by Charlene Teglia | Aug 27, 2008 | Uncategorized
Ever wonder how to hit a target length?
First you need to know what it is. For my St. Martin’s books, my contract says approx. 90,000 words, which translates to 360 manuscript pages. For an EC novella, the formatting is specified by the company template and doesn’t match the traditional 250 words per page for standard formatting, so I use computer word count. Find out what measure your editor/publisher goes by; computer word count or manuscript page? (They are not interchangeable.)
Now you have your target. Divide by three to get how many pages/words you can allot to the first, second and third acts. This will keep pacing on track.
Decide how many chapters your novella or novel will contain and the average number of pages in each to hit your target. Divide these by three. If you’re writing a 6 chapter novella, 2 chapters per act. If you’re writing a 30 chapter novel, 10 chapters per act. And so on.
Now look at the amount of stuff to fit into the space allowed. If you’re writing a novella and you have a cast like the movie 300, you have a problem. Cut back and simplify. The only characters you really need are protagonist, antagonist and ally. You can have additional supporting cast, but they shouldn’t have much time on-stage. The shorter the story, the tighter the focus on main character and central plot.
If you’re writing a novel and those plotting boards make your head explode, make a scene list of key events that must happen in the course of the story. By chronology they will fall into act one, act two, or act three. (Or call them beginning, middle and end if you like that better.) You don’t need to specify that scene X happens on page 7 of chapter 10, but you should have a rough idea of what happens in what order. (Yes, you can decide that scene X isn’t essential and cut it to give more space to other scenes as you go along. Or decide that two scenes you hadn’t even realized you needed have to fit in somewhere. It’s a guide, not a strait-jacket.)
You can do a scene list for each plot in chronological order. I currently have a romance plot, an erotic plot, and a paranormal plot. I have a scene list for each plot line. All of them have to be set up in act one, advanced in act two, and wrapped up in act three. You can whip out your color coded pens and note paper or whatever makes you happy to organize your multiple plot scenes, but I find a simple page with each plot and its list works fine and makes a handy reference.
All of this can be done at the synopsis stage, or early in act one, before you get very far. So that you don’t write 100 pages and realize you’re going to be way off on length with a lot of work to do to fix the problem. Again, it’s a guide, not a strait-jacket, but it helps to define the story specs and plan accordingly.
Does this work even for people who aren’t plotters? Yes. You can make your scene list for each act as you write. “But I don’t know what to list!” You know more than you think. Is it a romance? Then boy has to meet girl. (Or Eventual Loving Partners of unspecified number, gender and species. The principle still applies.) Sparks must fly. Attraction must deepen. Trust and commitment must develop. Final crisis as they surrender to the inevitable. “I love you.” “I love you!” Happy ending must happen. (They don’t have to say the words, but it has to be evident that commitment is there for the ending to satisfy.) That is a very general romance arc and if you don’t know where else to start, plug that into your scene list. Then you can deal with how boy meets girl, and so on, making this general list of plot points specific to your characters and your story.
So for the non-plotter, you can still know you have so many pages/so many chapters to devote to introducing characters, world, and conflict(s), how many to devote to building conflict(s) towards inevitable crisis and character arc(s) towards inevitable change, and how many to use for final conflict(s) and resolution(s). And roughly where your romance plot points fall in terms of beginning, middle, and end. Do the same for any other plot lines.
Ta Da. If you still run long, you can go back and tighten. Or if you run short, you can flesh out, build up, and give more impact to key scenes. But you’ll be close.
by Charlene Teglia | Aug 27, 2008 | Uncategorized
I started re-reading The Artist’s Way last night. If you’ve never read this book, I highly recommend it. It’s good for all kinds of creative efforts besides writing. Julia Cameron is just like vitamins. Periodic doses required for creative good health.
I’ve been so, so, so tired lately. Despite trying to sleep enough, get exercise, eat right, etc., the feeling persisted. Knowing I needed to write made me feel even more exhausted. So I turned to The Artist’s Way, read a chapter, did an exercise, wrote 10 pages and felt myself perking up like a flower that got a cool spray of water on a hot day.
This program is full of reminders about what’s important in the care and feeding of the creative being. Things that tend to get shoved down at the bottom of the To Do list, like FUN. Like rewards. When your play becomes your work, it becomes even more important to keep the fun alive. Let’s face it, many aspects of the job are not so fun. Paperwork, for starters. (Yes, I’ve let mine pile up again.) Edits. Trying to come up with another promo idea. So play and fun becomes serious business when it’s time to shift gears and write the next book, knowing it too will lead to paperwork, edits and promo. The unconscious brain is not stupid and it knows that stuff is coming. The writing must be lured along with promises of fun.
After my injection of creative vitamins, not only is the book exploding in my head, but I even thought of a cool promo tie-in that actually sounds fun to me. Yes, really.
by Charlene Teglia | Aug 25, 2008 | Uncategorized
I think I spent the last 3 months doing doctor appointments, school preparation, learning about how to help our kid, and dealing with a huge shift in understanding what we can and can’t expect. It’s been a Big Deal. Family stuff has been center stage, all summer. And it needed to be.
Edits and copyedits have been done, along with proposals and planning/plotting/researching future books, and promoting the two summer releases while getting the next book underway. There was vacation time, which I needed in a big way. There was “oh crap all this equipment is dying, replace it, fast” time. Changing anything that impacts the workflow takes adjustment time. Although not nearly as much of an interruption as having the laptop die in the middle of a book right before a deadline, so I’m not whining.
Still, I look back from the point when I sent in Animal Attraction and it seems like a blur and I wonder where the time went. Well, life happened, that’s where it went.
Life is now settled into its new shape, though, and I have a new schedule, and I think it’s going to work well for everybody.
Hope everybody has enjoyed summer and is as ready for fall as I am.
by Charlene Teglia | Aug 25, 2008 | Uncategorized
And the winner of Satisfaction Guaranteed is Erin! Congrats, Erin, and please email me with your snail mail addy so I can send out your book.
by Charlene Teglia | Aug 23, 2008 | Uncategorized
1. Shopping for school supplies at Walmart on the first Saturday of the school year is some inner circle of hell. Shop early if you can.
2. We acquired supplies for both kindergartener and preschooler. Preschooler will do preschool activities while kindergartener does school lessons. All preschool stuff goes in a box that comes out at school time.
3. Many school lessons/activities, both can do. And there are plenty of ways to do family educational activities, from visiting the zoo to a trip to the library.
4. Tangle toys were recommended as learning aids. Kids play with toy while listening to instruction, which lets them engage both hemispheres of the brain, and learn better. Very good for ADD type kids; fidget therapy! We found them at a toy store, but they’re also available online.
5. Tangle toys are good for grownups, too, to lower stress and increase creativity. We got one for everybody. At $3-$5 apiece, it’s cheap therapy. And after Walmart’s back to school crush, you’ll need therapy.
6. For helping preschool to early elementary kids learn social skills, music therapy is great. There are also other general teaching CDs, and we’re so impressed with the first CD, we’ll probably get more.
7. For kids who have trouble falling asleep and thus start off the day on the wrong foot, the Baby Go To Sleep CD is priceless. We’ve gone through three of them. The music is based on the human heartbeat, and as the CD progresses, the heartbeat slows down. And. You. Fall. Asleep…
8. Motivation for small people to leave the lights off and stay in bed; a constellation of glow in the dark stick-on stars.
9. Small kids’ attention brain chemicals hit a low state in the afternoon. Physical activity is the cure. Balls, jump ropes, sidewalk chalk, you can outfit your backyard with after school supplies at the dollar store.
10. No matter how the day has gone, ending it by reading together lowers everybody’s stress and helps kids transition from busy time to sleepy time. If you can’t read out loud for whatever reason, Audible sells some wonderful collections of Dr. Seuss. If you want a serial story they listen to in nightly installments, The Cinnamon Bear is a holiday classic I loved as a kid.
Got any back to school tips I missed? Share in comments by Monday evening and I’ll put your name in the drawing for a signed copy of Satisfaction Guaranteed.
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