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Originally Posted On Knitted By God's Plan Mid-goal? I hear some of you ask. What's that? Well, it's a plotting device that I noticed somewhere in the writing of  The Ankulen  and I have used in almost every one of my books. And I searched books of writing advice, but the closest thing I've found anyone else talk about is the pre-climax (or something to that tune) which, though it's similar, has it's differences. A pre-climax is usually an echo of the official climax, the big difference being the fact that the hero fails. The mid-goal is broader than that. And it's something that I have employed in all three of my published books, and in  Infiltration.  I've seen it in other books, too, so I know it's not just me. So what is it? Well, in the simplest terms possible, it's a pivotal event or a second goal for your characters to achieve that will completely shift the focus of the novel and on which the ultimate goal and climax of your book 

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan. Once upon a time ... (Any old Fairy Tale) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... (Tale of Two Cities) There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it ... (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) Every good story has to begin somewhere. It needs an opening line that peeks your interest and makes you want to read more. It needs an opening chapter that introduces you to the characters, but leaves you with questions as to  why are they like that!!!??? It needs a good beginning. The question is, however, how do you get a good beginning? First off, start with the chapter. You can always change the opening sentence later to make it sound more grabbing, but if you write a brilliant first sentence, and then it completely does not fit the book, well, it'll just make you cry. Sure, try to make the sentence as grabbing as you can (for you, if you aren't pulled into what you're writing at

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan Did your villain really put on a pair of dirty  R ocks? The proposal scene between hero and heroine is completely sappy and/or cheesy. You never did figure out what happened after the villain trapped the hero's younger sister on that island ... in fact, you completely forgot that your hero had had a sister! Somehow, the words you see on the paper/computer screen is nothing like the words you remember spilling out of your fingers. So what do you do? Do you crawl into bed, pull the blanket over your head, and decide that you will never write again, if all you can write is this horrid mess? Surely a good author wouldn't have made these horrid mistakes! Let me let you in on a little secret. Every writer makes mistakes. Every book starts out horrid. Even the greatest books in the world have gone through the horrid stage called first draft. You're not alone. Welcome to the world of editing. Editing?  You ask.  Did you j

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan So you're writing along, you've got a good story line, your characters are being (mostly) cooperative ... only, you've decided that maybe the story would be better if you gave Sadie a dog instead of a cat ... or if Jack were a Jill instead ... or maybe you have a few too many characters and need to get rid of a few ... or maybe the story would sound better in first person ... In other words ... you need to make a change or two. This is a perfectly legal thing to do. Your book is your book, and you can do whatever you want to it. Although, I will warn you, some of your characters may resent some of your changes, especially if you decide to get rid of, say, a close friend, or a close sibling, their love interest ... or them. However, your story is yours to change, and they can't really do a thing about it. However ... if you do decide to make a change, you'll need to go through and make sure that your story is

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan So you're writing along. You've got a good enough plot, your characters are being at least somewhat cooperative ... thing is ... you're starting to get a tad bit bored. Maybe you're at a slow spot, maybe you're just not quite sure how to get your hero out of the cage so that he can get the heroine off of the dangerous cliff. Whatever the case, suddenly your little brother or sister's Barney video is strangely interesting ... Or ... wait, your room is messy, you'd better go clean it up. And - Oh! - it's such a beautiful day outside, you've just got to go for a nice walk in the woods. Or maybe, hmmmm..... hey, what's for lunch? Anyways, you keep getting distracted. No matter how hard you try, or at least pretend to try to keep yourself interested in what you're writing, suddenly, you've got a whole plate of more important things to do. Well, you're never going to get anything wri

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan If you write a work of fiction, it's very likely that you'll have conversation. Some stories use it more than others. It's important to do it right, or it may destroy the story. First, you have to make sure that conversation sounds natural. It has to be written in such a way that, if read aloud, it sounds like people are actually talking. A good test for that is to actually read it aloud. Also, get someone else to read it aloud. You happen to know exactly how they were supposed to talk, a second reader doesn't. Here are a few tips that I've found useful for making natural sounding conversation: Use contractions. Most people like to talk fast. They do not like to slow down to say each word individually. Unless it is a quirk for a particular character to say every word distinctly, use contractions. Elliptical sentences. When you talk, much is understood. People don't like to be repetitious when they talk

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan When you write, you put a little of yourself into it. No matter how detached you may think yourself from a story, you poured a lot of precious time and thought into it, and you're not going to get that time back, or get to think those thoughts differently. As a result, you'd like for everyone who reads the book to like it, so as to make your wasted time worthwhile. Sadly, such is not the case. No one will has or ever will write a book that is liked by everyone. Not even the Bible is liked by everyone - so what makes you think you can outdo God! If you write a book and put it up for the general public to read, someone who reads it will not like it, I can guarantee it. It's just a fact of a writer's life. However, there are three solutions to this problem. First solution is to not let anyone read your book. Lock it into a box, or password protect the document. It's a sad thing, but there are many potential aut

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan When you write a book, you have an important decision to make right up front - what voice will you write it in? The voice is very important part of the book, and it can make or break your story. What do I mean by voice? Voice is the style of how you write it. You can break it into three main parts: Mood, person, and tense. There are other factors, too, but those are the three main ones. Mood is the emotion the book is supposed to carry. Some books have a cheerful mood. If your book thus, you would use lots of happy words and there would probably be some jokes. Descriptions would be full of color and sunshine. Other books have a gloomy mood. These books use sad words, and sad things happen. Descriptions tend to be grayish dark. Some have a hopeful mood, where there's grayish descriptions but there's a ray of sunshine piercing this darkness. Person is what pronoun you use to describe your main character. Most books are wr

Originally Posted On Knitted By God's Plan. Writer's block may be the worst thing that can happen to an author, but a writer's tic is pretty bad, too. Writer's block may merely delay the book from getting to your reader's hands - a writer's tic may make them not want to read the book. What is a writer's tic? A tic is defined as " A habitual spasmodic muscular movement or contraction, usually of the face or extremities," by the dictionary. Does this mean that a writer's tic is a spasmodic twitch that makes you type or write the wrong thing? Actually, no. A writer's tic is a word or phrase that an author depends on too much. For instance, my writer's tic used to be "suddenly." I would be writing along, and suddenly, I would see that word there, and suddenly I would have to edit it out, and suddenly .... you get the idea. I have since figured out how to avoid that word, however, the word "however" has now been

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan The bane of every writers existence is a horrid creature that crawls up the backs of their chairs and sucks their inspiration dry. I encounter them quite often. It's called Writer's Block. Most people have encountered writers block at some time or another. If they haven't they probably have never had to write something, either. Writer's block can happen at any time - whether it's trying to keep you from coming up with the story at all, or merely keeping you from successfully tying up all your loose ends. It's a horrid thing, especially if you are getting writer's block and you have a deadline by which you must have what you're writing written by. Here are some tips that I have discovered for combating writer's block. 1. Go back and read over my list of  Inspiration  for tips to re-inspire you. 2. Leave the story alone and work on something else. Even if you do have a time constraint, i

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan Thick mists hung heavily between the trees. A few beams from the moon struggled to pierce it. Odd shadows and shapes formed themselves here and there, inviting fear from any wayfarer who stumbled into these woods. Punctuating these shapes were the hootings of an owl, the howl of a lone wolf, and the sctritch and scratch of the small forest creatures. ...... The air was crisp with the smell of wildflowers and pine needles. Rays of sunshine filtered down through the trees, creating an ethereal effect. A deer is sighted for but a moment, and song birds sing sweetly in the trees. A squirrel scampers across the path carrying an acorn. ...... Would you believe me if I told you that I described the same forest both times? I did. Yet, the first time, the forest was scary, the second time, a place you would like to visit. What made the difference? It was my choice of words. I used words that conjured up fearful images the first time -

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan The setting of your book tells a lot about your book. If your setting is a land filled with dragons, expect to see a dragon or two (hundred). If your setting is the arctic, expect polar bears and ice. If your setting is a futuristic world with amazing technology, expect robots and space travel. Setting affects your characters. For instance, a young girl in the first setting probably wears something typical of the fantasy genre - a long dress with a corset or something. If she belonged to the arctic, she probably wears a parka. In a futuristic world, she would wear something hightech - maybe a watch capable of displaying a computer on the wall? Setting is very important, so its something you need to know. Define your setting well before you start writing. How do you do that? First, state the premise of your book - to take from two weeks ago, a girl finds mysterious glowing egg. Obviously, magic will be involved. As we have

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan Villains are a special type of character, and often the most delicate to write. They tend to distrust people, especially their authors, with their secrets, which are often quite crucial to the understanding of the way they work. You have to make sure their evil doesn't corrupt you as you develop their characters. To make matters worse, there are actually three types of villains. There is the true villain, the antagonizer, and the circumstances. The true villain is what most people think of when they say the word villain. He or she is evil through and through - like Sauron from the  Lord of the Rings , or the White Witch from Narnia. What they do, they do on purpose. They are powergrabbing, stingy and selfish. The only thing you can do with them is kill them (or at least dump them in the nearest black hole.) Once in a while you can find out a secret about them that can turn them good in the end, but this is rare. The second ty

Originally Posted On Knitted By God's Plan So you're writing along. You've got a great, and I mean  GREAT  plot planned. The hero is just about to swoop down and ... Swoop down and ... Um ... cue the hero! Where'd he go? He's still arguing with his sidekick over how dangerous it is to swing on vines? But they were supposed to already have resolved that issue! Oh, great ... Sometimes, your characters just don't want to cooperate with you. You want them to say one thing, they say another. You have a character planed to be outgoing, they turn out shy. Your character decides that the surprise party you're throwing him is a complete bore. What did you do wrong? Nothing. Yep. I said nothing. You did absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, you can congratulate yourself. You made a character with a mind of his or her own! Your character is no longer just words on paper and vague ideas ... but a person. And let me let you in on a little secret - those ar

Originally Posted on Knitted by God's Plan One of the most important parts of a book are the characters. If you don't have a character your reader will fall in love with, they will put the book down and not touch it again. So, one of the biggest challenges an author has is how to create a character that will keep the reader from putting the book down. Now, that's a pretty tall order. You've got to create an entire person and effectively bring the character to life through words. How are you supposed to do this???? The first thing you have to do is define your character. Give your character a name, a brief backstory, a basic appearance, and a core personality. For example, I'm going to create a character named Julia. I think she is a little girl of ten or twelve who discovers a strange egg in her backyard ... which glows red. As for basic appearance, I think she's of average height, has blue-green eyes, ginger hair, and freckles. Lots of freckles. As

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan Since, last week, I told you you can't steal someone else's story, I'm going to talk about other places you can get a story. Now, I can't tell you that these work 100% of the time, and I can't tell you that they are all the ways you can get story ideas, because neither is true. These are just some methods that have worked for me. 1. Books you've read. Now you're looking at me like I'm crazy. Last week I told you that you can't take ideas from books you've read ... and now I'm telling you that ... Relax. You CAN get ideas from books you've read. You see "There is nothing new under the sun." Suppose you're reading a book about people who ride eagles, and you really like the idea, and you want to write a book about people who ride eagles. Now, there are hundreds and hundreds of books about people who ride eagles, so if you write a book about people who ride eagles, it woul

Originally Posted on Knitted By God's Plan As a young writer, I am a firm supporter of other young writers. However, there are many young writers out there that haven't a clue as to how to go about writing their books. I have decided to write tips that I have learned from my own experience, and show some pitfalls that young writers (and any writer at that) should avoid. Today, I am going to talk about plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking another persons work without their permission and writing it as if it were your own. It is against the law, and doing so can make you end up getting sued or worse. Now, I understand, plagiarizing is very tempting. It is so much easier to use someone else's predefined characters, and someone else's predefined plot, and someone else's predefined world. I myself have done so. I once had a play I was writing that was basically a rewrite of a book I absolutely loved. Sure I had my own characters, but it was still the same plot,