]]> I’m about to confess to a horrible crime (at least in some people’s minds), but first let me say I’m doing a bit of a Dance of Joy because while driving to pick up bird and wildlife food, the theme of my NaNoWriMo project finally came to me today .

For me, theme is like my destination in a cross-country trip. If I don’t know my theme, I don’t know where I’m going. Now I know some of you are saying, “Carolyn, you ignorant slug! (to paraphrase SNL) You’re climax is where you’re going.”

Sure, my climax is my ultimate destination, but if I don’t know my theme, I don’t know my route. I don’t know How I’m going to get to my climax because I don’t know Why I’m taking this trip.

I’ve been to the Grand Canyon several times, alone and with different people. The Grand Canyon is the destination, but how we get there depends upon the reason for going. Is it a must-see stop on the way to a tech conference in Vegas? Or is it the first vacation getaway in 5 years? In the first situation, I’m plotting the fastest, shortest route that leaves as much of my limited time as possible to explore the Grand Canyon before heading on to the conference. In the second event, I’ve got time to meander through some of the other great side trips in the area.

Some folks like to make a beeline to the destination, others like to meander and explore options. I’ve tried both methods of novel plot development — and failed

I’ve come to realize after 3 NaNoWriMo efforts and several other novels-in-progress that if I don’t know my theme, I tend to get lost in the plot and wind up at a dead end. Or worse, I force the plot and wind up fighting dead characters until I accept that no Code Blue plot shock will revive them.

Which brings me to the other thing I need in my novel writing journey — character motivation. Character motivation is my guide to all the sights and side trips I will take.

Don’t you hate it when a character does something totally out of character just to advance the plot? If I’m not clear on my theme, my characters seem to mumble, “But, like, what’s my motivation in this scene?” The dialogue and action may be fine, but it just lies there with all the appeal of a celebutant’s acting debut.

Without understanding my theme, my character development is just a bunch of quirks and tricks that aren’t convincing. Depp’s Capt. Jack Sparrow worked perfectly in the first Pirates of the Caribbean because his character motivation was entirely clear — he’s wants his ship, the Black Pearl, back! But he’s not a total blackguard, so he tries to get it back without cold-bloodedly killing everyone who got in his way. Compare this to Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh character in No Country for Old Men. Both Sparrow and Chigurh are motivated by a single-minded pursuit of their goal, but the character development is entirely different because the theme of each story is entirely different.

My character development and motivation comes from knowing my theme.

Here’s Where I Confess My Crime

While conservative participants consider it a NaNoWriMo crime (if not a mortal sin) to write anything before November 1st, I’ve got about 16,000 words of dialogue & first draft on some scenes that I’ve been using to get a handle on my character development and plot. This year I’ve come to realize that I do this pre-NaNoWriMo writing to uncover the true theme to my story so I can establish stronger character development and motivation and build a stronger plot based on how each character will act — and react — in various situations.

Will I be using these 16,000 words when I start my NaNoWriMo project on Nov. 1?

Parts of it will definitely be worked into the project, especially some of the dialogue. Some folks can simply think about their NaNoWriMo project and work everything out in their heads. Others can talk it out with friends or family. I envy them. I, however, work it out on the page.

But I’m also determined to have the complete first draft of my novel done which will be more than 50,000 words and I know that I’ll be re-writing from scratch on Nov. 1. This time, however, I’ll know my destination, my fully-developed characters and their motivations and well-structured plot development because I know my purpose.

Throughout November, I will be posting how things are going, and I’ll be sharing some resources, exercises and tools I’m trying out this year.

The first one I’ve used is my Traditional Plot Development Storyboard which can be downloaded here.

I’d also like to bring your attention to a Kickstarter project that sounds like a wonderful investment for writers facing Writer’s Block here. 

Good-luck everyone!

And if you find any of this useful (or entertaining), please Comment below, Like it, Tweet it, share it — especially the downloads.

And if you believe that I’ve got some desert property in South Louisiana to sell you.

About once a week I [...]]]> You! Yes, YOU! Can make thousands of dollars a week writing articles, blog posts and the occasional short story from the comfort of your home! Thousands of smart people like you are doing it!

And if you believe that I’ve got some desert property in South Louisiana to sell you.

About once a week I check my Junk mail file to make certain there isn’t something worthwhile that was mislabeled (just before I erase everything). This week I came across one with the subject “Can we pay you to write something?” and a header Freelance Job Opportunity. Now it so happens I occasionally apply for a gig through a legitimate freelance jobs board, so I decided to open this one. Here’s how the email started:

Hello, 

We would like to know if you would be interested in working from home in your spare time writing short articles for us. You will be paid $25.00 – $45.00 per hour writing these articles.

We will also pay you $12.00 – $50.00 per hour for posing in blogs, and up to $450 for each fiction or non fiction story we ask you to write.

Not exactly personal, but I was curious so I checked the link beneath this come-on, found no attempts to add anything to my system and clicked it. I was taken to what in the hard-sell (read scam) online marketing business is called a “Squeeze” page — a page that requires you to give an email address before continuing. This site (Freelance Home Writers Network) calls theirs the “Create Log-in” page. Now I knew it was a scam, but was curious about exactly what kind of scam. Fortunately, I make good use of the unlimited email forwarders and created a new one just for this site and then entered it into the squeeze page.

Instantly I was taken to the come-on page (which they amusingly call the “Job Description” page). This is the big pitch page that all of these scammers use (these are often referred to as “micro-sites” now). It’s the standard “Earn Big Money In Your Spare Time From Home” pitch for would-be writers. Here’s the start of this one:

Congratulations!

You’re just minutes away from making great, easy money from the comfort of your home, just from writing simple articles, easy blog posts, or (if you want the really BIG bucks) by writing short fiction and non-fiction stories…

Thousands of smart people just like you are are already brining in an easy $1,000, $2,000…even as much as $5,000 every single week just by doing this easy writing in their spare time…and now it’s your turn!

How Is This Possible?

If all of this sounds too good to be true, let me put your mind at ease by showing you the reason why this is all possible:

The #1 thing all online businesses need in order to survive is more people visiting and buying from their websites. Think about it…the more people who go to their site, the more sales they can make…simple enough right?

Now here’s where you come in:

Since 90% website visitors come from the major search engines (Google and Yahoo)…the more content pages a business has, the more times one of it’s pages (articles) will show up in the search results when a potential customer does a search…

Which is why…

These businesses are starving to put up
as many content pages as possible!

They know that the more content pages they have on their site, the more people they will get to click over to their site, and the more money they will make.

And because these business are too busy doing other things, they will gladly pay YOU top-dollar for writing simple articles, blog posts, and even fiction and non-fiction short stories…for them!

How Much Can You Make?

Don’t let the easy nature of this opportunity fool you, because even though the work is dead-simple, the pay is amazing!

They’re absolutely right, the pay IS amazing — amazingly small!

(BTW, I took out all the H1 and H2 headers used throughout the come-on — I mean “Job Description”.)

You’re assured “It’s a never-ending supply of high-paying, simple and easy writing jobs that come to YOU…”

Uhm, I guess some folks would consider it “high-paying” if you live in a hovel in a war-torn wasteland. If you read carefully when they start calculating how much you can “easily” earn, you discover you’re being paid $10 per article. Now at 500 words per article that comes out to .02¢ per word. Even at a mere 250 words per article (and exactly how much content would that be for a web site), it comes out to .04¢  per word. These are the wages Depression Era pulp writers earned! but wait, a bit of hunting on my part unearths that many of these “assignments” are for 1-2,000 word articles — which comes to .01-.005¢ per word!

Anyone who’s tried the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) competition knows how hard it is to knock out 2,000 words a day without worrying about  writing well. So how in the world can you possibly write enough relevant and quality content for all these web sites who are going to be hiring you through this “network?” And how do they know you’re good enough?

Oh, relax. As the pitch page — er, Job Description puts it:

And if you’re worried that you might not be the best writer, or that you never attended any college or higher-learning institute…it does NOT matter one bit!

Because…

These Companies Don’t Care Who You Are, Where You Live, Or Your Level Of Education

The writing tasks you’ll be doing will be so easy an 8-year-old child could do them…

You just follow the simple instructions that come with each job…and everything you need to complete the job will be right there for you!

 If you do any research on these kinds of come-ons, you discover that what you are actually getting “hired” to do is copy-and-paste content from other web sites or copy from books and magazines (if you’re slow and don’t want to make as much $$). Then you change a couple of words here and there, maybe move a paragraph around and — voila! — instant content.

Oh course, it’s immoral, unethical and illegal, but hey, it’s easy money “writing” so come-on, click the “Complete Registration” button.

Don't fall for these writing job scams!

Now I’ve read enough of these scam-artist programs to know that I wasn’t going to get the “opportunity” to work for slave wages for free, so I wasn’t surprised when clicking on the “Complete Registration” brought me to a page where I needed to give them a credit card.

I was receiving a once-in-life-time, limited-time offer (you knew it was a limited-time offer because there’s a little box in red counting down the seconds). Instead of paying the “normal” $69.95″ Per Month (!!) for Unlimited Access Membership to the Freelance Home Writers Network, I could sign up in the next 1,400 seconds for a low rate of $2.95 for 7 days followed by a mere $47 per month fee.

Let me get this straight. I pay these jokers $50 for the privilege of seeing a list of unethical thieves who are offering me  $10 per article so they can scam Google by appearing to have relevant content on their sites to improve their Page Ranking?  Wow! What a deal! 

And this is assuming these guys actually pay me after I do the work. But since I know none of the people  involved in this operation are ethical, how likely are they to be honest.

The truly sad part of all of this, is that I’ve read pieces by writers of no integrity who would do this sort of thing. At least the ones who write term papers get paid a half-way decent rate.

When I think of all the people I know who actually care about their work and writing and all the desperate souls who lose good money to these sleaze balls, I just want to go Nietzsche on these festering maggots.

But wait there’s more!

As you attempt to leave the site you’re get a pop-up javascript alert offering you a chance for a “Work From Home Success Kit” where you can “Make Money Working at Home With Google!“ 

Clicking on the link takes you to another come-on micro-site promising me I can earn $100-1,000 per month “fast, free, profitably” with my “free Google Automated Income Kit”. Of course to get my “Free” kit, I get a 14-day free trial BlogToolKit.com web site. And after 14-days I will be billed $39.95 a month. For a blog page. The kind I could get for free from Blogger or WordPress.com or LiveJournal or a dozen other sources.

Oh, and if you want to unsubscribe from all of these spammers and scammers? Well, you’re suppose write a snail mail to this address in Florida to request being removed from the list, however, the business is owned by someone in Juneau, Alaska. Is there some kind of residency requirement in Alaska that one out of three residents must be embarrassing examples of knuckle-dragging, selfish, greedy creatures on the cusp of evolving into homo sapien?

Grrrrr! She says, Grrrr!

I did, however, get to work tangentially on writing. A friend asked me to be a beta reader on the first draft of her first novel. She’s [...]]]> The plan was to spend January completing the first draft of a memoir and then going back to work on the NaNoWriMo novel revisions. That was the plan.

I did, however, get to work tangentially on writing. A friend asked me to be a beta reader on the first draft of her first novel. She’s published some short things but this was her first complete, 90K word novel. I was honored.

Unfortunately, it’s in a genre I don’t often read outside of a small, narrow group of authors. So this required some research. I firmly believe that you have review things in context. Each genre or category has certain unique needs beyond the basics of good writing. Seriously, would you complain that “King Lear” didn’t have enough jokes? Or that there wasn’t enough romance in Carrie?

So in the course of a couple of weeks I re-read a half dozen titles that were successful financially and/or I considered some of the best of the genre as well as alternating between skimming and scanning about a dozen that were typical. I even plowed through as much as I could stand of the book that had sent me fleeing the fantasy aisle many years ago. (It didn’t get better with age — its or mine.)

I spent the better part of an hour randomly opening paperbacks from the rack at the grocery store. After the first six, I was about to write to my friend apologizing that I was totally unsuited to critique her book because I simply could not read more than a few paragraphs of the standard titles in her genre, when I picked up one last title, opened it at random — and found a delightful bit of good writing. I’m at the library right now, where I found the first of the author’s titles to check out and try. (Sorry, but unless a title or author is recommended by someone I completely trust or has multiple reviews that make it compelling, I always try new authors via the library first. This way I can keep affording to buy new releases, including hard copies, by the good authors.)

The point of all of this, is that I’ve spent the better part of the two months reading as a writer instead of a reader. When I read like a writer, I focus on things like the structure of the plot, how the characterization is handled, the development of tone and style. There are many times I’ve read something as a reader, completely lost in the story and characters, swept along by the pros; and then, I read the story again, this time as a writer noting how the author managed to capture me.

Some writers can write a plot that’s intrigues so completely, I ignore the less than perfect prose (My “potato chip” reads are mysteries). Others create characters that are such lively, fascinating companions, I myopically overlook plot holes — unless I fall in one. Then there are writers who voices are so witty and charming, I’m completely seduced. Often awaking to find a note on my beside table and my wallet emptied. And finally, there are the writers whose prose is so beautiful and graceful, I feel as if my own efforts resemble the first steps of a gawky teenager amongst the corps de ballet.

Periodically, when I feel I need a refresher course in how to read as a writer, I pull out my copy of Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want To Write Them. While Ms. Prose (Isn’t that a wonderful name for a writer? I wonder if it’s too late to have mine legally changed?) targets the future M.F.A. candidate and completely eschews anything so plebian as “genre” authors, she does teach me how to read, both my own work and others, critically. And by “critically,” I mean objectively with a discerning eye and ear.

Here’s how she opens her book:

Can creative writing be taught?
…I answer by recalling my own valuable experience, not as a teacher but as a student in one of the few fiction workshops I took… Its generous teacher showed me, among other things, how to line edit my work. For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what’s superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially, cut, is essential. It’s satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, economical and sharp.

Here’s an example from her chapter on “Narration”:

… this device enabled me to overcome one of the obstacles confronting the novice writer. This hurdle disguises itself as the question of voice and of who is telling the story (should the narrator be first or third person, close or omniscient?) when in fact the truly problematic question is: Who is listening? On what occasion is the story being told, and why? Is the protagonist projecting this heartfelt confession out into the ozone, and, if so, what is the proper tone to assume when the ozone is one’s audience?

I had always assumed that I was alone in having discerned that the identity of the listener was a more vexing problem than the voice of the storyteller until I heard a writer say that what enabled him to write a novel from the point of view of a rather complicated middle-aged woman was by pretending that she was telling her story to close male friend, and that he, the writer, was that friend.

Ms. Prose goes on to examine and dissect successful examples of narration ranging from Wuthering Heights to Anna Karenina, from Philip Carver to Isabel Walker to Mark Twain to Diane Johnson (Le Divorce, a book alas I didn’t finish because I was simply in the wrong mood. My mood is something else I have to keep in mind when critiquing my own or someone else’s work). I got more out of one trip through Reading Like A Writer than I did from an entire semester of writing class. If nothing else, I learned how a master writes a compound, complex sentence.

After a couple of months of reading like a writer, I’m ready to start writing for myself again. I’m encouraged by how badly some published authors write, humbled by how well some do and greatly inspired by the realization that I can improve my own initial drafts by applying some firm, disciplined manuscript critique.

To the keyboards! Tally Ho!

The novel’s not quite done, but the end is in sight and I feel confident I’ll actually make it.

I’ll write more tomorrow.