(This post was transferred from my now-defunct “Unshelved Writing Goals” blog.)
So. Much. Fun.
THAT is what I had working on my book last night. After a long weekend of Girl Scout cookie sales and throwing together a troop meeting, I treated myself to a selfishly long session behind my computer. I sat down in my recliner at 5:30 p.m. with my laptop, and with the exception of a brief supper break, I didn’t look up again until my husband said, “Uh, honey, you’ve got to work tomorrow and it’s midnight. Coming to bed anytime soon?”
* blink, blink *
You’ve gotta be kidding. Six and a half hours? The house was dark and quiet.
Here’s what I got done:
- Named all my major and minor characters (including maiden names for the married ‘uns and nicknames for a few special people). I won’t use them all in this book, but it’s going to be a series and I like to know who I’m dealing with.
- Picked jobs for them
- Developed three completely unexpected subplots that arose just out of who the characters are screaming to become
- Figured out some of the town’s gathering places
- Created a set of in-laws for my heroine that her husband despairs of and that she adores
- Discovered that my heroine is pregnant
Here’s what I discovered along the way:
- Working on characters before you get too detailed on the plot will actually suggest plot elements. Just starting with a list of character roles I wanted to flesh out, I created current relationships, past marriages, a Vietnam vet, some quirky siblings, a streak of old hippiedom flourishing in my book’s small town, and variety in my townspeople’s ages, ethnicity, life stages, economic levels, jobs, sexual orientations, lifestyles, ordinary/eccentric skewing, and more.
- Have you ever read a mystery and wondered how it is that the main character is so very CONNECTED in her community that she conveniently has a string to pull or a favor to call in whenever the novel seems to call for it? There’s no one who is close personal friends with that many movers and shakers and isn’t a mover-and-shaker herself. So I’ve distributed my heroine’s friends and relatives and acquaintances through different stratas of the town’s society. I don’t like books that pull rabbits out of hats. I like to be surprised multiple times along the way in a book but able to re-read later and say, “Oh, THAT was a subtle hint for the story … how did I miss that?”
- Sometimes when the juices are flowing, it’s like there’s a whole rude crowd of people inside my head, and they’re all jostling to be at the front of the line to claim a winning lottery ticket. “ME! I’M NEXT! Oooh-oooh, it’s MY turn! Dammit, get out of my way! And quit pushing!” I’m a fast typist, but it’s hard to even keep up. I’m sure I look like a Tourette’s sufferer as I mutter and giggle and swear back at all the folks spilling out of my brainwaves.
- It helped to do research so I wasn’t pulling names out of my head when starting from scratch. My book is set in Tennessee, so I Googled “Tennessee surnames” and developed a list of common ones. Then I decided roughly how old each character was, and I Googled for the most popular baby names of that time period, such as “1970 boy names.” I didn’t rely solely on that, but it gave me a feel for each decade. And I almost got sidetracked by the pleasure of research, discovering cool sites that listed things like popular hippie names for boys and girls. (I’m still itching to name someone Patchouli, but no one is crying out for that one, darn it.)
Hope your writing experiences recently have been just as triumphant. I was so buzzed that it took me another hour to get to sleep after I lay down.
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