Hey guys!

As I mentioned in a recent post, Writing Without Supervision has moved to MediaCake servers! Right now the domain registration is still processing, so www.writingwithoutsupervision.com won’t be active for a few days, however you can visit the new site now by going to http://writingwithout.mediacakenetwork.comwww.writingwithoutsupervision.com won’t be active for a few days, however you can visit the new site now by going to http://writingwithout.mediacakenetwork.com.

This is where all the new posts will be, and when the domain is active, you will be automatically redirected and can update your bookmarks.

I don’t say this enough, but thank you all so much for reading, I love the growing community of writers and readers that is appearing in the comments. If you haven’t commented yet, join in the conversation!

Best,

Alexander

It’s that time of the week again, so get ready to fuel your creative fires and open up that word processor. That’s right, it’s Writing Prompt Wednesday!

I hope you all are having a great week so far, the weekend is finally in sight! If you are participating in NaNoWriMo then you are likely approaching the 20k mark, and if not you’ll likely be there before week’s end.

In case you have suffered a bout of writer’s block, use the prompts today to get your creative muscles stretched and ready for the rest of the month!

Writing Prompt #1. You are heading back to your childhood home for Thanksgiving this year. After a long day of travel you finally arrive at the familiar house you knew since you were a child, only to walk in a find a family of complete strangers sitting at the table. The weird part? They all know you, are expecting you, and are bringing up memories you have no memory of! What is going on?

Writing Prompt #2. It’s just an average day when your phone buzzes in your pocket and you receive a friendly text message. The odd part? It’s listed as coming from your own cell phone. The texts keep coming.

Writing Prompt #3. Write a passage about the real current events of the present day, except in a world where cell phones and computers do not exist yet.

Writing Prompt #4. You’re in the office one day and when you go to get your lunch you see it has been stolen. To make things worse the thief left a note to taunt you. Before you know it, the situation escalates to an all out war. What do you do to retaliate?

As always, submit your responses or links to your responses in the comments and I’ll add them to the post!

Week two, the beginning of heartbreak hill. Up until now you’ve been energetic, pumping out thousands of words per day, caught up in your exposition and wonderful introductions. Your cliffhanger introduction of the problem is through and now it’s time to start solving the issues and developing the characters presented in your novel. Oh hell, this is when it slows down.

Yes, heartbreak hill happens to every writer. Somewhere in the middle things just start to slow down. You aren’t close enough to have the excitement of finishing pull you along, and it is past the point where explaining and introducing is helpful any more.

The best advice I can give you in this period of distress, especially for new writers, keep writing on schedule. It doesn’t matter if what you write is crap. Hell if you have an outline and it will help you get back in the mood, switch to an exciting scene somewhere down the road and then come back to this middle section of the story.  

Right now isn’t about your month’s word count, it’s about your day’s word count.

If you are getting bored with the story or character, introduce something new like an injury or discovery. You may very well be surprised as to where this could take your story.

I’ll admit it, I am slowing down myself. Yesterday I only wrote 300 words. Only 300. Thankfully I had accomplished enough last week that I am still not behind on my daily count, but now I have to work extra hard today to give myself more insurance should this happen again in the future, which it undoubtedly will. It’s all a part of the game my friends.

I want to hear your story. I want to hear all about it and I want to read it when you publish it. So please, I ask you dearly, finish your novel.

Spending hours upon hours churning out words in an attempt to crank out 50,000 by the end of the month is sure to leave a noticeable dent in quality had you spent more time shaping your narrative.

One problem that many new writers will run into is a lack of emotional connection in their writing. You may start off wonderfully, but 15,000 words in your work may very well turn into a laundry list of events as you struggle or rush to get towards a certain point in the action.

You want to avoid writing like this: “This happened. And then this happened. Oh! And then this happened.”

And you want to do something a little more like this: “This happened and it is an event that is worth the paper because _____________.”

An easy way to really bring forth the emotion and connect with your readers is to think about your memories. Think about a moment or event in your childhood that had a big impact on you, positive or negative. Think about the details that come to mind right away. You don’t remember a laundy list of events, you remember feelings, nuances, emotions, looks of pain or anger or pure joy upon a family member’s face.

Now that you are thinking about the details to include, think about the events themselves that you remember. When looking back you don’t think about what you had for a snack 15 years ago, you think about a particularly emotional argument or a surprising gesture of kindness. You remember the things that change you or help you grow as a person, developmental moments in your life. These are the things that your readers want to hear about your characters.

What pitfalls have you run into because of the pace of NaNoWriMo? What do you do to avoid them? Share your opinions and experiences in the comments.

Hey readers and writers! We are on the sixth day of NaNoWriMo, I hope you all are fulfilling the goals you have set for yourself. I am currently at a healthy 16,200, just 400 short of my day’s goal.

Anyway, I wanted to let you all know that the website is going to be moving soon. Writing Without Supervision is getting added to the MediaCake blogs network.

MediaCake is a content publishing company that I’m a part of that is reinventing the idea of publishing houses. Hopefully I’ll be allowed to tell you more soon, because it’s all very exciting and I think it represents an important shift in the industry. This is the same company that is producing my debut novel, Six Months in Ipswich. (Blogs and books, odd combination I know, but it’s all written content!)

What this means for you: in a few short weeks (possibly sooner) you are going to have to update your bookmarks to take you to www.writingwithoutsupervision.com, and the site is no longer going to be hosted on Tumblr (sadface). But with the change we will be getting a new layout and a bunch of great features from MediaCake’s blog network. You’ll be able to comment by signing in with your facebook account! How awesome is that?

In the meantime, I’ll still be updating every weekday with the same posts your used to. Keep commenting and keep checking back, loyal readers, I love hearing from you and I’m so happy you’re with me on this crazy rollercoaster of writing!

No, I’m talking about within the plot of the book. We all know that many of you will be killing off characters that are close and dear to your heart. Alas, it’s one of the prices of great fiction.

Instead, I’m talking about taking your characters and two dimension plot devices and giving them the personality and emotion they need to truly come alive to the reader. And to come alive to the reader, they first have to come alive to you.

There are several ways you can make this happen.

1. Correspond with your characters

That’s right, write them letters. Better than that, have them write you letters back telling you, as their author, how they feel about the decisions you’ve made. Your friends might think you’ve gone off the deep end, but this is a fun and very beneficial exercise to flesh out the personality of your character. This will result in a greater consistency in the character’s defining characteristics.

The main character in my current NaNoWriMo novel, The Beauty of a Grid, is currently mad that I am about to have his cellphone destroyed (it’s necessary that he lose communication). I tried to explain, but he doesn’t think it has to be done. (See, it sounds crazy at the least, but it really gives your characters life!)

2. Keep a character blog

When I was writing my last novel, Six Months in Ipswich (MediaCake Books), I kept a blog for one of the characters I was having a hard time finding a voice for. The character was a student in high school, so her blog talked about the worries and feelings high schoolers have (or those which I remember them having at least) and it really added a nice depth to the character.

3. Make a Facebook or Twitter

This is similar to the suggestion above; make a Facebook or Twitter account for your character and update it regularly during the writing process. This way, when you are writing you will feel you are telling a story of a real person rather than a creation. If you feel the story already exists, independent of you, it will develop organically and be much easier to write.

4. Answer the 101 Questions

Last week I posted about 101 questions that you should be able to answer about your character. Fill out these questions, in first person from the POV of the character for every one of your main characters! It might take some time, but you will, without a doubt, benefit from it.

What are your suggestions for bringing your characters to life? Post them in the comments and I will update this entry with reader suggestions!

It’s already five days in to November, and that means five days into NaNoWriMo. According to the statistics provided by the official website, that means we should all have 8,335 words by the end of the day to stay on track for a grand total of 50,000 on November 30th. I’m sure some of you are below that count, and some are probably a lot higher too.

The topic of today’s post, why this number is not a proper unit of measurement.

We all have different lifestyles, and I would safely wager that most of you cannot devote a large amount of time every day to writing. For me, I am out of the house pretty consistantly on weekends. I live in New York and am either at museums or eating out or helping friends with photo shoots; it’s a lifestyle I want to maintain, even in November. I’m sure you all have your own things you do on a regular basis that take time away on certain days where you could otherwise be writing. That’s why I think you should

Set your own goals.

I considered this when I started the month, and came up with a new count. I realized that I would only be writing on weekdays throughout November, so I did a quick calculation and found that I have to complete 2,381 words every day. Not an impossible task, but it is definately more than 1,667!

Additionally, you never know when life will throw you a curve ball and make a day you normally use to write completely filled with activity that makes it impossible to keep up your count, so it’s a good idea to

Give yourself insurance

I do this by striving to maintain a count for one day ahead of the current day I am on. This way if I suddenly have to miss a day of writing, it’s okay because I’ve already done that day’s work!

What are your tips and tricks for making it to 50,000? Are you a seasoned NaNo-er that has proven methods or someone new who is trying a technique for the first time? Share your own experiences and suggestions in the comments.

We’ve done writing prompts together on this blog before, and I’ve received some really great compositions as a result from a couple readers. This in mind, I’m going to be posting writing prompts every Wednesday. If you take the time to make a composition and send it to me or link me to it in the comments, I’ll  happily post or link to it the following week.

If you’d like to email them, shoot an email to deluca.a[at]husky.neu.edu.

Writing Prompt #1: You inherit a locked box from an unknown relative, it has no edges and no key, just a small keyhole. What do you to discover its contents and what is inside?

Note: This inspired my upcoming book, The Beauty of a Grid, recently featured on the Fwis Cover Blog.

Writing Prompt #2: You are a clickwheel iPod in a world obsessed with touch screens. You notice that today they announced an even better version of the iPod touch and now your future is certainly doomed. How do you feel and what do you do?

Writing Prompt #3: The world is in a panic, and the country’s leaders are looking to you. For reasons unknown, not a single human has died in over two months, and it’s already starting to get crowded. An expert scientist, you are expected to have an answer for a planet of seven billion and growing.

Writing Prompt #4 / Difficult: Write a passage from the point of view of your keyboard as you are writing the passage.

Post your comments and compositions in the comments; I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

I’ll start this post with an example:

The coffee shop smelled good.

OR

Pushing the antique wooden door open, the smell of freshly ground arabica coffee beans washed over Julie and her companions. Each click and clack of her stilettos on the tile floor brought her closer to the lingering sweet smells of the pastry case, silently waiting to reward her for a month of healthy eating.

Which one of the above passages makes you feel more like you are right there with Julie in the coffee shop? I’ll bet you a quarter you picked the second.

This is a prime example of showing the reader your story, rather than just telling it to them. You want to invoke the senses along with the imagination, bringing forth imagery that makes them feel like they are experiencing the story for themselves.

In the above example, we applied the idea to a setting, something that has physical surroundings and common objects and characteristics which we can draw on to bring to life.

Emotions are a different story. Though you should always attempt to do the same, it can prove much more difficult as we are rarely in a purely observational state when emotional events occur. Take a look at the following example.

James looked over at Margaret; his wife was preoccupied and upset but he was at a loss of how to comfort her in such a situation.

OR

James stole a glance at his wife. Her eyes seemed to notice his gaze and turned towards him, though there was very little life behind them. Her mind was clearly somewhere else and it was as if the images her eyes were observing were not being processed, her attention completely turned inward. It was unnerving to see such a lack of emotion in his partner’s face, and turning away he wondered in vain what could be possibly be upsetting her.

It’s not perfect, but it conveys the emotion in a way that seems much more realistic to the reader. The tension is much more palpable. Creating a livable scene for the reader is what will help contribute to their emotional attachment to your work. They may identify certain things and descriptions to their own experiences. This is what you are shooting for.

Give examples of your own show vs. tell examples in the comments, or simply share your opinion! Does “telling” have a place in fiction? Discuss.  

With the days that get dark before dinner and the passing weekend of debauchery, NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is finally upon us. As you nurse your hangovers or snack away at your candy, hopefully you are typing away at your computer, crafting your next masterwork.

50,000 words in a single month can seem like a lot though, and it’s very beneficial to use some tricks to keep you motivated.

With a quick calculation, you can find out that this means a paltry 1667 words per day for the entire month, a completely feasible goal. However this is misleading. There are going to be weekends where you never open your laptop, days when you’re too sick or too tired to think about your story, or even days that are riddled with writer’s block. This is to be expected.

That’s why we suggest you instead aim for 2,500 - 5,000 words a day. Sure you probably won’t hit that 5,000 mark every single day, but attempting to will really give your word count a boost.

Throughout the next month, a majority of our posts will be related in some way or another to NaNoWriMo, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, what are you waiting for?