Cassandra Clare Writing Advice

Where do you start a book? With plot, characters, or dialogue?

If you're just getting started, here are some thoughts for you:
1.) A writer needs to read. (In a pinch, you can also watch TV and movies, but
that is truly second best unless you plan to write for TV and movies.)
2.) When the story is over, think about it. Think of specific reasons you liked the
story (the picture on the cover or the actor who played the lead was cute is not a
good enough reason), and think of reasons you didn't like the story. If you think
something was unbelievable, pretend you're the writer: how would you fix
it? Didn't like the end? Think up a new one--but make sure it fits the rest of the
story. Too long? What would you have cut out? (But before you delete anything,
try to figure out why the author put it in there to begin with.)
3.) Write the kind of stories you like. If you most enjoy stories set in fairy tale
times, write those; if you prefer stories about everyday American kids, write those;
funny stories, spooky stories, romances, mysteries--you'll do best with what you
like to read, because you know what works and what doesn't work for you when
you're reading.
4.) Write a little bit every day. It's too easy to say "I'll write when I'm inspired."
Writing is like exercising: the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Thinking
about your story doesn't count. Try to write at least 1 page. If--the next day--you
decide you hate it, you can always tear it up and start over.
5.) But don't do that too often. Finish what you start. A lot of would-be writers
come up with a great beginning, then they go back and fiddle with that beginning
day after day until they get tired of it, so they start a new story, then fiddle with that
one's beginning... And so on. And they never finish a story. (More on this in a bit.)
6.) Whether you finish a story and don't like it or you've given up without finishing
it--don't throw it away. Maybe after a little time passes you might come up with a
way to fix it. Or you might decide that the story is hopeless--but one of the
characters is interesting and should be in a different story. Or you might be able to
use the setting to go off in a totally different direction. If nothing else, when you get
to be a year or two older, your writings will be like a time machine bringing you

back to the way you think now. Who knows? Some time in the future that might
be just what you need for one of your stories.

OK, back to those people who never finish a story. A lot of writers get stuck in the
middle. Many times a story becomes stuck because the author doesn't really know
the characters well enough. One way to get unstuck might be to start asking
questions about your character, questions like:

What is it that makes this person angry?

What makes him (or her) happy?

How about afraid?

Embarrassed?

What secret would he be unwilling to share--even with his best friend?

Does he have a secret that he wouldn't admit even to himself?

You might try having your character write you a letter--possibly complaining about
the story, or about the other characters. (If your character doesn't have anything to
complain about, you're making his or her life too easy, and the story will be boring.)

I HAVE TROUBLE WITH CHARACTERS

There are three things you want to ask yourself about your characters:
1. Is my character developed and believable? Do they seem like a real
person? Some people find character worksheets very helpful in developing
their characters. Its not hard to find character development worksheets
online.Crawford Kilian provides a character resume which is not dissimilar.
Elizabeth Moon has some detailed instructions on creating complex and
realistic characters.
2. What does my character *want*? Character arcs are determined by desire.
I.E. what does your character want at the beginning of the story? Do they
get it? Do they not get it? How does getting or not getting what they desire
change them? A character who doesnt want anything is flat, not to mention
not believable.

How do I handle backstory? How do I introduce a character with a really

complicated past without putting that past into a big chunk up front that
confuses and disorients the reader?
How To Write Backstory Without Putting Your Reader To Sleep
Backstory, or a character's past, is often necessary to explain a character's
motivations. It can add insight on personality or create reader sympathy.

However, you should try not to present it in the first chapter. When opening a
novel, your reader cares more about what's going on right now than what
happened in the past. At the start of a book, the reader isn't invested enough in the
character to care about what happened to them previously, but later in the story,
the reader will be intrigued enough by the character to want to know. As a writer,
you need to be careful when and how you bring backstory into the story.

When you do need to present backstory, there are several ways:

1--Flashback. This is a scene remembered by a character and written out as if it

were happening again.

She closed her eyes. Suddenly she was twelve years old again. The Hardy Boys
ran away, dangling her Raggedy Ann doll in their grubby hands.

"Stop!"

They only laughed at her and ran faster, tripping over the woodpile but righting
themselves before they hit the wooden fence. Up and over, and they were gone.

She opened her eyes. She wasn't twelve anymore, and John Hardy was going to
give her doll back to her.

2--A discussion about the past action. This is basically a flashback in dialogue

form, but don't make it too obvious. It should be absolutely fascinating to the reader
for some reason apart from the information being conveyed. One of the characters
should need to know the information in a bad way, for a dire reason.

This should be kept short. Shorter than short. Not just the amount of page
dedicated to the conversation, but also keep the dialogue lines short. No long
speeches from any characters.

The psychiatrist scribbled in his notebook. "So the Hardy Boys took your doll?"
"They ran away across the yard and hopped over the west side fence. I never saw
Raggedy Ann again."
"How did you feel about that?"
"I dreamed of her at night, calling to me. I need to get her back."
"Now? How do you intend to do that?"
"I'll kill them in their sleep, and say the incantation over their dead bodies to force
them to tell me what they did with her."
The psychiatrist leaned back. Yup, she was a French fry short of a Happy Meal. No
way could she testify.

3-Summary of past action. This is narrative explaining what happened so the

reader can get caught up.

Her entire body went still as she watched John Hardy walk down the hallway.
When she was twelve, he and his brother had stolen her Raggedy Ann doll from
her arms, hopped over the west side fence, and escaped into the wood. The loss
had traumatized her.

Keep it short, or try to incorporate the information in dialogue if you can. Also ask
yourself if your reader really needs this information in order to enjoy the story. Be
ruthless about what to cut--your reader isn't stupid.

Some rules for backstory:

You want to make the reader WANT to know the past.

a--Keep it short. Cut ruthlessly. Include it only if you're absolutely certain the reader
would be completely lost without the information.

b--Dole out the information in bits and pieces, not all at once in one scene. Create
mystery that motivates your reader to keep reading to find out what happened.

For example, mention a clue in chapter one, then another piece of the past in
chapter five, another in chapter seven and finally write a sentence in chapter
twelve that helps all the clues make sense and complete the picture.

c--Make a character absolutely need the information for some reason. Their
desperate goal will keep the reader interested.

d--Make that person have to fight to get the information. Create conflict that tries to
prevent the character from finding out what they need to know. Let the witness be
slippery or reluctant. Make obstacles for the character, and the reader will be
drawn into his fight to find out the information.

e- -Tie the information to some type of action going on. For example, if I see a
young girl killing two boys, speaking a haunting incantation, and demanding they
tell her where her doll is, then I'm more likely to want to know why she's doing this.

f--Create situations where another character needs to know the information. If the
girl saying the incantation accidentally summons a genie, the genie is naturally
going to want to understand what's going on.

g--Give the backstory from the deep point of view of the character affected by it the

most. For example, an omniscient narrator explaining the girl's lost doll isn't going
to have as much impact as the psycho-chick reminiscing about how she stayed
awake nights, longing for her Raggedy Ann.

h--Make sure it's realistic. Don't let someone talk about something they wouldn't
normally talk about. For example, most normal people don't spill the town's darkest
secrets to strangers at the diner. Even a crazy girl isn't going to confess to the
police officer that she's going to kill the Hardy Boys that night.
Exercises:
1. Is your backstory absolutely relevant?
2. Is your backstory short?
3. Is your backstory broken up or inserted all at once?
4. Is there a dire reason for a character to need the information?
5. Is there conflict preventing the information from coming to light?
6. Is the information tied to some type of action?
7. Can you create a situation where someone needs to know the information?
8. Is the backstory given from the point of view of the character with the most to
lose?
9. Is the backstory realistically and believably conveyed by the character?

HOW DO I GET INSPIRED AND STAY INSPIRED TO FINISH MY WORK? HOW

DO I GET MOTIVATED? HOW DO I KEEP FROM GETTING DISTRACTED?
We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always
generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. Frank Tibolt
Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach
for the rest of the time The wait is simply too long. Leonard Bernstein
I am not the person to ask about inspiration. Mostly, I dont believe in it not in
the popular conception of inspiration, where a lightbulb goes off in your head and
suddenly you are inspired and your fingers start flying over the keyboard. Sure,
that can happen, but as Bernstein says, you cant rely on that happening. Writing is
hard work, work that relies on learning and applying a varied set of skills, and
finding out what those skills are, learning and practicing them, is always better than
waiting around for inspiration. To quote Kristi Holls Writers First Aid:

Writers who wait for inspiration before they decide to write are generally known as
hobbyists. Working writers-those actively writing and growing in their craft-must
write whether the muse is in or not.
But Im not talking about inspiration! Im talking about motivation! you say. I keep
getting distracted while Im supposed to be working. I keep wanting to give up. I get
frustrated and impatient.
Okay, Ill introduce you to the Secret Writer Mantra. Professional writers return to it
again and again to get them through the books theyre writing.
BICHOK.
Heres what it stands for:
Butt In Chair. Hands On Keyboard. (No, I didnt make that up.)
Sit down. Type. There is no secret formula to prevent you from becoming bored or
distracted. Writing is work, like any work. It is not more fun or automatically not
boring just because it is writing or because the story itself is exciting. Maybe you
found the actual writing part easy, and revisions difficult. The problem there is
that editing and revisions are also writing. They are just as necessary a part of the
process as banging out a first draft. I know this isnt very fun advice, but try to keep
this in mind: how hard you work, unlike random inborn talent, is entirely up to you.
If you work hard and complete your work, youre ahead of 99% of people who want
to write a book. Try to think of it as . . . inspirational.
On inspiration
I get a lot of questions about writing and questions about inspiration make up the
bulk of them. It seems there are a lot of writers wandering around waiting for the
muse to descend in a flood of golden light and getting POd that it isnt happening.
These sort of emails:
I lose my inspiration after the first few chapters. How did you stay inspired writing
these books?
"How do I make myself sit down and write and not get distracted?"
what's a good way not to lose interest while you write? or for the strength of your
writing not to fade?
Every time Im in the middle of a book I get a new idea and I want to work on that
instead even if the other idea isnt as good.
Always leave me thinking: yes, well welcome to being a writer. How do you stay
inspired? You dont. How do you stay in love with the book youre writing? You
dont.

Its easy in the beginning. The book idea is fresh and new and the characters seem
appealing and the story is one you want to tell. Then you dig in and round about
chapter four or five you start realizing that nothing is happening, or that what your
characters are doing doesnt make any sense, or that youre telling the whole story
from the wrong point of view.
At that point the characters and story stop feeling fresh and new and shiny. They
have become problematic. They are no longer the lovely new sweater hanging in
the closet that you cant wait to wear, but are instead the wrinkly old sweater that
has soup on it that you should probably take to the dry cleaner. And you want
nothing more than to take the whole project and bin it and start a new project that
seems like fun, because now you are not having any.
Now I am not sure this is the same thing as writers block. To me writers block
has always meant staring at a blank piece of paper with absolutely no idea what
you want to put on it. This is more that stage of writing where you feel like you had
a party but the fun bit is over and now you have to put all the trash in bags and
clean the Silly String off the ceiling. The party was fun. The cleanup bit is not.
I have a few mental exercises I use to try to work through this part (which extends
pretty much from a third of the way through the book all the way to the end, and
also the editing process.) If Im stuck on a scene I figure its usually because Im
approaching it from the wrong angle so I try to visualize other angles. But mostly
its just grim pushing through. Like strapping on lead weights and slogging through
the snow, no end in sight. You set yourself word counts for the day or whatever
and you just keep going. Which is not to say that some parts wont still be fun.
They will be. But you may have to do a lot of slogging to get there.
So how do you force yourself to do it? Determination. The same way you force
yourself to do anything go to the gym, learn to speak Russian, climb Mt
Kilimanjaro. Some things take hard work and determination to complete; novels are
one of those things. Learning to force yourself to work on your writing is not
appreciably different from learning to force yourself to do anything else.
Which is where I think the whole narrative of inspiration comes in, and is ultimately
unhelpful. Aspiring writers who ask this sort of question often believe (because
they have been told it) that inspiration is like a golden light shining directly into your
head and filling you with ideas and energy and mystical whatsit. They feel it should
light up your fingers and send them speeding over the keyboard. They figure the
story should be like a movie that plays in your head. And they figure that if this isnt
happening, there must be something wrong.
But theres not. I don't know any writers who talk about how inspiration comes to
them in a silvery shower that makes their writing feel effortless, but they would
probably get punched the head by other writers if they did. We don't truck much
with that stuff (mostly we spend a lot of time complaining about how badly things

are going writing-wise, and how our stuff sucks more than everyone else's. It's a
misery one-upmanship thing.)
But if I am not inspired when I write, people will be able to tell, you say. No, they
won't. I remember one writer who famously said something along the lines of
Some things I write for love, and some for money, and nobody but me can tell the
difference. In the same way, no one but you will be able to tell which parts of a
book came easily to you and which parts you sweated blood over. Sure, inspiration
comes sometimes a sudden great idea you cant wait to write down but its
not often and usually at inopportune times when you dont have a pen. And you
have to learn to treasure those moments, because they are rare,, and in between
them are long stretches of slogging.
As Justine just said: "Ideas are not the hard part, making yourself sit down and
write is.". Thats why its work and they pay you (ideally) to do it. And while it may
seem depressing to be told that there is no secret way to access inspiration (like,
Go to this address in Cleveland and knock on the door and tell the guy that the red
fox barks at midnight, and he will GIVE YOU THE INSPIRATION), I hope its also
helpful to think that you dont need to. That everyone gets tired in the middle, or
feels bored with what theyre writing, or wishes they were doing something else,
and that, to quote Maureen in a post whose theme is not dissimilar to this one,
even the best books like to REPEATEDLY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE while you
are working on them.
But the thing is, just because something is hard doesnt mean it isnt fun. Theres
fun to be had even in the slogging bits. Because inspiration, when it does come,
doesnt come from outside of you. It comes from the work that you do, from the
process itself. So the truth is, you dont need to be inspired to write. But you do
need to write to be inspired.
TIPS FOR TEENS
1) You need to develop a self-critical eye.
If you're looking for tips you could do worse than read John Scalzi's post on the
topic: 10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing. His advice is good.
Many people take objection to the "Your writing sucks" aspect of it. What I find
enlightening is reading through the comments and seeing all the posts by teenage
writers who claim their writing doesn't suck. And yes, in the case of teenage
writers, there are always those whose writing is surprisingly good. The youngest
person I know to sell a book was nineteen at the time. But the people who are
posting and saying that their writing doesn't suck are probably the ones whose
writing does suck. That's because it takes a long time to develop a self-critical eye
and see where your writing is going wrong and what about it needs improving.
Among the writers I know, many very successful and award-winning, they all think

their writing sucks about half the time. The writers I know who think their writing is
unimpeachably wonderful mostly do suck, and that goes for adults as well as
teens. What you need to do is develop a sense of what you're doing, what needs
fixing, how you're writing is flowing, all that stuff. And developing that sense takes
time. I often suggest critique groups or classes at this juncture because having
someone else critique your writing will get you started on being able to critique it
yourself.
2) Quit worrying about being published RIGHT NOW.
Jeez, guys, what's the rush? The number of people who get published in their
teens is vanishingly small. And as Justine Larbalestier points out in her wise
article Too Young To Publish, when they do get published, it is not always a good
thing. Being published before you're thirty is considered young to be published;
when you're published as a teen, it's newsworthy because you are so young, but
you're also treated like a dog who paints. It doesn't really matter if the paintings are
good; it's just exciting that the dog can do it in the first place. That's not always
such a great feeling. Anyway, telling yourself that you need to be PUBLISHED
RIGHT NOW is putting an awful lot of unnecessary pressure on yourself. Being
published is not the ultimate measure of the worth of what you do. What you
should be concentrating on now is working on your writing, polishing it, and making
it better. Show it to people (not your parents) who can critique it for you an
online writing workshop like critters.org can be helpful. Or take writing classes if
your school doesn't offer them, a local university probably does. I took writing
classes at UCLA when I was in high school, frinstance. Objective, professional
adult readers can tell you how ready you are for publication.
3) Read a lot.
If you don't like reading, and you don't read, you probably won't ever be a good
writer. That's about as close as I get to making incendiary and definite statements
about writing, but I think it's true (and was first said to me by a writing professor in
college, who said she couldn't figure out why people who don't like to read want to
write would you really want to be a singer if you didn't like music? and said
that in all the years she'd taught she'd never come across anyone who didn't read
who was any good at writing.) Reading will help you develop your own voice, and
the more widely you read, the sooner you'll develop an individual voice that doesn't
sound just like whatever your favorite book or writer sounds like. Reading can
teach you what writing is supposed to sound like, and also what it's not supposed
to sound like. For instance, the other day a teen writer sent me a story that began
something like this:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAURGGHGHGHGGH," he screamed. It was dark. Dark!

Everything was dark!!!!!!!!
Have you ever read a book which featured quite so many exclamation points after
an observation like "Everything was dark?" Probably not, right? If no one in the
history of the published word has pulled this sort of thing off there's probably a
reason.
4) You're going to write just like your favorite writers do, and that's okay. For now.
When I was a teenager, everything I wrote sounded like whatever book I liked at
the time. After I read The Mists of Avalon I wrote an Arthurian book and after I read
the Anne Rice books I wrote about vampires and after I read Ender's Game I wrote
science fiction and it was all very derivative and silly. But it was still good practice.
All writing is good practice and individual voice develops over time. I can't count the
amount of letters I get from teens saying they're writing a book about a girl in love
with a vampire. Aha. So you love Twilight, and that's great. It's wonderful when you
love a book so much. But it can also be helpful to look under the surface of what it
is that you love about a book. Is it vampires you like so much, or the idea of
eternal, immutable yet impossible love? i.e.: maybe it's the dynamic of the book
that truly moves you, and there are all sorts of ways to ring changes on that
dynamic, and make it your own. Often that comes over time influences never
really fade, but by the time you're an adult writer, you'll probably be a varied
amalgam of all your influences, and mixing them together is a great way to come
up with something entirely new. Go ahead and be influenced, just be aware of how
and why.
5) Don't worry about being perfect.
Yeah, I know I just said you need to be self-critical and you should be. But you
should also be having fun with your writing. All that crappy writing I was doing
when I was a teenager, I was having a hell of a good time. I wrote a 1,000 page
romantic epic called The Beautiful Cassandra based on the story Jane Austen
wrote about her sister when she was twelve. (You can read it here. The Jane
Austen story I mean, not my novel. ) It was terrible, but boy did I have fun writing it
(and my friends had fun reading it.) One of the great joys of being so young and
writing for fun is the lack of pressure and freedom to write whatever you want. So
don't endlessly beat yourself up about getting everything right enjoy what you're
doing, accept that writing for practice alone isn't writing wasted, and neither is
writing for fun alone. Enjoy yourself. Oh, and just as a tiny side note, when you're

writing to authors and asking for advice, don't write to ten authors at once and tell
them all they're you're favorite author. We do compare notes, and we're on to your
shell game. *beady eye* This means you.
I CANT FIGURE OUT HOW TO PLOT!
PLOT is CHARACTER revealed by ACTION. No, I didnt make that up; thats
Aristotle. Basically, plot isnt something that exists outside the rest of your story
the characters, the action, the setting. Make up awesome characters. Put them in
interesting situations. Force them to make important and revelatory choices that
change them. Make sure that at the beginning of your story your characters want
something. Decide whether or not they get it. Those are the elements of your story.
The most important thing to remember is that your first reader, and audience, is
yourself. Make sure youre telling a story you yourself are dying to read.
If you are really stuck with plotting if you keep starting books only to lose track of
where theyre going; if you cant get past the first chapter, etc. I would suggest
outlining. That means sitting down and writing out a very detailed summary of
everything that happens in your book beforeyou start writing it. Yes, some people
can just wing it. But if it looks like youre not one of them, the fact is that most
writers outline.
HOW DO I DROP CLUES INTO MY BOOK SUBTLY ENOUGH SO THAT
LATER, READERS REALIZE THAT THEY WERE IMPORTANT, BUT NOT SO
OBVIOUSLY THAT THEY GIVE THE PLOT AWAY?
Thats called foreshadowing.
The thing is, you do notice those clues while youre reading, they just dont mean
anything to you until later. Foreshadowing means walking a very fine line between
dropping too many hints (the reader figures things out before the characters) and
too few (when whatever happens, happens, it seems to come sailing out of left
field, and doesnt appear to grow organically out of the story.) Using foreshadowing
well is complicated and takes a long time to get right; mostly you need practice,
but:

Look at books that you think use foreshadowing extremely well. Study those
books, make notes on them, break down how they do what they do,
how clues are buried in the narrative in ways that the reader skims over at
the time, but mean everything later. (In Harry Potter, the fact that Lupin turns
out to be a werewolf is foreshadowed by the fact that his greatest fear is
shown to be of a glowing white globe the moon.)

A lot of writers use sets of notecards or graph paper to plot out their
narrative. Identify the key points in the narrative (moments when characters
meet each other for the first time, for instance, or when someone first
notices something strange, or exhibits an unusual power (Its foreshadowed
that Percy Jackson is the son of Poseidon when several times he seems to
have unusual power over water.)

Dont forget dialogue. Its one of the best ways to foreshadow. A casually
dropped comment by a character, a mention of an anecdote that seems
related to something else, all those can be used to foreshadow and drop
clues.

You dont need to shove all the foreshadowing and clues into your first draft,
before even you know exactly whats going to happen. You can go back and
plant clues later.

Usually, where foreshadowing is concerned, less is more.

MY WRITING IS BORING/SLOW/DULL; HOW DO I MAKE IT MORE

INTERESTING?
Well, first off, boring writing covers a multitude of sins. Without looking at your
writing (which I cant do), I cant tell you why its boring exactly, any more than if
you call up a doctor and tell her you dont feel well, she can tell you whats wrong
with you exactly. The differential, so to speak, is vast. This is why you need
someone a teacher, friends, ideally a class of writing students reading your
work and giving you feedback.
If you are convinced that your writing is boring, ask yourself a few questions:
Are you including details that arent necessary to the story, just to pad out scenes
and make them seem longer/more important? Keeping in only details that matter
to the story speeds up the pacing and keeps the story interesting.
Joe got up and brushed his hair and then his teeth. He chose a blue sweater to
wear and made bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast. He got his briefcase and
opened the front door. He went outside and locked the door behind him. He went
to his car and turned it on. He drove to work. It took twenty minutes.
can be edited down to this:
Joe went to work.

Unless there is something remotely important about the tooth brushing, the
breakfast food, or the locking of the front door, skip it all. Its not interesting or
significant to the story.
Are you overstating characters emotions in order to make everything seem more
dramatic? Trying to make a scene seem more dramatic by adding in overwrought
detail often has the opposite effect.
Are you using redundant language in order to add emphasis? For instance, This
is the worst day of my life, sobbed the wretched girl. We know shes wretched
from the sobbing and the fact that its the worst day of her life. We dont need that
extra adjective; once again, it slows down the pacing.
Does every scene youre writing serve more than one purpose? A scene that tells
you something about a character is good; a scene that tells you something about a
character and also moves the plot forward is better.
Are you writing in the passive voice? Avoid passive voice; use active voice.
Are you being self-indulgent? Every writer has to love what their writing, but it can
become a problem when youre in love with what youre writing. Especially if youre
in love with your main characters or in love with their relationship with each other.
Theres a fine line between romantic and soppy. Also, you have to make us, the
readers, care about your characters before we are ever going to care about their
relationship with each other. Zoom on back up to the question above about
characters and make sure yours are ones that we are going to love enough to
follow them through the whole story.
HOW DO I KNOW HOW MUCH DETAIL/DESCRIPTION TO USE IN A STORY?
HOW DO I KNOW WHEN ITS TOO MUCH?
You want to use the amount of detail and description that will make the the scene
feel real and immediate, but not so much that the reader feels overloaded with
unecessary details. The key is to use details that are relevant to what youre
describing, and that matter to the story, and that are not themselves already
obvious or self-evident (there is no need to make a note of the sky being blue,
unless the fact that is blue is interesting or relevant or unexpected in some way.)
Description should also not be dropped in the middle of, say, an action scene, as it
slows down the action.