Killing Our Characters

The killing of characters can be a sad or happy occasion. I recently wrote a scene where I killed a character that I happened to like. Unfortunately, it had to happen. Her death is the catalyst for one of my other characters realizing that she's really not in a good situation. It's the reason that she leaves that situation. If her death didn't happen, my main character couldn't learn what she needs to learn, and the story would never move forward.

The problem is that, as I was writing the scene, I wanted to cry. I wanted to put the book down and walk away. Pretend I had never written that scene and act like she was still alive. That's what I do when I'm reading a book, so why can't I do that when I'm writing it?

Characters, much as we may not like to admit it, are just tools that writers have to use. Yes, my characters are now all yelling at me about how they're not just tools, and how dare I refer to them as such, but we all know it's true. They're how we tell a story, and sometimes that means that we have to kill them. Or have something horrible happen to them. (And now they're all cowering in a corner and promising to be good if I just don't kill them. Too bad for them I'm a particularly morbid author, and plan and killing most of the Muahahah!!)

*Ahem* anyway. The point of the matter is that it's a necessary evil. Our characters have to sometimes be killed for either a plot point, or to motivate another one of our characters. It must be done! And what you need to remember (okay...and maybe I need to remember too) is that those reactions that we're having, where we're practically crying or just plain angry that we had to do it, that is what our readers are going to have too. They're going to be the ones crying, or throwing their books across the room and declaring that they're pissed and how dare we (as the authors) kill off their favorite character. Do we even realize what we have done?

That is what motivates me to continue. Despite all the protesting from the characters who die in my head. Or the other characters telling us that we can't do that to them. What are they going to do without that other character? I keep reminding myself of what it will be like the first time someone tells me that they threw their book across the room. (Which is a good thing for me...as that's what I do when I'm angry at something in a book)

More than anything I want to evoke emotions in my readers. I want them to cry, to yell at the books, to throw them. Whatever they have to do. I don't care. I just want people to feel what I felt when I wrote it.

That is the goal of any writer.

Is It Hot In Here? Cause My Motivation Evaporated...

So, remember how I said that my motivation is competition? Don't worry, I didn't lie to you. If there is competition, I'm willing to up my word count. I'm willing to spend hours at my desk, causing back aches and wrist weakness, just so that I keep that number one spot and don't let anyone pass me. And if someone starts to get close, you can bet that my next day off is going to be spent trying to get as many words as I can so that I'm not worried about them passing me while I'm at work.

Unfortunately, there's a rather nasty side effect. When people start dropping further and further behind me, and I no long have someone telling me that they're going to beat me no matter what it takes, all of that motivation suddenly evaporates. Like it wasn't even there. Suddenly I”m negotiating with myself. Telling myself that I increased my original goal, so if I don't hit my new goal it'll be fine. I don't really need to catch up. I can come in 10k behind. It will all be alright!

And yet, no matter how many of those conversations I have with myself (I swear I don't answer myself back...okay...maybe I do...) I can't quite convince myself that I wont fee disappointed at the end of the month when I'm not sitting at 300k. Because I know I will. I know that I'll think I could have done better. Especially since nothing really has come up. No emergencies that have dragged me kicking and screaming (or just a little too willing) from my keyboard. Not even an unexpected day at work. Instead, I'm just not quite as willing to stay up late to get the word count. Or to give up my shows so I have more time to write.

I need the motivation back. I need people to come on the chat and outright challenge me to a word duel (I'll even take a handicap, I swear.) I need to get that excitement and drive back so that I can finish this nano with a bang, rather than limp across the midnight finish line unable to hold my word count up as what I wanted to do.

Or maybe I just need to stop watching the shows that distract me from my characters, and bury myself in their world. Put myself in their shoes and let that drive me for a while. It works for other writers, why not me? I can change my motivation!

In the mean time, though, I think I'll continue to hang around the chat until someone comes along to word war with. Then I'll start writing.

Turn That Frown Into Words

Yesterday I was given a piece of bad news that brought my day completely down. Most of the time I'm a fairly happy person, but when something like that happens, I get all frustrated, and suddenly any motivation that I may have had (say, a friend who tells me that they're going to beat me this year) disappears.

When I got home yesterday I stared at my computer for a half hour before I realized that writing wasn't going to happen, as least not right away. Because, I knew that if the words started to flow, the frustration would go into it. Meaning that one of my characters (important characters that still have a lot of storyline to finish) would probably end up getting the brunt of it, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were killed. As that wasn't something I wanted to do, I thought maybe I needed a bit of a pick me up.

I'm rather ahead in my nanoing attempts this year, so I thought it would be alright to watch an episode of one of my favorite shows. The first episode, actually. And as hoped, it pulled me out of my dark mood and got me laughing. By the time it was over, I was starting to fell more like myself, and less like that scary person in the corner who looks like their about to explode if you so much as look at them.

Before I got started on writing, however, I decided to get some food, only to discover that the one thing I was looking forward to was out of the one item they should never be out of. While normally I might brush this off and move on with my day, that dark mood from earlier seemed to find this weakness encouraging and it quickly took hold again.

How did I pull myself out of it? I did the very thing I should have done right from the beginning. I launched myself into a word war. (And not just any word war. An hour long word war!) Pretty soon my mind had cleared, and I had managed to bury that dark mood.

No matter how we look at it, as writers, our sanctuary is the page. We may complain bitterly about our characters, and sometimes even have a block that we just can't seem to get over, but at the end of the day, if we need to have it out, it's in words. We let our emotions play out on the page.

Now I know better, of course. The next time a dark mood descends (though I'm hoping it's not for a while) I'm going to pull out the old laptop and let the words fly. I might get a few strange looks, but hey, it's who I am. And I've learned recently that we can't be happy unless we are true to ourselves.

What the Muse Wants...

When I started writing this year, I had a solid number in mind. A goal I wanted to hit before December first reared it's real life filled head and forced me out of the dream world I plan to live in for November. Granted this number is just a little bet higher than everyone else's, but the point of matter is, there was goal.

Something happened yesterday, however, that's making me question this number. And it's not what you think, because I'm not planning on bringing that number down. No, instead I want to add to it. Suddenly I feel like it's not high enough. That I'm sure I can fit a few more words in every day and hit an even higher number. How hard could that be, really, when I've already got a high goal?

So what made me do this? It's quite simple. Competition. This may sound stupid (in fact, I often question my own rationality skills) but when one of my writing buddies informed me yesterday that they were planning on surpassing me, this was where my mind went. I had to write more. I had to write faster, and I was not giving up.

Don't get me wrong, I wish my writing buddy all the luck in the world. More than anything I love to see people achieving their goals, and if that goal is to hit a high number in November, more power to them. The thing is, she found it. That one button that makes my motivation go through the roof. It was what made me write so many words last year, and it's what's going to keep me going this year.

I thrive on competition. More importantly, my muse thrives on competition. While I may already have my plots done, I assure you, the muse is still very important in my writing endeavors, and having someone challenge me just motivates both of us to keep writing.

Competition, however, is just one way for a person to motivate themselves to write. For some people, just setting a goal for themselves is all they need. For others a treat when they hit that goal is required. (For the record, I'm also planning on giving myself a treat if I hit my goal of 200k this month.) No one is the same, whether it be their style of writing, their speed of writing, or how they motivate themselves to write.

So how do you do it? What button do you need to push to keep yourself writing throughout the month?

My Muse and Inspiration

I don't know about you, but I often find that I have a heard time sitting down to write.  I do everything I feel like I need to do in order to set up a good writing atmosphere.  I turn on music.  I turn off the TV.  I leave twitter running, which might be a bad thing, but I have to stay connected.  At least, that's what I tell myself.  Then I open up scrivener (my current word processor of choice)...and stare blankly at the screen.

Oh, I write.  At least a little bit.  I'll get some words down that I will glare at because they're not doing exactly as I want them to do.  Usually I get frustrated after about half an hour where I've written maybe a couple hundred words and I start playing a game to distract myself.  I tell myself it's to give myself time to think.  This is, of course, a lie.  I am doing anything and everything in my power to not be writing right at that minute.

Even time deadlines do nothing for me.  I've tried write or die.  I really have.  While it does pull more words out of me in a shorter time period, I can't quite force myself to continue writing afterward.  In fact, I think, I should do another session, and instead start watching a show or even reading, telling myself that I'm ahead and that thousand words I just wrote was good enough for the day.

There is something you should know about me.  Something I never knew about myself until November.  In fact, before November I actually believed the exact opposite of myself.  I thrive on competition.  And by thrive, I mean THRIVE.

In the same half hour that I would sit and get maybe 800 words staring blankly at my screen, by simply adding another person writing with me, I get 1800 words.  It's sad, but it's the truth.

Just so you know, I don't sit in front of my computer thinking 'I have to beat the rest of them!' actually, I really don't know what I think about while I'm #wordmongering.  It's as if my mind just clears and pours out the words that it refuses to give up without that competition.

Maybe it's my muse.  She is the most unreliable muse I've ever met.  Not that I've met a lot of muses.  This is just what I've heard.  She takes off at the most inopportune of times.  In fact for years she wasn't anything more than a voice in the back of my head that whispered maybe a couple days a year.  Now that I've found a way to keep her yelling, how can I stop?

#wordmongering has jumped my word count for my current novel to over 50k since May 1st.  Competition keeps me engaged with my characters.  Keeps me wanting to know more about the plot and how everything is going to turn out.  It makes me brainstorm so that I'm never without something to work on.  It makes me research.  Yep.  Research.  Rather ironic considering the fact that I decided to write a fantasy novel for the very specific reason that I can make up everything I'm writing.  And now I'm planning on spending Saturday in the library with a pile of books about 12th century weaponry and war strategies.

My point to all of this?  I found my inspiration.  The one thing that keeps us, as writers, moving forward.  As strange as competition for inspiration may sound, it works for me.  And it working is really all that matters.  As a writer, my sole objective is to keep writing.  Whether or not I ever get published has nothing to do with it.  As long as my muse thrives on competition (and my #wordmongering tweeps continue to provide that competition) I will write.  And that's all that really matters.