And Then I Went All Darth Vader

I've  been working on my first round of revisions for my NaNo novel. You know, the really broad strokes of plot and character arcs and all that fun stuff. Filling in the holes that are large enough to lose a rather large dragon in. I've been reading through the rough draft in hard copy so I can make notes and comments to myself and it has been absolutely hilarious. I frequently find myself laughing out loud at my ludicrous sentences that must have been written when I had no sleep (oh NaNo you bring so much sleep writing). One of my favorite comments to write is: Really?! As I ask myself what on earth I could have been thinking.

And I've been figuring out how to fix minor problems like:

• Characters showing up for one chapter and then vanishing as though they never existed.
• Someone dying and then three chapters later the main character having a conversation with them. (and there are no ghosts) (or zombies)
• Contradicting myself in the same paragraph.
• Ridiculously long passages of exposition that I lamely explain away.
• Secondary characters that show up so infrequently you forget their name, but the main character keeps saying she knows them really well.

You know. Nothing major.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

But I am actually loving it. This is really the first manuscript I have been so excited about and so sure that I can make it into something great with a lot of work.

And I've been doing a LOT of thinking trying to figure out the motivation of the two main characters - what drives them and what arc is going to carry them through the story - what their purpose is.

So yesterday when I was at work I was on the register (which isn't my favorite thing ever, but it is what it is) and it was slow, so I was thinking hard on why Devvon behaves the way he does. And suddenly it hit me.

He has a sister that I didn't know about and she is super important to everything that he does (yes, I am being really vague).

But what happened (and I am not joking) was that I got what had to be this really creepy smile on my face and I said softly (and aloud because I was so amazed and I am that much of a dork)

Sister... You have a sister.

And then I started laughing at myself because it sounded so Darth Vader-y and I was super glad that no customers or co-workers were around.

But it made me very happy to figure out such a major plot point!

Don't you love when our characters start to take on a life of their own? Have any of yours revealed anything shocking or surprising lately?

To Write is Human, to Revise Divine

It seems like almost everyone says they could write a novel if they wanted to. Some of those actually do take a stab at writing something. Some of those actually finish a rough draft. But only a handful of those will take the time and effort to polish and revise and rework that draft into something better.

I feel like I am perpetually in the camp of people that have a rough product, but aren't really sure how to get it from word vomit to coherent story.

From Finding Wonderland

So I do what any good writer would do and troll the interwebs for hints, suggestions, and cute animal pictures.
(by the by, that website where I found that hilarious cartoon has a ton more - they do a "Toon Thursday" and I was laughing pretty hard. See? Troll the interwebs, my friends, troll around)

This last week I stumbled across two very different and very visual means of plotting or organizing your book.  The WIP I'm struggling with started as a NaNo novel that I wrote while attending grad school and teaching, so it's very much (very, very much) word vomit. It was the pantsiest (pantserest?) I've ever written. The characters are coming together, the basic plot is kind of in place, but I'm not really sure how to get where I need to go. So even though I have some raw material, it's kind of like I'm starting from scratch and I have been trying to figure out ways to make this work. I found both of these super helpful, and they also reminded me of a third idea that someone posted a while ago.

The first one comes from a post by Jamie Harrington over at Totally the Bomb. The post is from last year, but someone (I totally forget who) linked to it and I thought it was hilarious and brilliant and I had to share.

She uses a "storysaurus" to plot her books. Click on the link above to see a picture of it. It's basically a way to easily and loosely plot the ARC of your story. The nice thing about it is that, even if you are a pantser, it's flexible enough and versatile enough that you can add spikes, remove spikes, rearrange spikes, without much trouble. Plus it's WAY more fun than a bullet point outline.

The second one is from the ever helpful QueryTracker website. Suzette Saxton posted on this tip that she had come across elsewhere. It's basically a tic tac toe board for your novel, with nine important sections and how they intersect and interact. You can click on the link above to take a look at them.

I love both of these because they are so visual and so loose. I feel like it would be so easy to rearrange, rework, redo anything you put on these. A traditional outline can feel very constraining at times (at least to me).

The last one is actually based on the book Save the Cat which I NEED to read, but haven't had a chance to get to yet. Anyhoodles, Elizabeth over at Liz Writes Books shared this beat sheet that she created to help her plot out the "beats" of the novel. I've played around with this a bit and have found it incredibly helpful in getting my thoughts in order. It's also very visual, plus it's Excel, which I kind of love playing around with (yes I am a geek). The link there will take you to her post.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

How about you? Do you have any tricks you use for organizing, plotting, or revising your novels? Any helpful (or hilarious) sites you've come across when trolling for help?