The Joy of Brainstorming

There is nothing in the world of writing that can beat good-old-fashion brainstorming session with another writer when it comes to creating ideas for a new book.

Nothing!

Take for example the next subject we are working on for our Dottie series of teaching books.  Villains. That’s right. Villains. How to create them, how to give them interesting personalities and how to kill them off.

But, and isn’t there always a but, we were stymied on how to explain the differences between a full-blown, really nasty villain such as a psychopath and a run-of-the-mill villain, such as a petty criminal. Then there are the antagonists and the anti-heroes who might play a role as villain. How does one tell the difference between all these levels of villains?

Sigh.

The answer: we brainstormed the problem over a tasty breakfast at our favorite working/eating restaurant.

 

First we stated the problem which was how to explain the different types of villains and how they were created. Of course that is two problems, but they are interconnected or at least they seemed to be.

 

SUE: I think we should divide the villains into two groups. Start with the classic villains such as sociopaths, mentally unstable folks and throw in the witches, aliens and monsters. Then we can put the lesser villains such as the antagonists into their own group.  

 

BECKY: No, I don’t think that is the way to do it. Let’s look at how these villains can to be villains. Were they born villains or did their environment turn them into villains? Think about the monsters, beasts or aliens - they have no choice. They are simply born that way, but the others, such as say a terrorist or even a bully, were they really born that way or did their environment and other disturbed people turn them into villains?

 

SUE: Hmm. Interest point. We should start at the beginning. Ah, I’ve got it. Let’s start with a lump of clay.

 

BECKY: Clay? You’ve got to be kidding.

 

SUE: No. Clay. Let’s take this lump of moldable clay and see what we can do with it. Okay?

Here we go. Clay is clay right? So we can safely say that some villains are like clay. They are simply born or create that way from the get-go.

 

BECKY:  Got it. This would include aliens, beasts, witches… all those villains that can NOT changed or those where NO change is possible. And let’s throw good old mother nature into this category. She does what she does because she is born that way.

 

SUE: Right. But now we take that lump and put it into a nasty or evil environment and what happens. The clay turns into a nasty or evil villain.

 

BECKY: But there are other factors that influence our formation of a  villain. Science and technology and other people. Environment, it seems to me, is only one factor in molding this villain into what he/she will become.

 

SUE: Right! Some villains are born evil, while others, may be born with evil tendencies, it depends on their surroundings, which include both environment and people to nourish these minds and turn them into villains

 

BECKY: And depending on the level of rage or hate thrust upon our lump of clay, this will determine their level of evilness.

 

SUE: By George, I think we’ve got it.

 

And we did. That's how we'll be working on categorizing our villains.  Brainstorming depends on the give and take of the writers and the ability to change directions, open their minds to new ideas and in general, to simply go with the flow.

 

Look for our next book in the Let’s Write a Story series, Creating the Villain, which will be out in the winter of 2017.

Dottie, The Writing Mouse

We hope everything has been going your way in the writing world this year. 2015 was a great year for Sue and Becky and we're looking forward to more exciting days to come. 

While we spent much of the year working on our fiction, we have also been teaching classes and still have our eyes firmly planted on ways to help aspiring writers become full fledged authors or assist published authors with whatever writing project they have in the works.

After years of being asked by many of our students if we were ever going to put some of our classes into book form so they could either buy and keep them or share them with other writing friends, we finally decided to do just that. We took your comments to heart and are putting many of our lectures into a series of how-to books for writers.

We spent many weeks working on editing our lectures for books, but before we could go “public” with our books, we had to come up with some type of not only a format but a recognizable image and name that people would come to associate with Sue and Becky, the writing teachers. We needed to focus on a marketing image.

There are hundreds of how-to write books out in the marketplace, so what would make our books stand out so the beginning writer would feel comfortable reading and following our advice?

An image was needed. Finally, after much research and discussion, we decided on a mouse. No other book cover had a mouse on it. Oh, there were pencils, pens, computers, typewriters—but no mouse. Right. A cute mouse.  A writing mouse.

 

And she would be working with a really tall number 2 yellow pencil. Eventually the mouse ended up with her pencil making several dots. And her dress became full of polkadots. It was then Dottie was born.  Let’s Write a Story became our overall marketing concept. It, along with Dottie, will be on the cover of all our writing books.

Our first book is out…

As we announced earlier, Seven Ways to Plot is now available at Amazon.com. It focuses on the seven plotting methods that most writers use when planning their books.  We hope you'll take a look.
More books are coming. We are on the final edits of book #2, Creating Memorable Characters which should be available in early 2016.

We hope you had a good 2015 and are looking forward to 2016 and many more Dottie books ahead!

If you have any writing questions, and we mean ANY QUESTIONS at all on your writing, we hope you'll email us at SueViders@comcast.net or beckygmartinez@gmail.com and we will be happy to answer them on this blog or privately.

 

New Writing Blog -- Any Questions?

Sue: Welcome to our new home. A blog where you can feel free to ask generic  questions, whether large or small, about your writing or writing in general. We are dedicating this blog to helping writers, aspiring or professional, with their writing problems and concerns.

Becky: Yes, welcome. We are so glad you found us. We have been teaching and guiding writers through the pitfalls and hazards of getting started with their stories for more than ten years.  Whether it be a romance novel, a sci-fi adventure or a shoot ‘em up thriller, we have worked with dozens of writers and now we are here to offer you guidance in your work.  


Sue:  Over the years we’ve discovered that many people who want to write a book just don’t know where to start. It all seems so confusing,  and once they do get started, they get lost in where they want to go with their story. How can you plot a story? Where do characters come from?

Becky: And that is where we come in. We have both been beginning writers ourselves and we remember some of those questions and the turmoil that comes from trying to find the answers.  We both enjoy working with writers and we like to see others succeed so we started working together years ago with the goal in mind of helping those who want to go from being a writer to a published
author.

Sue:  We also discovered writers are all different and we both bring some of those general differences to this teaching partnership. I’m the talker whereas Becky is more of a thinker…grin, but between the two of us we cover all the bases, from nonfiction books to a new set of cozies and of course Becky’s romantic-suspense, romance and mystery novels.

Becky:  Sue is the creative artistic type, while I am more of the practical journalist, but when it comes to writing a novel, she is the outlining/plotting sort of writer, while I take an idea and simply run with it, and let the muse take me where it wants to go. Because of our different approaches, we can see just about any side of a discussion, and that is why together we make a great team.

Sue: Right, however we both work best when we have deadlines we have to meet, and although we hate them, they do keep us moving and writing.

 Becky: Agreed. Deadlines and discipline are what get the stories written.  I worked for 30 years in a profession where we sometimes had minute by minute deadlines, but whether it’s hourly or monthly, without deadlines, often  the story, whatever it may be, stays in your head.

 Sue: Never to see daylight, let alone a book shelf  or to go “live” on Amazon in any form, such as a print or ebook. We  We are here now to  help you with your story. Send in your generic questions or concerns and please note that we never use real names in our blog unless,  it is a compliment of some kind.

Becky:  While we can’t always answer specific story questions, we are here to help you with your plotting, developing characters, pacing, and figuring out all those pesky little “insider” things like POV (point of view.)

 

We'll be bringing you writing tips each week, but we want to focus on YOU. Feel free to address the questions you want answered. Send your questions  or comments to either

sueviders@comcast.net or  beckygmartinez@gmail.com

 As a final note -- OUR NEW BOOK IS OUT.

Seven Ways to Plot -- the first in our Let's Write a Story series has just been published on Amazon and is available for Kindle and e-readers.  Here's the direct link:

http://goo.gl/tDKis3

Next week, we'll be back with more ideas to help so Let us Write a Story with you! Send questions!