character really combines both other perspectives. As a character, you are aware of what the character is feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing, and seeing while the scene is being created. Are there birds chirping in trees, is your character feeling an adrenaline rush because someone is chasing them? In these moments, you have to BE the character to make the scene believable.

I think that is enough for one day. I will be updating every couple of days, so stay tuned if you want more information on building the perfect character!

J.D. Montgomery

Writer's Workshop

Okay, for the next couple of weeks, I am going to be doing a sort of Writer's Workshop with my blog. I checked out a few books from the library that contain extremely helpful information, and I want to share it with you.
The first book I will be using is called Characters, Emotions, & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress. I'll be using quotes and pasages from her work and applying it to my own opinions, characters, and writing. Feel free to join me! I'll be doing the first post either today or tomorrow, and will be posting (probably) every other day after that. :)

J.D. Montgomery

Farther VS Further

So I was working on Oblivion tonight, and I came across a really annoying further/farther moment. I didn't know which one to use! Since I am sure I am not the first writer to come across this dilemma, nor will I be the last, I google searched my little heart out until I found a really helpful tip. This is from Grammar Girl's Website. To read the full post, click the link! Here's the tidbit that I found infinitely helpful!

"Further" Versus "Farther"

The quick and dirty tip is to use “farther” for physical distance and “further” for metaphorical, or figurative, distance. It's easy to remember because “farther” has the word “far” in it, and“far” obviously relates to physical distance.

For example, imagine Squiggly and Aardvark are flying to a galaxy far, far away, but Squiggly gets bored and starts mercilessly bugging Aardvark. "How much farther?'" he keeps asking in despair.”

Did you hear that? Squiggly used “farther” because he was asking about physical distance.

If Aardvark gets frustrated with Squiggly, which he surely will, he could respond, “If you complain further, I'm going to shoot you out the airlock.”

Aardvark used “further” because he isn't talking about physical distance, he's talking about a figurative distance: the extent of Squiggly's complaining.

 

 

And there you have it! Another pit-stop on the Writer's Journey. Hope this helps you as much as it helped me! Happy reading, and come back for more soon.  

Jami Montgomery

A Writer's Journey

Welcome to the new Journey blog! The old one got hacked, blocked, or something, and I can no longer get to it. This is the new address. :)
Well, Knight's End is ten days away from its Harper Collins review, so I am crossing fingers, toes, arms, legs. Basically anything and everything I can in the hopes that I will keep my top five spot for those last ten days! I am hopeful!
In any case, there is definitely more to come here, so keep an eye out for some news on projects and such!