Outlining 1, Sara 0

Some of you might remember this post, in which I said I'd be outlining my next project--instead of just flying by the seat of my pants, like I did with Shattered.  (If this is old news to you, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs!)

In case you're one of my newer followers here's a brief synopsis: I didn't outline my first novel, Shattered, and loved it. I've always been anti-outlining, because I just knew it stifled creativity. Even in high school when we had to outline projects, I'd write the project first and then go back and create an outline from what I'd done.

But by the time I finished Shattered, I was really frustrated with myself. I felt like it'd taken a LOT longer than it should have because there'd been weeks at a time when I'd been stumped about where (my characters wanted me) to go next--so I decided I'd try a new method for my next novel. Around that same time I stumbled across First Draft in 30 Days which goes into detail about some pretty cool ways to outline. And that's what I'm (loosely) doing now. Okay, you're caught up.

Well, in case you couldn't tell from the title of this post--whoa was I wrong about outlining cramping my creative style! (So far.)  I finished with Day 2* and I'm feeling more inspired than ever. Why? Because:

Day 1 was dedicated to developing my characters. Primary and secondary. And you know what happened? They've turned into these real people that live entire lives in my imagination.

My characters in Shattered did that too, eventually, but it would have been so. much. easier. had I known them this intimately when I first started writing. When I began editing Shattered, I had to go back and flush out most of the characters for the first few chapters--and I had to change a major part of the plot because I realized that the character it involved absolutely wouldn't have gone in the direction I had them going in... I'm now fairly confident that I won't run into the same problems with my new project.

Have I created every single character yet? Doubtful. I'm sure a few secondaries will still pop up along the way, but I can tell you here and now that I'll come back and create them through this process as soon as I become aware of their existence!

Day 2 was allotted for sketching out the settings of my new novel. Another thing I wish I'd done with Shattered. Because now I won't have to pause my writing process to think about what a certain place might look like. I know exactly what my characters' homes (and rooms and front yards, etc) look like. I know what the school looks like. I know what the... well, let me stop there before I give something too major away ;-)

Are there settings that will come up along the way that I didn't plan for yet? Absolutely. But, just like with any new characters, I will take my new settings through the same process I dragged the current ones through.

What are these "processes" I'm writing about? Well, you'll have to check back the next time I post--I promise it will be all about my characterization process! (Otherwise this post would be fairly epic in length...)

I'll leave you with this: Apparently outlining isn't just sitting down and making a roman numeral list with a timeline of things that are going to happen in the novel. (I'm not kidding, that's what I always pictured when people talked about outlining.) There's a LOT more to it, and just with the first two steps, I've already got such a well-rounded view of my new project... I've had ideas that I might never have thought about otherwise. I'm completely inspired, brimming with creativity, and can't wait to start the next section! (Plot sketches)

*I call the days Day 1, and Day 2, and so on, because that's how they're broken down in the book, but I sometimes take my time and use more than one day to complete that particular section.

♥ me

100 Followers = My 1st Giveaway Contest!

Yesterday my blog hit 100 followers--and then some!! I did a happy dance... which Nelson (my darling husband) walked in on and laughed at for the rest of the night.  I'd like to give a shout out to Harley May, who jumped right into spot number 100!

And now--as a HUGE thank you to all of my followers, I'm holding my first ever blog contest!  The rules are simple and the prizes are pretty awesome... if I do say so myself!

Sara passed 100 Followers Contest

It's a points-based contest, with first and second prizes! Here are the rules:

1. You must be a follower to enter.
2. Each point you earn will give you one entry... get 15 points? you get 15 entries!
3. All entries will be added to a spreadsheet and I will use random.org to select the two winners!
4. You can live anywhere in the world to win!
5. Entries close at 11:59PM ET on Tuesday, January 19th.

Here are the point values:

• 2pts -- Leave a comment on this post and tell me the following TWO things:
        1) what your favorite babbling flow post has been so far,
        2) a topic you'd like to see me post about in the future
• 1pt -- Tweet about this contest (up to 2 points per day)
       **Make sure to add @saramcclung to the tweet so I can keep track
       **Also, let me know if your twitter name is different than your username!
• 5pts -- Blog about this contest
       **Make sure to let me know about the post so I count it!
• 3pts -- Refer a follower to this blog, who mentions that you're the reason they're here

And here are the PRIZES!!

FIRST PLACE
3 Books!

• The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile (by Noah Lukeman)
  I LOVE this book--it's full of fabulous information, trust me... And it's VERY easy to read!
• Self-Editing For Fiction Writers:, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print (by Renni Brown & Dave King)
  This book has been absolutely instrumental to my editing process. The advice between its pages is brilliant!
• The Dark Divine (by Bree Despain)
  A prodigal son... A dangerous love... A deadly secret...

SECOND PLACE
2 Books!

• Lament AND Ballad (by Maggie Stiefvater)
  Dangerous faeries. Otherwordly music. Unrequited love. Deirdre Monaghan and her best friend James Morgan's lives change forever as they encounter the vicious and beautiful world of Faerie.

The contest is now open!!!

Enter away lovies!

♥ me

Need Depth? Just Add Conflict

In my first post about conflict, I stated that conflict adds depth. I wanted to expand further on it. Again, the most important thing (I think) is to make sure there's both internal and external conflict...

I'm going to write two very basic (and otherwise uninteresting) scenarios and then attempt to show how adding conflict gives the scenes depth. Here we go:

Scenario A - The Soccer Game

1. Jeremy walks to his nephew's soccer game. Here we have no conflict. No real story.
2. But at the game, another boy's father, Steve, shoves Jeremy. Oooooh External Conflict. A reader's drawn in--who wouldn't be? We all reading love a good physical confrontation. Plus we want to know how Jeremy reacts. How do the soccer players react? How does Jeremy's nephew react? How does Steve's son react? What will this one shove set in motion for the MC and for everyone else?
3. Jeremy takes it, and doesn't shove Steve back. He wants to, but he restrains himself for two reasons: he doesn't want to set a bad example for his nephew (ehh, okay... not tons of conflict, but it does show us a little bit about Jeremy), but also because he had an affair with Steve's wife... he flashes back to their last time together. We see his hand on her smooth tanned thigh--and then the tears in her eyes when she confesses that she's been honest with Steve and ends it. Jeremy still loves her. He let her go because it's what she wanted, but he longs for her still. So he won't push back because he's really the one who wronged Steve... and because he knows the woman he loves wouldn't want him to. Aaaaand hello Internal Conflict. Now a reader wants to know how it started... Why'd she tell Steve? What type of a man worries about setting a good example for his nephew but sleeps with another man's wife? When did it happen? Is Steve a good man, or should she leave him to be with Jeremy?
   The list could go on...

Example B -- The Failing Art Student

1. Elena is failing her art class. On her last assignment, she recieved a 38%. So what? There's nothing special about this... lots of students fail classes.
2. But she's actually a brilliant artist and aced the first three assignments of the year. Okay, now a reader might be a LITTLE bit intrigued, because it's natural to wonder what caused the discrepancy.  We sense the possibility of (wo)man vs self conflict here. Or maybe (wo)man vs man. We kind of want to read on to find out.
3. She's failing because she recently found out that her grandmother is dying of cancer, and she can't seem to concentrate on anything else. She's discovered that she's scared of death and is heartbroken by the pending loss of someone that she loves. She feels selfish for this new fear of death because she wants to believe that her grandmother is going to Heaven, but deep down she doesn't believe in an afterlife. It terrifies her that when her grandmother dies she might simply end... that no part of her continues on. And now we've hit the motherload of Internal Conflict--readers form a connection with Elena. They feel sympathetic, possibly empathetic, for her. They want to see her come to terms and they'll read on because they want to see her overcome this fear of disbelief.
4. Elena wants to go talk to her best friend about it after school, but her mother grounds her for the failing grade and takes away phone priviledges.  So Elena tries to talk to her mother about it instead, but the mom's too wrapped up in her own grief to understand. She sends Elena to her room. External Conflict adds another level to the story. Elena is kept from what she wants... in this case, what she needs. Now we want to keep reading for a plethora of reasons. Will she spiral further out of control? Will she find another source of help? Is her mother a bad mother--or just really screwed up with grief--to not see what Elena's going through? What are the other family dynamics? Curiosity is peaked and the connection to Elena deepens. This has developed into a story.

So you see what's happened? Each scenario started out with a fairly boring premise, but we added internal and external conflict to the mix and... voilà, we created depth!!

(Copyright © Adam Romanowicz)
http://3scape.com

♥ me

An Almost Kiss Scene...

Frankie Mallis, of Frankie Writes, is hosting today's No Kiss Blogfest. (Click the link to find the other blogs participating!)  In her own words:

Totally inspired by Sherrinda, I'd like to announce The No Kiss Blogfest! We'll be posting scenes from our WIPs, favorite books, movies, and tv shows that show the almost kiss-- the rising, crushing, excruciating, longing, tension that comes from when two characters get oh-so-close to kissing that you can just feel it....and then...they don't! 

I had so much fun with Sherrinda's Official Kissing Day Blogfest, (my post is here) that of course I jumped at the opportunity to participate in today's blogfest as well!

I usually only write with past tense POVs. So for today's blogfest, I wrote a new scene and used it as an excuse to push my boundaries of a writer. It's written from two different POVs and it's present tense... (So bear with me, as I've never written this way before!) (And, also, thanks to Shannon for some last minute proofreading!)

###

(Abby)

Logan is dead. My brother. He’s gone. I don’t understand.

Last night, he ruffled my hair while we watched a movie. I was annoyed. Annoyed! So I tripped him when he left and he slammed his elbow into the corner of the doorway. It was his turn to be irritated—but only in that “you’re such a pest, but I still love you because you’re my little sister” kind of way. At least we grinned at each other before the door closed... at least there’s that.

When Reed knocks at the door, I open it to let him in. His deep gray eyes are as red rimmed as mine and we stand, for a moment, in silence. He’s Logan’s best friend. His roommate. And he’s the skeleton in my “I secretly love you, always have and always will” closet.

Today though, for the first time, my heart barely jolts at his touch when he puts his arm around me. I duck my face into his neck yearning for the comfort of his scent. As always, he smells of fresh fallen leaves on the morning after a night of rain. But the calm I search for sidesteps me and, instead, my eyes and nose begin to flow again. I sniffle into his skin and am belatedly embarrassed by the thought of what my snot must feel like against his throat.

(Reed)

Her shoulders shake against my chest and her tears fall silently into my neck. I smooth a few strands of hair that huddle against my chin and let my hand rest against her back.

I’m ashamed at what I feel as Abby’s body presses into mine. She’s Logan’s sister—off limits—and now’s not the time.

Because Logan is dead.

As the thought sinks in, I clear my throat to divert tears of my own. Abby shifts at the sound and pulls back just enough to look up at me. I can’t help myself. I cup her cheek and brush away a tear with my thumb.

Her green eyes are bright with sorrow, and yet still they pierce through my resolve. I force myself to look away and my gaze falls to her mouth. Her lips, just slightly parted, tremble as though in battle against tears. Again, shame floods through me at the temptation to close the distance between us. But the need. Oh, the need is there and it’s stronger than the shame. 

My lips graze her forehead… her right cheek… the left corner of her mouth…

Now my lips tremble. Like a magnet, they’re pulled toward hers. I pause—close enough to feel the shape of her mouth in the sliver of air between our faces. But here, in this instant, she takes a shaky breath. Anticipation? Fear? Grief? Whatever the cause, it jolts me back to reality—to the realization of what I’ve almost done.

 I jerk away from her.

“Christ, Abby, I’m sorry.” I run a hand through my hair, hating myself when her eyes fill once more. “This is the last thing you need. I… It won’t happen again.”

I stride to the other side of the room and resist the urge to punch a wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her reach out a hand, but by the time I turn to face her again, it’s dropped back to her side and she won’t meet my eyes.

###

Thanks for reading!!

On a lighter note, I'll leave you with one of my favorite almost kiss moments... From the MTV awards—I saw it the night it aired, and all I can really say is... SIGH



♥ me

Happy 2010!!

It's that time of year!  Time to make my... <insert drum roll>...

(Writing)

New Year Resolutions!

"You Pick Two"
aka: I'd take two out of the three if push came to shove...

• Find a fabulous agent
• Get published by a kickass publishing agency
• Make millions

"Free Shipping"
aka: I have control over these things... no shipping/querying/begging required...

• Write new (stand alone) project--first draft complete by end of March
• Write second book in Shattered Trilogy (tentatively titled: Pieces of Pearls)
• Write third book in Shattered Trilogy OR second stand alone novel
• Balance time better between being a wife and a writer
• Host at least four blog contests
• Be more responsive to comments left on The Babbling Flow (sorry about the recent lack thereof! the past few weeks have been crazy hectic with holiday visitors/anniversaries/laziness...)
• Read at least 150 books

 "Buy One, Get One Half Off"
aka: 100% chance that I'll go to one of these, 50% chance I'll go to both

• LA SCBWI Conference in July
• Weeklong Writing Workshop at the Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival

 "ACCESSORIZE"
aka: these would be really nice add-ons!

• Increase blog followership to at least 250
• Write fourth book in 2010
• Celebrate with my CPs when each of them becomes agented/published!!

How I'll be spending my first day of 2010:

• taking my sister and her kitties to the airport
  (sad face... tears actually... sobfest 2010 & an entire box of tissues demolished)
• writing an almost kiss scene from Frankie's No Kiss Blogfest
  (happy face, in writing cap)
• finish reading Shannon's chapters... that I promised her like a WEEK ago!
  (apologetic cringe and then happy face, in editing cap)
• start my NEW project!!
  (SUPER GRINNING FACE)
• plan my entry for LTWF's Book Trailer Contest
  (furrowed brows & lips bitten... nervous because I'm technologically challenged... I'd never be able to do something like THIS)

What are YOU up to?

♥ me