In this issue:

Sticking my head up
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Sticking my head up

There’s air up here! And it’s sorely needed. I finished book 2 of the trilogy yesterday.

Book 2 was weird. This is the trilogy I mentioned that has 10 POV characters. I wrote the first book in this kind of round-robin style, I guess, from start to finish. There’s eight sequences/chapters, and every character has once scene per chapter, and I did all the scenes in chapter 1 first, then chapter 2 and so on.

For book 2 I ended up doing all eight of one character’s scenes, and then all eight of the next character’s scenes—and then I had to figure out what order to put them in in each sequence. Good times. 🤪

The first character I did was the one I thought would be the hardest, and I ended up getting all eight of her scenes done in two days.

😎

Yeah… (Can you tell where I’m going with this yet?) That quick little triumph made me a little cocky. I got it into my brain that they’d ALL be like that. Two days per character! Done in three weeks! Bahahahaha!

No. No, they were not as easy. Definitely were they not all done in three weeks.

The first character ended up being the easiest. I ended up needing almost two or three more weeks for this book than I’d needed for the last book.

But it is done!

And I still have a tiny bit of extra time left for book 3—and my discipline is restored, thank goodness—so that’s what we start tomorrow.

Two more books left in my challenge. I thought I’d fail to success, writing more books than normal just because I tried the challenge. It wouldn’t take much to be more productive than I’ve been in the past. But I’ve written 7 books this year so far. Well, finished one, wrote six more. Still. No matter what happens, I’m proud of me.

The betas haven’t seen the first two books in this trilogy yet, because I’m basically treating the trilogy like one big book, and I’m reserving the right to go back and plant or change things in the first books if need be, but I’m more or less done. Petty cool.

Book 3 starts tomorrow. I did some prewrite work today, and the beginning is already swimming in my head. Super exciting. Can’t wait.

If I win the challenge, I get a reward of more CRAFT LEARNINGS! !!!! You know I’ll be sharing it here.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE SAILOR

  Light attributes: Capacity for resilience and respect for the unpredictable forces of nature. Willingness to prioritize the crew’s safety over the cargo.

  Shadow attributes: Smuggling illegal cargo across international waters. Abandoning a disabled vessel to save their own skin.

• Setting: The deck of a battered sailboat during a violent, fast-moving storm.

• Object: Gemini says a compass spinning wildly, a wet journal, and a coiled anchor rope.

• Emotion: Courageous. Acting despite overwhelming fear or danger.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. I’ve been relying on series for this project—basically this book and this book—so this week’s card is a reminder about series.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Masterclass on Hoopla
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Masterclass on Hoopla

Does your library have Hoopla? I just discovered that Masterclass—some classes from Masterclass—are on Hoopla, including the ones by Malcom Gladwell and Walter Mosley! I haven’t watched either yet. Probably won’t get around to it until my challenge is done in September (4 more months, I can do it!), but, yeah. I know what I’ll be doing in September. If your library has Hoopla too, there you go. Gotta love the library.

I’m still working on book 2 of my trilogy. I was hoping to finish it last Wednesday, but that didn’t happen, and I’m still not done. I’m getting it done though. Still on track to complete my challenge, too, so…

Hope your writing is going well. Back to it…

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE LINGUIST

  Light attributes: Capacity to translate and understand complex, foreign concepts accurately. Willingness to preserve dying languages for cultural benefit.

  Shadow attributes: Deliberately mistranslating vital documents to sow confusion or conflict. Using a rare language to communicate criminal orders.

• Setting: A dusty, forgotten corner of an international translation office.

• Object: Gemini says a headset with a dead mic, a dictionary from a dead language, and a sheet of coded symbols.

• Emotion: Confusion. Disorientation, unable to logically process events.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is essential scene dynamics, as presented by… Adam Skelter, I think, if I remember correctly, though he now goes by Adam Argot.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

New copy examples
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

New copy examples

Hello! I don’t have much to say this week. This trilogy is kicking my butt. I’m getting it done, but it’s taking a lot of chair hours—far more than writing my fun little series. I thought I had a post in me about something interesting/helpful, but it seems to have escaped me. For now, at least. Maybe it’ll come back next week.

Until then, I put up some new copy examples. You can find them at the top of the list here: https://writeswithtools.substack.com/s/writing-loglines-and-blurbs

Hopefully next week my brain will have space for more things. Until then…

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE WINE MAKER

  Light attributes: Capacity for patient, long-term dedication to a perfect, natural product. Willingness to refuse artificial methods for yield.

  Shadow attributes: Using illegal chemicals to enhance the color or flavor of the cheap stock. Falsely labeling low-quality wine as a vintage year.

• Setting: A dark, cool, earth-smelling wine cellar.

• Object: Gemini says a corkscrew, a tall glass decanter, and a cluster of ripe grapes.

• Emotion:Refined. Displaying sophisticated and elegant composure.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is about practice—even if you’re working on something “important.”

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

Read more

Okay, so I’m doing back cover copy for the third book in my Corbin Kohl series. It’s been a while since I write it, and everything’s kind of blurring together. I should probably whip out my logline tool, and I’ll still do that in another post. But first I sought help from Gemini to get me started.

I told the chat that I would give it the back cover copy from my first two books and the first 25% of book 3, and hopefully he’d give me some ideas. He did. Lots of ideas. Every time I pasted a bit more of the text, it gave me more options and ideas. So I skimmed it all and started pulling the bits that stuck out at me, whether because I liked the detail or because I liked the structure of the sentence or because it triggered an idea or whatever:

Read more

In this issue:

Trust the Process
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Trust the Process

Finished the first book of the ten-character-POV trilogy I started a couple months ago and started book 2 this week. I was pretty worried about book 2 for a lot of reasons: it’s a little more internal; I have to show that internal; it’s got to lead into book 3; it’s got to end differently than every book I’ve read like this has ended before—because I wanted those books to end differently.

I think I mentioned that the book—each book—is structured in 8 sequences with each of the ten characters getting one scene per sequence. For the first book I started from scene one and wrote all ten characters then moved to sequence 2 and did it again. Order of the scenes changed depending on what was going on in the sequence.

That didn’t feel right for book 2. This week I ended up taking the character that sounded the hardest to write—but most on-the-nose theme-wise—and I wrote all of her scenes.

It was awesome.

I was so afraid of her storyline, and it kept changing. It did not turn out at all like I thought it would when I started—both because it proceeded and ended entirely differently than I thought it would and because I ended up writing the one scene that I could foresee and did not want to write. But the scene started and my fingers went with it and pretty soon it was on the page and I couldn’t see it being anything else. Crazy how that happens.

But I think it works. I think it might even be good.

Now I just got nine more character storylines to go… and book 1 to copyedit for the beta readers. And covers to make. And back cover copy to write. And, let’s see… 29 days to do if I want to stay precisely ahead of schedule. (I’ve got a little time to spare.)

But the sixth book of my nine-book challenge is done; I know the next three books that I’ll write to complete it; and it’ll all be over in September. I am both eager to get there and a bit sad that I won’t have such a perfect-for-me external pressure helping me touch my potential.

What’s perfect at pushing you?

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE LOBBYIST

  Light attributes: Capacity to articulate a complex issue to influence policy for public good. Willingness to fully disclose all sources of funding.

  Shadow attributes: Using dark money and deceptive tactics to pass harmful legislation. Blackmailing politicians with damaging personal secrets.

• Setting: The quiet, expensive halls of a government building.

• Object: Gemini says a leather briefcase, a silver fountain pen, and a list of key contacts.

• Emotion:Slick. Smooth, confident, and operating with hidden motives.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is about character arc. Specifically as discussed in this book. I’ve been relying on theme heavily for my story, and this is the closest card I’ve got to theme right now, and I don’t have time to make a new card, so—September!

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

When it drags out…
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

When it drags out…

It’s late on Tuesday and I’ve got three more scenes to write to finish this 10-character book I’ve been working on. I was hoping to get them done today, but it’s looking like tomorrow.

The whole thing was due last Wednesday.

It’s fine though. The ending usually comes slower than the beginning for me. The beginning is all brand new and can be whatever, more or less, but the ending has to make sense in context to the beginning—or the beginning has to be edited to set up the ending so that it all makes sense. Either way—more time.

That ‘more time’ cuts into the time I have to write the sequel unfortunately. But I was a little ahead to begin with and I know the characters better now, which makes the work easier. And, hopefully (wishful-thinkingly?), book 2 won’t need quite so much research🤞and hopefully that means I can write a little faster. So there’s reason to think I’m still going to be able to complete my challenge.

Definitely really enjoying this process of having a designing principle and a bit of thematic planning done ahead of time, though. I haven’t heard my critical voice complain once this entire book. Not once. That’s insane. There’s been lots of unknowns for him to complain about, too.

And my “slowness” isn’t really that I’m slow. It’s that I have, by design, 80 scenes to write and only 42 days to do them all in. If I finish tomorrow, I’ll have 80 scenes and 35 days to do them in for book 2. 🫣

And all ten characters started out as strangers to me—meaning I picked them precisely because I didn’t understand at least some aspect about them, if not everything about them. So that’s taken research, which takes time. But all in all, not too bad.

I have to say I’m pretty excited about the result. I didn’t hate writing it, like I thought I would, and I think it turned out okay.

Hey, it might even be good. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All of which is to say: keep going. Keep writing. It gets done eventually if you just keep going.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE PILGRIM

  Light attributes: Capacity for deep faith and endurance during a difficult, selfless journey. Willingness to carry the burdens of their companions.

  Shadow attributes: Abandoning their spiritual quest for material comfort. Stealing resources from fellow travelers to hasten their own journey.

• Setting: A dusty, sun-beaten path winding up a steep mountain.

• Object: Gemini says a smooth walking stick, a worn leather pouch, and a pair of blistered feet.

• Emotion: Devout. Deeply committed to a spiritual or ethical cause.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is about sparking your intuition. I think a lot of these came from Becca Syme’s book about intuition.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Why do I do that?
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Why do I do that?

I’m still working on my ten-character project. It’s going well. I had a bit of angst last week about not getting done in time to stay on track with my challenge. Which, of course, does me no good in getting me closer to finishing my challenge.

But—and fair warning, this might be too woo-woo touchy-feely for some—I’ve been doing this thing where, whenever I notice myself doing something I don’t want to be doing instead of doing what I would like to be doing—like worrying about writing instead of actually writing—I’ve been sitting down and looking at WHY?

Why are you doing that, Meg?

Have you heard the… theory? explanation? I don’t know what to call it… that you automatically do whatever you believe is most beneficial?

(I did say this might get woo-woo.)

Yeah, you automatically take whatever action you believe serves you best.

Automatically. Whatever you believe. Even if it’s not actually what you want.

It sounds both obvious and unlikely at the same time. Unlikely because, no, pretty sure if I believed it was best for me to eat chocolate cake for dinner, I would know.

But the thing is, (1) the really tricky beliefs are kind of hidden beneath the symptomatic thoughts they produce, and (2) the really tricky beliefs responsible for the behavior you shake your head at even as you do it don’t make any sense.

Like, literally. You finally stumble across one, and you’re like, you’ve gotta be kidding me. I’ve believed THAT for the past twenty years? Ask me how I know. =P

I started keeping a record on my computer, and I’ve dismantled a couple dozen nonsensical, unserving beliefs in the past 8 months. Most of them didn’t lead to any obvious change in my behavior, but a couple of them—like the one I got last week—are almost like a personality change.

I’d share the belief with you, but it’s so tailored to me and my backstory, that I don’t think it would help anyone. Plus it’s really dumb and embarrassing. (See number 2, above.)

But I share the gist of the process because… (1) if you aren’t writing like or how or when you want, sit down with a journal and ask yourself why. What would you have to believe is true about you and/or writing in order for you to behave that way? How might taking the action you’re taking, even though you say you wish you weren’t, actually be the best choice you could possibly make out of all your options? That’s where I start. Those two questions. You’ll know you’re on the right track, because it will make you feel uncomfortable. You’ll feel tension in your chest. Pressure behind your eyes. And you’ll know when you’ve hit paydirt, because you’ll probably start crying. Sorry, facts.

But I also share this because… (2) it doesn’t just work for writing. It works for every aspect of your life.

And from what I can tell, once you start dismantling, it gets addictive and… you’ll probably be doing it the rest of your life. There seems to always be something else that gives me the tension feeling that lets me know there’s another dumb belief to be uncovered. The tension feeling is happening less often though.

Anyway. I got on here at the eleventh hour to do this post thinking I didn’t have anything to say and… what do I know.

So take it with a grain of salt. But if it speaks to you, there’s probably a reason.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE PILGRIM

  Light attributes: Capacity for deep faith and endurance during a difficult, selfless journey. Willingness to carry the burdens of their companions.

  Shadow attributes: Abandoning their spiritual quest for material comfort. Stealing resources from fellow travelers to hasten their own journey.

• Setting: A dusty, sun-beaten path winding up a steep mountain.

• Object: Gemini says a smooth walking stick, a worn leather pouch, and a pair of blistered feet.

• Emotion: Devout. Deeply committed to a spiritual or ethical cause.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is back to basics.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Just Keep Going
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Just Keep Going

I don’t have much to say today. I’m still plugging away on my project. Having just a little bit of prewriting work done, just enough to have a sense of where I’m going, has kept the critical brain very quiet. Almost unnervingly so. I’ve had some things eat into my writing time the past couple weeks, but when I do sit down to write, I know exactly whose scene to write next and I have a vague idea of the thematic context. I also know what’s come before which helps get the scene started with some depth/details, and then we’re off and running. Critical mind seems to be happy with just that much information. And he doesn’t care if we go off script once we get started. It’s been pretty cool.

Writing ten characters is … not hard, but it seems to require that I do some amount of research for every scene. Either because I’m not familiar with the character’s personal world or I don’t readily understand how they think about things. Whatever the reason, having to frequently stop and do a little research slows me down. I’m still putting up a couple thousand words a day, but those 6000-word days are pretty satisfying, and I haven’t had one for this project (yet!).

I took a workshop a while back from Dean Wesley Smith, the Research Depth workshop I think, and in it, he talked about Five Minute Research. You just do enough research to keep going, to keep writing. You’re shooting for verisimilitude. Details that make it feel real. Keeping this in mind has been huge, because I have previously been someone who thinks I have to know all the things and do all the research. But you don’t. And thank goodness, or I wouldn’t be able to finish this project on time.

I feel a little behind. I was hoping to be at the halfway point by now, and I’m probably only going to finish sequence 3 hopefully today. I got a rocky start this morning (Tuesday) and haven’t started writing yet. Could be I don’t get back to it until Thursday.

Anyway, that’s about it. Just keep going. Keep coming back to it. Have fun when you do. Sleep and repeat.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE BAKER

  Light attributes: Capacity to transform simple ingredients into nourishment and comfort. Willingness to share secret family recipes for the sake of community.

  Shadow attributes: Watering down ingredients to increase margins. Selling stale or tainted goods to unsuspecting customers.

• Setting: A small, warm bakery kitchen at 4:00 AM.

• Object: Gemini says a rolling pin, a bag of coarse flour, and a jar of sourdough starter.

• Emotion: Content. At peace, satisfied with a day of good, honest work.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is on sequences. Sequences are pretty much what’s keeping critical brain happy with this project, so it seems like a good card to go with.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Tecnical Mishaps
Classes on Kickstarter
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Technical mishaps

Is it Mercury Retrograde? I haven’t been into astrology in probably a decade, but maybe I should check on Mercury. (Nope, starts end of Feb.) My old laptop sort of froze up one morning, so I started writing on my desktop computer.

I got up at 5, sat at my desk. The scene on the agenda to write was the hardest scene I anticipated having to write for the whole project. It was rough. Mentally, emotionally, details-wise-ly. I got it done a little after noon, and right when I was ready to hit save…

THE LITTLE CURSOR ON MY MAC STARTED MAKING THE PINWHEEL OF DEATH!

NOOOOO!

And then this little window opened that said Pages was using 40 gigs—yes, gigs—of memory. I had a bunch of stuff open. My bad. It wouldn’t let me close the stuff that didn’t matter. And I hadn’t hit save… in a while. I had to quit the program. And I lost almost the whole scene. There was just the little beginnings of the scene still in the document when I opened it back up.

So sad.

I had a couple moments of swearing. Then I started writing it again—because what else is a writer to do? And then I had a couple moments of swearing because there were some really good parts and now they were gone!

But, hey, if I remembered them, I should be able to just write them out again, right?

So I did. It took me about three hours, but I recreated the scene.

Did I recreate it word for word? No. Mostly. But, no. I couldn’t. Some of it was just gone.

But in the end I think it all worked out okay. The finished scene has all the researched bits that took me so long to figure out, but also a depth that hadn’t been in the original version. I might have gotten around to it eventually had I not lost it, but… now I know I got there.

So I’m a little behind schedule, but… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sometimes you just gotta let out a big sigh, refill your tea, and start again and/or keep going. Staying positive usually helps it all turn out okay in the end.

Classes on Kickstarter

I sent out an email about Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch offering writing books and workshops on Kickstarter a few days ago. As of right now (Tuesday), all six rewards are unlocked, and the campaign says they’ll be adding more. All of the rewards are writing workshops. So you can get four writing books, including one on advanced writing into the dark, and six writing workshops or more, for $20.

The campaign ends on Thursday evening. Here’s the link, if you’re interested:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/the-essential-indie-publishing-books?ref=user_menu

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE HUNTER

  Light attributes: Capacity to live in harmony with the environment and only take what is needed. Willingness to teach the discipline of ethical hunting.

  Shadow attributes: Poaching endangered species for trophies or black market sale. Setting cruel, indiscriminate traps in public areas.

• Setting: A dense, snow-covered thicket in the early morning.

• Object: Gemini says a hunting rifle, a pair of animal tracks in the snow, and a deer call.

• Emotion:Calculated. Proceeding with careful planning and evaluation.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is tools for the dark… to go with those books.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

Just wanted to let you know that Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch are doing a Kickstarter for writing books. You can get four ebooks on writing, including Advanced Writing into the Dark, for $20. There’s two other bundles of writing books available as well.

The Stretch Rewards are all writing classes, and the first three Rewards are unlocked already. If you want to check it out, here’s the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/the-essential-indie-publishing-books/description

In this issue:

Eleventh Hour
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Eleventh Hour

I’m writing this at the eleventh hour. My pug is snoring on a tiny cushion behind me. I’m thirsty, but I’m more tired, and I just want to get this done so I can go to bed.

I’m now a quarter of the way done with the first story in the trilogy I was talking about last week. Just finished the second of eight sequences. I think it’s going well. I thought I would hate writing this, but I’m actually really enjoying it. I’m liking the story that’s resulting, and trying to write ten different characters and make them sound different and make them memorable enough to be recognized and remembered when they’re reintroduced in the next sequence is a great character assignment. Like, learning-wise. Who knows if I’m succeeding, but I’m trying, and right now that’s all that matters.

The whole series question bit I mentioned last week is really working for me. I’m using it for everything. I laid out the eight sequences, then organized them by what I’m calling a ratchet, the kind of thing that needs to happen in each sequence to ratchet up each character to the choice they have to make in the climax. The writing is going very smoothly. I have a pretty clear idea of each character’s scene for each sequence. That plus their thematic question, plus a little depth gets me a scene. It feels like it takes much less brain power than writing into the dark. And I’m cycling, so the draft is clean, clean, clean. Again, don’t know if I’m succeeding—and even critical mind seems satisfied, which I don’t know whether is good or bad—but I’m getting it done, and that’s all that matters right now.

Anyway, I’m calling it. Hope you get in some good writing this week.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE TELEVISION PRODUCER

  Light attributes: Capacity to create engaging media that illuminates important social issues. Willingness to give control to the artists they employ.

  Shadow attributes: Manipulating or fabricating reality TV scenarios for higher ratings. Burying a show that exposes the company’s own wrongdoing.

• Setting: A chaotic, brightly lit sound stage after the cameras stop rolling.

• Object: Gemini says a clipboard with a shooting script, a tangled cable, and an empty director’s chair.

• Emotion: Exhausted. Mentally and physically drained by prolonged struggle.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is Heinlein’s Rules. Always good to get a reminder.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Reaching for my Tools
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Reaching for my Tools

So I’m working on that project I mentioned last week. The one where I worry I might make someone mad because of what’s going on in the world. But you know what? What’s going on in the world is making me mad, so there you go.

The project is shaping into a trilogy with ten POV characters. Let’s not only tackle a topic and genre that aren’t in our usual wheelhouse; let’s also add in way more POVs than we’re used to, too! Yeah! Let’s do it!

Sure, why not. Did I mention I have about six weeks to write each installment? Wish me luck.

I did not plan for ten POV characters. I thought there would be one, because I have an easier time with one POV (and I have that six-week-challenge deadline2). But it soon became clear that one POV wasn’t going to work for this idea. So I figured, okay, three POVs. But after I got those first three POV characters written and introduced in their own scenes, the story still just didn’t feel right. There were still points of view missing.

I’ve never written a super-multi-POV story, so I didn’t immediately know how to fix/approach this.

Which meant the story was going to need some prewriting. I’ve been mostly writing into the dark lately, but that wasn’t going to work for this project—and this is the project my heart and soul want to write right now, so there wasn’t any option of shifting to the fun series I work on when I don’t know what else to write.

Fortunately, I didn’t take a break like I usually do when this kind of uncertainty happens. I reached for my tools right away. She can be taught!

First up:

Designing Principle.

My idea happened to have one. This isn’t always the case; most stories don’t have one.

A designing principle is something that you impose on a story to help give it shape and focus. Dramatic Question and Theme are similar tools, in that they also help shape and focus a story. But designing principle is different. It’s not shaping the throughline like the dramatic question, and it’s not shaping the meaning, like theme… although it can bolster both. DP is a tough thing to define, but it seems to me like a designing principle, if you’ve got one, helps you frame the telling of a story. It could help you select and weed out the characters and the events of a story (like in The Godfather, which uses the designing principle of the fairytale where the youngest of three sons becomes king). Or it can shape how you tell the story (like Thirteen Reasons Why, where the designing principle was the handheld electronic guide in an art museum that moves you from painting to painting and tells you about each).

Anyway, for the past couple months, I’ve been following these breadcrumbs down a rabbit hole about this concept that I find interesting, and the concept has these three progressing parts. So I figured each book in the trilogy could cover one of the parts. Honestly, if I wasn’t doing the challenge to write a book every six weeks, I probably would have defaulted to writing this idea as a big standalone novel. But I think it will actually work out better this way, as a trilogy of shorter (hopefully) books. So, yeah… yay for serendipity.

With my designing principle as my north star and my knowledge that I wasn’t going to be able to write this idea into the dark since it needs more than three POV characters, I turned to my go-to outlining process from HR D’Costa’s Sizzling Story Outlines.

I had no problems filling out all the pre-write stuff and the plot points, but the story still didn’t feel ready to write. I had used one character’s journey as the throughline… but what about all the other characters?

Series Questions

So I scrapped that and turned to Stuart Horwitz’s Book Architecture. (And right away, too! Go me!) Horwitz is the guy who talks about series. The most helpful part about the series tool, to me, is that every series asks a question and every series has a sentence that can describe how it changes throughout the book.

So I reframed my idea for the whole three-book trilogy into a thematic question. I did this using my designing principle. My designing principle’s concept, to me, seemed fractal, meaning that while each of the books corresponded to one of the three progressive stages, the whole trilogy corresponded to the middle stage, with the very beginning of the first story of the trilogy shifting us from stage 1 to stage 2, and the very end of the trilogy shifting us from stage 2 to stage 3.

I then came up with the thematic questions for each of the three books, again relying on the designing principle of the three progressive stages of the concept I find interesting to craft each book’s thematic question.

Once I had the books’ questions, I crafted for each of the ten characters a thematic question that spoke to an aspect / lens / point of view / ??? about the thematic question for each book. (Actually, I’ve only done the first book so far, but that’s the plan. Each character will live out an aspect of each book’s thematic question by exploring their own version of the question.)

Once I had the thematic question for each character for the first book, the whole trilogy opened up. I knew where each character was starting the story and where they needed to end up in order to help… Horwitz uses the word “prove” the theme. But my theme isn’t a “this is the way it is” or even an “this leads to that” statement. It’s a ‘When’ question (or, in the last book, a ‘How’ question): When do you do X? Do you do it now, after this character-thematic-button-pressing scene? Do you do it now, after this character-thematic-button-pressing scene? There might be a right answer, but it doesn’t seem to me like anyone agrees about what it is. We’re all in different circumstances with different pressures and concerns. Still… maybe I can reach some hearts and change some minds.

Will this trilogy of stories work if I’m not “proving” a theme but instead exploring different slices of an overall topic using 10 different POVs? I don’t know.

But I sure am having fun finding out.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE STREET ARTIST

  Light attributes: Capacity to use public space to beautify or provoke necessary thought. Willingness to take legal risk to display their art.

  Shadow attributes: Spray-painting hateful or destructive messages on public property. Taking commissions from organized crime to mark territory.

• Setting: Under a dark, concrete overpass late at night.

• Object: Gemini says a canister of spray paint, a pair of disposable gloves, and a hastily drawn stencil.

• Emotion: Rebellious. Defying authority and societal norms.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is on the types of series.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Whispers
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Whispers

I’ve finished a couple books since I last wrote a post back in early December. One of those books was an idea that came whole cloth, and the other was in a series I work on when I don’t know what else to write. As that last one came to a close, I started casting about for the next idea.

I keep an idea file, but all the ones that sounded good to me came with little whispers at the back of my head about why I shouldn’t work on it.

No, that idea might make someone mad. Hehehe… as if I’m at all popular enough to make anyone mad.

No, someone might say that’s appropriation. Oh. Yeah. That’s too bad, I liked that idea. But, wait, don’t pretty much all fantasy elements involve some amount of appropriation? There’s nothing new under the sun and all that? (Meanwhile a whisper is frantically telling me even now: no, no, no, don’t even mention the word appropriation. But this is Diary of a Stage 3 Writer, and grappling with all the tough things is, I guess, what I do here.)

Anyway, I’m doing this challenge where I have to write a book every six weeks for a year, and despite just finishing two books in record time (for me), I’m feeling behind. What if the next one doesn’t come so easily? What if it needs more time?

I finally settled on an idea that still has whispers. No, too soon, too hot of a topic. No, you can’t pull that off the way you need to. And even if you can, you might still make someone mad.

I started it anyway, because it’s the one with the most confirming signs that it should be next—and, mostly, because of my looming deadline. But the project’s been slow going (whisper, whisper, whisper), and then it got interrupted completely when…

I was summoned for jury duty.

I am not the right person for jury duty. And not just because I used to be an attorney. We’ll skip the additional reasons because they’re not relevant here. But as some of those reasons came up during voir dire, I had the uncanny experience of having the world reflect back to me that:

I’m weird.

At least relative to the 39 other people in the room with me. When I answered the questions posed to me, there were people who turned around in their seats to look back at me. I saw no one do that for anyone else.

I couldn’t tell you what the lookers were thinking. Were they scandalized or impressed? I don’t know. The glance is usually so quick it looks the same either way. I’ve had similar experiences where later some of the gawkers told me they were impressed. But those were different circumstances. And this time, I didn’t stick around for conversation. As soon as I was dismissed, I fled out the door and down the courthouse stairs because I could not get out of there fast enough. So who knows.

Regardless, between being gawked at and waiting to be dismissed, I thought about my book ideas and the whispered reasons for why I shouldn’t write them.

What if they’re actually just fear-based reframes of the exact reasons why I should?

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE ORPHAN

  Light attributes: Capacity for self-reliance and profound empathy for others who are lonely. Willingness to share meager resources with friends.

  Shadow attributes: Exploiting others’ pity for money or shelter. Engaging in petty theft to survive without remorse.

• Setting: The cramped, dark corner under a wooden staircase.

• Object:Gemini says a half-eaten piece of bread, a cheap wooden whistle, and a threadbare blanket.

• Emotion: Isolated. A deep sense of separation from the rest of the world.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. I’ve been doing some prewriting for the current project, so this week’s card is on Sequences.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Lessons from Music
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Lessons from Music

I got onto this music kick on Youtube one day over my break, watching reviews of new music and reactions to old music, and one thing I heard several different music YouTubers talk about was autotune.

Autotune takes your slightly flat or sharp notes and aligns them smackdab with the note you’re aiming for so that every note is perfect. And if the instruments are also off, they, too, get aligned precisely with the notes they’re aiming for.

One person said that before auto tune, every voice and instrument hitting the same note would create this wide sound, because no one hits the note perfectly simultaneously all the time, if ever. But with autotune, everyone hits the note perfectly all the time, and the result is this precise narrow sound.

And it’s kinda boring.

Lifeless.

And it made me think about writing. I talked myself down from perfectionism back in June. It took a lot of journal pages and quite a few tears, but I did it. And now I’m starting to see signs of why stepping away from perfectionism is not only great for mental health and productivity, but also for the work itself.

Part of the life of a story is in the so-called errors. The grammar that’s not precisely perfect. The word that’s not quite accurate but gets at the meaning anyway and, being wrong, often gets at another, additional meaning, too, that’s somehow even more right. In many cases, that’s where the emotion is. It’s where the human is.

I’m still doing my best to do my best work, but I’m feeling a lot easier about what gets finished.

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE ELECTRICIAN

  Light attributes: Capacity to bring light and power safely into human dwellings. Willingness to follow every code and safety guideline perfectly.

  Shadow attributes: Deliberately miswiring a building to create a fire hazard for insurance fraud. Stealing copper wire from job sites for resale.

• Setting: The dusty, exposed inner wall cavity of a renovated house.

• Object: Gemini says a spool of copper wire, a voltage meter, and a thick pair of rubber-soled boots.

• Emotion: Anxious. Fretful, overwhelmed, heart pounding uncontrollably.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. I’m starting a new project this week, so this week’s card is back to basics:

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

In this issue:

Blog Post Worth Visiting
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Blog Post Worth Visiting

This is the link to Ursula K Le Guin’s speech at the National Book Awards in 2014. If you haven’t heard it before, enjoy.

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal

Writing Prompt

• Character: THE CHRONICLER

  Light attributes: Capacity to record history with absolute objectivity, including embarrassing or dark details. Willingness to defend the truth of their record against powerful opposition.

  Shadow attributes: Rewriting key historical events to please a patron or regime. Omitting crucial evidence that contradicts their preferred narrative.

• Setting: A vast, silent library after closing hours.

• Object: Gemini says a fountain pen, a roll of decaying parchment, and a magnifying glass.

• Emotion: Bored. Listless, uninspired, desperately seeking distraction.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is a scene version of the Save the Cat Beat Sheet:

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

Okay, doing the back cover copy for this logline.

I thought the logline said all it needed to say, really. But back cover copy is typically longer, so I figured I should probably write the copy too. I don’t have to use it if I don’t want to, but at least I’ll have it just in case.

So here’s the blurb:

When a suburban soccer mo…

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In this issue:

Opening the Archive
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Opening the Archive

Given last week’s post o…

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Here’s how I first wrote it in my notebook:

When a suburban housewife notices a series of unexplainable strange events her friend excitably calls glitches in the matrix, she sets out to see if she can make reality glitch on purpose—and someone, or something takes notice.

Alrighty, then. A logline has se…

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Okay, I have a logline for this, which I’ll set out here in a second, but I think I’m going to just start writing stuff from the top of my head.

Here we go. Here’s the logline:

Corbin Kohl must outsmart Management when his boss threatens his friends amid a City-wide UFO sighting.

Okay, I’m just going to start writing stuff.

Cor…

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