Writer's Block

I'm watching Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert said something that struck me as profound.

You can mope and cry all you want, but it won't help you write a better novel. 

I once heard someone classify different types of writer's block. One of the ones that I frequently suffer from is Lazy Writer's Syndrome (LWS.)

• Jessi Roberts suggested to ask "What if?" to jump start a plot. What if so-and-so died? What if they got engaged? What if the dragon didn't die like everyone thought? 
• Or just sit your butt down and force the story from your brain to your fingertips. 
• One thing I like to do is change the font color to white and don't even see what I'm writing and let my instincts carry it away. No one has to see it. You can edit later.
• Even if you're the pansters to top all pansters, sometimes you should try plotting. Or if your a plotter to top all plotters, try writing by instinct. 
• Talk to other writer's friends and ask their opinions. NaNoWriMo is a great place to do that and they're having a virtual summer writer's camp for free, here. 

Surprises

Have your characters ever done anything to surprise you? Something totally out of character, but something that totally and completely worked with their situation? People are unpredictable. Why can't characters be? Actually, aren't characters supposed to have contradictions in their character.

So, here's my point: Ray surprised me this week.

Here are a couple of facts about him so you can see why he surprised me:
1.  He's introverted.
2.  He doesn't talk about his feelings. At all. He's the kind of person who would prefer to deal with his problems by himself and not involve anyone. He doesn't really want anyone to see his pain. He's a good liar and a good actor, so you rarely see what's really going inside his head.

So, here's what he said:

*Note: The POV character is his sister, Aura.

**Another note: He just ran away a week or so ago and tried to commit suicide and they're sort of talking over it.

      “I almost had a panic attack. I’m not kidding.”
      He raises an eyebrow at me and I can’t help but remember a couple of years ago when he’d do that just to annoy me. I always got mad at him because no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t do it. The sides of his mouth twitch a little. “That might have been funny to see.”
      “It wasn’t funny at the time. You scared me.”
      “How come?”
      “What kind of a question is that? Because I knew you might be dead already when I left the house.”
      “Why would you care though?”
      He’s never asked me anything like this before and I think I know the answer he’s looking for, but I haven’t told him that in ages, which kind of makes my heart heavy. I laugh a little, like it’s a totally obvious answer. “Because I love you, that’s why.” And as soon as I say it, I know it’s true, even though only a year ago, I would have completely denied it. Sometimes faces are unreadable and right now I can’t tell what’s going through his mind. Especially since he won’t look at me. I wonder how long it’s been since someone has told him that he’s loved. He hasn’t heard it from me and definitely not from Mom.
      “What about Chris, though?” I can tell he’s kind of forcing out the words. I can only imagine how much it would hurt to think or talk about him after what had happened.
     “What about him?”
     “A…are you still mad about what I told you the other day?”
     I can’t help hesitating a bit on that question. “Okay, first off, I’m not mad at you, specifically. But, sometimes it’s hard to get used the idea, you know?”
     He nods, like he completely understands that. ... He has the same expression on his face that he did at the hospital when I told him that Chris had died. Like he’s trying to block his emotions.
Copyright Hannah De

See what I mean? He's never ever said anything like that before. Has your character ever surprised you?

Foreshadowing

If ever there were an amazing example of foreshadowing, Hugo would have to be number one. There are probably even instances that I didn't even notice, because I wasn't watching it fully.                      

Foreshadow| verb: to give a suggestion of (something that has not yet happened)

                : to represent, indicate or typify beforehand: prefigure 

I'll give you a couple of examples from this movie and then maybe you can see what types of foreshadowing you can put in your story.

So, here's the basic premise of Hugo. Hugo lives in a clock in a train station in London. His father has died and his drunk uncle has abandoned him after teaching him how to wind the clocks. His life's goal is to find out why his father died and he plans on doing that by fixing the automaton that his father never finished before he died. It's a writing automaton and he's convinced that the note it writes will be a message from his father.

The movie

The real life situation

Foreshadowing example #1: Hugo's father always used to take him to the movies and so, when he meets a girl who has never seen the movies, he sneaks her into a movie theater and shows her what a movie looks like. In the movie, a man is trying to climb a wall and loses his balance and grabs the nearest thing, the minute hand of a nearby clock and he dangles. Later in the movie, when Hugo is attempting to get away from someone, he inches out the window in a clock and grabs hold of the minute hand and he dangles, waiting for the danger to pass.

Foreshadowing example #2: Hugo is having a dream. He's walking next to the train tracks and on the slats he sees a key. And not just any key. It just so happens to be the key that operates the automaton that he's finally fixed. He jumps onto the tracks and is turning the key over and over and wondering what it's doing on the tracks and the tracks start shaking and the train is barreling toward him. Later, in real life, the automaton falls onto the tracks and the train is pulling in and Hugo jumps onto the tracks to retrieve it, the tracks shaking and the train barreling toward him.

Foreshadowing can enrich your novel and add depth. It's also a pleasant surprise to re-read a book and look at those little tidbits and realize, "Oh, that's what they meant."

Motivation

What do Finding Nemo, Spiderman and Maleficent have in common? I know, a total cliche to opening a blog post, but I couldn't help myself. So, think away readers, and contemplate my deep question...

Hint: The title has something to do with it...

Each of them have exceptional character motivation that we all can learn from. I'll make sure to warn you if there are any spoilers in case you haven't watched one of them. 

A couple of types of motivation for characters that are believable: 

1. Fear, with a legitimate root. In Finding Nemo Marlin is afraid of two things. The ocean and losing his only family, his son, Nemo. Why? At the beginning of the movie in a prologue of sorts, Marlin is a newlywed moving into his new home with his wife, Coral, and his four-hundred-plus eggs. As they're watching their babies sleep, Coral remarks casually that she wants to name one of the fish Nemo. Mere minutes later, a barracuda attacks, knocking Marlin out. When he comes to, Coral and all of his children are gone, except for one egg that got knocked to the ocean floor and forgotten. And he names the fish Nemo. As a result, Marlin is overprotective of Nemo and doesn't let him do anything that could be possibly risky. 

2. Being too sheltered: This one's also from Finding Nemo. His father's overprotectedness prompts Nemo to chafe under the short leash. After his dad yells at him and embarrasses him in front of his friends for almost doing something against what his father had taught him, he break the rules, resulting in him getting captured. 

3. Revenge: Sometimes this can feel forced, unless you do it right. Maleficent does this incredibly well. Maleficent has been betrayed by the person that she thought was her true love. So, as a result she storms the castle that he lives in and casts a curse on his firstborn daughter, Aurora, that "before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she'll prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a sleep like death."

4. Power hungry: Again, be careful with this one. This can be super unbelieveable and cliche if the character doesn't have a good reason for wanting power. This one is again, excellently shown in Maleficent. Stefan meets Maleficent when they're both young and points out the castle that exists where he lives. "See that castle?" He says. "Someday I'm going to live there." Maleficent asks him where he lives now. He looks down for a second and finally admits, "A barn." After a bit more prompting she gets out of him that he's an orphan, and homeless, but someday he wants to rule. This later prompts him to betray Maleficent's trust in order to get the throne.

5. Something wakes them up: In Spider-Man, after Peter finally figures out about his powers, he intends to use them to get the attention of the girl he likes. He goes to a wrestling match with the hopes to win $3000 to buy a car that will impress his lady. He knows he can win. Right before he goes, his uncle pulls him aside and gives him a talk about using what you have to help people. "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter yells at his uncle to stop acting like he's his father and leaves. After the match the man refuses to pay him the amount he feels is due to him. "I fail to see how that became my problem," he says. "Now get out." So, Peter stalks out of the office. As he is walking away, a man walks into the office and holds the man at gunpoint, demanding all the money. The theif runs past Peter, and he has an opportunity to stop him, but he doesn't. Just lets him go. When the money man asks him why he didn't do anything to stop the theif, Peter simply says, "I fail to see how that became my problem." And he leaves. SPOILER: As he leaves the building, he sees a crowd of people and pushes through it. His Uncle Ben is on the sidewalk, bleeding from a wound in his chest. A man had shot him and stolen his car. Later Peter realizes that it was the theif that he had let pass at the wrestling match. If he had only stopped him....SPOILER END In the end, he remembers what his uncle had said, and begins to do things for people to help.

I'd suggest watching these moves and noticing different character motivations. I haven't nearly covered all of them. Are there any movies you've seen that have exceptional character motivation? 

Fear

Every character should have something they fear. Something that, no matter how brave they are, will send them running. I saw an excellent example of this in a TV show that my sisters were watching. It was a Little House on the Prairie episode called Blind Journey, and normally I don't like Little House on the Prairie, but this one expertly showed fear with a legitimate root.

Adam Something-or-Other is married to Mary Ingalls and both are blind. They teach at a school for blind children and teach them how to live life without sight. They're moving the school to a different location and they know they must cross a river in order to get there. They're camping close to the river (I think) and Mary is curled up next to Adam, and even though she's blind, she knows something's wrong. "You're shaking," she observes. He assures her that it's nothing and they go to sleep. They get to the river and the ferry doesn't arrive, so they have to ride a zipline-type thing across the river, one-by-one. Adam is the last to go over and he's curled in a ball and he won't let go of the rope that connects him to the wagon. He shouts at the man who tries to get him across, "I won't go and you can't make me!"

Later, when they've finally got him across, he's laying next to Mary again. He hasn't said anything since the incident. He's breathing heavily and shaking and Mary tells him, "We're okay. Everyone is safe and sound." He doesn't answer for a second, and finally he whispers, "I'm a coward." He tells her a story of when he was a little boy and his father took him fishing. He hopped around on the rocks, without a care in the world. Then he tripped and hit his head. When he woke up again, he was in a hospital and he couldn't see. Since then he'd always been afraid of water. "I acted like a coward, Mary," he says again, sobbing now. 

She comforts him saying, "After what you've been through, you have every right to cry."

Every character must have a fear, and, if possible, a legitimate root to that fear. We relate better to a person who doesn't have everything together and is sometimes afraid, and even more so, when we can understand their fear. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Do you know of other stories that pull this off well?  

Guest Post by Aurora "Aura" Simms

Once upon a time, I dreamed of a hot guy riding into my life and sweeping me off my feet. I envisioned myself as the damsel in distress. He would see me. I would see him. We'd fall madly in love and he'd rescue me. Carry me away from my awful life. Away from my mom and her constant lectures. Away from my little brother and his constant teasing. In my dreams, he'd love me like no one had in a long time and we'd live happily ever after.

Actually it was different than I'd envisioned. I was in the high school parking lot and I backed my car into Chris's on accident, gained a ticked-off mom, a one-time meeting with an averagely cute guy (though he was too short in my opinion) and a dented car, that actually wasn't mine at the time. Somehow he figured out that I did housecleaning to earn money and told me he'd tell his mom about me, since she was always busy and could use the help. He actually followed through, so we were kind of stuck with each other each Sunday evening when I'd help his mom with their apartment and often stayed for dinner. He always made me feel special, even if he just smiled at me as I passed him in the hall at school.

So looking back in hindsight, I guess, in a way, my dream came true, with a few revisions that ended up being for the better. It wasn't quite the love-at-first-sight meeting I'd wanted, but he loved me more than anyone had in a while. I specifically remember the day he told me he loved me for the first time and I cried, because that's the first time someone had told me that in almost four years. I only wish we could have lived happily ever after.

Empty, useless brain!

Okay, I'm not exactly blocked, but I made this today and I wanted to post it.

Fun writing exercise: (you'd think since I was a writer, I would know how to spell that, but it took me maybe five tries before I broke down and used spell-check)

Next time you're watching a movie,  either one you want to watch or don't, it doesn't matter, keep a notebook by your chair and focus specifically on the structure of the movie. Foreshadowing, plot development, character arcs, symbolism, anything and write it down.

For example, I was watching Larry Boy and the Bad Apple with Liam the other day and here are some of the things I noted:

   * Symbolism - they are celebrating the 300 year anniversary of their town. The number 3 has significance in Christian movies because of it's representation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
   * Increasing stakes - the villain (Temptation) increases the tension as the movie goes on, first entrapping the mayor, then the people's only way to the outside world, Petunia Rubarb, the news reporter, and finally, their savior, LarryBoy.

Another example, from Charlie and Lola, the episode I've Won, No I've Won, No I've won:
   * Charlie (the narrator) always gives you a short description of each character and their relationship to him or his little sister, Lola. ex. This is Soren Lorensen. He's Lola's imaginary friend and no one can see him but Lola.
   * Charlie has a huge dilemma at the end, where he has to decide whether to save Lola from the top of the enormous slide or win the race. 

One more, from Mr. Peabody and Sherman:
   * Foreshadowing - Sherman bites Penny in the beginning and Mr. Peabody reprimands him for it. Later *SPOILER* Mr. Peabody bites Mrs. Grunyun to protect Sherman. *END OF SPOILER*
   * Flaws - Sherman's main flaw is the fact that he's so naive (and for the life of me, I can't figure out how to spell that...) and impressionable. He listens to everything anyone tells him and that is much of the reason for the conflict in the story

  I've got to go, because I've got to go eat dinner, but try it! It helps improve your writing!

Lost in Translation

If you're stuck (doesn't always work), or you want to write a unique poem, or you want something fun to do, I've found this, quite-possibly-nerdily-fun activity. So, here's what you do. You can copy and paste your favorite lyrics, a poem of your own or even your synopsis into Google Translate. Now, translate it to different languages, not turning it back to English, for maybe eight languages. Example: I began with translating it from English to Latin to Spanish to Hebrew to Arabic to French to German to Greek to Norwegian to Swedish and then back to English. Then I just started doing random languages.

Here's an example of what happens from the first stanza of my poem Tasting Stars:

Original Poem:

Where silence has a sound
Where you can feel the world spinning
Where darkness has a heavy touch
There's nothing in the universe but me
And I'm tasting stars

Lost in Translation Poem:

When silence is a sound

Where can you find the world has known

Handling heavy dark

I have, and I

Try stars

Sometimes it's not as cool as that (from my poem Whole Again):

Original Poem:

Please come
Someone come
And make me
Whole again

Lost in Translation Poem:

fiber

human

USA

egg

Don't even ask how it got to that point.

I even tried my synopsis. If you haven't read it, click here. It's the second paragraph where I talk about Ray's problems:

In fact, the beam, the sins of his brother, Chris aura service is free. The success is not possible. It is important to get rid of this disease is, it was not murder. They begin to deal with this problem, and suicide is a sin, I do not think so.

There is some gibberish in here, but somethings are kind of inspiring.

Try it! It's a great exercise for when you're bored, stuck or just want some fun. Sometimes it can inspire whole poems. And if you like the descriptive language of some songs (especially Owl City songs) see what comes out and you could possibly use it for your own song. 

BLOCKED!!!

So, hey! What's new? I'm blocked. No. New. Ideas. Useless. Brain. In the chapter I wrote this morning, the 59^th chapter to be exact, a character remarked that something was lame and I just about banged my head about the computer and screamed, “THIS WHOLE CHAPTER IS LAME!” Does anyone have a tip on what to do when you're blocked? I keep stubbornly pushing forward, churning out forced dialogue, no description, wallowing-in-self-pity characters. I've literally written 177 words in the past weekish. How miserably pathetic is that?! Not knowing what to write is depressing. :`( I guess I know what to write. Maybe I'm just afraid to write the romance in fear that it will be cheesy, stupid and embarrassing. There's also a fight coming up between Aura and Adam and I'm not sure what to do to make it believable. He's not the kind of person to 1. fight, 2. not forgive someone after the fight and 3. hold a grudge enough to not talk to them for a couple of days.

So, basically, what's supposed to happen is earlier Adam tells Aura that Chris commissioned him to look after her. So, every nice thing he does for her, she questions whether he's doing it because Chris told him to, or because he actually cares about her. Something that he's supposed to say in the near future is going to set her off and she gets mad at him for that very insecurity. How do I do it? Actually writing this out has solidified it in my mind and I feel more capable of writing it not. Thanks!:) 

And this one, I just thought was funny....

Pain and Suffering

I've found that I can discover key things about my characters through the way they handle pain. Now this may seem completely obvious, but I'm going to give you an example anyway, between my main character, Aura, and her younger brother Ray.
When the story starts, Aura's boyfriend, Chris, dies in a car crash. Ray was driving the car at the time it crashed, so he feels responsibility. So each of them have sufficient suffering that I put them through. *evil writer cackle* They each handled their pain in different ways.

Aura yelled at God, got another job, refused to think about Chris and basically shunned anything that reminded her of her pain.
Ray started doing drugs and did anything in his power to make his pain go away and got angry and defensive when anyone told him he shouldn't be doing what he is.

So, here's what I learned through observing these things:
Aura: 

1. She's a person who believes on just pushing through.
2. She's a person who wants to blame someone for her pain.
3. She believes that forgetting and ignoring what hurts her is the solution to her problem 

Ray: 

1. He's a problem solver.
2. He doesn't like being told what to do.
3. He believes that he doesn't need help and that he can do everything on his own. 

I just thought this was interesting. I figured this out after I'd written half the story and it helps shape their character. Try it!

And, one more thing: I'm ecstatic! I found a song that perfectly sums up the lie Ray believes. It does have a lot of screaming in it, so if you don't like that, don't listen to it. It's called Damage by Red.

Now the damage is done. I can't escape, can't run, can't undo what I've done. All I do is damage...It's destroying me...I'm sick of the misery...I am human debris....I'm a catastrophe. Take this away. It was just a mistake. Save me.

Dawn

So I thought I'd take a second to give you an overview of this book so you know what's happening when I begin to rant about my characters. So here's the synopsis:



        Chris always told Aura about God and she just accepted it, but never felt the connection. When he dies in a car crash, she doesn't know what to believe anymore. Where is his faithful God? Unknowingly, she shuts everyone out, trying to get rid of the pain. 


       Aura's brother, Ray, is convinced Chris's death is his fault. After all, he was the one driving when he wasn't supposed to be. Maybe if he hadn't insisted, he would have died instead and saved everyone the pain. Plagued by guilt, he begins to get into trouble and starts contemplating suicide. 

I'm currently blocked at 42,700 words and 161 pages. It's aggravating. This story is kicking my butt. The current title is Dawn. If you want to suggest a better name for it based on my synopsis, feel free to, because this title is by all means not permanent. 

Hey! Wanna know some things about me? Here you go!
I'm a(n)...
1. ...girl named Hannah
2. ...avid writer
3. ...hopeless romantic
4. ...big sister, oldest of five
5. ...Christian
6. ...slight schizophrenic
7. ...16 year old
8. ...homeschooler
9. ...enthusiastic reader
10. ...piano player
11. ...introvert
12. ...grammar freak (and what do you know, I spelled grammar wrong...I corrected it though, if you're looking at it and wondering if I'm delusional)
13. ...delusional person
14. ...nerd and proud of  it
15. ...OCD-ish person (See how I did 15 things...? ....And I'm 15? And 15 is divisible by 5? I love numbers divisible by 5! And now it doesn't work because I'm 16. Darn!)

Welcome to my author site. Here I'm going to provide updates on my book that I'm currently writing on and if I'm stuck, I'll rant. (Feel free to skip those posts:) I attended a writer's workshop and they were talking about creating a brand and an author's website. My other blog (onceuponafantasy.weebly.com) is more whatever pops into my brain and I feel like blogging about. And though, I don't think people will read this, it's purely for my visual side of me and to keep me accountable. Maybe it'll force me to keep moving forward in stupid stories that tempt me to slap delete and go curl in a corner and cry and eat chocolate. So, here goes. Let's see how this turns out...