The Two Bird Minimum

In my Eli Monpress series, Eli, my charming degenerate of a main character, has a favorite saying - "My stones have a two bird minimum." Of course, since it's my book and Eli is my character, this is also one of my favorite sayings, and I try to apply it as often as possible. Especially in my writing, and especially when I'm planning out a scene.

For example, yesterday I was cooking dinner and thinking about this new scene I was going to add to my new novel (the one from my 12 Days of Glory post, for those of you playing along at home). My editor had requested a few changes, and I'd decided right off the bat that a new scene was needed. But while I had the perfect scene in mind, I had a problem. While this scene nicely solved the problem my editor (quite rightly) wanted addressed, it didn't do anything else. Since my scenes tend to run around 2k, I was reasonably sure this new addition would only fatten my novel by around that much. But, to make the scene work I'd have to move my characters to a new location, which would add another 1.5-2k words to get them there, describe things, and get them back. And then there'd be everyone else's reaction to the location change (the problem with an ensemble cast, all those story lines have to be taken into consideration), so that's another 1k spent covering my bases and 5k in total once everything was added in.

5k is a LOT in a 110k novel, almost a full chapter, and way too much space to dedicate to fixing one measly problem. But I liked the scene a lot, so, I decided to make it earn its keep in the novel and set about finding other work for it to do. If this scene was my stone, I was going to whack as many birds as possible with it by the time those five thousand words were done. 

As I've talked about in tiresome detail before, when I write a scene, I demand that it do three things - advance the story, reveal new information, and pull the reader forward. But the real secret I've found for scenes is that you can hit every one of these points from multiple angles at once, and the more angles you hit, the better the scene tends to get. 

Complexity in a novel isn't a matter of having lots of people doing lots of things, it's about how well those plots are revealed and well they fit together. When I plan a scene, I try to do at least two stories at once, preferably more. For example, if my main characters have to go to a space station to get information about the main plot, I'll put hints of a secondary character's secret past on that station as well, and then maybe use the stop over as an excuse to have my main couple get some down time to have a serious conversation. So, in this one scene, a stop at a space station, I've hit on three story lines: the main plot, the subplot, and the romantic plot. Any or all of these plots can hit the three scene hooks for me - the discoveries for the main plot can advance the story, the hints of the subplot reveal new information and pull the reader forward, and the growing romantic tension can pull the reader forward and advance the story and reveal new information, especially if we get a hint of the hero's mysterious past. The possibilities are endless!

Every time you add a scene, you're bulking up your novel. You're putting more words between your reader and the end of the story. The way I see it, it's up to me to make those words count. It's up to us, as writers, to make each scene necessary, interesting, and purposeful, to really make the scene work to earn its place in the book. To this end, whenever I write a scene, I'm constantly thinking "what else can it do?", what else can I make happen. Of course, you can go too far with this and overload a scene, but part of writing is learning how much is too much, too little, and just right.

In the end, my new scene did end up being right about 5k long, but rather than just solving the problem I'd created it to solve, the new location gave information about the world at large, offered a perfect set up for some foreshadowing of later events, got me some great character interaction, and turned into a really fun little interlude before the big battle. Many birds were hit, including some I didn't know were up there. Final verdict: Great success! I wish you many great successes as well. Keep writing!

- Rachel

 

Out and About

I am breaking my writing hermitage for some news!

First off, if you haven't already heard, I will be a guest this weekend at RoundCon! It's most an anime convention, but thanks to John Hartness, there are a lot of writerly types showing up as well. Best of all, though, I'll get to hang out with Kalayna Price, who floats my boat all the way to China. If you're in the area and have a chance to stop by the con, please find me and say hello! We will gab Eli and I will spill all the secrets for you!

Second, I did an interview with Tracy S. Morris about my writing process. I think the most interesting new topic I talk about in there is the difference in my process for pansters/discovery writers. Namely, how I don't know how people write like that, but if you do, more power to you!

Again, I do hope to see some people at RoundCon if anyone lives in SC! People who've read my books are my favorite people in the world.

- Rachel

Eli Monpress Week!

The lovely Mel over at Mel's Random Reviews has declared this Eli Monpress Week! Eli, of course, would like to remind people that every week is Eli Monpress week, but he is none-the-less delighted to accept the honor. All week there will be reviews of my books and the audio versions as well as a big fat interview Mel and I did earlier in the month full of news about the new books and some really great questions about where Eli and the crew came from coming later in the week. I hope you'll head over and check it out!

How I Plot A Novel in 5 Steps

By popular request (ok, 1 person, but they're populace, so that makes it popular, right?) I've put together a step by step process for how I go from "Hey I should write a novel" to "Ok, let's get writing!" Though I managed to get things grouped into steps, what I've really done is labeled and applied order to the phases I go through as I work toward the point where I feel I know enough about a book to start writing. Some parts of my process may seem a bit obsessive, but the most important part of writing fast is knowing as much as you can about what you're writing before you write it, and that means lots and lots of planning.

Planning a novel takes me anywhere from a few days to weeks. Usually I plan while I'm working on other things, like editing, but I've also had whole weeks where I did nothing but put a story together. I should say that I plan far more novels than I actually end up writing. My computer is littered with the cast off husks of half started worlds. I consider this a normal part of the process. If you do it right, planning is where you uncover all the things that are wrong with that idea you thought was so amazing last week. Sometimes these faults are workable, other times it's better to just move on. Even so, it's way better to discover a novel isn't as strong as you thought at the planning stage instead of 3 chapters in. Not every idea deserves to be a novel.

Well, enough of that. You came to see how I plan novels. So, best as I can articulate something that changes for every book, here is my general process. I really hope everyone finds something useful they can take away to help organize and speed up their own writing system.

Rachel on the (Internet) Radio!

I joined Justin and Terry of The Dead Robot's Society podcast to talk about my books, my road to publication, and how the hell I write so many words every day. It was a really, really fun interview, and the show itself is a barrel of good times all on its own. So if you're at all interested in writing or the publishing world, why don't you check it out!

Here's the direct link to my episode, my interview is in the second part of the show. Enjoy!

The Lord of Storms!

To thank all my fans for being so amazingly awesome (and to get myself some really amazing art), I've begun commissioning artists to make me pictures of my characters! First up, The Lord of Storms by Noiry! Link goes to the picture on her amazing DeviantArt gallery, but she also has nice work on her portfolio site so please go check her out. In the meanwhile, enjoy!

What can I say, the Lord of Storms is a ham and cheese sandwich! <3

The Lord of Storms is the head of the League of Storms, and a very bad ass fellow. He first appears (briefly) in The Spirit Thief and then more fully in the The Spirit Rebellion and The Spirit Eater. But he REALLY comes into his own in Spirit's End, the fifth and final Eli novel. Trust me, once you read book 5, you will know why he was the first character I commissioned!

More art will be following all the way through next year, so keep checking back :D. I'll also be revamping my site, and one of the new additions will be an art gallery. Should be awesome!

<3 Rachel

12 days of glory

I've talked about my process for fast writing before, the combination of knowledge, time, and excitement that let me take my word count from 2-3k a day to over 10k per day. However, every time I get on the subject of writing fast, I always have to add the caveat that these numbers were achieved on the final two books of a five book series, usually toward the end of the book. For me, the end of a book always goes faster than the beginning or the middle. I find it much easier to write with the momentum of a grand finale pulling me forward. Also, I was writing well known characters in a well established world.


Because of these factors, it was hard for me to tell if my insane numbers were really coming from my system or from the books themselves. Had I really turned myself into some sort of super writer, or was I just caught up in the end of a story I'd wanted to tell for years? Was Eli doing this, or was I? So long as I was working on Eli books, there was no way to tell. The real test would only come when I sat down to write a new book in a new world. If I could keep pulling crazy numbers there, with no Eli or Josef or Nico to prop me up, then I'd know for sure that my increased productivity came from me. Last month, with the final Eli book turned in, I took the plunge. This is how it turned out, taken straight from the writing worksheet I keep on my title page:


Plotting started: July 17, 2011
Plotting finished: July 20, 2011
Novel started: July 21, 2011
Novel ended: August 1, 2011


You're reading that right. I plotted the whole book, start to finish (as well as outlines for two sequels), in three days. And then I wrote the book in 12. Actually, that's not even right. Check out my progress table:

Date	Time Written	Word Count	Words Per Hour	Location
7/21/2011	9:00 - 12:30 (3.5)	3680	1051	Home
7/21/2011	1:30 - 6:00 (4.5)	5125	1138	JJ’s
7/21	7:30 - 10:00 (2.5)	3877 (11882)	1550	Home (night)
7/22	1:30 - 6:30 (5)	6004	1200	JJ’s
7/24 - 7/25 (perspective switch)
7/26	8:20 - 10:20 (2)	1925	962	Home
7/26	1:20 - 6:00 (4.5)	2194	487	JJ’s
7/26	9:00 - 10:00 (1)	1076 (5195)	1076	Home (night)
7/27	8:00 - 11:00 (3)	2527	842	Home
7/27	1:00 - 6:00 (5)	7215 (9742)	1443	JJ’s
7/28	1:00 - 6:00 (5)	6372	1062	JJ’s
7/29	8:30 - 11:30 (3)	3836	1278	Home
7/29	12:30 - 6:00 (5.5)	7701 (11537)	1400	JJ’s
7/30	5:00 - 8:30 (3.5)	3373	963	JJ’s
7/31	4:30 - 8:30 (4)	4509	1127	JJ’s
8/1	8:00 - 11:30 (2.5)	4069	1627	Home
8/1	1:00 - 6:20 (5.3)	7203 (11272)	1359	JJ’s

One of the things I talk about in the fast writing post is the importance of keeping records. There are many different ways of recording your writing, but this is how I keep track of mine. As you can see, I actually wrote the book in 9 days, because I took the 23rd off and spent the 24th - 25th going back and switching the first five chapters from third person to first, which I count as editing, not writing. But even if we go ahead and count those two days, it still means I wrote a novel, a brand new novel with a world and characters I'd never sat down to really flesh out before the 17th, in 11 days. 

Sorry Eli, looks like you can't claim credit this time.

But how did I do it? Beyond what I talked about in my fast writing post? 

Well, first, I wrote a lot. As you can see from the table above, I spent between 6 and 9 hours a day at the keyboard writing pulling between 800 and 1600 words an hour. This sort of writing is not without its cost, I think my baby and husband have forgotten my face and let's not even talk about the state of my house or the pile of mail that's threatening to crush my dining table. This is not the sort of crazy writing project you can embark on unless you're a pro writer between books with a very forgiving family. If I'd taken things a little easier I would have had a life and still finished the novel in 20 days, which is perfectly acceptable, but this time around I was trying to see just how fast I could go. For science!

Second, I always knew exactly where I was going. This was how I kept up the high words per hour rate. Much of the dithering in writing comes from uncertainty. What do I want from this scene? What happens next? Remove the uncertainty and most other problems sort themselves out.

Third, I was really, really, REALLY excited to write this book. It's my first love story, and I've been gushy over my main couple for nearly 8 years. I always swore I would write their story someday, and finally getting the chance to do it was like pulling up a chair to the delicious cake buffet.

So there it is, time, knowledge, and excitement coming together to make a crazy writing alchemy of fantastic word counts. These last two weeks have been the most intensely fun experience of my writing career (at least so far as the actual writing part is concerned). I loved working like this. I literally bounced out of bed with joy in the mornings because I knew I'd get to write that day. When I was writing it was like I was taken away with the story, and when I'd finally drag myself from the keyboard, I felt like I could conquer the world. Going so fast was more like reading than writing, only I was in charge of everything that was going on. It was the ultimate power trip, and I'm frankly sort of worried I liked it too much. Not that worried, though.

My work on this book is nowhere near done. I have at least 3 edits ahead of me before the novel is even ready to go to my agent, much less make its way to editors. It might never sell at all, I might start all over, but wherever my novel's story ends, one thing is certain: I can reliably write 6-8k a day on any book in any world. And that, my friends, is awesome.

ask me a question, you'll get an answer with way too many !s

I'm participating in FanLit Asks!

This month's question: Which speculative fiction character created by another author are you kicking yourself for not dreaming up first?

You can see my answer (plus answers from totally amazing people like Gail Carriger, Seanan McGuire, Jesse Bullington, and L. E. Modesitt, Jr.) here.

In other news, I've seen the finished painting for the 4th Eli novel, Spirit's War, and it is awesome! I'll be posting it as soon as design finishes the cover design. I can't wait to show you! It really is amazing.

<3 Rachel

Writing Post Round-Up

In honor of Camp NaNoWriMo (and for general organization), I thought I'd do a round-up of all my scattered writing posts plus. I've written a lot about writing (since, you know, I think about it a lot), not all of which I think is true anymore, so I'm only linking the posts I still believe in. If you're a writer, whether you're participating in this month's writing challenge or not, I really hope you find something useful in these.

Story Crafting, World Building, and Character
The Three Hooks - how to write better scenes that move your book forward
The Knife Test - testing your characters
Dissecting the Devil - writing a good villain

Productivity and Writing in General
How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day - supercharge your word count
There Are No Writing Police - advice on the internet about ignoring internet advice. Meta!

That's all I could find for the moment. Again, these are just my posts. I am nowhere near to being the be all end all expert on writing. If you have a favorite writing post (or writing link that helped you of any kind) link it in the comments and I'll add it to the list!

Signing reminder and a nerdy anime rec

Don't forget I'm going to be in SC this weekend for the Fantastical Mystery Tour mega signing event! It's going to be amazing, so stop by if you're in the area! I'll sign literally anything you put in front of me - your book, your child, your check, anything!

In other, completely unrelated news, my husband and I have been watching this very cool anime called Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magik, or Puella Magi Madoka Magica. On the surface it looks like a very typical anime magical girl show. I actually almost skipped it completely, but then I watched the first episode.


Guys... Sailor Moon this ain't.


Madoka Magica is the most creepy, edge of your seat show I've watched in a long time. It's the dark side of magical girls, and its got style to burn. The art design on the sets and backgrounds is amazing, so amazing that the characters look almost comically cartoony standing inside them. But none of that matters. The show's pacing is a freaking textbook of tension building. I have never watched a show with such a looming sense of dread and real concern for the characters. I literally have no idea what's going to happen from one episode to the next, and I watch each one with delicious anticipation.


In short, the show is amazing and you should totally watch it if you get the chance. It will takes your expectations of what a magical girl show should be and then makes you eat them.


Also, the music is fantastic. Go watch!