Planning a Story
ONE WAY TO PLAN YOUR STORY There are lots of ways to plan a story but this one is an easy way to step into your ideas. Hope it works for you as well as it works for me.
Category: writing process
A Writing Obstacle Course: Race to the End
Writing a story is a lot like running an obstacle course. It can’t be a straight line. To hold the attention and interest of readers it needs obstacles and problems to be dealt with along the way. Those problems need to build, creating an escalating reasons for a reader to finish the story/book. Recently I spoke with a person who read my novel,Tasman-An Innocent Convict’s Struggle for Freedom, in one sitting. She said she got so engaged that she couldn’t stop until she discovered Ean’s fate. Her comments had me floating for days. It verified that I’d created an obstacle...
Powerful Vowels
SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) has a wonderful writer’s retreat each year. One year Darcy Pattison presented a discussion on the power of words, especially the energy of vowels. As readers and writers her ideas will shed light on how authors heighten energy in their stories. Here are a few details that may inspire you to occasionally stop and re-read for a different purpose. **High energy vowels include long e (tree), short i (sit) and long a (say). Compare these two sentences. Decide which provides more energy into the writing. The autumn I was seventeen, the nightmare...
Facts in Fiction
Grounding fiction with pertinent facts makes the story more beievable. To that end a writer needs to select facts that feel like they belong in the story. There must be a reason for their inclusion, a purpose that moves the story along. Examples: In the ballet trilogy (84 Ribbons, When the Music Stops: Dance On, and Letters to Follow: A Dancer’s Adventure) I used facts: real streets in real towns, real layouts of homes, real ballet music, and real scenery you’d see if you visited the places I had Marta and Lynne visited. I especially enjoyed my visits to The...
Tools for (Personal) and other Writing
Whether you’re writing letters to friends, creating a remembrance book, or writing a longer work, you need certain tools nearby to enable your process. Consider these ideas: 1.Start with a notebook and pen or pencil. Handwritten ideas come from a different place in the brain than ideas composed on a computer. Consider writing your thoughts long-hand first. Then transpose them onto the card, journal. or computer for your finished piece. I think you’ll find the exercise enlightening. 2. Gather your resources: a thesaurus, dictionary and one of my favorites, The Synonym Dictionary by J.I Rodale (Rodale Press). That way you...
Writing Warm-up Ideas
Like sports, it’s a good idea to warm-up before you begin writing. Here are a few 5-minute suggestions to use to wake up your writing brain. 1. Scribble. Write nonsense ‘words’ to free your mind of thoughts. 2. Write all the words you can think of that begin with “a”. Another time try other letters of the alphabet as well. 3. Think of a favorite character to describe without using color words. 4. Describe: your work space the weather outside a favorite food your best friend a childhood pet the best meal you ever ate a tearful experience a stranger...
Unusual Book Styles
You may read a lot and have found many of these unusual ways authors share their stories. If not, be aware that all books are not straight forward. Here are a few tricks that may entice you or, if you are unaware of what is being done, these methods may cause you to close the books or even toss them across the room in mild anger. ** Books with no paragraph separation ** Entire books in poetic form (E Hopkins) ** Books with excessive punctuation (E.E.Cummings) ** Books without quotation marks to alert you to who is speaking (C. McCarthy)...
Writers VS Editors ? I Think Not!
Authors may feel the relationship between themselves and their editors are contentious times. I’ve had only great experiences so far. For me, the time I spend with my editors is invigorating. We share our concerns about my work: word choices, punctuation errors, pacing on the page as well as whether a sentence or paragraph progresses the story. We discuss my ‘why’ verses their ‘concern’. Often I concede that what I meant and what I wrote are not in harmony. Then we work through the section, make adjustments to help the reader understand my meaning, and move on. In the process...
INspiration
Where do you go to get inspired? the beach, a park, a movie? Or, are you the type that of person to find your inspiration in talking with people, joining a club or maybe the solitude of a day alone with a good book. Does sampling a variety of wines or berries or vegetables inspires you? How about the touch of a luscious fabric? Regardless of where you find inspiration, a writer often uses what they see, smell, hear, taste and touch to make a story sparkle. They take the inspiration IN, mush it around a bit and voila! It...
After the Music Stops, What Do you Do?
[Now that When the Music Stops-Dance On is available in bookstores everywhere (hooray!!!), I thought you’d enjoy reading a typical press release.] Edmonds, WA – September— How does a dancer who’s spent her entire young life training to dance and perform, step away from the choreography, the costumes, the music, and the bright lights? Award-winning author Paddy Eger says, “Most dancers do not make that transition easily. Marta Selbryth is no exception.” In When the Music Stops— Dance On, book two of her YA trilogy, Eger addresses Marta’s roller coaster of emotions as her career faces steep challenges. “Her life...