characters

Creative Void

| rachelhamm

I’m feeling a bit of a creative void.  It’s not writer’s block, it’s more of a listlessness.  A non-desire to write, create, produce.

I got a really bad review of a chapter of Twenty-Five a couple of weeks ago.  The reader said the characters were cookie cutter, the sentence structure monotonous, and the dialogue cliche.  They said “there’s no story here.”

Of course, reading a review like that is like diving head first into freezing cold water.  It’s a shock to the system.  You wonder- did this person read my work and actually think that?  or were they just being mean and spiteful?  I have to believe that it’s a little bit of a mixture of the two extremes.

I know, deep in my heart, that my characters are not cookie cutter.  They have histories, dreams, plans for the future.  I know what they look like, how they act, their likes and dislikes.  I’ve thought them through completely and I didn’t just base them on the archetypal characters you see in book after book, story after story.  However, I can understand how, in an isolated chapter, without the buildup of the beginning of the story and their relationship, a reader would miss their complexity and depth.

With the monotonous sentence structure comment, I think the reader may have a point.  I’ve been reading through my book slowly the last couple of nights and I think I do have issues with varying sentence structure.  There just aren’t that many ways to structure a series of actions without getting into lavish descriptions and similes and metaphors, which I hate.  So, one of my goals is to find fresher ways of saying what I want to say.

As far as the dialogue being cliche, I have to say- WHOA.  I am really surprised anyone would say that about my dialogue because if there’s one thing  that 99.99% of my readers have agreed on, it’s my realistic dialogue.  I can only assume that this is another instance of the isolated chapter, but will defend myself a little in saying that real people in real life use cliches when they talk.  Cliches are around for a reason- they are recognizable, memorable.  Just about everything we say in everyday life can be considered cliche.  For example, if I write this exchange:

“Hey.”

“Hey, how are you?”

“Fine, you?”

“Fine.”

is the cliche police going to strike it down and tell me I can’t use it?

The last comment is the one that really hurt.  “There’s no story here.”  I’ve put my blood, sweat, and tears into this book for the past year (and yes, I realize blood, sweat, and tears is cliche, too) and for someone to tell me there’s no story there, I mean, I can’t even express how much that hurts.  I know its not the first bad review that I’ve gotten, and I know it won’t be the last, but DAMN!  I would never tell someone that there was no “story” in their story.  Because anyone who writes has a story they are trying to tell.  And yes, some stories need more work than others, but everything is a story.  Life is a story.

So all of that to say that it’s been really hard for me to write lately.  I don’t want to be a failure and yet that’s how a review like that makes me feel.  Everyone says, “you’ve got to have a thick skin to make it in this industry.”  But isn’t that true of any industry, of any career?  Is that why I’m still stuck in limbo, I don’t have a thick enough skin?  Am I going to be a failure for the rest of my life?  Am I going to be stuck in the void for the rest of my life?

Oh ho, Check Me Out

| rachelhamm

I spent my afternoon/ evening today outlining The Death Effect with index cards, multi-colored pens and pushpins, and a cork-board.  And I was completely wrong about feeling pigeon-holed.  I feel completely the opposite.  I am inspired!

I went through the word document where I’ve been writing TDE and I made a notecard for each chapter/scene.  Each character POV got a different color pen/ink.  I then put the notecards in chronological order by character and pinned them to the board.  If I’d already written the first draft of the chapter, the notecard got a clear pin.  If I’d already written a partial first draft of the chapter, the notecard got a green pin.  And if it was just a concept/idea for the chapter, the notecard got a blue or purple pin (I didn’t have enough of one or the other color!).

As I wrote out these cards and put them in order, I found myself thinking about what happens to each character- where the story takes them.  It was amazing.  I was visualizing scenes again!  In fact, I imagined the last scene of my semi MC, Taylor, and she’s been causing me major problems lately.  You see, I tend to base my main characters on myself and the people close to me.  I can’t help it, it’s just the way I am.  One of these days I’ll write an MC who is in no way like me or anyone I know, but for now…  Okay, so back to my original point.  Taylor has been giving me a hard time lately because I like Taylor, but the person in my life who she is based on has really been pissing me off lately.  She’s been a flat out B*tch to me.  I’m sure she doesn’t read this blog, but just in case, I won’t mention her by name.  Anyways, because this real person has been pissing me off, I haven’t been able to write Taylor with any degree of objectivity or feeling.  But, this outlining exercise has really worked to get me out of my funk!  I was able to separate Taylor from my real life drama, because Taylor is experiencing a much different kind of pain than I am, and  now I know exactly where her story is going.  I’m so excited.

I’m sure that my outline will change.  In fact, when I typed it up (because I’m OCD like that- I mean what if something happens to all the cards, I needed a backup!) I already changed things.   And I’m sure that I’ll add more chapters than I have planned right now, but I feel rejuvenated.

God, I needed this.  I needed some hope.  I need something in my life that feels like it’s on an upward climb, not a downward spiral.

Part of me feels like this book is going to produce some of my best writing, yet another part of me is so scared that it will be just another thing I don’t finish.  Hopefully with this rocking outline, I’ll continue to remain motivated.

Who Would I Cast…

| rachelhamm

So I was watching License to Wed on TV the other day. It’s a really bad movie, actually, but I’m in love with John Krasinski, so I watched it anyways. As I was watching, I thought to myself that he would be a good actor to play Ben in the movie of my book. I know, getting ahead of myself- especially since the past couple days I’ve been thinking how terrible my writing is, but still, it struck me. Krasinski has this very sweet demeanor, he’s funny, and he’s tall. All qualities my Ben must possess. The only problem is I can’t tell what color his eyes are. I think they are hazel-ish.  I’ve looked at hundreds of pictures and can’t find one that’s close enough on his eyes to be really sure. My Ben needs blue eyes.

Mandy Moore is also in License to Wed. Again, I do not recommend this movie, but I happen to have a girl crush on Ms. Moore. I think she would make a very sweet Abby to John’s Ben. Her eye color is not nearly as important to me as Ben’s, though in the book Abby’s eyes are green and I believe Mandy’s are brown.

I think these two actors could have chemistry with the right story. Neither exactly fits the image I have in my head of my main characters, but truth is, I don’t think anyone can. I just like thinking that maybe someday there will be actors bringing them to life. Surely this is me living in fantasy land, but sometimes you’ve got to keep hope alive!

If you’ve read Twenty-Five, who would you cast as the leads?  If you haven’t, who would you cast as the leads in your own writing?

NANO… um, not so much!

| rachelhamm

I fully intended to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  I wrote a synopsis and I outlined the entire book and I wrote like crazy for about a week.  And then life got in the way.  And really, I’m kind of glad.  I think back over the work I did and know that the book I was writing is not a book I would ever be proud of.  I love the first couple of chapters, but after that, it really just falls apart.

And I’m cool with that.  Not everything is going to work.

Part of the reason life got in the way this month is that I was trying to do too much.  So like me.  Always the over-achiever.  Throughout the month I stressed myself out with editing Twenty-Five and querying, plus writing for NANO, plus trying to figure out what I’m going to do come January first when I don’t have a job anymore (yes, I officially quit the hair salon, I put in my notice), plus trying to train someone new to pick up some of the shifts I’m leaving behind.  Yeah… I’ve been busy.

So I’m glad December is almost here.  Even though December brings a whole new round of stressors (hello my other company has 3 weddings in December!!!),  I think I’m more prepared to handle them now.  I hope so.

I’ve started a new book.  One that I think better suits me as a “writer” and I’ll be writing that in December. I don’t intend to stress myself out over word count.  I want to write something I can be proud of when I’m finished with the first draft so that I actually want to edit it and create a second!

I’m putting Twenty-Five on a back-burner for now.  I need time to fall in love with my characters again so that the next time I look at my manuscript I don’t kill them off in a fit of panic and fury.  Or something worse.  Like tossing my handwritten first draft into a fireplace.  I know I have it all typed on a computer, but I think it would be like burning my own heart to toss the first pages containing my characters into a fire.

So anyways, that’s what’s going on with me.  How about you?

My Top 10 Favorite Books

| rachelhamm

*edited September 8, 2014*

This was a HARD list for me to make.  I love to read.  I’ve always loved to read and my taste in books is broad.  I only had one requirement for a book to make my top ten list: I had to have read it more than once.  To me, that’s an automatic way to determine if a book is good.  Do I want to read it a second time?  A third time?  Otherwise, I just went with my gut.

1.) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I know, no big surprise here if you’ve read other blog entries.  I’ve read this book more times than I can count.  I cry every time Darcy says, “You are too generous to trifle with me…”  I used to have “I love Mr. Darcy” as the screen saver on my phone.  I’m such a dork, but I don’t care.  Elizabeth Bennett is witty, independent, and kind.  She stays true to the women of the time period she lived in, but she also breaks new ground.  Jane Austen is a genius.  This is ABSOLUTELY the best book ever written.  If you disagree we cannot be friends. (Okay, we can be, but don’t be surprised when I try to get you to love it, too.)

2.) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling.  Okay.  This may seem like it’s really high up on the list.  It’s a YA book about wizards.  Again, I don’t care how big a dork it makes me.  I freakin’ LOVE Harry Potter.  I love the whole series, but Goblet of Fire is my favorite because it really is the peak of the series.  The kids are transitioning from children into young adults.  The happy-go-lucky innocence of childhood disappears as Voldemort returns to his physical body and Harry is faced with death first hand once again.  Complications arise as hormones increase.  And the Tri-Wizard tournament is written with vivid description and heart-stopping action.  J.K. Rowling is one of the best writers of the twenty-first century.  And I will not apologize for listing it as my #2.

3.) Persuasion by Jane Austen.  Another Jane Austen book.  I think of all her heroines, I relate personally to Anne Elliot the most.  She’s a lot like me.  Quiet.  A little bit of a doormat for those around her.  Mid-to-late twenties and still single.  Not the prettiest girl on the block.  Yet, despite all of her seemingly negative qualities, she’s so lovable.   She’s one of the kindest and most selfless characters in literature (there’s where the similarities end).  And she doesn’t change who she is for the approval of others.  And Captain Wentworth is almost (ALMOST) as dreamy as Mr. Darcy.

4.) Bleak House by Charles Dickens.  After Jane Austen, I think Charles Dickens may be my favorite author.  I love the way he builds characters and plot.  In Bleak House, the tension is high from the beginning and it never breaks.  This book dips and twists between different perspectives and different plot lines seamlessly and then weaves everything together in the end.  Everything is connected.  It’s fantastic.  And the book keeps you guessing about more than plot.  Even once the story ends, you are left wondering if Esther is really as reliable as she seems to be.

5.) Matilda by Roald Dahl.  Again, this may seem like an odd choice, but I have a very good reason for including it.  I read this book OVER and OVER when I was a child.  I would finish reading it and immediately restart.  I wanted to be Matilda.  I didn’t want to have her horrible parents, but I wanted to have her genius brain.  I hated Ms. Trunchbull and felt victorious every time Matilda got her revenge on her with the chalkboard.  It’s imaginative and just plain superb story-telling.  This is the kind of book that makes kids want to read.

6.) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.  Another childhood favorite.  I forced my mom to take me to the library every two days one summer so I could check out the next book.  Eventually she broke down and bought them for me.  I love the whole series, again, but LWW is the best known for a reason.  The characters, the scenery, the danger!  It has everything a child (or an adult) could want in their fantasyland.  And for some reason, I had a crush on Edmund when I was little!

7.) A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  Another love of my childhood: Sara Crewe and the students at Miss Minchin’s boarding school.  This may be one of the first books I read because I loved the movie so much I wanted more time with the characters!  But, let me tell you, the book is WAY better than the movie.  Sara deals with more trials and tribulations than any child should ever have to go through: she loses her mother, her father, her privileged life, her friends, her dignity.  But through everything, she never loses her spirit.  She never lets the world break her.

8.) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.  I read this for the first time in fifth grade.  I felt so special reading such a “grown-up” book.  Years later, I wondered if my love for it came from that importance I felt when reading it for the first time at such a young age.  But then I re-read it in college and realized that it’s one of the best stories ever conceived about family, young love, and becoming the person you are meant to be.  Every young girl and woman should read this book.  Jo March rivals Elizabeth Bennett as one of the greatest literary heroines ever written.

9.) The Time-Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.  I actually didn’t read a lot of contemporary books until the last couple of years, but this beautiful love story pulled me away from the classics.  I suppose you could call it paranormal, since one of the main characters is a time-traveler, but the real world setting is SO REAL.  The love Clare and Henry feel for each other knows no limits.  I love the way the story moves in and out of past and present, from Clare to Henry’s POVs, from one real-world issue to the next, but always remembering it is a love story and that the focus should be on the love the main characters share.  I cry every time I read it.

10.) Same As It Never Was by Claire LaZebnik.  I discovered Claire LaZebnik by accident.  I challenged myself to purchase a book I’d never heard of, by an author I’d never heard of, based only the cover and genre (Contemporary Romance).  Same As It Never Was actually wasn’t the book I picked, I chose The Smart One and the Pretty One, but I fell in love with LaZebnik’s writing and searched out her other books and online presence.  I made so many comments on her blog, she probably thought I was crazy, but she sent me a copy of Same anyway.  It was the first autographed book I ever received and, even though it’s actually her first novel, it’s my favorite of hers.  The story is simple, but perfectly paced and plotted.  The characters make you want to root for them.  It’s just a lot of fun.

So there it is.  My top ten.  I’m sure a lot of you out there will question my choices, but this is certainly only a list built upon my personal preference and the emotion stirred in me when I read these novels.  For good measure, I’ve also compiled a list of honorable mentions.  This was almost as hard as the top ten, because I wanted to include EVERYTHING!  I won’t say why I chose all these because it would take too long, but in no particular order, my honorable mentions are:

A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Emma by Jane Austen

The Rainmaker by John Grisham

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss.  Okay, this one I will give a reason for.  My mom taught me how to read with this book!

Now, what are some of YOUR favorite books?

Sometimes I Don’t Have a Choice

| rachelhamm

I just wrote a brand new chapter to Twenty-Five that brought me to tears.  I’ve written a lot of emotional scenes before, but I’ve never cried while actually writing before.  There is just something about the pain my MC is going through in this chapter that hit my heart.  I want to help her, to make the pain go away, but she has to suffer.  I hate that she has to suffer, but she doesn’t have a choice.  I don’t have a choice.

Do you find that?  That sometimes you don’t really have a choice in the plot of your story, or the actions a character takes?  Sometimes I just can’t help what happens.  The characters have already decided for me and my only option is to write it down.  Even if I want to change it, I can’t.  They won’t let me.  When I try to change it, it doesn’t work, and I’m forced to write it the way my characters originally intended.

I’d love to hear from other writers on this.  Do others out there find that sometimes you just don’t have a choice in what happens to your characters?