Booklist
In our writing TBR pile:
How to write a Damn Good Thriller (Status: Reading)
Creating Characters (Status: TBR)
Creating Characters: How to Build Story People (Status: TBR)
Author Offerings
Three women haunted by horrors from their pasts. Four men who want to show them there's Nothing to Fear by Lacey Savage
Dragon Slayer now available at Noble Romance Publishing
About Us
Award winning author Lacey Savage (AKA Hunter Raines) pens erotic tales of true love and mythical destiny, peopled with strong alpha heroes and feisty heroines.
Fiona Jayde is an author of kickass, action packed romances and when not plotting murder and mayhem enjoys steamy romance novels, sexy spy thrillers, murky mysteries and movies where things blow up.
We love to talk about writing! Here, we share the "nuggets" we've culled from our huge collections of writing books, and chat about what makes us want to roll our eyes or raise our eyebrows.
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Posts Tagged ‘Fiction’
I’ve been plugging along happily at my WIP, getting massive word counts and generally patting myself on the back. Oh, it’s not that the book is perfect. Far from it. In fact, I know it’s going to take a significant amount of work during the revision stage to get it into shape. But I’ve been choosing to ignore that in favor of getting a rough story down on paper.
You see, I don’t plot my books out ahead of time. I like to discover the story as I write, and let the characters tell me what needs to happen next. The problem with this technique is that sometimes, the characters stop speaking altogether. Mine were joyfully humming in my ear… until about 10 pages from the end of the book. I have one scene left to write, one scene in which to wrap up the story. And I have no idea what’s supposed to happen in this scene.
That’s a major problem. I can’t turn in a book with no ending to my editor. But no matter how long I stare at the monitor, or how often I tap my fingers on the keyboard, I still have no idea what’ll happen in that last scene. A major character has a choice to make. He can either say yes, or no, and that will affect the outcome of the story. Both choices are valid. He could go either way. And I have no idea which option he’s going to choose.
Frustrated, I turned to an online class I took in 2009. Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways is a fabulous intensive workshop. I’ve gotten a lot out of it, even though I don’t follow the step-by-step plotting process Holly recommends. I remembered that Holly has quite a few chapters dedicated to writing endings, so I thought I’d have a look through some of my printouts to see if anything there might help. And then I came across a brilliant technique.
Holly calls it the “Skip the First Draft Ending“. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. You call your draft “done” without having written an ending. Holly says:
“You are not lying, you are not deluding yourself, and you will be okay. You have finished the first draft of your book.”
Of course, she’s not recommending submitting the story in its current state — far from it! But Holly assures me that after a thorough revision process (which can sometimes take me longer than writing the book itself), I’ll have found the perfect ending for my book.
This feels right to me. I’m going to type “A Clever Ending Goes Here” at the bottom of the last existing page of my manuscript. Then I’ll take a day off, let the story breathe, and I’ll return to the revision process confident that there is a great ending for me out there, and that I’m going to find it.
Wish me luck.
I admit it… I picked up Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us: A (Sort Of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing is Being Rejected, by Jessica Page Morrell, based on its awesome title and its clever cover. In case you can’t see it in the image, the cover looks like the first page of a manuscript, complete with coffee ring stain and corrected formatting errors.
The author is a freelance editor who specializes in helping authors polish their fiction and memoirs to perfection. She’s read every possible mistake an author can write, and in penning this book, she’s hoping she can help other writers avoid the most obvious of mistakes (and make her job easier, no doubt).
Although there was nothing earth-shattering here for a published author, it’s a wonderful reference guide for new writers. Here are some of my favorite quotes, so you can see what I mean:
Scenes expose your characters at their most vulnerable and often portray life-changing moments. (pg. 208)
Sometimes you might not fully understand what a scene’s “job” is in the story until you actually write it. Then you can edit and trim anything that confuses the reader and add elements to highlight that scene’s particular role in enhancing the whole story. (pg. 209)
The writer’s main responsibilities are to write a thick, juicy steak of a story, and make readers care, that is, bring us to tears or outrage or heart-thumping worry. (pg. 229)
If you’re writing fiction, be patient with the process. As in real life, it takes time to get to know a person and understand his emotional core. (pg.248)
Research is the most overlooked facet of writing a successful manuscript. Solid research creates genuine description and a credible story situation. (pg. 294)
What do you think of those quotes? Did any of them resonate with you?
It’s my father’s birthday today, and in between cooking a fabulous birthday meal, I finished reading BY CUNNING AND CRAFT, by Peter Selgin.
I never read anything without a highlighter by my side, so I thought I’d post a few of the items that struck me, in the hopes that they’ll help you, too. I wholeheartedly recommend getting the book, by the way. It’s a quick read, filled with a lot of insightful tips. What I liked the most was the fact that the author is known for his short stories, and so he focused on that aspect of the craft. I love writing short, but so often books on writing are about the novel, because let’s face it, the novel is still considered the end-all-and-be-all of literary works.
Ask yourself, What does the character want? and then How far is she willing to go to get it? If the answer to the latter question is, Not very far, then at least you know why you’re having trouble writing active scenes: A character who doesn’t want anything, or doesn’t want it badly enough, is not going to act. Give her the necessary motivation, situate her such that she doesn’t simply want the thing in question, but needs it to survive physically or emotionally, and your character will do things to show us, vividly, who she is. (pg.33)
Unless it really tells us something about the character, don’t record banal gestures. “She took a breath and exhaled,” tells me nothing about a character other than her respiratory system is functioning. Because they serve no purpose, such stage directions are intrusive. (pg.108)
Research just enough to feel competent at discussing your subject. You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to discuss brain surgery, only to sound like a brain surgeon. (pg.120)
We fiction writers don’t always know what we’re doing. Until we’re done we never have the whole picture, only parts of it. (pg.182)
Often our working titles supply us with our stories’ themes or make it clear that we don’t yet know what they are. (Which is why you should title your stories provisionally, even in the earliest stages of writing, since the effort will help you locate the story’s center.) (pg.188)
What do you think of these quotes? Did anything resonate with you? Anything you don’t agree with? Drop me a line in the comments, and let’s discuss!
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