Scribbled Fiction

I'm not saying I've seen any really badly written cats in any books, but I feel like some of the cats in books I've read were written by people who haven't spent enough time around them. So if you need to know how to write a good cat into your novel, my friend, you have come to the write place(heh heh, see what I did there? The write place? Get it? Okay, I'm done now). I've been around cats my entire life. My grandparents had cats, and my family has had four cats in total since I was about eight years old. I've seen plenty of them from kitten-hood until old age, so I feel like I know what I'm talking about here. I have so much to say on this subject that I think I'm just going to sort my thoughts into a list of do's and don't's, so that both you and I can make sense of this mess. The Do's: Do give your cat personality and attitude. All cats have attitude. I know people who prefer cats over dogs because of it. You ...

Confession: I'm a little concerned that my satirical attempts at humor on this blog make me sound like a tiny bit of a hater on my craft. My kind writerly friends, please do not take any of this as hate on the craft! (unless, of course, I am actually hating on the craft, in which case I will probably put up signs of warning) So, in favor of not looking like a hater of my kind (and just because I felt like it), I give you this little piece of humorous sunshine: a list of eleven things I (as a writer) OBSESS over.        1. Imaginary interviews              If I had a dollar for every time I imagined I was being interviewed, I would be a millionaire by now. This means, of course, that when the time comes and I'm in an actual interview, I'll find I don't know how to speak English. That'll be exciting...        2. Good reviews              Even if all the ot...

This is the last post in this series! *sniff* I feel so nostalgic! Just kidding, no I don't. But this is the last post in this series. This post is plot point parts of your soundtrack, the songs you put in the soundtrack specifically for the plot points. There were a couple little notes on this in the last post (Novel Soundtracks 3: Action Songs and Sad Songs), but this is where we get down to the nitty-gritty. I got this idea from one of my favorite bloggers, K. M. Weiland. In her book Outline Your Novel , she talked about novel soundtracks (!!!!!) and she had some really good ideas. She had pages of suggestions for what kind of songs you should include: A song for your inciting incident, one for the turning point in the character arc, one for the final confrontation, and the list goes on. It was a good list.  For the bigger set of basics, here's my basic list: The Big List the 'normal world' (the beginning) the protagonist's characteristic moment (t...

Post 3 in this series! Only one more to go! This one is about the songs for the  action-packed parts of the story and for the  sad parts of the story. Honestly, I get my best writing during these parts of the story because I just put on an HDSounDI playlist and the writing goes like: But more on HDSounDI later. I have mentioned this probably in MULTIPLE other posts, but I'll say it again because I can never remember if I've said something before: If the writer doesn't feel it, the reader won't. If you don't feel sad, no one else will feel sad. If you don't feel the adrenaline, the scene'll come off as flat. And I now have proof !!! I recently sent off a novel to my beta readers, and one of them (my sister) said that she really couldn't see one of the settings in her head. AnD GuEsS wHy ThAt WaS. Because yours truly couldn't really see it either. Writing it I was just kinda like, "There's like some vents over here... uh.... a tab...

I still remember the first time I wrote out a plot using actual plot points. Heh heh, heh- It was potentially the most mentally exhausting thing I had ever done in my life. Before that, I had just sort of written the plot as it came to me. . . even once I actually started doing outlines. I guess the plots I wrote before probably had some interest, but they were no great literary masterpieces. So I had to try plot. And let me tell you, the first time, more than once I considered grinding out my eyeballs with my fists. But did it get easier the second time? Uh, no. No it did not. The second time, also, was like pulling my brain out chunk by chunk. I mean, have you ever even read people's definition of the first plot point? How many of you even know what the first plot point even is ??? Writing plots didn't feel like this. It didn't feel like this. It didn't even feel like this. It felt like this. Yeah. I mean, by the six or seventh time I actual...

Villain songs! Villain songs! I could sing their praises from a high mountaintop using a megaphone and a worldwide intercom. I could screech their karaokes until the space station calls to complain about the noise. I could bellow them all day while stalking around my house wearing a black cloak and the heads of twelve teddy bears around my neck. That is how much I love villain songs. Novel soundtracks should always, 100% of the time, without exception, have a song for their villain (I mean, unless you don't have an embodied villain. Then that could be a problem). For some reason, only one of the three novel soundtracks I've created have had a song for the villain, so I don't know what's wrong with me, but I really do think that all novel soundtracks should have one. But first things first! Remember that your villain is a person too, and their song on your soundtrack doesn't necessarily have to be 'Be Prepared' or 'Poor Unfortunate Souls...

For all of ye (heh, I said ye) who don't know what a novel soundtrack is or have never made/used one, let me define the term. A novel soundtrack is like a movie soundtrack, only you don't have to work with other people who say your music choices are bad/incorrect/all different music genres and don't match. Ha! And it's for your #WIP and not a movie. And. . . oh yeah. You're the only one who will probably ever listen to it. But seriously, these are awesome. I have done one for every NaNoWriMo novel I've done so far (which is, uh, two) and one for a different novel I did in the middle of the year. I guess you can make one for a novel you're writing longhand, but I don't really see the point unless the novel is one that you're writing on your computer. Basically, you just throw together a bunch of songs that you think go with your novel (hopefully in order), and you listen to it when you're writing. That's basically the short version of ...