Our First Live Workshop (And A Promotional Gig for RMFW)

We are so very excited! Why? Well...
Vicki and Marne are presenting our workshop, "Keeping Track of Your World: How to Create a Story Bible," LIVE! It's going to be the bomb! We are doing this workshop for half an hour, and then we'll be brainstorming what is needed to create a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' presence on the Western Slope. We want a writing group, complete with a critique group and monthly meetings/workshops, so let's see what we need to do to make that happen...

Here are the details:
Date: Saturday November 19, 2011
Time: 9:30 a.m. until whenever...
Where: 800 Colorado Ave, Grand Junction, CO 81501

So, yes, it is tomorrow. But, if you are a writer on the Western Slope area, please come support our adventures. You might get something out of the experience.

Endings

    I am trying to write the last chapter in the book I’m revising. My crit group opined that I hadn’t tied up enough of the plot thingymabobbers. Let me just say right here, endings suck.

    So, I’m going to ask you all what kind of endings you prefer. Does the protagonist need to be happy, healthy, and satisfied with his lot? Does the antagonist need to be dead, incarcerated, or reformed? Do you need to know if the secondary characters are living productive lives as you turn the last page? These are the nagging questions I’m asking myself on behalf of my prospective readers. I just don’t know how much I want to tie up.

    Time for some ferinstances.

    Egon, the protagonist, has some feelings for this girl he met while recruiting men to help him defeat the witch, Katerina. He kissed her, he thinks about her time to time, he’s kinda got a thing for her. When last he saw Jessica she was pissed because two of her brothers were killed and one maimed while fighting Katerina. Heat of the moment, he’d just told her they were dead, she tells him she never wants to see him again. Done? Or do you need to know more in the last chapter?

    Acinom, a secondary protagonist, a winged humanoid female and the last of her kind has helped Egon become a leader and gave him tools to defeat Katerina. She’s kind of a mentor though a very unconventional one. She has been flirting with Egon throughout and the two developed a psychic connection. She is an alluring, wanton, free spirit without many boundaries and has told Egon that she and he should start a new race, half her, half him. Oh, and she’s okay with Jessica being in the mix. Haven’t seen much of her toward the end because mentors have to fade. She’ll make an appearance in the last chapter but do you need to know if Egon is going to father her babies?

    Lars, a sixteen year old boy and one of the first to join Egon. He’s a smartass and he hears the whispers of dragons. We last saw him on the back of the dragon circling above the castle. He’ll have at least a mention in the final chapter but how much do you need to know?

    I see him living in a stone cottage near a cavern high atop a cliff. Gradually, the constant whispers of the dragon drive him mad. He takes to stealing chickens and kidnaping robust middle-aged women. I won’t go into detail here but suffice it to say, mental illness is a terrible thing. But, someone else might have a different imagining of Lars’ future. Someone else might imagine him married with three kids living on a small farm. He’d have a herd of dairy goats, the dragon would keep the predators away and he’d teach his children to make yogurt. How do I end it with Lars?

    How much does the reader want? How much do I give them? How much control do I exert over the direction the story takes from here? That’s the real question isn’t it? And I haven’t a clue.

    How about you? Do you like everything wrapped up? Do you like to wrap everything up. Or do you like to let your reader’s imaginations wander willy-nilly?

A Few Tidbits

Is that right? Is it tidbits? Tid-bits? Tid Bits?

Don't know, however, I digress. Here are a few tidbits of news. First of all, we've been meeting with other writers on the Western Slope (of Colorado, that is) to get Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer meetings and events happening on our side of the mountain. We've met with great enthusiasm and a couple volunteers already. We're looking forward to making new writing friends.

The first Western Slope RMFW meeting is slated for November 19th. If any of you are in the area and want to join us, give us a holler. The meeting will be held at 800 Colorado Ave, Grand Junction from 9:30 to Noon.

Secondly, Marne and I are doing a story bible mini-class at the meeting. We worked on the presentation tonight and all I can say is  - Marne rocks! She's already given this class online, so she had the majority of the work done.

Lastly, Mike, Marne and I are doing NaNoWriMo this year. Marne found us a wonderful place to write, complete with kitchen, living room, family room, and a huge dining room table. Nope, not her house, but an adult daycare center which is empty every evening. It's perfect!!!  Again, we are meeting new writing friends, this time through the Grand Junction NaNoWriMo group. Our little offshoot is the Delta/Montrose branch of the GJ organization.

Come join us on Tuesday nights in November:

Day-by-Day
1402 Howard Street
Delta, CO

And if you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, see this website: http://www.nanowrimo.org

Do you have any writing news you want to share?

Disturbing Characters

    I have a book that lists among my weaknesses the word, ‘DISTURBING’ Just like that, all caps. The only thing that disturbs me about that is that they consider it a weakness. Hell, if I can disturb somebody and there are no consequences, like getting arrested or fired, I’m going for it. Besides, we’re all disturbing in one way or another. Religion, politics, social and societal convention, we are all disturbed and disturbing by and to someone. The question is: should you make your characters disturbing?

    Hell yes. Even if you are writing a piece about well meaning people on two sides of a divisive issue and everyone will be redeemed in the end through compromise and group hugs, someone needs to be disturbing or the boredom will be excruciating.

    I can hear you thinking, ‘Huh, I’ll just have my antagonist be disturbing.’ Does it disturb you that I can hear your thoughts? Now, you can have your bad guy be disturbing, most of them are in one way or another; they’re bad guys. So make them disturbing in their actions. Have them swerve to hit bunnies on the highway, pee in the office coffee pot, try to see the future in the entrails of their victims, etc. That’ll disturb some readers but we expect that sort of thing and we expect bad guys to have disturbing thoughts if they have a POV. By all means, make the bad guy disturbing but also do the unexpected. Give your protagonist disturbing thoughts.

    Heroes are better characters if they are flawed, we all know that. This is just one more way to bring them to life. I don’t have room here to give examples because there are too many possibilities. Think sex, murder, torture, violence, kinky sex, violent sex, torturous sex, vandalism, suicide, autoerotic asphyxiation, homophobic, homosexual, pee in the office coffee pot thoughts.

    I can hear you thinking again and some of you are reluctant to sully your good guy with less than heroic thoughts. You love him because he is so strong and brave and virtuous. He is your idea of a perfect person. You can’t have him think stuff like... No!

    Okay. Many books have been written and published with nary a thought out of place on the part of the hero. The tension comes from insurmountable odds, the hero’s fear or feelings of unworthiness, or his desire to save the villain, etc. There is a large audience for that.

    Not my cup of tea.

    I prefer Han Solo to Luke, Rooster Cogburn to Marshal Dillon, Ironman to Superman, Grace Anadarko to Joe Friday. I want heroes with grit. I want them dirty, nasty, sociopathic in their thoughts and borderline criminal in their deeds. I don’t care if they fight their demons or embrace them. I just want them to have demons.

    Now, I realize this sort of thing can be overdone. So don’t obsess over thinking up and putting in inappropriate thoughts. But there are situations where a reasonable person might think something that would get them arrested if they said it out loud. If one occurs to you, try it out.

    What do you think? Gonna do it?

Is Your Stuff in A Pile?

Marne and I are both working on new projects. Marne started the third book of “The Fae Dragon Chronicles". I’m working on a whole new project, which blends the old west, (my first love) and a little fantasy (my second love).

We’re both excited, motivated and diligently writing. Yay.

Normally Marne has a canvas bag sitting next to her computer when she writes. The bag holds notebooks, three rings binders, sticky notes, bits of paper...you get the idea. Her filing cabinet full of information regarding her stories. Character sketches, tidbits about her world and the creatures and people who live in it.

Me, I’m more of a electronic person. I don’t have a canvas bag, but I have a pile of thumb drives. Sometimes I pick them all up and play with them. They click together very nicely, kind of like dice. It’s a sensory thing.

Each thumb drive holds various files and folders, (and, truth be told, various versions of the same files). I pretend my thumb drives are color coded.

The blue one holds notes and research.
The black one, versions one and two (and maybe three and four) of my manuscript.
The red one submissions and feedback from critique group.
The other black one (with the little plastic cap) contains ideas for future work, brainstorming, and things. I don’t exactly remember what.
The purple one backs up the black one, because you should always have several backups, right?
The pink one with flowers, well it holds backups of personal stuff and important spreadsheets.
The red one with the black skulls doesn’t work any longer, but I’m afraid to throw it away. I don’t remember what’s on it.
You get the idea...Marne’s canvas bag on disc.

Unlike my brilliant husband, who doesn’t seem to need a story bible, my memory sucks. Between Marne and I, we’ve written more than a few manuscripts over the years and there are times I remember more about her characters than I do my own.

We were both spending too much time looking for information.

I don’t remember who first realized we needed story bibles. I’m pretty sure I was first to create my computer file, complete with an index and page references. However, Marne’s memory is much better than mine and she says her “big” three ring bible, with tabs and a written index, came into creation first.

Regardless, we are both stoked. We are organized!!!!

And, we’ve fed off of each other. Marne now has an electronic story bible, but I secretly covet that very cool binder that has a plastic pocket with colored pens and highlighters. When she isn’t watching, I run my fingers along the tabs, flip through the pages and doodle with her pens. What writer doesn’t love office supplies?

Our story bibles have morphed from mere information dumps, into the structure of our worlds. We can click on a highlighted page number and add to the paragraph explaining the rules of our world’s magic; with the push of a button, we are re-analyzing our villian's GMCs; in seconds we’re able to read what we wrote last month about our protagonist’s culture. And now when I can’t remember if my heroine’s eyes are sea-green or sky-blue (I am a romance writer, after all), it just takes a click of my mouse to find out.

Dang we’re good. Sometimes it just takes two heads to figure it all out.

What about you? Do you use a story bible. If so, how did you develop it? What’s in it?

If not, how do you keep all that info in a pile and accessible? Maybe you just have a better memory than I do. It wouldn’t be hard, cuz like I said, mine sucks.

Just as important, do you have critique partners and writing friends to help you solve problems?

I have a world to create, as well as creatures, religions and, of course, the characters.

All I needed was a story bible.