Tag Archives | Book Therapy

Real Time Book Therapy

By on December 12, 2013 in Book Therapist, Rachel Hauck

I’m working with a My Book Therapy premium member and she sent me this excerpt from her first chapter. She’s doing a great job of using the right tools — showing a hint of the want, wound, lie and fear, but the journey is a bit bumpy.

With her permission, I’m using our exchange to give you all some real time book therapy.

The story is a Biblical account set in the time of Elijah. The hero, is the son of a high priestess of a pagan god and expected to follow in her footsteps. But he’s starting to realize this is not what he was born to do.

At dawn on Preparation Day, Aban pulled on the threadbare tunic he’d purchased from the rag seller and climbed out a rear window, the very one he guarded during the nightly rituals to keep freeloaders from climbing into the temple of Melqart.

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Time to Move On

By on October 18, 2012 in Rachel Hauck

G’day to you! Here’s today’s Book Therapy Question! “How do I know when it’s time to move on from a story I’ve been working on for so long?” Great question! I worked on my first book for two years. I tell you, it discouraged me because I wondered how I could ever make any kind of living if writing took so long! But it was my learning book and at least half of those two years were spent with me editing the book from a complicated, multi-plot story to a straight up romance. I sent it out and received rejections. It was in the late ‘90s and there weren’t many options, but the doors I knocked on replied, “No thank you.” By then, I was tired of the book. I […]

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Layers of Emotional Writing

By on August 20, 2008 in How do I write Emotions?, Protagonists: The Basics

Okay, so remember Darla from the plane yesterday?  (Like I’m ever going to forget her!)  ~  We’re going to talk about writing character emotions today, and the three main layers that authors use when writing them.   Feel free to refer back to Dear Darla during the examples.  (Or maybe she’s already firmly embedded in your mind)  1.  The first layer of writing emotions is simply that surface emotion – the name of the emotion.  Darla turned me and said: “I’m a little nervous.”  She stated her emotion.   Examples of this first layer:    ~ She stood at the entrance to the gateway and fear gripped her.  ~ She could not watch the children in the playground without feeling sorrow.  ~ Never had she know such happiness as when she saw […]

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Make them fall in love!

By on June 26, 2008 in Uncategorized

(Note:  I thought I posted this on Tuesday, but it didn’t show up for some reason…so you’re getting it today. *g*) I spent the weekend driving again – to camp to drop off my sons this time. I saw my daughter looking cute and directing traffic (she’s working at camp for the summer), and stole a few moments with her and her girlfriend (delivering home-made cookies, of course!). The first thing out of her friends’ mouth was…. “I met a boy.” And then I saw it…that sparkle in her eyes, the glow in her expression, the way she hunched her shoulders and giggled. Oh…she met a BOY. I love to fall in love. (and when you’re married, you get to do it over and over again *g*). And I love […]

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