Setting up the mood in a scene requires the right words, but it also requires a setting that can boost your mood impact. Think of all of the scary movies where the heroine is walking down the dark basement stairs and someone is waiting there. We are all screaming, ‘No! Don’t go down there!” Of course she doesn’t listen. Then there is the moan of old stairs. The electricity goes out. The music or noises send shivers up your spine. Is this by accident? Absolutely not. How about the moment when the hero is going to propose? The candle light, roses, and soft music. Warmth and light fill the scene with a building sense of joy. All of these tricks are used by movies every day. We should use these […]
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Interview with a Hero
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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Copyright 101—Part One
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about copyright issues. Specifically, what is legal to use on a blog, website or in a book. Today, instead of giving you all the facts, I thought we’d have some fun and take a little quiz. We’ll do part one today, and part two in the next post. COPYRIGHT QUIZ—HOW FAMILIAR ARE YOU WITH THE LAW? All the answers are True or False, so let’s get on with the quiz! 1. I can legally post any picture on my blog if I link back to the place I got it. FALSE: photos, sketches, graphics, any kind—are covered by the same copyright law as our written words. Unfortunately, there is lots of sharing going on over the Internet and it’s not legal. When we borrow […]
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Brainstorming Strategy #4: Brainstorming Peripheral Plot Possibilities
There are sometimes when we just get slammed unexpectedly with something in life. Out of the blue an old flame returns to town, our car breaks down, our mother-in-law comes to stay for a month, we are offered a new job, etc. We shake our heads and say, “I never saw that one coming.” That would be the peripheral plot in a novel. Something on the edges of the story that is believable that comes in to impact what is going to happen. Brainstorming peripheral plot possibilities is a great strategy to lift the sag in the middle of your novel. It helps you to break through predictability and keep tension on the page where your reader wants to know what is going to happen next. So how do we […]
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