A Time for Celebration

This is the time of year for looking back on things we've accomplished in the last 12 months, and  we're happy to report on the "birth" of a pet project we had been discussing for several years. It's great to watch a project finally come to fruition.

Sue and Becky are the proud “parents” of Dottie, the Writing Mouse, who made her appearance this year in the form of two teaching books for beginning and intermediate writers.

 

We named her Dottie as she loves those three little dots when writing and we couldn’t very well call her “Ellipsis.”  That’s no name for a cute, lovable mouse.

 

Anyway, with Dottie in mind as the teacher, we put together the lessons we had created for our many on-line classes and organized them in DIY form and called the whole series, Let’s Write a Story.

 

The first book, Seven Ways to Plot, came out at the beginning of the year and can be found on Amazon in both print and ebook formats.  

 

Dottie’s second book, Creating Memorable Characters,  came out in the summer and is also now available in both formats and up on Amazon.

 

It was amazing to us how much time it took to give “birth” to Dottie. We had thought it was just a matter of putting together our lessons we had written, edited and perfected over the years in various writing classes.

 

But no, many other steps were involved--all of which took months to do. In actuality, it was sort of like taking lamaze birthing classes. Covers, as well as back covers had to designed, decisions on what the formatting layout should look like, ISBN numbers to buy, editing and proofing to do and redo as simple as sometimes the “trees in the forest” got overlooked or misplaced.

 

And now, that a new year is upon us, we look forward to announcing the imminent birth of Dottie’s third child, with lectures drawn from our most famous and well-know teaching class The Plotting Wheel.

 

Conceiving the idea was pretty simple, but like going through the pregnancy it was a long and difficult process. Many hours were spent on getting the information written just right so there can be no misunderstanding from a would-be writer picking up the book and setting out to use it as a learning tool. Once that was done we had to work on editing the book and that has taken loads of patience and consideration. Needless to say, we're still working on it.  

 

But never fear, just as a 40 week pregnancy finally comes to an end, so will our work on The Plotting Wheel book. It should be available this spring. We hope you'll watch for it. It’s a bundle of information that will help any writer, in easy steps, with plotting their book.

We hope your year has been busy with writing projects and we wish all our readers the best in the New Year.

Dottie Goes to Print

Six months ago the first book in our Let's Write a Story series was published as an e-book on Amazon. Seven Ways to Plot was an introduction to various plotting methods, and it was aimed at helping aspiring authors to figure out the best plotting method for them and their books. It was a good beginning, but now, our baby has grown up! It is available in print as well.

After the birth of an ebook, it takes a bit for the baby to become an adult print book.

 

How long? Well, it depends.

 

While that might seen like a wishy-washy answer, it really does depend on many factors. The following three are the basic items you need to consider in order for your print book to make it into the real world.

Carefully consider:

• Back cover
• Formatting
• Finance

Let’s take ‘em one at a time.

Back Cover

In order for a “print” book to develop, especially if the contents have first been an ebook, there has to be a back cover and a spine.  

Covers and spines are needed if the book is to be bought by libraries, carried in book stores and easy to physically handle if viewed and used by a reader.

Of course something has to go on the back cover. Because in a bookstore, the consumer will, after picking up the book, flip it over and read what is on the back cover

 

The problem is what to put there. A blurb about the contents, an image of the authors, and of course, a bar code will be needed. Who is going to get the bar code? Who will supply the ISBN which all print books must have.

Does the author want her picture on the cover? Or perhaps a bit about how the book came into existence?  And should there be a short review of what’s in the book, because now, the potential reader in a bookstore will likely turn the book over and read what it contains.  Well, after a lot of work -- here is how it turned out:

Formatting


Getting the file ready for printing means a “new” formatting has to be done, as the formatting for an ebook is different from the formatting for a print book. And someone has to do it.
•  
  Neither of us know how to format. I suppose we could learn, but we simply don’t have the time, the energy or the desire to take a class on formatting.
   
  Getting back to setting up the book for printing, formatting is different from formatting an ebook, so you need to be careful in finding the right person who has experience in this area. A good formatter costs money.
   
  Finances
• 
  
  Of course everything cost money in self-publishing.
  • the Bar Code usually costs about $25 but the ISBN number that goes on the bar code also costs
  • someone has to do the layout of the back cover. This also costs money, usually around $100, but this varies greatly
  • more formatting. Once again someone has to do this. This cost usually is figured by the number of pages depending on the expertise of the formatter.
•  
  Becky and I are proud to announce that our “baby” in the Let’s Write a Story series has left the ebook nest and has joined the “print” world. It seems like no matter how much we enjoy writing and finishing a book and getting it published, there is still nothing quite like holding that printed version in your hand and knowing it will be put up on someone's bookshelf soon.
   
  Seven Ways to Plot  is available in ebook and print at Amazon.com and we will soon be publishing the next in our Let's Write a Story! series -- Creating Memorable Characters.  It will also start out as an e-book and then progress into print.
   

Let's Create Characters

Where do we get ideas for our characters?

 

An interesting question.  We’ve all seen lists of ideas on how to make the characters in our books into real people. In fact we have one coming out in a few weeks also, but still, how do we come up with that special character in the beginning?

Sue: For my villain in my first Meg mystery, I thought of my first boyfriend. He and I were hot stuff in high school, but once we were in college he dropped me like the preverbal hot potato. So was I hurt, you betcha. Now it was get even time. I delighted in not only making him the bad guy but I even went so far as to give the villain his real first name. Oh, how I loved it when he got

his.

 

Becky: Right. I too take people I have known or even parts of myself and turn them into fictional characters. Usually it is just one little thing or an incident that I might pull from someone around me. For instance in my romance, Home Fires Burning, I took a line from my mother and the story idea from her romance with my dad. The line she always repeated, from the first time she saw him as a young teen, was, "I'm going to marry that guy some day." She fell for him from the moment she laid eyes on him and I took that love story and built it into my romance. I set the whole thing on a Colorado ranch, which was where they met.

 Sue: Other characters somehow just appear in one’s mind. Where they come from, I’m not sure. My theory is that the brain, while sleeping, those gray cells are working on possible characters for you to use. 

Becky: I'm also always looking for special characters who can play off each other. For instance in my Dead Man's Rules, I have two characters in a small New Mexico town who have both spent time living in Los Angeles. All Cere my heroine can think about is how to cover a big story so she can redeem herself in her boss's eyes and get back to the city. But for Rafe, it means serenity and peace. He loves the small town that he has chosen as a refuge from the dangerous big city.

 

Sue: While other characters come from life. I use friends and relatives and sometimes just people I met or see in my daily travels. I might take the gray beard from the guy who sold me new tires, or the bent nose from the butcher who sold me my meat. Another character I used was from one of the neighbors down the block and how she was always butting into everyone’s business. I made her a nosy sister-in-law that needed a good telling off. Lots of fun.

Becky: I do the same. I'm always observing people and picking up little bits and pieces from them that I find fascinating. As writers it's something  I think we need to foster in ourselves. Be observant and pay attention to everything around us.

 

You never know when you will be meeting your next fictional character.

 

We hope you'll watch for our new Dottie book on characters, Let's Write a Story: Creating Memorable Characters, coming soon. It can help you learn how to make cardboard cut-out characters into actual story people your readers will love.

Two Minds -- One Blog

How many writers does it take to write a great blog?

Depends on the writers… grin…Unlike the light bulb joke, where it is deemed that only one writer is needed to change the damn light bulb, i.e. write a great blog, it often depends on not only the writers, but on who the readers are going to be, and of course, what the blog is going to be about.

Sue: Both Becky and I have, over the years, written our share of individual blogs, but it was only recently, when we started teaching and writing “teaching” books together that we began writing blogs together.

Becky: Right. The beauty of having two writers is that they keep each other in check. Sue is great at coming up with ideas and often gets to her writing much faster than I do, but she has no grasp--sorry, Sue--of computer stuff, like putting up blogs, getting a web site organized, etc.   While I know just how to work the technical aspects of getting our blogs up and running, sometimes I get sidetracked and don’t always write get things written that fast.

Sue: That’s so true. I would be completely lost with Becky’s help getting our words up so others can read them.

The bottom line is… two sets of creative minds will work well together if:

•   they totally agree with each other’s ideas

•   they totally disagree with each other’s ideas

•   or… they sort of agree and disagree on certain aspects of the subject being discussed, BUT, they respect each other’s views.      

Becky: Absolutely correct. There has to be a strong foundation of mutual understanding between the writing partners. Because there really aren’t any two strong creative minds that will TOTALLY agree on all aspects of living and writing.

The best one can hope for is “like minds”… that is minds that at least somewhat think alike… and the individual “weak” points are off-set, edited and corrected by the other’s “strong” points.

Sue:  Two sets of gray cells that actually work well together can create magic!

We’re continuing to work on new writing books and we’ll have a print version of our Dottie book on characters ready to go soon, as well as a new Dottie book on characters.  We’ll announce that as the date of publication nears.

Becky:  For now if you have any questions on creating characters, plotting or writing with a partner, please ask.  And if you have any blog subjects you would like us to tackle as partners, please ask.  We’ll put our brains together and come up with an answer.

Developing Our Characters

Both of us write fiction… mysteries… although Becky has romance in her books while Sue's are cozies with little or no romance.

But we both need to create characters that “fit” into the story line.

Becky:   My characters pop into my head and I find myself starting to develop them as the story goes along.  Sometimes I don't know them completely until I have finished with the first draft of my book.  I keep a blank character profile handy and as I find out something about a character I will write it down.  Often by the time the book is done, most of the blanks are filled in.  Then I can use that profile as I edit, to either deepen the character or make certain he/she doesn't go off the rails somewhere.

Sue:  I have a pretty good idea of my character even before I start writing. But as Becky says, they develop during the writing both physically, mentally and of course, emotionally. Sometimes when I get to the end of a scene or chapter and when I know what has to happen for the plot to progress I find that I have to “give” some new aspect to the character.

 Becky: Right. When I first start out I really don’t have a great grasp on how my hero/heroine is going to react until the first problems start to pop up. This comes quite often as I am writing.

Sue: I agree. When the protagonist sees the dead body or example, how do you want this character to react?

Becky: And when they first kiss, what should the reaction be so the story will continue? Do I have them get all mushy and lovey-dovey and suddenly, if this is a romance, the story is over on page 15? Well, of course not.  I am going to throw come conflicts and other roadblocks in the way. I want them to have to work to make that romance become a total reality.

Sue: Absolutely. Here is where you have to deepen the emotional and mental aspects of the character, whether the good protagonist or the villain. So I keep a three-ring notebook by my computer. Each character has his/her own page where I am careful to note first their physical appearance and then add personality traits and emotional responses as I develop them in each scene. Little did I know when I started working on my latest cozy that one of the main characters needed to have an eidetic memory…but by the time I got half way through the first draft I realized the plot wouldn’t work unless he could remember certain happenings. 

Becky:  And little did I know when I first started writing my Dead Man Series that I was going to have one peripheral character who got under my skin and started demanding a bigger role in the story. The funny thing is people who have read the book tell me that he's gotten under their skins as well.  I was already halfway through writing book two, so while he plays a role in it, he wasn't the main character. Now I am working on book three, and telling his story.

So speaking of characters... we would like everyone to know that we are in the final stages of editing our very own character ebook in which we have pulled together all the various elements and factors a writer needs to consider when building and develop his/her characters for their next book.  It's in the final editing stages at the moment, so please watch for it on Amazon… it has this catchy title, Creating Memorable Characters, and it will be available sometime in March.

After that, our next ebook is The Plotting Wheel, and every writer who has ever stumbled over a plot problem will love this book. Watch for it sometime this summer.

Looking Forward in 2016

BY SUE VIDERS & BECKY MARTINEZ

Sue:

Whoosh…

And in a blink the year is gone and we writers are faced with the dilemma of what to do this coming year.

The new year is a place where nothing has yet happened. The calendar, while full of family errands and work related events, remains blank as to our writing goals.

Which, of course, poses the question, the huge question, of what we will write this coming year. What are our writing goals? Do we start a new story, poem or play or do we work around our writing, spending time doing publicity, finish up what we didn’t finish this part year orspend out time going to even more classes or meetings? What do we do?

Or do we want to look back and bask in the glory of what we accomplished this past year?

Maybe. But mostly no.

What has been written this past 12 months is history. It’s done. And unless there is something that needs to be carried over into the new year, sometimes it’s simply better to start fresh.

Okay, not always.

For example, I had spent most of the last few weeks finished up an outline for my next book. It was perplexing, as it is the third in a series with many old and new characters, each of which needed a new goal, which in turn needed a new plot.

Sigh. But with the holidays in sight, I managed to finished it up. Now, I’m not pleased with all the sub-plots, but I did finalized the last part, weaving all the various strings together into a neat and colorful tapestry.

But with the new year in sight, I deliberately put the outline aside, waiting to start on the first page of the new calendar where I could begin to fill in my writing goals. So many words here, exchanging a critique with my writing partner there and so on, until the empty spaces on the calendar were full of penciled goals.

Penciled in. I never use ink. In the writing game, it pays to always have options. Always have the ability to change the goal. Never get it up, but sometimes re-think the ultimate outcome you have in mind.

And now the new year is here. I look at my first goal, “write the prologue this week, goal, 2000 or so words” and I begin.

I love beginnings. I love the new year.

 

Becky:

 

For me the new year always seems like a new beginning. I really love the idea of starting over, even if I am working on a project I started last year.

 

There is always new opportunity in the new year. On the last day of every year I make a list of what I accomplished last year and then keep it. The next day, on January 1, I make a list of what I want to accomplish in the new year.

 

It's great to be able to look back on those lists in future years.  For instance this year, I was able to post that we had finally finished and published our first Dottie booklet.  For this year I listed the next three Dottie booklets as goals for finishing and getting published.  That would be a wonderful accomplishments, because we have wanted to publish our class lessons for several years now and we have continued to work on them every year, even as we teach new classes.

 

We're also going to be teaching our own classes that feature some of those booklets this year. Working with students is always a great way to get our own inspiration for our fiction writing.

 

I suggest making a list of what you want to accomplish in the coming year. We're still in January so making the list now gives you eleven months to get it all done.  These can be wonderful motivation, not only to get things accomplished, but I love looking back on my old lists.  Seeing the publication of my book, Blues at 11, in 2015 was wonderful, because it had been on my list of projects for several years. Now it is published! 

 

So I recommend, look forward to what you want to do, but don't miss out on looking back too. Celebrate what you've accomplished in the past year.