Recently I was talking author Beth Vogt about deepening emotion in her current WIP as she’s facing rewrites from her editors. As we began to discuss how to do this, I came up with an equation: Feelings + Thought = Emotion. Now, this is a subtle motivation not necessarily the over all, BIG story motivation, but the micro motivation of a scene. All scenes must have a purpose. A Goal. Some Conflict. Tension. And in these elements we see a bit more of the protagonist’s emotion which equals scene “motivation.” For example, Beth had a scene where her heroine was in a bridal shop with her best friend who’d recently become engaged. The heroine was the last girl in singleville. As she’s sitting in the bridal shop, watching her friends, […]
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Finding Balance with Writing and Life: Keeping it Real, Folks
In the middle of writing a heated conversation between my current hero and his dad, I realized my MBT blog post was due…several days ago. Crud. I hate being a ball-dropper because it feeds my inner critic who demotes my self-worth. Plus, not following through with something creates timeline changes for someone else. But when I’m on deadline, I seem to struggle with juggling my day job, my writing responsibilities, family, church functions, social media. When this happens, I just want to retreat and crawl back into bed. My third novel is due to my editor by the end of the month, but I need to turn it in sooner so I’m not writing while on vacation. Who wants to do that? So as I pondered a topic and whined […]
Read the RestStuck in the Quagmire of Editing?
Now that the joy of finishing my first draft has faded, the angst of editing the manuscript has begun. I completed the first draft, the rest should be a piece of cake. Right? Not. Even. Close. All of a sudden I had a multitude of questions and not enough answers. First I tried an easy approach. I purchased “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing”. While it was an interesting read, it didn’t answer all the questions that arose while editing my manuscript. I also went to Chip MacGregor’s blog. He recently posted a huge list of resources to help writers. http://www.chipmacgregor.com/blog/career/150-resources-to-help-you-write-better-faster-and-more-persuasively/ Finally, I went to my friends Beth Vogt and Edie Melson for assistance. They suggested I look at the big picture and keep it simple. We […]
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Featured Fiction Friday is BACK! Meet Kathleen Fuller
This year’s Frasier Contest has come to a close. The finalists and semi-finalists have been announced, and we are all eagerly awaiting the Pizza Party to find out who the winner is. In the mean time, lets meet one of the Judges that made it all possible: Kathleen Fuller, with her new book Letters to Katie. Q: Kathleen, give us a tag line and a little blurb about your story. A: Everything changed between them the first time he called her Katie. Katherine Yoder has loved Johnny Mullet since the two were children, but he’s never returned her affections. Now Johnny is trying to forge a new life for himself by purchasing a farm and building a business of his own. But times are tough, and he soon learns that he […]
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