Hi Voices, Susie is busy with writing, four kids and doing a bit of traveling, so we’ll get back to Blog-a-Book next week. Thanks for your patience. We appreciate you all. Today I wanted to talk about some of the basics of story telling and fiction writing. A great story starts with an idea. Any idea. What makes it great is developing a seed of an idea. Take an ordinary idea — boy meets a girl — and turn it upside down. “An engaged boy meets a girl he believes is his true love. But he’s getting married in a month.” Good, but how can we turn it upside down even more? Boy approaches the girl only to discover she is just recovering from her own heartbreak — her fiance […]
Read the RestArchive | May, 2009
Sell your synopsis, sell your book
Rachel Here: Most writers dread crafting the synopsis. We feel constrained and pressured. How can we boil down a 70,000 or 100,000 word manuscript into 3, 5, even 10 pages? We can! And we will. I’ve never dreaded writing a synopsis because it enabled me to hash out my story points, to see in a consise manner what my book was going to be. Most writers dread this process because they don’t know what the book is about, they don’t really know the characters and their story arc very well, and most likely don’t want to take the time to find out. It’s more fun to write. Or, an author might feel the story is so good with so many layers they can’t possibly leave any out, so a 20 […]
Read the RestFinally – Chapter 3.1 with Susan’s Rebuttal to Rachel’s Changes
FINALLY – after a crazy week last week (I had a deadline) and also putting together a children’s musical, I finally had a chance to look over RH’s edits on this chapter! Sorry it took so long – the next two weeks are pretty grueling for both RH and I as we finish up books, do some editing and teach some classes. SO – bear with us, and I promise after we get past this, we’ll be rolling again with our chapters. For now, here’s my responses to RH’s great thots! Chapter 3.1 Of course, Greg didn’t have the courage to pick up his cell phone – Kenzie’s call went immediately to voice mail. “Just what did you tell your cousin?” Kenzie said under her coiled breath, RH: How […]
Read the RestStatus Seekers verses Storytellers
Rachel here: Donald Maass has graced the writing world with a new fiction craft book. “The Fire in Fiction.” The opening chapter is worth the price of the book. Maass talks about the status seekers of publishing and the storytellers. While there is a little bit of storytelling in the status seekers and a bit of status seeking in storytellers, each author has a strong leaning. Starting out, we all feel committed to the process. We will advance step-by-step, no matter what it takes, we’ll achieve excellence. We want to be the best. But, we grow impatient. After one manuscript with a crit partner we shuffle the manuscript off to agents or editors. We see other writers in our “class” moving ahead, signing with an agent, getting a full manuscript […]
Read the Rest
