Posting redux: Wait, does this need a title too?

This week's particular blogging laziness is brought to you by the cold that I've had all week. My creativity is dead, so here is a post from December 2011 about strengths and weaknesses.

As an update, I'm happy to report that I finally figured out how to get those stupid bags open (protip: get your fingers just a little bit wet, the bags open much easier). Still can't make fried potatoes though.

Anyway, enjoy!




*******

In Sheena's post on Monday, she asked us for tag-lines, and my brain veered onto the superhero route (Prosers: It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a 3000 word sprint!). And that made me think of my own strengths and weaknesses. Now, I know it's bold to declare my weaknesses as a superhero writer where the whole world could see, but I'm just crazy like that (I don't fear you, Malaysian spambots!)

It's not the general weaknesses that we're going to talk about tonight. No, we're going to talk about the really, really irritating ones. The things that it seems inexplicable that anyone could fail at. In my case:

-I can't make fried potatoes to save my life (no matter how many tips people give me).
-It takes me freaking forever to open those stupid plastic produce bags at the grocery store. (THIS SHOULD NOT BE HARD)
-I can't wear clothes for five minutes without getting something on them, no matter if I haven't drank, eaten, or left my house (I don't own a lot of white).
-I'm terrible at naming things

They taunt me with their delicious crispy goodness!

It's the last, of course, that causes me the most trouble as a writer. I do okay naming characters, but as a fantasy writer, I'm always trying to create new worlds and places, all of which seem to require names. The Steve* Forest might be funny at first, but you can't name everything in your world Steve without causing great confusion.

I've searched around for tips, but none of them seem to work for me. I fail utterly at making up random words, and though I can sometimes entertain myself by playing with Google Translate, coming up with names by searching random words in 20 plus different languages is not very time efficient.

hat whole situation is annoying, but what's really bad is my inability to come up with titles for a story. And titles matter. I myself am guilty of judging by titles. I certainly picked up A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman because of the title, and it was an awesome book. Now she's one of my favorite authors, but I wouldn't have made a random selection of the book if the title hadn't grabbed me. It works the other way around as well. For example, I haven't read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss yet in part because of the title. It's supposed to be really, really good, but every time I see the title I think, "The name of the wind is 'Steve'!" And then I snicker to myself for a few minutes before picking up a different book.

I'd always known this, but the message was really driven home for me recently. After years of sending around my story "Marbles" and not getting it accepted, I finally had the brilliant inspiration to call it "Music in Glass." And yes, it did take me years to come up with that alternate title.

The problem continues – one of my short stories in progress is currently called "Curse Story" because I have no other ideas for titles. And my novel is currently called Graveyard, which would be kind of boring even if a certain famous author hadn't just won every award imaginable for The Graveyard Book.

I prefer to wrap up posts with a positive note and solutions, but I really have no clue on this one. Any magic suggestions for how to find great titles for stories would be much welcome. I've tried all the standard things here too (looking at other titles I like and adjusting them to my story, for example), but none quite work for me.

And to not make myself seem like a complete incompetent, here are a few pointless things that I'm really awesome at:

-Identifying gulls in winter plumage to species level**
-Baking chocolate chip cookies
-Drawing stick figure zombies

What are your random strengths and weaknesses?

*Sincere apologies to anyone named Steve. I actually do this with a multitude of names, but this is the one that went in the post tonight.

**It is impressive! I swear! At least other ornithologists think so...

Deja Vu

Ever get that feeling?

Well, I hope you'll forgive me if you do tonight.

It's late, I'm cranky.

So, what are you going to get from me?

Leftovers.

 

From the archives, a golden-oldie rerun post:

Plot Bunnies and Holy Hand Grenades

From the Urban Dictionary:

Plot Bunny - "An idea for a story that gnaws at the brain until written."


Plot bunnies are soooo irresistible - those story ideas that come to you in all their lop-eared, cotton-tailed, twitterpated goodness. Their big, shiny eyes promise untold adventure, wealth, and fame if you just give this one, Best Ever, idea a shot. Their ever so fluffy fur is almost hypnotically soothing - everything will work out this time, the story's practically written itself in your head already, it'll be easy as pie to put it down on paper. You'll be hailed as a literary genius (and seal the deal on the movie rights) by the end of the month.

Who could resist them? I can't. Plot bunnies scamper around my feet as I blearily pack school lunches in the morning. They run errands with me in the car. And, although I don't have cats like Sarah, plot bunnies have been known to sit on my face and wake me, breathless, with The Idea in the wee hours of the morning.

I love plot bunnies.

In the beginning, at least.

But my bunnies have a dark side. If I give in and pick one up and stare into those limpid eyes, that wascally wabbit mutates. What seemed like such a perfect, bouncy idea begins to contort. My plot grows fangs. And claws. It misbehaves. I know what kind of story the plot bunny should turn into, but it doesn't cooperate. I have the nose of the story, and I have the tail, but everything gets lost and muddled somewhere in all that middle fluffiness.

My bunny turns from this:




To the rabbit in Monty Python.

And that's when I know it's time to bring out the Holy Hand Grenade:



So here are five - no three, sir - er, three posts I've recently found helpful in subduing evil plot bunnies (with big pointy teeth).

My Favorite Outliner:

Okay, everyone has some sort of outline thingy that works for them - hero's journey, 3 point plot, 5 point plot. Well, mine's got them all beat. It's got seventeen points - yeah, baby! Go ahead, click on the link, I'll wait. For me this way of plotting from Helene Boudreau totally works. I added in a B (and C and D) plot sequence and suddenly there's hardly enough space to write all the things I want to pack into that middle of the story. The plot just hums along. AND, if you really wanna see something interesting, line those 17 plot points up to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (I'll give you a hint - perfect match).

The Nuts and Bolts of Plotting:

I liked the way Rachel Aaron explained her creative process in this blog post, "How I Plot a Novel in Five Steps." Her candor and insight are great. I especially appreciate that someone who is a multiple times published author is willing to admit that she gets stuck, too (whew, you mean all those published guys are like...human?).

Hare Writing:

No, not as in harebrained, or harried - but like the tortoise and the hare. Once again, I found inspiration in a Rachel Aaron post. This time, how she was able to bump her writing speed and quality up from 2k per day (already amazing) to 10K !!! a day. Way cool. And her writing trifecta (knowledge, time, and enthusiasm) is applicable in almost any creative endeavor. Kudos to Rachel for using such scientific objectivity to figure things out.

So, when those cute, cuddly plot bunnies turn on you like non-sexy vampires in the night, take heart and calmly pull the pin.

What plotting tools and ideas have you found to be indispensable?

~Susan