I’ll be blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking daily again, now that I’m digging myself out of drafting a new book and catching a flight for the Romance Writers National Conference in NYC! Catch me if you can ;o)
Also, check out my RWA Con Today e-newsletter each morning, to stay in touch with what everyone at #rwa11 is doing all week. It’s shaping up to be an amazing, busy adventure for everyone!
How We Write’s focus turns to backstory this Wednesday. Jenn and I have talked planning and plotting and revising and characters and story structure. But what about working what happens BEFORE, into your story’s now? That can sometimes be as much work as all the rest–combined.
You may have noticed my blog’s slowed down the last few weeks. Why? I’m heads down into the most complicated proposal I’ve written yet (and that’s saying something considering I just finished Sara and Maddie Temple’s story), and I’m trying to sort through everything I’ve been researching and planning for the next three books in the Legacy series and start the story, set the story, yet propel the characters through the first three chapters of the story without dampening the kick-ass pacing of the psychic thriller/magical realism my readers have come to crave.
I teach “free writing” to my students. To write to the end before you go back and revise. But I always qualify that I first get through the proposal stage. The initial 50 – 75 pages. The three chapters my agent needs (along with the BEST synopsis of the full story or series I can write) to sell my books to my publishers. Those first three chapters are an art form, a story, all to themselves. They need to establish your story not just for a reader, but for the editor you want to buy your manuscript.
You’ve heard me say it before–how you handle the inciting incident has plot and character ripples that flow through the middle and most importantly the dark moment and climax of your story. But it’s not just that. Weaving in the backstory of your story, intriguing the reader without revealing too much, all while you’re being sure to tell them enough at the exact moments they need to know… The finesse and delicacy in which you do this is part of your voice. And it has to change in subtle ways with each story. You can never be too careful or creative about how you handle it. You can’t just dump in the “goodies,” then get back to the creative work of telling your story. Some of the most creative writing you do comes when you craft the past into your on-the-page world.
Theres’ no quick and easy way to describe how to handle the “no dumpage” mandate for backstory, or how to work around the “show don’t tell” rule we’ve all had beaten into us. What a surprise!
There are no simple rules for backstory, any more than there are for anything else. If you don’t give enough in the right places, you frustrate and lose your reader. If you throw to much at the story when it’s not needed in ways that don’t fit your characters and world, your pacing crawls to a painful halt. (more…)
Dark Legacy’s a Nook Unbound Blog FREE Giveaway all day today.
Jeremy Cesarec says, “Fans of the blockbuster film Inception will love this week’s Free Fridays selection: Dark Legacy… DeStefano’s novel is an insightful psychological thriller of the first order.”
Secret Legacy’s still a $2.99 download on Kindle and other platforms.
It’s been a busy week, keeping me away from blogging while I mascarade as Super Mom AND write the first few chapters of Haunted Legacy, continuing my psychic fantasy series into the world of a new family of three gifted siblings with all new latent powers everyone’s hunting for their own purposes. Look for an excerpt soon!
Enjoy Freebie Friday!
By popular request, we’re capping off my discussion last week about narrative structure and arching character through a novel, with Jenni’s workshop on upping the external and internal stakes of a novel. Check her out. She’s fabulouse when she teaches this.
Remember, it’s all about character. And story. It’s about both. Because they’re the same thing in the end. When I focus too much on one, I know to take the other deeper. When one hits the wall of writer’s block, the other is somewhere screaming for attention that I haven’t given it.
That’s how we write?
What’s your process for discovering where your reader will go when he dives into your novel? Do you know? More importantly, have you put much thought into how you’re going to take your way and make it better, with each character and each plot and each book…
Next week, come back here for the exciting roll out of our HoWW “guest blog” schedule. You’re gonna love the authors who’ve signed up to come out and play over the summer–Phase 3 in our plan to get writers talking about about their craft and their journeys, so we can support each other without the hype and the promotion and the competition you find all over social media.
Phase 2, you ask? Check out our #weWRITE Twitter tag, where we continue the conversation every day!
My teenager doesn’t know, until I tell him, that he’s sitting behind the wheel of the car I drove while I was pregnant with him.
“This was your mom car?” he asks.
“My mini van.”
How could I know back then that I’d never trade up for a bigger vehicle? That no matter how hard we tried, there would never be a need to give up this beautiful thing with a sports car’s engine and sleek lines and roomy interior and leather seats, for something more practical and less appealing to the eye.
Yes, this car that protected and helped raise my baby has become my baby, too.
Just as we’ve taken care of “Bessie” (her name, because she’s been paid for for over a decade and was designed to never let us down)–to the point that mechanics who work on her try to make deals with us every time we take her in, because they want to buy and keep her for themselves–we’ve nurtured him, so we could reach this amazing moment and beyond.
“Stop pressing the invisible break, Mom.” He’s laughing at how tense I am as he prepares to take another lap around the neighborhood. “I’m not going to wreck the car.”
No matter how hard I try to relax, I can’t. But the need to hold on and slow things down isn’t about approaching stop signs and driving past the countless cars parked at the curb. Or the blind, uphill turns that oncoming traffic flocks to most while my boy drives by, slowly, but not as slowly as yesterday, because he’s getting the hang of this so quickly. Too quickly.
He doesn’t know that my fraying nerves have nothing to do with worrying about something happening to my precious Bessie.
Well, almost nothing.
Yes, this driving practice thing is hard for every parent.
But the panic I feel when he veers too close to mailboxes or speeds up when some well-intentioned but harried driver rides his bumper… None of it is invisible-break worthy.
Not even close.
He doesn’t know that I’m remembering the long drive in this car to the hospital, me in the passenger seat then, too, when I was in labor. Bringing him home three days later, the car seat was installed for the first time with him carefully strapped inside, and a new life was pushing us into an adventure we couldn’t fathom. The picture of a stork holding a baby in a blue blanket was waiting for us that day, staked into the front lawn right by where I park at the curb now, so he doesn’t have to pull out of the driveway yet. (more…)
Water is poetry for me. It’s breathing. Thriving. Living. It’s escape and coming home and coming back. It’s today and yesterday and tomorrow. It’s dreaming.
Come to Hemlock Falls with my husband and me. This last May. Spring thaw. Never made it to the higher falls. Mudslides everywhere. Never quite there. Never want to be.
You’ll see.
********
Sun peaking. A halo. A path. You’re here.
Water teasing. A taste. A promise. Stay here.
Impossible winking. A want. A need. Know here. (more…)
I asked the #weWRITE faithful on Twitter what terms and trending craft topics did they want us to explain in more detail. The top choice? Plot points, and how come they’re so important to the escalating tension in a story. It sounds basic, but Jenni and I have learned, just like every other working fiction writer, that you can never take for granted just how important the basics are.
First, let’s start with quick glimpse back at where How We Write Wednesdays (HoWW) has already been:
In March, Jenni covered basic story structure terms. It’s a great blog on the “secret” to discovering your own writing process (because as much as we like to teach together, we’ve learned that we plot very differently). Go back and read it for that insight alone. But within the post is an excellent summary of the basic turning points within a novel: Inciting Incident, 1st Turning Point, 2nd Turning Point (also known as Midpoint), 3rd Turning Point, Dark Moment/Black Moment, and Climactic Scene. This is a purely external way to look at the bones of your story. What happens and how each major thing that happens is connected to the next (and the last) one.
In February, I shared my “Character Chart” that I use to plan/plot my characters’ emotional arc through the beginning (Inciting Incident), Middle (2nd Turning Point) and end (Dark Moment/Black Moment) of a story. Take another look, to get a refresher on how I chart my characters’ internal growth through the three most important turning points in a novel, long before I figure out exactly how I’m going to motivate the character(s) externally.
So, that’s the basics, at least the way we seen them. But what does it all mean, when you’re looking at planning/plotting, drafting, and revising your own story? (more…)
Modern dream interpreters base the work they do on techniques developed by others before them. They’re not inventing anything new, and they all agree that dreams are personal–they should be analyzed in terms of the dreamer’s life, not science alone. There are no universal meanings, in absense of the dreamer’s presence and reality. That said, let’s talk some turkey, then start getting busy with the nuts and bolts of the dream interpretation specifics so many of you have been clamoring for.
Beyond these two caveats, looking deeper into your dream patterns and symbols and themes can be an amazing journey of self-discovery and growing understanding of what you find within. So, let’s discover together ;o)
I’m dreaming more vividly than I have in quite a while, I suspect because I’m actively drafting a new novel. I’m bringing imagination to life in my waking reality. My sleeping mind’s not one to play second fiddle ;o) I love this place in my creative life, when I feel story moving through me, both consciously and subconsciously. It’s a lovely sign that the “gift” is flowing again. But what is it all trying to tell me? Or you, when you find sleeping images flowing just as freely?
Let’s begin with a common dream focus–being tested or challenged.
Drafting with creative freedom is key. Writing without constraint. Drafting without clinging too tightly to planning or expectation. BUT we’ve said over and over on How We Write Wednesdays (HoWW)–you have to revise every rough word you draft. How do you lay the groundwork for the “rework” you know needs to be done, while you’re giving your stay committed to your creative freedom?
Jenni’s taking the lead over on her blog, revealing wondrous and amazing secrets for how she spreadsheets and charts her way into keeping track of story while she writes it. Me? Remember I’m a geeky, techno-loving girl who while drafting must continually slap my hand and let go of the overly organized stuff that enables the more analytical side of my brain. So nix on the forms and charts for me. But keeping track of changes I see coming and new things I draft into the story on the fly is still key. But I had to find a way to do it that wouldn’t break the delicate flow of my drafting…
So, what do I do?
I’ll talk more about it on Twitter, using our growing #weWRITE hashtag where writers from all levels of experience are sharing their writing process and learning from ours. But, to keep things simple here, let me say that I keep up with everything I’m learning as I draft a story in Microsoft Word.
Using the “Notes” toolbar/feature, which enables you to leave searchable notes you can easily track and keep up with, here’s the basics:
