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I have a subplot in my current WIP that wants to take over the world.

In the same WIP, I have a small subplot that stays meekly in its place.

Subplots are a lot of fun for me—I enjoy both reading them and writing them. It’s nice to have a short break from the main plot every once and a while and take a breather.

But problems pop up when subplots get ambitious and want to take over my novel.

They do have their uses, though. While the main plot of my books might be many chapters away from seeing resolution, my subplots usually show a steady progression toward a conclusion.

It’s a fun way to focus on a side character. Or to play around with another genre (introduce a romantic element in a mystery, for example).

A good subplot can also help keep the reader motivated to continue reading.

But…I have to keep them in their place. There’s definitely a limit to the amount of time I can devote to a subplot.

The one in my current WIP that wants to stage a coup with the main plot? I’ve made a deal with it. If I tie it into the main plot so that it’s an integral part of the book’s conclusion, then I’ll give it more screen time.

Do you have subplots that want to take over your books?

Photo by Dana Geary

Kit Dunsmore is a contemporary fantasy writer living in northern Colorado. She’s currently working on a novel about a witch who tries to rescue her best friend from a necromancer without breaking her vow never to use harmful magic. You can find her at Kit’s Home for Orphaned Armadillos.

My first attempt at this post on how I write fiction talked about generating a series of drafts, grafting together the best of the material, and how much concentration each stage takes. It was boring. So I took a walk with my dog and tried to think of a metaphor for my writing process, something vivid and visual that would give depth to my dull description of draft writing.

Of course I couldn’t think of one. I thought of three.

One for each stage of my writing process.

Writing a first draft of a scene or chapter is hiking into new territory. I go down a trail after looking at a map. I think I know where I’m going, and may have some idea of what there is to see along the way, like a lake or stream. But I really don’t know what I’m going to encounter until I start walking. Then I discover all the little twists, muddy dips, tiny flowers, animal tracks, steep climbs, and unknown people the trail has to offer. I may turn off the path at any time to visit a tree or rock barely glimpsed through the leaves. I may go up a hill to see what’s on the other side. Whether I’m hiking or writing, there’s no telling if I’ll find more of the same or something unexpected when I get there.

I’ve honed this exploratory method of draft writing for the last four Novembers by participating in National Novel Writing Month. Giving myself only 30 days to write 50,000 words has proven a great way to keep my feet moving. Desperate to hit my word count (1667 words a day), I will chase whatever shows up, whether it is a new idea for a scene or a character who has appeared out of nowhere. Anything goes. I try to ignore any thoughts I have about how stupid, crazy, or pointless something is and just run with it. After all, I’m dying to see what’s on the other side of that hill, and there’s only one satisfactory way I know to find out.

But hiking is only the beginning. After I’ve made my discoveries, good or bad, the time has come to pick through them and select the pieces that I think are most intriguing, most colorful, and stitch them together. Suddenly, I’m no longer hiking through the woods.

Now I’m quilting.

I take the pieces of draft writing I like best and turn them into a complete scene or chapter by stitching them together with more words. I’ve thought of it as stitching for years now. Sometimes the bits of draft I use are mere scraps – a sentence or two – so maybe that’s where the image comes from. Or maybe it’s the fact that I love what happens when I sew pieces of fabric together into something new and this stage of writing brings me that same joy. What looks like odd bits of fabric become a vibrant whole. Larger patterns begin to emerge, and yet each fabric contributes something unique. Making something greater, something new, from scraps is what the synthesis stage is all about for me.

Once the stitching is done, I have a whole piece, a block or a section of my fictional quilt. I step back to look at it anew, and think about its overall pattern and shape. And yet another shift happens. I am no longer sewing. Now I must weed and prune.

It’s time to garden.

Editing can be brutal. Cutting out words, sentences, scenes can seem like slashing through vines in a jungle. But I prefer a more nurturing metaphor, that of a gardener who weeds and prunes for the good of the garden as a whole. An awkward limb can rub against other parts of a tree and damage it. Weeds can choke out the delicate flowers that are trying to grow next to them. But the good gardener steps in and lops off the limbs that are harming the tree, pulls up the weeds that are smothering the flowers.

And I think good editing is the same. I’m not slashing and destroying when I cut out a sentence or drop a scene. I’m shaping the whole, for the good of the whole, making the writing attractive, making room for better things to grow.

And what do I do when I put down my shears and take off my gardening gloves?

I start all over again.

I go hiking to discover new vistas to fill in the gaps in my story so that I can stitch them onto my existing quilt blocks and then prune away whatever is destructive or ugly. This cycle keeps repeating, and with each cycle, my draft improves, my story grows stronger, and I come closer to having written something that captures my imaginary world and the people who live there.

I really had hoped for a single metaphor to describe my writing process, but now I wonder why I thought that was possible. After all, nothing I know is quite like writing.

Thanks so much for guest posting today, Kit! I especially like your idea of the editing process being a nurturing one instead of a destructive one. That will make me feel better as I slash right and left. :)

Today I’d like to welcome Kathy McIntosh to the blog. Kathy is an editor, PR expert, professional speaker, and professed word lover.

BRAINSTORMING FOR FICTION WRITERS: Get Drenched in Ideas

Whether you have a novel plotted in your head, or have a few simple thoughts about a character, an event, or a terrific action scene, the end product can benefit from a good initial brainstorming session with trusted writer colleagues.

Brainstorming is particularly useful if you’re both at the point of beginning a new novel.

Brainstorming allows you to dig deeper into ideas and find fresh dirt. When you’re seeking a word or a phrase, the first three are often trite. If you scribble down a few more, you get past the top of mind, often-used, dusty ones to something with sparkle.

The same holds true for your plot and characters. Having one or two trusted friends help you dig makes the work easier and faster, and you get the benefit of someone else’s creativity.

You also have the opportunity for fun with other scribblers, a rare treat for solitary writers.

Suggestions for better brainstorming:
1. Be certain you trust the person you’re sharing your precious ideas with. Although some would argue you risk having your ideas stolen, my concern is for your self-confidence, your fragile writer’s ego. Your team members need to be able to accept your ideas or challenge them, suggest adaptations and alterations, without ever attacking you as a writer (or as a person!). Of course, you need to remember not to take comments personally. This is work and the words and ideas are not you; they are words and ideas.

2. Have a flip chart with lots of paper for taking notes on ideas. Record everything!

3. Come to the brainstorming session with your ideas or problems in mind. No make that with notes on your ideas and problems. These thoughts will be the board you’ll jump from to brainstorm. (Would that then be brainswimming?) This can be just notes you’ve dashed down, stream of consciousness ideas or more structured, depending on your style. Some people even have drawings to stimulate their thinking.

4. Have yummy snacks and easily prepared meals. Do remember to take breaks, possibly a walk. Refresh your creative mind.

5. Spend time before you begin to set discussion parameters:
Will one person who is a wiz at brainstorming lead all sessions or will each writer lead the discussion on his or her work?

Decide how far you want to go. Some writers think they need only a bare bones idea and then will be able to run with it. Maybe so, but the purpose of brainstorming is to pick the brains of another writer. He or she might head in a different direction and you might LOVE that direction.

6. Follow the rules of brainstorming:
No bad ideas, everything is written down.

Don’t worry about repetition. The same thing said at a different time may spark new ideas.

Don’t stop and discuss. Just record lots of ideas first and think about them later. Do ask for clarification. Be sure what you write down is not edited but is clear to all (a one word idea that’s perfectly clear in the morning may be meaningless by midnight)

Before you start, set time guidelines and stay within them. Maybe 50 minutes on each person’s main plot problem and the ways things get worse; 20 minutes on each protagonist and each antagonist; 20 minutes on the secondary characters. If you’re really on a roll that you don’t want to stop, decide together how much more time to allocate to that topic.

Think outside the box. If an idea comes to you, don’t let your internal editor tell you it’s silly. Speak up and share it. Trust that no one will belittle your contribution. (And if someone does, provide a gentle reminder of the guidelines)

7. Ways to Generate Ideas
Try using the question “What if…” when considering your plot and your characters.

What if your protagonist is a dwarf instead of an executive for a conglomerate?

What if your villain has always wanted to be on Survivor?

Use mind mapping or clustering, too! Start with a word (perhaps a description of your character) in a circle and branch out from there. I posted about mind mapping last year.

8. Be flexible.
Get up and stretch from time to time.

If one approach isn’t working to get ideas flowing, try another. There will be moments of silence, empty of ideas. Allow them.

Thanks so much for guest blogging today, Kathy! You can visit Kathy at her blog, Well Placed Words. I’m curious to find out everyone’s techniques for brainstorming—do you write it all down? Try to keep it in your head? What works for you?

And please join me tomorrow when Kit Dunsmore posts on Hiking Through A Quilted Garden: Metaphors For Writing Fiction.

All day on Monday, I had the feeling that something was wrong.

I’d set my writing goal for the day. I had a couple of errands that I needed to do.

But I felt completely lethargic. And I couldn’t think very well. I wrote some pages and looked at them with disbelief. I’d written this?

The kids came home from school. I started going through backpacks and getting supper ready…very sloooowwly.

Finally I realized—I needed to go to the doctor.

Sinus infection.

If I’d only paid attention to myself earlier, maybe I could have started on an antibiotic the day before.

Y’all know I’m a fan of editing after the first draft is finished. But sometimes there’s just something wrong with the manuscript—an underlying, bad feeling that you get when you sit down to work with it.

If you don’t address that feeling that something is wrong, you could get so frustrated with the manuscript that you give up on it.

Yesterday I focused on potholes in stories to be edited out at the end. Below are some big, content-type problems that sometimes need special attention—maybe even while writing the first draft.

Signs Something Isn’t Working:

• You can’t logically explain what motivates the protagonist’s behavior.
• Along the same lines, your character has completely changed with no reasonable explanation.
• The plot is too derivative. You haven’t spun the old plot until it seems like something fresh.
• You can’t get into the protagonist’s head. They seem flat. You can’t identify with them at all.
• The plot limps along with no discernable conflict.
• There’s too much conflict and it changes from one thing to another. There’s no primary focus. There’s no theme, just ‘the world vs. John Smith.’
• There’s no hook to the novel.
• There’s only external conflict and no internal conflict for the main character.
• The protagonist is unlikeable.
• The protagonist isn’t interesting enough to carry a story.
• The reader might not be able to tell who the protagonist is.
• There’s no readily-identifiable antagonist. There’s just bad stuff that happens.
• Your content is a mess with flashbacks, backstory, telling instead of showing, too many dialogue tags, and point of view issues.
• Your characters aren’t original. They’re more like stock characters (the alcoholic cop, the snooty society lady, the shy librarian).

What do you do when you realize one or more of these things are happening? Some people start over from scratch. Some people will finish the manuscript and then do major revisions afterwards.

I like to just mark the point in the manuscript that I realized the problem with Microsoft Word’s highlighter…and start, at that point, writing differently for the rest of the book. I fix the original problem during revisions.

Have you run into these problems before? What do you do when you realize they’re happening?

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Tomorrow, my guest at Mystery Writing is Murder will be Kathy McIntosh. She’ll give us 7 tips for better brainstorming with her post “Get Drenched in Ideas.” Please join us!

Potholes aren’t usually a problem here in Matthews, North Carolina.

That’s because we’ve been in a drought for years–there wasn’t any moisture on the roads to cause any potholes.

Now, of course, we’re caught in some crazy monsoon pattern and my simple suburban drive to the store is now a treacherous route embedded with potholes that seem to reach down to China. And somehow, I never realize they’re there until I’m in one.

My first drafts are just as susceptible to potholes.

Things I look out for when revising:

Character Issues: Are there any secondary characters that need more depth? Are the characters all clearly different from each other? Do they have realistic motivation? Do they stay in character?

Plot issues: Is the plot fairly linear? Does it make sense?

Conflict: Is the conflict strong enough to power the plot? Is the conflict major or is it just a minor misunderstanding that could easily be resolved? Is there both internal and external conflict?

Scenes: Are they necessary? Do the scenes impact the main plot or the subplot?

Mechanics: Check for word repetition (I know my favorite words that need to be cut.) I read aloud for sentence and word flow. Is something awkwardly constructed? I look for typos and spelling. Are the dialogue tags okay? (For me this means I might not have enough tags to attribute the speaker. For others it might mean that tags or adverbs should be cut.)

Pace: Is the story moving fast enough? Too fast?

Voice: Did I maintain it? Are there sections that sound flat?

Beginnings and endings: Will the beginning hook readers? Is the ending satisfying and have I tied up all the loose ends?

Timeline errors: Are the events of the story in order?

Continuity errors: Is someone wearing one outfit at the beginning of the scene and something different by the end of the scene (without changing clothes?) Does it change from day to night and back again in the course of a page?

One more thing about the potholes here in Matthews. They’re allowed to happen. There’s no road crew perched at the side of the road in an asphalt truck, filling holes as they appear.

Instead, the prevailing attitude here seems to be that they wait until the rainy spell is over and then they fill all the holes at once.

Either way, whether they’re fixed as they open or after a whole minefield of them has sprung up, the potholes do all get filled.