I’m going to do a series of posts to introduce the main characters of Ocean Heart to you and what my editor said.
It only seems right to start with Mariah, after all she is the main character…
Ocean Heart: Mariah Turner
Role in Ocean Heart: Protagonist (Main Character)
Mariah Turner
Mariah has always felt like she doesn’t fit in and relies a lot on her best friend Jace to carry her in social situations.
Mariah lives with Gwyn, her eccentric mum who predicts the future and insists on casting spells, mostly to control Mariah.
Next door are the Walker’s and her best friend Jace. Born only days apart, Mariah can’t remember a day without him.
Mariah is secretly crushing on Jace. She’s terrified of loosing him and will do anything to get him to see her, not only as a friend.
Mariah longs to swim but can’t. She has a rare condition that causes her skin to breakout in a strange rash. She must always wear her allergy bracelet.
What my editor said…
Avery McDougall had the following to say about Mariah in the Developmental Report.
The report gave me suggestions to improve the character but it was the first time I got to see her described by someone else…
Have you ever wished you had an image of your character? With Art Breeder you can.
I need to give thanks to author Elexis Bell for introducing me to the site. Check out her site, full of fabulous tips on writing, and her growing list of published books.
What is it?
The website generates a profile image by blending two images together and adjusting certain aspects of the face.
You can upload images you want to use but in the free version you are limited, I think it was five. But, using the images already available gives you more than enough options.
It takes a bit of playing to get the hang of it but it’s really addictive, especially as you start to see your character come to life.
Here’s their video to tell you more:
My characters
I created these in Art Breeder. They represent the main characters in Ocean Heart.
Characters of Ocean Heart created in Art Breeder.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to share with you more about each of these characters.
Also, check out #storysnippetssaturday where each week @jjotisauthor @bridieblake @amandalyncreek @rynthewriter and @sondaewrites host a weekly prompt to encourage everyone to share a snippet from their work in progress.
When publishing you have to pin point your novel to a specific genre so bookshops know where to put it on the shelf but when you are tagging you can put every genre that applies to your novel.
Think about your target audience too – what age is the intended audience. Think about the length of your story too. Think about the setting and time period.
In that regard, this list is endless but here are a few examples get to get you started.
This event was hosted by Phoebe Morgan who promised to share her advice on how to get published, attract an agent and attract an editor. It was held at the Sailing Club with stunning views of Felixstowe Ferry.
Introductions
Phoebe Morgan is the best selling author of The Doll House and works at Orion as an Editorial Director. She explained a little about the books she works on (crime, thrillers, women’s fiction and saga). She had created a presentation especially for us.
Before she started, Phoebe went around the room and got each of us to introduce ourselves and what we are writing and hoping to get out of the talk. There was something very endearing about Phoebe. People instantly warmed to her and wanted her to know about their writing. I think it is the way she appreciated and valued every writer in the room.
I shared that I have just finished editing Jewel of the Sea and sent it out to Beta Readers. I explained that I have queried a lot, been rejected a lot and then edited again and have lost count of the cycle. I confessed that I am now considering self publishing and believe my query letter and synopsis is not having the right effect on agents.
First Impressions
Phoebe’s talk began talking about bestsellers and popular genres and why these books are doing well. She emphasised why it is so important for writers to know what is trending when they are querying because this links to how it will be pitched to editors and publishing houses.
Phoebe had put together examples of pitches to illustrate how important it is to quickly get agents up to speed on what your novel is about in just one sentence.
Example: The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins – Woman sees inciting incident through her train window.
Phoebe told us what genres are trending right now. However, it is best to write the novel you want as these are constantly changing. She talked about why genre fiction is popular and why it is important for us to identify the genre where our novel will be placed. This helps the publishers identify where to market, package, design and price it. She pointed out how we need to be passionate enough about our books to promote it for two years!
Phoebe had collected examples of the first line of successful books and discussed how these sentences grip the reader right from the start. She pointed out how agents are often very busy and if they are not pulled in from the start, they will move on to the next. She pointed out how in a shop, a reader may pick up a book and look at that first line to decide whether to buy it or not.
Example: The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins – There is a pile of clothing on the train tracks.
Then, she got us to share the first line of our books and discussed their strengths. She also suggested that some writers should consider starting further into the story where the action starts.
She went on to talk about how to use suspense and pacing in our novels giving us tips on how to use these to make our novels a page turner. For examples, shorter sentences and chapters can speed up action but you can do the opposite for when you need to pull the reader in for more detail – there needs to be a balance between the two.
Ending a chapter on a cliff hanger can leave a reader needing to read the next chapter, to do this successful you need the reader to care about the character and be worried about them or the invested in the outcome. It helps to make the characters life full of obstacles – if it is too easy, it is boring. Obstacles create conflict.
Phoebe briefly covered different ways to structure your novel and why this is important.
Characters are incredibly important in your novel so Phoebe had collected a few tips to help us. In my notes I jotted down:
Not too many – you only need three to five main characters. If you have more then you can lose the reader as they won’t be able to connect with them. If you have too many, see if two characters can be merged together to fulfil one role.
Zoom in technique – Imagine a lens and zoom in and think of little things that makes the character who they are.
Back stories – Make sure you know your characters back stories, even if this doesn’t come into the story it will influence who they are and make them more vivid when you write.
Motivations – Understand what drives your characters. What are their goals and what they want to achieve, etc.
Likeable? – It is not necessary for the reader to like your main character whoever readers do need at least one character they can emphasise with.
Phoebe then got us to think about one of the characters in our novel and write for five minutes about their backstory. I chose Luna who is a secondary character but her back story and actions are the catalyst for the entire series. She is a character I need to know inside and out. I may one day write a short story about her.
Roles
She then told us about the steps to getting published. There were twelve steps! I’ve always been focused on ‘getting an agent’ that I have not thought much more about ‘what next’. It turns out there is a lot that happens after you get an agent, and a lot that happens after you an editor and after all that, when you finally get an offer from a publisher, you can say no.
Phoebe went into more detail about what an agent does and how to pitch one. I felt like I knew a lot of this as it is something I’ve done a lot of. Phoebe was able to recommend some good agents and resources like The Writer’s and Artists’ Yearbook.
She then told us what editors look for. It was very insightful to hear this as the agent will be looking for these things in your query. The agent will be trying to figure out whether they can pitch your novel to editors. Here are the main things editors want:
A strong, clear, one-sentence hook
A good sense of voice – character needs to feel new and unique
Fill a spot on their list – keep an eye out for out for wish lists
Pleasure to work with – they will check out social media to see if you take writing seriously but this is not a deal breaker.
A clear vision – they need to believe in the book and be able to see it doing well.
She ended by warning us that rejection is something almost every published author has experienced. She gave us tips on how to deal with and was very encouraging that a rejection doesn’t mean give up.
Summary
She finished by giving us a list of resources for further information and how to contact her if we have further questions. She also took our emails so she could send us a copy of her presentation.
Phoebe was so lovely, approachable and genuinely wanted to help everyone in the room. Writers who get to work with her are truly blessed.
I did have a damsel in distress moment in the car park where a knight in shinning armour came to my rescue. More about this in my next Felixstowe Book Festival post.
I hope you have found this useful. If you want to connect with Phoebe, you can find her:
Today, I am going to share with you some of the methods I use for choosing my characters names. Please cherry pick the ones that work for you.
Naming you character
Choosing a name for your character can be difficult. My preferred methods is to choose names that are an Aptronym.
Try to think about who they are and where they are from in your decision making:
Finding a name
Period in time: If your story is set in the past, you should research typical names for the time otherwise it won’t be believable.
Geographic: Find names that tell your reader where they are from. For example, if they have moved to America from Africa use a typical African name.
Personality: Check the meanings of names to see if it reflects their personality. For example, are they bitter or a happy person.
Characteristics: Check the meaning of names to see if they describe the way their look. For example, do they have dark hair or blue eyes and they a runner with strong legs.
Abilities: Check the meaning of names for their abilities i.e. are they clever, a singer or do they have super powers connected to water.
Position: Check the meaning of names based on their relationship in the story for example are they the friend, lover, teacher, mother or leader (boss/manager).
Relatives: If your characters are part of a family then it is more realistic that the parents chose similar style of names. For example, a hippy parent might call their children “Rainbow” and “Sage” and it would be odd if one child was called “Elizabeth” which has a very different feel to it. When naming siblings try to stick to names that sound like they would have been chosen by the same person.
Visit baby naming websites with tools to enable you to search for names, meanings and themes. You can also use a search engine to see if anyone else has made a suitable list for example “Rock Star names”.
If you are using software specially for writers, see if it has a name generator as part of the application.
If you like something physical to use, there are tons of baby naming books that you can buy and some that are for certain themes i.e. Celtic names.
Record your name research
Keep a list of your favourites and important information about them. This will help you in future. For example, if you are writing a story about Witches and researched 18th Century names then this list will come in handy for introducing future characters and save you precious time.
Make sure the name you have chosen is easy for the reader to pronounce (even in their head). It is incredibly off putting if you’ve made up a name that slows down the pace of your story because your reader has to think about what it says.
Sometimes, Fantasy writers will create strange names to illustrate that their character is from another species. This is fine but don’t make it illegible.
Things to avoid
If you are writing fiction make sure that your character is not named after someone.
Named after someone: Be careful if your characters name is the same as a living person and make sure it is clear that your fictional character isn’t based on them. You can write a disclaimer to cover this and there are some great examples on The Book Designer.
Multiple nicknames: If you use a nickname for your character, stick to one. If your character goes by many names it can get very confusing and frustrating for your reader to keep up.
Temporary names
If you still don’t know what to call your character, choose something that is easy to replace i.e. something unique. Then when you have made your mind up, use Find and Replace in your word processing software to change the name.
Learn from my mistake: I once had this problem and called my character “Sam”. When I finished my 65,000 word manuscript and wanted to change the name it was horribly difficult. You wouldn’t believe the number of words that have ‘sam’ appears within it. This made it a very tedious task. If I had picked something unique like Bartholomew then the correction could have been made in a few clicks.
Please note, this is a rewrite of my blog post originally posted here.
Day 18 of March’s Instagram photo challenge by #womenwritingfiction #wwfchallenge2019 was “Tell us about your secondary characters.”
Personally, I spend quite a bit of time developing my secondary characters. I like to know what makes them tick so I can ensure they remain true to who they are. Often, I fall in love with a character so much that I want to write them their own story, like Kya – currently writing Diamond in the Sky about her.
I decided to spotlight Denny. One of the stories about this character is below. I hope you enjoy this snipped into her background and I would love to hear about whether you enjoy developing your secondary characters as much as your primary characters.
Image from Unsplash artist Kinga Cichewicz of how I picture grown up Denny https://ift.tt/2DByKkK
View on Instagram https://ift.tt/2Ofw15V
Unpack (Denny)
Gwyn had been a mother and best friend all rolled into one neat package. I picked the sticky tape off another cardboard box. Packing up had been a difficult chore but unpacking was a never ending task.
Revealing the contents, I realised this would be no quick task. At the top was a powder blue photo album with white writing ‘My Baby’. I can’t resist the urge to look at pictures of my son. I clutched it to my chest in the same manner I had when he had been small enough to do so.
The first page was a photo of him only hours old. Gwyneth had been my only visitor at hospital and took the photo for me.
Gosh, I look so young. Too young to be a mum!
I pulled the rigid board of the front cover free from the slip to retrieve a picture I had hidden there. It had been taken in a photo booth, a sketch of us together in black and white. Dean believed pictures looked better like that. Now, it was disappointing as the picture didn’t show the kaleidoscope of golds his hair had shone that hot May.
The Easter fair had been in town, we were down for the holidays. Mum had given my brother Greg and I some money to go ‘treat ourselves’.
“What ride do you want to go on first?” Greg asked as we walked along the closed off road.
It was dark and the rides were lit up by brightly coloured bulbs and painted with images of seductive looking women with large breasts and glossy lips.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “They all look lame to me.”
Image from Unsplash artist Gabriel Matula of how I picture a teenage Denny: https://unsplash.com/@gmat07
There was the familiar crashing of bumper cars and the rotation of horses on the carousel. There were the more dangerous rides for older kids like Rock City where a row of chains rotated up and down getting faster and faster, Metropolis where everyone put their faith in centrifugal force as they stood in the cage of a spinning wheel tipping on its side as they stuck to the wall. There was Niagara Falls which consisted of two carpeted tubes that spun in different direction causing you to fall to the ground. Last time we were here it gave me carpet burn. All of them looked like they would either make me sick or cover me in bruises.
“I’m gonna get some candy floss.” My brother said irritated by my lack of adventure. He had been bored at the caravan and the fair was all that had kept him going.
I begrudgingly followed him whilst he flirted with two young girls in the queue. He allowed them to steal bites of the blue fluffy cloud of sugary sweetness. My brother was terrible with his cheesy lines ‘are all the girls around here as gorgeous as you?’
One of the girls, who had slicked her hair back into a ponytail eyed me with her dark lined eyes, “Your girlfriend?”
“Sister.” My brother quickly corrected her but his grin clearly read ‘I’m in there!’
The girl rubbed her arms to brush off the cold. “Wanna game of pool?”
Obviously my brother said yes. He had lost all interest in the rides now his sole attention was on this girl, who to me looked like a slapper. Sadly, that was probably what he liked about her.
Her friend was chewing gum and seemed to be eyeing everyone up for a fight. Even when she smiled at my brother her eyes were half closed and she almost looked as if she was snarling, so I was surprised when she said, “You want to play?”
I shook my head. “I’ll just watch.”
I felt a little like a gooseberry standing on the side lines watching my brother tickle this girl every time she tried to take a shot. She giggled and blushed, “Stop cheating!”
I saw a pinball machine and decided to give it a go. The popular theme tune to the Adams Family started up. I pulled back the lever and let it go. The spring raced forward, smacking into the round silver ball and spinning it onto the table. The ball bounced off some bells and was heading down towards the bottom. My hands leaned over the edge of the table ready to hit the buttons to cause the flickers to stop the ball from being lost.
“You’ll never beat my score.”
I jumped and hit the button too late. Angrily, I searched for the person responsible for my loss, only to be taken back by the most beautiful eyes and gorgeous smile I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. As if moving in slow motion, I blushed as I watched the ball bounce and roll down the middle bringing the game to a halt.
“Dean.” He said confidently.
All I could see was his cocky grin and cool blue eyes. He had long blond hair that swept across his face in rebellious waves. He looked like he had stepped off the set of some Californian beach surfer movie and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“You’ve still got another ball.” He said with a thick Suffolk accent that killed my Mr Muscle Beach fantasy.
My hands shook rapidly to the beat of my heart and it was more difficult to pull the bar back the second time. I let it go and tried again to keep the ball on the table but I was all flustered. I managed to hit it back into the game twice more before it disappeared for good.
“It’s your last ball. Do you want my help?”
My throat was tied up in knots, pretty much like my stomach and I couldn’t speak. I gave a nod. The next thing I knew, he was standing behind me. His hand clasped over mine and we drew back the lever together. “Never go all the way.” His hot breath tickled my neck like a forewarning my body wanted to rebel against. “Otherwise the ball will be too fast to keep up with. You need it to be just enough to put it on the board and get stuck behind those bells. Then you will get the maximum points.” He let go of my hand and I released it. I let it go and as my hands fumbled for the buttons, I felt his fingers guiding me into place, finally resting gently over the top of mine.
That was how my romance for ‘Hugo Boss’ had begun. The scent surrounded me in the same way his arms were. It was intoxicating the way it gripped my senses and spun my world like the little silver ball. From that day forward, it became the smell that I associated with summer, replacing the uplifting fresh salty sea breeze and lashings of sun lotion. I no longer hungered for the tantalising sweetness of a ninety-nine vanilla ice-cream and chocolate flake; I just wanted to taste Dean. That was the start of the holiday romance that broke my heart and changed my life eternally.
Looking at the photo, I was surprised to discover how similar Dean looked to Jace. I shouldn’t have been surprised, after all Dean was his dad. The last time he had come to mind had been when I met Dave, my fiancé. The first thing that caught my attention was the heart capturing scent of Hugo.
Now Jace was wearing it thanks to Dave trying to bond with him “Wear this, the women love it.” I never told Dave why this woman loved it.
This song has beautiful imagary that I feel captures the intoxicating feeling of first love and the magic of the whirlwind, followed by the crushing destruction when all is not as it was and all you have left is sweet memories that are painful to carry. I think it captures the emotions of the scene above well.
Dabble is an online writing platform for plotting, writing and editing. It works best in Google or by using their app but can be used in any browser.
Features:
Dabble Account and cloud storage
Plotting tool
Export to Word/text file
Word counts
Novel series
App (works on a PC)
During November, they offered a free trial to NaNoWriMo participants. We were able to use the site for free and they enabled a word count tracker – nifty!
Price:
Dabble Writer usually costs $9.99 but at the moment there is an introduction offer of $4.99 which if you subscribe will be at 50% forever.
Dabble Writer is an official sponsor of NaNoWriMo. If you took part, check the NaNoWriMo offers page to see if there are any exclusive additional offers for NaNoWriMoers.
Projects
I created two projects to test out the software. One was Daisy Chain (my NaNoWriMo project) and the other was Jewel of the Sea (aka Drift).
Daisy Chain: This required regular updates so I needed to work on the story whenever I was able to. Switching between computers (and browsers) did cause a little technical issue but the support guys at Dabble were awesome. The site runs best in Google chrome and the app. There is also a little cloud that you can click to save your progress and ensure it has been backed up.
Jewel of the sea: I uploaded this so I could experiment the downloading to word feature. I was really impressed. It puts it into the correct format for agents so all you need to worry about is the line spacing.
Word Count
Word Count total: There is a tracker that shows your overall word count for the novel (or project).
NaNoWriMo Tracker: The word count tracker for NaNoWriMo was incredibly intuitive. It deducted words if I deleted any and updated my daily goal based on how many words I needed to reach to keep on target based on my total. They are currently developing a personal goal tracker so writers can set their own word count goal at anytime in the year.
Plotting Tools
This was one of the features I enjoyed using the most as I currently have nothing like it.
It looks a like pin board with post it notes stuck on it. You can create different boards for tracking different things.
On the board you create different headings (or timelines). I found it easiest to use it to track my characters developments within the story and plan I needed to happen and when. It was easy to move and edit these too so it didn’t feel like a digital hindrance.
The ‘post it note’ (tile) has a heading and brief description. You click on it to open up and a little note paper where you can go into more detail about the plot line.
This is a great planning aid and helped me to visualize the story.
Story notes
This is another great feature. I’ve never shared my story notes *cringe*.
I split my notes into two categories (headings) ‘Characters’ and ‘World Building’. Within those sections I create a note on different things that are important.
It is really handy to have everything stored in the same place and organised instead of loads of files saved in different places or programs. I love having some where to stash my ideas and notes about the story.
Novel series
Within a ‘project’ you can create multiple books. This enables you to track a whole series all in one place. Genius!
Dabble future?
Customer Service: The team at Dabble are extremely responsive to their customers and I think this will take the company forward to a bright future. They were always on hand whenever I had a question about using the site. No problem was too big or too small. I wondered if they ever slept.
Development: They have developed the site a lot from Sept to Nov so I’ve no doubt that they’ll make true on their promise to continue improving and bringing out new features. They also ask their subscribers to suggest features and vote on features to help them prioritize what their users want the most. Here are some of the features coming soon that excite me the most:
Goal tracking – set your own word count goal any time of the year (not just for NaNoWriMo)
Images in story notes (save a picture of your world map or the engagement ring or a celebrity that looks like you character)
Editing mark up (you can highlight a section you know you need to rework)
Novel cover (upload an image for you novel cover)
Character image (upload an image of how your character looks) and character tools
Restore a previous version as a new file
More ways to import and export including dragging a project to your desktop to save it
Social – enable word count competitions and stats to be shared socially
Am I subscribing?
I am very tempted to subscribe but currently I have a lot going on that I don’t think I will have the time to really make the most of having a subscription.
However, Dabble Writer is something I would definitely consider in the future as I found it a very easy to use interface, fantastic customer service and the features were exactly what a writer needs.
Today, I am going to share with you some of the methods I use for choosing my characters names. Please cherry pick the ones that work for you.
Image from Unsplash artist Kinga Cichewicz of how I picture grown up Denny https://ift.tt/2DByKkK
Image from Unsplash artist Gabriel Matula of how I picture a teenage Denny: https://unsplash.com/@gmat07
