Just Ginger

I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) one day when a man began recounting an incident in his life that led to a group of teens beating him up. I didn’t listen to the complete story because I couldn’t get past the beginning. Here’s how he set it up: It was midnight.  It was Brooklyn, NY  He was walking home alone.  He was talking on the phone with his friend.  He was wearing earbuds.  He was in a deserted industrial area. There were so many things wrong with this story. Rather than think, poor guy, he got beat up. I thought what were you thinking? Of course, you got beat up. Let’s step back from his story for a moment . I worked on ten Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) handbooks–writing, editing, and proofreading chapters. One topic the FAA hit again and again was situational awareness. What is situational awareness, you ask? Pretty much what you think it is: being aware of the situation around you. Being aware of what is happening...

In the writing world you’re either a “pantser” or a “plotter.” Pantser derives from the well-known idiom “to fly by the seat of your pants.” It dates from the early days of aviation when pilots had little to guide them during a flight. Aviation was a new frontier, pilots didn’t have any instruments or even good weather reports to rely on when they flew. Plotters are as the name implies. Writers who figure out the plot in advance of writing the story. Plotters favor spreadsheets, story grids, and  in depth character charts. Pop psychology says we have two hemispheres in our brain. The left hemisphere is the rational or logical side, while the right hemisphere is the creative or offbeat side. Plotter side versus Pantser side. The writers who outline and plot every scene in their novel (left hemisphere writers) and those who go blindly forth and just write, molding a story as they go (right hemisphere writers). Plotter, Pantser, or Hybrid Obviously, the fact that I have steps ...

I hope you enjoyed my  Story Steps  series. I’ve decided to wander back into writing more randomly about writing. If that makes sense? The idea behind the  Story Step s was to help you get started with a project. Now I’m going to return to random topics that I hope you will find helpful. As usual, I had a little more to say about my experience with story titles than in my Story Step 6 blog. Disclaimer: I’m not the world’s best title maker upper. Although I am proud of several of my titles, they are usually hard fought battles as I try to find the one that best reflects the story I’m telling. In Story Step 6, I wrote about choosing a title for your work in progress. My advice being that if you’re struggling with a title, don’t let that sidetrack you from writing the story. It’s not uncommon for traditional publishers, as I also mentioned, to change the title of a contracted book if they don’t like your title. My thoughts wandered back this way because the rights to a short...

Story Steps 10 Suppose you decided to use my Story Steps to get started on your latest project. Let’s recap them: the idea for a story  a theme or message you want the reader to take away  compelling characters  a working title  the essential story ingredients of a story–protagonist, antagonist, situation, motivation, goal, and conflict  appropriate character names  writing a narrative synopsis Today, we’re going to look at storyboarding, a technique that helps with the actual writing of your book. For starters, let’s look at the definition: Storyboarding is a sequence of pictures created to communicate a desired general visual appearance. Although storyboarding has been traditionally associated with cinema, its beginnings can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci, who put his ideas on a wall and examined the layout prior to producing the final painting. (She Sat, He Stood: What Do Your Characters Do While They Talk?) Populari...

Story Step 9 Writing a short narrative synopsis of my story is another step I take in this process. What’s a narrative synopsis? According to the New Oxford American Dictionary , a narrative is a spoken or written account of connected events while a synopsis is a brief summary or general survey of something. In my mind, a narrative synopsis is a summary of the connected events that will take place in my story. I like to think of the synopses as short stories of my novels written in a compelling format that will catch editor or reader interest. Preliminary Writing Tool       Many writers dislike writing a synopsis and save it for last. I followed that school of thought in the beginning of my writing career. I didn’t write the synopsis until I finished the manuscript. Eventually, I began writing a short narrative synopsis during the early stages of my story writing. Now I see the synopsis as a powerful preliminary writing tool, because it ...

Story Step 8 In Story Step 6, I suggested you don’t need to have the perfect title before you write your story. Working titles are fine. Stumbling across the perfect title during the process is always fun. On the other hand, choosing names for your characters is an important early step when writing a story. Assigning names helps you bond with your characters better than calling them Male #1 or Female #2. Names carry a lot of weight. This is as true in real life as it is in a story. Choosing the right name for your characters is important. I love names and have a spreadsheet of several hundred male and female names I’ve collected over the years. I’ve visited cemeteries to record names and life span dates from gravestones. I’ve found unusual names in obituary columns and news articles, and I’ve plucked names off the identity badges of sales clerks. I’m not shy about name gathering or asking the story behind an unusual name. After complimenting a person’s name, I of...