So this post comes from a question that came my way. A writer wanted some advice about how to tackle her novel when she's pre-programmed to read/write a specific way for work. For background, she has her first draft complete - all of the key points of the journey out on the page. Her issue is that it reads like a data entry report: just the key facts.

For someone writing fiction, you really don't want your novel to read like a data entry report. But every time she gets to any kind of description, her brain tells her to cut out the fluff. She feels forced to write in details and then hates them because it goes because need-to-know facts.

Now this advice I had to give her without actually seeing a sample of her work, so it's hard for me to judge how much of this she is just being self-conscious about, ie. she doesn't go on for 3 pages talking about how her MC's hair shimmers in various types of lighting and therefore feels underwhelmed by her descriptions. Or how much she is really cutting out, ie. "Female human talks to male human. They engage in lengthy conversation. They agree to mate for pleasure purposes."

So for now let's focus on the actual problem, which is the step that happens before the writing. 

​Brain Re-Set

Getting yourself into Writing Brain is key regardless of what kind of mental obstacle you're facing. I have to tackle this one all of the time, and honestly I'm more likely to avoid writing ****NOT THE RIGHT CHOICE!!!!**** than I am to dedicate myself to overcoming it. 

Last week I posted about a spontaneous creative exchange I had with a friend. It forced me to tap into the silly part of my brain, the one that comes without outlines or rough-drafts, without edits or polish. That was the fire I needed to get going.

Tip #1: Just Get Creative. This is the one piece of writing advice that you will hear ad nauseum. Everyone will tell you to just start writing, anything, just write. 

And while I am very aware of this, and have given it as advice many times, I am a total hypocrite most of the time when facing my own writing blocks. Whatever I'm working on becomes a chore on my list and I can't just sit around and play while there's something I have to do! Which totally kills that creative flow and doesn't work well for anyone!

So please remember that getting creative doesn't always mean having to write.

Music. I find music helps. I create playlists that reflect scenes of my work to help me get lost into those moment again. If you can play music, do it, whether you're composing, playing through a songbook, or just messing around, get your brain into a non-work space. Sing. Make drums out of kitchen supplies. Change the lyrics of a popular song in a way that would reflect the national anthem of sperm whales.... You get the idea...

Movement. Dance. Run. Heck, I could just pace around a coffee table for hours. Play with your pet. Play Hot Wheels with your kids. Play Hot Wheels by yourself. Chase after bubbles. Do something that distracts your brain from focusing on "work". If that means structured exercise, do that. If it means finding a swing set and going for a swing, do that. I will always recommend the swing!

Imagination Games. Play around with mash-up ideas. Take characters, settings, dialogue, anything at all, and pop it into a different world. Whether you write about it, draw it, paint it, or just talk to yourself using different voices for how Mr. Darcy would handle an Ebeneezer Scrooge type encounter with the ghost of Dumbledore, or Mr. T, or Elmo. This is pretty much what I ended up doing - trying to re-create "Going Back to Hogwarts" in a way that promoted cheesy pasta... in Detroit... 

Tip #2. Ghost Read. This is the advice I actually gave this writer. Because she was feeling put out by a very specific writing issue, it was clear to me that she had something in her mind of what it is she wanted her writing to look like. And since she was in the revision stage, she needed to make it clear to herself what she was trying to achieve.

Find an author who writes in a way that you admire or strive to equal. 

Before even opening your draft, read a few pages of great exposition. Appreciate the details, the flow, etc.

Take a scene from your own work. Write it as *insert author name here* would. 

Repeat this for all of your trouble scenes.

Then reread your whole story. Change the parts that aren't you.

Step back and put it in the hands of someone you trust. Let them decide what's too much, not enough, or takes on a different narrative voice.

Believe me, if I can tell that an author put a few years between one chapter and the next, your reader will be able to tell if you start adopting too much of other author's voice. 

The key to this whole activity is to get out of auto-pilot. If your brain says "enter code", you need to pretend to be someone who doesn't write in "code". It might take 18 revisions, but that's what writers do. We do whatever it takes to get it right! Your story deserves that much!

If you need to practice, do this activity with a mash-up of authors. Want to write like Stephen King? Have "him" re-write Charlotte's Web - not all of it, just a few scenes. Get comfortable writing in the style you feel that you're lacking. 

The End

This will be my last Tuesday Writing Tip as I shift gears for NaNoWriMo. No idea yet what I'll be posting during November, but I'd like to walk you through some of this new novel.

In the meantime, I'm happy to answer any question as best as I can, so please feel free to post a comment here, tweet me, or post a question on my Goodreads page. I won't pretend to be an expert in this field, but I can share my experiences as a writer and reader, and I like to think that as a teacher I've gotten pretty good at personalizing approaches to learning for different strengths.

Who knows, your questions could even help me in my own writing process!



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All writing requires conflict of some sort. I don't know if any of you remember the conflict breakdown that we were taught in school, but all conflict stems from 3 categories: 1) Man Vs. Man, 2) Man Vs. Nature, 3) Man Vs. Self. So even if you don't have a "villain" in your story, your main character must face a struggle of some sort, even if it's just overcoming their own crippling fear or over-inflated ego. 

Now while it's true that your conflict can be anything at all, the trick is ensure that there's a reason for your main character (or any character for that matter) to respond to it. If it's a small conflict that suits a sub-plot then, no the fate of the world doesn't have to rest upon it, but it has to matter to someone otherwise it isn't worth exploring. As the centre of this conflict grows in importance to your plot, or is the basis of your plot, the more it is necessary for your characters to be very clear about what's at stake if this conflict isn't resolved.

As usual, I'll give you an example from a work I critiqued. 

The Faerie World

In this story, a huge world-altering war is brewing between two sides of the Fae, and only the chosen ones will have power enough to stop the darkness.

Conflict? Yes. The world being overcome by darkness is a pretty big threat. 

Does it matter to the Main Character? In theory.

This is where I have to intervene. The MC must act because the fate of the world is at stake, however, as a reader, I need to know the details of what's at stake if she doesn't act or doesn't succeed. 

Darkness sounds bad, but what does a world ruled by it really look like? I mean, I can make my guesses, but I need to see some signs of what this means other than "it's evil". Unless of course we're headed for a double-agent type of deal where the Light ends up being the manipulative evil, and the Dark just gets a bad rep, in which case, yes, you want to mask the real evil a little longer than you would otherwise. 

But regardless of how big and bad the evil may be, you need to ask yourself as a writer, "Why her? Why now?" And just replying with, "She's chosen!" isn't really motivation enough for me to invest in this journey.

Let's look at other famous chosen ones:

1) HP, the boy who lived.
Is letting Voldemort win a bad thing for both the wizard and muggle world? Yes!
Are we given the details as to why? Yes, because he came to power before hand. 
Is Harry Potter going up against him purely because it's the right thing to do? No.

I've got your attention now, don't I?

Harry Potter, while a good person who wants to do the right thing would want to help out defeating Voldemort because he should, would probably not have become the leader that he was if he didn't have a personal reason to get involved.
Voldemort killed his parents - very personal. Out of the hundreds of random killings, this one means the most to our hero.
Voldemort specifically wants Harry Potter dead more than any other being alive - very personal. 
As Harry Potter becomes more invested in life in the wizarding world, Voldemort up's the ante by killing people Harry Potter cares about - Sirius Black, Dumbledor, Hedwig, and of course the threat of losing everyone becomes more of an issue. 
If Voldemort went on a killing spree in the first book, yes it would be unfortunate, but Harry wouldn't have had the time to solidify those bonds. Even the beautiful Hedwig would have just been an unfortunate loss as opposed to the heart-wrenching shock that it was. But these losses, and threat of loss, matter because we know how emotionally tied our Main Character is. 

In my critiqued example, there is no tie. It's just an important adventure. So the note I left this writer was "Show me what she has to lose!"

Think about Frodo from The Lord of the Rings. Really he's just a hobbit who's in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a present that he shouldn't be in possession of. Now there's two things going for Frodo to drive him into action against Sauron and the One Ring:
1) He has seen first-hand how the ring has changed his uncle. No, Bilbo isn't evil, but there is the sense that something isn't right. Though this becomes more apparent after the fact, it's still something for Frodo to hang on to - a first-hand account of how people he loves can be overwhelmed by darkness. 
2) The immediate threat. Evil is coming, it is coming for you, and it will kill everyone in its path! This is what gets Frodo out of the door! Self-preservation, and the protection of his people (even if they are ungrateful). 
And while saving the world is an important part to the reader for understanding just how evil Sauron is, the lives of millions of people aren't the driving hero factor, they are more like a happy consequence to saving those who matter. It's an unfortunate human reality - we do care more for the one than for the many, despite what Spock may have taught us. 

Now this isn't all to say that you can't have a hero who genuinely wants to save the world without any personal gain - but we still need to know why? Is our hero trying to atone for something? Do they have a loved mentor who is grooming them for good? Is it an ingrained personality trait? 

I have to make a comment on this last one. No joke, I taught a student whose OCD made them only tell the truth, now it wasn't Liar Liar style where he was physically incapable of saying that the pen is red, it was more of a practical thing where inventing a lie just served no practical purpose and so he always focused on his real tasks/responsibilities. Really creative kid, and a great storyteller, but those inventions served a practical purpose. Lying about his homework didn't achieve anything, so he didn't do it. I mention this story because why not have a hero who must compulsively fix things, or make things good? At least we'd know what's in it for them, what their motivation is!

I know that these examples have been catering to the fantasy world, but remember that the same applies to your contemporary genre as well. 

We can accept that a doctor needs to cure a rare virus because that's what doctors get paid to do, but we readers would be so much more invested if her sister, child, favourite grandfather had or died from this virus. 

We can cheer on our corporate climber knowing that he won't feel fulfilled until he gets that big promotion and can finally make his father/wife/potential lover proud.

We can cry tears of joy for the quiet girl in class who finally takes centre stage and dance, overcoming the years of poor self-esteem that she has had to battle through.

All of these heroes can take us on amazing journeys that keep our hearts in knots, but only if we get a chance to invest our hearts to them. It's them we need to be attached to, we need to understand what they fear, what they dream about, who they care about, otherwise a trip to Mordor may as well be a trip to the supermarket - when what we need is a trip to the supermarket to feel like a mission to Mordor!

I have, disappointingly, been in quite the writing slump lately. I hate it. I had every intention of doing some novel revisions in October, promptly, so that I could do some major NaNoWriMo planning in the week before Halloween...

I have done none of the above...

I have intended to. I have opened up my draft, made a few typo corrections, and then left the document open with every intention of coming back to it when I finish the dishes, one more load of laundry, oh look the baby is crying again...

To be fair, I'm not going to complain that I have no time to write. It's purely a motivational thing. And when trying to do the mundane revision, you really can't go at it with a fuzzy head, otherwise you get the halfassed product of a few fixed typos and still pretty much crap writing.

Then last night, out of the blue, something magical happened.

Well, that was a spark that turned into a blaze in no time flat.

If you don't know where this is going by now, I recommend you watch this:

Not only am I a Starkid fan, but when I went to live in the Canadian Hogwarts hidden in Herstmonceux, England, a made friends with anyone who would breakout into AVPM songs with me. And I made some pretty great friends! And although we all live miles apart, and our lives have become much more muggle-like with bills, filing taxes, and trying to find purpose that pays, we still have an unbreakable bond, held together by Harry Potter parody fandom. And thus, from out of the blue, my castle friend reminded me about the magic...

Needless to say, this totally made my night, and it made me magical again. 

I opened up that word doc and took a wrecking ball to that first chapter, spiffed it up, and felt powerful.

The lesson learned? 

Friendship = Starkid = Redvines

And for those of you who are struggling to follow along: "What the hell can't they do!"

I noticed that when I give detailed critiques, I tend to use a lot of metaphors - sometimes even confusing mixed metaphors. This shouldn't be surprising since even my blog follows my own stream of consciousness and departs on sudden tangents without notice. It's just how my brain works. 

Anyways, I noticed a recurring metaphor (or fragments thereof), and thought that I'd unpack it here.

It's called The Road Trip.

When I was 11 years old, my father packed 5 of us in the car and we drove from Prince George, BC, all the way down to Florida, and then back up again. This is the origin of my Road Trip metaphor, and shortly you will see how it applies to novel writing. 

This is the first recommended route from point A to point B that google maps gave me. This is not the route that we took. I was eleven, so I don't remember the exact series of events, but my father wanted to ensure that we saw all of the highlights on route. We saw the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, Washington DC, New Orleans, San Diego, Disney World, Kennedy Space Centre, San Antonio, Las Vegas, and probably lots of other things state-side, and somehow we also managed to hit up Toronto and Niagra Falls.

This big adventure is a novel. This trip is significantly different than your big adventure to the local shopping mall. Yes, you can have a big adventure in a shopping mall, but one would assume that you aren't going to have a lot of stops on the way to the shopping mall - that's the point of a mall, everything is under one roof! Your trip to the mall is probably a short story. One destination on the to-do list, and even if other things happen, when you tell the story of your trip to the shopping mall, your audience expects your story to be focused on what happened at the mall. If your story contains the amazing account of being chased by a giant rhinoceros while crossing the parking lot, then this should be your rhinoceros story, not your trip to the mall story...

Your novel should be the big road trip. Yes, you have a destination in mind, but, as my above map tells me, even if driving all in one go, it takes well more than 24 hours to get from my point A to point B. As a human being, you're going to have to stop somewhere. These, my friends, are the scenes that will fuel your chapters.

Now, let's imagine that you are writing this as an author who wants to retain some form of convention - meaning that you aren't out to re-define what "the novel" is. So, as a more conventional author, you will conduct your road trip with certain conventions as well: you'll map out where you're going, how to get there, budgeting of course for gas mileage, hotel stays, eating out, and whatever attractions you plan to visit.

Every author does this part to some extent, and even the omission of some of these points can be very telling about an author. This is also where I see new writers getting lost. The soul-searching road trip is all wonderful and ideal, until you realize that both you and your car need to refuel at some point, and if you haven't banked for that, your trip might not take you to the destination you were hoping to reach.  Planning helps you prioritize. And authors need to prioritize!

Example One: "Look at that rock! Look at that stick!"

I've worked with writers who believe that every step of their big road trip is equally impressive and must be focused on. These writers tend to stick to chronological order, single perspectives, and account for every single moment in their main character's life. The Tristiam Shandy of road trips without the hilarious tangents. As a reader, you become bombarded with a litany of character names, every single person that the MC has ever spoken to or passed on the street. You encounter scenes with redundant dialogue because everything has to happen in real time, and therefore, everything we have just seen has to be re-explained to the other characters who weren't there to witness it. 

If we were to conduct my father's big road trip with this type of prioritization, we would have stopped the car at every store, gas station, home, scenic view, and possibly even every time another car approached, honking aggressively so that we could all pull over together and introduce ourselves to everyone we share the road with. With this kind of planning, we might as well just go to the mall, it'll take us 3 days just to get that far.

Not only is making every single object you encounter a stop-and-see event just adding hours into your trip, and thus making it needlessly lengthy for your audience to read, but you're actually undervaluing those amazing stops. You can't be equally excited about every stick on the side of the road as you are about Disney World. If your character is, it's telling your reader that your whole journey to point B wasn't actually all that important to begin with. If that's the case, you might want to revisit your SWBS chart and look at what it is your character really wants. If it's just to collect sticks, well then, he doesn't have to travel three weeks to Florida to have that adventure. 

Example Two: "Super Car, Brought to You By Magic"

Then there's the writers who really don't like pit stops - at all! They force their characters to drive all night, or else somehow teleport, eyes fixed on the road, and only the road so that they arrive at point B. I know that we all think it's stupid that Frodo doesn't just hop on an Eagle and dump the One Ring into the volcano at Mordor, but then we would have no reason to ever interact with such a wonderful array of characters, Boromir wouldn't have his badass death, Aragorn wouldn't be king, and Samwise wouldn't have the most heart-wrenching heroic bromance in the history of bromance! But some authors don't like the extra effort of planning pit stops, so they skip them altogether. Big red flag! Not only does it make the author look lazy and unimaginative, but it disappoints your reader. Can you imagine the SWBS chart? I can, and it horrifies me!

Frodo - Wants to destroy the ring - So he goes to Mordor and destroys it.

But????!?!?!

No But, he just does it.

Please, please, please don't be this person!!! I beg you!

It's great that you want to write a story about *insert event here*, but you need those pit stops. It's the pit stops that allow your characters to face those obstacles. A flat tire. They hit a deer. They run out of gas. Uncle Frank has nasty farts so everyone has to let the car air out for 3 hours before they all suffocate and die! Let your audience feel the anticipation of the journey ahead. What's waiting for them at the end? What's at stake if they don't make it? Does your character have doubts about being able to make it? Plan these stops! Slow us down to get to know your characters, and I don't mean in a long-winded introductory chapter. Let us see your character in action so that by the time he reaches that point B climax, we're right there in the car with him!

Yes, the road trip is not an easy endeavour. In fact, this is where most writers stop before they even begin. Budding authors turn away because they don't feel like they can lead their MC along the whole journey. 

This is why I spent so long emphasizing the SWBS chart. The chart is your road map! Or at least, it's the pencil marks you lay down before solidifying your route. 

So if ever you hear or see me giving a critique note that says "why is this a pit stop?" or "I think you should pull the car over here," this is what I'm talking about. There's either something worth getting out and seeing, or we're spending too much time on the side of the road looking at useless crap in the parking lot when the Grand Canyon is sitting right in front of us!

I wish that I could take credit for this one, but I actually first learned about it through a teaching resource called When Kids Can't Read. One of the tools in this book has been great for me to use at all age levels, and it works wonderfully for both analysing stories and writing them!

It's called SWBS, and while in this form it looks like you're cussing someone out online, it's actually very practical.

Somebody Wants But So

I know that I'm usually not a great advocate for formulas, and while I don't actively create these charts for myself, the basis of what this chart stands for is something that I strongly believe in and always try to replicate in my own story writing. Like all tools, use them to get you started, and then you can adjust and adapt from there until you've got a rhythm of your own. 

I bring this one up now because if you remember last week's post, you'll note how my writer examples struggled with deciding which characters to develop. 

This was the advice I gave to one of the authors. Yes, only one, because only one needed a tool to start with, the other needed to purge her toolbox!

I'm going to lay it out the way that I told this writer to use it, which means that she already had a draft written and her first issue that we are trying to resolve is maintaining a plot with an ensemble of characters.

I am a character-driven writer. These writers that I've been helping have read some of my work so they know what my style is. They in turn can take my advice with however big a grain of salt they wish. But as a reader, I also lean towards characters over plot, so that's the direction that this particular tool leans to as well.

Let us begin!

First you are going to take a large piece of paper (or word processor document) and divide it up into 4 columns. 

At the top of the first column, you are going to write Somebody. From this point forward, as you read your draft, every single character name you come across is going to be listed in this column. Do this part first! Fill it all in!

Second you are going to fulfill the remaining column headers. This is where the digital version might be easier. Otherwise, prepare to write small.
 2nd column is called Wants
3rd column is called But
4th column is called So

If you haven't guessed yet, this chart is going to help you pin point character motivation.

So let's start with an example:
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Yes, the above example may seem a bit crude, and Harry Potter fans everywhere are cursing my name because of the horribly simplistic representation of one of the greatest works of our time! but please bear with me...

We see here that each category has been filled-in in relation to one particular aspect of our character in this story:

Somebody: Harry Potter
Wants: In this scene, Harry Potter has only one desire that's driving him into action. The thing that he wants most in this moment is his mail! (This can all change later, and I'll show you when we get there!)
But: The thing that is keeping Harry Potter from getting the thing that he wants most, is his Uncle Vernon who continuously finds ways to destroy his mail before he can ever open them!
So: What Harry does about it. In this case, he can do nothing. He has yet to learn that he has any power over his terrible uncle and so he must remain sad and helpless - until another catalyst comes into play (but we'll get to that later).

So to recap:
Somebody: your character
Wants: What that character wants
But: The thing that is keeping your character from what he/she wants
So: What they can/can't do about it. 

I chose the above example because your character might not always be able to attain what he/she wants, so don't feel bad if your So doesn't actually resolve the issue.

What you'll notice as you start to chart out the things that your characters want, is how essential these desires are, as well as the consequences of not having these things. If it's a minor detail, like Harry not getting his mail, you may not have much more to develop on that point. At least, from that character's perspective. 

Watch as I move on from Harry, and this same scenario suddenly gets a little more complex:

You'll notice that I've had to go back and forth with my But So categories. 

It's alright if you're giggling now. I've been using/explaining this chart for years and I still feel silly for constantly saying "but". 

Now that we've got some back and forth action in place in our chart, we can see how much more essential this character and his motivations are. If we were to just leave it here, it looks like Uncle Vernon is our lead and Harry Potter just a supporting character, but as we all know, Harry's desire to have his mail is just one small thing in a long list of desires that crop up in his story. This is because it all comes down to the importance of each desire.

In the grand scheme of things, Harry's mail has nothing to do with Harry so much as it does the secret that his Uncle has been keeping. 

This may seem backwards since we're doing this from an already-made draft perspective, but if you're plotting out your story from scratch, you will probably be starting with the BIG PICTURE.

The BIG PICTURE is the deepest-inner most desire.

So for Uncle Vernon, we know that the reason he wants to keep Hogwarts a secret is because he has a fear and distrust of magic paired with his wife's own jealousy. If we started from here, we'd be going back and forth with our But So for pages as we cross the entire 7 book series!

And Harry? What is the driving force for Harry Potter over these 7 books?
Happiness. And for Harry, happiness comes in the form of friendship and love, that's why he will often meet road-blocks that he cannot overcome on his own. His So's will seemingly be dead-ends until another character steps in. 

This is where you will discover who your main players are. If Harry Potter is your intended lead, then his greatest desire should be the centerfold of your plotline. Even if it isn't his intention to follow it.

For example, Bilbo Baggins just Wants  a normal average life, But a wizard comes along offering an adventure So he refuses it, But dwarves show up believing that he's already signed-up for the mission, So Bilbo gets peer-pressured into becoming a burglar. 
From this point on, Bilbo will be fluctuating from his initial desire to not have adventures, to satiating that little bit of curiosity that he has in him, to being loyal to his newfound friends. 

Whatever it is that gets your lead going, that's your plot. The characters who intersect those needs, for better or worse, are your supporters. Those that share most of that plotline journey, may in fact be co-leads, so your villain should pop up in this category if you've given them a reason for their desires to collide. 

Uncle Vernon is support. Harry cannot move forward unless his uncle gives him something to react to.

Hagrid is support. Harry cannot move forward unless Hagrid gives him something to react to.

Dudley, as much as we love to hate him, is more prop than person. And that's okay. It doesn't really matter if he's the favourite son, the prize poodle, or a highly sensitive cactus. This SWBS should tell us as much as Dudley focuses on being the star of his own adventure. He may occasionally be afraid of Harry, but his real desires have nothing to do with Harry. While Harry is at Hogwarts, Dudley doesn't even have to think about Harry. Harry is Dudley's setbacks, at least some of them, but their narratives don't really intersect meaningfully.

Draco Malfoy trumps Dudley as the bully. Draco's desires are actually not that different from Harry's, and their rises and falls are pretty intertwined. 

So, if you're reading along with your manuscript, and you find that a lot of your chapters revolve around your Dudley, you need to really step back and think about what you're doing with your story. Maybe Harry Potter isn't the lead you thought he was going to be. Maybe your Harry Potter stops with his mail. 

Whoever is having the adventure, that's who you're writing about. It sounds obvious I know, but if you're struggling with perspective and making your characters relevant to each other, use the chart! Find where But So's intersect with one another. 

And unless you're planning on writing a super long epic to rival George R.R. Martin, limit your leads. (I for one do not want to start charting A Song of Ice and Fire). Because in order to really be a lead, they will need to have a sophisticated repeating But So exchange, and not just as a sidekick to help your lead, that would then make them a supporting character, but an actual series of goals of their own.

Yes, series of goals!

This is another thing that will classify what type of character you have.
How essential is the Want.
Happiness. True Love. Revenge. Saving the World. These are pretty essential Wants. 
Not saying that you can't base an entire novel off of wanting to get a cup of coffee. Neil Gaimen did beautifully with Fortunately, the Milk which was all about, as you might have guessed, bringing home milk. The point is that it has to be the most important thing to your lead character. If it isn't, then that's not the story you should be telling, that's a subplot.

What is subplot? It's the other thing that your lead wants in reaction to events.

Harry Potter still wants happiness, and when he sees a letter addressed to him for the very first time, all he wants is that letter, not because it's more important to him than happiness, but because of the possibility that happiness might be attached to it. Someone thought about him enough to personally address an envelope to him. And while the rest of us would dismiss personally addressed envelops as a bill or jury duty, a little recognition is enough to feel world-changing to that little boy. To him, that letter is a big deal, even before he knows that it will change his life, he just wants to be acknowledged, accepted, and, if someone could spare it, loved. 

Every interaction that Harry has after that letter fuels him for a new direction, a new desire. 

Subplot one: discover the secret
Subplot two: learn about parents and try to be like them
Subplot three: be better than the Durlseys (why he won't befriend Draco in Slytherin, remember?)
Subplot four: help those he cares about

This isn't all of them. And as you know they'll get more specific as each occasion arises. And when you're writing, it can be quite tempting to follow each of these little mini adventures regardless of where they take you. But never forget your plotline. Always ask yourself how this desire relates to the BIG PICTURE. 

Harry Potter sits in front of the Mirror of ERISED because it makes him feel close to his parents. If that's where JK left it, I would have advised her to cut the scene out entirely, but it serves a greater purpose, doesn't it? Not only is it a platform for character development for both Harry and Dumbledor, but it gives us the tool necessary for Harry to save Hogwarts, to save everything and everyone that makes him happy. 

Scene, Subplot, Plot. 

I know that this was a long post, and I may have ended up causing more confusion with my chosen examples than I've helped with, but at least you still have the chart. Use the chart. Trust the chart. And when you've seen where your characters are going, you'll have a better sense of how to push them where you intended them to go - or, as I usually find, you'll discover the story that you didn't even know you were telling!

So I'm in the throws of another edit thanks to the feedback from my critique circle - yes, the one that I previously mention I hadn't started yet!

So I thought I would do a follow-up on those three pesky chapters now that I've gone over them. Let me say that the character depression had nothing to do with the issues of how those chapters read. 

If you've been following my late-night tweets, they've mostly been in the form of Charlie Brown "AAARRRGGGG!!!"'s over verb tense. Yes, something so simple actually had a catastrophic effect on my novel. So why didn't I write my previous posts on verb tenses? Because no one pointed it out. No that it should be anyone's job to be the verb police, except for me because I know that I know better, but having multiple people point out to me that something was going wrong in these three chapters had me going over it with an extra diligent eye. So I found the problem, and it's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.

This novel is 1st person narration. Everything that is action happens in the now, unless of course he's remembering something from before hand, but those are narrative memories and not action. For some reason, just for a scattering of paragraphs within these three chapters, my narration dives into narrative memories of now events, thus stifling out the action, creating a "Get Off The Phone" issue. So why didn't I catch this myself during one of my many revisions? Well, I suspect that when the action faded, even I glazed over the passages and therefore didn't read close enough to see that my verbs had changed. I mean, logically this should have been a huge red flag. The writer should never glaze over any part of her work! But that's the only explanation I can think of. And I think the screeching halt caused so many other people to glaze over that they too couldn't pin-point what the real issue was other than "it's very telly and boring." As I said in a previous post, "Show, Don't Tell" is great advice except when you're trying to fix it. 

To use my own personal experience as a writing lesson: Check your verbs! And if you aren't a great grammarian, have someone who you know is look purely for sudden verb tense shifts. 

It may seem like a little thing, but getting ride of those -ed's opened up the opportunity to access the scene again. It resulted in a "cut one, add five" type of result. While I did have to cut out what essentially became useless sentences, what was happening in those sentences usually managed to stay behind, only this time elaborated into now action. 

I know that everyone will tell you that the object of revisions and edits is to cut, not add, but remember that all writing advice is reflective of a particular scenario. In this case, my character still had to experience these events, I just had to switch it up enough so that the reader experienced them too. 

Not everything made a comeback from the chopping block. There was a whole stand-alone paragraph that clearly served no other purpose than showing off background information I had come up with. It wasn't necessary to the plot, or in furthering my character's development, it was useless factoid. Yes, in the grand scheme of things in a real life situation, it would be useful knowledge to have, but even documentaries showcase with purpose, and rarely just have the audience watch a camera's continuous footage for 24 hours. Even those get edited down at some point. 

So does this mean that my novel is saved and is now completely perfect? Well, I can hope so. I still want to go through it as one big read before I send it back out for a round 2. But I feel much more confident about the changes I've made. It's real easy to just feel defensive about your own work, after all, it's your baby, but as long as those critics and reviewers are coming from a place of honesty and not just grumpy vendettas - because, trust me, there are critique groups out there filled with people who just want you to feel like crap so that they look like geniuses, as well as people who believe that their own work is so perfect that any criticism must be from people who just want you to feel like crap so that they look like geniuses. 

This is probably why I limit a lot of my social branching out, people be crazy. But I value beyond words those who have met with me out of mutual respect and encouragement. Treasure those people. 

Oh, and I guess I could also add a little follow-up about the "so"'s. There weren't that many. Though I understand where this reviewer is coming from. "So" and "very" are considered to be the devil words in writing since they lead to sentence weakness. I did change a few sentences almost entirely to get around it if there were a few back-to-back so's, but I didn't delete them all. I know my character. Sometimes he's just a "so" kind of guy. You have all now been warned that this next novel will not be free of so's, but you shouldn't be bombarded by them either!

I will post the next Writing Tip on Tuesday as I have been doing. In the meantime, Happy Writing!