IWSG: The Missing Writer Edition (#25)

Insecure Writers' Support Group (IWSG) is a really awesome meme that you should be doing along with the rest of us writers. Unless you truly are happy with your writing and don't feel the need to vent about your insecurities because they don't exist for you. But, really.... Don't they?  
IWSG is hosted by Captain Ninja Alex at his blog, Alex J. Cavanaugh.

Who is this missing writer, you ask? That would be me... because I haven't posted on my blog here in quite a while now. I figured it's about time to come back and at least check in.

I don't have anything great to report, other than that I turned forty last month. Is that great, though? I suppose it's great that I'm still alive and kicking after taking forty trips around the sun. That's actually a very cool way to frame the idea of getting older--makes me feel like a space traveler--a veteran space traveler. Otherwise, I've just been too super distracted by life to get any writing done at all. So, the answer to this month's IWSG question, "How do you find the time to write in your busy day?" would be, "I don't." My writing was going well back in the winter/spring time of the year, but it's practically nonexistent these days. I'm figuring out why I can't finish the projects I start and I have figured out some good, likely reasons.

I have the tendency to not plot out my stories. I realized this is probably a reason why I get stuck and find I can't finish a story that is relatively long (novel-length). Also, I remembered that I did finish a 30,000-word novella a few years ago and DID plot it out, so that could be proof that plotting from now on will help a lot.

I tend to drop stories with characters that end up not being interesting to me after I've spent some time with them, or even time away from them. Similarly, I get bored with stories that are too run-of-the-mill and lack originality. So, I know I have to reuse old characters from stories I have dropped in the past that I still like to this day, and create some stories that feel a bit unique, if possible (doing this on purpose is hard, actually). I'm getting so finicky in my old age!

My villain characters tend to lack good, believable motivation and the why behind their actions. It's just one of those things I find I'm weak on as a writer and storyteller. That alone has derailed me a couple of times--no joke! So, I know I have to be clear on that while planning out a story.

I've also come to realize that I'm not inclined to figure out my story's theme before I write it out, which I believe does the most damage and makes it hardest for me to finish a draft. I was reading a nonfiction book on how to translate marketing strategies into storytelling elements and one thing the author mentioned was how theme should be figured out in advance of writing and that how each scene should be striving to imbue the theme. I'd never even thought much before about theme, so this I feel is helping me with my planning to gain some real confidence before heading into a draft.

Another book I found helpful is Write Your Novel From the Middle by James Scott Bell, which is a very interesting concept and one closely related to theme. You find your main character's "mirror moment," or the moment that usually happens around the middle of the story when your main character sees himself/herself for who he/she is or will decide who to become because of this moment. Then, you write the story from there, coming to it and then extending out from it. It's an intriguing idea that helps plotters and pantsers alike. It's also great that it's a pretty short and to-the-point book and can be read very quickly.

I've been reworking an old idea for a Young Adult vampire novel I was writing two years ago, but dropped and, while not actually writing it yet, I've been helped a lot by these writing help books and by being a much stricter plotter. I'm, at this moment, reading a book that has nothing to do with writing but finding so interesting, which is all about the science of persuasion. It's pretty amazing, but the best way to put it to use is through marketing. I am, however, trying to see how these persuasion techniques could be translated into storytelling itself. How else are the great books persuading people to love them so much? Must be some persuasion psychology going on there that we don't understand.

In case anyone is interested, the book is called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, PhD. One idea that struck me was the idea that being likable helps in being persuasive, and there a some ways to be likable, but one way is to be similar to others. People will usually like what is not just familiar, but what is similar to themselves, including paying more attention to someone with their same name. I figure it couldn't hurt to write a protagonist who can be viewed as likable, right? So, I researched the most popular names given to baby girls born between the years 1990 to 2010, according to the U.S. government--the ages of my future readership! Some of the most popular first names were Emily, Samantha and Hannah, among many others.

I decided to name my protagonist Emily because it is ranked very high for those twenty years in the hopes that a lot of women named Emily will read my book and like my protagonist more because they have the same name! It can't hurt to try. How many times have you read a novel and found you and the protagonist shared the same name? I know it's never happened to me and my name is not uncommon with women my age and older. Also, I notice most YA protagonists (perhaps this doesn't apply to other genres) tend to be named fanciful, rare, unique names that most people don't actually have in real life, perhaps making them harder to relate to. I'll see if my Emily character is easier to like and relate to now that roughly 500,000 young women in the country could see their own name in my book.

Anyway, this is getting too long of a post, and I'm probably making up for all the posts I didn't write that I should have written recently, but I am alive and still trying to figure out all this writing stuff. It's crazy how complex this all is. Yet, I still plug away. I feel like quitting sometimes, but not really because I'm old enough to know there's nothing else I would rather be doing, even if this thing I supposedly love makes me want to tear all my hair out.

How are you lot? Hope writing is treating you better than it's treating me. We're separated for now, but hoping to get back together again, soon. You know how it is--that love-hate relationship....