Hopes and Dreams
Not yours. Not your career’s. What are the hopes and dreams for your novel, for the world inside your novel, for your characters?
You all know how badly I want to (finally!) write a story targeted for New York for NaNo. This is taking a whole new process, because usually I start with the romantic tension between two characters, their problems, and go from there.
I’m flying clueless and scared, here.
Worse, I’m also catching up on projects that I’d meant to be completed before NaNo began. I’ve also been writing past planned: the last novella was meant to be 52K, but it ended well over 60K. This one was supposed to end at 48K, but it’s still going steady at 52K. (I’ll probably have to split it in two parts to fit guidelines.) Plus I meant to squeeze in a 20K novella last week.
*sigh*
Anyway, I’m still determined to write a non-erotic novel targeted for New York. This month. But I still don’t “know” it. It’s not “ripe” yet.
One of the tips NaNo gives is, if you’re stuck, to write your hopes for the scene, or your hopes for the book. Not your hopes for getting an agent or getting published or getting a certain advance, but what emotions you hope your scene inspires in the reader, where you hope the scene will take the characters emotionally, how you hope the climax will play out.
What do you want your scene or your story to say? What kind of effect do you want it to have on the reader?
It loosens things up, for sure, especially if I haven’t done enough pre-writing imagining in my head, but I don’t have time to indulge in just waiting longer. I’m getting little glimmers of my story, but not yet enough to know where it begins.
So how do you knock things loose when you’re stalled? What are your hopes and dreams for your current story?
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Natasha Fondren is an eBook developer, writer, and classical pianist. After a fifteen-year piano teaching career, she moved to Arizona and built a book design business. She enjoys the lizards and desert heat in Arizona with her Border Collie, Padfoot, and her cat, Dixie Doodle.
That is so cool your story is going well Natasha. Woot woot.
I hope my character stays true to herself. And that she can find true love.
Thanks, Jewel! Aww, that is the sweetest. The true to herself reminds me of you.
As hokey as it sounds (to me anyways), hope is the core theme in both my novels so this is something I think about a lot. The trick for me is ensuring that I’ve written characters that readers care about, because if they don’t care, they won’t want to read about some boring person’s hopes, you know?
Melanie, when I was a musician, I used to say I loved cheese. Hokey/cheesy is good.
That’s a good reminder about characters.
I wish I had an answer. I have done very little creative writing lately. It is true, though, you need to concentrate on process rather than result. If you start thinking about the result — the publishing contract etc and take your eye off the actual work you’re sunk. Right now Mary and I have been kind of re-imagining our Byzantine series. Poisoned Pen Press is the one place where we’re welcome and we want to keep writing books but we don’t want to do exactly the same thing forever so we are going to change the series to some extent. What exactly we wish for it I’m not yet sure.
Really, Eric? Why do you want to change? It’s great to have a home like that. It gives one a lot of confidence in one’s writing, I think.
A couple weeks ago, Mark linked to Miley Cyrus’s The Climb. I can’t stop listening to it.
I’m at the beginning of the book, 13% written, so I’m hoping to get my characters into a lot of trouble — and then I hope I’ll figure out a way to get them out of it.
Have fun writing your NY book!
That’s awesome, Edie! You say you write slow, but I swear, you blow the sprinters out of the water!
That sounds a lot like something I heard in a John Irving interview yesterday.
That’s great advice. Something I need to remember in my revisions at least. Oftentimes I feel like there isn’t enough emotion in my scenes. This should help.
P.S. Are you in AZ yet???
I am in Tucson, Anissa! Ohmigosh, I can’t TELL you how much I love it! I forgot… where are you? I want to come meet you for lunch or something, if you’re up to it. I’m limited to the Tucson area until my publisher pays me and we can fix the Jeep, but I’ll be here for six months, so we’ve got plenty of time.
I’m up in the N. Phoenix/Scottsdale area. When you get your Jeep fixed, maybe we can meet in the SE valley, which isn’t quite so far. I’d love to get together.
Oh cool! I want to meet Christina, too, and she’s going to be up that way in a month or so. I can’t wait!
What is it about this post that makes me want to sit down with you and spend the day reading your stuff, and letting you read mine?
Weird. But kinda cool, too.
Oh man, you know what makes me want to hit my my head on a wall, Susan? Now I’ve moved, and we didn’t get together last spring! It’s my fault, it was quite a stressful/tumultous spring. When we upgrade to better camper, we’ll do more traveling, and we have to hook up!
My hopes and dreams for my current WIP. That I can convey the emotional truth of the characters in the time and place they are in.
I got a little writing advice from The Literary Lab blog last week. To quote them directly: “Don’t let plot push your protagonist. Have the plot result from the protagonist pushing against life.”
I’ve been using that as my writing mantra today and it’s helping me to get in touch with my characters. And for me, I think that’s what pulls me out of a stall.
Interesting, Paul! Novels are the perfect place for emotional truth.
That is an excellent mantra. I love plot. Love, love, love it, but I need to remember that character comes first.
It sounds like I need to find and check out this Literary Lab blog.
My MG is about how we’re all connected in the universe.
I’m hoping that my NaNo YA novel shows a girl gaining strength in who she is.
Ooooh, Heather! I love that! I really, really love that! That’s just awesome. It gives me the tingles!
Your YA novel sounds awesome!
You know, I like that, “What are your hopes for your characters? What emotions do you want your readers to go through?” That’s a great way to narrow it down and really concentrate on the story, rather than the whole process of trying to get it published or your own doubts and obstacles…
Okay, if I get it done right, I hope to break my readers’ hearts in half. I hope they spend portions of the journey with their heart in their throat, and breathe in the bits of joy and laughter (often satirical) that peppers my mc’s world… his defense mechanism, the thing that helps him deal. I hope they hate, and forgive, and grieve, and come out the other end wishing to start all over from page one.
For my mc, I hope he does more than survive, I hope he thrives, even though he’s going through the ringer and doesn’t deserve half of it, I hope he finds he’s up to the challenge and comes out better than he could have been without it. I hope he finds that loyalty is often repaid and even when it’s not, having character is its own reward.
That’s alot to ask of a novel, I know. I hope I have half the chops I think I do
Good luck on your nano novel, Natasha. I’m rooting for you!
Merry, it sure pushes me past my fears and worries. I love the emotional journey you hope to put your readers through!
You know, I was just thinking how much less character is prized nowadays as opposed to a hundred years ago.
Good luck on yours, too, Merry! And thanks! I need all the encouragement I can get!
I hope my main character becomes independent and strong and discovers her no good creepazoid of a husband is bopping his secretary. That basterd! Or just Terd.
HAH! Robin, that word ROCKS! That story sounds AWESOME!
My idea is not ripe, either. But… I let my MC monologue a lot and I throw in some dialogue trying to figure out who my characters are, what they want. If I try to do this in advance of writing, I can’t write anything. So my first drafts are more like discovery outlines in disguise.
Heather, I usually let it fully mature before starting it, but… I’m lost here. I usually need a title before I can make anything happen. Then a visual of the first scene. The first line. I have none of that! Ugh! But… a little discovery writing is good, right? I hope so!
I want SCAR to do a number of things:
let readers consider that all beliefs have good and bad aspects – that it has to do with the people, not the belief.
let readers appreciate Mystery in life, and accept that it exists, be one with it, live it
but mostly, I want them to read all night long, unable to put the book down, and when they do finish, wish it wasn’t over.
Bets, I love the sound of your novel. The religion and belief aspect really has me intrigued.
An unputdownable book rocks. And you know, the best books, when I finish reading them, make me settle back and hug the book to my chest, just so I can live in their world a few moments longer.
hum, why did you change your blog address?
As for what I do to shake myself up, I try reading new kinds of stuff or listening to different kinds of music. I try different experiences.
I did? I mean, I did way back in July, but… you kinda say it like I just changed it, which concerns me, LOL! Back then, I changed it because I wanted to try out WordPress instead of Blogger.
I love stirring things up. I like all those ideas, Charles!