Danika Dinsmore

Storyteller

writing exercise

Weekend Workout from FaerieCon West

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Greetings from FaerieCon West, where I will be storytelling and causing mischief all weekend.

Danika and Spring Faerie

Before the workout, I have a few announcements:

First, today is the LAST day to enter the drawing to WIN a copy of the FUTUREDAZE anthology of YA science fiction. Co-editor Erin Underwood has generously donated a copy. (I’ll close comments at midnight PST)

Second, the 2013 Nebula Award nominations are in and Hydra House’s own Cat Rambo was nominated for her short story “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain” from her Near + Far collection.

15940746

The Nebula’s Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy nominees are:

Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
Black Heart, Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz)
Above, Leah Bobet (Levine)
The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
Every Day, David Levithan (Alice A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)
Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

CHECK OUT the entire list of nominees and congrats to all (I wouldn’t want to have to pick a winner from this lot).

YOUR WORKOUT

I NEVER PICKED YOU POEM

This is a BRAND SPANKING NEW exercise that has nothing to do with character or plot or editing. I developed it for a recent writing workshop and had such a good time with it I wanted to share it here.

The workshop was for kids, so it’s broken down into small steps. Feel free to take whatever you’d like from it…

STEP ONE:

Create 5 columns across a sheet of paper and write:  Colour, Fruit or Vegetable, Instrument or type of Music, Location, Day of the Week. Then, below each, list something or place you’ve never really liked in this category. Something that doesn’t appeal to you and you’d never choose it voluntarily.

For instance, you do not like the colour brown, brussel sprouts, harmonicas, Los Angeles, or Tuesdays.

STEP TWO:

Next, under each category, write a sentence like this: “When I think of ______, it reminds me of ______.” Example:  When I think of brown it reminds me of camping in the rain with my Dad.

STEP THREE:

Choose one of the things that don’t appeal to you and write for 10 minutes straight using the start line:

I never picked you _____…

(without stopping, editing, or rereading – the more you write, the more material you will have)

STEP FOUR:

From the 10 minute stream of consciousness writing, circle all the images, phrases, and lines that appeal to you and pull them out of the piece. Rewrite them on another piece of paper. When done, it might look like this:

orange reminds me of my softball jersey in 6th grade
we were the “losingest” team that year
I got in trouble for picking a bouquet of orange California poppies that year
orange is like a prison uniform
orange was never in my favour and i never had an “orange phase”
I had a “purple phase,” my bedroom was purple and pink with white curlies on the bedpost
I also had a “green phase” where everything I wore was green and I looked like a forest
I had a very brief “red phase,” I was trying it on for size
Even though sunsets and fire are orange, I still don’t like orange

STEP FIVE

Carve out your poem from these lines. There are many ways to do so: rearrange lines, leave out words, change words to create alliteration, add interesting space for breath, etc. Expand and change the language where necessary. Add more imagery.

never orange

I’ve never picked you orange
as a favour as a phase        my youth
spent through pinks and purples
stringing the edges of my bedroom
with the white curliness
of imagination

orange was never curly it was
twang and offense
a softball team jersey hoisted upon
the losingest team on the playground
where only once      for a moment
I thought I might find comfort in you
orange, the poppies, sprung about the hill
and me picking a bouquet only to be told
those are California poppies,
you can’t pick them it’s illegal

orange, you betrayer, you
prison sentence
you were never the greens of my wardrobe
of my fern forest         nor were you
my brief liaison with red
when it offered a chance
a sports car
a mini-skirt
a swiss army knife

orange, I’ve never loved you
never let you under my skin
even in your soft sunrise I’ve taken you
for an imposter even in your flames

Have a Great Weekend! I’ll be HERE. 🙂

Weekend Workout: For the Sheer Pleasure of It

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Sometimes when I’m working on the White Forest series I find myself worried, overwhelmed, and slightly stressed about it all. I feel a pressure to deliver each story as good, or preferably even better, than the last. Sometimes the romance of writing gets lost in the day-to-day nitty-gritty of having to produce.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of my more “innocent” days of writing. When there was no pressure but to write for the sheer pleasure of it.

Hence, lately, I’ve been blogging about those “secret projects,” the ones no one knows I’m working on, where I can experiment and play, try a new form, a new direction, a new genre for the sheer pleasure of it.

lostandsafe
by Alison Woodward

This morning I started thinking about the “sheer pleasures” of my series protagonist, Brigitta. As the series continues, as she faces greater and greater dangers, she has much less time for daydreaming in the lyllium fields, languishing in the mist of Precipice Falls, or interpreting shadowfly dances. She has her own pressures and responsibilities (that’s also mistakenly called “growing up,” because really, we should not forget our sheer pleasures).

What do your characters do for the sheer pleasure of it? Not just your heroes and their allies, but the villains, antagonists, and monsters, too. Even Hitler loved art and was wild about the opera. That doesn’t detract from the monstrous things that he did. As a matter of fact, there was a curated art show a few years ago depicting Hitler as “a perverted artist” and theorizing about how his artistic aesthetic was echoed in his politics and Nazi pageantry.

I find it particularly sinister when an “evil” character has time to sit back and enjoy a piece of music and at the same time have no compassion for his victims. How could someone like Hannibal Lecter, for instance, recognize the beauty of a song and at the same time violently destroy a life? In the average person’s mind, the two cannot be squared.

How can you use a character’s “sheer pleasures” to demonstrate losing innocence (as Brigitta’s story does) or complement / contrast a character’s twisted nature?

Your Workout:

Set your timer for 5-7 minutes.
Start at the top of the page with the following startline:

1) My Protagonist/Antagonist/Villain has an uncanny talent for…

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

When the timer stops, Set your timer for 7-10 more minutes.
Start with the following line: 

2) My Protagonist/Antagonist/Villain sees great beauty in . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

When the timer stops, Set your timer for 10-12 more minutes.
Start with the following line: 

3) My character’s appreciation for beauty becomes obsession/repression/twisted when …

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

Read your exercises, make notes, highlight what makes sense.

Happy Weekend!

 

 

Tour Thanks and Weekend Workout

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a weekend workout. I knew that would happen, though, as I’ve come to the conclusion that writing and blogging do not get done while I’m on tour.

If you wanna just scroll down to get your workout and skip all the “thank you” stuff, there’s a visual marker below that says WEEKEND WORKOUT.

Before I get to the workout, I want to express my appreciation for all the people that made my tour a tour. I want to thank all the teachers, parents, principals, students, and especially the librarians at Regnart, Murdock-Portal, Blackford, Christa McAuliffe, and Gardner Bullis elementary schools, Gale Ranch Middle School, and Wingra School who all hosted me as a guest.

a 6th grader works on her imaginary world

I want to thank to Laurie, Bridget, and Christine at the Weekend With Your Novel Conference, Alison at the Wisconsin Book Festival, and all the citizens of Madison, WI for being fantastic human beings in general.

Sesame Street Birthday singalong at the capitol in Madison

I want to thank all the people at the indie bookstores who work so hard in their communities, sponsoring readings and launches, selling book at schools and festivals (and who now carry copies of Brigitta of the White Forest and The Ruins of Noe):

Kepler’s Books and Magazines (Menlo Park, CA)
Hicklebees (San Jose, CA)
Read Booksellers (Danville, CA)
Room of One’s Own (Madison, WI)

I want to thank my friends and family who treated me to coffee, lunch, dinner, drinks, and gasoline, let me sleep on their couches and in their guest rooms, and adopted me for Halloween.

And thanks Life in General for the numerous surprises that kept my tour interesting: getting to see/hear Michael Chabon interviewed at Kepler’s Books, getting to hang out with thousands of people at a Bruce Springsteen Barack Obama rally, discovering what a gem Wisconsin Icon Michael Perry is, and getting to drink beer and explore Madison’s Children’s Museum with hundreds of other 21+ children (once a month their Children’s Museum is Adults Only!).

It was a pleasure through and through! (okay, it was a little stressful, but over all a good time was had)

Oh, yeah.

I have friends who are at every stage of writing a novel right now. A few just started something brand spanking new. A few are in the middle of NaNoWriMo. A few are editing and a few doing total manuscript overhauls. And my rewrite is so off course I might as well call it a new book.

Whether I’m writing something new or rewriting, I’m constantly checking and rejigging my sequence and beat sheet (my version of an outline). Stories are organic, sometimes plots twist differently than I intend or characters appear where I had none planned. Like today…

I was trying to figure out a way to increase the stakes and tension in an escape sequence, so I decided to trap Brigitta and Jarlath between two search parties coming for them from either side. How would they escape? There was no way out. Unless there was a secret way that only one person knew about. Which meant, I now needed an ally to appear to show them the way. The ally who appeared was a complete surprise to me, but made perfect sense. And she wasn’t even a blip on my original outline. Adding her changed the direction of the sequence and a new adventure ensued.

I forget, sometimes, that one way of changing the scene’s dymamic is to introduce a 3rd character to that scene. It could be an ally, enemy, or stranger – each would cause the story to go in a different direction.

Your Workout

Pick a scene you’ve been working on or are about to work on that is a 2-person scene. At some point in the scene, have another character enter into the scene and see how it changes the action, the tone, the dynamics, the tension, etc. Try different scenarios! Drop an ally in, then a stranger, then an enemy. Write out the scene each time (or at least outline it) and see if it works BETTER than it did before.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend (Re)Writing Workout – A Change of Scenery

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I’ve been a delinquent blogger and now that the crazy that was my July is over, I hope to post again on a regular basis.

Instead of the usual timed writing workout I post for the weekend, I thought I’d give you something fun to try if you’re in rewrite mode and have come across an undynamic 2 person scene. Maybe it reads flat, just talking heads.

(And if you’re not in rewrite mode, you can still do the exercise, just write a scene first)

I used to have my screenwriting students write an exchange of dialogue between two people in conflict (the start line was “I can’t believe you just …”). No description, no action, just dialogue.

Then, I’d have them rewrite the scene twice, placing the characters in two different locations. For instance, say they wrote a scene where a woman is breaking up with her boyfriend. First, they’d just write the dialogue. Then, they might rewrite the scene at an amusement park on a roller coaster. Then again at the produce isle of a supermarket.

click image for source

People sometimes forget how useful setting is. And props! Instead of having your characters express themselves by rolling their eyes, looking out the window, biting their lips, crossing their arms or putting them on their hips . . . have them squeeze an avocado so hard they get in trouble from the grocer, or so angry that they trip getting out of the roller coaster car, or slam their fist into a table in a 5-star restaurant sending a fork flying through the air. Give your characters something to do, either absent-mindedly or purposefully (perhaps that avocado will go flying at someone’s head).

And if you put your characters in a restaurant, how does the scene change if it’s not a 5-star restaurant, but a Chuck E. Cheese?

If you’ve got a flat scene with “talking heads” – think about where you could place them so that the characters can interact with their surroundings and express themselves through their environment. As well, the language you use to describe the setting could reflect the tone of the scene or the objects could be metaphors for what’s happening in the story.

Settings my students have used: theme parks, libraries, trains, elevators, office parties, the sky (skydiving), the ocean (scuba diving), convalescent hospitals, airplanes, kindergartens, doctor’s offices.

Have fun and have a great weekend.

Weekend Workout: Facing Fear (Character – Action Part 5 of 6)

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Querying can inspire (or despire, haha) feelings of anxiety and depression, even in the most Polyanna-ish writers. I have been through a few agents over the years (all amicable separations) and the approach is an emotional challenge every time.

When feelings of “what-if-no-one-likes-my-story” hit, I like to step back and view the process as a game. I think of the situation as one of those story problems my math teacher gave me. Okay, that’s probably a bad example for many of you because everyone I know hated those problems. I didn’t. Those were my favourite kind of math problems. They were little riddles to be solved and they involved storytelling (yeah, okay, I’m a geek).

Or today I emailed one of my query buddies and said “the pool ball just has to land in the right pocket.”

(Art by Alison Woodward, click for source)

In any case, if something in front of you is causing anxiety, instead of looking at it as this THING looming in your way, see it as an exciting opportunity to do something new and learn something new. How am I going to get to the other side of this? What will it take? How can I do it better? What have I learned so far that I can apply?

If it’s challenging, it’s probably because you haven’t done it before (or figured out how to do it without anxiety).

So, what does this have to do with your Weekend Workout?

I started thinking about these THINGS that we come up against in life and how it’s important to bring that kind of anxiety to our characters. I know you love them, but you can’t make things easy for them if they are going to grow in a satisfying way. How will they learn?

Try putting something directly in front of your character that addresses a fear and then requires them to behave the opposite of how they normally would.

This works for comedy or drama and creates tension in your story. What could you put in front of someone that would make an honest person lie or steel? What could you put in front of an extremely shy person that would put her in the spotlight? (I just pictured this really shy woman going up on stage in front of hundreds of people to distract the audience so someone she cares about can escape.)

What’s even better is if their actions lead them into deeper trouble. You can always get into deeper trouble. Keep digging as far as you can go.

YOUR WORKOUT:

Set your timer for 5 minutes.
Start at the top of the page with the following startline:

1) The one thing my protagonist swears she would never do is . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

When the timer stops, Set your timer for 7 more minutes.
Start with the following line: 

2) My protagonist agonizes when she must . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

When the timer stops, Set your timer for 10 more minutes.
Start with the following line: 

3) Things get even worse when . . .

Write, don’t stop, don’t edit, don’t cross out.

Read your exercises, make notes, highlight what makes sense.

Happy Weekend!

Weekend Workout: Write Those 50 First Lines!

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On Wednesday, I challenged you to the 50 First Lines Exercise.

Basically, you write 50 first lines, in a row, without thinking too much. I like setting a timer for 30 minutes to get that creative rush.

Now, I was hoping to make this exercise/challenge a contest. With prizes (see GUIDELINES – scroll down in original post). But, if I don’t get participants, well, it will just be a great exercise that maybe a few people did.

I really recommend you try it for your weekend workout. If you’re thinking, I can’t come up with 50 first lines in one sitting, then you should try this exercise.

If you’re thinking, And in you want me to do it in 30 minutes? You should try this exercise.

Letting go and timing yourself and not thinking too much about it you will write strange lines, funny lines, lines in genres you don’t normally dwell in, profound lines, surprising lines, etc, etc. I don’t know where some of the lines I wrote came from!

If you get stuck – think of a childhood memory, an embarrassing moment, the last fight you got into, something you saw on the bus… then put that incident in the distant past, in another country, in the eyes of a 12 year-old, in space. Try it with a paranormal twist, a surreal twist, a sardonic twist.

All you need to do to enter is to put your Top 5 lines in the comment section (in this post or the Wednesday post) by midnight on Monday. With 50 first lines, you’ll have a hard time choosing your faves.

On Wednesday, I will pick the Top 5 lines and give the next segment of the challenge. Ha! You thought we were going to stop at 50 first lines? Not a chance.

Weekend Workout: Cameo Characters and the Hidden Scene

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This weekend I’m at FaerieCon West in Seattle (the urban version of FaerieWorlds). One of the VIP guests is prolific mythic fiction writer Charles De Lint, most famous for creating the imaginary town of Newfolk and telling so many stories about its population and their supernatural issues that he’s actually lost count of how many tales have sprung from it. The stories of the residents are intertwined, sometimes pulling a cameo from one story for a protag in the next.

From GoodReads: The books have all been written in such a way that you should be able to pick up any one and get a full and complete story. However, characters do reoccur, off center stage as it were, and their stories do follow a sequence.

I like this on so many levels. To create an imaginary world that inspires such a multitude of stories existing simultaneously and separately. This makes so much sense to me, though, as I often look out at the world and wonder about each person’s story. The peripheral characters in my own life – the people I run across at the supermarket, the post office, the traffic light – all have their own stories that briefly, sometimes once and never again, slip through mine.

Do you create your cameo characters with as much love as you do your main characters? Do you see them as individuals each carrying baggage and a back story? Or are they simply flat, cookie-cutter cliches tossed in without much thought?

I think we should care about all our characters. And, yes, it’s true that I predominantly give more weekend workout time to the main ones. But when I’m working on a story and a minor character appears, I’ll often stop and write a little paragraph about them as an exercise. Something about their childhood, who their parents are, their physical quirks. Just to get to know them a little. Like that balding man on the corner with a brown stain on his pants and a slight limp. The one who gets on the bus and checks out the cute chubby lady reading from her iPad. That guy. What’s his story?

YOUR WORKOUT

This it a bit different than the past several exercises. This time, I want you to pick three cameo characters. The ones who only grace a few pages of your novel.

I want you to write what I call a “hidden scene” about each character. This is a scene that won’t end up anywhere in your story, but will give a little insight into who they are and make them a little more real.

In each “scene” they are alone and they pick up an object. The object is precious to them. The scene should include something that describes them physically at that moment and an action that includes the object.

Don’t think too much, don’t edit, don’t cross out. Give yourself at least 7 minutes for each one.

If you don’t know where to start, just write:

CHARACTER walks across the room and picks up OBJECT.

(this exercise can be used with your protag or other main characters as well, I just thought it would be nice to give some stage time to the supporting ones)

One thing Charles De Lint said about when he creates characters, is that he doesn’t have to know every single thing about them (i.e. what brand of toothpaste they use). Rather, he likes to learn about his characters like he’s meeting them at a party.

I like that.

Weekend Workout: Unsticking the Stuck

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At some point during a rewrite I always get stuck. Some momentous *thing* must happen, some important mystery revealed, some great payoff has to come for the set up and it’s got to be just right. It’s got to be satisfying.

Having notes from the publisher and a deadline (woosh – there it goes!) does not mean the answers come any faster, but through my rewrite of The Ruins of Noe, I’ve developed a little trick and, so far, it’s worked every time. But it takes discipline.

In the past, getting nervous about my story meant procrastinating to the page. Sometimes I’d end in a stuck place and resist coming back to it the next day.

In the last few months, though, I have become much more disciplined with my writing routine. I write first thing in the morning (well, after a little coffee and personal time), and if I’m in a stuck place (and sometimes even when I’m not), I start with a pre-writing brain dump.

When I free-write like this, there’s no commitment to what comes out. If I don’t like the idea, it stays in my notebook. But exploring all the ideas is what leads to the answer.

I keep a big blank spiral notebook on my desk and at the point of stuckness, I turn to the next page and write the person, magical item, plot point, whatever it is I need to figure out at the top of the page and put a box around it. (Later, after I’ve finished my draft, I’ll go through this notebook and add any pertinent information into my World Book)

For example, this is the one I did today. Sometimes it takes two or three pages until I get there. Today, it came pretty quickly, which was extra super.

(NOTE 1: this won’t make much sense to anyone but me, but you’ll get the idea)

(NOTE 2: a little spoiler alert for anyone who doesn’t want to know anything about Book Two)

The Whisper Light

Narine’s energy was dispersed into the 5 whisper lights. The one that appears @ Mabbe’s is the one to open the purview in Noe. It now speaks to Brigitta – but what does it say? Somehow she realizes Mabbe is an Ancient b/c of it. Dos she have a vision instead of hear a voice? Does it have a message for Mabbe? Does Mabbe recognize Narine’s energy? Do they both exclaim “Narine!” (is Narine mentioned before? This could definitely startle Mabbe) Does Narine speak through the whisper light? What would she say? The Ancients have not abandonded you. Gather your energy my faerie kin. Narine has not abandoned you. Narine has come. Narine is back. “I’m back” Brigitta says, not realizing. “We’re back”? Strange voice. Mabbe trembles. “Narine?” She asks. “Impossible!” There was something else – something that belonged and didn’t belong.

You’ll notice I ask a lot of questions. That’s extremely helpful. I also use shorthand and run everything together, not even worrying about paragraphs. Whatever emerges, emerges as it does.

If you ever have trouble starting, a “What if…” list is a perfect place to begin.

Write until the answer comes. Don’t stop, don’t cross out, don’t edit.

Circle what works. Get back to your edit and go for it!

THE WORKOUT

Pick a number of days you want to commit to writing IN A ROW. Let’s say 10. For 10 days in a row, when it’s writing time, start with a new blank notebook page, put the “scene” you are working on at the top of the page. (I always use the term “scene” for whatever is happening in a certain place during a certain timeframe)

Then write: In this scene… and simply free write (no stopping, no crossing out, no editing) about it, asking as many questions as  you need to get what you want to know. Throw in some “What if’s…” if you are unsure what’s about to happen. Keep writing until the AHA light comes on. DING!

Mid-Week Mourning Poem (for Victor Gato)

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If you are new here, hi, hello. I generally leave a weekend writing exercise at the end of the week and post a new piece of writing at the beginning of the week, but today I’m bringing you a mid-week exercise and a poem.

I haven’t blogged in a while because my cat was very sick and it became clear several days ago that he wasn’t going to make it. It was that delicate time when one has to decide in the cat’s best interests rather than one’s own. It was time to let him go.

I find the periods of my life when I am in mourning to be inspiring creatively. In particular for poetry and song. Emotional pain might not feel “good” – but it’s powerful stuff. I’ve learned to just be in it.

This week the workout is to write a “3-Stage Mourning Poem.” By “stage” I basically mean stanza. With each stanza, you need to “switch direction” but keep them related.

If you aren’t mourning a person or a pet right now, mourn anything. A plant, a favourite pair of shoes, your youth, your favourite restaurant, your ignorance, your idealism . . . whatever, just pick something to mourn.

Most importantly: bring in TANGIBLES. Familiar things we can see, hear, touch, etc. We so often feel pain when we see objects or hear songs that remind us of our loved ones. Show us those objects, weave them into the poem. If you start to get abstract, bring it back down.

And BTW, It doesn’t have to be a serious poem. (or piece of prose for you prose peeps out there)

In Mourning Cats

I know many cats in heaven.
All grandparents, a dad, cousin-in-law, acquaintance,
and at least three friends.
I may know two mice, if mice go to heaven
but my thought is mice
get an automatic rebound
back to the material world maybe
in the form of squirrels

They say cats have nine lives and I believe it.
Once you get to be a cat in heaven
you get to choose your next life.
That’s why cats always act like they own the place
because they do and when they commune with the mother ship
we are the butt of their jokes
how we suffer
how we break our hearts
how they just walk off in the middle of the night
without so much as au revoir

merci

We get close to the void
and write poems about getting close to the void.
Death makes us narrative.
We need to tell it straight
so family members can slip into the words
weave through remnants of troubled dreams
the stories weighing us
like magnetic ghosts

Victor Gato (1995 – 2011)

Weekend Workout: Pimp Your First Lines

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So, you’re probably asking me: all these exercises generating and working spontaneously off of first lines, what practical application does that have?

I’m glad you asked!

For one thing, Tupelo Press is having a contest where you must select a line from Anne Marie Rooney’s poem: Last Evening: Index of first lines, which is, of course, a poem made up of first lines (you can find the poem on the contest page). The first lines don’t look familiar to me, so I’m not sure if she “borrowed” them from other people’s poetry, or her own discarded ones.

There are no rules other than you must use one of the lines from her first lines poem as your first line. It’s $15 to enter up to 3 poems.

Part of my own workout this weekend is going to be riffing off of 6 of her first lines and then picking my 3 favourite to edit for the contest (deadline June 30). The lines I’ve picked are:

All night the golden people put golden things up their golden

Could I become a comet? That frozen flying

I stole another woman’s only scarf

It was the wing of sweat that finally opened me, fretless and late

Tongue rank with another beginner angel

What he kissed in me was no meteor or shining pardon

AND

Inspired by Rooney’s poem of first lines… I decided to make that this weekend’s official writing workout.

Taking either prose or poetry, your own or others’, create your own “index of first lines” poem.