When I found myself falling into the career that I now love more than anything else I've ever done, I didn't realize how much stuff I'd be dragging along with me. That was before the laptop came along.

Now I carry around a messenger bag with the laptop, my external hard drive, two large notebooks, one mini notebook, a novel, four blue pens, two red sharpies, my tiny mouse, the ever present set of pink earphones, my power cord, and my wallet. It's like carrying around a diaper bag without any kids. You just can't be too prepared.

Granted, the novel changes from day to day (yes that's correct. I can finish an 800 page novel in about two days if I'm determined. But I love to savor) and some days I don't even bring it with me. Today I don't have the novel with me because I'm at Fireworks. It's an official work day, no time for pleasure reading until later.

Yesterday, the novel was my favorite, Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon. No matter how many times I read that book, I find something new every single time. A few days ago it was Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris because I have a thing for Eric Northman. If he actually existed, I might have problems. Next month, I'll be carrying the Twilight series around again in preparation for the New Moon movie in November.

Don't forget to bring what you need with you. That's all the time if you can help it. Inspiration is a funny thing and you might find yourself sitting alone in the food court of the mall and suddenly a scene for your own novel strikes you. I carry my mini notebook around and collect funny quotes I hear or read (where did you think the quote of the week came from?). It is also a scientific fact that you'll need a pen the one time you don't have one. It happens to me all the time.

Now do I truck the laptop out with me everywhere? No. That's not reality. But I take it most places with me. You just never know.

So, what's in your bag?

This week's scenes of Awakening and revisions on Forbidden were created with the help of some strong coffee at Fireworks and the following musical selections:

Skillet-Hero (their new album dropped last Tuesday)
Vertical Horizon-Everything You Want
The Black Ghosts-Full Moon
Muse-Starlight (I can't get it out of my head)
Linkin Park-A Place For My Head
Taylor Swift-You Belong With Me
Nickelback-Someday
Linkin Park-New Divide
Love Spit Love-How Soon Is Now?
Skillet-Rebirthing
Beyonce-Halo
Muse-Supermassive Black Hole
Katy Perry-Hot and Cold
Lenny Kravitz-Again
Nickelback-I'd Come For You
And finally, Jojo-Too Little Too Late

Have a great weekend!

After a much needed day off to breathe, I was thinking about the differences between writing a book that stands alone and writing a book that will have more story following after it. There are differences you know.

When I wrote Prophecy about a year ago, I planned on it standing alone. There was no more story to tell. I believed that Seven and Rhoswen were finished. Let the reader imagine what happened to them after that. I had no reason to keep going. Then I started writing Forbidden and I found myself bringing those characters back again. I just couldn't let them go.

With all the plans I have for Seven and Rhoswen and everyone in that universe, I don't think I'll be letting them go for a long time. But that doesn't mean that everything I write is going to involve them.

It's different to think that I'm going to have to finish a story in one volume instead of being able to stretch it out. I'm getting into the last half of Awakening and I'm thankful that I don't have to cram everything I'm thinking about into these last seventy or so pages. With a stand alone novel, you're done when you hit that last page. That means you have to have enough story to get to that last page.

My advice to anyone writing the first novel is to not plan for a series right from the get go unless you have so much going on in your plot mapping that it would require more than one book. I didn't plan on a series, and now I'm in the middle of one. But at least Prophecy can stand on it's own two feet. Now I can surprise readers with cliffhanger endings and driving plot lines that make you wish I'd written the whole thing before I released the first one.

But even a stand alone novel can make readers want more from you. That's not such a bad thing either. You just get to create new characters every single time. In reality, that's probably harder.

Right now, I'm sitting at the best coffeehouse in the world watching people paint pottery (you can do that here while you're drinking your coffee. Isn't that just cool?). If I had the time today to paint, believe me I would be. Sometimes words on a page can't express how I'm feeling as well as paint on a ceramic plate can.

Do you find that sometimes you need to break away from your computer and do something else that's just as creative as writing?

Sometimes, I just have to take a break from my computer and paint a piece of pottery. They make great gifts and I get to branch out a bit. For other people I know, it's photography that calls them from other pursuits. One of my brothers-in-law works as a waiter full time, but he paints in his spare time. He takes pictures to get his mind away from a canvas. My other brother-in-law is a musician. I'm not sure what he does when he's not playing music, but I think it has something to do with drawing. Or beating my husband at metroid prime.

It's okay to branch out from one medium to another to make your brain more effective at your primary pursuit. After I paint, all of a sudden the scenes in my head that I'm writing down are clearer and more vibrant. All of a sudden I can explain what I mean so much better.

If you're getting bogged down in everything else going on in your life and your writing is suffering, go do something else that's creative. You'd be surprised how rejuvenating that is.

I wanted to point out at the upper right hand of your screen right now, there's a music player. I'm sure you've seen it. Sometimes it starts automatically, most of the time it doesn't. I'd love some feedback on that player.

You see, it's up there so that you can get a taste of what I'm listening to every week and to make your reading experience more enjoyable. Now if I had internet access at home, I'd update it daily, but since I don't, it's done every week.

Do you like it? Hate it? Have suggestions for songs?

I know, I know. It's not November yet Kell. It's not even September yet and here you are, harping about three pages a day and now you're talking about nanowrimo. What's up with that? Here's what's up with that.

I did nanowrimo last year and I've never regretted a moment of it. Nanowrimo has made me a little bit of money by giving me the chance to publish my first novel successfully. If a very good friend of mine hadn't pushed me to do it (thanks NP. You'll never know how much) I would still be where I was last year, questioning my talent and wondering if I should just hang up my pen and go out into the real world again.

Here's why you need to do nanowrimo if you've never done it before. You'll be pushed creatively, you'll find you can write those 50,000 words (don't freak out at the number. It's not as hard as you think), and you'll be richly rewarded afterward when you do finish it. Plus, once you see that you can make the word count for the month, you'll never say three pages a day is so hard again. Trust me on that one.

So why am I bringing it up now? Come on, it's August still. Well, you can't work on an unfinished work for nanowrimo. It has to be brand new. That means you better get your research done right now. That means your character mapping needs to be finished next month or in October. It means you need to prepare for it right now.

"But I'm still working on a project. I don't have time." Stop whining. You think you're busy? So is everyone else. Believe me, I have too many irons in the fire right now. I'm releasing a book in November, as well as finishing up a first draft before November 1st, transcribing a novel for a friend that needs to be done by November 1st, and I'm doing my research for nano right now. If I can do it, so can you.

At least give it a shot. You'll get tips and advice along the way that will be very helpful for you. It's worth every sleepless night and stressful day. It's worth it to be able to say that you completed something. That's the first step in cultivating a successful writing career isn't it? You have to finish something.

So sign up and get ready. Once November gets here, you'll be shocked how fast it flies by.

Do you ever read a book and you can tell it's been sanitized? It's like the author was censored. Maybe you haven't since we live in the US, but I've read that there are authors who want to do something with a character and they are overruled because the publisher is concerned about what kind of image that will portray. You're probably asking why I'm bringing this up. I'm about to tell you.

In Forbidden, I have an underaged smoker. He's seventeen and he's smoking through about the first half of the novel. Not only does he rarely get caught, but the punishment when he is caught is never carried out. Why did I do this? Because you're supposed to write what you know and I've been a smoker since I was fourteen (I'm twenty eight now. If you do the math, that means I've smoked for half of my lifetime. It's time to quit) and I thought it wouldn't hurt to throw that image out there. Then I throw into the mix a friend of this character who also smokes and is underage. One underaged smoker I think a publisher could overlook. But two? It might pose a problem.

I don't like the thought of making my smoking characters eighteen just because of propriety. Teenagers smoke. How on earth do you think you have adult smokers? You think adults just start smoking all of a sudden? Not very often, no. I can't exactly make the vampires smokers. I mean I could, but we all know vampires don't need to breathe, so why would they need to smoke?

My point here is this: if you feel it doesn't take anything away from the story, be prepared to edit out a characteristic that might not be PC with an editor or a publisher. If it takes away from the story or the character, fight for it. At least that's what I'm going to do. If you don't want to deal with it, don't put it in the story.

I just don't see what the big deal is though. We have erotica that's published and available in mainstream bookstores. Sex scenes show up in romance novels and mysteries and various other novels. We even have scenes with characters doing drugs in some instances. But you throw in some underage smoking or drinking or whatever, and people freak out. But that's just my opinion.

This week's scenes and posts were created to the following tunes:

Nickelback-Something In Your Mouth
Eve 6-Inside Out
Enrique Iglasias (I'm spelling that wrong I know it)-Escape
Erasure-Always
Kelly Clarkson-Already Gone
Nickelback-Someday
Linkin Park-Somewhere I Belong
The Bodyrockers-The Way You Move
Billy Idol-Rock The Cradle Of Love
Motley Crue-Home Sweet Home
Shinedown-Second Chance
Linkin Park-What I've Done
Eve 6-Rescue
Muse-Starlight
Paramore-Decode

Have a great weekend!

My husband and I were having a very interesting discussion today. He said this would make a great post and I agree.

Have you ever tried to force yourself to be creative? Isn't that the worst thing you can do? I know some of my worst work has been done under the pressure to perform as it were. Then I go back in edits and ask myself how something so awful wound up in one of my works and I have to write the scene over again.

The whole point of being a writer is to be able to tap into something inside yourself that other people, normal people as it were, can't get into. We keep strange hours and think of bizarre things and make the librarians question our sanity when we check out various reading materials (I just checked out books on depression, infertility, and suicide along with the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel. The librarian looked at me like I needed help until I told her I'm a writer, then she seemed much more comfortable). It's not like writing fiction is a job with set hours (nonfiction might be different, but I don't know about that). That's the whole point.

Last night I got home from my part time job and wrote until after midnight. Then I got up this morning at 7 and wrote two more pages. I'll probably go home tonight and write two more. But that's only if I feel the need to write. If I don't feel it, I won't do it until tomorrow. And that's what this post is about.

I know I harp on writing three pages a day. Three pages a day, five days a week. That equals fifteen pages a week. You do that for ten weeks and you have 150 pages. If that's single spaced pages, you have a book right there. Prophecy was 152 pages single spaced before chaptering, and it's 440 now. After editing and formatting, you'd be surprised how long a book can be.

The biggest thing you can do for yourself is keep writing. Just keep writing. If you don't feel inspired, step back for a little bit. Listen to some music, watch a movie, read a book, take a walk. Then come back refreshed and ready to take on the world. But don't force it. Stifling your creativity is a bad idea.

I saw NP had a thing up on Coffee Stained Writer (aren't you supposed to be on maternity leave?) and it got me to thinking. In preparation for nanowrimo (because my entire world is split between Forbidden's release, finishing Awakening, and nanowrimo prep right now), I find myself thinking about the creation of new characters. Thanks NP!

I love and hate creating new characters. When I've had to create new characters for the Chronicles of Seven (it has a name now), it hasn't been that difficult. But lately the new characters I've created have been secondary characters. Sure they're important, but it's not a main character. Main characters require a lot of work.

For nanowrimo this year, I'm writing a new story with no vampires in it whatsoever. Shocking right? I know. The story centers on a woman who is in the agony of depression because she hasn't been able to have a baby with her husband (no, this is not a commentary on my personal life, but you're supposed to write what you know) and while in the throes of depression, she attempts suicide. That's all I have for now.

While I'm in research mode for this story, I have to cultivate a new character. I have to understand her mindset and get a grasp on who she is. I want to know her so well that I'll be able to do her story justice. It's hard to think about having to go through all the exercises I go through to create a new character. I don't know what she looks like yet or what her name is. It's hard.

This is why I have a hard time with new characters. Sure, it's a fresh start. I can do what I want with a new character. Established characters have parameters already. But I like my parameters. I like finding new things for my current characters to go through. Making up something new is hard.

Or maybe I'm just having a hard time with this because I can't make her a woman with supernatural speed and strength. It's good to branch out and do new things though right? That's what I'm telling myself anyway. New characters are great. Even if they are only human.

Yesterday I talked about editing. Today's post is still part of that process. If you aren't done writing yet, that's okay. You'll need this info eventually.

So you edited your first draft and now you want to know what else you need to fix. This is when you enlist some really good friends or you find a forum and get some help. This is when you get yourself some beta readers.

I'm lucky in that I have friends who like to do this (I think they like to do this. That's what they tell me). The unlucky thing for them is that they have to chain themselves to a computer and read a document that's not chaptered for hours (I'm sorry guys!). If I had the money and the ability to get a manuscript to the people I trust to beta read my work, I would do it. I just don't right now.

Beta readers can be just about anyone. They don't need to have experience in the subject, but they can if you want them to. The point of a beta reader is that you want someone who is outside the story to read it. A beta reader is going to find the gramatical stuff you missed, the spelling errors Word didn't catch, and the holes in your plot that need to be filled in.

I've actually given a first draft to a beta reader (NP I'm sorry about that. I know it was bad) and she was honest enough to tell me the truth. Based on her recommendations, I fixed a lot. Did I listen to all of her suggestions? No. But I listened and I learned. It made it easy to not repeat the same mistakes over and over again in my later works.

Personally, I don't like to beta read. I will do it if someone asks me to, but I don't always like to. Does that mean I won't do it if you ask? No. If you ask me, I'll be more than happy to do so. I read quickly and if you don't hook me in the first two chapters, I'll tell you. But there are people out there who love to do this kind of thing.

Besides, if you've been telling people you're writing a book, I'm sure they want to read it right? Find someone you can trust, someone who won't steal it from you and try to publish it on their own (I've heard horror stories) and let them have it. The only way to find out if it's any good is to let someone read it.

So you're thinking about editing your novel huh? That means you need to pat yourself on the back right now because you did the hardest thing a first time author has to do. You finished the first draft. And you thought you were done didn't you? Ha!

Let me just put this out there: the first draft stinks. No one is immune to this. You might think it's a work of literary mastery and it should be published as it is. Trust me, you're wrong. My second novel, Forbidden, was written in 19 days. No, I'm not kidding. I thought it was perfect as it was. But when I sat down to edit, I realized it wasn't. Granted, it wasn't bad. But it needed some fleshing out.

My writing style is to write down the bones. I just let myself go and get the words on the paper and that's it (NP, that's writing down the bones right? That's what I got from reading the book anyway). The bones might be 158 pages single spaced. They might be fantastic fiction as they are. But they are bones. If you leave them as bones, you have a skeleton and we all know skeletons can't live on their own.

So what's real time editing? That's the title of this post and you want to know what it is right? Real time editing is my secondary style of editing. You don't just edit once. If you do, you're in trouble. Before I start real time editing, I go through and comb my work. I pull scenes out and move them around or add new ones or whatever it needs. Then I read it aloud to my husband. That's real time editing. It's a live audio book with a lot of pauses.

Reading it aloud to him allows me to catch most of the gramatical problems and I'm able to hear how it sounds on the page. It also enables me to go through the work word by word. If I get caught up in my own story, I must be doing something right.

Real time editing might not work for you. But the point of this post is that you will edit more than once. If you aren't, you need to. But don't get down on yourself. Utilize the tools you have. Now sit down and write your three pages.

I talk about music entirely too much. But that's the best way for me to get into the mood to write. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to music. But there is another medium that I want to share with you that might actually help out. I'm hoping my own novels will one day be in this medium and my husband is of the mind to make that happen.

It's called Japanese animation and comic books, or anime and manga (If you read my personal blog, you already know about my infatuation with the medium). Last week my husband and I were watching Inuyasha from beginning to end (thank you Carrie for lending it to us). While watching it I found myself plotting fight scenes for Resurrection. It's amazing what you'll find when you watch something like that.

I've posted on inspiration recently, but I couldn't help but share this. I never would've thought about a fight scene the way I'm thinking about one if I hadn't been watching Inuyasha. The love triangle aspect of the anime makes me think. It's amazingly helpful.

Whatever helps you write, that's what you need to do. But don't be afraid to look in a place that's unexpected. And if you want to know what anime and manga is good, let me know. I have a list.

Today's post is a lesson I had to learn not that long ago. It was a very painful lesson and I found something that will help everyone else out there function a little easier.

Not that long ago, my computer got fried (I'm sure everyone knows about that by now). However, last Friday I got a new one as well as a piece of technology that I'm never leaving home without ever again. Everyone who writes for a living, regardless of whether you have internet backup or not, needs to have one of these little things. For the price, the security is worth it.

I have a 250 GB external hard drive that doesn't require an additional power source to operate. It plugs right into your USB port on your computer and runs right off of it. Walmart has a 320 GB one as well if you need the extra space. This thing is just the coolest invention ever. I have all this space and it's about the size of my wallet. It's easy to store and easy to port around with my new laptop. It also helps that it's pink like the computer. But that was optional.

This little device makes it easy for me to protect my novels without worrying about things getting lost if something happens to my new computer. I love internet back up, but I don't have internet at home and it makes it hard for me to back up everything that way. This little device makes storing things separately from my computer a cinch.

The lesson is back your stuff up in multiple places. If you don't, you'll cry when you lose four months of work like I did.

This week's scenes were brought to you by the following songs:

Nickelback-I'd Come For You
Our Lady Peace-Somewhere Out There
Linkin Park-Numb
Enrique Iglasias-Escape
Lifehouse-Broken
Nickelback-Burn It To The Ground
Kelly Clarkson-Already Gone
The Airborne Toxic Event-Sometime Around Midnight
Jojo-Too Little Too Late
Lenny Kravitz-Again
Stone Temple Pilots-Sour Girl
Cobra Starship-Good Girls Go Bad
Linkin Park-What I've Done
Nickelback-How You Remind Me
and finally Lifehouse-Whatever It Takes

Have a safe weekend!

I'm not referring to things like Earl or Duke or King or whatever else you can think of. This is about the title of your book of course!

You may not realize this, but the title is extremely important. It can be the hardest thing you have to do in your writing career (if that's the case, you haven't done any editing yet have you?) and it can be so easy you'll smack yourself on the forehead and say "I could've had a V8".

In my experience, I don't title a novel until after it's finished most of the time. If I have a cover page on the novel while I'm writing it, that's entirely too much pressure and I can't even get started. Once the book is finished though, I find it so much easier to sum up the work in one or two words. I think it's because I know the story by then and I know what the point is. When I'm starting out, I don't know what twists it's going to take. What if I gave it a title that gave away the ending?

There are exceptions of course. Awakening and Resurrection (book 4 and 5 in my series right now) are already titled obviously, but I'm still writing Awakening. The only reason these are titled early is because I know what I'm doing with these two books. The first novel in the spin off series though isn't titled and the first draft is completed. I know what series it's in, but I can't think of it as anything more than Order Of The White Rose Volume 1 right now. Obviously that won't work as a working title.

Titles don't have to be elaborate works of philosophical meaning to be awesome. Is the word Twilight enough to cause a person to have an existencial crisis? No. Neither are titles like Dead Until Dark or Bad Moon Rising or City of Bones. I know when I saw Acheron as a title I almost stopped breathing, but that's because I knew instantly what the book was going to be about and Acheron is one of my all time favorite fictional characters.

If you need help finding a title, pay a visit to your local library and/or favorite bookstore. Write down any titles that strike you. Go home and read your novel while you're editing and see if anything sticks out in your mind that would sum it up without giving anything away. Prophecy is titled that way because...the story involves a prophecy and it's big. Simple and straight to the point.

Now get back to your work and finish your three pages unless you're on a minor sabbatical like I am right now. I obtained my replacement computer today so I'm taking the day off from fiction. I'll probably take tomorrow off too while the information is being replaced. I might even take Sunday off and actually have three days where I don't do any writing at all! Let's not push it. Also, if you find yourself inspriationless on Sunday night and you have HBO, check out True Blood. It's awesome if you don't mind the sex and nudity and bloody scenes. If you do, rent something.

First of all, I want to apologize for my absence this week. No, I don't have a note from my mother. We have had some internet issues this past weekend and since I post in advance (and no one is surprised by this because I have no internet at home), my posts were postponed. I'm sorry.

Last week we talked about characters. Knowing who your characters are is extremely important. But what good is it to know him inside and out but not have a name for him? It might not seem important to have a good name, but you should never underestimate the importance of what you call him.

I never really thought names were important. It's a name, what's the big deal? It's not like it's a child or a dog or something right? Wrong!

If you have this romantic hero and you name him Herbert, it ruins the image of the character. Is Herbert even a name that's used anymore? However, this same hero could be named something like Leif or Justin or Marcus. Suddenly, he has a whole different look right? Just the change of the name changed your perception. That's why it's important.

In Prophecy, I named my vampire king Seven. Why? Everyone's been asking me why lately. It's easy. Sometimes a character will tell you what his name is. I know, crazy right? The look I got said something like this: "Okay Kell, now I'm going to back away slowly. Please don't like knock me unconscious and drink my blood." But I'm completely serious. Seven told me that was what his name was. When I tried to change it, I could see him rolling his eyes and smiling at me like I'm an idiot.

Naming villains and secondary characters are just as important as naming a hero and heroine. Seven wouldn't be complete without his Guard, Ulrich and Chocon (that's pronounced SHO-coan for those of you who wonder). Ulrich is in homage to the late Heath Ledger's character in A Knight's Tale. But Ulrich agreed with me on it. Chocon on the other hand wouldn't let me call him anything else. The story wouldn't be the same with the Guard being called Rufus and Edgar.

Speaking of villains, I got Varick's name from a baby name finder. His name literally means conqueror I believe. It was picked off of a list and it suits him. His name originally was going to be Vincent. It wouldn't have worked out very well. For my villain in Legacy, my husband found the name Nathail, which means snake. It was too good to pass up.

Now that I've put you to sleep thinking about character names, please take note of one thing. The more unique a name is, the more questions you'll have about it. Chocon's name is hard for people to pronounce. I get a lot of questions about it. Rhoswen's name is another one people are having trouble with (pronounced RHOS-when). It's gaelic for white rose and there's a double meaning in that.

Remember that a character won't be able to change his or her name later on. When you're character mapping, take into consideration what that character's name is going to be. And remember, you wouldn't like getting beaten up on the playground in school right? Neither would a character. Until tomorrow!

As you know, I'm a total music freak. This week's scenes in Awakening were done to the following songs:

Battlefield by Jordin Sparks
Falling Inside The Black by Skillet
The Little Things Give You Away by Linkin Park
I'd Come For You By Nickelback
Halo by Beyonce
Already Gone by Kelly Clarkson
New Divide by Linkin Park
Someday by Nickelback
The Wind Blows by The All American Rejects (and this past week's Fang Marked Song of the week)
Forever by Chris Brown
And finally...Good Girls Go Bad by Cobra Starship

Have a safe weekend!

Today I'm going to put up something short and then tomorrow, the Fang Marked Office will be closed for three days because I need a vacation. Who am I kidding? I'll probably post something. A day without writing is a day of staring at the walls and wondering what I'm supposed to be doing instead.

I've talked about characters a lot this week. That's because without good characters, you have nothing. Sure, the plot is important, but the best plot can be killed by horrible characters. Character development is so important that I'll probably touch on it again at a later date. I also picked up a copy of How Not To Write A Novel at the library a couple days ago, so I'll be re-learning some things and putting them up here too.

Today I'm talking about uncomfortable scenes (hence the title and here's an example of a mistake. I'm repeating myself). What are uncomfortable scenes you ask? They can be anything from sex scenes to scenes of horrific violence to scenes with male characters buying underwear in Victoria's Secret. Uncomfortable scenes are basically scenes you as the writer don't want to write.

My personal uncomfortable scene is a sex scene. I can't do it. I feel stupid when I try to do it, and I have tried to do it. I can't use words like manhood to describe the male genitalia. I just can't. It's a total invasion of my characters' privacy. I tried to write a sex scene for Forbidden and as soon as I typed the word nipples, I was done. I had to start over. So don't feel bad if you can't make yourself write a scene that you are uncomfortable with.

The best advice I can give you in this situation is if you don't like writing it, then don't. I won't write a sex scene that's not what it should be. I'd rather it not be there or have it alluded to. If the characters have sex, you'll know they did, but you don't need a play by play. If you don't like writing a scene where someone's head explodes, don't. If you can't handle a male character running his hands over a pink satin thong, don't do it.

That's it for me this week (maybe. I'll probably be back Saturday if not tomorrow). I'll be writing at home tomorrow because I'm on deadline and it's not where I want it to be yet. Awakening needs to be done by November 1st and Forbidden is going to be published by then. I hate deadlines, especially when I don't have my data recovered yet from my hard drive. Oh well. Time to go back to my Charlaine Harris novel and lose myself in vampire mystery. If you haven't written your three pages, then you know what you have to do. If you have, go get a novel and enjoy some reading for pleasure.

Have you ever been in the middle of a good book and find it completely destroyed by a horrible villain? Or the opposite happens and you can hardly stand reading the book but the villain is wonderful? That doesn't happen very often.

There are two big mistakes that most people make when writing a villain. The first is that he's completely impotent. He's not a bad guy, he's an angry character that doesn't do anything. You know those horrible movie villains? It's like that only worse. "I'll get you Austin Powers. But first I'm going to hide over here and plot until the writer finds something better for me to do." It's so disappointing to see it happen.

The second is that the bad guy is so bad it's impossible to believe. You'll see a villain that's a sexual deviant and a psychopath and at the same time shoots lightning bolts out of his butt. He's a genius and yet he blends in with the background so the hero somehow doesn't notice that the bad guy is going to kill him in the end. Please spare us. A sexually deviant villain isn't believable and may offend some of your target audience. Just because the villain has a fancy for chains and a ball gag, that doesn't make him a bad guy. If he's a psychopath, give a reason for him to be like that. If he has special powers, make it possible (or as possible as you can with supernatural characters).

I will admit that I made the sexual deviant mistake. But I was called out on it so many times that I had to change it (NP, you'll be happy about that. Prophecy doesn't have a sexually deviant villain in the published version). Now I have a villain that's insane, but he's insane and bent on revenge. That doesn't even really do him justice.

I guess the point you need to remember is that a villain is a character, just like your hero. Map him or her out and make him or her believable. Give them purpose and make people either hate them or fear them or whatever you feel like doing. But for the sake of anyone who will read your novel, remember to make the villain believable. And please stay away from lightning bolts coming from his butt.

I don't know about you, but I hate novels that have anticlimatic fight scenes. My husband says it's like having the foreplay but no climax. For example, did anyone else hate the fight scene at the end of Twilight (the novel, not the movie) when she doesn't give any details about the fight? It really bothered me.

For lack of a better example (because I have only one example published) I'm going back to Prophecy. Sorry if this bothers anyone else, but when Forbidden and Legacy are published, I'll have more to go from without giving stuff away. In Prophecy, my hero and my villain meet up twice. I wanted big blowup fight scenes for both with the second being the biggest of the two. To make this more believable, I got out wooden spoons and a fly swatter (I'm not kidding either. Just picture it in your mind) and I played both sides of the fight. I wanted to see what the body would actually look like in battle. It was so much fun.

It was like choreographing a dance. Every movement had to be planned out, each counter movement slid into place alongside it. I wanted to know how the body looked when a wrist was bent with a sword (spoon, fly swatter, whatever) or how someone would stand when counterattacking. By making my body move like that (or as close to that as I could manage) I could describe it accurately.

What would you do to make a fight scene believable? How would you prepare for it? Would you just write it out and then edit later? Or would you choreograph it to make sure it all fit together?

Yesterday I talked about character mapping. Today, I want to continue on that path. It's important to change your character map with each book you write about that character. Seems simple right? Well I forgot about it. I'm sure other people forget about it too.

Currently I'm writing a series (unless you live under a rock or don't read the other posts, you know about that) and I have the same characters revolving through each novel. But they aren't really the same characters. Seven, my vampire king, isn't the same guy in Awakening that he was in Prophecy. If he was, I would stop writing. So when I map out characters for each novel, I have to remap him.

When you think about it, are you the same person you were yesterday or last year? Absolutely not (well maybe from yesterday, but definitely not from last year). Your characters are the same. Things happen to them in each novel. They lose people or have major life changing events. Those kinds of things change people. Your characters aren't any different.

I made this mistake when I went from Prophecy to Forbidden. I thought Seven was Seven and he wouldn't change. What a mistake. It took awhile to change that in Forbidden when I went through the editting process. If I had done my homework when I started, I would've saved myself some time.

However, if you aren't using the same characters, then you're not in the same boat. But the more lifelike a character, the better the story. At least, as lifelike as you can make them. Since vampires don't really exist (or do they? I'm not going there) I have to do the best I can.

Hopefully this is helpful for someone. I hate making big mistakes.

Since yesterday we talked about plot mapping, today I want to talk about the next obvious step. This is something I love doing and I picked it up from my friend NP (You can find her at the coffee stained writer. Here's a link: http://coffee-stainedwriter.blogspot.com/) and from a great book I read called How Not To Write A Novel.

Character mapping is again my term because I have no idea what it's really called. I did not attend college for writing, so I have to make up my own terms. Anyway, character mapping is when you take your character and you go through his or her personality traits.

I have quite a few homemade templates for this. I ask myself questions like "What would my character do if he were a high school boy? What music would he be into? Who would his friends be? What are his parents like?

If he's the Vampire King (just paying homage to my own character), what was his family like? What kind of history has he lived through? Has he done things he isn't proud of? What would he be interested in now? What kind of person is he? What does he do for fun? What does he do to wind down from an evening? What kind of movies does he watch?

See what I mean? You go from trivial stuff to important stuff and back again. I go through and list a physical description, why they are called what they are called (if it's significant), what kinds of clothing they wear, whether or not they want pets. I go on and on. I don't recommend that everyone gets as into it as I do.

Why does this help when you're getting started? If you end up not knowing what your character would do in certain situations, that character map is a lifesaver. I don't know how many times I got lost in what my vampire king was doing and I fell back to that map.

The character map is also constantly evolving, but I'll talk about that in a later post. For now, enjoy your weekend and write your three pages on Monday.

I'm in a love/hate relationship with plot mapping. Now I realize that might not be the technical term for it, but that's what I call it for lack of something better.

Plot mapping is when you write out the points you want to hit in your novel. For instance, if I want to make sure that certain characters fall in love, I put that in the plot map along with the journey they have towards falling in love. If my hero is going to fight the villain three times, those scenes are in the plot map. You get my point right?

I have written books with a plot map (Prophecy, Forbidden, Legacy, the third version of Awakening) and I've written one without it (the first in the spinoff series) and I really hate plot mapping. After writing without it, I thought I didn't need it to do it anymore. I was so wrong.

Now that I have to rewrite the first novel in the spinoff series, I wish I had a plot map. I wish I had something to guide me in putting characters in the right places without leaving something out. I'm on page seventeen and I know I'm doing stuff that didn't happen until page twenty before. What's missing in those three pages? It's driving me crazy.

The moral of this post is this: just because you can doesn't mean you should (thank you Acheron). I will never again write without doing the tedious plot map, even if I hate it and just want to get going already. Thank goodness I have the plot map for Awakening saved after my computer fiasco last week. After writing that twice, I really feel better looking at a third rewrite with some kind of guidance.