Reblog: How to Do Your Chores in 12 Easy Steps

So today was my first day at a job that I'm going to be doing on Saturdays. We know a newlywed couple who both work full time and she has physical disabilities so too much physical exertion is painful, so she's hired me to help her clean up on Saturday for a few hours. I'm pretty good at cleaning other people's stuff, and I need money (lots of stuff to save up for), so it's a pretty good fit.

However, while I am good at cleaning other people's stuff, I am horrible at cleaning my own. I'm lazy, I get used to the mess and dealing with it, if I ever do decide to actually go and clean I'll get distracted or I'll realize just how much I have to clean and start trying to clean too many things at once, or I won't clean up cleaning up (as in putting away the cleaning materials). 

Which leads me to my reblog.

This is a brilliant little article that I found once, and it's just an awesome blog in general.

How to Do Your Chores in 12 Easy Steps by Nathan Bransford

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2013/05/how-to-do-your-chores-in-12-easy-steps.html

"Step 1: Start a novel

Step 2: Write 50 pages in a month

Step 3: Write 5 pages in the next two months

Step 4: Stare at the screen

Step 5: Despair

Step 6: Open a closet

Step 7: Eye cleaning supplies longingly

Step 8: Clean every square inch of your apartment/house, marveling at how much more fun you're having than writing your novel

Step 9: Find a filing cabinet, organize it

Step 10: Find tiles, scrub them with a toothbrush

Step 11: Run out of things to clean, return to computer

Step 12: Stare at the screen in a freakishly clean living space"

And the funniest thing about it?

I can't count how many times it's worked for me.

Developing Your Characters

Yes I’m going to try to make excuses for not having updated, so you can just skip down past this if you want.

It has just been a really busy month. It has been insane. March this year has honestly been one of, if not the, busiest months of my life.  I’ve just taken on a ridiculous amount of stuff. Ask Margaret. She thinks I’m crazy.

But I’m also an author. And those two are hardly mutually exclusive.

I know the last post was about characters, specifically How to Make a Non-Cliché Antagonist, but I was working on this recently so I thought I might as well write about it for you guys.

I think we can all recognize the fact that characters are really important to a story. Depending on the story/book itself, they can be more important than others, but since they are what is moving the story forward through the plot and setting, characters are rather important.

There are a lot of different ways that you can develop characters once you have them. We’ve talked before in other posts about picking character traits and balancing good and bad traits and such, but we’ve never really talked about how to develop them.

There are a lot of different ways to do it. Sometimes it depends on the characters themselves. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but Margaret’s characters, as she calls it, are jealous girlfriends. They don’t leave her mind alone. Some are harder to think about, or don't quite capture your mind like that. But she hasn’t had much trouble with one of the methods, which is just constant obsessing.

Constant Obsessing

Now, take my word for it, Margaret's characters as they started are pretty drastically different from where they are now. By a long shot. Unrecognizable. It has also been… goodness it’s been close to four years or something. They were created when we were 12-13ish and now we’re 16-17ish. Crazy.

The point is they’ve had a lot of work done. Constant obsessing. That’s one of the first methods you can use. Just thinking about them nonstop in pretty much everything you do. Whenever you do something, especially if your characters are in the real world, and wonder about how your character would do or if they would do it. Margaret used to ask herself about who would keep their desk more organized of her two main characters or what kind of coffee they would drink. She could probably tell you which finger they use to pick their nose (though the image of either of her main characters picking their nose seems really wrong.)

Character Profiles

Another way you could develop them is filling out profiles for your characters. That’s what I was doing which prompted me to write about this. It forces you to think about things you normally wouldn’t, especially if it has minimum requirements. It’ll force you to think about your characters’ heights and weights if you’ve only ever thought of them as “blond, blue eyed, short”. Good profiles will also force you to think about his/her pros, cons, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, goals, worldviews, funfacts ect.

They can be extremely useful. This is probably not a method that you want to use entirely and call your development done, but it’s is something that can be very helpful if you don’t know where to start. You can find no end of them online.

Personality Tests

Personality tests are also a great way to try to develop your characters, especially if you have a few traits picked out you really like that you want to keep, but not a lot more to fill in the blanks. There are a ton of personality tests out there, you can pick any one of them. The first one that comes to mind for me is the Myers-Briggs Personality test, but that’s probably because Margaret practically swears by them. She’ll be writing a post on them one of these days.

If you haven’t picked any traits out, they can still be pretty useful if you want to go searching for personality profiles and picking one for your character. You’ll want to change them up and take a few traits from other personality types because no one really fits perfectly in one category, but you can certainly use them as a help to developing you characters.

Writing About Them

Perhaps this seems obvious, but maybe not. Sometimes simply the best way to develop your character is to write them. It doesn’t have to be in the actual novel that you’re writing though. You can write other stuff with them in it. Perhaps past situations with them, moments that influenced them or changed them into who they are in the books, maybe your characters interacting after the book (unless everyone dies…). Just get used to writing them. It’s amazing the things you come up with and think about while you’re actually sitting down writing them. And writing scenes like that can be a major asset while you’re writing the actual book.

Now, the trick that everyone I know who uses this method has yet to master is... actually working on their novel.

Okay so that’s not fair. Margaret did finish her novel. She’s just rewriting it… and as of now hasn’t rewritten it.

So it’s a tricky one.

Of course these are only four methods. I’m sure there a lot of other ways there are to try to develop you characters. I know I read an article once about making an Excel sheet and a chart listing all the major traits of all the main characters and comparing them to each other to make sure there was a good balance (not a cast full of all stubborn, easily angered people). There’s a ton of other options and methods and tricks you can use.

The most important part is that you actually take the time to develop and flesh your characters out, whatever method you use to do it.

How To Make a Non-Cliche Antagonist

So I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a while. It’s companion post How To Make  Non-Cliche Protagonist can be found here was one of the few posts on this blog written by Margaret… and also our most popular post. Am I bitter? What? No…

The reason I’m writing this now is because I myself am working on revamping my own antagonist. I like certain aspects of him, but there are also a lot of things that I don’t like about him. So I’m writing this post not only to help all of you, but to also sort of work things out in my own head.

For the purposes of this post, we’re going to assume that the antagonist is always going to be a person. That’s not always the case. Antagonists is only a force that is working against the main character. It can easily be a circumstance or an event or even the protagonist themselves. Bad guys/villains are the typical antagonists though.

So, without further ado:

What is a Cliché Antagonist (And Why Do I Not Want One?)

Despite what everyone (or what we) may say about main characters and world or the plot… let’s face it the most important part of a book is the conflict of the book. Without conflict or something that the protagonist is supposed to overcome… there isn’t a book. No one wants to read a book about an average high school girl going to school, studying, and getting good grades. They want to read a book about a girl who goes to school and finds out that her best friend committed suicide and has to figure out why her best friend would do that and discovering that someone made her do and then fighting against that person.

As I said before, for the case of this post we’re going to assume that the conflict is/is coming from an actual person. And since this antagonist is the conflict… she/he is the most important part of the book. Without him there wouldn’t BE a book.

That being said, it is vitally important that that antagonists is worthy of being read. That means not cliché. I’m sure everyone’s read a book or watched a movie with a pretty lame villain. That would be just about any villain that wears a long black cloak with a pointy beard and evil eyes and a diabolical laugh. MUWHAHAHAHA.

Yeah no. It’s pretty safe to say that any antagonist that cackles/laughs diabolically is a no go. It will induce large amount of eye rolling.

What makes a Good Antagonist?

Just like everything else in the world, not everyone will like the same things. I could love the villain in one book and not take another seriously while someone else could hate the first one and love the second. There is no perfect recipe for a villain just like there isn’t for anything else in writing.

However, in all my 16 years of reading and story-telling movie watching there are some things that tend to make better villains that others.

In my experiences the best villains are the ones that people can empathize with, to be honest. They’re characters with as much depth as the main character. A deep antagonist is always a good sign for a novel. I’ve read books for no other reason than a rich antagonist.

They have reasons for doing what they’re doing. They have history. They have a goal. We can feel sorry for them. We can understand what they’re trying to do, we might even agree with some of the things that they preach.

When you have a deep antagonist, you have a deep struggle. It makes it more real to us when we’re reading.

Now you don’t have to purposefully make your antagonist someone that you would want to be besties with or anything. And you don’t have to make them someone you can empathize with. There are more than a few successful villains that you can’t really empathize with. Any psychopath or sociopathic villain would fall under that category, the Joker from Batman among them. Or at least I hope none of you can sympathize with a true psychopath.

Step 1: Motivation

I would say that this is probably the most important thing about making a non-cliché antagonist. A cliché antagonist is evil just to be evil. That is almost directly contrary to that whole depth to an antagonist thing we just talked about.

Now this non-cliché antagonist we’re talking about has a reason to be evil, or rather, a reason to be working against our protagonist. You have to be able to actually identify what this motivation is.

Perhaps the most common ones are power, revenge, and because they believe he's trying to do something good. There are a lot of subcategories to these of course.

Power: Wanting to rule the world definitely falls under the category of power. It could also be money. Maybe your villain is trying to take over the protagonist’s company. Of the three I mentioned, power would probably be the most cliché motivation for a villain, but it’s also an acceptable one if you can make it work. Because let’s face it, most people in the real world are motivated by power. A lot of bad things that have happened in the world’s history can be traced back to someone being greedy.

So it’s certainly a viable motivation. But you do have to be able to pull it off right. Taking over the world is usually not a very good motivation unless there’s a better reason behind it.

Revenge: Just like the desire for power, it’s a great motivator because it’s real motivation for awful things. If in the past someone killed the antagonist’s family and now she’s killing the families of everyone involved in their deaths. It’s also a motivation that a lot of people can empathize with. It’s also a great exploration for revenge versus justice and where the line is and such.

Trying to Do Something Good: This is probably one of my favorites. It’s a motivation that’s become a lot more popular recently, so you may want to be careful with it… but I love it. It’s one of my favorites.

It also probably has the most subcategories. You can have the typical type of situation where a boy steals medicine for his ailing mother, if the protagonist is a cop or something. The antagonist is trying to do something good, trying to help someone, but often he’s hurting other people and doing bad things to do it, which is why our protagonist is fighting them.

Or maybe she's doing something that she thinks will benefit others in the long run. That’s the one that’s been popping up a lot recently. The “you have to destroy the world to rebuild it” mindset. To save humanity you have to first destroy it.

Step 2: Background

This goes pretty much hand in hand with motivation. What gave him that motivation? Why does he want revenge? Was his family killed? Was a close friend’s family killed? Was there an attempt on his own life?

Why does she want power? Is she trying to prove something? Was she mistreated in the past and is trying to gain the power so that that will never happen again? Is she trying to get large amounts of money to help her sick mother?  Does she think she just deserve money/power?

Did he serve in a war and want to stop it from ever happening again? Has he been mistreated and wants to eliminate the chances of that happening? Maybe he's trying to purify the world of evil and happens to think that pretty much everyone is evil… There are a lot of way to go with this. The other type of trying to do something good is a lot easier to determine the background. If he's trying to save their mother the background is his mother is in danger.

More than just explaining the background behind your character and where her motivation is coming from, you should probably take the time to figure out more about the character themselves. If you haven’t already, determine how he grew up. Poor family, rich family, mother and father or only one? Raised by a distant family member? Brothers and sisters? Did she have a good relationship with his family? Did he go to school? Did he do well in his classes? Has she ever had a job? How many? What did she do? Does he have a history of unemployment?

If you know it about your protagonist, you should know it about your antagonist.

You don’t have to tell the readers everything you know about him, but just knowing the information gives you the ability to write him in a way that shows that he has depth. Even if you never actually tell the readers her birthday or the grade that she got on her 10^th grade Chemistry Final.

Step 3: Traits

All of this will make it a lot easier to determine what traits he’s going to have. Coming up with some of her traits will make it easier to figure out that information about her past. If he’s smart, he probably got good grades. Or maybe he’s so smart that he hated school and almost failed.

Just like determining your protagonist’s traits, it’s a good idea to look at yourself and the people you’re familiar with. Take some of their traits and take some of your own. Take some of the ones you like and some of the ones you don’t. Because this is an antagonist, it would be appropriate to give your antagonist more negative traits than positive, but you can give them just as many as your protagonists or maybe even less. That’s your playground.

I personally like it when antagonists have the same flaws that the protagonists do. It just creates even more conflict for the protagonist and allows for him/her to do some soul searching that’s great for character development.

I also, personally, really like it when villains are classy. Classy villains are the best.

Step 4: Appearance

There are a lot of things you can do with your antagonist’s appearance. They can look evil or they can look normal or they can be beautiful. My advice is that whatever you do with his appearance, it has some sort of relevance. Don’t make her beautiful just to make her beautiful (the same with terribly ugly). Give it a reason. Give it relevance.

Step 5: Obsess

Here I’m going to quote my dear sister when she gave the same advice with non-cliché protagonists.

“Guys, at this point, you've got the basics. The rest of it is you obsessing and thinking about the character on a fairly consistent basis. Characters will evolve on their own and become their own person - but it takes thought and writing and time.

Lots and lots and lots of time.”

Just keep thinking about. Have fun with it. Villains can be a lot of fun to create.

How To Write a Love Story

Happy Valentine’s Day! Or Singles Awareness Day, whichever you happen to celebrate. Or if you’re Margaret and don’t even acknowledge the existence of Valentine’s Day in your life, Happy Friday Post!

This is certainly one post that I can make. I write most of the posts on this blog, but even if Margaret wrote most of them she’d probably get me to write this one.

How To Write Loves Stories

Whenever Margaret comes up with a couple or tries to write a romantic/love scene it always ends up either violent or humorous. Most of her couples either dislike each other or are friends. Whereas I crank out a 2000 word fluffy romantic love story almost every week without fail.

Don’t get me wrong; my writing is far from all romantic fluff and cutesy couples oh no. In fact that isn’t any romance in my novel. Or at least I have no intentions of adding it. I don’t ship my two main characters, though I’m fully aware that a lot of people probably will. I also do write a fair amount of the angstier, darker couples.

That being said, I enjoy writing a nice heartwarming love story.

One of the nice things about love stories is that there are a million different ways to write them, but they all involve the same thing. It involves people falling in love. Now, what those people are is up to you. Whether they’re human, another species, heterosexual, homosexual, one person falling in love with another, a love triangle, love square, love octagon if you’re really daring, that’s up to you.

Once you’ve decided that there are going to be falling in love, you have to decide on obstacles. Whether the story you’re writing is entirely a love story or an adventure with some romance splashed in, there is some conflict. That’s part of what makes a story a story. In real like we like our love lives to be as uncomplicated as we can get it, but when reading or watching a love story we typically like it with as many obstacles as we can get.

Once again, these obstacles are up to you. If the love story is the side story, the obstacles can very easily be a part of the plot interfering with our characters’ love. The Prince has to fight the dragon to get the Princess. Or if the love story is the main plot, the Prince is traveling to save the Princess with the Princess’s sister and ends up falling in love with the sister along the way except he’s betrothed to the Princess in the tower.

Just like any piece of writing, get creative.

Probably the most important part of a love story is one of the most important parts of a normal story. Just like you want your readers to rout for your protagonist, you want the readers to want the couple together. Especially if it’s a love story. I really couldn’t have cared less if Bella ended up with Edward or Jacob when I read the book. In fact I think she would have been better off with a nice human boy, or better yet, single with a bunch of cats. So the point of reading the book was ruined for me.

The problem with trying to make your readers want them together is that there are a lot of different types of relationships in the world. There are as many types of relationships as there are types of people. A relationship that might work for a pair people won’t work for another. And because of unique perceptions on romance and what it means to be in love or the types of people we think should get together, we tend to support certain types of relationships and not others.

The method I usually use when I want people to like the couple I’m writing is make them really cute together. I really love couples that are cute together. Fictional or real. That doesn’t work for all couples, it might not for the couple you’re working with. I happen to have a talent for writing cute stuff. Maybe I’ve watched too many chick-flicks in my life. Maybe I’m just naturally an optimistic person so stuff like that is natural for me. But that’s one of my favorite methods.

There’s also the Bonded By Trauma approach. Some people are really, really attracted to couples that have been through a lot together.

Another popular one is Best Friends. Best friends get paired together all the time. Especially if it’s one of the characters who’s in love with his/her best friend while the other is oblivious or in love with someone else.

The Opposites Attract method usually works pretty well too. Perhaps not as well as some of the other ones, but there are a lot of people who hold stock to the idea that opposites attract and should be with each other. Especially if they can put their differences behind them because they love each other.

The couple that seems to hate each other while they’re really slowly falling in love sometimes falls under opposites attract, but not all opposites attract are hating each other while falling in love. Whether they fall in love because they get to know each other better or one of them does something for the other or whatever the case may be, people ship them like crazy. The best example I can give you of this is Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. In case you were wondering, Jane and Mr. Bingley fall under the Cute Couple category.

And finally, one of the most popular, is the poor fellow with unrequited love. It doesn’t matter if this character is male or female, if he’s in love with someone who won’t give him the time of day or is in love with someone else, everyone will support that character. Sometimes, this unrequited love is for a best friend (see above). Best example: Eponine in Les Miserables.  The canon couple is Marius and Cossett. How many people do you know who actually like them together? Everyone loves Eponine and thinks she should have gotten the guy, especially considering she literally died for him.

And that leads me to the final big category of love: Love At First Sight.

It is a very popular method among fairy tales, myths, and Disney movies. Snow White, Cinderella, and Ariel being the most prominent. While love at first sight is a very romantic idea and I’m sure at heart a lot of us would like to believe in it, it’s very rarely going to make your audience really rout for your romantic couple. Even though most of us want to believe in it, very few of us do and we always take love at first sight couples with a grain of salt. That grain of salt can very easily kill your delicate rose of a love story if you don’t back it up with some actual bonding.

There are of course other big couple types, and there are other ways to make your readers like your couple. Those are just some of the big ones.

So, if you feel like testing your hand at some romantic writing for the day love romance and overpriced flowers and chocolates, I hope this helped and Happy Valentine’s Day!

New Years Resolutions

Happy 2014 everyone!

I hope everyone's 2013 was a good one, and I hope that 2014 will be an even better one!

There are a lot of things that come with a new year, perhaps the most common of which is New Years Resolutions. If you live in my life, you're probably going to get hounded about making them just about every day for the next two weeks. The people in my life are highly supportive of New Years Resolutions and goal setting and such.

But you really can't blame them.

Harvard once did a study, and I really wish I could find the exact study, but I couldn't find it, where they interviewed one of their classes. These are Harvard students, so they're all already really smart and hardworking. They asked each of the students whether they had made New Years Resolutions. This is one of the reasons I wanted the study, so I could give you the exact number.

I think about two thirds of the class or something had made resolutions, half of them had written them down, and ten percent had written out a plan for how they were going to accomplish their goal.

Ten years or later, the students who had made goals were making some percentage more money that the group that hadn't. The one that had written the goals down were making even more money than them and the group that had written out plans was generally making more than twice the group that had written their goals down.

Now I know that this is a young writers blog, but I want you to take this and apply it to anything that you want to accomplish this year.

1. Think about what you want to do or accomplish. Actually think about. Then:

2. WRITE IT DOWN. Type it up or write it down and put it somewhere where you're going to see it. Don't type it up and hide it in a folder on your computer you never look at like I did last year.

And then, especially if it's a vague resolution like "Lose weight" (The number 1 resolution for Americans in 2014) or "Get organized" (Number 2) 

3. MAKE A PLAN FOR HOW YOU'RE GOING TO DO IT.

Don't say "Lose Weight", say

"Every Monday, after school at 3:30, I will go jogging for 30 minutes. 
Every Tuesday, after school at 3:30, I will do Pop Pilates for an hour. 
Every Wednesday, after school at 3:30, I will go jogging for 30 minutes. 
Every Thursday, after school at 3:30, I will do Pop Pilates for an hour. 
Every Friday, after school at 3:30, I will go jogging for 30 minutes. 
Every Saturday, I will get up at 8:00 and go jogging for an hour. 
Every Sunday, I will rest."

Use specifics and repetition. 

• Every Monday
• 3:30
• Jogging on some days, Pilates on others
• Half and hour or an hour
• I will go jogging, not I will try  ("Do, or do. There is no try.")

I use exercise because it's an easy one to plan out (though so hard to actually execute... I'm a couch potato... Exercise is icky.) There are some that are harder to plan out, I'll give you that. It's hard to plan out a goal like "Enjoy life to it's fullest" (4th most popular resolution). It's really hard to plan out a resolution like "Get a book published".

However, it is not hard to make a resolution to write a blog post every Friday, which just so happens to be one of mine.

It's not that hard to make a resolution to write 500 words a day. 

That's it. 500 words. Just sit down and write 500 words. You're not allowed to write 499. It has to be 500 or more. Even if you have writers block and you have no idea what you're going to do or what you want to write, just write them. EVERY. DAY. Even if you hate them, go back, delete those 500 words the next day and rewrite them if you want to or have to. But write 500 words every day.

By the end of 2014, writing 500 words every day, you will have written 182,500 words. That's easily two novels. So even if you delete what you wrote the day before every other day, you've still written a sizable novel by the end of the year.

Set a time. Right when you get home, before you start your homework. Right after you finish your homework. After your shower. Pick a time and most importantly STICK TO IT. 

If your goal is to edit your novel (that would be me ladies and gentlemen), make a resolution to spend 20 minutes or more either thinking or editing or rereading or rewriting your novel a day. 20 minutes. Even if it's just sitting there and debating with yourself whether you really need this chapter in there at all or something else. 20 minutes.

DO IT. Set a time and stick to it.

If your goal is to get it published, spend that same 20 minutes or longer working on query letters or looking for agents or editors you think might be willing to take you on. 20 minutes a day. That's it. That's not even the length of a sitcom. 

And finally

4. Do whatever you have to to remind yourself. 

• Write sticky notes to yourself and put them all over the place. 
• Tell a friend. I'm actually really good at making sure other people make their goals. A friend of mine once wanted to finish this book that she needed to finish for a project and I bugged her every single day about it until she finished. Friends can help you. 
• Put reminders on your phone. 
• Reward yourself. 
• Guilt trip yourself. 

Whatever works for you. Use a couple different methods at the same time.


Don't put it off or ignore it. If you take it seriously, you'll do it.

And I hope you will, whatever your goal is, literary or not.

Wishing you the best success and see you on Friday! Happy New Year!

- The Vinshire Sisters

True Names- Naming Your Characters

          "What do personal names mean in this language? Do they give power over people?"          "Yes, they do. Those who speak the language have two names. The first is for everyday use and had little authority. But the second is their true name and is shared without a few trusted people. There was a time when no one concealed his true name, but this age isn't as kind. Whoever knows your true name gains enormous power over you. It's like putting your life into another person's hands. Everyone had a hidden name, but few know what it is."

~ Eragon and Brom, Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, perhaps one of the best known young authors

Names have power. And while they don't actually have (as far as we know) the same sort of power that they do in Paolini's book, you cannot deny that power. Human beings by nature like to be able to categorize and name things/people. It's one of the things that leads to cliques and gangs and bullies and yada yada but that's a topic for another day and another blog. It's one of the things my almost literal genius (seriously, I think he's only a handful of IQ points away from genius level- he's just too violent and passionate about teaching Spanish to go anywhere else than teaching) Spanish teacher repeats over and over and over and over and over and over and over. When you're making a study guide, number, box, and name.

The very act of naming something makes it more personal and easier to remember. To have named something is to have given it the power to become something real and tangible. I think we've all experienced that one idea floating in the back of our head that we can't really put to words. Or maybe it's just a concept or an image but it's not really defined. But as soon as you try to put it words, you either find out how amazing it truly is or you discover that you're muse is going crazy and needs to get a reality check (or maybe a fantasy check :) *pause for crickets chirping*).

Putting names to characters and stories is vitally important. And it has to be the right name. It has to capture their personality and their spirit and their actions. Maybe it's ironic. Maybe it's perfect. Maybe it wouldn't make sense to anyone other than the author and the character's best friend. It has to have flare, it can't be too boring, it can't be too out there unless everyone else's is, it has to be something that people can say/think, it should have some form of meaning, it should make sense (no Japanese names for a 19th century German) and it should be something that you like. If you don't like their name then... there's not really much of a point in naming them such.

However, I personally hate finding names with a passion.

I'm not quite sure why that is. Margaret loves it with a passion. Which is one of the reasons I always ask for her help when I need to name something, be it a character or my book.

I just get very easily frustrated with the whole task. There are thousands of names out there, and that's not even considering making up a name for your fantasy novel where everyone has names like "Yylts" or something. 

For the purpose of this blog, I am only going to address how to give a character a fairly typical name. I don't mean Sara's and John's and Bob's, but no "Yylts".

There are a couple of different ways that you can go about looking for a name. You can either search for a name based on meaning, which is what a lot of people do, or you can just try to find a name that fits. It depends on which is more important to you. Margaret usually searched based on meaning, I usually don't. Unless I want a certain meaning or irony, I'll just try to pick a name I think fits the character.

It is typically advisable to balance the two parts of the name out. Length wise (a short first name with a long last name or vice versa) and normality wise (normal first name, weird last name or vice versa). To quote my sister, "Don't name the poor character Alpharius Liechtenstien, or something." Massive mouthfuls are generally a bad idea.

Middle names are of course optional. I will beg with you though, to please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever give your character more than a reasonable amount of middle names. If you're writing an Hispanic character, it would be appropriate to give her two middle names. However, there's really almost no other reason they need more than one. Especially if they're words, not names. There is almost absolutely nothing that you can do to make anyone take a character named Madame Elizabeth Raven Blood Diamond Raquel Richardson seriously. Elizabeth Richardson isn't a bad name. You add four middle names, and all respect goes out the window.


As for names that are actual words, you want to be careful. "Hope", "Raven", "Hunter", they're not automatic no-nos, they're real names. I babysit a little boy named Hunter. Adorable little red head. You just have to be very careful with them. Especially if you're trying to use them for foreshadowing.

Something that I have done in the past, is to pick someone you know from a class or church group or soccer team or something and try out a couple of their names for characters. Maybe use their middle name as a first name, or steal their last name as long as it's not too exotic/it fits your character's background. Mix and match between people. It ensures that your name is something that is actually used in the real world. As long as you're not picking a friend with a really odd name or spelling it's not even like you're stealing their name like it's an idea or anything. It's just another source to draw names from, like a baby website.

Speaking of which, if you've ever spent enough time looking on one of them for names, most baby naming websites actually have some sort of list or page for authors trying to find names for their characters. It's pretty interesting.

My favorite website is babynamer.com

Margaret really likes http://www.20000-names.com/


But you can use any of them. Google or Bing or Yahoo or whichever website you use can lead you to a lot of different ones.

They can be really good resources and they make the task of picking names for your characters so much easier.

I still hate doing it though. I hope you enjoy it more than I do.

World Building 101

So, Author Forward real quick - I wrote this ages ago and let it waffle because I didn't like how it turned out. However, since I haven't posted anything in forever...I hope it does give you some aid and advice, you guys.

Hello there fellow writers! This is Margaret of the Vinshire Sisters, and I’m sure you’re all asking ‘who?”. Yeah…so, I’m the master (mistress?) of procrastination. If there was an Olympics for it, I’d get a Gold Medal.

Except I’d drag me feet in showing up and miss the medal awarding.

So, incase you hadn’t figured it out yet, you’ll probably be seeing more of Amanda.

Let’s jump right into today’s subject – Basic World Building 101: Why You Need World Building.  World building is something that more and more authors have begun to neglect. Now, before I say anything, no you do not need Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones level of world building…but I kindly point out to take a close look at how popular those books are.

As to how I know what I’m talking about…well, I am a massive fan of world building, for your information. The current story and characters I’m working on have been running around in my head for 4 – possibly 5 – years and I’m still not done with world building. As I’m writing this, I’m working on an extensive family tree that goes back several hundred years and leads up to my main character.

I am also mildly psychotic.

But, we won’t talk about my debatable sanity today.

Now, a recent favorite of authors recently is that they don’t thoroughly explain the what’s or why’s of why something would occur in this world, or they don’t give enough background so something will make sense.

This leaves readers confused and irritated, and in my case, frothing mad.

“But!” You protest “I write fantasy/sci-fi/mad ramblings of an insane mind!”

It doesn’t matter. You still need to make some sort of rhyme or reason or sense. Just squeeing “Science!” or “Magic!” whenever something doesn’t make sense or – even worse – not explaining anything at all and throwing it out there, expecting the readers to accept it, is more likely to make them want to take the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and promptly beat you into unconsciousness with it.

There’s an awesome quote by that neatly sums it up like this: “The difference Between Fiction and Reality? Fiction needs to make sense.”

This is unfortunately true – sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s happened in real life, no one’s going to believe it if you put it down in a book.

Now, I will admit that sometimes you can’t explain everything, and that’s alright: all readers, when picking up a book, will have to ‘suspend disbelief’ in order to read it…but if they ‘suspend disbelief’ so much that they can no longer read the book as a story because it’s too dang ridiculous…well, you’ve failed. Sorry. No other way to say it.

I know this seems like it should be pretty obvious guys, and almost all of you are most likely rolling your eyes, but there’s been innumerable times where I stare at a book and go like “…Whaa? Did I miss something?” and flip back several (hundred) pages, trying desperately to find something that didn’t exist in the first place.

So, summary: World Building – DO IT.

How To World Build

World building isn’t actually that complicated. Time consuming to the max? Absolutely. Hard?

No. All it requires is a few simple questions.

The simplest way to world build is to ask questions. Why, What, When, Where, and How are the most basic ones. Know how the government works, know what the culture requires, know when/why people die, know what’s socially inacceptable and acceptable, know the creatures, know the foods, know the jobs, know the history, the legends and myths, know the wars.

To sum it up neatly, know almost everything that’s different in this new world you’re creating. Know it like the back of your hand.

(This is, after all, world BUILDING. You need layers, you need depth, you need a hefty dose of reality to make it believable.)

It’s going to be difficult at first, but the questions will come easier as time goes on. Even now I ask questions about my world.

Something I also recommend though, it is – again – time consuming, is to write a guide book to the World, so you can A. Remember it, and B. See if it makes sense. Think of it like your textbook on Ancient Civilizations. Anything that would be mentioned in a standard textbook about Ancient Greece, you should know about your world.

Amanda is of the opinion that, "History is perhaps one of the best things you can come up with for your world. If you can come up with a history for your world, it will make everything a lot easier to come up with. Partly because almost everything we have in our world related back to history. Our culture, our politics, the types of jobs we do, the things we eat, the way we interact with foreigners... Pretty much everything stems from the past. It doesn't require something extensive, just a basic timeline—the major events. But it can do a lot in the long run."

And that’s pretty much how you world build. As stated before, it’s simple.

It’s also incredibly hard. And Time consuming.

And required, frankly.

So  yes, it’ll take time. Yes, it’ll take work.

But if you’re afraid of that….

Then why are you writing in the first place?

-Margaret V.

P.S. Don’t feel too bad, you guys. Even Amanda is guilty of the “Not Enough World Building” charge. 

How to Write a Novel

Okay, so I know that we haven’t done anything for weeks now, and you might be wondering what’s going on and if this is the beginning of a second end, but I promise you it is not. Things have just been pretty busy lately.

Small update:

At the beginning of the month, we managed to get to spend some time together in person. For those of you who don't know because you haven't read all we've written (not really that much unfortunately), Margaret and I met online. We got to know each other through a mix of a writing website, email, chatrooms, and Skype. We have met in person before, but this was the first time we actually got to spend an extended amount of time together (it was two days). While there was a TON of awkward giggling for the first day and a half, by the end of the last day and the day she was going home, we managed to talk like normal human beings and one of the things we discussed was the story I am going to be writing for this blog. We (more I, but I'm sure something she said inspired the idea to land in my head) managed to come up with an end, which mean that I'm likely to start writing it soon. I have the chapter outline about 3/4 done.

She went back to school on Monday August 12 2013 and my first day back at the evil death trap called “High School” was today.

Begin to cry young ones.

School is coming upon us all. Not only did school begin today, but I have spent the past two/three weeks frantically trying to finish all of the summer homework from my AP classes I was supposed to spend all summer doing. I told myself I could neglect it only if I was neglecting it for editing my book.

... let's not talk about that. Last summer I wrote a book. This summer I completely failed on the editing thing.

So yes, school is here. That means let time for writing. Hopefully it will also mean a return to structure and perhaps more steady uploads. Or it could have the opposite effect and we'll be so distracted that we won't... but let's hope for the first one, yes?

Hmm. Anything else? Margaret managed to fill in two plot holes! Yay! That’s always an awesome feeling.

Now, this post is not all just updating, though that probably will consist of about half of it. I just wanted to share this one thought that was actually shared with me a few days ago. It was actually used in a completely different context, but it was about goals and setting them and all that and that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? It also ties in pretty heavily with some of the feelings I’ve been having myself lately.

The title of this post is “How To Write A Novel” and I do have to apologize for the slightly misleading title. I’m not going to be describing a foolproof THE way to write a novel, or even my way of writing a novel. Personally I don’t think I have the right to write an article like that until I actually have my name in print. But that’s beside the point.

We all have an ultimate goal in mind. Whether this goal is to get published, or maybe your goal is to be able to live off writing, or maybe your goal is to be the next JK Rowling (I’m gonna tell you right now, straight up, there are some goals and aspirations and dreams I can approve… if you think you’re the next JK Rowling… Not to be depressing or smashing your dreams to tiny pieces, but… I wouldn’t count on it), it is a goal.

So imagine this goal as the top of Mt. Everest.

And you’re standing at the little village at the base of the mountain where people plan their expeditions.

Look up.

It’s a looooonnngggg way to go. 29,029 feet/8,848 meters.

It doesn’t just look big, trust me, it is. And it’s not going to be easy to climb it. The people that climb it have to go through a lot to get to stand on the top and proudly yell “I’M KING OF THE WORLD!”

But every climb starts with a step. And then more steps after that. And even more. And a lot of steps. And in this case a lot of ropes and pulley systems and other people ahead of you to lead the way and or hoist you up a sheer face.

With those lots of steps, frozen sweat, ropes, and support system, even though you started at the very bottom, you can wind up at the top.

That is how you write a novel, or publish a novel, or whatever your literary goal may be. You take it one step at a time as you can, until you do get to stand at the top of that mountain and shout that you are indeed, King of the World.