Writing from the Heart #BYBin30

Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

I've had a rough day today; my emotions have been all over the place, from sad one minute and impatient another to smiling and feeling content in the next. Restlessness has hit me at several times during the day, as though my mind is telling me I should be doing something else, be somewhere else, but it doesn't tell me what or where.

I don't mind days like today though. It all feeds into my writing. It means I can truly write from my heart.

We've all heard the expression "writing from the heart," but what does it really mean? I've always understood it to mean that you write emotions into your story using your own experience of them. Or, if you've never felt them, then you write them the way you think they might be. But there's a power in being able to write about an emotion you've actually experienced. If you've never been infatuated, you might not be able to fully portray it the way people truly experience the feeling, or you might not be able to distinguish the things that make infatuation different from truly being in love with someone.

As readers, we can learn a lot about emotions from the books that we read. But as writers, it can sometimes be even more powerful to write those emotions into our stories by delving into the depths of those same emotions we've been through ourselves. Devastation, depression, love, joy, contentment, heartbreak, infatuation, desire, passion, anger, hatred - each emotion is experienced slightly differently by each person experiencing it. But it is the things that are universal about going through a particular emotion that will make it relatable and believable to your readers.

And, in writing these emotions into our characters' hearts and souls, we have the added bonus that, in doing so, it can sometimes be cathartic to our own hearts and souls, or to those reading our words.

Changing the World Through Stories #BYBin30

Stories, both personal memoirs and fictional stories, have the unique ability to bring about social change. However, unless you are writing a non-fiction book on the topic, it is best not to beat your reader over the head with the idea of social change.

Some subtle ways that stories can help bring about social change:

1. Your characters can be written as different and this can causes others to ostracise them or treat them unfairly. For example: In real life, we see people of different races,  genders,  ages and sexual preferences being treated unfairly in mainstream society. In stories, this can be shown using otherworldy creatures and alien beings. Do people fear your characters? Does the government want to regulate them? Are there laws that cause them problems because they are different? Examples of this in stories (books and movies), being "muggle" or "mudblood" in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories, being a "mutant" in Marvel's X-Men, being a vampire or werewolf in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series.

2. Your character can defy the negative stereotypes. For example, if you have a female character, she can be strong, bold, determined and she doesn't need a male character to rescue her. Maybe she does the rescuing. Diversity in your stories is important, but you need to be careful not to create characters that fit the negative stereotypes that society might dictate. Let your readers see your diverse characters as multi-faceted human beings who can't be pinned to one single trait, and you will create characters that can change the world.

3. Have diverse characters in your stories. Don't whitewash the world you are creating on the page. The world we live in is made up of a large variety of people, people who are old, people who are young, people of all colours and races, male and female, gay and straight, transgender or cisgender. The world you create on the page, whether your story is set in the "real" world or in a fantasy world of your creation, should be just as diverse as the world we live in.

4. Your story can show current events and issues in a fictional light. For example, if you want your story to say something about climate change and pollution, your can write a dystopian novel set in a world that has to face the dire results of society's lack of willingness to change how it consumes energy. Or your story can be set in an alternate world that deals with something that can be a metaphor for climate change in this one. Maybe you want to address the pollution of our oceans, so you create a character who lives in an underwater kingdom. 

5. The important thing about writing these kinds of messages into your stories is not to let the message take over the story. If your too focussed on getting your message across, you might let the rest of the story fail, and, in doing so, you ruin your chances to reach people with your message. You have to have an intriguing plot that draws your reader in and you have to have characters that your readers will feel for. If your characters are nothing but creatures put into the story to represent a type, then they won't be multi-faceted enough to draw your reader into their world. 

Write a good story. Use issues we face in today's world to enhance your story and make it stronger. Your readers won't even know you are sending them a message through your story, and THAT is how you influence people to change their thinking or to think about something more deeply than they had previously.

*****

Give-away

Today's give-away is Rory's Story Cubes. If you are a signed-up member of the challenge, all you have to do in order to enter to win these story cubes is leave a comment on this blog post. The winner will be selected by a random number generator on April 30th, 2015 at noon GMT and announced later that same day.

Writing Fight Scenes #BYBin30

image from Pinterest

Writing a convincing fight scene can be a struggle. Many writers have never been in a physical fight, or at least, have never been in one that would be riveting to onlookers. So how exactly is a writer supposed to write a fight scene that will not only convince the reader that a fight is occurring but that will also create the sense of suspense that is needed to make the scene really fascinating?

Here are a few tips to writing a gripping fight scene:

Don't describe every little detail. Let the reader fill in some of the blanks. Blow-by-blow description of the fight can become tedious. You want your reader to be enthralled with the fight so much that they picture it in their minds, and if you fill in too much of the detail, instead of visualizing the fight, they are more likely to become bored and skim over the blow-by-blow description of it. 

Your fight scene has to be believable. The fight has to appear to be a real fight. You don't want your reader to have to suspend disbelief too much to believe your fight scene is real. Your characters have their adrenalin surging through them, and certain actions, like too much talking, will not be likely to happen. Your readers will expect the fighters to become winded and be breathing heavily after a few minutes of battle, not to be feeling fresh as a daisy after fighting for twenty minutes straight.

Your fight scene should reveal something about the character. Is your main character weaker than his or her opponent? Stronger? Is he or she afraid? Is your main character willing to fight even when it looks like he or she is going to lose? Your fight scene can show other facets of your protagonist that might not be as easily demonstrated in any other type of scene.

The fight scene should advance the plot. What happens after the fight? Is your character changed in some way? Is he or she injured? Is your protagonist more determined to succeed against all odds or are they feeling less capable? Does the win or loss of the fight change the odds of succeeding in whatever quest the story involves? This fight scene should have some effect on how the plot moves along; otherwise, it's an unnecessary scene and should be cut in the edits.

Your fight scene should not be too easy for your protagonist. If your main character sails through the fight without much difficulty and without a scratch on him or her, then not only is the fight going to be less believable, but it serves no purpose within your plot. It won't reveal anything about your character and makes the overall conflict in the story less urgent.

The fight scene needs to be full of suspense. The outcome should not be a foregone conclusion. If your reader already knows who is going to win, the suspense is gone. You might think that it is not an easy task to create suspense when you write in a genre where the hero always wins, but, when properly done, a fight scene can make your reader forget that the hero is going to win. If the fight scene is not the final scene in your story or the deciding factor in the hero's overcoming the obstacle or challenge of the story, then he or she won't necessarily win every fight or every battle. And even if the fight scene is the one that starts the conclusion of the story, a good fight scene can make a reader wonder what the cost of winning will be for your hero.

Your fight scene needs to include emotion. Even the coldest of mercenaries will feel something when they fight. Don't forget to show us what your hero, and even the villain of the story, are feeling through their actions during the fight. Does the villain say something to anger the hero, causing a sudden burst of fury-led violence from the hero? Or does the villain start backing away when he begins to fear the outcome of the battle will not be in his favor? Clenched fists can be a sign of anger as well as preparation for a punch. Does your protagonist curl his or her lip in disgust at the antagonist? Make your readers feel the emotions emanating between your two characters as they face off against one another.

*****

Give-away

Today's prize is a copy of "Writing Fight Scenes" by Rain Hall. If you are a signed-up member of the challenge, all you need to do to be entered into the drawing to win this book is leave a comment on this blog post. Do you like writing fight scenes? Do any of your stories include fight scenes? The winner will be drawn by a random number generator on March 30th, at noon GMT and announced here later the same day.

Welcome to Blog Your Book in 30 Days 2015! #BYBin30

Welcome to the second Blog Your Book in 30 Days!

Feel free to use the above badge and add it to your blog. (Please link it back to here.)

Last year, I wrote a post a day on the subject of writing for you to read and learn from, and I gave away a prize a week. (I also blogged a 30-story collection of mermaid-themed flash and short fiction as well as editing a non-fiction book that I wrote in the previous February.) This year, I intend to let you read over previous posts, and I will post once or twice a week on the subject of writing. Feel free to read over last year's posts. If there are any topics in previous posts which you feel I should expand on (or a writing or publishing related topic you would like to see covered), please let me know and I will do so on a new post on the blog.

During this challenge, I will also be working on another fiction collection of short stories to go with a world I created for one of my novels. I will share the occasional excerpt here.

I'm also accepting guest posts. I want to hear about your work in progress. What are you working on this month? What is your plan for this month's challenge; how do you intend to complete the challenge? Have you written novels before? Are you published? Do you have any knowledge that might be helpful to others in the challenge? If you would like to guest post, please let me know in the comments. And if not, I'd still love to hear in the comments what type of book you will be working on this month. (There's a poll in the side-bar you can vote in too.)

I will post a bit about marketing your books as well, and how blogging your book can help with marketing before your book is even published.

Feel free to "like" the BYBin30 Facebook page and to join the BYBin30 Facebook group where we can discuss our books together.

If you want to accept the challenge, but, for whatever reason, don't want to make any part of your book public by blogging it, there are alternative ways to join in the challenge.

There is a sign-up form for the challenge, which is required for being eligible for the prizes. Don't worry. I won't use your sign-up to spam you or e-mail you any of the posts. It will just make it easier for me to contact you if you win a prize, and it helps me keep tabs on the number of official members.

Below are the links to last year's post. The topics include a variety of writing subjects for fiction writing, non-fiction writing and blogging. I hope you find them helpful.

Day 1: Planning and Plotting

Day 2: Research

Day 3: Hook your Readers in the First Chapter

Day 4: Conflict

Day 5: Supporting Topics/Supporting Characters

Day 6: How to Create Convincing Villains

Day 7: Becoming an Expert on your Book Topic

Day 8: Writing Memorable Dialogue

Day 9: An Alternate Method of the Hero's Journey

Day 10: Making your Blog Attractive to Readers

Day 11: Writing a Series Book

Day 12: Taking a Break from Writing to Refuel your Muse

Day 13: Creating Character Emotions

Day 14: Creating Fantasy Worlds and Creatures

Day 15: How to Avoid Writer's Block and Get your Story Written

Day 16: Writing the Middle of your Book

Day 17: Repurposing Old Blog Posts for your Book

Day 18: Changing Focus in the Middle of the Book; What Happens When Your Book Has to Be Altered Drastically?

Day 19: How to Successfully Weave Backstory into your Plot

Day 20: Be Cruel to your Protagonist

Day 21: The Value of your Book

Day 22: Using your Minor Characters to Fuel your Story

Day 23: Tips for Growing your Blog Readership

Day 24: Believe in your Ability to Write your Book

Day 25: Self-Editing your Manuscript

Day 26: Self-Publishing your Manuscript

Day 27: Humor in Writing

Day 28: Point of View

Day 29: Happily Ever After: Writing a Satisfying Story Ending

Day 30: Writing an Epilogue

Day Twenty-Seven: Humor in Writing #BYBin30

comic by Robert Fyfe

Humor adds an element to fiction that keeps readers engaged. It gives them a break in the drama or suspense. It can produce some memorable lines. It can help create more realistic and multi-dimensional characters. There are many reasons to use humor in your novel, but there are also many types of humor that can be used.

1. Sarcasm or wit - This form of humor is usually shown through word-play. Your characters can be sarcastic or witty through their dialogue with one another. Sarcasm is the use of irony to show contempt for something or someone. Wit is more about the intelligence and ability to think quickly when using sarcasm.

2. Dark  - This form of comedy covers jokes about the morbid, evil or depressing. If your character makes a joke about the form of his imminent death, that is an example of dark humor. Dark humor is comedy that makes light of dark situations or subject matter.

3. Satire - This form of comedy points out human flaws while also making fun of them. Although it is meant to be funny, it usually has an underlying point to make. It is used to make fun of or point out people's vices or stupidity.

4. Slap-stick - This is physical comedy. If you have a clumsy character, you might employ a lot of slap-stick comedy in your writing. "The Three Stooges" films were full of slap-stick humor. The physical actions in slap-stick humor have no boundaries or common sense. This humor is often physically violent.

5. Farce - This is an exaggerated form of comedy, where your characters get themselves into completely improbably situations. It often incorporates slap-stick elements, and often has absurd plot twists. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Dougless Adams is an example of farce comedy.

6. Parody - This form of comedy makes fun of other artistic pieces, either of previously written stories or of movies and shows. It tends to pretend to be those shows or stories while changing enough to make them utterly ridiculous. The relatively new influx of zombie stories based on literary classics, such as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by Quirk Classics is an example of parody.

One thing is certain, if your story make your readers laugh, they will remember it.

Day Twenty-Five: Self-Editing your Manuscript #BYBin30

While you have been writing this first draft of your manuscript, you should not be doing any editing. Think of your first draft as more of a really detailed outline. It will have some paragraphs, even whole scenes, that you will want to keep, but the rest of it will be the bones of your story, waiting for you to add the flesh and fill it out. It's your guide to the story you wanted to write. It's in the revising that you will add the polish and make your story shine.

As you near the completion of your novel, you might start thinking about editing your manuscript. Even if you plan on sending it off to a professional editor, you will want to have gone through and done as much editing as you are capable of first, so that the manuscript the editor receives from you will be the best you can make it without their help; then they can show you how to make it even stronger.

Here are some tips for editing your manuscript:

1. Instead of finishing your first draft and jumping straight into the editing, put your manuscript aside for a month or two. Taking a break from it will help you see it with fresh eyes when you begin the editing process.

2. Look for signs of narrative summary. This is when you tell the story to someone instead of showing them the story. It's like the difference between watching a movie about an event and having someone tell you about the event. When you are shown what is happening and shown the characters' emotions, you can picture it easily. When you are told about it, it loses some of its emotional impact. Long pieces of exposition are one of the signs to look for. Any time you do this, you risk losing your readers interest. When you have a scene that is a mixture of action and narrative summary, take away the narrative summary part of the scene; if the scene still works, then you didn't need the part that explained it all. Is there anywhere in your manuscript where you describe your characters' feelings? Try to show what they are feeling through their actions instead.

3. Remove the adverbs in your manuscript (words ending in -ly). Most of these are not as descriptive as they feel to you when you write them. For example, don't write that Jennifer "walked quietly;" say that she "tiptoed." find those unnecessary adverbs in your manuscript and get rid of them.

4. Check your point of view and make sure it is consistent throughout the manuscript. If you constantly switch from first person to third person, this will confuse your readers and weaken your manuscript considerably.

5. Get rid of redundancies. You will find as you re-read your manuscript that there are places where you have said the same thing more than once, just in two different ways. This is redundant and will slow the story's pace. Likewise, if you overuse the same word, it can become jarring to your reader. And some common phrases are redundant too. Phrases such as "exact same" and "brand new" are redundant. We use them in speech to create emphasis, but in writing, it is nothing more than an unnecessary redundancy.

6. Get rid of uses of the words "in order to," "start to, "very," "really" and "that." "She took the dog for a walk in order to get some exercise," could be more aptly written, "She took the dog for a walk to get some exercise." "She started to walk," could just be, "she walked." "It was the dog that Jenny loved," could just be, "It was the dog Jenny loved." Someone might find it "very difficult," but it's more powerful for them to just find it "difficult."

7. Check for sentences that begin with "there are," there is," or "there was" and remove them. Use more active phrasing. Starting sentences this way gives you a passive voice and weakens your manuscript.

8. Check for inconsistencies in your plot structure. If your character Jenny had blue eyes in the beginning, but they are green later on, that's an inconsistency. If you your characters find a magical talisman, but it never again makes an appearance, is used in the story or seems to have any bearing on any part of the story, that's an inconsistency (unless you are writing a series or trilogy and the talisman will show up in a later book). If you foreshadow something to happen later in the book but then change your mind while writing the book, so that the foreshadowed event never takes place, that's an inconsistency and you will need to go back and change every instance of foreshadowing.

9. Check for instances where you have used words with "-ing" endings and remove them if they are unnecessary (and they usually will be). For example, instead of writing, "she was dancing," write, "she danced."

10. Remove any extraneous commas.don't use commas everywhere you pause when you speak. Commas have specific uses. Brush up on the correct way to use them and then check that you have followed the rules in your manuscript.

Day Twenty-Two: Using your Minor Characters to Fuel Your Story #BYBin3

In fiction writing, your story will have all sorts of characters: antagonist, protagonists, supporting characters and minor characters. The minor characters in your story can be immensely helpful to the development of your story.

Minor characters can help to show the reader your main character. Just as with supporting characters, you can show your reader your main character through your minor character's eyes, both their appearance and parts of their personality. A minor character might be helplessly in love with your main character or jealous of the main character's beauty. A minor character might be annoyed with the way the main character bosses him around. There are a myriad of ways that your minor characters can show your readers details about the main character.

In rare circumstances and only under certain conditions, you can even show your readers how others view your main character even if it's not an accurate view. For example, your main character might be accused of a murder he didn't commit and which the people in his town believe he is guilty of committing. In this instance, you can help show this through the eyes of one of his friends, a friend who isn't sure whether to believe in his guilt or innocence due to his own internal conflict between the damning evidence and his loyalty to the main character. In this situation, you can help show exactly how intense of a situation your main character is having to confront.

Minor characters can move the plot forward or create twists and turns within the plot. A minor character might decide to confront the antagonist on his own, because he has his own reason for hating the antagonist. This can result in his death, which could be another moment leading to the main character's negative view of the antagonist, or it could result in his capture, which will up the stakes for the main character. He might even win the battle, but at such a huge cost that the main character is faced with something even worse. Additionally, your minor character can make seemingly small decisions which can affect the main character or the main character's choices.

Minor characters need to be fully realized people, complete with flaws, idiosyncrasies and their own desires and hopes. Create a minor character to be a normal and imperfect human. Minor characters can sometimes take on very large roles within your story, so give them the same care and attention that you provide for your main character. And be prepared for them to try and take over the story, because they have been known to do that. Many stories have been written with main characters who once started out as minor characters.

*****

Give-away!

This week's give-away is a Write About Life Tile Coaster. The winner will be chosen from the active participants of the challenge. Must be a signed-up member to qualify. The winner wil be chosen by a random number generator on April 28th, 2014 at noon GMT. (Winner may choose alternate colors of this item, including a version with photographic background.)

Day Eighteen: Changing Focus in the Middle of the Book: What Happens When your Book Has to Be Altered Drastically? #BYBin30

Unfortunately, writing a book is not always a smooth process. There are times when, after writing many thousands of words, an author realizes that there book is not going in the right direction or an author decides that his book needs a different focus. This can happen to both fiction writers and non-fiction writers equally.

When you are writing a non-fiction book, the first thing to consider when deciding whether or not you need to change its direction or focus is where your knowledge and current writing has taken the book. If what you have already written is leaning towards the change in focus, then the change will be much easier to implement.

The second thing to consider is what your readers, those who follow your blog and those who are your target audience will be most interested in reading; is it the original content you planned for your book, or will the new direction you are feeling compelled to move in be more suitable to your readers' interests.

Another detail to take into consideration is that changing focus can mean having to do a substantial amount of new research to cover the new focus for your book. Will some of the research you have already done help you in your new direction? If so, this will help to mitigate some of the amount of new research you will need to do.

Once you have completed any new research necessary for your book's new focus, there are a couple more steps to take. First, you need to read through the information you have already written and salvage the writing that will still be useful in your book despite the direction-change. Then you need to go back through all of the selected previously-written prose and make notations where changes need to be made in order to fit it in with the new version of your book.

When you are writing a fiction novel, you might also find it necessary to change the direction you book is taking the reader. Maybe you've come up with a different, but more suitable ending, or maybe you are finding, through the process of writing your story, that one of your secondary characters is taking on a stronger roll than your main protagonist and you have decided that your secondary character needs to become the main protagonist. For whatever reason, if you are going to change the direction of your story, you need to go back and make some changes within the writing you have already completed.

If you are making a secondary character the main focus, you need to read through your book and find the scenes where you have favored the protagonist over the secondary character. If your protagonist is now going to be a secondary character, you might be able to leave some of these scenes in the story, but more of them need to have their focus shifted to the new main character.

In whatever change you are approaching for your story, there will be newly created plot holes due to the change. You will need to go back, find them and fill them in. If your ending is changing, then you need to go find any foreshadowing added in the previous writing and alter it to suit the new ending. If you are changing a main character with a secondary character, then you need to go and fix some of the interactions between both of those characters with each other and with others to suit the new story. If you are changing the point of view of the story, for example switching from 3rd person omniscient point of view to first person, then you need to make sure that there is no over sharing (through the previous omniscient view point) and add in some of your character's personal views and thoughts, while also making sure that "he" or "she" and "her" or him" in reference to your character are changed with "I" and "me," and so on.

It can be a lot of work and can significantly increase your work load when it comes to finishing your story, but, most of the time, when a writer is pulled to make these changes, it is because the changes will strengthen the story. One thing many authors do when making these kinds of changes is to keep a copy of the previous story version, just in case.

Day Eight: Writing memorable dialogue #BYBin30

Every fiction novel needs to have well written dialogue. If your dialogue is stilted or forced, it won't help move your story along, and it can even turn away your readers.

Some things to avoid doing when writing dialogue:

1. Telling instead of showing. The dialogue will have a part in your story, but it shouldn't be the whole story. Your characters should also show the message they are imparting through body language and more subtle means.

2. Providing too much information at once. Using dialogue for large chunks of exposition sounds forced. Don't try to skip over a crucial element of the story by having a character explain it all. That's lazy writing and will not engage your reader.

3. Don't use superfluous adverbs. For example, '"I won't do it," Jessica shouted angrily.' Look for those words ending in "-ly" and get rid of them.

4. Using too many dialogue tags. The only tags you should ever need to use are "said," "asked" and maybe, once in a while, "answered" or "replied." Many children are taught to use as many different dialogue tags as they can think up, but this is because it helps them to learn vocabulary; it's not the correct way to write dialogue in a story.

5. Using your characters names too often during dialogue. In most instances, you should have already made it clear who is speaking. And in realistic speech, most of the time people don't say each other's names while speaking to them. Your characters do not need to address each other by name, unless, for example, there is a specific incidence where someone is giving individual directions to a group of people.

Some things that are okay to do while writing dialogue:

1. Use silence instead of words. Sometimes what your character is not saying is as powerful and meaningful as what they are saying. For example, if one character asks another character who is at fault for some mistake that has occurred, the character's silence instead of answering speaks volumes.

2. Use different speech patterns for different characters. A teenager living on the streets is going to sound different from an elderly grandmother enjoying a cup of tea while sitting on her porch. However, you need to be careful not to over-do the differences. Try not to have every character sound like you. Re-read what you've written, and if the speech patterns sound forced or unnatural for your character, then you know you need to rewrite it.

3. Use actions of your characters to punctuate their dialogue. This is a way to bring the scene into the dialogue and also a way to show the story rather than tell the story. For example, if your character is pacing, this shows some tension or worry behind their words, which might not be as easily conveyed through words alone.

4. Skip some of the more mundane dialogue. You can skip your characters saying "hello" and "goodbye" to everyone in the room. A neat trick for this is to skip the beginning of the conversation and the very end and just write the meat of the dialogue, the middle.

5. Break up the dialogue. Large chunks of dialogue can be too wordy and tend to lack some of the emotion that can be shown through your characters actions. A great way to show emotion in dialogue is for your character to have stumbles and restarts, maybe even some fumbling of his or her words.

An important step to take when writing dialogue:

Read the dialogue you have written out loud. This is the easiest way to see where the dialogue is not working.

***** 

This week, the prize that will be drawn from the signed-up Blog Your Book in 30 Days members who are actively participating is a Novel Under Construction mug. The drawing will be done by a random number generator on April 14th at noon and will be announced at the end of that day's blog post.

Day Six: How to Create Convincing Villains #BYBin30

art by Robert Fyfe

The topic of creating convincing villains is only pertinent for fiction novels. In the next chapter, we will cover the non-fiction topic of becoming an expert in your subject.

Villains are the characters in your book that your readers love to hate. Your antagonist stands between your protagonost and what they want. Villains can be the main opposition to your protagonist or they can also be a supporting character who causes extra conflict and difficulties for your main character.

Some stories have villains that are simply one dimensional with no redeeming qualities. For example, in the Harry Potter series, Voldemort's only positive trait is his intelligence, and even that he uses for malevolent purposes. He has no remorse for his actions, no love for any of his fellow wizards or for humans and, even his followers are not safe from him. There is nothing redeeming about him, and readers of Harry Potter love to hate him. He is a great foil for Harry Potter.

But your villain can't be one dimensional. To the reader, your villain has to be real, and real people or creatures have a past, even if it's not discussed within the confines of the book. They have reasons for being the way that they are. Voldemort has an innate hatred for humans, and, as he calls them, muggles. Perhaps this is caused by his upbringing in an orphanage or perhaps, he was just born bad. The reader is shown glimpses of his years as a student at Hogwarts, showing that he was scheming and had bad intentions from very early on.

In contrast, the character of Snape in Harry Potter is a different type of villain, one who becomes redeemed by the end of the series. This is an example of another type of villain in a story; some stories have villains who have redeeming qualities but choose to act against them. Snape is an exception in that, despite his antagonistic behavior towards the main character, he is actually acting to keep Harry Potter safe. His main redeeming quality is his love for Harry Potter's mother and his loyalty to that love.

A better example of a villain with redeeming qualities would be Loki in Marvel's Thor and Avengers movies. He starts out as a younger brother who fights by his older brother's side. It becomes clear, as the story goes on, that he is jealous of his brother, and, there are instances where the viewer gets to see, in the midst of his villainous actions, that he is really acting out in a desperate attempt to gain his parents' approval and love. The love they show him isn't enough, because he has always felt that they loved his brother more. He's a rebellious child, but he still has redeemable qualities that make the viewer wonder if he can ever be redeemed. In fact, at one point, he helps his brother Thor save the woman he loves, but he then uses his assistance as a way to escape and the viewer is left, again, wondering which side Loki will fall on years down the road, and if future experiences of his will change him for the better or for the worse.

A villain with redeeming qualities always leaves the question in the reader's mind of whether or not he will be redeemed. It leaves the reader with just enough hope to wonder, but not enough to ever root for him over the protagonist.

Day Four: Conflict #BYBin30

It might seem strange to refer to conflict for non-fiction books, but I think of it more as introducing the reason for your readers to want to learn whatever it is your book has to teach them. For example, I recently discovered a YouTube video for mermaid lovers who want to swim like mermaids. The video explained what the conflict was: Buying professionally created mermaid tails is very expensive and many people can't afford them. And it presented itself, a video on how to make your own mermaid tail inexpensively, as the solution. In a travel guide, the conflict is that you want to travel but don't know which hotels are the best or which sights there are to see in the place you want to visit. The travel guide itself is the solution to the conflict.

In non-fiction books, the conflict is implied rather than written into the book. The book itself is the solution to the conflict. If you want to learn more about Christopher Columbus, you find the solution - a biography about him. If you want to grow your own garden but don't have a lot of garden space, you might find that a book about container gardening will give you the answers you need. If you want to sell your own house, you can easily find a book on the subject which will help you learn what you need to know.

Fiction novels have a deeper dependency on conflict within the story. Without conflict in a fictional story, you won't have much of a story. Conflict is the driving force in the story. The conflict that your character faces drives his or her actions. The goal of the story is for your protagonist to overcome the conflict. There can be other conflicts in the story which help to fuel the main conflict, such as your character having an argument with the one person who holds the answer to something your protagonist needs to know or your protagonist and his or her charming secondary character/sidekick getting separated and needing to find each other again before they can, together, defeat, whatever it is that's causing the original problem.

If done correctly, the journey to overcome the conflict your protagonist faces, should, in some way, change your protagonist. He or she should grow as a result of defeating the obstacles along the way. Every decision your protagonist makes and every event that occurs as a result of those decisions should help shape your protagonists later decisions.

There are four main types of conflict in stories: man verses man - you have a protagonist and an antagonist pitted against each other, man verses self - where the biggest challenge for the protagonist is to overcome his or her own shortcomings, man verses nature - where man must overcome the forces of nature or creatures within nature to survive, and man verses society - where man must overcome the restrictions of society in order to succeed. These can sometimes overlap in stories. Others have suggested that there are more types of conflict for modern stories, such as man verses fate, man verses the supernatural and man verses technology, but, again, many of these types of conflict will overlap within stories.

If you are writing a non-fiction book, ask yourself; what is the implied conflict for which my book is the solution?

If you are writing a fiction novel, ask yourself these questions:

What does my protagonist want?

What obstacles or problems is my protagonist facing?

How will my protagonist need to change, or what will he or she need to do differently, in order to overcome the obstacles or problems being faced?

Day Three: Hook your readers in the first chapter #BYBin30

The first chapter is important in a non-fiction book but it is crucial to the success or failure of a fiction novel.

In a non-fiction book, your readers need to establish that are getting value from reading your book. If the first chapter doesn't teach them anything or clarify anything for them, then they will not bother reading the rest of the book. They have bought your book because it is about something they are interested in or because they want to learn something from it. You have to show them, within that first chapter, that they did not make a mistake in buying your book. Give them what they want. Don't wait until later in the book, because if the first chapter doesn't do anything for them, they probably aren't going to get to "later" in the book.

In a fiction novel, your first chapter has to hook them. There are several things that you need to do in the first chapter, and these things need to be done in such a way that your reader doesn't even realize you have done it; they will just continue reading because they are hooked.

1. Start in the middle of the action. This doesn't have to establish your main conflict for the story, but some action should be happening as the reader gets introduced to the story and the characters. This establishes a sense of urgency and keeps the reader reading further.

2. You need to establish who your main character is. Male or female? How old? What do they look like? Do NOT have them looking into a mirror and cataloguing their appearance. A description of the main character needs to be much more subtle than that.

3. You need to establish a reason for the reader to empathize with your main character. What is it about the main character that a reader can relate to? What is it about your main character that is likeable? Why is the reader going to want to root for the main character? Some books have successfully introduced anti-heroes, or protagonists that do not have overly redeeming qualities. Usually, the only way this works is if the antagonist is even worse than the protagonist, and if the hero has at least one redeeming quality. For example, when an assassin refuses to kill children and then spends the rest of the story trying to save a child who is on a "hit list" from another assassin who doesn't have the same aversion to killing children. (This story-line has been done before, many times, but, here, I am only using it as an example of an anti-hero.)

4. Present the conflict of the story. It doesn't need to happen in the first chapter, but there should at least be some foreshadowing of what it is going to be or that a conflict is coming. This gets your reader anticipating more of the story.

5. Establish the setting for your story. The reader doesn't need to know every detail about the place they find your characters in this opening chapter, but there should be some indication of where they are. Is it set in a different world? An alternate dimension? Are they in a building or a house, or are they outside? What time period is it? Establishing these things can be done in a variety of ways. For example, the way your characters are dressed, how they talk, their surroundings and how they interact with those surroundings and the technology that is around or not around are all some ways to establish the setting.

Alternate plan for traditional publishing #BYBin30

A few people have brought up the point that, if they choose to go the traditional route to publishing, having their entire book published on their blog may very well work against them in getting a book contract.

There are some optional ways of following this challenge, in those instances.

1. Write your one chapter every day, but only post on your blog about the writing, such as how much you wrote, what part of the story you were working on, what was easy about it, what was difficult about it, whether it stayed on plan or strayed from the original plot idea, etc.

2. Write your one chapter every day, but only post a small (one paragraph) excerpt from that day's writing as your blog post for the day.

3. Blog your book as per the original plan, but leave out important chapters, which will only be seen in the finished product. (This is a good idea even for those who plan on self-publishing.)

4. Don't blog your book at all, but use this challenge as the impetus to write a chapter a day anyway.

5. Blog about subjects related to your book or about topics your readers will enjoy reading about. (This is a great marketing technique.)

6. Do a 30 day promotional blogging adventure, with prizes and give-aways. Have your readers answer questions to previous books you've written in order to win prizes. Let them give you input on where they see you next book going or who their favorite characters are in your stories. There are many ways to make this month-long writing challenge a great marketing strategy for your book before it even becomes available.

I'm sure there are other ways to go about this and still be part of the Blog Your Book in 30 Days challenge, but these are a few ideas for you to consider.

Don't forget to follow the Blog Your Book in 30 Days Facebook page. (If enough people join the challenge, we'll create a Facebook group for discussing our books.)