The Broad Strokes of Formatting

     Since I've been blogging about structural components of noveling thus far this week, I figure I might as well complete the trifecta with a lesson on formatting, the penultimate structural component (the ultimate one is probably like, plot or something).
      Knowing how to format your novel is extremely important--agents and publishing companies won't look twice at a manuscript, no matter how dazzlingly fantastic, if you haven't taken the time to bring it up to industry standards.  Chances are good, if you're self-publishing, that your audience won't stick around too long, either.
     A certain degree of experimentation can work to your advantage, depending on your genre and intended effect, but for the large majority of works, adherence to the rules is likely best.
     Your mileage may vary depending on the agent or publisher you're submitting to, but here are the basic industry standards for

General Text:

• One inch margins
• Half-inch indentations for each new paragraph
• Twelve-point Times New Roman font (black)
• Double spaced
• Alignment on the left hand side, jagged line on the right
• Include page number, title, and last name in the header for every page except for the title page

New Chapters:

When starting a new chapter, use the "page break" feature (so that if you go back to edit previous chapters, your formatting won't get fucked up)

Center your chapter titles about a third of the way down the page

Title Page:

• Place your contact info (name, address, phone number, email) and the  genre and word count in the upper left hand corner of your title page
• About half way down the page, state your title in either all caps or mixed caps ("The Fantastic Journey of Clodbourne Hammerstein and the Magic Oak Tree")
• Jump down a line and type "a novel by" 
• Jump down another line and type your name/pen name

     And that's about it, for now--at least, that's the simple version.
     Happy Tech Week from TheSpiderWriter, happy Finals Week to me, and may you all have a wonderful weekend and a happy next week, too.

#SueQuest: Questioning The Validity of Mary Sue

     The other day, trying to find a control to use for The Mary Sue Litmus Test (for the sake of a blog post, you see), I asked my friend Rebekah if I could use her, thinking that she, a real person, couldn't possibly test positive for Mary Sue.  I started asking questions, and Rebekah and I ended up turning it into something of a game, then into a livetweet session, which we lovingly entitled #SueQuest. 

     But the more questions we answered, the more it seemed like my friend truly was a Mary Sue--something straight out of a bad high school drama, almost.  Even with a metric fuckload of desuifers, she ended up scoring a forty-five--five points away from "BURN IT AND RUN!" territory!

     It seemed hilarious, of course, but it really got me thinking.  Thus, I tested myself--and I also came out a Mary Sue, with 43 points of Sueness!   And this is without answering any of the "Is this character named after you?" type questions.  In fact, the only person I tested who didn't end up a Mary Sue was my dog, Amy--and she still had 27 points, placing her in the "be very careful" range.
 

She is little more than a very tiny bug.

     I'm not about to say that this means anything--certainly not anything concerning Syera Miktayee, whose website I enjoy and frequent quite...um....frequent...ly.  Shut up.  It's not like it's just this one test--Rebekah and I came up a Mary Sue on every test I could find.

     But it does remind me of a few posts by the women down at Rewriting Mary Sue, and some points that have been made--how the term Mary Sue began as a term for bad fanfiction author inserts who bent the entire fabric of the universe to their whim so that things would turn out well for them; for whom there was never any question of winning, for whom the best always occurred, the worst flitting through only briefly, trivially, and with great contrivance; but how it has now come to mean any character who happens to have too much power or be too good at too many things--and the fact that the term is disproportionately leveled against females.

     As Jenn Lyons pointed out in one of the above links, male characters have to be so Mary Sue that they're freaking SUPERMAN before anyone will call them a Mary Sue--or Gary Stu, if you prefer the more masculine term.  When a man is Batman, he's Batman; when a woman is Batman, she tends to get slapped with a citation.

     One of our goals as writers is to create realistic, three dimensional characters that still manage to be out-of-this-world fantastic--most of us don't read superhero stories to see how regular "normal" people are processing the events.  We read superhero stories to watch people with amazing abilities overcome impossible odds using their incredible talents!

     But how can we ever expect to see realistic, three-dimensional characters if two American teenagers from the real world (without superpowers, I might add) register as Mary Sue right off the bat?  I definitely agree that characters who bend the world to their whims are a problem, as are overpowered, unflawed characters (though the term for this, I was originally taught, is God-Modded), but I think this is something definitely worth considering the next time you decide to trash a Mary Sue.  Do you have a problem with this character because she doesn't have realistic flaws, because she makes things stop making sense?  Or do you dislike her because you think she's too smart and too beautiful and too talented all at the same time?  There's an expectation in society that women are to be only one or two of these, never three, and never, ever any more than that.

     If you're ever in doubt, play the sex-swap game; if you make this character a man, do you have the same reaction?  If you compared her to a male superhero, how does she rank?  Is she really as bad as Superman?  Or are you just upset that this portrayal of a woman is going against the grain of the stereotypes you've been taught to separate them into?

     I encourage you all to play the #SueQuest game; test yourself, your friends, your family--just don't forget to tag it if you do, so I can see what your outcomes are!  What are your thoughts on Mary Sues?  Feel free to discuss your Sue Views or deconstruct some characters in the comments section!

Writing Game: Seven Minutes In (Writing) Heaven

     This is a little writing game designed to get your mind working and the juices flowing.  You can use it as a warm-up for before you start the brunt of the day's writing, or as a pass-time when you've got down-time and want to keep your writing skills sharp.  Whatever you want to use it for, here's how to play Seven Minutes In (Writing) Heaven.
   
Note:  Closet neither included nor required

What You'll Need:

3 containers of a reasonable size
Paper
At least one die
Writing materials
A stop watch or other time-telling device

Set-Up:

1.  Get all your things together in one place (always useful)
2.  Tear your pieces of paper into small slips
3.  Separate your slips into three piles
4.  Take the first pile; on these slips of paper, write the names of all the characters you might be using.  In the second pile, write down a number of locations, real, fictional, inside, outside--whatever you can think of.  In the third pile, write out a number of events or conflicts that you might want to use.
5.  Put each pile into a separate pile; shake and mix liberally

Game Play:

1.  Roll your dice.
2.  Whatever number you come up with, that's the number of characters to pick from the first container
3.  Pick one slip from each of the remaining containers
4.  Set your timer/observe the clock; you now have exactly seven minutes to write a short story using the criteria you've gathered.  With any luck, you'll produce something you can use either as a scene in a story, or at least learn a little bit more about your characters, their motivations, and relationships.

Word Count Hangman

     It can be hard to meet your word count goal.  Whether you're writing a novel, a poem, or a short story, sometimes we get hung up or frustrated, or (most insidious of all) we convince ourselves that we can "just do it tomorrow," which as many writers know is how books end up six feet under.
     To help with this process, you can check out a tricks-and-tips article here OR you can play this nifty little game I made up called Word Count Hangman.  It's like regular Hangman, only word count-ier

The Set Up:

     Print out a picture of one of the following:

          ~You
          ~Someone you love
          ~A beloved character from your current project

     I recommend option three if you're dealing in fiction, but they all work.  Just make sure that it's a full-body image, and not the original.  Cut off each of the limbs and set up a piece of cork board (or a piece of construction paper, etc.) above your writing space and get some tape or tacks together; set up the gallows, decide on your word count, and get to work!

The Game Play:

     If you miss your word count for the day, a body part goes up.  If all the body parts go up, you lose and your character/loved one is dead!  You can add your own consequences for a loss, or go up against another writing buddy to see who is the last to miss all X# of writing days (or hang the other one first, if that's what gets those fingers tapping!).
     If you have no one to compete against and want to make the game a little more interesting, add a second board; one for heroes and one for villains.  For every word count goal you MISS, your protagonist comes one step closer to their untimely demise, but for every goal met your ANTAGONIST comes another step closer to death.
     The game resets every so often, depending on your expertise: once a week for beginners, once a month for experts, and once a year for those of you who really want to murder something you love.

The Rules:

1.  Be honest.  The only person you hurt by giving yourself slack is you; if this isn't motivating enough a game for you, maybe you should give something else a try.
2.  If you're competing with someone else, make sure to discuss things like resets and limb numbers beforehand to level the playing field.
4. Possibly the most important rule of all, have fun!  What is the purpose of writing if not to enjoy oneself?

If you have any suggestions to spice up the game, just let me know!  Maybe they'll make it into version 2.0 ;)

Writer's Resources; Family Echo (Digital Family Tree Maker)

     Family ties can be really important to a novel--and also really hard to keep track of.  For years I've been trying to find a digital family tree maker that didn't make me share my results with the rest of the world.  I needed a place to store my FICTIONAL families, not the real one, and just a couple days ago I discovered Family Echo, a, you guess it!  digital family tree maker!  *Insert generic powerpoint applause here*

     Now all software has its ups and downs, so before you rush out to go find this beautiful invention, here are some pros and cons.

PRO:

     You can make a multi-generational family that stretches in all directions.

     On-screen you can see my MC's parents, great-uncle, cousins (and second cousins) once removed, siblings, and grandparents, which is all super nifty, especially since it's a pain trying to find ways to squeeze indirect family members into the margins of family tree scaffolds.  On most family trees, if you're allowed siblings at all it's almost invariably ONLY on the final rung, and when you have complicated families like this one that just simply won't do.  

     You go Family Echo; Four for you, Family Echo.

CON:

     You see those little gray lines shooting off into space?  Those are actually continuations of the family line.  Unfortunately, Family Echo doesn't allow you to view the entire tree at once--instead, you can only see the direct blood relations to any selected individual, spouses included.  Here I've selected one of the unnamed great-grandparents at the time, and as such I can see all the way down to the Striders and Joneses--but not the Dexters or Abernathys.  I'm not sure if there's a program out there that lets you see everything at once, but if there was, it would be very very useful when you're trying to see the entire scope of a family.

PROS:

     There are a few more neat things you can do off to the side.

     Most noticeably (in this image and the last), you can add a picture that shows up over here and in the family tree, which can be super useful--who doesn't like visual aides?  It can be a symbol, a photograph, a drawing, anything you need it to be.    

     Under that, as in the first image, you can edit the character's personal details--name, gender, birth date, and (if applicable) death date; and in the second image you see before you a rough biography that you too can complete at your leisure.  Birth place, profession, company, interests, activities, and bio notes are all open to list, so this can serve not just as a family tree, but as a complete character compendium!  

     And if you have contact information for your character that you don't want to lose track of (an address you don't want to forget, a phone number you need to keep consistent, etc.) you can type it on down under the contacts section, as in the third image.

     AND, if there's anyone you want to show this to, be it a partner or friend or what have you, there's an option to share the tree with someone else (button pictured at the top of the image below).

CONS:

     This is a multi-image job right here.  Now, these are minor set-backs (as all the drawbacks of this site are), but they exist.  Firstly, step-relationships:

     I understand that genetics are, by and large, the law of the land as far as family trees go, but the brotherly relationship between the above characters, blood ties or no, is fairly important to their development, and it's inconvenient that when I click on one brother (like so)

I can't see the other.  It's not a big deal for this tree, since it's very small and self-contained, but it could be frustrating for larger trees where step-siblings are more rule than exception.  You could just pretend that they ARE biologically linked, for the sake of ease, but that doesn't quite work if your alternate parental units are characters you'd wish to include in the tree.  Like I said, it's minor, but it's still an inconvenience.  

     There's also the matter of, *ahem,* deviant families.

     This family, from a completely different work (since the other one doesn't have any families that could illustrate the point), seems fairly typical, but that's because Family Echoes (like many other family tree makers) doesn't allow for incestuous ties.  

     It's not a common thing to think about, so it makes sense, but incest is a real part of a lot of peoples' actual family trees (not that they'd like to talk about it, I'm sure), it happens in fiction, and it's the basic stuff of mythology--and this family happens to be a family of Gods, demons, angels, and hybrids.  Because of the whacked-out stuff that this family's gotten into over the course of their several-billion-year history, there should be a third generation consisting of one boy and one girl, belonging, respectively, to Darac & Bristallar and [insert unpronounceable name of madness] & Genesis.  

     Again, I don't hold these things AGAINST the makers, but they are a little inconvenient if your trees need to be unorthodox.  To get around this you can always make a second family tree consisting only of those characters and their children, but it's probably easier just to keep track on paper at that point.  

     Overall, I'd give Family Echoes four pens out of five (which is a rating system that I'm positive will catch on immediately because it is just so great and original).  It's simple, easy to use, fairly comprehensive, and has only a few minor inconveniences to side-step around.  

     Unless I find something that can manage a full five pens (and feel free to submit other programs for consideration or give me the low-down on your own findings with this one!), this is definitely the family tree maker I'll be writing with from now on.