S.M.A.R.T Goals

I know this is the sort of article you see in January when everyone is setting goals for the New Year. I could suggest that, if you wait until January to set your goals for 2013, you have waited too late, but that would be disingenuous because that's usually when I start setting them. The reason I'm thinking about goal setting now is that I am involved in National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo). Like thousands of other writers around the world I'm striving to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. Actually, my goal is two novels for 100,000.

Now, this goal isn't practical for every writer, however, one can learn a lot from the experience. Mostly, what one learns is the power of a deadline and support in increasing productivity. Also, one learns something about goal setting, and, more importantly, goal keeping.

Many people treat goals like wishes. A goal is something they hope will somehow happen if they work real hard and have good luck and the stars align properly. In reality, a goal is the first part of an action plan. That means you have to think through your goals carefully. I just read this acronym and loved it. S.M.A.R.T. goals.

S - pecific

Your goal needs to be specific enough that you will know instantly if you achieved it or not. Take a look at Nanowrimo. The goal is to write 50,000 words as the first draft of a novel. I know exactly when to crack open my bottle of Classic Coke ( I don't drink alcohol ) and celebrate. Too many people will tell me their goal for the coming year is to "write more," "get to work on my novel," or "build up my business." With goals like that, not only will you not achieve them, you won't even know when you did achieve them.

Some examples of specific goals include:

• Write an average of 1000 words a day on non-holiday weekdays. 
• Edit and put in the mail the following novels/short stories/nonfiction books/articles
• Complete two novels. 
• Write and send out 25 magazine articles.
• Send out at least two query letters per week/month

M - easurable

Being specific means your goals need to be measurable. As mentioned before, "doing more writing" is not only a vague goal, there is no way to measure it. Some types of things that can be measured in writing are:

• Word Counts
• Pages Edited
• Projects Completed
• Projects Submitted to Editors/Publishers
• Projects Self-Published
• Number of local clients contacted
• Number of blog posts written
• Number of social media connections made

A - ctionable

 Too many people set goals they have no direct control over. For instance, they will set a goal like "Publish three novels." Now, unless you plan to self-publish, that is not an actionable goal. There is nothing you can do to ensure it will happen. Much of that goal is outside your control. First, an assistant editor has to pass along your proposal to an editor. That editor has to meet with an editorial committee. They have to consider budget, market trends, the composition of their fall catalog and a dozen more factors before deciding whether or not to publish your work.

So, what is  under your control? Writing the novel. Editing your novel. Sending out proposals or meeting with editors at writers conferences. So, frame your goal in terms of the actions you will take. like: "I will complete three novels and submit them to at least five publishers each."

R - ealistic

Now, this is one where people fail by either overestimating or underestimating. Your goals should challenge you, but not to the extent that they are virtually impossible to attain. For instance, Nanowrimo's 50,000 word challenge is doable for most people if they can put in an hour or two a day on the project. That's 1650 words a day or about seven double spaced type written pages a day. Now, to determine if this is reasonable for you or not, you need to know some things. First, you need to know how fast your write, rough draft speed. You can find this out by writing for fifteen minutes three times, counting the number of words and creating an average for an hour of writing and reducing it by 25 percent. So, if you average 1200 words an hour, call it 900 so you have some wiggle room for slower days.

You can do the same with other writing activities like editing, preparing the final manuscript, formatting an ebook for publication, even writing your blog. That way when you say you want to be able to write 10,000 words a month on your novel, you will know approximately how much time that will take and be able to decide whether or not that is realistic.

T - imed

There is nothing like a deadline, even a self-imposed one, to motivate completion of your goals. One of the values of Nanowrimo is the fact that by the end of the month, you either have written your 50,000 words and you get your badge to put on your website, or you didn't. As those last days of November tick down, you feel the pressure of the deadline to either keep up the pace or increase it.

When setting your goals, make them time sensitive. For instance, don't just say you want to complete such-and-such a novel, say, "I will complete such-and-such a novel by the end of March." That sets a specific time frame for completion.

So, as you begin to think about your goals for next week, next month or next year just how S.M.A.R.T. are they.

If you enjoy these articles, you might enjoy my series of writing essentials books on Amazon including Time Management for Writers, Elements of Plot: A Personalized Approach and The Road to Success in Nanowrimo with more coming later this year.

Of Tortoises, Hares and Writers

We all know the story of the tortoise and the hare. The two were in a race. The hare was fast, so he figured he had it made. So, he ran fast for a few hundred yards, saw the tortoise far behind him, so he laid down and took a nap. By the time he woke up, the tortoise was crossing the finish line.

Over the past 30 years, I've been in various writing groups, and I've seen the tale of the tortoise and hare acted out over and over again. Some people won't write unless they have an hour or an entire afternoon where they can get some "serious" writing done. Unfortunately, such times come rarely, so they end up writing sporadically. They may write 2000 words one Saturday, but don't get anything else written for another two weeks. Others, though, write everyday, or nearly everyday, but are apologetic about "only" writing 300-500 words a day. Guess which ones end up finishing their novels faster and sell more writing? You got it. Our writing Tortoises get more done even though, their individual writing sessions are shorter and "less productive."

I am a member of the ACFW  (American Christian Fiction Writers) Novel Track Writing email discussion group. A few months back we started the "Ten Words a Day" club. A lot of people were reporting that they hadn't written anything that day. So, many of us pledged to write at least ten words on our novels every week day, before we reported in on our daily totals. After all, it took at least ten words to report we didn't write and why.

Since that time many people have used the Ten Word a Day club to good use. Many write saying "Thank You, for the Ten Word a Day club. It has improved my productivity." How can this simple thing - writing ten words a day - improve productivity? It's because the practice breeds consistency. There are three reasons consistency produces better results than marathon writing sessions.

Consistency Creates Habitual Behavior

Okay, I have a terrible time keeping track of my keys. I'm always looking for them. Why? Because I come in from the car and drop them anywhere I happen to land. So, about a month ago, I decided I was going to have to start hanging up my keys on the key rack as I come in the door. But, I knew that having a good idea wasn't enough. I needed to train myself. I needed to create a habit of hanging up my keys. So, everyday, if I forgot and laid down my keys on the kitchen table or washer, I stopped at the point I remembered, set aside everything else and hung up the keys. After doing that for nearly a month, I almost automatically hang up my keys without thinking.

You can create habits for creative behavior as well. If you sit down at your computer to write just ten words every day, you create a habit of writing daily. Eventually, you will automatically get started on writing projects on a regular basis, even if it is only a few words at a time. You know the irony of our Ten Words a Day club? Most of us end up writing 100 words or more when we sit down to write just ten.

Consistency Reduces Preparation Time

Whether we call it "inspiration" or "the muse," many writers need to get in the mood to write. That, often requires reviewing what they already wrote, going over their notes and research, and finally getting into character and writing. This prep time can be several minutes. However, if  you write consistently, you will find that you get in the mood much quicker. Also, not having a week or more go by between writing periods means you don't have to review what has already been written to know what needs to be done next. You can sit down, open your file and start typing.

Consistency Turns Small Efforts into Big Results 

What can you do with just 300 words written in a day? That's a little more than a double-spaced typewritten sheet of paper. Most of us can do that in about 15-20 minutes at rough draft speed. In a month that would be 9,000 words. In six months it would be 54,000 or the length of a small novel. In a year, that's 109,000 words.

Now, let's look at the person who will only work when they have an hour. They get 1500 words written in their hour session, but they only do that once a week. That's 6000 a month or 78,000 in a year. Still a respectable number (Again, due to consistency), but it's 31,000 words less than the  300 word a day "tortoise."

A last word of inspiration. Lewis and Clark crossed half a continent traveling only about 25 miles a day. But they kept moving forward. As writers we can learn from that. Consistency will produce results over time.

Sometimes the problem is finding the time to write. I have addressed this issue in Time Management for Writers: You DO Have the Time to Write. 

Point of View: Third Person Limited

Third person Limited keeps it's focus one one character. It's like that character is being followed around with a TV camera. It has two empathy levels: Subjective and Objective. Let's look at Each

 Subjective

 This is the most commonly used third person POV. In many ways, it is like first person main character. You focus on the point of view character, know his or her thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, etc. The only difference is that an anonymous narrator is telling the story and not the POV character. This character is usually a main character, but not necessarily. In some novels you will shift the POV from one character to another in different scenes. We will talk about multiple points of view in another lesson. However, it is important to remember to stick to a single point of view for each scene.

Most of what we said about first person applies here as well. Your character and reader can only know about what is known or could possibly be known to the main character. So, if in another part of the universe events are transpiring against your character, they have to hear about it through a third party or be ignorant of it just like in first person.

Objective

 Remember we talked about the idea of a TV camera on the shoulder of a character with a cable plugged into that character's brain. In this POV, we unplug the cable. We follow the character around but only report what could be seen by that camera. You don't report his/her thoughts or feelings, what they see or hear or think. You only report their behavior and their environment. For instance, if you are reporting about a detective finding the body of a murder victim using the objective POV, you might write something like this:

Detective Marylin Walters entered the room. The stench of decomp permeated the room. She wrinkled her nose and reached into her purse. She withdrew a small tube of some sort of cream and applied it to her nostrils. She dropped the tube back in her purse and stooped down to bend over the body. Jake Carter, M.E. was already examining the corpse.

"Won't know for sure until we get her on the table, but it looks like blunt force trauma."

"No chance it could be an accident?"

"None whatsoever," Jake said as he stood up and walked to a table. He picked up a plastic bag with a bloodied hammer.

"Okay," Marylin sighed. "There go my plans for the weekend."

Notice we do not mention anything about her inner feelings or emotions. However, we get it that she is revolted by the stench of decomp, that she doesn't want to investigate and she has some plans for the weekend.

It is a hard point of view to maintain throughout an entire novel. However, I might say that writing at least a few chapters in this style will help you develop those skills of showing your visitor what is happening instead of just telling them. When using a subjective point of view, it is easier to say, "Marilyn hated the smell of decomp" than to describe her actions, but that description has more impact than simply giving her inner response.

An Overview of Third Person Point of View

In simplest terms third person point of view stands outside the action and describes what is going on as an objective and anonymous reporter. In essence, it is the print equivalent of a camera. However, third person gets complicated in terms of where that camera is located and whether or not it is also able to read thoughts.

Third person point of view always has to deal with two different dichotomies: Scope and Empathy.

Scope

Scope refers to what the camera is able to see within a given scene or over multiple scenes. The dichotomy here is between limited and omniscient points of view.

Limited refers to a story or scene which stays focused entirely on one character. It's like the camera is attached to that person's forehead. Whatever happens in their presence is what gets recorded.

Omniscient point of view allows the author to view everything regardless of it happening in the presence of the character. The author can break away from the main character's point of view to provide the reader with information unknown to the character. Here's a comparison of limited and omniscient points of view:

Limited

Jennifer entered the room. She looked around. A statue of a man riding a bucking horse made out of bronze set in a space between a line of old leather bound Zane Grey novels.
"I see you are admiring my collection of novels." Jennifer turned quickly to see a man about fifty with greying hair and dark eyes. His hand stroked a scar on his left chin. 

Omniscient

Jennifer entered the room. She looked around. Her eyes settled on the "Bucking Bronc" Statue by Remington. Jason Culpepper acquired it on a trip to Cody Wyoming. His generous donation to the Buffalo Bill museum made them more than willing to part with the sculpture. Jennifer perused the bookshelves crammed with leather bound first editions of Zane Grey novels.
"I see you are admiring my collection of novels." Jennifer spun around to see Jason Culpepper himself, a man about fifty with greying hair and dark eyes. His hand stroked the scar left on his chin by the knife of a Viet Cong assassin who met his own death at the hands of Private Culpepper. Jennifer had never heard the story and didn't know of the nightmares Culpepper still had nearly forty years later. She thought the scar added character to his rugged face. 

One point here. Don't confuse omniscient point of view with a novel that switches points of view between scenes or chapters. The omniscient point of view can be found within each scene, as shown above and throughout the book. However, many authors will switch from one third person limited point of view in one chapter to another third person limited point of view in another chapter. For instance, a political thriller might switch between the president's POV in one scene to that of his press secretary in another to that of his chief of staff in another. Eugene Burdick's novel Fail Safe does an excellent job of this approach.

Empathy

The second dichotomy I call empathy because it refers to how much insight the narrator gives his reader into the thoughts and feelings of the character(s) in the novel. The two dynamics here are: subjective and objective.

Subjective point of view allows the reader to know directly the character(s) thoughts, emotions, attitudes, perceptions and inferences directly.

Objective stories only allow the reader to see the outside of the character(s) with no insight into their thoughts or feelings except what they express through dialog.


Here are two examples of subjective and objective:

Subjective

Bob left the diner. He pulled his coat tight as the wind hit him. I guess I'll be sleeping at the mission tonight. The mission was alright, but he hated to be preached at just for a hot meal and a warm bed. Still on nights like this it was a lot better than on the street. 

Objective

Bob pulled his coat tight after leaving the diner.
"Not much defense against the cold." The man speaking was about Bob's age, but dressed in a full overcoat. He adjusted the clerical collar at his neck.
"You have a place to sleep tonight? If not, we have just expanded the downtown mission." The priest handed Bob a card.
"Not much for missions, padre. I hates bein' preached at jest fer a hot meal and a warm bed."
The priest laughed a loud, deep laugh.
"Can't say I blame ya. Just bring this card and you can decide whether you want to hear the 'preachin' or not."
Another gust of wind and the priest tipped his hat and started to leave. "Hey, padre. Seems like a fair enough deal. And even a bit of preachin' is better than spending the night out in this wind."

Writing in an objective style, even if you eventually want to use another point of view is a valuable exercise since it forces you to show instead of tell.

Four types

So, if you have been keeping track you can see we will have four types of Third person points of view

Subjective-Limited
Objective-Limited
Subjective-Omniscient
Objective-Omniscient

The next four lessons look at each.

Point of View - First Person Minor Character (Oblique)

In the last two posts we talked about two relatively common forms of First Person point of view. In the first, the main character tells the story. In the second a secondary, but still important, character does. These are fairly common, but, sometimes, a story can be told from what is called the "Oblique" point of view by a minor character particularly one who does not have any significant impact on the events in the story. For instance, in To Kill a Mockingbird the story is told by Scout, a young girl who doesn't understand most of what she reports in a tragic story of racism and justice gone awry.

This is an unusual point of view. It is generally used as a method of separating the reader from direct identification with any of the "actors" in the story. The events are told by a third party who witnessed them, but was not part of the story.

It is a difficult type of point of view to master. The character sits on the bank of the river describing the ships floating by without engaging with them. You are unable to get a deep interior perspective from any of the main characters. Since the author is only tangentially a part of the story s/he doesn't even have the insight of a Watson or Captain Hastings into the main character's motives and thoughts.

It is rarely used, and I think you can see why.

Tomorrow we will begin our discussion of Third Person Point of View. 

Point of View: First Person - Secondary Character

Photo Credit Ell Brown

Not all first person stories are told from the perspective of the main character. Frequently, it is told by a secondary character who was involved in the events of the story. The most famous example of this would be Sherlock Holmes stories in which his friend and associate Dr. Watson writes the stories. Holmes complains about how Watson sensationalizes his "methods."

Indeed, another mystery writer used this technique. Agatha Christie's third, Hercule Poirot novel, The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd, tells the story from the Point of View of a Dr. Shepherd who calls on a retired Hercule Poirot to investigate the crime. :::Spoiler Alert::: Turns out that Dr. Shepherd is in fact the murderer and the faces of the case are found in his journal.

Christie also has Poirot's friend Captain Hastings write a number of the books.

This POV can be useful in both cases because the main characters are brilliant, but a bit hard for the average person to understand. Holmes, for instance, could name scores of different types of tobacco ash, but didn't know the earth circled around the sun because that didn't help him with solving crimes. Poirot (much like his 21st Century successor Adrian Monk) is obsessive compulsive about order to the point of annoyance. Seeing these characters through another character in the story gives us someone we can more easily identify with.

Of course, this POV is not without it's difficulties. The main one is access to information. Things that happen outside the presence of the veiwpoint character must be inferred by other evidence or reported by the main character to the "author." Likewise, you are not privy to the thoughts of the main character except through dialog or inference based on the relationship between the two.

Understanding Point of View: First Person Main Character

What is Point of View?

At it's simplest level point of view is a matter of grammar. We learn about it in grade school. Certain words designate a particular point of view. "I, me, we," and their variants represent first person. "You, yours, etc." designate second person. "He/she, him/her, they, them" are third person.

However, that simplicity covers a much deeper and more complex aspect of story telling. A simple way to think about point of view is to think about the perspective from which the story is told and who the narrator is.

In this particular lesson  we will look one of the most commonly used points of view: First Person Main Character.

First Person Main Character

Photo by Dhanira

 Usually, an author uses this approach to first person writing. It has obvious advantages. The story is about this character and his/her adventures. So, you don't have to invent ways that a secondary character might know something significant that happened to the character when his/her chronicler is not around.

However, it can have some drawbacks. First, you have to maintain that character's voice throughout the story. S/he can't start sounding like a neutral narrator. In Dark Side of the Moon, I created a main character who did not use contractions much. She rarely said "couldn't" or "can't." Instead, she said "could not" or "cannot." It was a reaction to growing up in a working class environment and making it through two PhD's and a Master's. She was afraid to go back to that little girl who wore patched clothes to school and talked "funny." However, I had to maintain that affectation throughout the book and not only in the dialog.

You also have to be careful about your character sounding too conceited when s/he does something extraordinarily well. It is one thing for Watson to say Holmes is brilliant. It is quite another for Holmes to say it about himself. The character needs to seem oblivious to his or her prowess, intelligence, beauty, ability or courage. If such characteristics are so pronounced they cannot be discounted by the person, you can make them embarrassed by them or counter them by giving the character significant deficits elsewhere, particularly in areas where most people excel. The classic is the brilliant scientist who is awkward at dinner parties or can't ask his lab assistant out on a date.

The second issue with following the main character, whether in main character first person or third person limited points of view, has to do with events that take place outside that person's presence. They will have to hear about those things in some normal way like reading about it in the paper, hearing it from a friend, seeing a surveillance tape or making a logical inference from the evidence available. Likewise, you can't say "Johnny was hurt by what I said." How do you know that? You need to establish a basis for knowing it. Better to say, "When I said that, Johnny's shoulders slumped and he looked at the ground. He began drawing with the toe of his shoe in the dirt. 'Johnny, I didn't mean to hurt you,' I said. 'I'm not hurt,' he mumbled. I wasn't convinced."

Tomorrow: First Person - Secondary Character