Writers in the Storm

This is a true story: 

I looked out my window this morning, as I always do while drinking my breakfast protein shake.

In the heavier than usual wind, the prayer flags flapped loudly.

Through the narrow gaps of brightly-colored material I saw a profusion of blooming tropical flowers.

Behind them, a mermaid sat on her rock. Surrounded by water. Unconcerned by the wind. Blowing through her conch shell.

Beyond her, an angel stands, arms wide, watching the tiny decedents of millenia-dead dinosaurs perform their morning sun salutations, ignoring the war machines flying overhead.

I write science fiction. Do you have a feeling for this place?

But this is not a setting from anything I'm working on. This is how I look out my kitchen window, mug in hand, while I down 10 ounces of water blended with grapefruit, ice, protein powder and spinach, while a military helicopter flew overhead. It's how I look at the world. Different from non-writers. Different from anyone else. 

And you look at the world differently than anyone else, too.

That's the beauty of being a writer. We have a license to see our world through whatever lens we want, whatever lens our characters see their world.

I'm always surprised when one of the first things other writers say when I tell them I write science fiction is, "Oh, you have to do world building. I could never do that." News flash! Every writer must build the world their character inhabits so readers know how that world operates. Even contemporary genre writers must world build.

Think about a story with a cowboy, or a short-order cook, or a doctor. We have to see—and feel—what the characters do, how they live. Otherwise we can't connect with them. This requires world building skills.

World building traditionally means describing the character's physical surroundings and societal influences.

What better way to do this than to use deep POV for your characters? If they are seeing their "usual" world and walk past the burnt out husk of a tank, sand blowing so hard they've pulled up the scarves they wear around their necks, guns slung over their shoulders, you might be reading a book about today's soldiers in the Middle East on a routine patrol in an area they are familiar with.

How do you know they are familiar with the area? From the details given through the character's POV. The "common" details are glossed over. Only enough essentials to ground the reader are shared. Something out of place or different will be noted and examined either from a distance or close-up. Danger or interest can be conveyed in the tones, attitude or physical approach or the dialogue between characters or the thoughts of one character.

A writer of historical fiction takes great care to describe the style of furniture, the material and cut of the curtains, a rug, a silver tea service—all to show you the opulence of a duke's home.

If the view is through the eyes of someone who is courting the favor of the duke, different details and a different tone will be used than a an outdoor servant who is called into the duke's study for an unknown reason and is waiting for the worst to happen. Again, tone and the careful selection of details can perform double duty by "world building" the setting and conveying the emotions of the character. For example, someone who thinks they are going to lose their position or be accused of something will definitely notice the miniature guillotine on a shelf in the study, while someone in love will notice a book of poetry lying open on a table.

Try an experiment: Pick a genre in which you don't write. Look around the room you're sitting in and describe what you see for that genre. Extra points for being a character with an agenda as you look around the room.

See, you can world build, even in a different genre. How much easier will it be in your own genre?

World building is most important at the beginning of your story, but you've got to be careful not to info dump. Using your character's POV not only shows the setting, but also the character's "take" on the setting and their overall feelings about being there. Whenever your words can do double or triple duty, your writing is more powerful.

I wrote a series on world building a while back. You can read about World Building Techniques with examples from my upcoming Winter 2018 release, Keeping Athena, here , or World Building: Social and Cultural Aspects here , or World Building: Physical Setting here. These posts were written with all genres in mind.

Do you have a question about world building (in any genre)? What techniques do you use to show the world your characters live in?

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ABOUT FAE:

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak. Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes  that she can live anywhere but the present. As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of calculus lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now shares her brain with characters who demand that their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard.

P.R.I.S.M., a young adult science fiction romance story of survival, betrayal, resolve, deceit, lies, and love.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen

Fae also blogs at YA Outside the Lines on the fifth of every month.

 

I’m editing my novel. Again.

I don’t feel like telling you how many agains I have done in the course of turning out the best story I can deliver. But suffice it to say that when I received some wonderful feedback that convinced me I needed to go another round, I started off with determination!

And ended up huddled under my bed covers with a glass of wine, a box of tissues, and a romance novel where people actually get happy endings.

What I hadn’t counted on was a phenomenon I should easily spot by now: editing grief.

You’ve heard of the five stages of grief, right? It’s the notion that when you experience a deep loss, you go through five phases of emotion: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Editing can awaken all of these emotions as well.

Denial. I don’t need to do no stinkin’ edit!

Perhaps you believe that your book is just fine as it is. After all, your best friend, your mother, and your hamster, to whom you read your manuscript aloud, all adored your story. Besides, your book is better than the drivel you read in that bestseller you bought and tossed aside.

Or perhaps you don’t want to believe what your critique partner or group is telling you, because they just don’t understand your characters like you do.

Anger. Dang it, I do have to edit this book!

Now that you’ve admitted there are problems with your story structure, your characterization, or your prose, you’re committed to doing the edit. But why didn’t you catch all these issues earlier? Given all that you’ve learned about writing, not to mention all the reading you’ve done, you should know better by now!

Or why didn’t the contest judges, critique partners, agent, editor, etc. tell you exactly what was wrong? It could have saved you a lot of trouble if someone had helped you to see the plot and character problems earlier on. And now, you have to find time you don’t have to fix mistakes you never should have made to begin with!

Bargaining. I can accomplish my goals by just making some tweaks.

You’re convinced that if you add a little depth here and there, slip in an extra scene or delete those two scenes that weren’t pulling their weight, you can make this story work. In fact, it’s not as bad as you originally thought, because—being the savvy author you are—you should be able to breeze through the book and find just the right places to fix the minor problems.

Soon enough, this novel will be in great shape, and you’ll have it back to your ______ [critique partner, agent, editor] within no time at all. You’ll probably beat the deadline you gave yourself, thus showing just how much of a pro you are.

Depression. Dear God, this is a total rewrite! [sob]

Once you began making changes in Chapter 1, you realized that also changed Chapters 3, 8, 14, 18, 23, and 30. And this realization has happened with every change you’ve made. You might as well throw the manuscript in the nearest fire pit and start over. I mean, wouldn't that be easier?

Or what would be easier is to be a toll booth operator. No one really demands much of you there, certainly not three hundred pages of brilliance. Why did you decide to write this book anyway? You should have gone with the other story idea. In fact, what if you just wasted the last six months on an unworkable novel?

Acceptance. I’ve got this.

You’ve rolled up your sleeves and now recognize:

• Yes, this is the story you want to tell.
• You know what needs doing.
• You have all the talent and perseverance needed to turn out a fabulous book.
• You will love the final result.

As you dig further into the edits, you feel renewed hope and excitement. You actually enjoy hanging out with your characters, making sure they appeal to readers, getting their story just right. And when this edit is over, you’ll get to put on your Wonder Woman cape. Because yeah, you’re a kick-butt writer.

What stage am I in now? I’m at acceptance. But I went through all the other stages, and if you’re in one of those, hang in there. Maybe there are shortcuts through the stages, but I haven't found them. I seem to go through grief every time I have to do more editing than I originally expected.

But I'm always—always, always, always—glad in the end.

Do you go through the editing stages of grief? If you're editing now, what stage are you in and how can we talk you through?

ABOUT JULIE

Julie Glover writes cozy mysteries and young adult fiction. Her YA contemporary novel, SHARING HUNTER, finaled in the 2015 RWA® Golden Heart®. When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.

Julie is represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. You can visit her website here and also follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

I'm ready for more first page submissions! Just copy and paste your first page into the body of an email, and send it to: LauraDrake@LauraDrakeBooks.com

I can't promise to use yours - I'm choosing them mostly for what lessons they can teach. But please, submit!

I thought it would be fun this month to show you the submission of an excellent writer. One who frankly makes me feel like a hack. Why? Because there's a great lesson in seeing what someone did right, too, right?

Black = original

Red = my thoughts/comments

Purple = text I added/altered

For the lucky living, the night was ripe. It was the year of the Tiger—Nixon was running scared, Ted Bundy was just getting started, and the tallest buildings in the world had opened down on Wall Street.

Everyone who was underage in Connecticut was welcome in New York. All the doors of the Stateline bar were open wide to the night and the place was packed. The smoke-laden air inside pulsed out into the heat and humidity of the fecund darkness and flowed back inside, carrying a heavy tinge of marijuana. There was a furtive commotion in a dark corner of the parking lot. Fighting or fucking, it didn’t matter. April was in a hot hurry to be July.

Wow. Talk about scene-setting! Do you see how the author gave us more than a simple where/when? They gave us the feeling of the time and place. And it's a shared emotional experience. You may have never been to New York, but you know this feeling - you've felt this feeling; being young, and in a hot spot.

What elevates it even more is the word choices. 'Fecund darkness, lucky living, April was in a hot hurry) Do you see how the emotional words draw you in and bind you to the page?

The amplified sounds of a rock band complete with horns hushed all the night creatures around the ramshackle country bar for a hundred yards in every direction. The music held sway over all, from those in worn, holey denim to the spandex and polyester crowd up from the city. The band—consummate crowd-pleasers—smoothly moved from rock to disco, to funk and blues with occasional stops at country and doo-wop along the way and no one could resist the urge to move to the beat.

Notice the use of all the senses - smell, and sight in the first paragraph, sound and sight in this one. See how it puts you there?

Tonight, the revelers would include a woman with no heart and a man with no soul.

BOOM. The author changes the cadence here, for a huge impact. Up til now, the words are flowing, rich, and flavored. This sentence is stark and brutal. See how switching is like a laser? It tells the reader, 'this is important.' And it doesn't hurt that it's a beautiful line.

It's also a dividing line - a shift from a wide-angle, impersonal viewpoint, narrowing to a protagonist and antagonist.

Anna perched on a stool at the bar, working diligently at drinking herself into a state of safety from the rioting mental scatter of the other patrons. While Fishing for money in the depths of her purse, she found a dusty, travel-worn pill. Small, greenish, the embossed markings illegible, she shrugged and washed it down with the last swallow of her third tequila sunrise. Que sera, sera.

Details matter! It wasn't just a stray pill in her purse...it was a dusty, travel-worn pill. We've all seen those, but I've never seen one described that way. Margie Lawson calls that fresh writing - well done!

A syrupy warmth flooded through her body, as the noise and jagged energy of the crowd receded. and she sat up She straightened, taking a long, deep breath that lifted her even taller in her seat, her guarded cynicism spinning away like a bad dream. Thirsty with the sudden heat, she scanned the top shelf liquor.

Again, great word choices: jagged energy, guarded cynicism spinning away...

Wary of the change in her demeanor, the bartender said, “Honey, if you’re gonna to be sick, take it outside.”

A tiny POV violation here - we're in her POV - she could notice him being aware of her change in demeanor, but she couldn't know he was wary of it.

Anna smiled in slow motion, licked her lips, and focused on him with devilish intensity.

IMO, first overstep. 'devilish' is a tiny bit too far. But that's me. Less is more. Let the reader wonder who/what she is. 

 

What do you think? Have you learned as much from a great example as you did from one that needed work? Am I the only one feeling like a hack after reading that?

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Laura's next book is available for preorder! (you know how much preorders help authors, right?) Just click on the photo to be taken to retailers.

This cowboy's got one last chance to prove himself

Carly Beauchamp has loved cowboy Austin Davis since first grade. Ask anyone in their dusty, backwater New Mexico town of Unforgiven, and they'll say “Carly and Austin” the way some say “big trucks and country boys.” But after years of waiting for a wedding ring, Carly’s done with being a rodeo widow . . . 

Austin never meant to put his career on the circuit before Carly. She’s always been his future, his one and only. But now that she’s moved on, he’s beginning to see where he went wrong, and he’ll do anything to win her back. The only thing is, Carly’s suddenly acting differently, and she’s definitely hiding a secret—one that will test the depth of their love and open up a whole new world of possibilities.

Forever-Romance.com Cover © 2018 Hachette Book Group, Inc.