Tag Archive for: my writing process

The Grace of Rules

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by Bethany Maines

I was all set to write a post today about authors who have
influenced me and then I opened the internet and poked around. I shouldn’t do
that; twenty minutes of internet time and suddenly I know too much about what
people I don’t know are wearing to events I don’t care about.  But I also read two things that altered
the topic of today’s blog. One was the facebook post of an alcoholic
celebrating another year sober, and the other was a blog post about the rules of
mystery writing. The most immediate response to the alcoholic was along the
lines of “Thank you for sharing your struggle; it helps me.” The first comment
on the writer’s post was “I don’t really like rules and my novels turn out
fine.” 
And on one hand, I totally agree with that commenter. I also
don’t like rules. I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like having
solutions dictated to me. Nobody is the boss of me, but me. So there. Nyah!
(Sticks tongue out.)
You know what I do like though? Novels that make sense. And
although I tried for years to just wing it, that doesn’t lead to novels with
consistent internal logic, or, as is otherwise known, a plot. It’s also
extremely inefficient. And with a dog, a kid, a husband, friends and an
extended family who all prefer to see me occasionally, I do not have time to be
wandering through the morass of plot lines. So eventually I gave up and laid
down a few ground rules for myself. 
And since I am the boss of me, I
figure that’s ok.

But while I’m sympathetic to the rules are
for sissies commenter, I must admit
that it seemed like she could have used some of the grace that the alcoholic
referred to in her post. She spoke of not understanding how there could
possibly be a solution for her, but sometimes just showing up and following
instructions is enough to get you through to the next day. She spoke of the
great support of knowing that other people had similar struggles to her own.
Writing a novel and alcoholism are not at all the same. But the idea that
sometimes a set of instructions, a little community spirit, and grace can get
you through to tomorrow is pretty universal. Thank you all for sharing my
writing struggles and for your gracious comments!





   

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of Destiny and An Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Wait… I have an extra Aunt?

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Or
As the Wishkah Flows
by Bethany Maines

I don’t have that many shows that rate the “I have to be home to watch” treatment (aside from Castle), but I have to admit that one of the shows that I will make time for is the show about famous people researching their family tree – “Who Do You Think You Are?” I know that the stars researching their genealogy are spoon fed the information and I know that the show is pretty much just one extended commercial for ancestory.com, but I don’t care! It suckers me in every time! The stirring saga of generations, combined with the detective work makes for storylines I love. (Yeah, I’ve watched Thorn Birds, why?)

My mother’s mother does genealogy with even more fervor than she does crosswords; she’s got us tracked back to England where some ancestor we’re connected to some how signed the Magna Carte, thus setting a precedent for Democracy and striking a blow for freedom (you know, if you were rich). So up until last weekend I thought that a TV style reveal of a deep family secret was not to be because Grandma has got all our details pretty well sorted out. But I should have remembered… that’s for her side of the family; on my Dad’s side the details are a bit fuzzy.

Dad’s mother hated her hometown of Wishkah, WA and was notoriously evasive about her past, up to not “remembering” how many brothers and sisters she had. (How do you not remember that?) Dad had poked around, but he was never able to get very far. Then last week a friend pointed me to the Washington State Digital Archives. Between the archives, ancestory.com, and familysearch.org I managed to cobble together my Dad’s family tree and uncover a few family secrets!

The biggest secret began to take shape after a week of pulling at threads, and hunting down birth dates and maiden certificates. Between the records and a few hints from other family trees on ancestory.com I began to suspect that Grandma’s mother, Daisy, had been the victim of a serious crime. When Daisy was 12 or 13 (about 1898) she was kidnapped by her 53 year old uncle and they lived on the run from posses in the wilderness near Aberdeen for nine months before he was captured. By the 1900 census Daisy was 14 and back living with her parents and her baby, Ivy, and the uncle was living in the Walla Walla State Pen. By 15, she was married to a man named Walter (my grandmother’s father) and settling down to hopefully live happily ever after, but little Ivy is nowhere to be found.

If I wrote such things in a book, my editor would tell me to tone down the melodrama and try for a little more realism! No wonder my Grandma was slightly evasive about the number of her siblings; it’s possible Daisy never even told Grandma about Ivy or her origins.

I will continue to track down my mysterious Great Aunt Ivy – I can only hope this is one mystery that won’t be lost in time.

Villainy!

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or How a Gas Cap Helped Me Write
by Bethany Maines
 

So today as I was driving to the Starbucks (because I was too lazy to make my own oatmeal) I saw a woman driving with her gas cap perched on the hood of her car. I was going to honk and try and indicate the issue when I realized that little door covering the gas hole was completely missing.  So I didn’t honk.  I figured that clearly this wasn’t the first time she had a problem like this and it might be better for her if she just rid the car of all accessories that weren’t bolted on.  Less to keep track of.
Facebook friend reaction says this was not the appropriately kind, good-Samaritan thing to do.  I should have honked and pointed, or pulled up alongside and yelled my message.  My reaction to such ideas?  Meh.  What would be the point?  She’d probably just do it again three weeks from now.  Some people are just Teflon coated against help.  And then I realized… I was the villain! Admittedly, the villain on a very small scale in a very tiny drama, but still, I was the bad guy!
Maybe I shouldn’t be so excited, but when I’m writing I sometimes I have a problem with villains. What excuse could possibly be enough to justify the villainous behavior of the bad guy? If my villain isn’t a sociopath or someone with a personality disorder of the highest degree, then they have to have a reason for doing what they do. At some point, they have to choose to do the bad things. And that where I struggle – coming up with reasons of sufficient validity to actually kill someone (or any of the other dastardly deeds they do). I remember a villain in one of my early attempts a novel writing seemed to have been cut from a Dickens novel – abused, with an evil uncle, penniless and starved as a child he set out to seek his revenge on all and sundry. He was one twirling moustache away from being Snidely Whiplash. My writer’s group told me in kind and restrained terms that just like my hero couldn’t exhibit all the traits and talents of herodom, possibly it would be more realistic if my bad guy acted like a human being.
In The Wild One Marlon Brando was asked “What are you rebelling against?” and he replied “What do you got?” Maybe that’s closer to the truth of villainy. It’s not that they’re not bad for a particular reason; maybe some villains are bad because they just don’t care.

Hooya!

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My writing process? Strangely enough, it’s not based on the written word.

I see and hear the scenes in my head. Then I type them into the computer.

Although I’ve been a voracious reader since grade school, I didn’t try to write fiction until about six or seven years ago. My first short story was written on a computer in my living room while I listened to CNN. I wrote it while drinking Pepsi One and eating Strawberry Twizzlers.

So my writing process?

Want to guess? In order to write I have to be sitting at my computer in my living room with CNN on the tv, a can of Pepsi One next to me, and okay, well – the Twizzlers are optional. I’m not completely nuts!

Seriously, I can’t write fiction using paper and pen. I’ve tried. A sentence or two is all I can squeeze out the old fashioned way.

I’m a fast typist and using a keyboard helps me get my thoughts down before they slither off. I’m composing this blog at my computer. I’ve changed the first line of this paragraph four times – trying to decide if “slither off” is the right phrase. (My co-author, Marian, wouldn’t care for me ending a sentence with the word “off,” but I’ll worry about that later.) As you can see, “slither off” won out over “escaped.”

Okay, so computer, Pepsi One, CNN, and Marian are needed in order for me to write – not necessarily in that order. I mentioned Marian before, right? She gets the credit, uh … blame for getting me into this fiction writing business. Not that I’ve actually met her in person – we are internet friends and writing partners. One day she typed, “We should write a book together.” I typed back, “We should think about it.”

I hesitated because I was afraid of failing. It’s easy to have the dream of writing a book – I’d guess most people have that dream at some point in their life. Having the dream is nice. It’s comfortable. It’s something to think about when your day job is less than fulfilling. But actually doing something about achieving that dream is scary. If you try and fail, then what? That dream is isn’t so golden any more.

But I’d been tempted, so after a few weeks of consideration, we started. We expanded a short story we’d written about a private detective and his Irish wolfhound partner. “Evelyn David” was born.

In order for me to write, I have to be in the “right” frame of mind (pun not intended but there it is), with the right tools handy (maybe the word “right” in this phrase is too much?), in order for me to find that fictional world in my head. And for me it’s all about characters.

I usually put two characters in a room, close my eyes and listen for a conversation to start. Two of my favorite characters from the Sullivan Investigations Mystery series are the twenty-something computer wiz JJ and the seventy-something, scooter riding Edgar. The only thing they have in common is their fondness for Mac Sullivan and a desire to become full-fledged detectives.

“How did you like my great nephew?”

“Is the no hair thing hereditary?”

“He’s a Marine.”

“Hooya!”

“He’s single.”

“Thanks for the warning. Mac is getting me a Taser for my birthday.”

The conversation stops. And I consider how I might use the dialogue. Or not. My writing always starts with dialogue, even if it’s inner dialogue. Then I go back and layer in background details and physical action. After I polish up the scene, I e-mail it to Marian.

I’ve tried to outline. I know how to draft an outline. Under great duress I can create an outline and I can write by it. But the process takes all the fun out of writing for me. The voices are muffled. The typing slows. Soon I’m thinking that mopping the kitchen might be a preferable activity.

If you’ve read Marian’s Monday blog, you’re probably wondering how in world we write anything together. She likes to know where we’re going before we get there. Preferably before we start. And I can’t tell her – at least not until we are about 20 pages into the first draft. Then all at once some real plot starts creeping into the scenes. Something clicks. There are choices to be made. Questions to be answered. Why does JJ dislike Edgar’s great nephew? And what’s his name anyway? [Note: find name that is different from any other characters – and for goodness sakes no more Irish names! Ask Marian.] Is the great nephew really a Marine? Is Edgar’s disappearance related to his relative’s visit? Do we want Edgar to have a major plot line in this book? Where did Carrie and Ray go? This was supposed to be their time to shine and they’re awol!

At that point in the process Marian and I start to figure out what the A and maybe B plot lines will be. We sift through the ideas – decide which ones make the most sense. We decide which characters we’re going to use in this particular book. A very loose outline is developed. We keep writing, alternating scenes, editing as we go. We watch for the C plot line to appear – a minor storyline that develops from an unexpected event or line of dialogue. Once it shows up, we deliberately expand on it and weave it throughout the book.

Sometimes after that initial twenty pages we have to start over – sometimes we just have to rewrite a few scenes. The opening scene always gets rewritten multiple times. But the main thing for me is to start. Not talk about starting, but start.

That’s my writing process.

Rhonda
aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com/

My Writing Process

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For each of my two series I have a manila folder jam packed with newspaper clippings, magazine articles and handwritten notes. For my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series it’s filled with small town crimes, crimes in mountain communities, anything to do with our local Indians and Indian legends along with ideas that’ve popped into my head. For the Rocky Bluff P.D. series, I collect larger city crimes that are mostly handled by police departments rather than the sheriff’s department, police procedure, funny things that happen in police departments, beach city crimes, interesting things about beach communities.

When it’s time to write a new book if I haven’t already gotten an idea, I peruse the pertinent folder and begin pulling articles out that interest me. Once I think I have a clue where I’m going, I may start doing some more research on the Internet concerning whatever it is I plan to write about.

The next step is creating the characters who will inhabit the book. In my Deputy Tempe Crabtree books of course there’s always Tempe and Hutch. I have to figure out who is going to be murdered and why, who wanted to see the person dead–at least three or four who could’ve done it. Of course there has to be a story around each of them. I like it best when I can use an Indian legend that works with or drives the story. In my latest, Dispel the Mist, what I wanted to include in the mystery was the legend of the Hairy Man. And of course I did.

In the Rocky Bluff P.D. I have an group of people, police personnel and their families. Along with the crime or crimes, I have to decide just who I’m going to showcase. I always want to be able to explore how whatever is going on affects the family and what is happening with the family affects the job. Fortunately, I have a lot of friends and relatives in law enforcement. Some I can observe, others I ask.

All the character information I write down on a legal pad. I write other things down too, just enough to get me started.

Once I really begin writing, it’s on the computer, but as other ideas come to me I’ll jot them down too. It’s amazing how, as I’m writing, things begin to open up to me and I begin to know more and more where I’m going.

I try to write every morning except Sunday. When I’m really going strong, I might write most of the day. I always stop in the middle of a scene so when I get back to the computer I know exactly what I’m going to write next.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I start reading chapters to my critique group who sort of act like my first editor.

Of course I’m going back over chapters all the time to make sure everything is where it ought to be and I haven’t left anything out.

When I think it’s done I send it off to an editor to look for mistakes and inconsistencies. Once I’ve fixed those I send the manuscript off to my publisher where it is edited once again.

That is my writing process from start to finish. It would be easier if I wasn’t always promoting a book from the other series while writing and if I didn’t have to do all the things everyone else does like washing, cleaning, cooking and running errands. I have it easier than many of my writing friends though, who are still working at full-time jobs. So I’ll count my blessings.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com