Quick! Brainstorm your fiction with the jot method

Jot in its verb form means “to write something quickly.” In its noun form, it means “a very small amount.” Put them together and you have a brainstorming method that’s all about brevity and speed. You simply come up with as many ideas as you can quickly and record them.

Where you’re working may dictate how you choose to record your jots. You can keep similarly themed jots on a journal page, store them in a memo program on your phone, or put jots on individual notecards.

Jots can be a wonderful precursor to any other brainstorming technique. Jotting is especially helpful for preparing to diagram (aka mind-map), a way of visually organizing ideas.

Jotting can be approached through a macro or micro approach, depending where you are in the process of writing. Generally, early in the process, you’ll need to jot broad ideas, and later, details.

Macro-level jotting exercises

Write as many possible answers to the following questions as fast as you can

• Who is my main character, inside and out?
• What is this story actually about? What's the themeatic thrust? (e.g. love, risk, healing, community, maturation, etc.) 
• What is the nature of my hero’s journey? Away from what and toward what?
• What other kinds of characters does this story need?
• What events might happen in this story?
• What elements does my setting need?
• What possible outcomes or resolutions would fit this story?
• How can I make this story unique?
• What might this story be about thematically?
• What do I need to research to make this story believable?

Micro-level jotting exercises

Tackle any of the questions below, focusing on unwritten parts of the story, places where you’re stuck, or revision problems. Generate as many possible ideas as you can quickly.

Characterization

• What are my characters' their deepest wounds, beliefs, needs and fears?
• What are their weaknesses, vices, pet peeves, and dislikes? 
• What are their passions, dreams, core competencies, and interests?
• What important past experiences have shaped them?
• What key relationships have helped and/or harmed them?
• How do secondary characters relate to primary ones?

Dialogue

• How does my character sound? Formal or informal? Intellectual, moderately educated, street-smart, down-home, innocent/naive, or mentally challenged?
• What key phrases does s/he use often? What colorful slang, expletives, or axioms does s/he use?
• What words would s/he never use? 
• What is the rhythm of his/her speech? Is it forceful, terse, rambling, melodic, hesitant, stuttering?
• How dominant or passive is s/he in conversation?
• How direct or indirect is s/he in expressing appreciation, affection, needs, wants, dissatisfaction or anger?
• What methods does s/he use to persuade others? 

Plot

• What is my protagonist’s ultimate goal? How might it change in the course of the story?
• What natural obstacles might block my protagonist? 
• What are unusual obstacles that might fit my story world?
• What are obvious ways to overcome the obstacles? What are unusual or unexpected ways to overcome the obstacles?
• How can I best harness relationships to drive the story actions?
• What are the absolute worst things that could happen to this particular protagonist?
• What solutions would create the most inner conflict for my protagonist?

Setting

• What place would provide the most useful backdrop to my characters and plot?
• What unique features of the setting shape my characters?
• What unique features of my setting could provide catalysts for my plot?
• What home environment would my character set up for him/herself?

Theme

• What virtues will I advocate and reward? 
• What vices will I criticize and punish? 
• What symbols best illustrate my theme?
• What other literature or films can I allude to that have elements that could support my theme?

Revisions

• Where are my characters behaving in ways that seem to not fit the situation: overreacting, underreacting, or otherwise veering from a truly natural reaction?
• Where do my characters seem boring? What aspects of their inner worlds and relationships could I play up in those scenes? 
• What characters aren’t pulling their weight? How could I eliminate them or combine them with an existing character?
• What plot elements feel out of the blue? How could I better prepare for them?
• Where does the story feel rushed? Where could I add breathing room? Which relationship or plot point could be built in a quiet scene?
• Where is the story dragging? What extraneous material could be cut to speed up the pacing? Where could a complication or crisis be added?
• Where is the tension falling flat? What are some ways I can raise questions, raise stakes or raise conflict?

Post-jot processing

Sort your jots by topic, gathering related material. If you worked with notecards, simply separate jots into distinct piles. If you jotted on larger paper on into a device, you may wish to transfer the information as you sort it.  First identify the ideas that excite you most. Next determine which ideas might have potential. Finally, identify the clunkers.

Once you’ve pared down to the best ideas, continue developing them using one of the following brainstorming techniques. As needed, go back to the “has potential” pile.

How might you make use of jot brainstorming? What part of the story planning process is most challenging for you?

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What's next

Curious about what I've been up to in my creative life? Today I talk about my current project, what sets this story apart, why certain themes emerge in my work, and how I write.

This is part of a Kidlit Blog Tour, for which I've been tagged by the lovely Melissa Sarno and Faith Elizabeth Hough. Thanks, friends!

What are you working on right now?

The Louvre (photo by priyanphoenix from morguefile.com)

I'm about 2/3 through a sequel to Never Gone, working title Almost There. The summer after Dani's junior year, she plans to take an art-filled, family bonding trip to Paris.  But a crisis arises with her grandfather, threatening not only her trip, but her mother's fragile mental health. Dani wants to keep their involvement to a minimum, but her attempts at quick damage control only get them more stuck. When her clever schemes to manufacture happiness for herself and others fall apart, can she trust God to redeem the mess?

How does it differ from other works in its genre?

Most YA fiction tends to separate kids from their families and never deals with inter-generational patterns of dysfunction. But so many kids experience this in real life. I tackle this from inside a faith tradition that calls us to have hope for the most seemingly hopeless situations. I also explore the joys and challenges of having a serious romantic relationship when you're young. Most YA books deal with starting brand-new romances rather than maintaining and growing them for the long haul.

Why do you write what you do?

I see kids struggling to be real in a culture that glorifies superficiality. When beauty, strength and charisma are idolized, all the ways we are broken never see the light, never have a chance to heal. Instead they fester under the surface, filling our lives with poison. I write about kids in crisis who learn to let go of their pretensions and falseness and allow God to remake them as people who humbly hope, believe, and love.

How does your writing process work?

So far, it has been largely voice-driven. I begin with a character who speaks to me and listen to what she tells me about her background and situation. From there, I daydream and research until I have a sketchy sense of some of the most important plot points. I write and rewrite the opening chapters until they let me go forward (and that can take a very long time). That draftivising process goes on into the story middle, which will at times call for more research until the events of the climax really gel. Then I write out notes about all the events needed to get me there and steadily create scene after scene. The back end of the book writes much faster than the beginning.

I always revise as I go, and usually begin to garner feedback from my writing group once I've gotten the opening to my liking. I find I need other voices to walk me through the story middle, and keep me from making wrong turns that are out of character, based on the opening.

Any departing words of wisdom for other authors?

Find a writing process that works with your lifestyle and temperament. There's not a one-size-fits-all way to make literature. If a process is truly uncomfortable, you'll simply stop. So find a method that's energizing and plays to your strengths. You're better able to tackle your weaknesses from a place of confidence than a place of doubt.

My nominees to answer these questions are C.M. Keller and Melanie Schulz.

Enter today to win a copy of 
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Five ways to find the story you HAVE to write

What's the difference between a story you poke away at aimlessly when the fancy strikes, and one that dogs you when you're going about your business, haunts your dreams and waking life alike?

The obvious answer would be passion. The stories one is passionate about may be easier to write (or harder), and they have an amazing way of grabbing readers and pulling them deep into your story world.

The funny thing is, stories that tap into our passions don't tend to just fall in our laps. At least, not very often. Passion-based stories sometimes require hunting and soul-work.

There are some great places to begin the search for your passions.

church window, Stow-on-the-Wold

1. Gather twenty of your favorite books or films. Seek commonalities among them. What made these stories resonate for you? Did they have a similar subject matter? Kind of protagonist? Emotional range? Plot set-up? Theme?

2. Write out some of you deepest beliefs. Imagine scenarios in which those values would be challenged or questioned.

   My novel Never Gone, for example, explores with how a teen attempts to reconcile her Christian beliefs about the immortality of the soul with her own very raw emotions while grieving.

3. Remember some of the most intense experiences of your life--times when you learned amazing things, faced a great challenge, overcame an obstacle, shifted your entire outlook.

4. Consider your own personal struggles. What problems do you wish could be resolved yesterday? What hardships in the past have shaped you most? What kind of topics in a bookstore's self-help section grab your attention?

5. Visit news sites. Note which stories you have a visceral reaction to, be it anger, sadness, disgust, excitement, or an itch to learn more.

If you are able to combine two or more of these areas, chances are you'll tap more deeply into subjects and themes that will grab your imagination hard and not let it go. Stories with that kind of passionate drive at their center are what readers want most.

How do you typically generate story ideas? Which ways might you try to identify subjects and themes you're passionate about?

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Using colour to accentuate theme by Jessica Bell

I'm delighted to have special guest Jessica Bell here to talk about how she develops and uses colors symbolically in her work. I love this of this sort of leitmotif in fiction, especially after doing a grad school paper on color motifs in Willa Cather's fiction.

USING COLOUR TO ACCENTUATE THEME

by Jessica Bell

I like to use the symbolism of colour to strengthen a common theme(s) I want to explore in my writing. I am fascinated by symbolic references in the books I read too (even if they do not have anything to do with colour), and believe they bring a richness and depth to what we read, even if it is not immediately evident to us. So let me tell you a little bit about how I utilize the combination of colour and theme in my work.

For THE BOOK it was GREEN.

Green symbolizes self-respect, well-being,  learning and harmony. It suggests safety and endurance, lack of experience, growth and hope. THE BOOK is about a little girl named Bonnie who is thought to have learning difficulties, but really is quite the genius. Her insights into the adult world are astounding, as she tries to "make logic" of the behaviour of her mother, father and step father regarding a journal ("the book") that is turning their family upside down. Her constant attraction to the colour green was a way for me to explore her subconscious need for security, stability and her desire to learn.

Some examples of the way it is used:

You saw Father Christmas at the mall and sat on his lap. He asked you what you wanted for Christmas and you said you wanted green lebküchen! (lebküchen are a German buscuit)

Dr Wright: Mummy tells me you that you miss Daddy. Do you want to talk about it?

Bonnie: [scribbles on paper with green crayon]

...

Dr Wright: How come you don’t like any of the other colours, Bonnie?

Bonnie: Daddy said green is a colour of being safe.

Dr Wright: Do you want to be a doctor when you grow up?

Bonnie: No, I want to give medicine from a shop with a green cross.

Bonnie: [shifts in seat, pushes hair from forehead] Well, my Ted isn’t very smart because I tolded him to fix it so all the greens could be on the same side and he sat with me on the flying carpet, and I made us go up in the air, so there could be magic around us, so he could fix it for all the greens to be on the same side.

And you are a gift no man could ever buy. Two beautiful ladies, and two shining souls, through one set of radiant green eyes.

“Now, if you have a little patience, my dear, I can show you how to make some green. Do you have a little patience?” I nod. But I can’t tell if this is a Daddy type question or a my Ted type question. But it doesn’t matter. If Mrs Haydon can make me some green, then I can paint some trees.

For STRING BRIDGE it was BLUE.

Blue is associated with freedom, strength and new beginnings, optimism and better opportunities,  loyalty and faith, power and protection. No colour is better fitting for this story about a woman named Melody who has let her passion for music die for the sake of her family, but tries to bring it back into her life without it affecting those she loves. In String Bridge, blue things are always deteriorating, symbolizing the fact that Melody feels helpless, and that it's going to be struggle to "start again".

Some examples of the way it was used:

I stare at my bag’s wrinkly, flaking, blue-vinyl exterior. It looks how I feel. Old. Poorly constructed. Depressed. Cheap.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, scrubbing the stain from the only decent dress I own. Blue dye comes off on the sponge.

Her fingers rose through her inward sigh, hovered above the keys, searched them for the correct notes like Braille. She began to play Joni Mitchell’s  “Blue.”

I steal one of Alex’s Camels and grab a box of matches. Sit on the floor in the living room, up against the wall. I strike a match, let it burn half way down, watching the blue base of the flame crawl along the stick as if lured by oil—kerosene candy.

I have another novel that is not yet published, called BITTER LIKE ORANGE PEEL, where I use the colour and flavour of orange to symbolize the bitterness, distrust and sexual desire my protagonists feel. Again, orange crops up in all sorts of shapes and forms such as rotting oranges falling from a tree, orange-flavoured lip gloss, an orange vinyl couch, an orange mohair sweater, photos tinged orange over time, and an orange scrub cap ...

And my lastest work-in-progress, WHITE LADY, (which stands for the drug speed) I have already shown signs of utilizing the colour white to represent tainted purity and cold, sterile environments.

As you can see, there is quite a lot you can play around with in the colour department. If you check out this link, perhaps the meanings of different colours might inspire you too.

Do you like to use symbolism in your writing? Give me an example. Do you notice symbolism used in the books you read?

Want to connect with Jessica Bell? Learn more at the following links:

Blog

Website 

Homeric Writer's Retreat & Workshop 

VineLeaves Literary Journal

Facebook 

Twitter

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My Road to Publication

I'm over on Dare to Read today, blog of Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban, author of Two Moon Princess and Immortal Love, talking about why I wrote Never Gone, who I think the book would appeal to, the cover design and my publishing and marketing experiences and ideas.

Carmen bumped up the date from when I expected the interview to run, which opens a spot on my schedule next week Wednesday or Thursday. If you'd like a blogging break for a day on 10/10 or 10/11, let me know in the comments (with an e-mail address, please). I'd be happy to do a guest post on a topic of your choice, or an interview. (And if more than one of you volunteers, I also have slots in late November and early December.)

The ebook giveaway continues at PK Hrezo's blog. Easy entry--just give an e-mail address. Extra entries for tweeting and following me on Facebook and Twitter.

Tell me about what you're working on. Why are you working on this particular project? What ideas and themes drive your writing?

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#keepingOPENMINDS—The Importance of Theme

by Susan Kaye Quinn, author of Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy)

image source

The very first image—the first brain spark—that inspired Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy) was filled with the effects of intolerance. The idea of a world where everyone read minds, except one girl, sprung into my mind as a setting: the girl, sitting in a high school classroom, surrounded by her mindreading classmates, but as isolated as one human being could be from another. She didn’t speak their mind-language, but it was more than simply being a deaf-person in a hearing world. She was mistrusted, shunned, because they couldn’t understand her. They feared her, because she was the definitive other in their world.

The idea of other has always fascinated me. As a girl, I grew up on aliens in Star Trek and sentient robots in I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Embedded in those stories was the idea that a being who looks, acts, and thinks nothing like you could still be a person—this is an enduring tradition of science fiction and one that I wholeheartedly embraced. I liked this exploration of what it meant to be human, and I think the best SF has always been about the human in the technology.

In Open Minds, someone who can’t read minds or be read by others is called a zero, a not-so-subtle pejorative that reminds them of their value in the society. Zeros are mistrusted in a world where every thought can be known, except theirs. In this mindreading world of the future, trust is built on complete openness—every thought you have is known by everyone in the room. There are no secrets, no white lies, no social niceties. It’s a rather coarse world in many ways, but also a credulous one. Of course you tell the truth; how can you not? So someone who is capable of keeping a secret is feared as someone completely outside the normal social structure. How could you ever believe a thing that person said? How could you trust them to run the cash register, much less do anything of importance?

Kira, raised in this society where trust and truth are intimately connected, discovers she has a giant sized secret—one that might finally allow her to fit in. All she has to do is lie and mindjack everyone she loves.

Although the theme of intolerance in Open Minds was there from the very beginning, it definitely evolved as I wrote the book. I began to discover all the ways that the intolerance of Kira’s world affected not just her, but the other characters in the story, and eventually the society as a whole. Kira handles her secret and the choices that go with it in one way, but the other characters handle it much worse (or some better). In spite of being mindreaders and mindjackers in a future world, the characters were all still human, subject to all the weaknesses and inner strengths that come with being human.

I’m working on Closed Hearts now, and as the title suggests, the theme of intolerance gains ground in the second book. It fascinates me to create characters that can play out all the possible ways that people can react to an evolving world. Sometimes it feels like our world of 2011 is moving ahead at warp speed, but when the world truly shifts, you can tell the character of a person by how they shift with it. I hope, throughout the Mindjack Trilogy, to honor the fine tradition of science fiction in exploring all the ways we are human.

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See more guest posts about Open Minds at the Virtual Launch Party!

When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy) by Susan Kaye Quinn is available for $2.99 in e-book (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords) and $9.99 in print (Amazon, Createspace).

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PRIZES!

Susan Kaye Quinn is giving away an Open Books/Open Minds t-shirt, mug, and some fun wristbands to celebrate the Virtual Launch Party of Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy)! Check out the prizes here.

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Writing wish fulfillment

It's the first Friday of a new month, and that means ART, baby! Philadelphia's art galleries in Olde City hold their monthly First Friday event, with new shows opening, later gallery closing times, meet and greets and refreshments. It's a fun, invigorating environment to hop into. Buskers pop up all over the neighborhood and local artisans--especially young students--hawk their wares from rickety card tables or blankets spread on the sidewalks.

The art world is one I love exploring, so of course my MC is an artist. Some of that choice of passion/career aspiration was thematic. She mentally rearranges what she sees so she can draw it the way she wants. But she also uses art to speak truth into the world. It's a gift I admire. One I wish I had.

I've loved drawing since I was quite young and took three years of art in high school. But honestly, I was just a dabbler. I could render a likeness with some competence, but narrating the world in image? I don't have the right kind of brain for it. Not visual enough. I can't follow those Ikea directions that are all pictures--I need words.

So writing Dani is my entree into being something I'm not, but wish I were. Tonight I'll rub elbows with the cool crowd and tell my daughter what's impressive about this technique or that composition. My artist wannabe self will fill up and I'll have more to pour into Dani.

What passion or skill have you given to a character that you wish you had?

Image from Hyatt's concierge.com site

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In sickness and in health

My daughter is home sick today instead of having an outing with her grandparents. I found myself wanting to make her tea, even though she doesn't like it, because it's what my mother did whenever we caught a cold.

Sickness or injury may not be a factor in your work, but I'm realizing it appears frequently in mine. I suspect that "coping with human frailty" might become a theme I continue working through my whole career.

Here are some questions I think through when approaching a character's sickness or injury:

~Is this character a "good patient" or a "bad" one?

~How is his "badness" manifested? Is he whiny, demanding, violent, non-compliant, in denial, depressed?

~How does the character feel about having physical limitations?

~Who is the usual family caregiver? Why?

~What does caregiving and comfort look like for this family?

How have you approached character sickness or injury? Is there any theme that seems to appear repeatedly in your work?

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