 Diana Pharaoh Francis
What you may not know about me is that I have a PhD in literature. Writing the dissertation came after I did all my coursework and then took and passed my comprehensive exams. By the time I got to my dissertation, I had an idea what I wanted to write about, but I didn’t have any of the research or the writing done. It was liking being a mouse and staring up at an Everest-sized pile of cheese. Where to start? What to do first? Panic set in and I froze like a deer in the headlights.
Eventually I figured out I just had to start. The whole mountain had to get eaten and I had to do it. There was no right place to begin, so I just had to pick a place and go and see where the research took me. Same with the writing. Once I [...]
Continue reading Taking a bite out of the cheese
Diana Pharaoh Francis
I had a book due a couple of weeks ago. I may have lamented that here. In fact I’m sure I did. It’s the fourth in my Horngate series, titled Blood Winter, so I’m well acquainted with the characters and the world, and yet somehow I had a horrible time translating that on to the page.
I started with some ideas of what exactly I wanted to have happen. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how those things could possibly connect. It seemed like they were too different and too unlikely to intersect. That made planning hard. Make that pretty much impossible. I’m usually somewhere between a pantser with no plans at all, and a plotter, with detailed plans. In other words, I usually kind of know the high points and figure I’ll get there somehow if I start writing.
Not this time. I could not make a plan. So I started [...]
Continue reading How not to write a book. Or maybe it’s how TO write a book.
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Hi folks!
Sorry I’m late today. I forgot to transfer this post from my computer to Magical Words. I only reminded myself a dozen times. Apparently I have melty brain.
Anyhow, I wanted to talk to you about choosing point of view. I get asked about this sometimes and in some ways, my response is to stare stupidly and say, you just do. Part of that is experience has taught me to go through the process of that selection on a subconscious level. It takes some work to pull the process to the surface and think about it.
But let’s see if I can sound coherent about. First of all, there are several choices involved here. Do you want to go first, second, third or omniscient? Combined in that question is how many points of view do you plan to offer?
Most frequently, first person is [...]
Continue reading Point of View
Diana Pharaoh Francis
I was going to talk today about how to choose your point of view–first, second, third, limited, omniscient–but as it happens, the Blindside attacked and it therefore seems like an appropriate time to talk about it. I’ll work on the point of view post for next time.
Everybody knows what a Blindside is. It’s when you aren’t looking and suddenly a Mac truck comes out of nowhere and plows you into the ground. You can’t prepare for it because you never see it coming (that last bit isn’t entirely true, but I’ll get to that). Blindsides happen. More often than we’d like. They throw us for a loop, off our game, out of our heads, and off our rockers (to milk a host of cliches). They tend to show up at the worst possible moment, though to be honest, all the moments seem to be the worst possible, so really, [...]
Continue reading Blindsides Happen
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Happy New Year every one! Though I will confess, my new year was the solstice when the days started getting longer. In Montana, this is a major event. I look forward to it beyond reason. Mind you, the cold is just starting, but the fact that the days are growing longer is a silver lining to the cold.
Also, in case you didn’t realize, and in a bit of shameless self promotion, Shadow City came out a week ago. Did you get your copy?
And now, onto the subject at hand: Physical and emotional action.
When writing a book, I’m obviously interested in delving into characters. Or at least I hope it’s obvious. Character drives a novel. If readers don’t care about them, they don’t want to keep reading. And that’s it. All over. You’re toast.
An important way of making readers care about the characters is to develop emotional [...]
Continue reading Physical and emotional action
Diana Pharaoh Francis
I’ve got a book due very soon and not a lot of it written. In fact, as I’m writing this about a month or so before it will post, I’m really really hoping that a lot more of it will be written by today when you read this. But I did have something of an epiphany last night and I thought I’d share it with you.
I have a sign by my computer that says “Abandon All Standards and Write Fast.” I try to follow that motto when drafting because frankly, I revise well. But I can’t revise what’s not on the page and so I try to dump out the story as quickly as I can so that I capture it. This also has the bonus of letting my lizard brain really play. It also has the bonus of allowing me to keep most of the story in my [...]
Continue reading Abandoning Standards
Diana Pharaoh Francis
I know, flaw is not a verb. I’m taking liberties. I like flawed characters. I like to read them and I like to watch them in my TV/movies, and I like to write them. I find them far more satisfying than characters who are too good or too bad.
Recently I taught Jane Eyre in my college class. I’ve read this book too many times too count and each time I find something new and different about it. But the thing I find lately is that I like Rochester more and more. He’s obnoxious. He’s got no tact and no interest in it. He messes with people’s heads for fun and he’s flat out ornery. What makes him likeable to me is that he’s passionate (in both the romantic sense, and the deeply felt feelings sense). He struggles with his failures and his mistakes and he struggles with his decisions. [...]
Continue reading Flawing your characters
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