Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

Martin Luther King day was a school holiday for my children. The evening before, I got an email from my friend. “Could we set the girls up with a playdate at our house tomorrow? How about early afternoon? I have a doctor’s appointment at 3:00.”

I wrote back, typing quickly. “Sure. We’ll pop by around 12:30. Thanks!”

I continued working on some other emails, a blog post, and part of my book. Then I suddenly stopped. Wait. My friend has a doctor’s appointment. On a day when there’s no school. Oh. It would be better if the playdate were at our house and during her appointment! I called her the next morning and she was so delighted not to have to take her daughter to the appointment.

Sometimes I’m really slow.

This is why, when I’m trying out a new idea, a new plotline, or a new character, I take a minute to consider all the angles.

Maybe the protagonist has a friend who was this interesting, street-preaching card shark with a fine art collection…he could make an interesting informant and this quirky sideline character. (I’m just making this up as I go along, y’all—I know you’re thinking, “This doesn’t sound like a Myrtle Clover or a Memphis BBQ book to me!”)

Or maybe it would be better if the murder victim were this person. Then the suspects could be drawn from different worlds—from the gamblers, from the art lovers, from the impassioned evangelists.

Could the murderer be this oddball character? It might be a good cover. The person seems so innocuous and fun—but they’re really deadly.

Or maybe the protagonist could be the preaching, art-collecting gambler? And his good friend who bridges two of the three worlds is murdered—which could provide a believable reason for him to do some sleuthing.

You can go through this same process with things besides characterization. Try it with setting. Maybe you have two characters who need to discuss something. You’ve got them going to a diner—wait. You always have them in a diner. Let’s make it someplace really different this time: Chuck E. Cheese. A perfect place to meet with an informant or to have a drug deal because all the mommies there are way too distracted to be suspicious of underhanded activity.

Or maybe you’re sick of characters meeting over food, period. Your protagonist decides to question the underworld informant at his office—which just happens to be a well-respected CPA firm.

This is easy to do with plot, too. You could take a tired scene—the heroine going down into the spooky, allegedly deserted basement. The reader is probably pretty sick of that approach, you decide. So what if she turns the handle of the basement door…just to make sure it’s locked. But it’s not and some depraved creature slams against the other side of the door, forcing itself into her sunny, happy kitchen with the rooster wall clock and polka-dotted dishtowels.

The more I take an idea and twist it, the more interesting it usually gets. And I’ve usually given the scene, character, or setting more depth and freshness.

How do you improve on your original plan or idea?

I have two manuscripts that are in the pre-submission stage. One is far along in the process—in the hands of my agent and going to Midnight Ink in ASAP, and the the other is in the first draft stage (going to Penguin before my April 1 deadline.)

I took a two week break on my next Myrtle Clover to work on my next Memphis BBQ book–I have a hard time working on two manuscripts at once.

When I came back to my Myrtle Clover book about a week ago? I couldn’t find the revised file. I’d rewritten the first three chapters completely…where were they?

I spent three hours looking for the corrected file. I looked on my desktop. I looked in My Documents. I even looked in my Downloads folder. Nothing.

I checked the files I’d emailed to myself. I checked my thumbdrives. Nothing.

The computer had eaten my file. But it was my screw-up.

My mistake (besides neglecting the backup that I nearly always make)? I should have just immediately started the rewrite again.

Every time I rewrite chapters from scratch they end up better than they started out.

It’s tedious. It’s annoying. It makes me grind my teeth.

But the text is better.

Finally I accepted that the chapters were gone. I sat down and tried remembering where I’d gone with them the first time. Then I started writing.

Have you messed up? Lost a file? Accidentally deleted one?

Try to calm down. This is a big one. I was in orbit for at least an hour.

Stop the recriminations. Really, does it matter now if your puppy ate your outline? (Yes, this happened to me several years ago when I made an outline. It was one of many factors that made me decide against outlining. You can even lose hard copies of things–not just the electronic version.) It’s definitely quicker to accept the text is gone, not be too hard on yourself, and start working on that section of the manuscript again.

Piece together your thought process from the last time you worked on the project. Where were you going with the plot and characters? If you were revising, then were you cutting text, adding text, or rewording?

Build on the foundation of what you’ve already got. There’s usually still something there…on paper, on an email you sent someone, in some random Word folder. It might be an early draft or only brainstormed ideas. Take what you’ve got and then add to it.

Help ensure it doesn’t happen again. If your mess-up involves backing up, then you’re in luck—there are a multitude of methods of backup these days. Thumb drives/USB drives are incredibly cheap now and, to me, easier to use than CDs. My all-time, lazy method of backing up is emailing the document to my Gmail account. It’s accessible on any computer and it’s there. Too bad I didn’t back up those first few chapters. There are also external hard drives you can buy, online storage, etc. My husband now has me hooked up with a USB and a program (SyncToy) that automatically saves to the USB as many times a day as you set it up to save. Even if I don’t think about it, the computer application will.

Have you lost data? What’s your backup method?

I did some blog housekeeping yesterday. Do you read Mystery Writing is Murder? Are you listed in the blogroll in my sidebar? Also, I’m opening up Fridays (soon) for guest posts on ‘writing process.’ In addition, the blog is available for promo spots for authors with upcoming and new releases. For more information, please check the post: http://tinyurl.com/ybm3s58

I’ve been thinking about 2010 plans for my blog and there were a couple of ideas I had for guest posts this year. Also, I wanted to update my bloglists in the sidebar (which is always a work-in-progress), and so I’m working on that in the next few days, too.

1)I’ve been interested in hosting guest posts on different series of topics. There has been some interest in writing processes lately, and I’m always really interested in other people’s ideas on the subject.

What I thought I’d do is to open it up to guest bloggers. What’s your writing process? And to make the series run more logically, I think it would be great to divide it up into:

Prewriting (What you do to prepare.) This could include brainstorming, research, reading writing reference books, how you decided on your genre, finding and refining your original idea, and—if you do it—outlining or storyboarding. Or anything else you do to prepare for writing.

Writing (The actual process.) This could include how you schedule it into your day, what your writing goal is, how you develop characters or plot, etc. Do you start at the beginning? Do you hop around as you write? Or you can write about any other part of your writing process.

Revision. Do you revise as you go along? Do you revise after your first draft is done? Do you revise for grammar and spelling errors first or for global changes like more character depth, etc. Do you mostly reword during revisions, or do you slash out extra verbiage? Do you find that sometimes you need to add text? You can also write anything at all about your revision process.

I’d like to have them run on Fridays. It doesn’t matter if we get 5 people writing on pre-writing and then 8 people writing on writing, and 10 writing on revision. That will work out fine because we all have different approaches.

You can include links to your blog or website, pictures, etc.

If you’re interested, please email me at elizabethsguestpost@gmail.com and let me know which part of the writing process you’re interested in covering. I’ll try arranging them in order—first prewriting, then writing, then revision. I’ll make sure the posts are Tweeted and out on Facebook, etc.

I’ll email you back to work out the details and date for your post to run. It might take me a few days to work it out (and I’m under a revision deadline right now), so bear with me. :) It will probably be next Friday (Jan. 22) that I manage to launch the series.

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2)Also, if you have a new release coming out this year (and I know a couple of you definitely will) then I’m open to guest posts with book covers, buy buttons, and author photos. Let me know your release month and I’ll get it set up. Again, if you could shoot me an email at the above address.

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3)Finally, I’m doing some bloggy housekeeping. If you’re a blogger and read “Mystery Writing is Murder,” is your blog in my blogroll in the sidebar? If not, let me know in the comments and I’m happy to link up to you. If you lurk—no problem! I’m a lurker myself, so feel free to pipe up once and return to lurking if you’d like. It’s just that sometimes I think my linking falls through the cracks, and I don’t want to miss anyone.

Thanks everyone!

When I got my daughter’s 3rd grade newsletter (when she finally returned to school after her bout with the flu), there was an entire page on a new technique they were using to teach spelling. The letter also asked parents to encourage children to spell carefully.

I was delighted to see this at the end of the letter: “Most importantly, don’t overdo it. Some places need to be “free zones” where children are free to express themselves without fear of the ‘red pen.’ Journals, poems, anything personal should be encouraged, not graded.”

I easily remember being 8 years old and giving stories for different teachers or adult friends to read. “It’s a wonderful story. But I’m so distracted by the spelling that I can’t really enjoy it as much…” The “wonderful story” got lost and so did the encouragement. I wasn’t asking them to grade it. I wanted them to like the story.

I think the same school of thought applies to adults. Obviously, spelling and grammar need to be perfect when we’re at the submission stage. But before then, unless someone specifically asks for line editing help, I think it’s much better to offer encouragement on content as well as advice on improving the manuscript (if that’s what’s asked for.)

When I gave my manuscript to first readers years ago, I didn’t know to tell them what types of errors I needed them to read for. Now I’d rather say, “Can you read this strictly for content?” unless I’m at the point where I need line revision.

The writing community is an incredibly supportive one. I think that’s because writers get constant rejection—agents, editors, reviewers, even critique group members. We get negative feedback on our work. And maybe we’re not the best folks to handle it.

I’ve read articles from some writers that say we shouldn’t give out false hope to writers who just haven’t gotten there yet. I don’t agree. No one’s saying the road to publication isn’t a rough one. No one’s saying not to do your homework and revise like crazy.

But every manuscript or poem or essay I’ve ever taken a look at has some worth to it. If the writer has cared enough to share it, there’s a spark in the words that belongs to the writer.

It might be an original idea or an interesting character, or a new twist on an old plot.

One of the critique groups I was in had a rule: you’ve got to find something good to say about the manuscript. You couldn’t just go in and rip it to shreds. You had to find some redeeming value to the piece. And there’s always something there.

Writing can be a very discouraging business. It helps tremendously to have people who cheer you on.

After my post, Time, I got an email regarding my first drafts and the speed with which I write them. The reader was interested in getting some tips on speeding up the process.

There are a few things that help the first draft go quickly for me. Deadlines for two series have something to do with the motivation, for sure. And practice helps, too.

But there are some steps I take that help make the writing go a little faster.

I do an initial brainstorming on paper, before I start the project, for random ideas. Sometimes I don’t end up even looking at the paper again, but it does help to get the creative juices flowing.

I’m writing series and have a particular pattern to my books. I like to start with a prologue (I know. They’re not popular with editors, but…I’m all about rule-breaking. And they seem to work for me.) I usually follow up the prologue with a surprising conversation. I’m not spending a lot of time thinking about how I want the book laid out because I figured that out a couple of books ago.

I have a storytelling voice, so I treat the draft as if I were transcribing a story that I’m telling someone. It’s conversational. The story unfolds in an easier way that way. I ask myself “what if” as I go along. Telling the story aloud helps, too—as long as I’m not out in public where talking to myself is frowned on.

Sometimes, as I write, I’m not happy with the direction I’m taking the story in. I start taking the story in a new direction at that point and flag the point where the storyline changes so that I can come back and fix the text before that point during the second draft. I don’t stop at that point and rewrite the older scenes. That’s a revision task. The mark I make with Word’s Track Changes or with Word’s Highlighter makes the editing easier later, though.

I don’t like big outlines, but I do like small ones. I’ll sketch out what I want to accomplish for the next page. It’s got to take the plot somewhere.

When I finish my writing for the day, I make a note of where I need to pick up the next day. I never read the text I wrote the day before. It completely messes me up—it not only makes me feel insecure about the project, but it slows me down.

Since I’m writing series, many of my characters and settings have already been established in a previous book. I can easily pick up with those characters just like I pick up with an old friend I haven’t seen for a while. Since my protagonists are established, I’m not spending time trying to figure them out as I write–I’m working on character depth.

Also…genre mysteries run around 75,000 words. I’m not writing literary fiction, which runs a lot longer.

I’m writing primarily from one POV. Sometimes I’ll let the reader into another character’s head—but it’s just for a second or two. I’m not developing complicated storylines for multiple POVs.

I’ve learned to write anywhere and with any noise level. This helps tremendously since some days I’m doing my writing on the run. The ability to adapt to any environment I’m in makes the writing go faster.

I love writing and reading dialogue. To me, it’s the best way to have characters interact, to create conflict, to include backstory, etc. Dialogue is also the quickest thing for me to write. And…it uses up a lot of space on the page, just by its nature. There are lots of indents and short sentences with dialogue.

I type fast. Really fast. It does help.

Also—I think it’s really, really important to set an attainable goal for yourself. And I mean really attainable. Mine used to be one page a day. It didn’t matter how I scraped together that one page—some of it could be on sticky notes in the car that I gathered up later. But I always got that one page. This made me feel really positive about my progress—after all, if you write just one double-spaced page a day then you’ll have a first draft in less than a year (assuming you’re not writing something really long.) When I felt positive about the progress, I usually found myself going over my goal. But even if I did go over my goal, I still wrote my one page the next day.

I write every day—even on weekends. Even on holidays. I don’t want to get right up on my deadlines, which would really stress me out.

Before I know it, the first draft is done. And boy, it needs work! I’ll go back and check all the notes I left for myself in Track Changes, and return to the highlighted text and edit like crazy. It takes another 6 weeks to get the thing in shape for submission to my agent or editor.

To me, the most important thing is that I’m writing every day. And reaching my goal…no matter what that goal is.