Have you ever watched a play, tv show, or movie where background characters did nothing but stand around and watch? It gets old and boring quick. The same is true for background characters in your writing.

How your characters react in everyday situations is as important to how they respond in the “big scenes”. Without secondary responses, the pages of a book take on the same droll sense that watching someone on stage just standing there has. Boring.

We would like your thoughts and advice on how to up the background, yet still keep it in the back. Because even though it’s necessary, it still must not over power the importance of the scene it is in.

Okay, Anica had such a great comment, that I decided to add it to this post.

I think a lot of it is about knowing how your point of view character would look at the background characters and their activities. That’s the level of detail they should get.

Sometimes scenes seem to stop while the protagonist describes everything that other characters are doing – as you say, the background overpowers the scene. Mostly, I think the issue is that showing activities (e.g. what some character in the background is doing) implies (a) the passage of time, and, (b) that your protagonist spends the aforementioned time being aware of these activities, which means s/he’s paying enough attention to describe them at the level at which they’re described.

This can be especially problematic in big fight scenes. Often the author has introduced a bunch of characters over the course of a book or even a series, and s/he then wants to show the reader what all of them are up to during the big fight, but reading paragraphs on what other people are doing during an action sequence makes me think, “What about our protagonist? Is she just standing there watching?” (If so, there had better be a good reason, because that isn’t a very active or interesting course for her to take.)

Background details can be included; they just have to make sense in the context of what the POV character is doing at the time. In the fight scene example, maybe she could be fighting her way across the room, trying to ask each of her friends an important question, which would mean she would see what each of them is doing.

Thanks, Anica for your thoughts on this subject, I agree completely!

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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Most writers love to read. I’ve noticed through reading, that many characters love to read as well. It must be the book lover in authors.

So my questions to you are: What books do your characters read? Who are their favorite authors? What genre is their favs? What kind of characters do they relate to?

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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My dad, bless his heart, still expects me to read my emails daily. He sent me an email for a free seminar on writing. Of course, the seminar was yesterday, but I clicked on the site and within minutes received an email from the authors say we could still listen. Here’s the email and sites for all those who need and/or want advice from two Best selling and Prize winning authors. I for one can’t wait to listen.

“7 Success Strategies Every Entrepreneurial Author
Needs to Know… Before Writing a Word.”

Christine Kloser and Lynne Klippel, Best-selling and Award-winning Authors, have a free seminar they offered at their site.

The call is over now, but you can still listen to the
recording. It was a great call, filled with “nuts and bolts”
tips and techniques for aspiring authors… especially the
ones who are struggling to get their book written! People
from all over the world discovered how to set themselves
up for success as an author from the very first word.

Here’s your link to listen to the call:

http://AttendThisEvent.com/?eventid=14947536

Be sure to have a pen and paper handy to take plenty of
notes! And, pay special attention to the end of the call
where you’ll hear 2 special and TIME-SENSITIVE
announcements that we’ll never be offering again.

To your book success,

Christine Kloser and Lynne Klippel
Best-selling and Award-winning Authors

Co-hosts of Successful Author Secrets
Co-creators of the award-winning “Get Your Book Done” program
Co-founders of Love Your Life Publishing, Inc.
Ph: (800) 314-5590

P.S. – If you don’t have time right now to listen to the
call, you can go directly to
www.LoveYourLifePublishing.com/gybd-live where you’ll learn
more about our Get Your Book Done® writing program that
begins on October 12. This program is for YOU if you want
2011 to be THE year your book gets done! Please hurry, our
special pricing ends in 7 days…

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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Mary Kole is one of the first people who donated her time to WriteOnCon. When the conference was just a thought, we went to her with questions and ideas–she answered each and every one of them, and then made suggestions of her own.

On September 23rd, she’s teaching a webinar about writing for children with the folks at Writer’s Digest.

Here’s what she has to say about it:

You can enroll by clicking here. It’s the next best thing for all of you who have been waiting to see me live…and you don’t have to leave your pajamas! If you have to miss the live event itself and can’t call in, you can always register for the webinar and have access to the recording of it for one full year.

I pledge to answer all questions posed to me, either during the seminar or later, in writing, and, as a registered student, you will get a critique of the first 500 words of MG or YA novel or the first 300 words of your picture book manuscript, depending on what you’re writing. If I get a good turnout for this webinar, Writer’s Digest will host me again, and  you know how much I love getting teaching opportunities, so tell your friends!

That’s right–if you register for her webinar, you get a 500 word critique (300 if it’s a picture book) done by Mary herself!

I spend a lot of time looking at Mary’s critique notes, (Full disclosure: She’s my agent) and let me tell you–they are amazing. When she finds a problem with your work, she doesn’t just tell you it’s bad. She tells you why, and then gives you the tools to figure out how to fix it. I’m a better writer because of Mary, and if she gives you notes on your manuscript, you will be, too.

So what the heck are you waiting for? Go sign up!

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Writing Routines

“If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.” ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

The age-old writing advice: write as often as you can. Where you can. When you can.

I was talking to my local writing group friends the other day and it dawned on me that I write in snatches. At the time, I hadn’t thought much about how and when I write.

But it is important, I realize now, to be aware of this, because then it is possible to improve the routine for a better quantity and quality of writing.

I wake up first thing in the morning and write for ten minutes before I freshen up. Dream journal, whatever.

I write while waiting for a cab I have called. Write while waiting for the pasta to boil. Write a post based on writing prompts.

I do sit down and write an hour or so every once in a while, a few times a week, and usually get an average of 4000 words written a week. So, I have learned not to complain.

I know I haven’t yet made it to the stage of discipline where I sit down and write every single day at a particular place. My favourite writing days are those when I get a lot done in snatches, finish a story, for example, or do a series of writing exercises.

I’m getting a few short stories published in Antologies here and there, but I wonder if my sort of writing routine would be any good for longer stretches of work. Since most of the girls on this blog are novel-writers, prolific ones at that, I’m curious. Is it possible to write a novel in snatches?

How do you write? How often? What is your writing routine?

Read. It. Aloud.

In reading words and sentences to pronounce them out loud, we use additional parts of our brains, and I think that’s what makes us more aware of the actual content of the sentences than when we’re reading silently. Necessarily, there’s a tighter focus, too, and less tendency to skim and skip.

As I mentioned, I hadn’t been in the practice of reading my stuff aloud. I now regret that I haven’t been. This epiphany is due to creating podcasts for my latest novel, The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles. The manuscript was copyedited by a reasonably sharp-eyed colleague who performs that function for the university where I work. It was read by my sharp-eyed English-major wife. And I read it again and again and again before publishing it, both in manuscript form and in book form.

Yet reading it aloud has uncovered at least a dozen typos and other linguistic mistakes. Argh! Despite all the care and attention, there they embarrassingly were. I’m almost finished with the podcasts, and will load a revised version into the POD supplier, Lightning Source, when I’m done. Because it costs $40 for me to make that change, current copies purchased will have glitches in them. (Maybe they’ll become collector’s items—get your copy from Amazon today!)

On the other hand, there’s a good chance the errors will go unnoticed. After all, they escaped the beady-eyed gazes of people who were on the alert for goofs. I also think that the nature of the narrative is a factor. There’s plenty of humor to distract you, not to mention seeing the world through a cat’s eyes, and fast-paced action that becomes quite involving. Readers (not all, it does have its critics) speed through the story, constantly racing forward to find out what’s going to happen next in the madcap tale. I like to think that, in a way, quality of storytelling is the culprit.

The goofs have primarily been just that—goofs. A typo now and then. A word out of place. Once a description that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Here’s an interesting sidebar: I use contractions in the narrative quite a lot, partly because it’s in first person. However, in reading it aloud for the podcast recording, I found that the rhythm and sense of the words play better when the contractions revert to whole words. I’m not going to change them in the typeset narrative, but, when I record, I find myself de-contracting the contractions more and more.

And guess what—I’m finding a word missing now and then, some hidden echoes, and other glitches that have not been seen by the same crew that missed those in vampire kitty-cat—the wife, the editor, and myself. Just this morning I found a line that had a character finishing a beer—only I’d cut the earlier reference to him having one! Argh!

(I’m still interested in finding beta readers for this book. Here’s ad copy I’ve composed about We the Enemy: “Madmen, madchildren, and criminals kill us with terrifying firepower. Revolving-door law spits felons back onto streets uncaught, unreformed. But maybe there are ways to change. A gripping ride in a unique speculative thriller that sparks thought.” If you’d like to give it a read and give me feedback, email me at ray at ftqpress dot com.)

On the positive side, I’m still confident of my narrative ability. I’m finding that the prose reads well and is involving, and doesn’t need much in the way of revision—but I am also seeing ways to clarify now and then, which means a better read. This reinforces the lesson I learned with the kitty-cat novel—storytelling and writing craft abilities aside, my ability to get it right is only 98 percent accurate. Read it aloud. A valuable and humbling lesson learned. I’m going to do it with the other WIP that’s been “finished” for years, Finding Magic.

I ignored this advice for years, to my detriment. So why not do this? Take a couple of chapters of something you feel is polished and tight, right now, and read them aloud. If you don’t discover anything, excellent. But it you do . . .

For what it’s worth.