Writers in the Storm

by Karen DebonisSipping my coffee in the dining room one recent morning, I checked my email, and my life and identity changed with a click.

“Michael,” I yelled to my husband in the kitchen. “I got an offer of publication.”

He joined me in the dining room, and I pointed to my computer screen and read aloud:

"Thank you for submitting your work, Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived, to Apprentice House Press. We have reviewed your manuscript and feel it is a great fit for our press. Is the manuscript still available for publication? If so, we will prepare and share a contract for your review.”

That was fast, I thought, before I turned into a blubbering mess.

Except it wasn’t fast. Yes, I’d sent my latest batch of queries to fifteen agents and five small presses only weeks before. But I’d started the process over twenty years before.

Perspective

When I announced my good news on social media, several writers reached out to me to inquire about my success. “How did you get such an impressive number of Twitter followers?” one writer asked.

I have less than 7,000 followers. That doesn’t feel impressive and certainly hadn’t been big enough to attract an agent. But I get it. Compared to a newbie, I am in the big leagues.

But in October 2016, when I joined Twitter—something I never imagined doing—I had zero followers. At the time, I couldn’t imagine having even 100 followers. Why would anyone follow me, a #TwitterNobody?

Six years later, with my signed contract as real as the Velveteen Rabbit, I’m no longer a newbie. I have experience to share.

My Publication Timeline

Here is a loose timeline of the journey from everyday mom to pubbed. I went from knowing nothing to knowing enough to get a book deal. I’ll include wisdom and tips I learned along the way and gained in hindsight.

If you are in your “know nothing” stage as a writer, I hope this gives you encouragement that someday you, too, will meet your writing and publishing goals.

1997 – The Beginning

My eleven-year-old son, Matthew, was diagnosed with a brain tumor after three years of misdiagnoses of his cognitive, physical, and emotional deterioration. He survived. We all did, but in many ways, our story had just begun.

1999-2001 – The First Step to a Memoir

After repeatedly hearing “You should write a book” from well-meaning friends, I saw an ad in the local newspaper about a memoir writing class taught by Marion Roach, then an unknown to me. I hadn’t written anything more creative than a resume since high school, but, with dreams of sitting on Oprah’s stage, I signed up.

I knew nothing. And I had unexpected pockets of ignorance.

• I didn’t know that “its” to show possession had no apostrophe. (I must have been absent that day in high school.)
• I had to re-learn what a gerund was.
• I didn’t know, what “point of view” meant
• I learned the difference between a protagonist and an antagonist.
• I wouldn’t have known a cliche if it hit me over the head.

Practice Makes Perfect

I took Marion’s class three times over the next two years, gaining a little ground each time. I read and studied memoirs to learn my craft and squeezed writing in when I could.

But I never considered myself a writer.

I loved my career as a health educator, and I had no intention of wearing any other hat. Even when I had two short personal essays published in the local paper, I knew writing wasn’t my calling. I was simply a person with a story to tell, and my chosen medium was prose.

Lessons Learned in Hindsight

You’ll likely never appear on a set with Oprah or a podcast with Brene Brown. You probably won’t achieve the success of Cheryl Strayed (Wild) or Stephanie Land (Maid). But if having those dreams motivates you, keep them alive and use them to your advantage. 

If you prove me wrong, let me know and I’ll buy you a drink.

2001-2005 – The Story Continues

Matthew’s recovery was more difficult than expected, so I left my full-time school counseling job in 2001 to coach and mentor him through his graduation from high school.

I wrote during the day when he and my younger son Stephen were in school, and I joined a critique group that met at Barnes & Noble. The other writers—all retired men writing fiction—were very nice and well-intentioned as they critiqued my writing, then analyzed my life’s story.

I often left there and went on a chocolate binge. A few years later, I attended a five-day writing retreat, which I left in tears after day three. My story was too painful, too fresh to be so fully immersed in it. 

Hindsight Tips:

• Memoir and personal stories often dredge up the worst of our lives, the worst of our selves. Be gentle with yourself as you write, and, while it’s good to write about your experience while it’s fresh, know that you’ll need distance to fully understand the deeper story.
• Be sure your critique group adheres to the guideline of commenting on the writing, not the writer or the writers’ life.
• Some writers who pen only fiction (present company here at WITS excluded) don’t fully grasp the nature of memoir. Find a memoirist-only critique group if possible.

2006-2008 – The Step-Away

We moved and the dinosaur of a computer containing my 300-page manuscript got stashed in the attic for some reason.  

I stopped writing. Completely.

Matthew had graduated from high school and, although he still struggled with short-term memory and information processing, he attended college away from home. There is a recovery period needed for traumatic situations, and I was in one.  I couldn’t bring myself to relive these painful years on the page. 

Hindsight Tips:

• If you are a serious writer who practices your craft regularly, you probably have at least one WIP in the drawer. (Translation for newbies: a Work In Progress saved somewhere where you seldom look at it.) As long as you’re writing something, there’s no rush to revive an old manuscript.
• If you have not yet claimed the “writer” moniker and stopped writing completely, like I did, don’t let years go by without opening the drawer for a cursory look. I wish I had written an annual life update of even one page during my long hiatus.

2008-2016 – The Writing-Less Years

I happily rejoined the workforce, and Matthew graduated from college. For him, adulting was a revolving door of jobs, his poor executive functioning getting him fired or causing him to quit. I rarely thought about my book; it was enough to live the story every day.

Hindsight Tips:

• In memoir, often the story ain’t over til’ it’s over and done and processed. If you’re avoiding working on your WIP, it could be that you still haven’t gained enough perspective on it.
  
  In The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative, author Vivian Gornick says, “Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say.”

Your insight and wisdom about your story need time to develop.

2016-2020 – Starting Again

Matthew finally landed his first full-time job with good benefits at about the time my ongoing health issues forced me to quit my job,

The universe had given me time to finish my book!

I told friends I’d need six months to revise and update my manuscript and got started.

[You can stop laughing now.]

I took virtual classes on writing personal essays, query letters, loglines, and pitches. My essay rejections accumulated, interspersed with rare acceptances from low-tiered publications. 

What the heck is a Writing Platform?

Now, in addition to learning how to write better, I also took on the endless task of creating a writing platform online. I read and studied and bought a domain and created a website called The Well Nested Life.

I didn’t really know what a blog was, but I started one, posting a story every week for a year. My audience was family and friends and a handful of others writers on Medium.

I had a Facebook page but needed a friend to show me how to use it. I bought a book to learn Twitter, and I watched YouTube videos on Instagram. Remember, everyone starts somewhere with zero followers. I was just like everyone else.

I learned the difference between an em dash and an en dash, discovered that two spaces after a period was now taboo, and became pro-Oxford comma.

Hindsight Tips:

• You will quickly learn how much you don’t know. Be a sponge.

2020 – Learning to be a “Real Writer”

By now, I had a website under my own name, which makes it far easier for people to find me. It still took me time to call myself a writer, as you can see on my calling cards.

Spending time on social media, my platform inched along. One thousand Twitter followers, then two, then three. A few hundred on Facebook. A few dozen on Instagram.

The Agent Hunt

I had culled a list of literary agents and started querying in batches.

By the end of 2020, I’d received a smattering of form rejection letters, which I printed and folded into origami roses. At the same time, I joined a memoir critique group.

When I reread my first chapter to submit to the group, the writing that seemed so good now looked amateurish. It wasn’t “done” as I had thought. So, chapter by chapter, I revised, submitted, and revised again.

I hired a manuscript editor, and who knew there were so many types of editing?

I learned, grew, engaged, connected. Boosted other writers. Took more classes and webinars. Submitted. Created a webinar and a newsletter.

And through it all I Liked and Shared and Retweeted. Four thousand followers, then five.

2022 – Published at Last

My twenty-plus years of pre-published due diligence ended when I signed my contract this month.

Now, I’m embarking on a new journey with new tasks: marketing and PR. Once again, I’m starting from scratch. I know nothing, and I can’t afford a publicist. The more I read about positioning and promotion and sales, the more I panic and negative thoughts try to take over.

I can’t do this! I don’t know anything! I’ll never do it right and my book will be a flop.

But the long journey to get here helps me breathe. It virtually slaps my face. The voice of writerly wisdom tells me: You wrote a book. Your book is going to be published.

You can do anything.

How long has your publication journey taken? What are milestones from your own life stand out to you after reading this post? Do you have any "hindsight tips" to share?

About Karen

Karen DeBonis writes about motherhood, people-pleasing, and personal growth, the entangled mix told in her memoir Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived, forthcoming from Apprentice House Press in spring 2023.

A happy empty-nester, Karen lives in an old house in upstate New York with her husband of forty years. You can find more of her work at www.karendebonis.com.

Fabulous first lines tend to stick with all of us. We ponder them, agonize over them, rewrite them, and rewrite them again. And more than once, we've actually purchased a book based on a breathtaking first line or paragraph.

Plus, a good first line is quotable.

Today, we're opening the doors of WITS to our readers. We like hearing what you're writing, and April, the first full month of Spring, is a great time for this.

Our own Laura Drake has offered some great advice on writing a winning first line here.

But today, it's your turn to entertain or wow us with your opening lines. If you can't think of anything, share a favorite from someone else. Give us the title and genre, then your opening line(s). Feel free to comment on others' as well, and tag your writing friends when you share the post so they can pop over and share theirs!

We'll get you started.

Ellen

I rarely read horror, but Swan Song, by Robert R. McCammon drew me in and wouldn't let go. 

"He watched with dreadful fascination as the flame crawled up the match, and he realized that there, on a tiny scale, was the power of both creation and destruction; it could cook food, illuminate the darkness, melt iron and sear human flesh. Something that resembled a small, unblinking scarlet eye opened in the center of the flame, and he wanted to scream."

~ Swan Song

Jenny

If she didn’t have sex this year, her girly bits were going to stage a revolt. – Unnamed Book 2, "Rx for Love" series

Lisa Norman
w/a Deleyna Marr

Dominion of Darkness

Nian hated climbing this mountain. The old wizard pulled his flowing cape closer against the cold and tied his horse to a tree. He cursed the Shadows for choosing such a remote spot for his wife's tomb.

Sisterhood

Listen, my children, I've a tale to tell
Of wishing on pennies in deep wishing wells, 
Of sticks and stones and ice cream cones
And tolling Cathedral bells.
-- From An Ode to Childhood, Annalise Phenix

Now it's your turn. Share your opening lines (or a favorite from another author) below!

Kris

This novel begins in a decades-old support group of women who have counseled each other as they try to move past their significant tragedies.  Friction ensues and the group plans to split up, until they discover that one of them has been murdered.  They soon realize their worst nightmare is a reality and there is someone after them all.

What I like about this book is the author's subtle questioning of why we are entertained by these tragic events, the gore and violence that is often inflicted on a young woman.  Here is the beginning of the story through the eyes of the protagonist who has been a paranoid recluse ever since escaping her would-be murderer. She lives with her best friend, a plant named "Fine", short for Final Plant, the closest thing to structure in her life.

I wake up, get out of bed, say good morning to my plant, unwrap a protein bar, and drink a liter of bottled water. I'm awake for five full minutes before remembering I might die today. When you get old, you get soft.

~ The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix

Now it's your turn - please share your first lines!!

We hope this helps kick off a great month of writing!

Ellen, Jenny, Kris, Lisa and Lynette

Top Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

by Margie Lawson

Writers are the Great Oz for each of their stories.

You know all.

You see everything in your mind-video of every scene.

Sometimes you don’t realize that the reader doesn’t know and see everything too. Or you think you’ve shared enough that the reader would get it. But way too often that’s not the case. And if the reader doesn’t get it, they’re no longer immersed in your fictional world.

Aack! You’ve lost them.

That’s what I call the Great Oz Effect.

Three things that always need to be included in opening pages.

1. Setting – Where is your POV character?

2. Age or Implied Age Range --  For your POV character, and maybe another character too.

3. Character’s Physical Descriptions – Every time a new character is introduced.

The fourth and fifth points apply to every page of your book.

4. Your POV character’s reactions to everything.

5. Specific-to-your-story points that may be veiled by the Great Oz Effect.

I’ll dive deeper into each of those points and more.

1. Setting – Where is your POV character?

I strongly recommend placing them in the setting in the first paragraph. Could just be a hint. A boy’s locker room. A hansom carriage. A rollercoaster. The deck of a ship.

Whoops. The deck of a cruise ship? A spaceship? The Titanic?

The reader would need to know.

From Denny S. Bryce, In the Face of the Sun, to be released April 17^th.

Chapter 1, First Paragraph:

No one is to blame for my decision. Not the husband missing from my bed. Not my unborn baby. Not even my grief. Lying on my back, with a pillow behind my head, I catch a glimpse of my slightly rounded belly. And I know. I am leaving Jackson.

Compelling opening. And Denny Bryce provided a clear visual.

2. Age or Implied Age Range

For your POV character, and maybe another character too.

You’ll want to slip in a hint about the age as soon as you can, or the reader may think your POV character is significantly younger or older than they are. And when the reader realizes they’re wrong, it’s not good. They’re jerked out of your story.

Cathy Lawrence is a Virtual Immersion Grad.

I’m working with her in one-on-one Zoom editing sessions. She’s given me permission to share.

In her WIP, Nessa and the Calculus of Love, we needed to slip in the age range of the male POV character. The reader could think he was old enough to be our female POV character’s father or grandfather.

The age slip-in is on the same page when they met.

The BEFORE Paragraph:

“Whoever’s bought your passage south…or whatever else your benefactor may have purchased, I’ll take no part in it,” the man slurred, alcohol wending through his breath.

The AFTER Paragraph:

Whoever’s bought your passage south…or whatever else your benefactor may have purchased, I’ll take no part in it,.” The man’s words were slurred, alcohol wending through his breath, reminding her of her brother James in habits and age.

YELLOW --  Added. We used the female POV character’s brother. It took less than a minute to think of it and slip it in.

Cassandra L Shaw’s Blood Ring, Book 1, Vampire King’s Daughter

The BEFORE Sentence:

Stirling bit into a slice of pizza slice with gusto.

The AFTER Sentence:

Stirling bit into a slice of pizza slice with teenage boy gusto.

Adding teenage boy – so easy!

3. Character’s Physical Descriptions

Every time a character is introduced, the reader imagines them. Share a couple of interesting details RIGHT THEN, so the reader won’t be jarred when their image doesn’t match yours later. No need to share much. But make what you share carry deepen characterization.

Two examples from Kimberly Belle’s The Marriage Lie.

First Example:

Diana’s voice is soft and soothing, every syllable rounded with a velvety mountain cadence. Not a coarse twang like mine and Chet’s. She sounds like she comes from money, and she looks it, too, in styled hair and an oversized cream sweater that hangs artfully off one shoulder. Her boots are low and Western-inspired, chunky heels and pointy toes. She looks like a million bucks.

Quick Analysis:

1. Kimberly Belle used an amplified dialogue cue to segue into describing this character.

2. She shared dialogue cues for three characters, deepening characterization for all of them.

3. She chose two things to spotlight, the oversized sweater and the Western-inspired boots. We don’t know the character’s height or build or hair color. We don’t need to know those details now. We may learn more later.

Second Example:

Somewhere around the fifth or sixth time, a door swung open and a woman tumbled out, shooting across the dirt in a tank top and red bikini underwear. Her bare legs were scary skinny and her hair wild, like she’d been sleeping in a wind tunnel. She marched right up to him and smacked him in the chest.

Wow. Did you see her shooting across the dirt? In a tank top and red bikini underwear?

I did.

That’s so much more than a description. Which is exactly what you want to do!

Study that example. Really study it. You’ll learn, learn. learn.

From Demonseer by Becky Rawnsley

I spin round to find my Bestie Number One has emerged from the biology lab. Connie—small, flame-haired, irrepressible—waves at Josh and shoulder-bumps me. ‘Hiya, you two.’

Two physical descriptors and one personality hit shared in an em dash/No And, construction. Works beautifully.

4. Your POV character’s reactions to everything.

This point applies to every page of your book. Needing subtext and more.

• It may be a visceral response.
• It may be what they’re feeling.
• It may be what they’re thinking.
• It may be what they’re planning to do.

See what I did there? Got your attention, I hope.

You may not want character’s thinking about what they’re planning to do. If it’s happening right away, have them do it.

You know the reactions from your POV character. The reader only knows those reactions if you show or tell them.

BTW – One of my monthly Dig Deep Webinars is all about how to share reactions from your POV character: Game-Changing Power: Sharing Impact on the POV Character.

There are tons of these types of webinars on my website.

Two more examples from Cathy Lawrence.

She knew the male POV character was becoming intrigued by the female sitting across from him in the carriage, but there weren’t any hints on the page.

We scrolled up and found two places where we could slip in a few words that shared his interest.

The BEFORE Sentence:

Her speech was measured, impossibly calm, her body serene, unmoving. 

Beautiful dialogue cue followed by a thought about her body.

The AFTER Sentence

Her speech was measured, impossibly calm, somehow annoyingly alluring. Her body serene, unmoving. 

YELLOW – We added to the dialogue cue and put his interest on the page.

RED – We nixed it so we’d backload and spotlight annoyingly alluring.

The second example also plays off a dialogue cue, but this time we added the whole dialogue cue.

Now her voice was playful, mocking, making him want to He ached to reach across and draw her hood away, pull back the bonnet that was probably beneath it, and see precisely what kind of daring-fool she was.

The RED and the rest of that sentence was there. But it needed a stimulus.

We nixed the RED, added the YELLOW, and used the YELLOW dialogue cue as a stimulus for him wanting to see her face.

Another missing-attraction example.

Two paragraphs from Zara Keane's Ambushed in the Alps. She has to dig a bullet out of his upper thigh.

The BEFORE Paragraphs:

“It’s time to put my First Aid skills to the test.”

After Sidney went upstairs, and I plumped Luc’s cushions.

Zara knew that Angel is attracted to Luc. But the reader’s only read one thought about it in a previous chapter. It’s not developed for a long time, but that attraction is still happening. And Angel is going to be close to him and touch his skin. It’s a perfect place to slip in her attraction.

The AFTER Paragraphs:

“Okaaaay. It’s time to put my First Aid skills to the test.”

Sidney went upstairs, and I turned to Luc. I’ve never been this close to him. Never touched his skin. And considering that I shot him a scant few inches from his… The reaction deep in my belly redefined the butterfly effect. And heat torched my face. Great. I was a hot mess when I needed to be a cool surgeon.

Quick Analysis:

1. Zara wrote what I call a Visual Dialogue Cue: “Okaaaay.”

Adding the extra vowels cues the reader how she said that word and that she’s not really okay.

2. This is a clean book, so Zara implied where she’d accidentally shot him -- a scant few inches from his…

3. She shared two visceral responses.

4. Her last sentence carries a Humor Hit with structural and content parallelism. And, she really had considered going to med school to be a surgeon. It all fits.

The next paragraph from Ambushed in the Alps by Zara Keane was missing two important things: a visual and pain. Our POV character has bruised, maybe broken, ribs.

The BEFORE Paragraph:

I had to drag him up the steps, pausing between efforts. I’m not sure how, but we made it.

The AFTER Paragraph:

I had to drag turn around and pull him up the each steps, pausing to pant and moan. My poor battered ribs. between efforts. I’m not sure how, but we made it.

Now we can see how she’d help him up the steps. "Pant and moan" share her pain. And the 4-word sentence that follows adds more clarity. Now we know it’s her ribs that hurt.

Missing Scenes

Sometimes the Great Oz Effect contributes to missing scenes. I asked my friend/writer/editor extraordinaire Lori Freeland to share an example too.

From  Penelope's Pleasure, a historical romance by Deborah Villegas. 

Our heroine, Penelope, is desperate for money to save her brother and has to figure out a way to get it. That chapter ends with her solution.  

She was going to become a highwayman.

What a great hook. And something the reader can’t wait to experience along with Penelope. Only, that didn’t happen. The next place we pick up our heroine, we jump here:

So far, she had ridden out thrice and coaxed five purses, totaling almost one hundred pounds, out of their owners. She frowned as she thought back to her first quarry.

We missed her first robbery and got only a partial retelling. And because of that, the scene lost its power and the reader is disappointed. Once that was pointed out, Deborah went back and wrote the scene in detail, and the difference it made was amazing!

5. Specific-to-your-story points that may be veiled by the Great Oz Effect.

There are soooo many of those points in every book. It could be a squillion missing anythings.

Here are a few random examples.

Sounds

Cathy Lawrence had this sound:  Bang. Bang.

It could be someone pounding on a carriage door. But the reader could think it’s gunshots. Yikes!

Words

Sometimes there’s a perfect word you want to use, but it’s not one most readers would know. Like the word below I learned from Cathy Lawrence.

The BEFORE Sentence:

She lifted her gaze enough to limn his features.

The AFTER Sentence:

She lifted her gaze enough to limn his features like an artist sketches an outline.

Now everyone gets it. And the sentence is perfectly cadenced too.

You’d limit yourself to very few words in your book that are rarely known like limn. Or am I the rare one? Let me know in the comments if you knew the word limn.

Specificity

Zara Keane – Ambushed in the Alps

The Set Up: The POV character is trying to rescue a friend who was buried in an avalanche.

The reader gets what’s meant in the BEFORE sentence:

We dug at a frantic pace, clearing snow, searching for any sign of life.

But if you put yourself in the POV character’s skin, or watch your mind-video of this scene, you’d know what you’re looking for.

We dug at a frantic pace, clearing snow, searching for a hand, a foot, an elbow, an ear.

Ambushed in the Alps is make-you-snicker-snort funny. Hence elbow and ear.

The last example:

This is also from Ambushed in the Alps by Zara Keane. What the POV character has to do is not not not a funny part of the story. But Zara stays true to her genre and her POV character and slips in three Humor Hits.

Set Up: The 19 year-old female POV character has to dig a bullet out of someone’s thigh. She doesn’t have any medical training. The dialogue is from the guy she accidentally shot.

The BEFORE, 2 paragraphs.

The first paragraph is dialogue from the guy who’s been shot.

“The bullet’s still in there. And there’s no exit wound. You’re going to have to dig it out.”

I searched for the tweezers in the First Aid kit.

Sometimes deep editing is seeing what’s not on the page.

What’s not there?

TWO BIG REACTIONS! One from him and one from her.

I know what I’d be feeling and thinking, but I’m not Angel. Her backstory is insane, as it should be.

Zara Keane added the YELLOW in less than a minute.

“The bullet’s still in there. And there’s no exit wound. You’re going to have to dig it out.” Luc’s bravado shoved out the words, but I could hear the fear in his tone.

An image popped into my mind. My dad slumped on the sofa. My godfather, Jimmy the Rat, digging a bullet out of dad’s shoulder.

If Jimmy could do it, so could I. Another life lesson courtesy of jailbird Jimmy.

I swallowed past the boulder in my throat and searched for the tweezers in the First Aid kit.

We’ll analyze what Zara Keane accomplished.

1. She added a dialogue cue that contrasted his two incongruent feelings. Always smart to share two opposite feeling states. Pretending to be brave as well as his fear. Brilliant.

Read the dialogue cue out loud:

Luc’s bravado shoved out the words, but I could hear the fear in his tone.

What did you hear? Structural parallelism. Compelling cadence.  And another rhetorical device – assonance. Rhyming vowel sounds: hear, fear.

2. She used Angel’s backstory to let the reader know she’d seen her godfather dig a bullet out of her dad.

3. She included oh-so-fun Jimmy the Rat to lighten the scene. And amplified with the if-Jimmy-could-do-it line.

4. She amplified again with the next sentence: Another life lesson courtesy of jailbird Jimmy.

Notice her double alliteration:  life, lesson, jailbird, Jimmy.

Wrapping Up, a Goodie for You, and Good News Too!

You know the full everything behind what something means, but your reader may only know the broad-brush something.

How’s that for vague?

That’s how your reader may feel.

You don’t feel that way…

Wait for it…

…

…

… because you know everything.

But if you don’t know what’s not clear for the reader, how can you fix it?

You may need a clarity reader. Someone who doesn’t know your story, or an editing partner or friend who has the gift of separating what they know from what the reader learns on each page.

Yep. Some people have that gift.

A Goodie for You!

You could write down what the reader learns at the bottom of each page. A bullet-point list.

I call that my Page-by-Page Check Pacing List. It’s good for checking pacing as well as tracking what the reader knows. But it’s more for facts. Not for those all-important reactions that often need to be shared.

The Good News!

None of these examples took more than a couple of minutes to find a spot and slip them in. Quick, easy, fun deep editing that adds just what’s needed to keep the reader clued in.

There’s always a cool way to get what you want on the page.

A big heartfelt THANK YOU to the talented Immersion Grads for giving me permission to use their examples. Love you, love your writing!

What are some of your Great Oz Effect issues? What types of things have you needed to go back and clarify for the reader?

Please chime in. I’d love to hear from you!

Can you tell I love teaching?

If you’d like to learn more about Lawson Writer’s Academy, drop by my website, www.margielawson.com .

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Here’s what’s coming up soon:

My next webinar:  Fast-Track Your Creativity!

Each of my webinars are offered twice each month:

April 21, 12:00 p.m. Mountain Time

April 22, 7:00 p.m. Mountain Time

Can’t make those times? Register and catch the recording later.

Check out the April Line-Up of Classes from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

1. Potent Pitches and Brilliant Blurbs by Suzanne Purvis

2. Advanced Craft with Laura Drake

3. Flying Write with Hugh Gordon

4. Two-Week Intensive on Revision by Shirley Jump

5. Power Up Your Setting by Rhay Christou

6. The Indie Author:  A hands-on guide to self-publishing by Jenn Windrow

7. World Genesis: World Building 101 with Suzanne Lazear

8. Writing Thrillers and Other Dangerous Novels by Julie Rowe

9. Story Structure Safari with Lisa Miller

10. Intro to Screenwriting with Wally Lane and Betty Kim

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Can’t wait to hear from you all. If you have questions, ask!

ONE MORE THING:  My next GET HAPPY Virtual Open House is April 12th!

Mark your calendar! Drop by my website between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12th.

Click on the GET HAPPY meme, and you’ll be in my Zoom room.

It’s a chance to hang out with writers. No agenda. Just chatting and laughing and getting to know each other. Hope to see you there!

About Margie

Margie Lawson left a career in psychology to focus on another passion—helping writers make their stories, characters, and words strong. Using a psychologically-based, deep-editing approach, Margie teaches writers how to bring emotion to the page. Emotion equals power. Power grabs readers and holds onto them until the end. Hundreds of Margie grads have gone on to win awards, find agents, sign with publishers, and hit bestseller lists.     

An international presenter, Margie has taught over 150 full-day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France, as well as multi-day intensives on cruise ships in the Caribbean. Pre-COVID, she taught 5-day Immersion Master Classes across the U.S. and Canada and in seven cities in Australia too. 

COVID Update: Immersion Master Classes are now virtual, taught through Zoom. Virtual Immersion classes are limited to six writers. They're two full days or four half-days—and as always, writers get one-on-one deep editing with Margie. 

She also founded Lawson Writer's Academy, where you’ll find over 30 instructors teaching online courses through her website. To learn more, and sign up for Margie’s newsletter, visit www.margielawson.com.

Top Photo credit from Wikimedia Commons, CC License Attribution Share-Alike 4.0, Uraam Asif