I meant to post yesterday, Friday, but the day got away from me. Sorry, team. This is our final post on tension for now. No promises about the future. What mechanical ways can we show tension in our writing? Word choice. Short sentences. Entering the scene late, exiting early. Let’s try a scene: The wind blowing over the prairie was hot and dry as Mikaila urge her horse forward, scraping her fingers through her long blonde hair. Her cornflower blue eyes caught sight of a billowing cloud of dust rising from the horizon line, a mushroom from the earth, she thought. Wonder who it might be? She let her mind drift toward Cole who waited for her back at the ranch. They’d fought, about nothing. But she speed away on […]
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Refusing the Call!
I know I didn’t blog yesterday. It wasn’t because I didn’t WANT to, or didn’t THINK about it. In fact, the reason sorta…tiptoed up to me, and grabbed me and pulled me in before I realized what was happening… Sort of like an…INCITING INCIDENT! I was just standing there in the parking lot, watching my son ride his bike, and my girlfriend said, “Hey, I’m going to tap class, wanna join me?” Yes, I said TAP class. Like Ginger Rogers and the clippity clop shoes. And, just like that, something grabbed me. I thought…cool! Fun! (forgetting completely that I have the knees of a 97 year old, thanks to years of aggressive skiing!) So, I went. Tapped my little heart out. Today I’m sitting on the sofa, icing my knees, […]
Read the RestHook Em Dano Winners!
Thanks to everyone who posted their hooks on the site. Very brave and stellar. We loved them all!! We truly did. It was so hard to pick. The winner is… “I felt nothing as I sighted my M-4 rifle on a distant point and maintained position, despite getting sandblasted by a putrid desert wind.” Anastasia B. Congratulations. You are the winner of the gift certificate. We loved how you set the stage for your character. We were right there, we knew time and place. Putrid desert wind is a lovely line. You raised the stakes with this line, “But a fierce evil lurked in every corner and culvert, whispering that if I couldn’t defeat it, I would be forced to join it.” Now the reader is curious, wanting to know […]
Read the RestWhere in the World are we on the Journey?
Happy Monday! This week we’re going to do something a little different at MBT – Rach and I are both going to run away from home this week (in fact – we’re going to run away together, with three other authors to a booksigning in hardy, AK. If you want to stop by, you can find the deets at http://www.wordsafterwords.com/) ANYWAY, we thought we’d take this blip in time to catch us all up to where we are in our Year with a Hero! We’ve spent the last couple months learning: Premise Elements of a heart-stopping hero Elements of a strong heroine The Greatest Devices (Greatest Dream, Greatest Fear) to construct the black moment and the Happily Ever After Storyworld And…Inciting Incident So, here’s where I let you in on […]
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