As it stands, LSB XE is structured around writing chapters then building these into a book. The amount of ways of doing that are limited only by the imagination in Liquid Story Binder, as there are so many different file formats such as listings, chapters, planners, builders, notes, etc. Some have wordcounts, some do not, some work with other file types, others can be associated with them, but not built into them.

For me, like many other writers before me, I found manual workarounds towards my own needs. I am predominantly a scene-led writer, although because I am reasonably structured beforehand, I normally come at writing with a whole scene structure. So unlike many scene writers, I already have chapters in mind.

I therefore use the builder module to write in (as well as keeping research notes in an overall builder) and stay away from the chapter functions completely whilst writing. Each new chapter has it’s own builder and within that builder I write scenes – already plotted out scenes. Each Scene item (a builder item) operates with normal text editing functions and has a word count.

The scenes within the builder (chapter) can be rearranged in order, but currently can’t be moved into another builder. If I want to do this I have to copy and paste all the text out of that scene item and into the other builder.

From a builder where I have the scenes all written, I can then hit the build [to chapter] option, and the whole thing goes into a proper chapter file. I then need to manually add that chapter into a planner listing so that at the end, on publishing the book all the chapters are printed in order.

Because the builder itself doesn’t have an overall word count of it’s contents, I manually keep this in a note record type. Each scene that I complete I will need to go and add that to my manual record, and keep a tally as I go. That’s because I don’t normally finish a full chapter for a few days, and I want my day’s wordcount – especially when writing to a target.

My way of working within Liquid Story Binder is individual and suits me, but many on the LSB Yahoo group have recently become quite vocal about needing to write in scenes rather than chapters. As found in that chat, many who already use LSB use roughly the same process as I do, using the builder to write scenes into, but are frustrated by not being able to move scenes around as you can do in something like YWriter, for example.

The upshot is that Black Obelisk has suggested that the next release of LSB will include the functionality within builders to move builder items (in our cases, scenes) from one to the other.

Whilst other novelists want even more (ie. the ability to title scenes and have these appear in the draft publication under chapter headings, numbers and titles) the above changes will make me very happy indeed.

Whilst I was on holiday last month, I missed not one but two new upgrade releases of LSB. I’ve only just updated my own versions sitting on a PC and laptop from downloading from the website (the current public version available is V4.31d), and await the next version to see how well the new scene functionality will improve my own writing processes.

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My dream now leaves me ready (within half an hour) to world build as I go. On-the-fly worldbuilding – with a structure behind it. That’s what I’ll share for you today, with my resources used to build the structure.

Based on my journeys through second life (and my growing love of the steampunk culture within second life), the novel ‘idea’ or ‘sentence’ which is quickly forming in my mind has overtaken me today – through horse and cart rides, swimming pool activities, lunch out at a restaurant, and through a full on production of Mo Town classics with audience participation and a cold buffet to gorge on beforehand.

All of these things fell by the wayside today – I know I was there, but I was an automaton as I began the process of world building for this new novel. As my resources here are limited, I did a quick ‘builder’ up in my writing software, Liquid Story Binder, then decided I’d better refresh my memory of how to worldbuild so as to be ready when I need it.

For this novel, I’ll world-build as I go with the writing – my gut instinct tells me this is best. No overplanning, just in and write. But to get ready for that, I have to have a structure set out which will allow me to quickly flick over and put in the facts (or fantasies) as I write them.

To do this, I’ll share with you some resources for more information and my own quick and dirty structure. Mine will change, no doubt, but it’s already ready, and within half an hour.

Resources for World Building for the Fiction Writer

1. Holly Lisle – How to Think Sideways and Create a Culture Clinic

One of my first purchases as a noob writer were Book i and ii of the World Building series available through the HollyLisle.com shop – Create a Language and Create a Culture Clinic e-book. These large e-books take the writer through world building with a structured concept. For $9.95 each, they may be all you possibly need to begin world building.

Holly later went on to building and tutoring the How to Think Sideways writer’s course, and I signed up for the first ever session of this. This 6 month (or a year) course includes an entire week of World Building – with four different PDFs available – Time, Maps and World, Culture and Language.

On HollyLisle.com you can also read a one-page essay entitled ‘Worldbuilding – Rollicking Rules of Ecosystems’ where Holly gives you some fundamentals of what makes a world, or not. And there is the comprehensive Worldbuilding Workshop available also as a free read, entitled ‘How Much of My World Do I Build’. This workshop lists such things as Special Physics, Organized Terrain, etc, and formed the basis for the PDFs available through the How to Think Sideways course.

LinkMes:

• Holly Lisle’s Writing Clinics – purchase Create a Language and Create a Culture (or a four-pack of some excellent PDFs including Create a Plot and Create a Character)
• How to Think Sideways (affiliate link) – online writing course for 6-12 months with various payment options.
• Worldbuilding – Rollicking Rules of Ecosystems – a Holly Lisle essay.
• Worldbuilding Workshop – How Much of My World Do I Build – a comprehensive essay listing a technique for worldbuilding, and story elements to make notes of.
• How I Drew a Map and Sold Thee Books and a World – another Holly Lisle article which includes steps used in building her own world map – this map also features in the How to Think Sideways course.

2. SWFA – Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

The series of worldbuiding pages written by Paticia C. Wrede are relatively famous, and very thorough. The pages are categorised down, with each category providing a series of questions to help the writer consider how their world might operate or exist.

LinkMe: SFWA Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

3. Fantasy WorldBuilder Guide and 30 Days of World-Building Exercises

The Magical World Builder’s Guide by Stephanie Cottrell Bryant provides a starter  long article on some aspects of creating a fantasy world.

In 2004 the author posted a series of 15 minute exercises to that year’s NaNoWriMo which have now been published onto the www.web-wrter.net/fantasy website with a creative commons license.

The 30 Days of WorldBuilding provides 30 exercises towards world-building, indexed with a side menu. At 15 minutes per day, that’s seven and a half hours this month to come up with some ideas for a fantasy world. There is a particularly interesting discussion on deserts in the Map section (Day 5) worthy of consideration if building a large continent.

LinkMes:

• Magical World Builder’s Guide – article on world building
• 30 Days of WorldBuilding – 30 x 15 minute exercises.

3. Other Worldbuilding Resources

Below are my own chosen listings for web resources I found useful in understanding the elements needed in world-building, or in creating specifics for a new fictional world. In random order -

1. Are you a god? Art, Writing and Worldbuilding Blog – this blog is reasonably kept up to date, with the author, Nils Jeppe, providing a sound list of worldbuilding resources, and also taking us throgh some of the processes used. I particularly have enjoyed the map buildings of late.
2. Wikipedia entry – Worldbuilding
3. The Language Construction Kit – a series of webpages designed to help you develop a fantastical language
4. Ad Hoc Writers Outlines – a series of worldbuilding facts to form a basis on which you could build a new world.
5. A Way with Worlds – Steven Savages columns on worldbuilding, held at Seventh Sanctum.
6. World-Builders.org – has an online world building course which concentrates on providing data on areas such as solar systems, ecologies etc. Free, from California State University.
7. Creating an Earthlike Planet – Geoffrey Morven runs through the scientific aspects of earth.
8. Creating a Fantasy World – Sara Douglass provides a long article on her own thoughts, based upon a workshop.
9. Memorable Limyaael’s Fantasy Rants Entries – rants on all of the pitfalls that writers or world-builders may fall into with various elements of a new world.
10. World Builder Projects – this tripod website lists lots of references. It’s slightly out of date, so there are quite a few dead links, but many are worthwhile bookmarks for the world builder.
11. Worldbuilding from the Ground Up – a transcript of a live interview with authors Dave Duncan, Dennis Jones, Anne McCaffrey and Juliet McKenna.
12. Shakespeare and Dragons – www.ImaginaryWorlds.net – this website, which is currently under renovation, contains a blog, forum and podcasts on worldbuilding. The forum and podcasts are still linked to and operational.
13. Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds – a large series of articles at FARP (Fantasy Art Resource Project) discussing everything from weather to anthropology.
14. Fantasy Worldbuilding Resources – this is a Squidoo Lens, and a very good one, listing many resources on various subjects.

My Own Down and Dirty WorldBuilding Structure

I promised to show you what I have created in note-taking form, ready for when I begin writing. This is a work in progress – the Daily Life section in particular can get quite huge, so may need to be split off into separate builder notes where necessary.

1. World Basics – a brief few paragraphs summarising the world (in this case, an alternative earth-like continent).
2. Geography and Climate – maps, topography, climate, weather patterns
3. Flora and Fauna – the plants and animals of note, both agricultural and otherwise. Also ecosystems – related to climate and geography also.
4. Peoples – races, peoples, breeds, biology, lifecycles, cultures and potential cross-pairings of these.
5. Culture and Languages – I’m not sure on culture, as it’s split up later on, but languages certainly.
6. Family and Relationships – family units, relationships, marriages / divorces / unions, sexuality
7. Calendar and Time – overall calendar(s) and time units
8. Rulers, Leaders and Government – rulers and leaders, governments and politics, crime and law, foreign relations.
9. Sociology, Customs and Beliefs – also includes religions and community
10. History – historical events and figures of note.
11. Daily Life – technology; medicine; transport; communication; food and diet; education and ; dwellings / architecture; gadgets and tools; arts, literature and entertainment; clothing and dress; etiquette / manners.
12. Magic and Magicians – rules of magic, magic and technology, magic users, social status of magicians.
13. Science and Scientists – rules of science, science and technology, scientists, social status of scientists.
14. Commerce, Trade and Economies – commerce and business; business and industries; trade and economic relations; economies, currencies / monies.

And there you have it, that’s what I’m working on right now. Well, not right now – I’m currently off to dinner and a show.

Update : well, the dinner and show did me in but the upshot was a sounder night’s sleep and a eureka moment on waking. I now have the premise of how this whole story idea and the world is meant to work. I love when muses do that to you, out of the blue.

Image Credit : seeks2dream on flikr (Creative Commons)

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The first PDF includes an introduction to Mur’s writing, one chapter, and an interlude listing writing excuses. The PDF has been released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license which means it is completely printable, distributable, even changeable provided that you release under the same license. I’m not going to distribute from here, instead please go to her blog to pick up the PDF download, and say hello.

LinkMe : I Should Be Writing – The PDF.

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With MyHeritage’s Family Tree Builder, the writer can download a free piece of software with enough functionality to allow for all those family trees, or even some proper genealogy if we wish.

Introduction to my Family Tree Making Criteria

I first discovered Family Tree Builder a year or so ago. As a family, we are currently trying to adopt another child, and within the very thorough (read – several years) process of being assessed as a potential adopter, both my husband and I had to produce family trees to go into a report. And we are talking “big” trees even at our first generations, because we come from large families.

I looked around initially at the Genealogical software available, and baulked at the cost of some of these. I wanted a program which could put together a tree with enough details such as names, birthdates, links, images, and different relationships, hopefully in some quick charts. But I wanted it quickly – without the necessity of importing in gedcom files, or doing some thorough family research through archived files online or off.

This same set of criteria as I worked with for my own adoption reports, sit readily for many writers. Perhaps with the additional aspects of dealing with alternative worlds or historical dates – or future dates for that matter.

Whereas there is some very good software out there, built for the purposes of using legitimate data from archives, much of it is expensive, and for the writer, difficult to use for a variety of reasons. That software sometimes holds checking data programs which spit out error messages if you try to input a future date, or input an outer-worldly setting which its linked database doesn’t recognise as an actual place on Earth.

MyHeritage.com’s Family Tree Builder allows for different dates and places of birth, but is strong enough to allow you to input and create multiple levels of sometimes complex graphs of characters and their relationships. And it’s Free.

As I have recently moved over onto a new computer, and am busy developing some characters for my newer novel, I decided it was time to download FTB again, and take it for a whirl. The following are simple screenshots and annotations showing you me putting the program through it’s paces, and some of the functions found within.

Using Family Tree Builder

1. Install and Setting Up a New Project

Family Tree Builder comes with numerous language support, a linked community and can be used for legitimate genealogy research and documentation. Download it for windows, and the install will guide you through to creating a new Genealogy Project (or I could import my own family tree put together last year if I wanted to continue adding to this).

Note: the free version of FTB still comes with publishing ability to a website. For my fictional piece of work, I’m obviously not going to do this, but it might be a nice idea, should you be working on a collaborative project with another author.

2. Adding My First Family

After creating a project, the program guides you through adding your first family. Within literally minutes I had my initial family, complete with a mother, father and three children, with birthdates, and decease dates, and reasons.

3. Adding Photos

All the people (characters) in FTB can have multiple photos associated with them. Using the Photos functions I imported in two photos for one of my main characters, setting one of these to her profile photo also (which will appear in the tree panels, and graphs).

I also imported in more images for the other family members, some of which were associated to multiple people as these were group photos.

4. Adding More Relationships

My story involves an event which leads to one of these characters being fostered out to new parents – and therefore a change of name and identity. This character inherits a complicated relationship genograph, and I have used FTB to create these new people.

Unfortunately, FTB doesn’t allow you to print the family tree out showing multiple parentage, even with the new All-in-One chart for Premium account holders. Instead, you are confined to seeing each family individually in several formats such as reports and graphs.

To get around this, I went back, and created the same character as a separate identity for the original family, then married them off together at the date of the adoption. By making this temp person the main basis for a report, I now had a structural graph showing both sides of the family. This is not, admittedly, an ideal solution to showing something like adoption, but a good workaround for a free piece of software.

Note: the above chart, called the All-In-One chart, isn’t available in the free program. You must subscribe for this, which is a cost of £54 annually. However, if you have a less complicated need, where you are after a large family tree ancestor grouping up to your main characters, with any kind of dates input, then Family Tree Builder may well be a good solution.

5. Working with the Main Character

Despite the work-arounds above, to get the adoptive family chart onto the same chart, now I could work with the main character going forward. I simply added a new relationship to this main character, a boyfriend in this case. To get him onto the chart, there had to be a link between him and my main character, so I married her off again (marriage allows for all sorts of partnerships including divorces, separations, partners, and links between same-genders as you can see above).

Despite already being married off to her twin in the chart above, FTB allowed me to add her boyfriend also (with a warning I took no notice of) and my final chart now shows all the main players in my story. I can add to this accordingly with additions of bosses and others (perhaps in a new family tree for the main character) if I wish. With the free form of Family Tree Builder, my up-to-date relationship chart would look like the final one below.

Summary

There are some limitations in using Family Tree Builder for fictional family tree creation, particularly if you need to develop a complicated tree involving name changes and changes to parentage or partnerships. Only direct ascendents or descendents can be charted with this software, although unrelated people can be added to the program where you need it. With the free program, reports and charts are restricted to an either / or basis – either ancestry or descendents or immediate family.

With a bit of creativity you can develop workarounds to allow a full chart to be shown of your characters in most cases. However, I had to upgrade, and at some cost, to get to the graph I was actually interested in for my own fictional work. Family Tree Builder, as a free product, provides an excellent basis for the creation of large ancestral family trees, and as such I would recommend you take a look at it if you need such a tool in your writing set.

For a different product, consider GenoPro, which can create some complicated genograms (which will include the adoptive side of your characters). GenoPro is not free, however, and will cost US$49 for a single license.

LinkMe: Download myheritage.com Family Tree Builder

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My third novel – for many months, was calling to me to be written. It was based in large part about some events which happened in my life and I held onto the emotions to put into that novel. Whilst Novel 3 was simmering within me, the editing of Novel 2 took a necessary back-burner. I found I couldn’t deal with so much at the same time.

Recently I’ve obviously found a new virtual home in Second Life, and am slowly integrating into the writing worlds within this. And a funny thing happened along the way (as the joke goes)…Second Life as an environment, cleansed me of the anger and upset which I wanted to use within my third novel.

I created a home with several writing areas in Second Life, the latest being a kiwi inspired copse of woods with grungy sofa and laptop. And I joined in with some short story writing and other writing events. But I was still having difficulty putting down the skeleton of that third novel.

This Friday evening as I was crazily rave dancing at Dance Island, I got an emphathic call from several writers to join them in Milkwood for a Writer’s committed hour. They meet there every Monday and Friday – it was 10pm my time, and I arrived still stuck in my dance animation from the club and with problems teleporting, also in my rather skimpy dance club wear – transparent latex included.

Harriet and Lukos welcomed me, despite my appearance and I allowed them to push me into committing to a goal for the month, and to come back on Monday evenings.

And whilst pushed like that, my third novel shattered around me, and I committed to starting editing that second novel instead. Second Life is not the place, despite my best care, for writing that third novel. My days are filled with landscaping, dog training, and exploring. I rarely have rain, but do have a lot of sunsets at my house.

More appropriate to returning to my second novel, then. Just like that.

Milkwood Writers’ Meet in Second Life.

The Milkwood Writers’ Meet is set in a fantastic place. I noticed there are even seals splashing off the coast. Setup with typewriters to make it look like you’re working, the regular meet is looking for more writers, and offering a few prizes too.

So, come on over Mondays (to meet me) or on Fridays, and get yourself writing too. Ask me how I’m getting on with that second novel edit also. The SLUrl (second life URL) for those logged into Second Life, is below. You can also look up the new ‘Milk Wood Writers’ Meet under groups.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scotland%20Inchcruin/209/124/26

My Actual Goals

Right, as I’m sitting here in real life, and bumming around on the ground in Milkwood, Second Life, I need to actually give myself some targets for this new goal of mine.

Let’s see. The first draft is approximately 120,000. And it’s nearly the end of April, so I was quite right in suggesting my goal was only to ‘start’ editing. However…what does that mean?

1. I need to re-read it, and first pass note-take on it.
2. I need to print the thing out – this was a showstopper for me earlier. So it has to be resolved. How to print it out, hmmmm…
3. I need a title.
4. I need to actually look up and remind myself what editing techniques I will be using.
5. I need to read my notes written at the time of writing for sections I already know I want to rework.
6. Read some of it out loud (probably at the TLE Writer’s Symposism I spoke about previously)
7. And probably a lot more that I’ve forgotten here…

Okay, the above was not ordered correctly. Call it stream of conciousness blogging. And it is eleven o’clock at night, so…

For the time being I’m going to suggest the following goals for me.

1. Choose my editing technique / method.
2. Start the big read and note-taking. Perhaps the first couple of chapters? (A pre-step – print it out!)

Now, it’s written in ink. No going back.

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Developed for first time authors, the From Idea to Book e-book is currently available for only US $1, with a paypal payment system. Given the price, I decided to take a look at it, and bought it myself.

From Idea…To Book…

Statistics:

• 106 pages long, including Title cover page, contents and About the Author informational pages
• Table of Contents, Introduction and Appendices
• 3 Sections, and 40 chapters.
• Purchase for $1 (currently)

Contents:

The e-book works on from the First Time Author Workbook, guiding the author through three sections. The first provides some goal setting thoughts on writing a book. Section 2 includes 20 brief chapters on the process of writing. Section 3 provides basics on publishing, self publishing and print-on demand, explaining, amongst other things, how to go about getting an ISBN number.

The basic contents can be found listed on the e-book’s page on the Creative Penn’s website, as below. Full contents are found linked through from the From Idea to Book page also.

• The psychology of writing and tools to help you along the way,
• What should I write about?
• Where do I find inspiration?
• How do I actually get on with writing?
• what is editing and why is it important?
• What about a cover?
• how do I decide on a title?
• What is self-publishing?
• Do I need an agent?
• What is print-on-demand?
• How do I make an ebook?
• How do I get my book on the Kindle or the iPhone?

Working through From Idea…To Book

The Process of Writing

The largest section of this e-book is towards the process of writing. Joanna uses simple text, personal examples from her 11 year writing career, and several graphs and images to help convey her process. She also deals well with the age-old question of finding time for writing, using quotes from other authors in where they found the time to write their own first books. Unusually, the book also deals with the reluctant typer, and gives options for those people who want to dictate their book rather than write it out.

Placed also towards marketing the book in the future, From Idea to Book also includes ideas towards choosing a title which will make marketing easier (such as finding keywords from the start). Those in business will also recognise the author’s use of Top-Down and Bottom-Up principles in structuring their book. In fact, the book even includes a flow chart example of structuring ideas and paths for a book.

Publishing, Self-Publishing and POD

The last section involves some basic but helpful information on going down the self- publishing or e-book route, cover-design, publishing via kindle or the i-phone, or if attempting the normal publishing route, how to go about locating an agent.

This leads on successfully to the next e-book in the series, From Book to Market, which according to From Idea to Book, is available for $9.99, however the website is currently showing only $1 again.

My Verdict

From Idea to Book is an excellent resource for the first time author, including many workable ideas, and basic knowledge which I’ve previously had to search and compile from all across the internet. The writing processes, graphs, author quotes and resource links included will help any person considering writing a book.

At the current $1 this is a bargain, but I expect would remain so at even $10 (which I would suggest is the correct price for the e-book itself). I would thoroughly recommend that any first time authors take a look at From Idea to Book as their first point of reference, and I intend working through some of those structural applications myself, even when writing a fictional work.

LinkMes:

• Purchase From Idea to Book e-book
• First Time Author Workbook review on Juiced on Writing,  and the free workbook which complements From Idea to Book.
• Follow-up e-book From Book to Market (not reviewed here).

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I am currently in the throws of developing my next ‘idea’, and just beginning to research it. I have the idea, but it’s a very emotionally rich one, and seems to also want to steep or brew – for a long time, before I feel willing to start writing it out of my system.

Researching and steeping a creative writing idea is an art unto itself, and here is my take on the subject as I go forward with this.

How to Steep / Research a New Fictional Work

0. The Conception of an Idea

This article is not about forming processes and working them to conjure up ideas for your next novel. Author and writing tutor, Holly Lisle has a process to do this she calls “Bringing Down Lightning”. Others call their processes many other things, and some authors don’t even have an option in what they write about, as their work is dictated by a publisher for a series, or by thematic requirements from other areas. But creating ideas is not what this is all about.

Once you’ve filtered out all the unworthy ideas and located that ONE – the little blighter that just has to be written, then you’re into the Steeping and Researching phrase that I find myself within.

I like to think of the conception of a worthy idea as being akin to something like a pregnancy. Many creative writers are never short of ideas, but gestating and growing a ‘good idea’ within you can take some labour. Sometimes my labour has gone really quickly – in a matter of weeks or days. In this case, my third novel, it appears I’m in for a long-term first phrase, and perhaps a pregnancy and labour more related to the gestation period of an African Elephant rather than a human being. Or the brewing period of a fine Indian tea, perhaps.

To return to this metaphor, consider the conception and selection of the idea as being like the selection of the finest tea leaves for drying and mixing. This is your basis for the brew. Only the finest will be allowed through into the pot.

1. Let it Steep

Unbelievably, writers have one of the only excuses out there (aside from perhaps sleep research lab-rats) to sleep on the job. Or at least day dream, stare at the ceiling, lie down for a very long time, or literally do nothing more productive with several hours of your time than sitting out on the grass and picking daisies.

This need to sleep or dream on the job is not something many writers are ready to admit to, certainly not in public. But there is a scientific standing behind the human being’s need to sleep and process things within their subconcious minds, and from this results the reasoning that the same must go for a writer, perhaps two-fold.

If you don’t spend time lying on the sofa immersed in the world you are imagining, why would any reader want to lie there as well?

- Val McDermid

How Long Do You Steep (or Sleep) on It For?

Good question. How long is a piece of string? I found with my last novel idea, I thought around it – not legitimately as a process – for about a month, before I started developing and outlining it on paper. Other times the story has arrived fully developed almost immediately.

This time around, it’s been three months, and only snippets or minor ideas or scenes or maybes, if, buts, and characters arrive very occasionally. This latest idea of mine seems to want to steep a very long time. That’s not a guarantee it’s of any more elite parentage, however. Maybe it’s going to be a doosy, maybe it’s really a stinker with a poor sense of timing. Longevity in the steeping stage does not necessarily denote quality or even quantity. It’s just what feels right for the story.

How Do You Force the Steeping Along Then?

1. Only force it along when you feel the time is right to force it along. This is a gut feeling for when the time is right to move onto something more tangible (unless you’re on a contracted deadline, that is).
2. There’s nothing wrong with augmenting one idea’s steeping process with other fictional or creative work. Write a short story, poem, edit another novel, start work on another project. Some authors are reknowned for taking years to steep an idea, even decades for some famous works.
3. When the time is right, then there are several methods to stir up the story and steeping process a little.

2. Stirring Up the Story Brew

This is the point that I find I have now come to. A point where my inners are starting to suggest some frustration with lack of progress with my story, even though it’s still quite nice to have a quick flash or day dream about it. Even though it’s still quite muddy.

For my own story, this feeling has been moved along by external forces this last week. My story centres around, although it’s very different to, a subject which has suddenly taken precedence in the world media this last week, with two different destructive events happening in the U.S.A. Those events aren’t exactly what I’m thinking about writing around, but some aspects of them are close enough to trigger in me a need to move on from the dreaming stage.

Methods to Stir Up the Story

To be done in cohesion with more dreaming. These methods, I’ve found, help to stir up those dreams and thoughts, and characters and story arcs begin to develop. It’s perhaps still too early to write these down, but if the same thoughts start creeping back, then you know you’re onto something.

1. Brainstorming – simple key words – these may start off with a very large picture, dealing with themes and ideas, and drill down more into characterisations and smaller details. I will stick with the bigger picture initially, stopping myself from getting down to details, because I want to give the story time to develop and change.
2. Read the genre – something you’re probably doing already anyway.
3. Media Events – as with my example above, if you find some world or news events are compatible with your idea, search these out. Clip out the newspapers, or look the news up on the internet. Go through and highlight the elements of those stories which trigger your own thoughts.
4. Ring the most appropriate key words out of all of this, and take to the internet with a good search engine.

A Good Research Tool Kit

Before I go any further, once I’ve found that very first piece of research at the stirring up stage, I setup my tool kit to take these into.

Many who have read here at my blog may be aware that I have a few research databasing and organising methods. But it’s not the tools that count, but the process of starting and organising those materials which can trigger additional thoughts.

For web-clippings and general notes I start off creating and labelling a project notebook within Microsoft OneNote. That’s where I’m currently concentrating my efforts. Once the actual story develops more – with character profiles starting to develop, then I will do that within my own writing and project management tool.

For fictional work, I tend not to take internet or web links or bookmarks – I never go back to those same sites, and don’t find I have a need to do so. Instead, I take full pages or partial text clippings into my notes database. The copy and paste facility within OneNote brings in the original URL for reference, should I ever need it.

Note that other more general research and clippings – those that I find outside of a planned research session for my novel – are filed elsewhere. I use Evernote, which has an online database, and I can use on a PC client copy, and synch with my iPhone.

3. ‘Proper’ Research

Once you’ve made that first step into stirring up the dreaming process, and setup your research tools / databases, you’re possibly ready to move into the ‘proper’ research phrase of your writing project. I’m not quite there yet with my own story, but regarding this phrase, I have to state that I love it! (see Point 4 Below, it’s important too!). But to get the best out of this phrase you need to develop some good methods behind your research.

There are two points which you should already be developing before moving properly into the research phrase of your fictional work -

• Genre(s) – where does this story fit? What patterns are expected from readers? What elements?
• Key Words and Phrases – which words really trigger your ideas – are they theme, emotion, event specific? Which need research?

A Good Research Methodology

Non-Fiction writers – particularly journalists, students, and even some professional vocations are provided with training and knowledge on developing research and analysis skills. Fiction / creative writers often come into writing without an initial sound understanding of how to go about researching at all.

Developing this is often a little hit and miss, and certainly too locale specific for me to advise anybody else how to go about doing it.

The Pleasure (and Pain) of Books

As an example, many authors suggest spending some time at their local libraries, and certainly developing a good working relationship with their friendly neighbourhood librarian. This doesn’t work for me, where my local library consists of a small volunteer-driven pre-fab building holding mainly children’s books and the odd best-seller, but no periodicals or reference books.

Others suggest if you can’t use a local library (or don’t have one) you can order in reference books. This is a brilliant idea, and one I, as a book lover, have previously pursued. But from this, I can give you one word of warning from one new writer to another – until you find yourself set into one or two genres, reconsider whether your huge love of mythical fairy reference books will still be needed several months or years down the line. Sometimes once that new story is out of you, you find all those reference books are now no longer really needed.

For those who are pretty sure you will be writing in the same genre for some time, then go ahead – buy a few books. Try to locate ‘the’ reference ones, and do a bit more research through internet sites on the genre itself – writing websites will often give you a list of books and journals which make good additions to your reference library, particularly those dedicated to the genre.

Speaking with Experts

My next story involves a number of crimes. For this, I’d dearly love to be able to get a grasp of the police procedures in this country, and not just those I see possibly erroneously portrayed on U.K. television soap series. But finding a friendly professional copper with enough time to support my many questions is a large thing to ask. I personally may have one inroad to this type of expert, as I happen to be living next door to two detectives for the county, and if they don’t have the time or patience, at least they may be able to put me onto some person who may welcome my interest in getting things right for the story.

Such experts have a two-fold promise for your work. There is a secondary side to finding and cultivating these gurus – if close enough, or if you’ve really built up a good relationship, they may be available as a sounding board for your starter ideas – in fact they may even add some more ideas to the pot.

But primarily, your gurus or oracles can provide detailed and up-to-date real-life information about how things work.

Which brings up the subject of interviewing and questioning such experts if you are lucky enough to source them. Whether your interview is going to be in-person, over the phone, or via email, you must be organised in your approach.

To be fair on their own time, I would suggest that asking them such random questions early on in the research piece may be very unfair. Better to store up any questions as they occur in your own story development, and if need-be, even through the actual writing. Develop a questionairre sheet, referencing to what part of the story you need that information for, and see if you can not find out the answer from elsewhere first.

That elsewhere could well be the internet, naturally.

The Web

Now that we’ve moved onto the internet, the need to develop a good methodology in research goes three-fold. How easy is it to become distracted by something you’ve seen on a website, and go off winding along the web and never find that one website again? How many hours can you spend and come off the web without anything productive? Yeah, I know. I’m absolutely brilliant at this so-called research. I can spend days and get nowhere.

I have developed a method where I never move onto one page without first taking a web-clipping of anything I may want from that first one. I also open up subsequent pages into new tabs, occasionally closing down older tabs in my browser. I search via key words and phrases, but also have learnt to look outside of the main pages, at sidebars and advertisements. After all, you never know for fictional work, what might trigger that one dazzling plot turn.

Here’s a list which may be helpful of certain types of research you may want to contemplate over the internet: -

• Genre Specifics – if your story is a romance, horror, science fiction, or crime, then there are associations and websites out there with lots of information and help for you (including the lists of reference sites and books I spoke of earlier).
• News stories search – enter your main key words. See what comes up.
• Key Word Search – enter your main key words. Follow the trails.
• Specific Research Requirements – as one example – for a historical piece, you may have set your mind on a certain time period, certain civilisation, or certain place as a setting. Another example – your crime story will require some knowledge of the laws within your country, and policing. You may need to research these to add detail…

4. How Much Detail, and When Do I Stop?

Initially I thought this was another piece of string question. It all depends, or does it?

For a plausible crime story, for instance, the author should have a good understanding of many things – how the crime can come into reality, for instance (is it really possible to die from an exotic spider bite? Does a body really decompose like that? ) And the people and procedures around the crime – (Would a police team really be made up of a student anthropologist and a Detective brought out of probation because he’s really needed? And how many policemen really are on probabation out there for hitting their superior officer? Heck – do they call their manager’s ‘superior officers’, even?)

For a plausible science fiction piece, the world is your oyster, right? Wrong – there are certain laws of nature and elements within even science or speculative fiction and if you break some of these, with no proper explanation of how these could be broken, then you reduce the acceptance of your story by the audience you’re aiming for.

I love to research – I perhaps should have been a Researcher by trade, but even then, I would have gotten bored with the same subject materials, and only like now to research things I am extremely interested in.

But I could spend months on researching my subject, I’m sure. And what would I do with all that pleasurable effort? Why, I’d want to prove it worthwhile within my story, wouldn’t I? My story will end up with lots of lovely little facts to build the theme and belief of that crime, and all my readers will see the fruit of my months of research, won’t they?

Well, I hope not.

I hope that I research to get an understanding, but that it doesn’t show in the book itself. I hope that I don’t just stick in so much detail that it reads like I’ve done lots of research. I hope my research doesn’t show at the seams, that it forms a plausible background, but doesn’t take over the story. My research should never be showing, it’s like a woman’s petticoats in the older days where we did wear them (I can just remember). It’s something private.

So that’s the answer to this question – yes, how much to research depends on many factors, including what your knowledge of the subject is already, how you are going to research, and how much detail you do need to provide. But in front of house, only enough is good enough. Stop as soon as you have the answer. In fact, stop as soon as you know where you can get the answer, and get on with the writing when it feels time. If you find you have holes in your knowledge when writing a certain passage or scene, then note it down, and add it to your research / question pile for a later date.

5. Pouring Out the Brew

So, you’ve stopped steeping, and stopped researching, right? Right? Okay, maybe you still have a bit, but not too much. Maybe use the additional research as an incentive or reward system. Write 2000 words, then do a half hour of research at the end of the session…

Now it’s time to get into the writing – whether you are a structionist who likes to outline a plot to the scene by scene level, or somebody who likes to wing it with a few idea cards. But of importance, stop researching and start pouring out your findings into some actual written fictional work. Oh, and stop to have a real cup of tea.

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On re-reading these, I stand guilty of constantly breaking many of them.

1. Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
2. Don’t use no double negatives.
3. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn’t.
4. Reserve the apostrophe for it’s proper use and omit it when its not needed.
5. Do not put statements in the negative form.
6. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
7. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
8. No sentence fragments.
9. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
10. Avoid commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
11. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
12. A writer must not shift your point of view.
13. Eschew dialect, irregardless.
14. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
15. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!
16. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
17. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.
18. Write all adverbial forms correct.
19. Don’t use contractions in formal writing as they aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
20. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
21. It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.
22. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
23. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.
24. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.
25. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
26. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
27. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
28. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.
29. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
30. Don’t string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
31. Always pick on the correct idiom.
32. “Avoid overuse of ‘quotation “marks.”‘”
33. The adverb always follows the verb.
34. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague; seek viable alternatives as they are old hat anyway.
35. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
36. Be More or Less Specific
37. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
38. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
39. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
40. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
41. The passive voice is to be ignored.
42. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
43. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
44. Understatement is absolutely the best way to put forward earth-shaking ideas.
45. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary, it’s highly superflous.
46. One should NEVER generalize.
47. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
48. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
49. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
50. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
51. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
52. DO NOT use all caps or underlines to emphasize.
53. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations, tell me what you know.”
54. Who needs rhetorical questions?
55. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
56. Be careful to use the rite homonym.
57. Break the rules (added for sanity).

Note: the above rules are suggested as grammatical fun for writers, and many have been republished all over the web, although I haven’t seen all 56 together like this before. And I added the last.

At least eighteen of these have been contributed to William Safire, who wrote a Sunday column, “On Language” for the New York Times, and in November of 1979 published ‘The Fumblerules of Grammar’ in this column. This full column and its history has been discussed on Donna Richoux’s 2002 article on alt-usage-english.org.

Want Some More Rules for Writers?

LinkMe:

• The above grammar rules should not be confused with the ten rules nominated by Elmore Leonard, famously called “The Rules” which remain published on the New York Times website.
• Erica Jong has published 20 Rules for Writers – which includes “No. 15 – Let Sex (The Body, the physical world) in!”
• Heinlein’s Rules, augmented by one more – Robert A. Heinlein famously created five rules for speculative fiction writers, documented here, including a sixth one by Robert J. Sawyer.
• Anne Wayman’s The Top Ten Rules for Writers
• Gene Wolfe’s five rules for writers.
• George Orwell’s six rules for writers, with a film interpretation of these by Norman Hollyn.

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I made mention of my iPhone 3G, and here you will find how I use it for note-taking (with two options).

Online Notebooks and iPhone 3Gs

Normally for general note-taking and planning I use Microsoft’s OneNote which comes with Office. As it came free, I use it, and I actually like many of the features found within. However, OneNote is a desktop client app with no ability to store notes or note databases elsewhere, either online, or via the iPhone.

However, for the sake of compatibility between a mobile device for note-taking, and a database, nothing can beat Online or Cloud storage. The iPhone, as much as it is fantastic, still does not have a blue-tooth keyboard, so I can not suggest that writing more than a few sentences at a time is feasible on the touch-screen keyboard supplied. However, when I’m in town shopping, or out on the local dog field running my dog, and an inspiring idea emerges, I can cope with thumbing this into the phone knowing I can access these notes later on from online.

1. Evernote and the iPhone 3G

With EverNote’s latest version, users have access to a website  database of their notes, a desktop version (both Mac and Windows) and the iPhone app. All three synchronise quickly between them.

Evernote as a desktop version, has been around for a few years now, and the ribbon of notes searchable by keywords and dates are relatively well-known. With the new Evernote Plus, accessing and storing your notes just got even easier, and more mobile. With your notes stored in a cloud online, you can access these from any PC out there, should you not be at home or work. And with the iPhone, you can create new notes and edit these also.

The free version (create an account at Evernote online) provides 40MB upload allowance with some limitations on file types for synchronisation but access to all three versions to download or setup (web, desktop and iPhone). If you require more storage or allowances, the Premium account ($5 per month / $45 per year) will provide this.

Evernote notes can take the form of text notes, web clippings (using browser plugins for Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers), Audio notes, High Resolution photos or mobile snapshots.

On the iPhone, the ability to take photographs as a note is excellent, perhaps beaten only by the voice recording aspect. This is particularly good when some inspiration hits you while you’re out and about and you need to note it down quickly into a notebook or somehow.

Notes can be encrypted for security off the cloud base (or website where everything is stored). Inside of the webside, you can send individual notes via email, or attach files to these. With the geocoding side of the iPhone, notes can be mapped through Google Maps with location of where they were created.

The Desktop Client is where you have copious searching and sorting abilities. Printed and handwritten text within images can be found using recognition technology also.

The iPhone application has an additional favourites function, allowing you to save some of your notes, for offline access. Whilst offline, or away from your connection, you can create new notes, and these go into a Pending area until synchonised across the cloud. Once you’ve signed onto Evernote the first time using your account userid, the iPhone remembers these details, meaning you can create a new note very quickly – as soon as you hit the elephant icon.

On the iPhone, Evernote gives you the expected way of getting your notes off the phone – via email.

LinkMe : Evernote Website for Signup and Details

2. SpringNote and the iPhone 3G

SpringNote is a completely free online Notebook application based on wiki principles. For a Review of this, please see the article here.

Along with free multiple online Notebooks, there is a SpringNote iPhone application. Currently this only integrates with your first personal notebook setup online at SpringNote, but there are plans for a new version coming out this year, which will allow you to integrate with your multiple notebooks.

Notes (pages) in SpringNote are text-based only, due to the wiki format online. Signon uses an OpenID and I found the signon via the iPhone application particularly difficult. Refer the full SpringNote review for this.

However, once setup, and signed in, creating a new page or note on the iPhone is very easy, both while you are near a wireless wifi connection and offline. You can also use some markup language for some simple text formatting functions.

The iPhone system also caches all your notebook pages for you when connected, synchonising any changes between your web-pages and the iPhone, including new pages from both sides, when you can. If offline you can access and edit these pages, create a new page / note and then upload or synchronise these to your website once connected.

Once the multiple notebook feature is added to the iPhone application, using SpringNote to add writing notes to a Writing Group or shared SpringNote you maintain will be a very creditable service for consideration as a mobile / web-based notebook application. At the moment, however, the inability to export out to rich text or similar, makes getting at your notes away from online or the phone difficult.

LinkMe: SpringNotes website for signup and details

Other iPhone Applications

1. TextGuru

TextGuru is another option for iPhone 3G owners. Not really a notebook application, TextGuru is more a feature-rich word processor, which has copy/paste functions (rare on the iPhone) and saves files in several formats. And TextGuru allows you to upload or download your files from or to your computer when synching up your iPhone.

For those who like to have access to a fully featured word processor with built in synching to the desktop.

LinkMe:  Available through your local iTunes Store.

2. Notes

Notes comes as a standard application pre-installed onto all new iPhones. It’s a sim

ple text note-taker, but with the addition of a Send function, you can use your iPhone’s email ability to send as an attachment to your own email address. From your computer you can then access emails, download the attached text file, and do with it what you wish.

LinkMe:  Available pre-installed on your iPhone

3. Jott for iPhone (U.S.)

The Jott iPhone application records your voice notes and transcribes them into text for you. The voice recordings are transmitted up to the Jott server where the transcription takes place. Then the text notes are sent back to your iPhone. You can also get these notes off the Jott website.

The process takes a few minutes, and is not error-less, but it’s a great way to utilise those voice recordings. The Jott service is available for the U.S. and it has been suggested by users that Jott iPhone works well with the Evernote voice recorded notes also.

LinkMe:  Available through your local iTunes Store.

Writing a Novel on the iPhone 3G

The interface for the iPhone 3G is wonderful – for games, actual phonecalls, text messages, even a quick Twitter or Facebook update. But thumbing my way through the touch-screen keyboard is not one of the ways I want to approach my own novel writing projects. For me, the iPhone makes an excellent writer’s notebook for quick thoughts, and notes. But not for writing a novel in it’s entirety or even partially.

However, take a look at The Writer’s Technology Companion website where writer Dustin Wax was contacted by published author, Cheryl Kaye Tardif, who told Dustin that she had started off her latest novel on an iPhone, and was continuing to do so, given the amount of publicity she’s received in doing so.

In Cheryl’s communication, she makes a good case as to the iPhone being an appropriate media in the context of her diary-like story. Others have used the latest technology to both create and publish entire novels from – the many Twitter novels are one case in point, and so is the Japanese hobby of mobile-novelling, where entire novels have been written on mobile phones, and later successfully published as best-sellers.

Lastly, scroll down and read the comments on The Writer’s Technology Companion’s post. There you can find an author who has published her latest novel as an ebook – and it’s available for not only the expected Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle formats, but for both the Blackberry and iPhone.

What I Use

Currently I use a double approach to capturing notes on my iPhone. I use both the SpringNote application and Evernote. As a long-term Evernote user, I like gathering notes in this way, especially with the new web-cloud storage and synchronisation through to both the desktop and web database.EverNote will be my first recommendation, and choice.

SpringNotes (see the review elsewhere) is less quick to get into, needing me to signon to the application via a browser and OpenID signon. This means quick note-taking is difficult unless I’ve already prepared myself for this early on in the day. I’m also not convinced about SpringNotes as a research or knowledgebase online for myself unless looking at administering a group resource.

I particularly like the voice recording ability within Evernote, on my iPhone. This makes quick thoughts and ideas incredibly easy to manage, although I then have to transfer these to text or somewhere else manually at a later time. Perhaps if I lived in the U.S. with the Jott iPhone application also, then the combination would be even more powerful.

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1. A good title allows the reader to predict the content.
2. A good title catches the reader’s interest
3. A good title reflects the slant or tone of the writing.
4. A good title contains keywords that will make it easy to find via a computer (or internet) search.

Notice my keywords in the title chosen above – functions, good, title. And it couldn’t be any more reflective of what this little piece is about, could it now?

So saying that, I always go off and break the rules. Don’t you? But if I really want the article found – particularly if publishing on the internet, then I’ll stick to the functions.

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