I hope you’re already dreaming up an inciting incident for your favorite premise! I know I am. But before we do that, we need to know who our characters are. Yesterday, I outlined the hero and heroine of the Talk Show Host and the Teacher. Today, let’s take a look at the Actress and the Park Ranger Who is our Actress? Our Actress has worked hard to get where she is. She was a good girl, a hard worker growing up, and her parents put her through school. She moved to Hollywood to follow her dream, and was an overnight success. She married an A-list star and life seemed to be going her direction…until she decided to make an indy film exposing the flesh-for-sale industry overseas…and the […]
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The Big Reveal in Backstory
So you’ve whet your reader’s appetite with just the right amount of bread crumbs to lead them into the story. They knew, basically, that there is a dark secret in your hero’s past, a good reason why he needs to fight the dragon, or climb the mountain. So…when do you reveal the secret? I love HG TV….it’s sort of an addiction, I agree, but HG TV tells me that I CAN fix up my house, I CAN be an interior designer. (regardless of the truth!) I especailly love the show where they go into a really ugly room, and fix it up based on the stuff they have around the house (like Design ReMix). However, every HG TV show is the same…they present the problem, they show how they’ll fix […]
Read the RestDropping Breadcrumbs for effective Backstory
Oh Hansel, I’m so afraid no one will find us! Never fear, Gretel, we will drop breadcrumbs, and someone will follow… Let’s say you’re the woodcutter, now wouldn’t YOU be curious to know what is at the end of those breadcrumbs? (Especially if they were, say, Panera bagel breadcrumbs? So I might be a little hungry this morning….). The key to backstory is dropping just enough crumbs to stir your reader’s hunger for more. You don’t want to give them too much at the beginning, or they’ll get filled up, satisfied, and they won’t have an appetite to finish the journey. How much backstory should you put into a scene? Just enough to give the reader the information he/she needs to understand/accept the current action and decisions. To embrace the […]
Read the RestDigging for Treasure: The Backstory
So here’s the deal. I was teaching all day Saturday at the MN Christian Writer’s Guild spring seminar, and then again on Monday night, at their monthly meeting, then I drove home on Tuesday, 6 hours, only to arrive just in time to pick up my oldest son and another son’s bike, return to town, drop off my packages, then hang around until another son got done with track practice, only to pick them (sons and bikes) all back up and return home, drag in my suitcases and drop into a heap. That’s the backstory to why I didn’t blog yesterday. Now, I’m thinking you didn’t need all that. A simple….life washed over me and swept me away, and I was unable to blog would have been sufficient. Yes, it […]
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