Monthly Archive: August 2014
Writing is related to a bushel of juicy, ripe lemons. After you receive them, you must decide what to do with them: draw them, wash your hair with their juices, dry the skins for potpourri, make lemonade or unfortunately, let them rot. It takes bushels of time to get my manuscript, When the Music Stops, ready for formal editing. I open the file, work my way through each chapter then give myself a quick pat on the back as I turn off the computer, but not my brain thinking about the story. I’m hoping I’ve used their succulent juices and...
Right now I’m close finishing When the Music Stops, book two in my ballet trilogy. It’s funny; the closer I get to finishing the more questions I find I need to resolve. I question my tension and my problems strewn across their lives. Since my characters become as real as my friends, I know their strengths and weaknesses, their hot buttons and their fears. Often I become overprotective of their “lives”, unwilling to let harm approach them. I always hope I have provided the promise of a good story but fear I may have fallen short. It’s a writer’s curse....
Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks contains everything from planning to completion of a novel. Her advice works well for other genre books as well as YA. Here are a few of her suggestions about dialogue. 1. Hedge real topics in favor of direct references. 2. Use incomplete sentences; that’s the way we often speak. 3. Interrupt speakers, like we do when we’re excited and talking with a friend. 4. Don’t repeat character names; find another way help us keep characters separate. 5. Use body language and tags that reinforce the character’s uniqueness. 6. Make every bit...
Authors strive to put tension on every page. Can you feel it? Don’t always expect gut-wrenching tension. Certainly we put in some of that even in ballet stories. Instead look for the little moments where a character paces, stresses or pouts. You’ll also see it when unexpected mail arrives, someone doubts a character’s motive or when the car won’t start on the first try. The question is why do author’s place little moments like that in stories? The answer: would you keep reading if nothing exciting occurred? Probably not. And, if you think about it, your life is filled with...
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