I went to my first My Book Therapy (MBT) retreat in 2009 – the first-ever Storycrafters Retreat. I’m four years further along the writing road, on deadline for my fourth novel, and I often review things I learned at back then. One of my favorite MBT techniques is FOCUS, an acronym that helps you craft vivid scene descriptions.
FOCUS stands for:
First Impressions
Observations
Close Up
Simile (or Metaphor)
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Fairytales can’t exist without story world. Where would we be without Cinderella’s magic garden with the fairy godmother? Or Snow White’s dash through the evil forest to meet up with seven spunky dwarfs? How about Beast’s castle? The enchanted place where Belle found herself detained? The last time on the fairytale blog, I talked about the elements of story world being visual, emotional and symbolic. Today we’ll look at mystical and societal. Mystical Below is an excerpt from the book I just finished about a long lost princess returning to her great grandmother’s country. She looks out the palace window to see a glow in the forest. “You don’t see a white light? Kind of sparkly? In the woods?” Franz stared ahead, his hand wrapped around the thick curtain cord. […]
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When I started the Royal Wedding Series, I knew I had to create a country or countries “worlds” in which my royal families lived. I’m a realistic kind of writer. I like real cities and real places. I once called the Starbucks in downtown Chattanooga to get a description. I called the University of Northern Iowa to see if scholarshipped athletes had to live in the dorms. All the sake of authenticity. Yet, I’ve created fictional towns three times in the course of seventeen novels. Reasons can vary for making up cities, or countries. Or entire universes. Genre is a key reason to invent other places. Fantasy, Sci-Fi and fairytales, books with supernatural elements, demand world building. Tolkien created a middle of the earth! So what can we not do […]
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