Jacqueline Corcoran

photo credit: khrawlings

I’m going to be on a blog radio show, Dialogue, February 23, 2012, to talk about my mysteries, A MONTH OF SUNDAYS and BACKLIT. Listen here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dialogue/ (also will be archived).

photo credit: I .. C .. U

I’ve been having fits editing a scene for the last few days. I was boring myself with the scene and couldn’t bring myself to finish it.

The aspects that were giving me trouble:

1. It’s set in an office which is where the last two scenes took place.

Fix: For the longest time, I couldn’t see a way around this because the characters are lawyers preparing for a trial and a lot of the action will be taking place in the office. One alternative is to have the interview take place in the second chair’s office, where at least the decorations are different.

Another and probably better alternative and one that Elizabeth George often uses: to have the interview take place at the witness/suspect’s place of work. The son in my story is a conceptual artist, so the interview could take place in his studio. This would provide some different set pieces, give the characters something to talk about other than the case, and have more conflict because one or both female attorneys won’t like it or will disagree with each other about their reactions to the artwork.

2. It was a question and answer between my main character, an assistant district attorney, and the defendant’s son, mainly gathering information.

Here’s how it started off:

Karen dela Rose’s son was so thin and tall, his clothes looked like they were draped over a hanger. With his pale coloring and reddened eyes, he resembled a rodent.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” In his case, it was a double loss. His father dead, his mother imprisoned for his murder.
He nodded and folded himself into a chair.
“You chose not to have an attorney present.” The heat blazed behind the blinds in my office, like it was battering to get in.
He quirked his mouth in a weak smile. “I don’t need an attorney. I have nothing to hide.”
I nodded. “I asked you here to get some background information on your family.” I was surprised he had come. Paulson should have interviewed him from the get-go, but was too eager to start clearing cases now that he was back. “What kind of relationship did your parents have with each other?”
“They were married for a long time.”
“What kind of marriage was it?”
“It had its ups and downs, but they were devoted to each other.”
Strange choice of words, especially for a man about my own age.

Yawn:0

Fix:

I’ve brought in the main character’s second chair who is a bit erratic, but she should add some life to the scene. There is also some underlying conflict between these two women, and as every writing advice book and blog post recommends, conflict is key! They also have conflict about how to handle the interview, meaning that their questioning will at times be at cross-purposes.

Tips that you can apply to your own work:

1. Bring in another person in a dyadic scene to introduce conflict.
2. Change the setting; consider a work setting to add interest.
3. Use oblique dialogue – people don’t answer questions and answer other questions instead.

I’ve sketched the rough draft with these new elements. Now I just have to write it all up.

Will any of this work for you? What do you do to revitalize boring scenes?

photo credit: mikecogh

Did I finish my legal thriller? No, but this is what I did instead in January (in addition to my actual job):

1) I wrote three proposals for cozy mysteries with three books plotted out in each. Therefore, I plotted out nine books total! My discussion of how I did this is on my post at Downtown YA: http://downtownya.blogspot.com/2012/01/generating-story-ideas.html.

2) I got back edits for YA MEMOIR OF DEATH that is coming out in May and am almost finished with those. My editor there likes everything told in “real time.” My approach usually is to take information that doesn’t seem to deserve its own scene and weave it into the next scene. This drives her crazy, and she likes me to take out all that information and attach it to the prior scene or create its own scene around it. She also wants more of an ending. I have to admit to getting bored when authors take the time to sew up everything at the ending of mysteries, so I tend to end abruptly when the murder is solved. She wants more, and I know it is typical because the ending is a bit of trick in this book, so I do have some explaining to do.

3) I finished my steampunk novel, THE MECHANICAL HAND, which turned into a novella because of its short word count (about 35,000 words). I won a pitch contest on the blog Rockville 8 that Entangled editors threw and was asked to submit the entire manuscript for one of Entangled’s new digital lines. Winning the pitch finally motivated me to finish the darn thing. I had been stuck at the ending since August (six months – aargh!). I think a lot of the stuckness was trying to make up my mind whether I should be content for MECHANICAL HAND to stay as a novella or whether it needed to be expanded into a full-length novel.

4) I participated in a SavvyAuthors.com online writing class on Interactive Fiction by Mima. This was a fascinating course on choose your own adventure type formats (most famous for the 1980’s middle grade series). Mima herself writes erotic romance (hence the mysterious first name only) but she has collected the more contemporary examples of interactive fiction on her website. I toyed with the idea of perhaps making my steampunk novella into one of these to expand it, but Mima said that since I was so close to finishing it, I probably didn’t want to go that route. These types of novels need a lot of planning from the start so that options begin to branch off very early on. I would like to attempt one of these at some point, and with Mima’s advice and materials, I will be prepared to do so.

5) I made progress on the legal thriller. I now have about 25,000 words, and I know the usual advice is to keep writing the first draft in a white heat, finishing it all before going back through and editing. But, at some point what I have is so rough and sketchy that I am compelled to start from the beginning and clean it up, so that what I have approximates a more complete draft. I used to do this for my critique groups, but now I am so busy that it’s hard to find time to meet with like-minded critique partners, especially in an area like Washington, D.C. where people may live in Northern Virginia, the district itself, or Maryland, and a lot of driving may be required. It’s easier for me now to pay an editor for her time. This gets me motivated to actually finish each chapter, and the feedback helps me catch all the little things I didn’t see or to be more logical around the character or plot. So this has turned into my process:

• Write as much as I can until I stall on what to write next. My writing at this point is very dialogue-heavy and sometimes there are barely any setting or character descriptions or action. Next to dialogue, the most common element I write is interior thoughts.
• Go to the beginning and clean up, adding description, action, and summary sections, chapter by chapter,
• Submit to my editor one chapter at a time
• Get the reality check on each chapter and see if I can use any of the advice going forward as I continue to clean up and write

In summary, I didn’t finish a whole novel, but I did end one, edit and add to another, plot nine more, take a course on learning how to do a different type of novel, and make significant progress on my work in progress. How did your January go in terms of your writing goals or progress?

This is pasted from the Low Country Romance Writers website at http://lowcountryrwa.com/online-workshops/ :

Completing Your Mystery
Presented by Jaqueline Corcoran
Dates: February 6 – 24, 2012
Deadline: February 2, 2012
Fee: $16.00

Course Description:

Do you have an idea for a mystery or one that you have started and then gotten stuck?

Then this workshop is for you.

The writer will be taken step-by-step through the process of opening the mystery, creating characters, plotting, and writing scenes, dialogue, and description by using the advice, ideas, and exercises provided by the instructor. The class will motivate you, provide you with as much feedback as you want, and give you the logic and depth necessary to create a mystery that satisfies.

photo credit: nist6ss

One of my big challenges to writing fast is getting stuck (i.e., not knowing what is supposed to happen next). Here are some recent blog posts that I’ve found that help with problem-solving and scene construction:

• Coming up with ideas using questions you ask yourself:

http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/talking-back-to-your-brain/

• Constructing scenes by switching to a focus on character emotions rather than plot:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2011/10/do-you-feel-it-plotting-with-emotional.html

• A checklist for the kinds of things that can happen in scenes. Discussed here as a way to revise, but also can be used for coming up with ideas:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2011/04/rule-of-three-no-other-one.html

Jami Gold expanded on these ideas here: http://girlswithpens.com/2011/12/05/how-to-make-the-most-of-a-scene-guest-post-by-jami-gold/

• More about what goes into scenes:

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2011/11/25/the-skill-list-project-scene-design/

• 41 ways to build suspense – ideas you can adapt for your own scene creating. A great integration from a variety of sources:

http://ianirvine.blogspot.com/2011/09/41-ways-to-create-and-heighten-suspense_27.html

• This blog post is about ending scenes well, but I find it helpful for working against reader expectations more generally in coming up with ideas:

http://sierragodfrey.blogspot.com/2012/01/unexpected-things-make-good-scene.html

What blog posts have you found most helpful for coming up with ideas of what happens next?

I finished my book, WRITE YOUR WAY TO RIGHT THINKING, as part of the December Finish Your Novel Challenge! One tip I can offer for completing work, particularly non-fiction, is to find an opportunity to teach the material you’re writing about. For WRITE YOUR WAY TO RIGHT THINKING, I offered a workshop at SavvyAuthors.com. There are three ways teaching is a useful way to complete a book.

First, it motivates you to actually write the material. I ended up writing 11,000 words for a new textbook when recently I had to facilitate an all-day training on Motivational Interviewing. I was motivated to write that many words in order to prepare for training – the powerpoint slides, the handouts, and the exercises.

The second way training/teaching is helpful is to see how people react to your material and to find out what works well and what doesn’t. As a result, all of my textbooks evolved out of courses I taught as a professor in social work. I could see firsthand what helped students with their work with clients, what caught their interest, and how best to present the material, as well as exercises that faciliated their learning.

A third way training can help is to get you more examples. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with all the examples you need in your own work, but other people are a trove for ways to apply the material and how it fits their unique situation. You will have to ask permission if you want to use other people’s examples, and then also make sure that you acknowledge them in the acknowledgements section of your book. To a person, everyone I have asked has given their consent, and usually people are flattered that you would like to include their applications in your book.

How can you find a way to test the material you’re writing? Is it by offering a course or a training? If this is not possible, is it by featuring a podcast, a YouTube video, or a blog post?

I started this post last time by recommending Carol Hughes’s writing class Deep Story. This post I want to suggest two more master teachers. The first is Margie Lawson at http://www.margielawson.com/lawson-writers-academy-courses. I have taken Maggie’s Deep Editing and her Body Language classes, and found her material both original and inspiring. Her courses are best for revising work that you already have, not for coming up with those words to start with. If you can’t take the classes, she also has lecture packets for sale for less than the price of a hardcover.

My third recommendation is Mary Buckham at http://www.marybuckham.com/Onlineclasses.html. She is the author (with Dianne Love) of BREAK INTO FICTION. I have taken Mary’s Pacing and Active Settings class. I credit her with helping me find just the right first line for my mystery A MONTH OF SUNDAYS, which soon after I took Mary’s class, finally sold.

All three of these writing teachers (again, check the previous post for the first one) offer fresh ideas you won’t find in writing craft books that will act to inspire your creativity, and that you will reference again and again.

Any questions about these writing instructions or their classes? What online course can you recommend?

In my never-ending quest to find creative ideas and hone my writing craft, I’ve taken dozens of writing classes. Today I’m going to feature an upcoming class that I’ve gotten a lot out of.

As I’ve talked about, I’m pretty non-linear, and a lot of writing advice breaks things down in a very left-brain linear fashion. However, I sometimes find this kind of advice helpful when I get stuck and don’t know what to write next. Carol Hughes isn’t as well known as some other writing teachers, but she has a wealth of ideas derived from her T.V. and screenwriting experience about the necessary elements for stories. A lot of it is based on the Hero’s Journey (originally from Joseph Campbell but adapted by many for use with screenwriting); she also has the Lover’s Journey for romance writers. Carol is a very generous instructor and responds personally to each student’s post. She also has a yahoo group set up after you finish her class where you can share information and ask questions. What I have found most useful are the various dimensions Carol presents (the journeys, the throughlines, the important scenes for every story, the different types of dialogue scenes). This way, I’ve come up with a lot of ideas for scenes I need to write and flesh out because I always struggle to have enough of a story to keep going. Carol is teaching her Deep Writing class at Savvy Authors this January: http://www.savvyauthors.com/vb/showevent.php?eventid=983. What I am really looking forward to is her Part II class that she is preparing now.

What is your process for writing fast? One way I write fast is to be non-linear about it. The easiest thing for me to write is dialogue and then that means that at least I have some people interacting. So I write dialogue to start with and very little else.

I also jump from different scenes if I’m inspired to write one and not another, or if I see another one more clearly at first. Then as new things occur to me about a prior scene I’ve already dabbled in, I’ll write some more that relates to that prior scene.

Another non-linear method of mine is to write in different notebooks and the computer. Some parts of scenes will be in one notebook that I happened to have with me in one room or in a certain bag, other parts might be in another notebook. I do most of my writing longhand still. I feel less intimidated by a notebood and pen and feel more connected to my creativity this way. But some parts are also typed into my word processing file.

Eventually, though it all turns into such a mess that it’s like how my office gets. I’m very comfortable with a lot of mess in there, but it does get to a certain point, when I can’t find something, that I realize I have to clean up to be able to go on. I have reached that point in my manuscript, where I have to type everything up and put all the parts that belong together in one place just to see what I have. Then as I go through it, I will fill in the missing bits, namely description and setting. To keep my motivation going through the tedium of typing up my notes and dialogue, I’m listening on headphones to Michael Connolly’s FIFTH WITNESS. It is a legal thriller I recently enjoyed in book form. Since my manuscript is a legal thriller, I’m using it to become immersed in the genre at the same time.

Would any of this work for you, or does it sound so non-linear as to be unmanageable? What are your methods for writing fast?

My biggest problem in trying to write fast for fiction is getting stuck in my plot. I have some general ideas about where I might go, but the how’s of getting there may stump me. Or, worse, sometimes I don’t even have the general ideas. I just have what I think is an interesting premise and a good set-up, but then what? I can stay in one of these modes for months unfortunately, but I also have some tricks to lambast me out.

One strategy is to get the advice of other people, usually my critique partners and my husband. This method isn’t always available though or they come up with ideas that I am lukewarm about it. But even in the latter case, the process of talking with them generally gets me thinking about angles that might work even better.

Another method to move past stuck points I’ve adapted from Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. First, write the characters in one column, the elements you’re interested in including in another, and the settings of the novel in a third, and see where these connect.

A third method is to use mind mapping, drawing a circle with the question in the middle and then using smaller circles connected by lines and branching off for ideas of how to solve the problem you’re facing. More information on this technique is provided here: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm. The premise for mind-mapping is to free yourself from linear and sequential thinking and instead tap into a freer, creative process that is less bounded.

Working through these methods this weekend has hopefully moved to the point where on Monday, I can start writing again. What strategies work for you when you get stuck in your plot?