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Interview with a Hero

By on August 9, 2012 in Brainstorming Strategies and Tips, Hero, Heroine, Protagonists: The Basics, Rachel Hauck

I was working on the hero of my next book and found I couldn’t get anything real out of him. He was a bit two-dimensional.  Flat. Too single purposed. I went through my standard exercises – dark wound, lie, fear, secret desire, true destiny… You can see that here: Dark Moment: Being yanked from his school, his family, his home to go to another boarding school. Lie: Don’t get close. Don’t open your heart too wide. Fear: Love involves pain. He’s even assigned that to God. Look what He did to His own son. But Tanner knows God is real and true, and he must seek Him.  But is standoffish Secret desire/true identity:  ?? What can he do in the end he can’t do in the beginning? Be honest about […]

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Conversations: In defense of Genre

By on February 6, 2012 in From the Inside...Out, Genre, Story Crafting, The Hero's Journey Simplified, Truth or Dare: Conversations with an aspiring novelist

Ice crusted the parking lot as I slipped my way to the coffee shop. The warm spell we’d experienced over the weekend had turned frosty with the blizzard sweeping across middle America, turning the pavement to a black skating rink. I should have expected the cold, but the sudden spell of warmth caught me off guard and ignited my hope of spring. Worse, I now nursed a cold because winter hadn’t followed the rules. Which was exactly what I was going to talk to Sally about today – following genre rules as she writes her first novel. She waited at our table, beside a crackling fire, reading her Nook. “Hey,” she said as I slid into the seat. Blessed Kathy walked over with my mug of vanilla latte. “What are […]

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Avoiding the Rory Gilmore Syndrome

By on December 22, 2011 in Author Mistakes, Heroine, Heroines, Protagonists: The Basics, Rachel Hauck

I love the TV show Gilmore Girls. The writers created such a fantastic story world with Stars Hollow and powered it all with quirky, fast-talking, beautiful Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. But the writers fell into a characterization hole, IMHO, when Rory became too-perfect-to-live. Too good to be true. Every man and his brother, every girl and her sister loved Rory. All who met her believed she hung the moon, stars and visited the Sombrero galaxy while stirring brownie mix for pale-skinned orphans. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was quick and engaging, a repartee’s repartee. She was kind and giving, her mother’s best friend. The girl next door, the one to take home to mom, and dad. She couldn’t golf or run fast, but who cared? What an endearing […]

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Act 2: Keeping the Middle from Muddling

By on November 28, 2011 in Chapter 8, How to write a Suspense, Limelight – Sample Novel, Managing the Muddle (keeping your story moving!), Susan May Warren, Suspense, Want to see a book in Action? Read the Blog-a-Book Series, Writing, Writing your Suspense Chapters

Is your Act 2 slowing down? Do you find it muddling along? Are you running out of content and creating mundane, circular scenes?  Here’s a way to fill Act 2 with powerful content. The last scene of Luke and Kenzie’s story was an example of a combo reaction scene to the Romance, and the ramping up of the suspense thread again.  I also threw in a piece of the spiritual thread – that idea that relationships are what hold us together and make us better people – which is what Luke is supposed to learn on this journey.   Just for a second, I’m going to dive into a discussion about the spiritual journey.  Although this is a romantic suspense, every book has some sort of theme, and even deeper, […]

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