Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Writing
The Worderella Writes Collected Works
Belinda Kroll
Worderella on Writing
www.worderella.com
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Table of Contents
WRITING FOR THE LOVE OF IT ................................................................... 5
SELF-PUBLISHING EXPERIENCES .............................................................. 7
THE IMPORTANCE OF THEME FOR ORGANIZATION ................................. 10
Step One: Write a shitty first draft ........................................................ 10
Step Two: Use extra prose as back story............................................... 11
Step Three: Read the NYT bestseller list ............................................. 11
REFRESH YOUR WRITING ........................................................................ 13
What is a writer to do?? .......................................................................... 13
Meet some friends for lunch................................................................... 14
Is your plot lagging? ................................................................................ 14
What about your setting?........................................................................ 14
…Still distracted? Unable to focus? ....................................................... 15
FIVE TIPS ON CHARACTER BUILDING THROUGH ADVERSITY .................. 16
So how do you make your own Scarlett? .............................................. 16
Physical adversity .................................................................................... 16
Unfulfilled desire ..................................................................................... 17
Haunting past........................................................................................... 17
Use the time period against your character’s advantage .................... 17
Go with it .................................................................................................. 18
DEVELOPING VILLAINOUS CHARACTERS PART 1 .................................... 19
Research villain archetypes .................................................................... 19
Give the villain a motive ......................................................................... 20
Devote as much time defining the villain as you do the hero............. 20
DEVELOPING VILLAINOUS CHARACTERS PART 2.................................... 22
The villain in your story is the hero of his own story .......................... 22
Go beyond evil for the villain’s actions ................................................. 22
That being said, don’t overdo it, either ................................................. 23
DEVELOPING VILLAINOUS CHARACTERS PART 3.................................... 24
Give your villain/character a fatal flaw................................................. 24
Give the villain a good side ..................................................................... 24
Finally, maintain control over your villain ........................................... 24
PUT THAT SHITTY FIRST DRAFT AWAY .................................................... 25
Put that shitty first draft away, you’re gonna hurt somebody............ 25
Don’t edit at the computer...................................................................... 26
BE BRUTALLY HONEST ............................................................................ 27
First: Be honest with yourself ................................................................ 27
Second: Be honest with your writing .................................................... 27
Third: Be honest with your audience .................................................... 29
SHOW ME, DON’T TELL ME ..................................................................... 30
Small details reveal the bigger picture .................................................. 31
Showing through Body Language.......................................................... 31
Showing through the Environment ....................................................... 31
Showing through Architecture............................................................... 32
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TELL ME, DON’T SHOW ME ..................................................................... 33
As important as showing is, telling is equally important.................... 33
Set the scene ............................................................................................. 34
Summarize boring conversation ............................................................ 34
Switch locations, moods, characters ..................................................... 35
Give the reader information your characters don’t have .................... 35
The Point................................................................................................... 36
FOCUS ON NITTY GRITTY DETAILS .......................................................... 37
Timeline .................................................................................................... 37
Editing the Beginning ............................................................................. 37
What’s wrong with it? ............................................................................. 39
HOW TO BE A COMPUTER-BASED BETA READER ..................................... 42
First: What is a beta reader? .................................................................. 42
Now, onto the editing .............................................................................. 42
Track Changes: Deletion......................................................................... 42
Track Changes: Rewording, Reorganizing, Adding text ..................... 44
Commenting on the Work ...................................................................... 44
DISCUSSING FICTION ............................................................................... 46
RESEARCH YOUR SETTING USING GOOGLE EARTH ................................. 50
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Writing for the Love of it
The real secret is to do it because you love writing
rather than because you love the idea of being a Writer.
- Iain Banks
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Self-Publishing Experiences
When people ask me about my book, I tell them I self-
published it. This is true and untrue.
I paid to have the book printed; I sold it to my family and
friends, and was interviewed by my local television station
about it. Mainly because I was a senior in high school and it was
my senior thesis.
But if I had gone the actual self-publication route, I would
have found a printer, custom designed my cover and interior,
and kept all the profits for myself. What I did in reality was go
through a print-on-demand company, Aventine Press. This
route means I used an interior template, a cover template; in
other words, the company limited my choices to what they had
available.
For my first time in the publishing realm, I really have to
say that Aventine Press kept my concerns in mind. Because of
production delays due to the cover designer needing a root
canal, they custom designed my cover. My book was placed
online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many more.
My dad helped me with local marketing by sending the
press release to the news stations. I can’t even tell you what it
felt like to hold my book that first time after opening the
package. But looking back, I should have waited. They require
that you pay extra for editing services, and let’s face it, my first
book could have used some last-minute editing.
Other things to keep in mind: yes, if you put forth a good
quality product and perfect your marketing plan, there is a
larger change of a traditional (aka
commercial) publisher of picking up
your writing, as long as you follow
the rules (querying, sending
partials when asked, etc).
But out of the thousands of
people who went the self-
publishing route in 2006 (we’re
talking POD, Vanity, and Self
Publishing), only 20 were picked by
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commercial/traditional publishers.
So, I guess my point is that if you have the money and
patience, research the “actual” self-publishing route. It’s more
impressive, and you complete control. But most of all, be careful
with the Vanity, Subsidy and POD publishers. Seeing the
market now, I realize I was lucky.
The following definitions were found at
www.sfwa.org/beware/vanitypublishers.html.
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The Importance of Theme for
Organization
I often read that the biggest things a writer should worry
about are theme and organization. Theme, because that is the
heart of your work; organization because that’s the skeleton to
help you write about the theme.
For the longest time I wondered, How does one find a
theme in the first place?
Maybe something happened in your life that you want to
write about. Let’s face it, wanting to write about that topic isn’t
enough.
You need a focus, something that connects you to the topic
and distances you from it at the same time, so that you can
communicate clearly with your reader.
I began with “I want to write a romance, but I don’t want
the heroine to be the typical spunky girl. I want her flawed, and
with heavy concerns.”
So, I worked from there, writing character descriptions and
first drafts; I wrote an entire 94k first draft just throwing
whatever came to me onto the page. I celebrated, because we all
should celebrate the completion of a draft, especially when it
takes three years to do it (full-time student, remember).
Then, I stuffed it under my bed (or maybe in the back of my
closet, I’m always re-organizing so I never completely know
where some things are) and started over.
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Side Note: a back story, if you don’t
recognize the term, is a short story and/or
history about a character, location, or
object that happened before your current
time line.
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Don’t use passive voice! Choose your words carefully; every
word in your theme should be there because there is no better
word for it.
Here are some examples from the July 2007 bestseller list:
After you have the main theme, everything will fall into
place, if a bit slowly at first. Your theme is your thesis, so tie
everything back to it and you’ll have a tight, organized work.
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Refresh Your Writing
“I think that writers need to be out there,
be in contact with people, struggle with other things
and then come back and bring it to her writing.”
- Chitra Divakaruni
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Meet some friends for lunch
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…Still distracted? Unable to focus?
Clear your desk so you’re not fiddling with the items there.
Move your pens out of the way, file your bills, hide your mail.
More importantly, if you do your writing on the computer
and you use a program like MS Word, use the “full screen”
option under the View menu. This will make your writing the
only thing visible on your monitor/screen, thus preventing you
from wanting to check your e-mail again, or answer that quick
IM, or (if you’re like me) re-organize your files.
Simple as that sounds, I get so much more writing done
with Word in full screen mode. It prevents my usual multi-
tasking, which is refreshing and a little nerve-wracking at the
same time.
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Five Tips on Character Building
through Adversity
We don’t remember Scarlett
O’Hara for her beauty. We remember
her because she survived countless
marriages, a war, childbirth, poverty,
sickness, the end of the world as she
knew it, and heartbreak on a
monumental scale.
And she’s flawed, boy, is
she flawed. And a brilliant
character. You either love her,
or hate her.
Physical adversity
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The worse the situation is, and the more empathetic your
character is, the more you hook your reader.
Unfulfilled desire
No one ever gets things the way they want all the time,
every time. What if your character is used to getting her way,
and one day doesn’t? What if this moment completely alters her
understanding of herself and the world around her? What does
she do? Does her desire destroy her, does she rise above it?
Does she ruin the lives of those around her in her quest to
satisfy her desire?
Note this desire doesn’t have to be romantic in nature. In
fact, if it isn’t, and you’re writing a romance, what a great twist
to your story! Suddenly you’ve added a new dimension to your
romance.
No one in the real world has time to only worry about their
romantic life, so why should your characters?
Haunting past
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The women of today are strong-willed and ready to shout it
from the rooftops. The women of yesterday were just as strong-
willed, but required the mastery of subtlety or they might suffer
the rule of thumb.
If your character wants to do something that she just
wouldn’t have done in your chosen time period, don’t give it up
for the sake of the time period.
Use the frustration to build your character, showing the
reader just what sort of a person she is.
Go with it
Sometimes you’ll surprise yourself with the scenarios you
create. Actually, I hope you surprise yourself. In fact, you better
surprise yourself.
If your scenarios don’t surprise you, you won’t surprise
your reader, and that’s bad.
What’s really great is when a character surprises herself.
But again, you need to know your character well enough to
know when she can surprise herself. As a hint, use your research
to spark your imagination.
Read old newspapers and be amused and shocked by what
happened back then.
Truth really is stranger than fiction.
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Developing Villainous Characters
Part 1
Villains and villainous characters are as important to a
good story as the Hero and heroic characters. However, many
writers find writing villainous characters hard because their role
in the novel is to make life for the hero difficult. How do we do
this?
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Give the villain a motive
Next, we will go into more detail about why this is, even for
those of us who don’t like to hurt our characters (therefore
making our villain weak and laughable).
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Developing Villainous Characters
Part 2
For part two, we’re going deeper into the mind and actions
of the villain. We’re going to try to see the entire plot from the
villain’s perspective, push ourselves to the limits, yet attempt to
moderate how far we push our villain’s actions.
So let’s get going! First and foremost, here is something
that really helped me get into the mind of my villain: I suddenly
realized that…
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Developing Villainous Characters
Part 3
Give your villain/character a fatal flaw
There are multiple movies that showcase this trick (Pulp
Fiction, Scarface, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Romancing the
Stone), and often it is the fatal flaw that brings the villain to
their downfall, rather than the hero being the ultra-smart, ultra-
handsome hero that we know he is. It adds complexity if the
villain is the reason why he doesn’t win.
Search “phobia” on your favorite search engine and you’ll
find an array of great weaknesses to plague your villains, and
heroes as well.
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Put that Shitty First Draft Away
I read somewhere that there are three drafts a writer must
go through before a work is ready for consumption:
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Don’t edit at the computer
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Be Brutally Honest
I always like to think of editing as having three major
factors: being honest with yourself, with your writing, and with
your audience.
There are times when all you want to do it edit, and other
times when you dread the idea. Whatever the case, ask yourself
these questions before you begin.
• Are you tired? Take a nap before you edit so you are
alert enough to notice mistakes.
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Third: Be honest with your audience
• Does anyone even talk like that? This is why you should
read your dialogue aloud. If you’re stumbling while
reading, change it. Reading aloud will also help with
purple prose; if it sounds cheesy, it probably is.
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Show Me, Don’t Tell Me
“Don’t talk of stars, burning above!
If you’re in love, show me!
Tell me no dreams filled with desire,
if you’re on fire, show me!
Here we are together in the middle of the night.
Don’t talk of spring, just hold me tight!”
Show Me from My Fair Lady
What’s the problem? I’m telling you she’s bored and has a
lot to do, but I don’t tell you how she’s reacting to these facts.
Let’s try again.
Sure, maybe it was a “dark and stormy night,” but we’ve all
heard that before.
What about your five senses help you realize that it is
storming, and that you wouldn’t want to be caught in the middle
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of it? Are the gnats gathering into furious swarms? Is the heat
pressing against your skin, making you feel like you can’t
breathe? Are the trees swaying? Can you smell the heavy
dampness?
What about the buildings that your characters live in? Are
they worn down, a sad testament to what once was? By the way,
don’t ever say “the house was worn down, a sad testament to
what once was.” That’s telling.
Show me the house is worn down by describing spider webs
in the windows, so thick they prevent the full sunlight from
shining into the room. Show me how the roof is badly patched
with pieces of rotting bark collected from the nearby forest.
Details, details, details.
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Tell Me, Don’t Show Me
I hope I never see this conversation in your work, ever.
“Hi Belinda.”
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Now, narrative is imperative for prose fiction: it’s what
defines prose from poetry (among other things, of course). But
how do we know when to show and when to tell?
The phone rang four times before Marcie picked up, and
there was a definite hesitation in her voice. Belinda
ground her teeth as they wasted time talking about how
Marcie was making dinner for her husband. Forget your
husband, Belinda wanted to scream, and get out while
you still can.
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We as readers know that when the bad guy promises not to
do it again that he’s lying, but the hero believes him for some
reason. We know that when the romantic hero says he doesn’t
care about the heroine that he does, it’s just that he probably
doesn’t realize it yet.
Foreshadowing is a great example of this as well.
The Point
The only time you shouldn’t use narration is when it is
better to use action and dialogue. The only time you shouldn’t
use action and dialogue is when it is better to use narration.
Sounds like a vicious cycle, doesn’t it? Here are things to keep in
mind when deciding to show or tell:
1. Always and only tell your reader what they need to know
for the plot and characters to make sense.
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Focus on Nitty Gritty Details
Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
Finding Nemo
Timeline
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I started my first book, Catching the Rose, with narrative
description because I read classics when younger and that’s
what I was used to. It never occurred to me that reader
preferences would change in 100+ years.
Silly me.
Today’s readers expect to begin with action, whether by/to
the main character or by/to a character who will affect the main
character later. So let’s see an example of what my first
paragraphs were, and what they would be if I were writing the
book now.
Pure description, right? It’s not bad, but it’s not action-
filled. I’d love to know how many of you are wondering, “When
do we meet actual people? Where’s the main character?”
It’s ok. You can tell me. I wrote this as a teenager and I’ve
learned to accept criticism after five years and an English
minor, I hope.
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What’s wrong with it?
There are three paragraphs and not one of them told you to
keep reading. How do we make sure the reader wants and needs
to keep reading? We throw something at them. Something
unexpected, which makes them laugh, or gasp, or feel curious.
Let’s jump five pages into the book. This is a more
appropriate beginning, but it still isn’t good enough.
She slid the novel into her traveling valise. The air was
hot and sticky, for windows did not open thanks to the
soot spewed from the smokestack. Wondering what she
could do to occupy her mind, the blue bonnet fingered
the pressed petal her cousin had dropped into her hand
the day of her departure. As the noise rose and abruptly
dropped, the blue bonnet, hoping the returning trip
would not be as worrisome, rolled her eyes and stared
out the soot-stained window.
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Scratch that. You might as well give the character a name so
your reader doesn’t get confused. Or something distinctive
about the character and refer to them according to that
distinctive trait.
I also rely on adverbs to describe my verbs, rather than
choosing a stronger, self-descriptive verb.
Bad, Belinda, bad.
Each paragraph is four and five sentences long. Too much
for an introduction, which should be punchy, if not with action,
at least with writing style.
Let’s move on. The most important sentence in this entire
introduction is buried in the first paragraph. Can you find it?
This war had chased her south.
Why is this sentence the most important? Because it gives
us a reason to keep reading.
Why did the war chase her south? Wouldn’t it, if anything,
have chased her north? Is she a southerner running south?
What is she running from? Most importantly, what is she
running to?
The second paragraph, except for the second sentence, is all
telling. We don’t need to tell the reader Miss Blue Bonnet
wishes the train would move more quickly; this is the perfect
opportunity to show her reactions to the shouting voices around
her. So how would I change it? Let’s see what my re-write does.
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How to be a Computer-based
Beta Reader
It occurred to me that many of us are computer-based beta
readers, which can be a monumental task. So today’s tidbit will
provide useful tricks in Microsoft Word 2003 to help you
become a more efficient and productive beta reader.
2. Click the little icon that looks like a piece of lined paper
with a tiny sun in the top left corner and a pencil in the
bottom right on top of it. If you hover your mouse a little
tooltip should appear saying “Track changes.” This is
what you want.
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Track Changes: Rewording, Reorganizing,
Adding text
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2. Click the icon that looks like a yellow/tan-colored Post-it
note with a tiny sun in the top left corner.
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Discussing Fiction
I found this list of fiction terms online, and edited it a
little, adding some of my own examples and removing some
terms that I thought were redundant:
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audience and one or more other characters understand
it entirely.
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• Omniscient point of view: Point of view in which an
authorial voice reveals all the characters’ thoughts; may
include commentary by the author.
• Hyperbole: Exaggeration for effect.
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• Stock character: Flat characters who represent a class
or group.
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Research Your Setting using
Google Earth
If anything deserves more attention in my research, it’s
the setting. Not for lack of trying, though; it’s something I tend
to obsess about, but the resources about my little village are
sparse at best.
This concerns me because character histories often
depend on the character’s environment, so it’s risky not to
know the nooks and crannies hidden in your location.
Enter Google Earth.
I finally caved in and installed the free application on my
computer. This, despite my misgivings that I would waste
hours studying the landscape rather than studying how the
structure of a material changes depending on the number of
vacancies at the atomic level.
Heaven help me, I was at the computer for two hours
squealing about all the little physical details that, without
technology, I would have had to journey to the UK to see.
Thanks to the internet, I did manage to find 1885 maps of
the area. But seeing actual color photos of the landscape
around the manor house, and the relative locations of
local ruins Mary walks to when she needs to let off some
steam… and then to see photos taken by other Google Earth
users living in the area! Oh, when I found Wayland’s Smithy, I
knew, I just knew, that Mary spent hours
there as a child, and returned there when
bereft as an adult.
And if this isn’t enough, I also
installed Google Sketch Up, a 3D
modeling application. People use it to
make 3D renderings of buildings on
Google Earth… you know what
I’ll be doing in my free time
pretty soon.
Yes, that’s right, making
mock-ups of my characters’ not-
so-humble abodes.
For those of you struggling with details, try Google Earth.
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It’s free and works on all major platforms, it seems.
If you’re writing historical fiction, you might have to
imagine what the city looked like during your era, but many
places (especially in Europe) still have the old streets and some
of the old buildings to give you a better understanding of what is
within walking distance, etc. If you’re writing a contemporary
piece, you can watch traffic patterns, the weather, and more.
A great resource for anyone curious about the world, Google
Earth is also an excellent research tool for writers of all genres.
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If you liked Worderella on
Writing, make sure to keep up
with Belinda’s blog,
Worderella Writes
(http://blog.worderella.com).
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