Very short post because it's almost midnight and I'm knackered.
I've always liked deadlines. If I just say I want to do something at some point it won't get done. If, on the other hand, I say I'm going to do it by the end of the month, I've got a much better chance.
The Stroke of Twelve went off today - my personal deadline for when I wanted to send one of the possible anthology stories off. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for it.
That also means I've started editing Secret Service ready for my next deadline - November 5th.
I'm also hoping to finish Between Tooth and Paw by the end of the month.
Deadlines are wonderful things when they work.
When they don't work they're a bit of a bugger, but over all I'm strongly in favour of them.
What does everyone else think?
Deadlines: love them or hate them?
Showing posts with label The Writing Process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Writing Process. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Wondering about... series
Series...
I seem to have rather a lot of them in my head, and the numbers keeps growing. The number of books I have planned for each series and the number of different series.
A few are more collections rather than true series - Collared and Perfect Timing both fit into this catagory. They are all stand alone stories that are linked by a theme. Other series on my list follow a cast of characters and their ever expanding circle of friends through several books.
Now, Perfect Timing is the nice organised series I have on the go. It's 12 stories. Three have been accepted, another eight have been written and are either being edited or waiting to be editing. And I'm writing the last one right now.
Collared is more free style. I'm hoping to write four stories a year for that series, but I'm purposely keeping myself flexible. The only rules I've given myself are that I want to alternate m/m and f/m stories and keep each one down to novella length if at all possible.
I'm going finish The Morning After, write two more Collared stories, two anthology submissions, and my Nanowrimo stand alone novel during the rest of this year. My time table is set. I have time to get everything I need to finish this year finished this year.
So, what all this planning and plotting boils down to is... I get to pick a new series to start in the new year. I realise that's still close to three months away, but speaking as someone who has been incredibly strict with themself and not given into the temptation to work on any of the shiney new projects in their head for months, and months, and months, this is still a very, very exciting fact.
I have 17 series on my list to choose from on Januray 1st.
But only if I finish everything I need to do over the next few months.
*Goes off to catch up on everythig that should be done by 15th October*
Wonderful the things that give you motivation at the oddest moments, isn't it?
I seem to have rather a lot of them in my head, and the numbers keeps growing. The number of books I have planned for each series and the number of different series.
A few are more collections rather than true series - Collared and Perfect Timing both fit into this catagory. They are all stand alone stories that are linked by a theme. Other series on my list follow a cast of characters and their ever expanding circle of friends through several books.
Now, Perfect Timing is the nice organised series I have on the go. It's 12 stories. Three have been accepted, another eight have been written and are either being edited or waiting to be editing. And I'm writing the last one right now.
Collared is more free style. I'm hoping to write four stories a year for that series, but I'm purposely keeping myself flexible. The only rules I've given myself are that I want to alternate m/m and f/m stories and keep each one down to novella length if at all possible.
I'm going finish The Morning After, write two more Collared stories, two anthology submissions, and my Nanowrimo stand alone novel during the rest of this year. My time table is set. I have time to get everything I need to finish this year finished this year.
So, what all this planning and plotting boils down to is... I get to pick a new series to start in the new year. I realise that's still close to three months away, but speaking as someone who has been incredibly strict with themself and not given into the temptation to work on any of the shiney new projects in their head for months, and months, and months, this is still a very, very exciting fact.
I have 17 series on my list to choose from on Januray 1st.
But only if I finish everything I need to do over the next few months.
*Goes off to catch up on everythig that should be done by 15th October*
Wonderful the things that give you motivation at the oddest moments, isn't it?
Friday, 10 October 2008
Five things that... keep turning up in my stories
There are certain things that seem to get stuck in my for no good reason.
Since I've been editing a few different stories over the last week or so, and also reading over a few of the old drafts I want to edit soon, I've noticed a few things that just keep croping up again and again.
Here are the five things that... keep turning up in my stories.
1. Coffee. I don't drink the stuff. Never tried it, never intend to. I don't even like the smell. So it bemuses me why half the characters I write about are addicted to the stuff.
2. Hamilton Street. It's now turned up in a grand total of six completly unrelated stories. Where does the hero live? Hamilton Street. Where is the restaurant the couple are going to have dinner? Hamilton Street. To my knowledge, I've never been to a Hamilton Street in my life. I've been going around cutting it from different stories and replacing it with different street, roads and lane. I think I've only got one reference to it left and that's in You First. Everyone else has just had to find somewhere else to live.
3. Tony. Never the hero, always the side kick. Does the hero have a friend who needs to turn up, say a few lines and disappear again? Do I need to name a bar man? Is there any sort of male minor character anywhere in the story? You can bet the first name I gave him was Tony. Well, I've been killing all of these repeat offenders off too. There is only one Tony now and I've given him a book all to himself. It's called Fast Track and it's part of a series I'm hoping to write next year.
4. Advertising companies. Does anyone in any of my books have to have a non-specific office job? They'll be working in an Advertising company. Now, I've never worked in one. I've never had some heart felt need to do so. I'm happy for my characters to do other things with their lives, but an astonishing number of them demand to work in Advertising.
5. Foods I don't like. I'm a really fussy eater. I don't eat pasta, rice, cheese, cream, curry, pizza, and a million other different foods. But somehow, put my characters in a restaurant and they'll start ordering things I'd never eat in a million years. It's nice to know I'm not projecting my tastes onto them, but really, I wish for once they would just have something I could eat myself.
So, what about everyone else? Do you find your characters do things like that to you too?
.....
Other news:
Silent Night edits went back to my editor yesterday.
Time To Do edits went back to her today.
I also started working on my own edits for All Grown Up ready to submit it at the end of the month. Lots more to do on that.
And The Morning After is starting to turn from a story idea into an actual story.
All is quite right with my little bit of the world at the moment.
Oh, and the cut off date for TEB's BDSM Anthology called Night of the senses was today, so there should be news about that soon :)
And that's it for now.
Take care, all
Nos Da.
Since I've been editing a few different stories over the last week or so, and also reading over a few of the old drafts I want to edit soon, I've noticed a few things that just keep croping up again and again.
Here are the five things that... keep turning up in my stories.
1. Coffee. I don't drink the stuff. Never tried it, never intend to. I don't even like the smell. So it bemuses me why half the characters I write about are addicted to the stuff.
2. Hamilton Street. It's now turned up in a grand total of six completly unrelated stories. Where does the hero live? Hamilton Street. Where is the restaurant the couple are going to have dinner? Hamilton Street. To my knowledge, I've never been to a Hamilton Street in my life. I've been going around cutting it from different stories and replacing it with different street, roads and lane. I think I've only got one reference to it left and that's in You First. Everyone else has just had to find somewhere else to live.
3. Tony. Never the hero, always the side kick. Does the hero have a friend who needs to turn up, say a few lines and disappear again? Do I need to name a bar man? Is there any sort of male minor character anywhere in the story? You can bet the first name I gave him was Tony. Well, I've been killing all of these repeat offenders off too. There is only one Tony now and I've given him a book all to himself. It's called Fast Track and it's part of a series I'm hoping to write next year.
4. Advertising companies. Does anyone in any of my books have to have a non-specific office job? They'll be working in an Advertising company. Now, I've never worked in one. I've never had some heart felt need to do so. I'm happy for my characters to do other things with their lives, but an astonishing number of them demand to work in Advertising.
5. Foods I don't like. I'm a really fussy eater. I don't eat pasta, rice, cheese, cream, curry, pizza, and a million other different foods. But somehow, put my characters in a restaurant and they'll start ordering things I'd never eat in a million years. It's nice to know I'm not projecting my tastes onto them, but really, I wish for once they would just have something I could eat myself.
So, what about everyone else? Do you find your characters do things like that to you too?
.....
Other news:
Silent Night edits went back to my editor yesterday.
Time To Do edits went back to her today.
I also started working on my own edits for All Grown Up ready to submit it at the end of the month. Lots more to do on that.
And The Morning After is starting to turn from a story idea into an actual story.
All is quite right with my little bit of the world at the moment.
Oh, and the cut off date for TEB's BDSM Anthology called Night of the senses was today, so there should be news about that soon :)
And that's it for now.
Take care, all
Nos Da.
Friday, 3 October 2008
Friday's Five things that... I've started books with
By the Hour is dead.
I usually start writing a story and write it straight through to the end no matter what. Even if I know I'm going to have to come back and re-write 90% of it at a later date, something that can be called a first draft gets written before I move onto another project. It takes a lot for me to say there is no way to make a story work. In fact it's only happened twice since I started writing seriously.
By the Hour is the third time. I've tried to start it 7 times, and I finally worked out what the problem is. The characters can't have sex. They are perfectly nice characters, but there is no way people in their situation can get it together (let alone get kinky) without being transformed into characters I don't like. I don't want to write about characters I dislike that much, so I'm not going to.
Now, that story is gone and I've been looking through my files for a story to take it's place at the end of the Perfect Timing line up. I've found one and I started it yesterday. I love it. It's called The Morning After. It's sooooo nice to start something from scratch after spending so long doing re-writes.
My other writing project this month is another completly new story (Yay!). It's going to be the third book in the Collared series, but I still haven't picked which story idea I'm going to write yet.
All this means, I've been looking through my file of first lines quite a bit while I was trying to pick the right story idea to fit into each series.
(Yes, I really do have a file dedicated to first lines...)
Many of the lines don't have a story to go with them yet. They're just hanging around, waiting for me to decide what happens next.
For some reason I also note down the first lines of stories I've already written. I thought I would share the first lines of the stories I've had accepted with TEB so far with you.
Five things that... I've started books with.
3. Luke Anderson was not going to come first.
- You First
4. "Don't waste your time."
- Silent Night
5. Brennan Talbot was not going to stare at his best friend's arse.
- Time To Do (I'll come back and put a link in when I've got something to link it to.
....
I usually start writing a story and write it straight through to the end no matter what. Even if I know I'm going to have to come back and re-write 90% of it at a later date, something that can be called a first draft gets written before I move onto another project. It takes a lot for me to say there is no way to make a story work. In fact it's only happened twice since I started writing seriously.
By the Hour is the third time. I've tried to start it 7 times, and I finally worked out what the problem is. The characters can't have sex. They are perfectly nice characters, but there is no way people in their situation can get it together (let alone get kinky) without being transformed into characters I don't like. I don't want to write about characters I dislike that much, so I'm not going to.
Now, that story is gone and I've been looking through my files for a story to take it's place at the end of the Perfect Timing line up. I've found one and I started it yesterday. I love it. It's called The Morning After. It's sooooo nice to start something from scratch after spending so long doing re-writes.
My other writing project this month is another completly new story (Yay!). It's going to be the third book in the Collared series, but I still haven't picked which story idea I'm going to write yet.
All this means, I've been looking through my file of first lines quite a bit while I was trying to pick the right story idea to fit into each series.
(Yes, I really do have a file dedicated to first lines...)
Many of the lines don't have a story to go with them yet. They're just hanging around, waiting for me to decide what happens next.
For some reason I also note down the first lines of stories I've already written. I thought I would share the first lines of the stories I've had accepted with TEB so far with you.
Five things that... I've started books with.
1. Flickering firelight lent an enchanting glow to Nicky's body.
2. The twirling spotlight hit the table dancer for one perfect moment.
- Turquoise and Leather3. Luke Anderson was not going to come first.
- You First
4. "Don't waste your time."
- Silent Night
5. Brennan Talbot was not going to stare at his best friend's arse.
- Time To Do (I'll come back and put a link in when I've got something to link it to.
....
And that's it for today.
Hope everyone has a good weekend.
Monday, 29 September 2008
Monday Memo: September Round up + Flexibility
Monday Memo: Be flexible.
At the start of the month I posted a memo about my aims for the month. Now that September is over, I figure it's probably time to go back and see how I did.
Here we go...
Write at least 1,000 words a day and 50,000 over the month. I'm on track to pass the 70k mark today, so I'm happily ticking this one off as done.
* Do whatever edits my editor sends to me. Done - The edits were a lot lighter than I expected, so this one didn't actually require that much work on my part.
* Re-write, edit, polish, write a synopsis and submit Whispers to TEB. It ended up 3k longer than I planned it to be, but his one went off earlier this month - a whole five days earlier than I planned!
*Re-write, edit, polish, write a synopsis and submit For the Duration - Book 3 in Perfect Timing series to TEB. This one is going off tomorrow, but it's far from the story I thought it would be at the end of the month - for a start it's about doubled in length! It's now a novel rather than a novella, so I've had to re-jig the other stories in the series to make a novel fit as the third book. But I'm pleased with it now. Once I finish this post I'm going to write the synopsis for it.
* Re-write Time Out – Book 11 in Perfect Timing series. Here's where it gets really complicated, I thought re-writing it would involve tweaking. It actually involved starting the whole thing pretty much from scratch. Twice. I've added 45k to a 33k story, but with the bits I've deleated, it's only actually grown 2k. But it's done now. Another tick, so it's all good up to this point.
* Re-write By the hour – Book 12 in Perfect Timing series. Nowhere near. I re-started this one from scratch, but the way the other projects grew meant there wasn't really time for this one. I've moved it into next month.
* If I have time or need the words (because I can't work out how many words the re-writes and edits will actually come to) start working on Book 1 in my next series of novellas - Hot + Wet. I actually thought I would have time and need extra words to hit the 50k mark. Poor nieve child...
* Name all the characters in the Hot + Wet novellas. Didn't get this done either. My excuse is, since I've had to alter my schedule a bit, I'm not actually going to write them until next year. The characters don't need names yet. It won't do them any harm to wait a bit longer.
Overall, not to bad, I got most of the important ones ticked off. But the fact is none of the projects turned out quite the way I expected them to. So, I had a choice between trying to make my writing fit the plan or changing my plan to fit in with my writing.
I'm quite pleased I chose the latter.
However, I'm going to leave my plans for October until Wednesday, I'm not ready to wonder on then quite yet.
Enjoy the end of September everyone.
See you in October :)
At the start of the month I posted a memo about my aims for the month. Now that September is over, I figure it's probably time to go back and see how I did.
Here we go...
Write at least 1,000 words a day and 50,000 over the month. I'm on track to pass the 70k mark today, so I'm happily ticking this one off as done.
* Do whatever edits my editor sends to me. Done - The edits were a lot lighter than I expected, so this one didn't actually require that much work on my part.
* Re-write, edit, polish, write a synopsis and submit Whispers to TEB. It ended up 3k longer than I planned it to be, but his one went off earlier this month - a whole five days earlier than I planned!
*Re-write, edit, polish, write a synopsis and submit For the Duration - Book 3 in Perfect Timing series to TEB. This one is going off tomorrow, but it's far from the story I thought it would be at the end of the month - for a start it's about doubled in length! It's now a novel rather than a novella, so I've had to re-jig the other stories in the series to make a novel fit as the third book. But I'm pleased with it now. Once I finish this post I'm going to write the synopsis for it.
* Re-write Time Out – Book 11 in Perfect Timing series. Here's where it gets really complicated, I thought re-writing it would involve tweaking. It actually involved starting the whole thing pretty much from scratch. Twice. I've added 45k to a 33k story, but with the bits I've deleated, it's only actually grown 2k. But it's done now. Another tick, so it's all good up to this point.
* Re-write By the hour – Book 12 in Perfect Timing series. Nowhere near. I re-started this one from scratch, but the way the other projects grew meant there wasn't really time for this one. I've moved it into next month.
* If I have time or need the words (because I can't work out how many words the re-writes and edits will actually come to) start working on Book 1 in my next series of novellas - Hot + Wet. I actually thought I would have time and need extra words to hit the 50k mark. Poor nieve child...
* Name all the characters in the Hot + Wet novellas. Didn't get this done either. My excuse is, since I've had to alter my schedule a bit, I'm not actually going to write them until next year. The characters don't need names yet. It won't do them any harm to wait a bit longer.
Overall, not to bad, I got most of the important ones ticked off. But the fact is none of the projects turned out quite the way I expected them to. So, I had a choice between trying to make my writing fit the plan or changing my plan to fit in with my writing.
I'm quite pleased I chose the latter.
However, I'm going to leave my plans for October until Wednesday, I'm not ready to wonder on then quite yet.
Enjoy the end of September everyone.
See you in October :)
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Wondering about... Titles
I don't know if anyone else gets this trouble, but I either get a title in my head right away or it just doesn't happen at all.
I have a lot of titles that I'm longing to use and no real story to go with them yet. I've then got a whole other list of stories that I can't work out titles for.
The story I'm editing at the moment is currently called, For the Duration. Before that it was called Time to Do. I keep switching back and forth between the titles again and again. They both fit in with the theme of time (the novella is for the Perfect Timing series), and both titles fit the book.
The problem is neither of them really zings, if you know what I mean? They are okay. What I'm really looking for is something that's a hell of a lot better than okay.
Anyone got any good ideas on ways to come up with titles? I've got the rest of the series named, but this one book is proving to be a bit of a bugger.
What else?
I've re-jigged my website a bit if anyone wants to have a look. Feel free to drop a comment here if you notice anywhere I've screwed it up.
By the Hour, the last one in the time series (I like that title, by the way) is being restarted from scratch because the original start couldn't be re-written to fit the way I want the story to develope.
For the Duration, or whatever it ends up being called, is going through another edit today and tomorrow. Hopefully I can to my last big edit on Friday and have it off to my editor on the weekend.
I have a lot of titles that I'm longing to use and no real story to go with them yet. I've then got a whole other list of stories that I can't work out titles for.
The story I'm editing at the moment is currently called, For the Duration. Before that it was called Time to Do. I keep switching back and forth between the titles again and again. They both fit in with the theme of time (the novella is for the Perfect Timing series), and both titles fit the book.
The problem is neither of them really zings, if you know what I mean? They are okay. What I'm really looking for is something that's a hell of a lot better than okay.
Anyone got any good ideas on ways to come up with titles? I've got the rest of the series named, but this one book is proving to be a bit of a bugger.
What else?
I've re-jigged my website a bit if anyone wants to have a look. Feel free to drop a comment here if you notice anywhere I've screwed it up.
By the Hour, the last one in the time series (I like that title, by the way) is being restarted from scratch because the original start couldn't be re-written to fit the way I want the story to develope.
For the Duration, or whatever it ends up being called, is going through another edit today and tomorrow. Hopefully I can to my last big edit on Friday and have it off to my editor on the weekend.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Monday Memo: I'm never going to be a short story writer.
Note to self: When ever single draft you write ends up longer than the last, it's time to stop worrying about the first draft being a bit too short.I know it's not the most artistic and creative way to set about it, but I like to decide what length my story is going to be and make damn sure the story turns out to be that length. If I say it's going to be 16,000 words, it's going to end up 16,000 words. I'm actually sad enough that I'll got back and re-word certain sentences until it is exactly 16,000 words.
That worked out great when I was just writing first drafts and putting them in the back of a drawer, but since I've started editing it's a different story.
The stories keep growing.
I originally intended The Gift - my Christmas Anthology story to be 12,500 words. The requirements went up a bit. It now needed to be 20,000 words. Mine ended up just short of 25,000.
Turquoise and Leather started off as a lust bite length story and grew into a novella during edits.
You First, Silent Night and Whispers all grew 2-3,000 words each.
I've been trying to work out why they keep getting longer. The only thing I can think of is I just love writing too much. Or I like talking to much...
Maybe a bit of both. Because after all writing is all about a desire to communicate something to other people.
I think that's why I've never be able to write a short story writer, I like to communicate the whole story, and I've never managed to do that in less than 10,000 words.
Which brings me to the stories I'm working on at the moment.
I've finished writing Time Out. It's actually 5,000 words shorter than I originally intended it to be. By my calculations, that means it will be just about what I want it to be by the time I've finished editing because...
For the Duration is now 6,000 words longer than I intended it to be. Another couple of thousand and it might tip over into a novel rather than a novella. Although I still want it to be ready for submission by the end of the month, so I hope it doesn't grow into too much of an epic.
My new writing project starting from today is the last novel in the Perfect Timing series. It's called By the Hour - a m/f BDSM erotic romance. I've cut 5,000 words off my first draft target length, so fingers crossed my editing continue to keep adding. By the Hour is actually another re-write. I originally started the story in November last year as a Nanowrimo novel. I wrote 7,000 words before I switched to a different project. This time around I've kinked up the plot a bit and thrown in a few more twists and turns, so I feel much more positive about it.
It would be a bit too ambitious to try and finish it by the end of the month, very nice, but too ambitious. I'll be carrying this one through until October.
And that's it. I'm off to get started on that editing.
I don't know how many people reading this blog are also writers, but I'd be interested to know how many other people find their stories grow or shrink significantly during edit?
Feel free to share :)
Friday, 19 September 2008
Five things that... I've learnt about naming characters
I'm no expert on it, but this is my advice when you're naming characters. It's what works for me anyway.
1. Remember the whole alphabet exists for a reason.
I'm sure it's very useful that baby naming books split up the names and organise them in alphabetical order. But from a naming characters POV it does create some pitfalls.
When I was naming characters for the Perfect Timing series (a process spread over several months) I ended up with three men named Rupert Montgomery, Rigby Mattews and Rhys Morcant. No idea why, accept I seemed to find a page in the book of names that I liked and I forgot to turn over between visits to the book. Then once I found the initials for the first one, the similar surnames followed.
Rigby Mattews still exists (He's one of the characters I'm editing in For the Duration at the moment). Rupert had to change his surname. Rhys, poor thing didn't get to keep either of his initials.
There are a few more repeating first letters that slipped past my radar in the Perfect Timing series and they are too firmly fixed in my head to rename them now. But, to get around this for future series I try to name all the main characters in a series at the same time and have every name begin with a different letter as far as that's possible.
It's not always easy. If you have a series of 12 stories, that means 24 different main characters names, 48 if you count surnames. Unless we invent a few extra letters, there will have to be a repeat or two, but I find it at least makes me think and be concious of what I'm doing, which is always a good thing.
2. Don't be lazy and tweak successful names.
In Turquoise and Leather, Eric really came to life for me. His character just worked. I smile every time I think about him.
I can't say I particularly liked Eric as a name before I wrote him. Or that I thought Eric was a particularly submissive name either. But the next three submissive male characters I named were called Elijah, Elliot and Eddy. Somewhere inside my head I wanted them to have some of Eric's spark and maybe that was my way of trying to short cut to it.
The biggest problem with this is that Eric's personality would have turned up along with his name. As much as I like him, I don't want carbon copies of him in all mybooks. Elliot managed to establish his own personality, so he survived renaming, the other characters didn't. I keep an eye out for this now.
3. Different names sound like different sorts of characters.
Posh characters tend to have long names. Dominant characters tend to have traditional or old fashioned names. Submissive characters usually get a double helping of vowels. Submissives names are more likely to get shortened. Dominant men are more likely to go by their last name.
One of the characters I wrote about in Whispers is a dominant man (he's also a Vampire, but that's besides the point). His name is Zachariah Radcliff. He stayed as Zachariah through the whole book. It never came up in the story line, but I know if he was talking to other men, they would call him Radcliff. That's just who he is. I just cannot imagine anyone every calling him Zach or Zachy. I sure as hell can't imagine him answering them if they did.
But Rigby and Brennan in the one I'm editing now. They hadn't been talking to each other for five minutes before they started shortening each others names to Rig and Bren in conversation. I'm happy to say the full length and the shorted versions suit them both, so they get to keep their names. That leads me nicely onto point four.
4. Pet names and nic names are best developed naturally.
These tent to turn up for some characters but not for others. I've found it's best not to force nic names or pet names onto characters. Some dominants can get away with calling their lover sweetheart through the whole book, others sound like they can't remember the persons name by the end of the first chapter.
Likewise in some books the dominant becomes refered to as sir or master. Some dominants like that and it works. Some submissives like that too, and it sounds natual when they say it. But it just doesn't work for other characters - it immediatly becomes impresonal and pretencious.
I think it's also a good idea to vary the enderments you use. Not everyone is a sweetheart or a darling. The more personal the name is the more life it will bring to the character.
5. I save up names I really like for longer books.
Not so much advice as an admission. If I really like a name, the sound, the meaning or anything else about it, I don't want to waste it on a short story. I set them aside for full length books.
I also worry that I will somehow use up all the good names far too quickly and be left writing about people whose names I don't like. What can I say, sometimes I'm just weird :)
And since I need to catch up on my editing today, this post is already far to long.
A quick update on my current WIPs...
I have 10,000 words left to do on Time Out. I'm hoping to get most of that done over the weekend, or early next week so I can move on to By the Hour as soon as possible.
I'm also finishing off the second draft of For the Duration today. I'd like to finish that and the third draft this weekend so I can start the fourth draft on Monday.
In the mean time, hope everyone has a good weekend :)
1. Remember the whole alphabet exists for a reason.
I'm sure it's very useful that baby naming books split up the names and organise them in alphabetical order. But from a naming characters POV it does create some pitfalls.
When I was naming characters for the Perfect Timing series (a process spread over several months) I ended up with three men named Rupert Montgomery, Rigby Mattews and Rhys Morcant. No idea why, accept I seemed to find a page in the book of names that I liked and I forgot to turn over between visits to the book. Then once I found the initials for the first one, the similar surnames followed.
Rigby Mattews still exists (He's one of the characters I'm editing in For the Duration at the moment). Rupert had to change his surname. Rhys, poor thing didn't get to keep either of his initials.
There are a few more repeating first letters that slipped past my radar in the Perfect Timing series and they are too firmly fixed in my head to rename them now. But, to get around this for future series I try to name all the main characters in a series at the same time and have every name begin with a different letter as far as that's possible.
It's not always easy. If you have a series of 12 stories, that means 24 different main characters names, 48 if you count surnames. Unless we invent a few extra letters, there will have to be a repeat or two, but I find it at least makes me think and be concious of what I'm doing, which is always a good thing.
2. Don't be lazy and tweak successful names.
In Turquoise and Leather, Eric really came to life for me. His character just worked. I smile every time I think about him.
I can't say I particularly liked Eric as a name before I wrote him. Or that I thought Eric was a particularly submissive name either. But the next three submissive male characters I named were called Elijah, Elliot and Eddy. Somewhere inside my head I wanted them to have some of Eric's spark and maybe that was my way of trying to short cut to it.
The biggest problem with this is that Eric's personality would have turned up along with his name. As much as I like him, I don't want carbon copies of him in all mybooks. Elliot managed to establish his own personality, so he survived renaming, the other characters didn't. I keep an eye out for this now.
3. Different names sound like different sorts of characters.
Posh characters tend to have long names. Dominant characters tend to have traditional or old fashioned names. Submissive characters usually get a double helping of vowels. Submissives names are more likely to get shortened. Dominant men are more likely to go by their last name.
One of the characters I wrote about in Whispers is a dominant man (he's also a Vampire, but that's besides the point). His name is Zachariah Radcliff. He stayed as Zachariah through the whole book. It never came up in the story line, but I know if he was talking to other men, they would call him Radcliff. That's just who he is. I just cannot imagine anyone every calling him Zach or Zachy. I sure as hell can't imagine him answering them if they did.
But Rigby and Brennan in the one I'm editing now. They hadn't been talking to each other for five minutes before they started shortening each others names to Rig and Bren in conversation. I'm happy to say the full length and the shorted versions suit them both, so they get to keep their names. That leads me nicely onto point four.
4. Pet names and nic names are best developed naturally.
These tent to turn up for some characters but not for others. I've found it's best not to force nic names or pet names onto characters. Some dominants can get away with calling their lover sweetheart through the whole book, others sound like they can't remember the persons name by the end of the first chapter.
Likewise in some books the dominant becomes refered to as sir or master. Some dominants like that and it works. Some submissives like that too, and it sounds natual when they say it. But it just doesn't work for other characters - it immediatly becomes impresonal and pretencious.
I think it's also a good idea to vary the enderments you use. Not everyone is a sweetheart or a darling. The more personal the name is the more life it will bring to the character.
5. I save up names I really like for longer books.
Not so much advice as an admission. If I really like a name, the sound, the meaning or anything else about it, I don't want to waste it on a short story. I set them aside for full length books.
I also worry that I will somehow use up all the good names far too quickly and be left writing about people whose names I don't like. What can I say, sometimes I'm just weird :)
And since I need to catch up on my editing today, this post is already far to long.
A quick update on my current WIPs...
I have 10,000 words left to do on Time Out. I'm hoping to get most of that done over the weekend, or early next week so I can move on to By the Hour as soon as possible.
I'm also finishing off the second draft of For the Duration today. I'd like to finish that and the third draft this weekend so I can start the fourth draft on Monday.
In the mean time, hope everyone has a good weekend :)
Monday, 15 September 2008
Monday Memo: Writing Lessons
Note to self: Time's not truly wasted if you learnt something in the process.
Well, over the weekend I learned that sometimes you just have to start again from scratch. No, that's a lie, I actually started again with nine words.
The title, the two main characters names and the words Chapter One, were copied and pasted from Time Out and put into the new draft.
And that's it.
Remember how I thought most of the original draft of the story could be saved.
Nine words.
On Friday, after I posted my five things, I finally admitted to myself that while I love the idea Time Out contains, it just wasn't working in the format I originally wrote it in.
Adding together the first draft and my first attempt at a re-write, I've scraped 48,200 words in total - 19 writing days worth of work.
On Friday, I also started a bit of a writing marathon. I wrote 5,500 words on Friday. 6,000 on Saturday. 5,000 on Sunday. 16,500 words over the weekend on Time Out re-write 2. That's more each day than I've written on any other day this year, and by far the best weekend.
Which brings me to what I learnt. Those 19 days weren't wasted. I learnt a lot about the characters. I learnt a whole list of things that didn't work. I learnt a lot about how (and how not to) tackle re-writes. And most of all I learnt that sometimes you just have to face reality and get on with it. All of those things helped me get those 16,500 words out over the weekend. It was worth it.
So, what's on the cards for this week, you ask? (And, no, there's really no point saying you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you anyway :) )
I had planned to finish Time Out by yesterday. I still have about 20k left to go on it. With a bit of re-jigging, that's not a problem. By the hour - which I should have started today - can wait a little while longer. I'm going to try to get as much as I can of Time Out done this week.
I am, however, starting my new editing project today - right on schedule. For the Duration is a m/m novella - Book 3 in the Perfect Timing Series. I'm hoping to submit it at the end of the month.
I wrote the first draft back at the beginning of June and I haven't looked at it since, so I'm going to read it through with fresh eyes now and decide what needs to be done with it.
Wish me luck :)
P.S. The submission deadline for my submission for the Christmas Spirit's Anthology was today, so the results should be out soon...
Well, over the weekend I learned that sometimes you just have to start again from scratch. No, that's a lie, I actually started again with nine words.
The title, the two main characters names and the words Chapter One, were copied and pasted from Time Out and put into the new draft.
And that's it.
Remember how I thought most of the original draft of the story could be saved.
Nine words.
On Friday, after I posted my five things, I finally admitted to myself that while I love the idea Time Out contains, it just wasn't working in the format I originally wrote it in.
Adding together the first draft and my first attempt at a re-write, I've scraped 48,200 words in total - 19 writing days worth of work.
On Friday, I also started a bit of a writing marathon. I wrote 5,500 words on Friday. 6,000 on Saturday. 5,000 on Sunday. 16,500 words over the weekend on Time Out re-write 2. That's more each day than I've written on any other day this year, and by far the best weekend.
Which brings me to what I learnt. Those 19 days weren't wasted. I learnt a lot about the characters. I learnt a whole list of things that didn't work. I learnt a lot about how (and how not to) tackle re-writes. And most of all I learnt that sometimes you just have to face reality and get on with it. All of those things helped me get those 16,500 words out over the weekend. It was worth it.
So, what's on the cards for this week, you ask? (And, no, there's really no point saying you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you anyway :) )
I had planned to finish Time Out by yesterday. I still have about 20k left to go on it. With a bit of re-jigging, that's not a problem. By the hour - which I should have started today - can wait a little while longer. I'm going to try to get as much as I can of Time Out done this week.
I am, however, starting my new editing project today - right on schedule. For the Duration is a m/m novella - Book 3 in the Perfect Timing Series. I'm hoping to submit it at the end of the month.
I wrote the first draft back at the beginning of June and I haven't looked at it since, so I'm going to read it through with fresh eyes now and decide what needs to be done with it.
Wish me luck :)
P.S. The submission deadline for my submission for the Christmas Spirit's Anthology was today, so the results should be out soon...
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