With writing for children the specific target audience within the children’s arena must be defined in advance. Is the book meant to be a beginning reader book, is it for children who don’t read yet, or is the book targeted for the early middle reader or advanced middle reader? Each one of those categories within children’s books is very specific as to the requirements. The age range for the target can be as limited as one year. For example, a book can be written for the second grade reader. The target audience determines the range of unique words which should be used, the number of syllables of those words on average, as well as the total word count range.

With books aimed at adults, there is a little more lattitude as to target audience. Genres can be combined or crossed and there is more flexibility for experimentation with plot development, point of view, and tense. Since books for children are necessarily written for developing readers, the rules must be closely adhered to in order not to lose or overwhelm your readers.

So how do you know what the rules are? The internet is a vast repository of information and a few searches will provide an overwhelming amount of detail to read through and digest. One good resource which I have found is Suite101.com under the writing and publishing section. You will find articles for all types of writing which can be used by the novice and experienced writer alike. In particular, there is a series of articles written by Jennifer Jensen which cover the basic rules for the different levels of writing for children and have links to more specific information about those categories, so this is a very good place to start.

Once you have digested the rules for the target audience you are writing for, the next step is to study other books in the target group. By analyzing what works and what doesn’t in the books which have been written for your target audience, you will gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t in your own work. This actually applies to writing in general and not just writing for children. Find a hundred books (or more) written for your target audience and read them. Use of the public library helps offset out of pocket expense for this phase. Then choose the top ten out of those you have read to conduct an in depth analysis of the contents.

In order to thoroughly analyze the books you have selected as being the best in the category, you will need your own copy of these books, either in hard copy or digital format. My own personal preference is to have something in digital format so I can more readily conduct word count or phrase count analysis without having to resort to a manual bean counting method. I also don’t like to mark up hard copy books, but have no such qualms about highlighting, bolding, or adding notes to a digital copy. Determine in advance what writing techniques you will be looking for, so the same criteria applies for all books you are studying. Some of the things to keep in mind are:

• Good opening lines
• Good usage of telling and not showing
• Usage of metaphors and similies – which worked and which didn’t
• Realistic dialogue
• Verb usage – active vs. passive
• What senses are used in the book?
• How is the plot constructed?
• How do the characters develop throughout the book?

When you run across a passage which you feel is awkward or could be written better, take a few moments and rewrite it. This will help to solidfy in your own mind what didn’t work and why. In addition to this, for picture books, retype the words for the picture books and read through story without the pictures. Does the story flow? Is it easily understood? These are but a few ideas to help focus your thoughts and ultimately improve your own work. Writing for children can be very rewarding as you watch the delight in the face of your readers as they turn the pages, but it also can be very hard to get just right.

Written for the LL Book Review

For me, it breaks down as follows:

Phase I
Repetitive word editing, or as I like to call it, getting the wuzziness out. I happen to be a very wuzzy writer (meaning I use the word was as if it were going out of style), and it simply won’t do for a finished product. I generally find all of the highly used repetitive words and attack some of them based on those which I feel I may have overused. I have an article discussing my method and how I work through the identification of the repetitive words. During this phase, I don’t necessarily edit for content, continuity, pace, or any other type of editing, I try to keep my focus on eliminating as many of the repetitive words and passive verb forms as possible. As a result, I do end up editing a little for content, continuity, pace and all the rest, as a side benefit to attacking those pesky words that don’t belong.

Phase II
Editing for Pace or Flow – This is the phase where I go through the entire manuscript at least once (and more likely five to six times) reading it out loud and marking text where I have a tendency to stumble, or something doesn’t look right, sound right, or in any way shape or form bothers me in some way. Hearing the words points out a whole new aspect of the manuscript itself and sometimes you can hear what doesn’t work better than you can see it. During any read through, any time I stumble on the phrasing, the passage gets marked for closer attention. If it doesn’t flow off my tongue, then it may not flow on the page. Of course, it could be that my tongue just isn’t cooperating on the day in question, or I’m tired, or several other reasons. All I’m doing is marking the passage for further review.

So, you guessed it, Phase II B is reviewing all of the passages marked during the reading session and making a determination as to whether the wording on the page is right and gets to stay or whether it is ripped out, reworked and put back in.

Repeat until satisfied, or so sick of the manuscript you’ll scream if you have to read it out loud just one more time. It is pertinent to note in this phase that I used to die a thousand deaths when trying to read my own work out loud. Now, I have improved to the point that I only die three to four hundred deaths during the verbalization of the manuscript. I don’t embarrass easily, this just happens to be one of my buttons.

Phase III
This is one which sometimes doesn’t get to happen, because you are dependent upon the mercies of your friends. It is still editing for pace or flow, but you have someone else read the work out loud and mark down anything which doesn’t flow well as someone who has not read the manuscript before reads it. The important part here is someone who has not read the manuscript before (I thought it bore repeating). Since the words are fresh to them, and they don’t know the plot and characters like they’re wearing them, it is important for you to hear how the words flow as someone else is going through the reading out loud process. Trust me, my mind is way ahead of me when I’m doing the reading process, and it fixes phrases before my tongue gets to them because I know the work intimately.

Once you have completed the read through, then follow Phase II B process. By the way, this read through will generally only happen once because if you have been lucky enough to find a victim, I mean, volunteer willing to assist you with this aspect of the editing process, they probably won’t want to read through the manuscript more than once. Plus, you lose that never seen before aspect, which is invaluable for this phase.

Phase IV
Final Read through – This is editing for content, continuity, pace, flow, and anything else you can think of. I use the term Final loosely, as it generally takes me around three final read throughs before I am satisfied.

Then I go through the manuscript one last time to make sure I have removed all of the editing marks and comments that tend to creep in while I am going through the editing process. Once complete, it is ready to be sent to other parties to read and rip apart. This could be a professional editor, a former teacher/librarian, or again throwing yourself on the mercies of your friends.

Then, the reality starts to set in. The creative process is finished, but the race is not yet run. Looming in your future is the arduous task of editing your masterpiece or as I call it at this point, my monstrosity. Where do you start? What can you look for?

With my own writing, during the creative process, I try to write without editing what is going down on the page. The resulting manuscript requires some serious editing. I like to start with tightening up the writing. What are some areas that you can attack to help tighten up your work? One major area that tends to afflict most writers is the use of repetitive words.

If you are writing a beginning reader book, repetitive words are good, and part of your focus would be on controlling the total number of unique words as well as the length, complexity, and number of syllables. Other than the beginning reader books, you want to make sure that you don’t overuse certain words. During the writing of Nowhere Feels Like Home, the sequel to Misfit McCabe, in the first draft manuscript, I used the word that 1,096 times. Common words like that are easy to over-utilize.

How do you identify the repetitive words in your manuscript? Before computers, it was a much harder process, because it was up to you to find all the instances and recognize in printed pages where you had overused words. Now though, there are programs that help you analyze your writing for word or phrase frequency. But, rather than spend some money on software that needs to be installed on the computer, I found websites that allows you to paste your manuscript into a box and click a button for no cost. The results then display and you have a list to review. One such free word frequency counters is on the Write Words website. They also have a frequent phrase tool to help identify overused phrases.

So, once the repetitive words and phrases have been identified, what do you do to reduce the number? The word program that I use has a find feature, as most do, and I search for the oft repeated words, using a find all function and highlight them for easy identification. It certainly beats the hunt and peck method. I highlight each overused word or phrase in a different color, and then I go to work. My manuscript now looks like someone has either thrown ink all over it, or melted confetti into each page. I now have my focus points to go through the manuscript and review each usage of the word or phrase.

One other common type of over usage is passive verbs such as was. It is always a good idea to look at sentences using the word was to see whether or not you can use a more active verb. Remember, your reader will become more involved in your story the more action words you use. If you are writing in first person, the number of instances of the word I will be high. This may or may not be an area to target. You will want to focus on the number of sentences which start with the word I, or if writing in third person, watch the number of sentences starting with he or she.

Here are some examples from the beginning of Nowhere Feels Like Home to illustrate how focusing on repetitive words in your manuscript can help force you to tighten up your work and make it cleaner. The following is the before passage:

Muffled voices fluttered in and out of my consciousness. It was like I was underwater and could hear words when my head broke free, but then I would sink back under and hear nothing again. The river was swelling and I couldn’t find the edge. I had to get to the side and get out or I would drown. Panic began to fill me. But someone was near. I could hear someone talking. The sounds kept buzzing around my head like a bee, but I couldn’t make out the words. Why didn’t they help me?
Suddenly, I was out of the water and ants crawled over my foot and up my leg. I kicked my foot out to try and shake the ants off. Something was holding my leg down, so I kicked out harder. My heart was pounding because I couldn’t get away from the army of ants that was crawling all over me.
Mamma stroked my hair. “You need to lay still, Katie.” With her touch, the tension trickled out of me and my heart slowed down. The sound of her voice soothed me and the world went silent once more.
“How is she doing?” At the sound of my Daddy’s voice, I struggled to open my eyes. My lids were so heavy I could only open them for a flash. It felt like they were swollen shut. Daddy stood by the bed, watching over me.
The ants were back, only this time they were biting. My foot felt like it was on fire and it started to throb. The bites must be poisonous because the pain was becoming unbearable. Why didn’t Daddy do something? Why was he letting the ants swarm all over me and bite me?
“The ants!” My voice only came out in a whisper. “Daddy, make them stop.” My mouth was so dry it felt like I had eaten a plateful of sand.

In the above passage, you can see there were quite of few instances of the word was, a few its, and one that. I started using the word that much more prominently in the remainder of the manuscript, so it is a target repetitive word to focus on, although only a single instance in this passage. Notice how I highlighted every single instance of the target words to help give me a visual of the areas that I wanted to focus on. The word was is simply too passive to be used this frequently, and is a common word to focus the editing process on. I have reduced the number of highlighted words by rewriting the passage in a more active voice, let’s take a look at the results.

Muffled voices fluttered in and out of my consciousness. I had the feeling of being underwater and could hear words when my head broke free, but then I sank back under and heard nothing again. Thoughts of being underwater swirled around until I found myself in the middle of a river. The river swelled as the current flowed rapidly past and I couldn’t find the edge. I had to get to the side and get out or I would drown. Panic began to fill me. Nearby, I could still hear talking. The sounds kept buzzing around my head like a bee. I couldn’t make out the words. Why didn’t they help me?
Suddenly out of the water, ants crawled over my foot and up my leg. I kicked my foot out to shake the ants off. Something held my leg down. An edge of panic crept into my throat, so I kicked out harder to get loose. My heart pounded because I couldn’t get away from the army of ants crawling all over me.
Mamma stroked my hair. “You need to lay still, Katie.” With her touch, the tension flowed out of me and my heart slowed down. Her voice soothed me and the world went silent once more.
“How is she doing?” At the sound of my Daddy’s voice, I struggled to open my eyes. My lids were so heavy I could only open them for a flash. They felt swollen shut. Daddy stood by the bed, watching over me.
The ants were back, only this time they were biting. My foot felt on fire and started to throb. The bites must be poisonous because the pain was becoming unbearable. Why didn’t Daddy do something? Why did he let the ants swarm all over me and bite me?
“The ants!” My voice only came out in a whisper. “Daddy, make them stop.” Mouth so dry I felt like I had eaten a plateful of sand, I tried to swallow, but felt like I couldn’t.

You will notice that all of the instances of the word it are gone, and so is the that, and there is only one instance of the word was. Read both passages. Which one is better? The passage is still conveying the same exact scene, but one tells you what Katie is experiencing, and the other allows you to experience the sensations right along side of Katie.

Am I done with editing this passage? Absolutely not. There are things even now briefly re-reading that are jumping off the page, such as, “Why did he let the ants swarm all over me and bite me?” Is the word me repetitious in this context? Can I change the sentence to make it better? The answer to both of those questions is probably yes. Will I leave the lone was alone and let the sentence stand as is? Probably not. I definitely want to rewrite that sentence as well, but haven’t figured out how I want to rephrase it yet.

Now that you have a couple of items to focus on in the editing process, it’s time to get your environment ready, block out the rest of the world, and dive in and start ripping apart your manuscript.

The same type of counting game applies to the world of non-journalistic writing, because the word count determines whether the work is considered a short story, novella, or novel. A novel is generally a length of writing of 50,000 words or more. Less than 50,000 is considered a novella, and under 30,000 a short story. Now, if I were writing adult fiction, I could make the length as long as I needed it to be and not have to be concerned with word count, within reason. But, since I write for the young adult market, I have to watch the length of my novels to make sure they don’t get too long. One thing that I never have to worry about is whether or not I will make it to the 50,000 word mark. I always have to cut my length.

To give you an idea – Misfit McCabe is 66,900 words in length, and that was after I hacked some stuff out of it and trimmed the scope. In general, young adult novels run 40,000-75,000 words, the younger the target audience the fewer the words. Since my target audience for Misfit McCabe is really older tweens to young, young adults, 66,900 is on the long side, but I needed that many words to tell the story. And the story is far more important than the number of words on the page.

The important thing is not to get hung up on how many words you are writing, while you are in the writing mode. Even though you have a goal for the number of words that you expect your story to be, and one way to objectively measure writing is by the number of words, the best advice I can give you is that when you are writing a story, use the number of words that it takes to tell it. Or to put it another way, tell your story and forget about things like word counts. After you finish getting everything down is when you get to play around with trimming unnecessary bits out, or adding things in to flesh it out. There are general rules as to length, but the best length is the one that gives the story you wanted to tell.

For me, it’s kind of fun to take a look back at the number of words I have written when I come to the end of a writing session. But that’s all I use it for. There have been days when it has taken me longer to write 10 words than to write 500, because those 10 were crucial to me and I needed to work through them. How long is 500 words? By the question mark of that last sentence, I had put 527 words down in this article. If you notice that checking the number of words that you have written during a writing session is starting to cause you some anxiety, then don’t count them. The simple count of words has nothing to do with the measure of your success as a writer, so don’t let the sheer number dictate whether or not you feel a sense of accomplishment.

I remember being impressed as a young teen by a movie on the life of George Sand, whose real name was Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, and she later became the Baroness Dudevant. To this day, the thing I remember the most was that she was so disciplined in her writing that she wrote 30 pages a day. The sheer volume of that number began to haunt me because I felt like I could never measure up to writing that amount in one sitting. Plus, she was doing it with pen in hand and not on a keyboard. I then came to realize that I didn’t have to keep up with George Sand, that each writer has their own method of writing and it wasn’t a competition.

November is the month for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) competition. This competition centers around writing by volume. The goal? To write a minimum of 50,000 words during the 30 day month. That averages out to be 1,667 words a day. The expectation? That a lot of garbage will be written during those 50,000 or more words. The purpose is to get people writing and forces the writer to write without editing. If you attempt to write and edit while you are writing, you are almost guaranteed Not to reach the 50,000 mark during the month. This helps you when you are not participating in the competition because it trains you to write while the creative juices are flowing. Once you have captured the words on the page, you can always go back and edit them.

How do I count the number of words? It’s simple – I don’t. I use Microsoft Word for my writing and from the Tools menu is a word count function, so I simply highlight the section I want to count and use the count function and it tells me. It also gives the detail of how many characters with and without spaces. Just remember, word counts only become important after you’ve done the creative work of the actual story writing itself. And they are only important to help classify what you have written, so you know what category to submit the work under. (973 words)

• The things they do.
• The things they say.
• The things they think.
• They way they look.
• Gestures they use.
• Their reactions to other characters.

If you only use a couple of the above methods to help bring your character to life, you are missing a chance to make them as complex and individual as real people, and as a consequence your reader will not care about the character as much. Let’s take a closer look at each of these 6 elements which help reveal the characters to the reader.

The Things They Do

A character reveals themself by the things that they do. The expression “actions speak louder than words” is especially true for character development. Your character can say one thing, but then act in a completely contradictory manner, just as people do in real life. Let’s see what Harvey reveals about himself in this excerpt from Misfit McCabe. Katie and Harvey have just arrived at the malt shop.

Harvey was standing right behind me.
“What do you want to eat or drink?”
“Nothing, thanks. I don’t have any money with me.” I felt somewhat self-conscious by having to say that, but I didn’t want him to ask why. That would have been worse.
“I already fixed it with Max, so go ahead and order what you want.”
“Thanks, Harvey.” Maybe he did have a good side to him. I was a little surprised by it though.

So Harvey has given Katie the impression that he would pay, and that she could order anything she wanted. But then later, when Katie was getting ready to leave with Tom because Harvey had already left:

When we got to the door, a plate banged on the counter. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
My head whipped around. Max was leaning forward, his fists bunched on the countertop. He didn’t look very happy either. “You can’t leave until you pay for the hamburger, fries, and malt.”
“Pay for it?” Tom had already paid for his, so this must be Harvey’s petty little way of getting back at me for having hit him. “Harvey told me he would take care of it for me.” I didn’t even have a hamburger and fries. He must have stuck me for both his and my bill.
Max frowned. “He told me when you walked through the door that you would be paying the bill.”
That little snake.

While this is a relatively minor incident in the course of the story, it reveals a lot about Harvey’s personality and character. While all 6 of the elements are necessary to create a fully developed character, emphasis on the actions of the character as a first priority will help make the character real to the reader. By putting the focus on the actions of the character, you are showing the reader who your character is rather than telling the reader, which is the goal of good characterization.

The Things They Say

In your classroom, in a restaurant, in a grocery store, and everywhere else you go, listen to the conversations around you. By listening to actual conversations, you will learn that no two people talk exactly alike. Each person has a distinct speech pattern that is all their own. What our characters say and how they say it reveal some of the qualities of their character, and can even reveal attitudes and current mood. Something as simple as expressing that the character is thirsty can be done in several different ways. Here are a few examples:

“It’s hot today. Would you mind if we stopped to get something to drink?”

“Oooweee! I’m hotter’n bacon in a fryin’ pan. I need a drink.”

“I’m sweatin’ like a pig here, are we gonna stop for a drink, or what?”

“Do you think I’m part camel? If I don’t get a drink soon, I’ll shrivel up.”

Spend some time developing your character’s speech pattern. Think up different situations and figure out how your character would say certain things in that situation. It is important to be able to distinguish each character by the way that they speak to make them distinct. Use speech patterns, conversational style and diction (the accent, inflection, intonation, and speech-sound quality manifested by an individual speaker) to separate your characters.

The Things They Think

Thoughts enable the writer to further individualize their characters as long as the thoughts allow the character’s attitude to come through rather than just summarizing situations. For example, in Misfit McCabe, when Katie first meets Harvey Junior, her thoughts reveal that she doesn’t like Harvey from the start.

He smoothed back his hair, which had fallen into his eyes again, before answering. “I thought I’d take you to see my old man first. He owns the bank, and just about everything else in town.”
He sounded smug. I could tell he thought his father owning things made him important. Maybe he was, but to me he sounded like a weasel.

Just that one line where Katie thinks Harvey sounds like a weasel sets up the beginning of the conflict between them and leaves the reader with no doubt that she doesn’t like Harvey. A characters thoughts can also allow the reader a glimpse of the inner self of the character. By sharing the character’s most intimate thoughts, it brings the reader closer to the character and helps them care more about the character or dislike the character more when the character is unlikable.

I wanted to be by myself so no one could bother me. A rock lay in my path, and I kicked it as hard as I could. I wanted to go home and have things back the way they were. At
home I had friends, things to do, people who loved me. Here, I had nothing. I didn’t fit in.

In the above passage, Katie’s loneliness clearly comes through. She is not happy with where she is and is feeling isolated by her situation. A paragraph later we find out more about Katie’s state of mind.

I missed my Daddy. I missed the strength of his arms hugging me, comforting me. Why was this happening? I should have known he was sick, why didn’t I see it?

Part of her isolated feeling comes from blaming herself for not recognizing that her Daddy was sick. Without this scene, her reactions to Sarah and Uncle Charley would make her seem like a spoiled brat, but since the reader knows that she is acting out her pain, her actions become a little more understandable.

The Way They Look

The way your character looks should not be limited to the physical characteristics of the character. While it is important to describe the physical characteristics, you can reveal more about your character’s personality by describing appearance factors that they can control than simply the physical appearance. What is meant by looks that the character can control? How do they dress? What is their level of cleanliness? Do they habitually carry an object? Consider a character who’s eyesight requires correction. Do they wear contacts? If they wear glasses, are they wire-frame, thick frame, broken frames that are taped together? What does the choice say about your character?

Elizabeth Peters has a series featuring a character named Amelia Peabody who is an Egyptologist, and she carries a parasol everywhere. The parasol is used not only to provide shade, but in the case of Amelia, she uses it as a weapon as well. She started carrying one when they were fashionable, but as the fashion changed, the parasol had become indispensable to the character, and she continues to carry it despite fashion.

It is easy to fall into stereotypes when developing characters, such as the beautiful blonde, the tall, dark stranger, and so on. When characters fall into stereotypes, they tend to become caricatures (any imitation or copy so distorted or inferior as to be ludicrous) rather than real characters. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a blonde character who is beautiful, but you will want to establish some appearance issues outside of that stereotype to help make the character real to the reader.

Gestures They Use

Body language can be used to show character, mood, or attitudes. By describing the characters minor actions while speaking, the body language can add a different layer to the scene, or reinforce what is being said. Minor actions would be things like slouching while walking with hands in the pockets, staring into space, slumping down in a chair, smoothing the wrinkles out of clothing. Let’s take a couple of examples from Misfit McCabe of gestures to see how they convey meaning and add to the personality of the character.

Placing his hands on his hips, his blue eyes pierced straight into mine.

The above description comes from the beginning of the book when Katie’s dad asks her what she had to do with burning down the shed and Katie was trying to bluff her way around it. The hands on hips gesture shows that her Daddy was upset and not going to put up with any of Katie’s nonsense, even without having the accompanying dialogue.

“Stop right there and turn around and look at me.” There was a new demanding tone to her voice that irritated me even further. I stopped and kicked my foot against the ground. Who was she to be ordering me around anyway?

While the surrounding words tell the reader that Katie is irritated, the kick of the foot against the ground shows the reader Katie’s petulance, coming close to temper tantrum, which reveals that Katie has anger control issues.

One of the methods I use to assist in interspersing gestures throughout the story is to visualize every scene. What does the character look like when they are talking? Are they doing anything with their hands? Does their hair need to be brushed out of their face? When your character is deeply perturbed, do they rub their forehead between their eyes, or start cracking their knuckles? Once you can “see” everything, you can then add enough gestures to the dialogue and thoughts to help move the story along, but not so many that the pace of the story becomes bogged down with too much description. You want your reader to get the flavor of the emotions without becoming bored by the description.

Reactions to Other Characters
When someone says or does something and we react to it, we are revealing information about ourselves. It works the same way for our characters, by the way they react to a situation, they reveal more of their personality to the reader. In the below excerpt from Misfit McCabe, Katie is returning to the shop with Harvey and expecting that Harvey will tell Sarah that Katie punched him.

Sarah had her back to us as we entered the shop. “It’s about time you two. I’ll be with you in a minute.” When she turned around, the smile of greeting quickly faded from her face and her hand flew up to her mouth. “My goodness Harvey, what on earth happened to your face?”
Now I’d get it. Harvey pulled himself up as tall as he could make himself, kind of a losing battle I thought, and looked like he was going to try and bluster his way through the story of what happened. “Some guys down by the lake started picking on Katie, and I tried to stop them.”
What? I couldn’t believe my ears.
“There were three of them and they started by making rude remarks and then things got worse. One of them started stroking her hair, even though she told them to stop and tried to walk away. Then another of the guys caught her and forced her to hug him. She was struggling to get away, so I grabbed one of their arms and then they all got mad. One of them held me with my arms behind my back while the other two started to hit me.”
I just stared at Harvey. I think I was going into shock. “Katie started screaming, so they let go of me and ran off.” I still couldn’t believe it. I expected him to say right out that I hit him, and then sit back and watch me squirm.
“That’s awful.” Sarah took a closer look at his jaw. “Go on back to the office and let your mother take care of it. If she needs me to, I’ll stay until she’s had a chance to ice it to get the swelling down.”
“No, you go ahead. I’ll be all right.”
Sarah still looked pretty horrified with the damage that was done. She turned to me. “Katie, are you okay?” Sarah seemed to believe the story, unbelievable as it was. Maybe I was off the hook after all. “Did you get the names of the boys who did this?”
I started to shake my head when Harvey decided to stick the knife in and twist it. “I think it was Tom Pike and his buddies. I’m not sure because I don’t really know them that well, but I think it was them.”
My jaw dropped. What a filthy, rotten, lying, scumbag. No word I could think of was too bad for Harvey.
Sarah looked very concerned. “I know Tom, and that just doesn’t sound like something he’d do. He’s always seemed like a very nice, polite boy.”
Harvey tried to give her a world-wise expression, but the swelling caused his face to twist into a grimace. “You’d be surprised how much he has changed now that he’s on the varsity football squad. He thinks he can do anything he wants, just because he might be the starting quarterback this year.”
Sarah put her arm across my shoulders and gave me a quick squeeze. “I’m so sorry that something like this had to happen on your first day in town. Uncle Charley will be very upset, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t go and visit Tom’s parents.”
This was getting worse and worse. “No. I’m fine. Really.” I barely stammered the words out.
“Well, we’ll talk about it later. I can’t thank you enough Harvey for looking after Katie for us.”
I was at a complete and total loss of how to start fixing this whole mess. If I had called Harvey out on his lie right at the beginning, it would have been better, but I was speechless. I didn’t even know what to say. And then the little creep decided to throw Tom and his friends, who had been perfect gentlemen, unlike the slimy Harvey, into the mix and it felt like the whole thing was spiraling out of control. For once in my life, I wasn’t getting into trouble for something I had done wrong, but this was even worse.

Instead of telling Sarah that Katie punched him, Harvey lied. What was Katie’s initial reaction? Did she put the record straight immediately, or did she keep quiet in the hopes that she wouldn’t get into trouble? When Harvey saw that Katie was going to keep quiet and let the lie stand, his reaction was to extend the lie and blame Katie’s new friends. What does that say about Harvey’s character? To this continued lie, Katie had some choices, she could speak out and call Harvey a liar, or continue to keep quiet. Katie chose to continue to keep quiet, because she was still trying to figure out how to make the situation go away without getting herself into trouble. What does that say about Katie’s character?

So, before you can put a character on the page, you need to get to know the character; they need to be “alive” in your head. When writing Misfit McCabe, when I got to the part where Harvey entered the story, I started having some trouble writing. I didn’t have a good feel for who Harvey was, I just knew that I needed him as a character. It was like I could see him coming down the street, but didn’t know anything about him, and couldn’t see all of his features, he was just a figure in the distance. I spent a lot of time struggling to continue writing, but couldn’t get anywhere until I walked away and spent some time letting Harvey tell me who he was. Once I could “see” his hair hanging in his eyes, his shirt half untucked, and the beads of sweat across his upper lip, and could sense his underlying nastiness, I was able to return to the blank page and start writing again.

Once I was able to start writing about Harvey, more and more of his personality and character traits became apparent to me and his character started taking on a life of his own. In a sense, Harvey took the book in a direction that I had not contemplated at the outset, but it worked and made a much better book. To me, it is always exciting when the character starts to get away from me and starts doing their own thing rather than what I have pre-ordained because then I can rely on the characters in the story to tell me what the story is, and I become merely the chronicler of the events. It gets to be new to me, in the way that it would be for the reader.

If you are having trouble with a character, take some time thinking about the character and asking yourself simple questions that help define who the character is. What is their favorite food? Do they text message or call people? In a clothing store, pick out items that the character would wear and pick out items that they wouldn’t. Imagine a scene that is not a part of the story with the character in it, and watch how they react to the situation; how are they talking, what are they doing, what gestures do they use, what are they wearing, what are they thinking? Once you are able to do this and know your character better, return to your story and you will find that it will be easier to work with your character.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. This goes back to our discussions on conflict. Without conflict you don’t have a story. A story must drive forward to resolve the conflict or come to terms with it in some way.
2. The episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. This means that if a scene in your story is not essential and does not help tell the story in some way, then it needs to be deleted from the story.
3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. This is one of my favorites: don’t make your characters stick figures – make them as real and true to life as you can.
4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. If there is not a reason for a character to be in the story, then they don’t need to be there. Much like the scene of the story, if the character is not essential and does not help to develop the story in some way, then it should be eliminated.
5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. The main point here is realistic dialogue. Do not force your characters to say things that are uncharacteristic. Keep the conversation to the point of the story and don’t meander. Remember, if your reader gets bored with the dialogue, they will stop reading.
6. When the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. If you describe a character as being well-educated and slightly stiff with formality, then you can not have the character picking booger’s out of his nose during a formal dinner and saying things like “I don’t got none.” However you describe your character, their words and their actions must support your description.
7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. Be consistent with how your characters talk. Dialogue is one of the ways to distinguish your character, and it should be evident from the phrasing used as well as the words which character is speaking. Unless the character in question is trying to learn to speak in a different way, such as improving their grammar, or deliberately trying to sound like they belong on the street, then they shouldn’t change they way in which they speak throughout the course of the story.
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as “the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest,” by either the author or the people in the tale. Don’t allow your character to have more knowledge or ability than is humanly possible. For example, it is not possible, even for the expert woodsman, to be able to see a fly on the trunk of a tree at 300 yards.
9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. Whatever happens in your story, even if you are writing in the realm of fantasy, must be realistic based on the rules of the environment. For example, you may have invented a world where it is reasonable that pigs can fly, pigs being the intelligent ruling class, but where donkey’s are earthbound creatures. A donkey can not suddenly take flight because it happened upon some pixie dust.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. Make your characters interesting. A reader should feel emotion when bad things happen to the good people as well a being upset when it appears that the bad people will triumph. Make your characters become real for the reader.
11. The characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. Your characters should be so real to the reader, that they can imagine how the character would act outside the confines of the story.

In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

1. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. Be clear about the story you are trying to tell.
2. Use the right word, not its second cousin. There is always the right word for what you are trying to say to give the right flavor to the story. Find that word.
3. Eschew (to abstain or keep away from; shun; avoid) surplusage (an excess of words). Don’t use ten words, when one will do.
4. Not omit necessary details. Don’t leave out things that are necessary to the story.
5. Avoid slovenliness of form. Keep your writing clean and tight.
6. Use good grammar.
7. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

How do you guard against errors in continuity? A disciplined writer, which I am not, will make a list of all of the characters in the story and jot down all of the things used to describe those characters. Are they short or tall, eye color, hair color, freckles or not? Do they have a preference for a particular type of clothing? What kind of job do they have? Or if in school, what are their classes? If they are a smoker, what is the brand of cigarettes?

Character descriptions and habits are not the only areas where continuity errors can creep in. You also have to think about the setting of the story. If you created an intersection with a stop sign on one part of the story, it can’t be a stop light later on, unless within the context of the story it changes. It is probably the easiest for errors to crop up in the smaller, less significant parts of the story because as you are writing, you might put something down earlier on in the work, while toward the end, you change it because in the context of what you are now writing it makes more sense for it to be something different. Those are also the most difficult things to spot, so make sure you read and re-read your work looking for those types of changes.

Your aim is consistency. The little details all need to be consistent throughout your story or stories, and if there is a change, then it needs to be given significance within the storyline. To give you an example of how easy it is to make continuity errors, I just re-read Misfit McCabe as a part of the editing process to ensure that it flows seamlessly into Nowhere Feels Like Home, and as I reached the part where Katie falls and breaks her ankle, I realized that in Misfit McCabe she broke her left ankle and in Nowhere Feels Like Home, I put the cast on her right leg. So, one of the edits that I went back and made immediately was searching in Nowhere Feels Like Home to find every instance in which I referred to the right ankle being broken and changed it to the left. In my mind when visualizing Katie in a cast, I see it on the right leg, so I will have to change my mental picture. Fortunately, I caught this error during the editing process and was able to change it. And that is the reason editing for continuity is so important.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2009 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

There are four fundamentals which can help to increase interest in the opening paragraphs: character, conflict, specificity, and credibility.

Character

If you think about when you are reading a story, one of the first things you want is to be introduced to the protagonist so that you can start to get to know them. We don’t have to know everything about them in the first couple of sentences, but we want to get a flavor for who they are. Will they be someone that we like? Can we identify with what the character is feeling, thinking or doing?

How do we best introduce our character? Readers always like to know what a character looks like so that they can form a mental image. Do we need to fully describe the character’s looks on the first page or is it more important to start establishing their personality? If there is something important about the way a character looks that will enhance the first few paragraphs by including the description, then the answer is yes, you do need to describe that part of the character right away. Otherwise, it is probably better to build the description of your character a little at a time rather than all at once. A story which starts with a detailed description of a character drags, and your mind wants to race ahead to find out why we care about the character.

Misfit McCabe opens with a scene between two characters, Katie and Timmy. From the opening, there is a sense that Katie is the leader between the two who is always coming up with ideas that get the two of them into trouble. Timmy is trying to impress Katie by coming up with a twist to the original idea, to make it seem even more wicked. Plus, he is trying to show her that he can be as “bad” as she is. There is also the impression that as both Katie and Timmy are changing as they age, Katie is unsure about the person her life-long friend is turning into.

Conflict

Without conflict you don’t have a story, so you want to make sure that you at least hint at some conflict during the first page. This does not mean that you need to start the opening sentence with your character running for his life or hanging from a cliff. You will not be able to fully develop the conflict in the first few paragraphs either, so how do you handle conflict in the opening? Some conflicts may be overtly dramatic, such as opening with a character being stabbed through the heart, but others will be more subtle and can take place within the thoughts of a character.

     “You know I’ll swear it was all my idea.”
     “But, Katie, it was all your idea.” Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask. “Except for this.”
     “Are you getting sly on me, Timmy Lawrence?” He never tried anything without checking it out with me first. ” What’s in it?” Other than something to get us both into trouble.
     He shrugged one shoulder and leaned back against the side of the shed. ” Oh, nothing much. Just a little rum to go with the cokes I brought.” He cracked open a can and handed it to me. “Drink some out, so I can spice it up for you.”
     Swallowing as much as I could in a mouthful, I passed the can back to him. “What made you think of this?” A new Timmy was emerging, and I didn’t know exactly how to handle him.
     He grinned as he concentrated on pouring the rum into the coke. “I just figured that if we were going to start smoking, we might as well mark the occasion with a drink of celebration.” He doctored his drink and set the flask on the ground. “Anyway, you’re always saying that I never come up with my own ideas. So I did.”
     “I’ll say. And what an idea.” I could see the faint flush of pride on Tim’s cheeks.

In the above opening passage of Misfit McCabe, the conflict of Katie rebelling against her everything she has been taught is intimated by her experiment with smoking and drinking. By doing something she knows is wrong, she is trying to break away from the mold of who she is expected to be in order to find out who she really is. There is also the minor conflict hinted at surrounding her changing relationship with Timmy and that she is not sure how she feels about things changing. So, on the one hand, she wants things to change, and on the other she wants them to stay the same.

Specificity

The more specific the detail of the story, the more vividly you paint the picture for your reader. The easier it is for the reader to visualize, or empathize with the character, the more involved they become with the story. Use specifics rather than generalities in the characters speech, description of the setting, and the character’s thoughts. Let’s take a look at the difference using a specific term versus a more generic term makes in the way something reads.

Version 1 – “But, Katie, it was all your idea.” Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a bottle. “Except for this.”

Version 2 – “But, Katie, it was all your idea.” Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask. “Except for this.”

The word bottle and the word flask both mean a container which holds liquids, but the word bottle is much more generic than the word flask. A bottle could contain milk, water, or even Kool-aid. A flask contains alcohol. By using the word flask, we leave the reader no question as to what Timmy has brought with him. When polishing your opening page, examine each word to ensure that you have used the best, most specific word you can to draw the reader into your story.

Credibility

How do you make sure that your first page is credible? That may be the most difficult question to answer because what it means is that you have started your story well enough to allow the reader to trust you as an author. So how do you get the reader to trust that you can tell the story well?

• Make sure what you have written is tight. Don’t use ten words, when just a few will do. As authors, we tend to use more words when we are struggling to bring a scene to life than when we know where we are going with the story. When you are reviewing what you have written, go over each sentence and see whether or not you could “tighten” it up by reducing some of the words, or changing several general words to the use of one specific word.
• Use the word that comes closest to the image of what you are trying to convey. This goes back to specificity. Remember the example of the use of the word flask versus the word bottle and which one best conveyed the image to the reader.
• Your reader should not have to try and decipher what you mean. Work on making your meaning clear. Just because the meaning is clear to you doesn’t mean that it is clear to your potential reader. The best way to find out whether you have been successful is to have different people read the passage and if they have questions about what is going on, then you need to make some changes to clarify the meaning. Sometimes we really like the words that we have written and think that it says exactly what we want it to. The question that you then have to ask yourself is whether you are writing for your eyes only, or do you want more people to enjoy your story. If your answer is that you want more people to enjoy your story, then swallow your pride and rewrite the confusing passage so that it is understandable to the reader.
• Remember, your words should reveal your story and bring it to life. If you are trying to show the reader how clever you are as a writer, chances are the reader will sense that you are trying to show off and will then have a negative attitude about reading your work.

____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

So, what do I mean by narrative mode?  Narrative means a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious and mode is a manner of acting or doing; method; way.  So a narrative mode is simply the method or way in which we tell a story.  There are five methods to telling a fictitious story: dialogue (the conversation between characters in a novel, drama, etc.), description (a statement, picture in words, or account that describes), action (description in motion; an event or series of events), thoughts (the act or process of thinking; cogitation), and exposition (writing or speech primarily intended to convey information or to explain).

Usually, during the course of a novel, most, if not all five, of the methods listed above will be used.  Your characters will have dialogue, you’ll describe some of the scenery, there will be passages full of actions, you’ll take the reader into the thoughts of the character(s), and sometimes you will simply explain what is happening.  This will happen most of the time in a natural way.  So why is it important for us to be able to identify which method is being used?

I’ve mentioned before that your opening is the most important and when you start writing, you will be using predominantly one of the above five modes. But, which one really works the best to get the attention of the reader?  That will vary from story to story.  You might need to try writing an opening using each of the five modes to see which one works best for your story.

How would that work?  Let’s take Misfit McCabe as an example. In the actual book, I used dialogue as the predominant narrative mode to get the story started.

    “You know I’ll swear it was all my idea.”
    “But, Katie, it was all your idea.” Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask. “Except for this.”
    “Are you getting sly on me, Timmy Lawrence?” He never tried anything without checking it out with me first. “What’s in it?” Other than something to get us both into trouble.
    He shrugged one shoulder and leaned back against the side of the shed. “Oh, nothing much. Just a little rum to go with the cokes I brought.” He cracked open a can and handed it to me. “Drink some out, so I can spice it up for you.”
    Swallowing as much as I could in a mouthful, I passed the can back to him. “What made you think of this?” A new Timmy was emerging, and I didn’t know exactly how to handle him.
    He grinned as he concentrated on pouring the rum into the coke. “I just figured that if we were going to start smoking, we might as well mark the occasion with a drink of celebration.” He doctored his drink and set the flask on the ground. “Anyway, you’re always saying that I never come up with my own ideas. So I did.”
    “I’ll say. And what an idea.” I could see the faint flush of pride on Tim’s cheeks.

While the above passage has dialogue, Katie’s thoughts, and things that describe what Katie and Tim are both doing (action), the bulk of the opening is dialogue.  This helps to draw the reader in and jump start the action of the story.

    The bus rattled and bumped its way down the road, the seats creaked, and the sides seemed to groan more with every mile. The windows didn’t stay shut, so my mouth felt as dry as cotton from the dust that poured in, and the heat of the day made the bus feel like the inside of an oven. I felt cranky from lack of sleep, and my eyes felt gritty and burned from the dust.
    At least I had the seat to myself, and could sit through the long ride without someone interrupting my thoughts. What a sight I must be for the other passengers, my arms folded across my chest, a scowl for an expression, and my long, blonde hair hanging in my face. I crouched down low in the seat and thrust my knees against the back of the seat in front of me. I didn’t want to make this trip, and didn’t care what anyone else thought about me either. How could Daddy send me away from him, especially when he was sick? What if he didn’t get better? I had to push that thought out of my mind. I didn’t even want to think about that possibility. He had to get better, he just had to. The motion of the bus, along with my sleepless night, soon lulled me to sleep.

What this accomplishes is to establish Katie on a bus leaving home as well as some of her features and attitudes.  How does this compare to the actual beginning of the book?  Let’s look at how a descriptive beginning would look starting it in the shed.

    I heard a crackling sound behind me. As Tim turned to look at me his eyes got big and all of a sudden I could smell smoke overpowering the smell of the cigarettes. The dry hay had caught fire. It must have started from the match I thought had gone out, and the flames were starting to rage. Grabbing Timmy’s hand, I followed my instincts and ran.
Running as fast as I could, I wanted to get as far away as possible. I noticed that somehow I lost Tim. Turning around, I saw him looking back at the shed. “Timmy! Come on! We have got to get out of here.” Tim refused to run away because if we didn’t try to put it out, the fire could spread rapidly.
    Sending Timmy for help, I turned around and faced the burning shed once more trying to determine if there was anything I could do while waiting for help to come. At least I couldn’t see the flames outside yet. Running over to a young tree, I broke off a long, leafy branch. I placed my hands on the outside of the shed door to feel for heat. It was still cool. Stepping to one side of the door, I balanced on one foot and kicked the door in. I jumped back. No flames came shooting out. That was a good sign. I looked inside. Almost the entire floor was engulfed in flames. I started beating those closest to me.
    Sweating from the intense heat, I kept beating the flames in a losing battle. My eyes and throat stung from the smoke and I felt like help would never come. After I singed the first branch completely, I ran back and got another branch and continued beating the flames the best I could.

Notice that with the action beginning, you spend less time describing the scenery or characters and more focus is spent describing the events that are occurring.  How would you start Misfit McCabe using the thought mode?  In this case, because the story is written in first person, it is not possible to shift from one person’s thoughts to another, so it will all be from Katie’s point of view.  Plus, when writing, you want to make sure that you have clear, concise changes in view point.  Unless your aim is to cause your reader some confusion, you want to make sure it is clear which characters’ thoughts you are following.

    As I walked into the shed to join Timmy, it came over me all of a sudden how much he meant to me. He was always there for me. Skinny, tousled hair, and clothes that had always seen better days. I’d known him my whole life, or as long as I could remember, and he was as close to a brother as I would ever have. We had both grown up in this small town and were both restless and aching to try something new, something that we had not experienced before. Our bond was formed early because neither one of us had a mother, mine because she had been killed in a car accident and his just up and left.
    Timmy wanted things to change between us, for us to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted things to change. I loved him more than myself, but he was too familiar, too close to me. As I sat down next to him, he surprised me by pulling a flask from behind his back. A new Timmy was definitely emerging. Tim, I had to remember to call him Tim. It was hard because I’d always called him Timmy. He wanted to start high school as Tim Lawrence, and while I understood, my tongue slipped on the name all the time. I used to be able to read his thoughts like an open book, but that was changing too.

Now let’s take a look at what the beginning would look like using the narrative mode of exposition. You may recognize the style as similar to the fairy tales that were read to you as you were young.

    Once upon a time, in a small, isolated town, lived a fourteen year old girl named, Katie McCabe. Katie lived with her father, who was the county sheriff. She lost her mother when she was a small child when her mother was hit by a car. Katie’s best friend in the whole town was a boy her own age, named Tim Lawrence. Katie and Timmy did everything together. It seemed to her Daddy that the thing that they did the most together was get into trouble. Katie was getting restless with life in a small town and was wanting to go out and experience more of life. Unbeknownst to her, her Daddy was beginning to think that he should send her to live with his older brother. He was not well and Katie was getting to be too much of a handful.

Exposition is where you, as the author, take the time to set up the story by explaining things to the reader up front.

What if we were to start Misfit McCabe with the description mode rather than dialogue?  The first beginning that I had for the book did open with a descriptive passage.
 

    Although the afternoon sun shone brightly, the inside of the shed remained dark. The only light filtered through the cracks in the walls. We kept the light off in order to keep from attracting any attention, not that we would. Even with the lights on and the door open, the shed was hidden from the house and people were used to seeing me on the property because I helped Mr. Pickford with the care of his animals. In the dim interior of the shed, I could see Timmy’s skinny silhouette sitting on a bale of hay waiting for me to join him. It was definitely cooler inside than out in the dry heat of the afternoon. As I sat down, Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask, a sly smile crossing his face. He cracked open a can of soda and I could hear the fizzing bubbles as he handed it to me. Brushing my blonde hair away from my face, I tipped my head back and swallowed as much as I could in one mouthful and handed back the can for him to spice it up for me. Tim doctored his own drink and set the flask down on the ground.
    Timmy grinned at me. “I figured if we were going to start smoking, we might as well mark the occasion with a drink of celebration.” Excellent. At least we would have tried a few things by the time we started high school next week.

This essentially covers the same part of the story line of the opening paragraphs of Misfit McCabe but does it through description of the scene rather than dialogue.  If we wanted to start the book with the narrative mode being predominantly action, then we need to start a little farther into the story in order to help make the story start more dramatically.

Now that we have explored all five of the narrative mode types, you should be able to try writing a story, or the opening to a story using one of the five methods.  Sometimes, the best way to find out which type of narrative mode should be used to help you create a strong beginning is to try writing the beginning in each of the five styles and see which one works the best for you and your story.
____________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review