Writing Tips Tuesday: Making Weird Work by Charlie Holmberg

Welcome to another Writing Tips Tuesday! I am pleased to introduce the author of the amazing Paper Magician Trilogy, which includes the Wall Street Journal Best Seller "The Master Magician", Ms. Charlie Holmberg!

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I’m sure you’ve heard the maxim that every possible story has been told, we just have to tell it a different way. According to Christopher Booker, there are only seven basic plotlines. It’s our job as writers to take one of these plotlines and make it seem new. To infuse it with something original. Or, as I’d like to discuss in this post, something weird.

What do I mean by “weird”? I mean something that is extremely original. As in adding an element to a story that isn’t just different, but completely obscure. An element that shakes hands with the bizarre.

I love weird elements in books, though to date my published works have been relatively tame. (Just you wait, world.) The reason weird is weird is because it’s vastly different—it’s not just thinking outside the box, but jumping into a new box entirely.

So, how does one make weird work?

The safe route is to change one aspect of the story into something weird: character, setting, magic, etc.

Let’s take the well-known story of Cinderella and make it interesting by adding a weird element:

Character. What if Cinderella were a leper? How would that change the story? (There’s nothing pretty or usual about leprosy, especially if we kept the romance element to the story.)

Setting. What if Cinderella happened in a world with intense volcanic activity? Or, staying closer to home, what if the story occurred under the reign of Ghengis Khan?

Magic. What if the price of magic was something bizarre—such as the organic materials being affected (pumpkin, mice, horses) turning into raging cannibals at midnight?

While these examples are off the top of my head, I highly recommend not using the first few ideas that come to mind when adding an element of weird to a story. Usually the first things we think of are either too obvious or too tame.

In addition to that, don’t overdo it. Imagine writing a story where Cinderella is a leper living in an alternate-universe where Ghengis Khan rules during a time of hyper volcanic activity, and all magic has zombie-esque consequences. It’s too much. It’s too weird, and that makes it hard for the reader to relate to the story (let alone understand it).

Going weird is something great to do if you’ve lost momentum with a current manuscript. Sometimes changing just one thing—especially for the bizarre—can breathe new life into an old project, or can plant a colorful seed for a story that’s still in its planning stages.

Want an example of making weird work? Read The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. His worldbuilding is very new-box (why herd sheep when you could be raising giant crustaceans?).

What weird things have you encountered in fiction? What weird elements have you yourself employed?

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Be sure to stop by Charilie's blog to share your thoughts on weird fiction and to congratulate her on the success of The Paper Magician Trilogy!

And tune in next week to read real tips from a real publisher on getting your book published. Really!

Writing Tip Tuesdays: Finding Your Muse By Sarah Foster

Welcome back for another Writing Tip Tuesday. I'm very happy to welcome today a fantastically The Faux Fountain Pen, Sarah Foster!

creative writer and blogger, you know her from her blog

Those of you who know Sarah probably also know Jordan, the teenage boy serving as her muse who lives in Sarah's head and occasionally makes appearances on Sarah's blog. Having such a strong relationship with her own, I asked Sarah to share how one finds a muse. Where does one come from? What's that connection like?

As usual, Sarah delivered. Please enjoy her post and then stop by her blog to share stories about how you found your muse.

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Most writers have heard of a muse. If you don’t have one, you’ve probably heard or read about other writers struggling with theirs. Your muse can be a source of inspiration to write and figure things out, or it can be the person you blame when the writing isn’t going the way you’d hoped. You can love or hate your muse (or both, usually), but if you have one, then you understand this unique and bizarre relationship.

Most of the time, and we don’t usually like to admit this, a writer’s muse is imaginary. It’s that urge, that voice in your head that gives you ideas and motivates you to write. They don’t actually exist, but it’s much easier to blame someone else when you’re not feeling inspired. But it goes for the good times, as well. How else do you explain the random ideas that pop in your head? Or the sudden ability to bust out pages and pages of words out of nowhere? It always feels like it’s in someone else’s control.

Where exactly do you find your muse? It can be different for every writer. For me, though, it has always been a character from one of my stories. When I’m trying to write from this person’s point of view, it feels like he or she is always with me when I’m writing, telling me what happened to them and how I should write in their voices. It just feels natural to me that way. Other writers may have a completely separate person as their muse, one who isn’t a character in one of their stories. Your muse could be an animal, a fairy, or even an inanimate object. Or you may look at the muse as a more abstract entity, one that isn’t an actual person, but more of a spirit or force of inspiration.

Whether you want a muse or not, they may find you. When I started my current project, I wasn’t looking for a muse. I wasn’t even looking to write a story, but the idea struck me out of nowhere and consumed every second of thought so that it actually bothered me to not be writing. I thought it was my main character trying to fight his way out of my brain. Well, he may have fought his way onto the page, but he never actually left my brain.

I never expected to have a teenage boy for a muse, but Jordan is as real to me as any actual person I know. We brainstorm, we fight, we have random moments of witty banter. I let him take over my blog now and then. And sometimes we actually get around to writing. If I wasn’t a writer, this would probably be very strange. Why do I talk to this imaginary person inside my head? But I spend so much time every day trying to figure him out and write from his point of view, essentially pretending to be him. Why shouldn’t I talk to him? If he doesn’t feel real to me, then he isn’t going to feel real on the page.

If you understand your muse and have a strong connection, you may find that inspiration comes more easily. So embrace your muse! Talk to them, scream at them, bounce ideas off of them. If you get a great idea or pages of writing done, who cares how crazy it seems? I’ve always been a firm believer in listening to your characters, and the same could be said of muses. Treat them like they’re real people with their own thoughts, emotions, and opinions, and your writing will be better off for it.

Writing Tip Tuesdays: Embrace Your Process by Cara Bertrand

Welcome back for another round of Writing Tip Tuesdays! I'm very please to welcome one of my oldest "blog friends" (hers was one of the first blogs I ever followed) and a super talented young adult author, Cara Bertrand!

Cara told me that she hopes the following post is helpful to at least one reader. Well, mission accomplished because I found it super helpful. I'm sure you will too 

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I have a confession: sometimes I suffer from writer envy. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. I do. See, when it comes to writing, cooking, and just about anything at all, I am a complete and utter pantser. Planning and I just seem to be on different wave lengths. I prefer to dive in and do something, even if I know it might be faster or less messy if I did some advance prep.

But you know what? I wish I was a plotter.

I’ve tried to become one. I’ve read eagerly and, sometimes, with envy all the blog posts and tweets and anecdotes and how-tos that I stumble across from those curious creatures who plan everything out. They talk about their glorious daily word counts and I imagine how, if only I could implement their process, I too could write like the wind.

Yet despite all my wishing and reading and trying, I still haven’t attained that magic. Four complete novels later and I’m still (mostly) a pantser, the turtle to the hare. And I’m (slowly) learning to be (mostly) okay with that. To accept my process and appreciate others. We can’t be any other writer but ourselves. Believe me, I’ve tried. But it doesn’t mean we can’t improve. Instead of trying to become a different writer, I now try to become better at the way I write.

And even a pantser can benefit from some kind of directions. Blank page? Okay. Blank brain? Oh no. So try this trick I gleaned from Rachel Aaron:

Before you begin your writing session, set yourself a timer for five minutes, pick up a pen, and wake up your brain by jotting down notes—a basic plan, a list of what’s about to happen, bits of inspiration, dialogue ideas—for what you’re about to write.

Here’s an example of my brainstorm when I was sitting down to write the main character’s first boxing match:

-In the training room

-nerves more than first flight test

-Ivan not 2^nd à opponent

-wanted to ask Willa à afraid /Shell volunteered /went with Quinn

-Kell’s first reffing (W asked not to) / “looked as nervous as me”

-masked, shorted, gloved / “bizarre Zorro”

-first tap “didn’t hear the silence”

-circle, circle, circle à practice  patience, better endurance

-See W in crowd?

-BOOM

-didn’t hear the crowd for ears ringing

-BELL

-advice from Q “maybe throw a punch”

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Just five minutes (more if you want, but not less!) with the pen and paper can do amazing things for your focus and, ergo, your word count when you finally put your fingers to the keys! Even I can manage to plan for five little minutes. I still don’t write like the wind, but this trick has helped me increase my gentle breeze to a moderate one with occasional strong gusts. I’ll take it!

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Isn't that great advice? A big thanks to Cara for sharing.

Please plan on stopping by next week when I will host the red-head herself, none other than the unconquerable, uncomparable, unstoppable Morgan Shamy!

Writing Tips Tuesday: Market Research Part II with J.W. Alden

You probably noticed that I completely blew it last week in that I didn't manage to post the second part to J.W. Alden's fabulous short story market research tips piece. I blame it on unexpected travel and a sick 8 month old. Please forgive me.

But here we are! Better late than never! Please enjoy!

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When in Doubt, Query

So what if you've done all your reading, but you're still not sure you have a bead on a particular market? What if it's a publication you can't research before submitting, like an anthology or a new magazine? What if it's a market that asks for a particular theme, but you don't quite understand what they want? In these instances, consider querying the editor. Shoot them an email. Send them a tweet.

Uh-oh. I feel your hackles going up! I know. Interacting with editors can be intimidating. They are the masters of your story's fate, after all, and you want to stay in their good graces. You don't want to feel like you're bothering them or wasting their time with a dumb question. But I promise you, editors are not as scary as we writers build them up to be in our minds. They're people who love fiction, like us! No matter what your inner Impostor says, an editor won't read your email and say, "What? Who is this person? How dare they interrupt my morning with questions? TO THE INSTANT REJECTION LIST."

Now, obviously you shouldn't get in the habit of peppering editors with simple questions that you can easily answer yourself by reading the market's submission guidelines or picking up an issue. But when all else fails, it usually doesn't hurt to ask.

When STILL in Doubt, Submit

So what happens when you've sent your story to every market you're intimately familiar with and still have nothing but rejections to show for it? What happens when you get to a market on your list you haven't read, and you just can't afford the proper amount of time (or money) reading up before submitting? Maybe the market sounds like a good fit based on the guidelines, but there's a rapidly closing submission window and not enough time to properly research. At the end of the day, it still doesn't hurt to submit. Your only worst-case scenario here is a rejection, and those aren't the end of the world. Trust me; I have a lot of them.

My aim here is mostly to save you time. Even if you don't write your story with a particular market in mind, if you figure out which markets will or won't like the kind of stories you write, you might save yourself weeks (or months) of waiting to hear back from an incompatible editor just to find a form rejection in your inbox. What I'm definitely not trying to do is scare you off from submitting to a market just because you think you haven't properly researched it yet. When in doubt, submit. I'll leave you with a quote from Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction. She was a guest lecturer my year at Odyssey Writing Workshop, and she had this to say on the subject: "Don't reject yourself. Let me do it."

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That last line in particular really grabs me. You never know what will be accepted where. You have to give your stories a chance to be successful. Great stuff from J.W. Alden.

Please check back in next week for a writing tip from young adult author extraordinaire, Cara Bertrand!