Charlotte Rains Dixon

The weekly collection of prompts from my Tumblr blog (and don't forget, there are tons more here.)

#103 Write about how your main character exercises.  Does she go to the gym? Is he a runner training for the marathon?  Does she talk about starting an exercise program but never quite get to it?

#104 "If I were queen of the world, I would decree that Mondays did not exist," she said.

"But then Tuesdays would become Mondays," he said.

She shook her head.  ”I don’t care.  It just wouldn’t be the same.”

What one thing would you change if you ruled the world?

#105 What magazines do you, or your main character, read regularly? Make a list.  Write what this list says about you.  If you don’t read magazines, write about that.

#106 What is your favorite thing about airplane travel?  Your least favorite?

#107 Write about light, or the lack of it.  Every setting has a particular kind of light—bright and sunny, soft and glowy, dark and gray.  We writers look at all aspects of setting, but often forget to notice one of the most basic—light.  

#108  When it was finally over, they….

#109  Write about a time when your body hurt.  What from?  Why?  How long did it last?

I'm looking for the first line of my novel, the one I'm currently rewriting.  It's funny, I have this unwarranted idea that the first line should spring, fully formed and perfect, into my mind and from there I will write the rest of the novel.

This is not what has happened with this current novel.  The current first line is kinda okay, and I actually like it, but all of my readers so far have told me that not only the first line but the first few paragraphs have to go.  

And I know they are right.  Sigh.

But I'm still superstitious about it. Because, here's what happened with Emma Jean.  She started talking to me and the first line of the novel, Emma Jean Sullivan hated babies, sprang into my head and the novel went from there, much like I described.  It is a great first line, you have to agree. My writing group at the time loved it.  Until we got to the rewriting part and the doubts crept in.

"Maybe you'll turn off agents with that line," someone said.

"Or readers," another chimed in.

And so I changed it.  I can't even remember to what, but it was something lame and lacking in power. I submitted the rewrite to the group, and--you can see this coming, right?  They were all, "Why did you change the first line?  This one doesn't work at all."

And so the original, brilliant-if-I-do-say-so-myself line stood.  

I'm not an expert on first lines and I've not actually read much about what they should include, but here's my idea: they need to draw the reader in.  I know, duh.  But what, exactly, will draw the reader in?

In my inexpert opinion, it is conflict.  If you have a weak, flabby first line try adding some tension or conflict to it and see what happens.   And now that I'm thinking about it, that's one of the problems with the current first line of my novel--there's no conflict in it.

On the other hand, I just found this site which lists the 100 best lines of novels, and guess what the first line is?  Call me Ishmael.  Not a lot of conflict in that, is there?  (Go take a look at the page, it is quite interesting.)  And by the way, here is my own favorite first line, which is really not the first line of the book, but of Codi's viewpoint section, but anyway, I still love it: I am the sister who didn't go to war.  Do you know what novel it is from? (I'll tell you at the end of this post.)

One of my pet peeves is the opening a novel with dialogue.  I don't mind it when others do it, but it never seems to work for me.  I know, weird.  But there it is and that's not very helpful to you, is it?  So since this post is turning out to be exploratory in nature, in order to offer you some real assistance, I turned to the Google.  And found some good links!  Here you go:

7 Keys to Write the Perfect First Line of a Novel

7 Ways to Create a Killer Opening Line for Your Novel (This one is really helpful.)

Okay, and honestly, those are the only how-to examples I could come up with.  But I think they are good ones.  So now I'm going to slink away and ponder my own first line.  Oh, wait, I had one more suggestion about how to find your first line.  

Ask your subconscious to provide it for you.  

I do this when I'm full up and fed up with trying to figure it out myself.  It always works, it just sometimes (like now) takes awhile.  But I feel certain it will be here soon.

What do you think about first lines?  What's your favorite?  And how have you found yours in the past?

*Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver, which also happens to be one of my fav novels of all time.  Along with Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.

It's Wednesday again, in case you hadn't noticed.  And this is the day I devote to a personal post not related to writing.  Or the day I try to devote to a post not related to writing.  It seems like somehow or another everything links back to writing for me.  But anyway....

At this very moment I am sitting in the Portland airport, waiting for a flight to Burbank.  I'm going to Pasadena to visit my friend Mary-Suzanne.  She and I met many years ago at a Creativity Camp put on by Julia Cameron, and have been good friends ever since.  I'm going to stay with her for a week, hang out, eat the wonderful food Suzanne makes, work on my novel, and see my friend Diana.  Also, I shall bask in the 80 degree heat!

I was calculating earlier, and this is my fifth trip this year.  It's my second to southern California (the first in May for my nephew's graduation from law school and wedding).  I've also been to Kansas City twice, and to France for three weeks.  It's really not a lot of travel by many people's standards, but also more than a lot of people do.  

So, I thought it would be fun to do a list of things I like and don't like about travel.  I was going to do things I like and don't like about L.A. but changed my mind because the "don't like" list would be so much longer than the "like" list.

Things I Like

1.  Meeting people.  When we were in Paris in September, we met people from all over the world. These were brief but fun encounters that ended up being memorable nonetheless.  Who knew how many people came to France from Australia?

2.  Getting a new perspective.  This is especially good for writers.  Travel helps you see things in a different way just because your brain expands to encompass all the new stuff it is absorbing.  Or at least that's my theory.

3.  Being present.  When one travels, particularly in a foreign country, you have to stay present and alert.  In France, I'm always straining to understand what people are saying or figure out how to get somewhere.  Once I'm back home, I get complacent and fall into the old routines.

4.  Place inspires me.  I wrote my MFA critical thesis on landscape as character for goodness sake. Certain places inspire my writing and find their way into my novels.  My hometown of Portland is always a setting, and L.A. seems to appear a lot also.  Sun Valley and Santa Fe are perennial favorites. And yes, Paris is an important location in my next novel.

5.  Discomfort.  Let's face it, we are pampered.  And travel puts you into situations that cant you out of your comfort zone.  This is a good thing, as it stretches you.  (And yet, I think it is also the reason that many people do not like to travel.)

Things I don't like:

1.  Airplane travel.  Enough said.  Those long flights from the West Coast to Paris are killer.  But I did discover the joy of watching a million movies on my last long flight home.

2. Jet lag.  Anybody figured out how to mitigate this?  I tried melatonin with no results.  But this year I didn't suffer too bad on the way. I was not able to sleep, and so by the time I got to Pezenas it had been 24 hours and I'd been on a plane and a plane and a train with maybe three hours of sleep here and there.  I was so tired I fell right out.  But for some reason coming back home was brutal.  Felt like it took me forever to recover.

3.  Window seats.  Yes, I like the view, too.  But I also like to drink tons of water on plane flights so that I won't get a headache.  And that means several trips to the bathroom.

4.  Car sickness.  Ask my sister, when I was little I was famous for throwing up on car trips.  None of my sisters or cousins wanted to sit next to me for fear I would vomit on them.  I still have a hard time sitting in the back seat of a car, though I have discovered the wonders of Sea Bands that seem to mitigate most car sickness problems.

That's it!  That's all I've got.  What about you?  Do you like to travel or prefer to stay home?

Because I know you care desperately, here's the first Wednesday post from last week.  (I'm looking for a name for these posts.  Ideas?)

Sigh.  Heavy sigh.  Slumped shoulders.  Glazed eyes.

This, according to the photographer, is the "Plot Dog." Hope he helps you, too!

That's me, because I'm not doing Nanowrimo and I miss it.  I miss the flat-out gonzo nuttiness of hurling words at the page and the feeling you get after nailing 1K or 2K or more words.   The last time I wrote like this was the first two weeks of September, when I participating in a class devoted to fast drafting. (You can read more about my experience below.)

But I'm deep into the first rewrite of my novel and I've got a lot of other stuff going on, too.  (Like wonderful clients.  And other novels to promote.  A live workshop in Nashville in February to plan. Next year's France retreat to dream about. Things to knit.  And a ukelele to learn how to play.) And so I thought it best to focus my efforts on revision, even though I keep getting wonderful ideas for the half-finished mystery I did in September.  (Dutifully, I am noting said ideas in the little notebook I keep for that purpose, just as I advise my clients to do.)

I do, however, want to support all of you out there who are chugging along at Nanowrimo.  So rather than regurgitate stuff I've written before, I offer you links that I hope will be of help.  Enjoy!

Here are posts from my blog:

Fast Drafting Fiction (Or Any Kind of Writing)

This Series on Writing Fast Will Blow Your Creative Mind--And Inspire You

Shhh! Here's the Secret to Prolific Writing

How I Wrote (Almost) 10K Words Yesterday

The Magic Formula for Getting Lots of Writing Done

And here are a couple from other sites:

NaNoWriMo Inspiration (from the wonderful Rachael Herron, on whom I have a huge girl crush)

10K Day for Writers  (Milli's site is alas inactive at the moment, but there's tons of good stuff on writing a lot on it, so have a look around)

Nanowrimo Inspiration (A Tumblr blog I just found which seems to be a wonderful mish-mash of ideas and yes, inspiration

Inventive Writing Prompts (My own Tumblr blog with a prompt every day, over 100 now.)

A Pinterest board!

Five Links for Nanowrimo Inspiration (An article on Forbes--yes, Forbes!--from a couple of years ago with good stuff in it.

Okay, I would say that is quite enough reading material for you, especially because you are going to be spending so much time writing over the next month.  Right? And do tell: are you doing Nanowrimo this year?  Is it your first year or are you a seasoned pro?

Plot Dog photo by gothick_matt.