“I’m so sorry,” Sally said, sitting down and unwrapping her scarf from her neck. Outside, ice glazed the puddles, the sky a slate gray. The first hint of snow hung in the air, the world of northern Minnesota in crisp expectation. It was a perfect day to teach Sally about how to understand Turning Points in a novel. I love the change of seasons. I blew on my candy cane mint mocha. “Why?” “Our high school football season is over,” she said. “I know how you love to go to the games.” I do. I live for the Friday night lights. “It was a tough game. A number of game-changing turning points that could have turned the game our way. Our boys fought a tough fight.” “I heard that on […]
Read the RestTag Archives | Act 2
Quick Skills: Act 2 Plotting
Act 2 plotting in 5 easy questions! I always get the Chapter Seven Blues. I know it’s inevitable, but I seem to forget that it happens, and often I’ll find myself down in the kitchen, moping (and looking for chocolate) and my husband will say… “You’re at Chapter 7, aren’t you?” I’ll turn, stare at him, and nod. “How did you know that?” “Because the excitement of the story has gotten you through chapter 3, and Act 1, and the momentum carried you into chapters 4-6, but now the steam has died in the middle of Act 2, and you’re down here hunting for inspiration.” (This is usually accompanied by him taking the bag of chocolate chips out of my hand.) He’s dead right. I’m smack in the middle of the […]
Read the RestAct 2: Keeping the Middle from Muddling
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, […]
Read the RestAct 2: Jumping back into the suspense!
Yesterday, I addressed Scene Flow, and how in a romance scene, you might decide to develop it a bit more, making it longer. In a suspense, sometimes it’s nice to develop that before you jumpstart the action again. Today, we’re going to jump back into the suspense, drawing that element forward. Just to make sure I’m on the right track, I want to go back to my synopsis. It’s still my roadmap, even though I’ve been taking a few day trips… Luke wants his sister, who is a giant MacKenzie Grace fan to meet her, and the dinner out at the roadhouse seemed to go without a hitch…maybe no one will recognize her. But what Luke doesn’t know is that someone has recognized Kenzie – the reporter from the […]
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