Writers in the Storm

 Margie Lawson

How often do you get fresh…on the page?

Writers are beyond crazy busy getting their story on the page, developing goal-motivation-conflict, deepening characterization, sharing subtext with body language and dialogue cues, making choreography work, as well as covering the 3756 other dynamics they need to consider to make their writing strong.

Sometimes writers forget about writing fresh. Or they don’t include enough hits of fresh writing.

Fresh hits may be unexpected. But when they fit the POV character like Peter Pan’s shadow fit him, they’re yummy. Those twists of phrases, tweaks for humor, fresh visuals, and more, power the reader through your story. They make your book a page-turner.

Fresh hits may be humorous or serious. As long as they honor the emotional set of the POV character in that scene and don’t interrupt a stimulus-response, they’ll probably work.

Some fresh hits are super subtle. Others grab you and propel you through the passage.

Lean back and enjoy these examples of fresh writing.

 Season of Change, Melinda Curtis, Immersion-Grad

Example 1 -- Melinda Curtis could have written:

Slade tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight.

But she wrote this fresh piece:

          Shameful. The word spiraled up Slade’s windpipe, closing it off to vital functions like breathing and calls for help.

Wow. Fresh and powerful.

Example 2 -- Melinda Curtis could have written:

“They wore different outfits today.” He smiled.

Instead, she wrote:

“They wore different outfits today.” He used his papa-bear smile, the one that made her melt. The one that made her forget he was her boss.

Melinda used three amplifications to deepen character.

Example 3 -- Melinda Curtis could have written:

Slade’s stomach clenched.

She really wrote this version:

Slade’s stomach wound up tighter than a slugger protecting home plate.

Ah. An amplified simile. Smart writing. Perfect cadence.

 

The Pieces We Keep, Kristina McMorris, Margie-Grad

Example 1 – Kristina McMorris could have written:

The room went quiet.

You’ll be glad Kristina worked harder and wrote this line:

The quiet left behind was the type that followed a shove off a cliff.

Boom. That’s a powerful simile.

Example 2 – Kristina McMorris could have written just these three words:

Her chest cinched.

But Kristina added 16 more words:

Her chest cinched. An ancient grip squeezed out her air, the hand of a ghost reaching from the soil.

Out of context, it’s strong writing. In context, it’s uber-powerful.

Example 3 – Kristina McMorris could have been content with this cliché.

In her frenzied state, she’d follow him anywhere.

Kristina didn’t bore the reader by giving them something they’d read before. She treated them to this sentence:

In her frenzied state, he could lead her to hell and she wouldn’t think to object until waist deep in flames.

 

The Valquez Seduction, Melanie Milburne, USA Today Bestselling Author,

Margie-Grad

This time I’ll share a passage followed by a deep edit analysis.

Daisy had heard the expression ‘time stood still’ many times. She had even used it on occasion. She knew it wasn’t logically possible but this time it really did stop. She felt it. It was as if every clock in the nightclub, every clock on every smartphone, every watch on every wrist shuddered and then stopped.

Tick. Tock. Stop.

Belinda snapped her fingers in front of Daisy’s face. ‘Earth to Daze.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Kate nudged Daisy in the ribs. ‘He’s coming over!’

Daisy sat with her heart pounding like a piston in an engine long overdue for a service. Her skin felt tingly all over. She could even feel the backs of her knees fizzing like sherbet trickled into a glass of soda. She felt giddy. She had to grip the edge of the bar with one of her hands to stop from tumbling to the floor in an ungainly heap.

Deep Edit Analysis:

Rhetorical Devices:           

Amplification -- in first and fifth paragraphs.

Anaphora – every clock…, every clock…, every watch…

Simile – Twice – Like a piston…, Like sherbet…

White Space – Empowers the passage.

Multiple Visceral Responses:

• heart pounding, amplified simile

• tingly skin

• backs of knees, amplified simile

• giddy, amplified with a full sentence

Fresh Writing – Yes!

 

This Side of Salvation, Jeri Smith-Ready, Margie-Grad

You’ll find several hits of fresh writing in these back-to-back paragraphs, and a Deep Edit Analysis below.

I hear the wahp-wahp of sirens, see the blue-and-red flash of lights through my eyelids, and realize that I am dead. Not heaven-bound dead, cashing in on my undeserved eternal ecstasy. Dead as in, if I’ve missed curfew—and therefore the non-end of the world—my dad is going to kill me.

Here on Stephen Rice’s lawn, “busted” echoes in a dozen panicky voices. I sit up quickly as barely dressed juniors and seniors scurry past, tripping over scattered beach towels, pouring out the contents of their plastic cups. I pity the grass its imminent hangover.

Deep Edit Analysis:

Power Words: dead, heaven-bound dead, cashing in, undeserved eternal ecstasy, dead, missed curfew, non-end of the world, kill, busted, panicky, barely dressed, pity, hangover

Backloaded Words: dead, ecstasy, kill me, panicky voices, hangover

Rhetorical Devices:

Onomatopoeia: wahp-wahp

Amplification: The first paragraph is loaded with amplifications regarding how dead he’ll be, how much trouble he’ll be in with his dad, if he gets arrested.

Cadence: Perfect.

Humor Hits: multiple - - including missing the non-end of the world, and personification, the grass getting a hangover

Fresh Writing – Yes!

 

Sweet on You, Laura Drake, Margie-Grad, RITA Winner!

Example 1:

The arctic wind howled around the corner of the huge building, to blast her, snatching her breath, tearing her eyes. Her desert-thin blood raced through her in a hopeless, frantic attempt to keep warm. She whipped her head right, then left, thinking that a wrong choice would find her dead, flash-frozen, like Jack Nicholson in that Stephen King movie.

Deep Edit Analysis:

Power Words: arctic, howled, huge, blast, snatching, tearing, desert-thin, blood, raced, hopeless, frantic, attempt, warm, whipped, wrong, dead, flash-frozen, Jack Nicholson, Stephen King

Rhetorical Devices:

Asyndeton: First Sentence

Amplification: First Sentence

Simile: like Jack Nicholson in that Stephen King movie.

Allusion: Jack Nicholson, Stephen King

Cadence: Perfect

Example 2: Two paragraphs

She knew from experience that the worst thing for her was idleness. Memories and loneliness would wash over her, rolling her in churning emotions, leaving her unsure of the way to the surface. Days later, the undertow would release her, and she’d struggle back, weakened, covered in a salty film of guilt.

Why had Murphy died and she survived? The army chaplain told her it was God’s will. The army psychiatrist said it was chance. She knew what Grand would say. That she had an unfulfilled purpose.

Deep Edit Analysis:

Power Words: worst, idleness, memories, loneliness, emotions, unsure, surface, undertow, release, struggle, weakened, guilt, died, survived, chaplain, God’s will, psychiatrist, chance, Grand, unfulfilled purpose

Backloaded Words: idleness, surface, guilt, survived, God’s will, chance, unfulfilled purpose

Rhetorical Devices:

Asyndeton: Twice. Second and third sentences in the first paragraph.

Rhetorical question: First sentence, second paragraph.

Amplification: Both paragraphs.

Amplified Metaphor – First paragraph

Cadence: Perfect.

 

Wrapping Up:

Three words.

Fresh writing sells.

Trust me. Don’t settle for clichéd and overused phrases. Get fresh. Give your readers chocolate-mousse-on-the-tongue writing. Keep them turning pages, wanting more and more and more.

BLOG GUESTS: IT’S YOUR TURN!

 Click in and say Hi. Or want to share your fresh writing? Just one or two sentences.

 Say Hi, post an example, or post a comment, and you’ll be in the drawing to win an online course from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

 Check out the courses offered by Lawson Writer's Academy in January:

1. Screenwriting Strategies for Fiction Writers
2. 30 Days to a Stronger Novel 
3. From Blah to Beats: Giving Your Chapter a Pulse
4. Creating Reader's Guides for YA and MG Novels
5. Virtues, Vices, & Plots 

The drawing will be Tuesday, December 9, 8:00 PM Mountain Time.

All smiles................Margie

 Margie Lawson—editor, international presenter—teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners. Margie has presented over ninety full day master classes for writers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. She’s excited to share that Romance Writers of Australia is bringing her back to present at their conference next summer.

To learn about Lawson Writer’s Academy, Margie’s 4-day Immersion Master Classes (in Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, San Antonio, Columbus, Jacksonville, Houston, and on Whidbey Island), her full day Master Class presentations, on-line courses, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit www.MargieLawson.com.

Laura Kaye

Most authors struggle with how to balance their writing time against their social media efforts. They feel that the more time they spend promoting their books on Facebook, Twitter, their blog, or other blogs, the less time they have to devote to writing. Some even go as far as wishing they could wash their hands of the whole business end of their writing career and concentrate on what they love best—writing books to put in readers’ hands.

I’ll admit, I’ve had these feelings sometimes, too. After all, there are a finite number of hours in the day. But I’ve come to look at it all a bit differently. I’m often asked how I juggle multiple book contracts and an active blog and an active social media presence and multiple promotional efforts all at once, and I’ve thought and thought about an answer that would be more useful than “I don’t sleep very much.”

I think I just might have found an answer that is more useful: I don’t see social media as a burden, and I don’t approach the business end of my writing career as being different or separate from the writing end of it.

Why do you write books? I write because, well, because I have to write. I can’t not write. But I also write because I hope my words and stories will bring a few hours of joy, happiness and pleasure to my readers’ lives. I do it for my readers. After all, if they weren’t out there reading and enjoying, I couldn’t do what I do. Therefore, when I think of social media, I see an opportunity to talk to and hang out with my readers and friends, not something burdensome or obligatory I have to do.

I adore seeing how readers will react to my excerpts or status updates or posts or weird observations I tweet. Online reader feedback is the best kind of instant gratification, and I find it fuels me. It’s fun and serves as a great break from writing or a way to productively fill ten minutes I couldn’t use for other activities.

• Writing (X%)
  • Plotting, Writing, Revising, Pitching, Submitting, Editing
• Business (X%)
  • Promotion (free), Marketing (paid), Administrative tasks

 Social media only distracts from your writing career if you see it as not being central to your writing career.

Similarly, I’ve learned that the business end of my writing career is just as important as the writing end. In fact, I’ve learned they’re equally part of the whole experience. In fact, for me, I’d fill in the X’s above with the number 50—as in, I estimate that, on average, I spend approximately 50% of my time doing writing-related tasks and 50% of my time doing business-related tasks.

When I’m on deadline, the percentage skews more heavily toward writing. And when I’m in the midst of a new release, it skews more heavily toward business—and I don’t let myself feel guilty or unproductive about that at all. Because, either way, both activities are central to my career. Indeed, these days, most authors can’t be fully successful without doing both. Therefore, social media only distracts from your writing career if you see it as not being central to your writing career.

I’m not talking about basic procrastination here (I excel at that, doncha know?)—yes, of course, procrastinating on the interwebz might thwart your writing goals for the day. Instead, I’m talking about shifting the way you think about how the time spent on social media, blogging and other promotional efforts relates to your career itself.

I think attempting a shift in attitudes about the time spent on social media has the potential to make it more enjoyable, more productive, more consequential, and less overwhelming. Of course, sometimes you just have to say nope, no time for Facebook today! But that’s a different thing from saying Oh, gawwwwd, guess I have to go post on Facebook and twitter now (cue long-suffering sigh). LOL

So, what do you think? Could a shift in perspective make the business end of your career easier to handle, manage, accept, and enjoy?

Thanks for reading!

About Laura Kaye:

Laura is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over twenty books in contemporary and paranormal romance and romantic suspense. Growing up, Laura’s large extended family believed in the supernatural, and family lore involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses cemented in Laura a life-long fascination with storytelling and all things paranormal. She lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and cute-but-bad dog, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.

 Website | Facebook | Twitter | Newsletter SignUp

About Laura’s new release, Hard to Come By (Hard Ink #3, 11/25/14)

 Caught between desire and loyalty…

Derek DiMarzio would do anything for the members of his disgraced Special Forces team—sacrifice his body, help a former teammate with a covert operation to restore their honor, and even go behind enemy lines. He just never expected to want the beautiful woman he found there.

When a sexy stranger asks questions about her brother, Emilie Garza is torn between loyalty to the brother she once idolized and fear of the war-changed man he's become. Derek’s easy smile and quiet strength tempt Emilie to open up, igniting the desire between them and leading Derek to crave a woman he shouldn’t trust.

As the team’s investigation reveals how powerful their enemies are, Derek and Emilie must prove where their loyalties lie before hearts are broken and lives are lost. Because love is too hard to come by to let slip away…

Buy at Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK | B&N | iTunes | Kobo

Hard to Come By on Goodreads

 And don’t miss the other Hard Ink books, now available:

Hard As It Gets
Hard As You Can
Hard to Hold On To

Tiffany Yates Martin

Before we turn the blog over to Tiffany Yates Martin, we want to announce the winners of Chuck Sambuchino's Worst Storyline Ever! contest.

Winners:

1. Laurie Michele - "Nudist cowboy rides his faithful horse across the Wild West, fighting crime and saddle rash."

2. Therese Calegari - "Defeated by the love of her life in the World Knitting Championships, Mary seeks to rebuild her shattered dreams of being famous by piloting an airplane made entirely of wool, and finds more than she bargained for when a local sheep farmer is waiting on the wing."

3. Rebecca White - "Dabney, a deaf-mute Duclair duck, witnesses a gang homicide in Chinatown, and must race to learn the difficult International Sign Language for Deaf Ducks and communicate the name of the despicable perpetrator to his fianceé and sometime sleazy topless dancer, Hoa duck Daphne, before he is kidnapped and turned into Peking duck by the Gang of Hungry Four."

Honorable Mention:

Hayley I - "When three sisters fall in love with two Martians on prom night, only the sisters’ ex-boyfriends, a trio of tambourine players struggling to make it in Toronto’s unpredictable tambourine scene, can stop the playboy aliens from winning hearts and destroying the world with the helium gas gun secretly stored in the prom king crown by an ancient Martian evil."

Pam Stucky - "A young man, who has never recovered from the pain and anguish of losing his childhood pet rock, forms a rock band in which the band members pass out rocks to the audience at every concert."

David E Markey - "In a world of puppets one marrionette and one tubesock with googly eyes will need to band together to rescue the Princess Macrame from the clutches of the vile Lord Pleather and his horde of yarn-eating mothmen all the while having to overcome their own biases and mutual distrust all before Dark Lord can unknit the world."

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks, everyone, for entering!

Take it away, Tiffany!  

NaNoWriMo: Now What?

Congratulations—if you participated in last month’s National Novel Writing Month challenge (or even if you didn’t), hopefully you’re looking at a finished first draft that’s full of potential.

Now what?

Don't make the mistake of the writer who, after last year’s challenge, had his NaNo manuscript uploaded and available on Kindle one week later. Regardless of how good your story may be, in the inimitable words of Ernest Hemingway, “The first draft of anything is sh**.”

Just as a sculptor wouldn’t have the clay delivered and call it art, the raw material of your first draft is unlikely to be publishable (or sometimes even readable). But that’s not to say that you don’t have the makings of an excellent novel on your hands—if you take the time to do the real work of writing: editing and revising.

Evaluating what you have in your manuscript and knowing what to do to make it the best it can be can sometimes be the hardest part of writing—much harder than the initial sexy, satisfying burst of creativity that is a first draft. If first drafts are the heady honeymoon period, revisions are the marriage—when you can’t rely on the excitement of the new anymore and it’s time to put in the work to make sure you’ve created something that can go the distance.

But what do you do first?

Before anything else, step away. Take a break for at least a few days, ideally longer. You’ve been submerged in the manuscript for a month (or more); you need to surface and catch some fresh air before diving back down.

When you do come back to it, start with an objective read: reading your manuscript as you would any other book, without trying to fix anything, just immersing yourself in the story and reading it start to finish.

Now it’s time to ask yourself some questions about the three main tent poles of story: character, plot, and stakes.

Character:

Readers care about what happens in your story only insofar as it affects characters you have made us care about, so regardless of how “plot-driven” your story may be, or how exciting its events, we don’t care what happens unless we care about whom it’s happening to.

• Begin by asking a few questions about your characters:Who is your protagonist(s)? As remedial as it sounds, this isn’t always cut-and-dried.       Especially in certain genres—women’s fiction, for instance—there may be multiple main characters, or the story may be a pastiche of tales knitted together, with no clear “hero” or engine of the story in the first-draft stage. Or the main character(s) may be fuzzy or not well developed generic “types” rather than three-dimensional characters who pop off the page. Write down your protag(s) and, for each one, a few defining character traits, what makes her/him unique. Do the same with your antagonist(s).
• What do they want? Do all main characters have a strong, clearly defined goal? Is their motive for achieving it strong and evident?
• What keeps them from that goal?
• How are they changed in the process of getting it (or not getting it)?
• Is what happens to the protagonist caused or worsened by the antagonist?
• Is every main character essential? Differentiated?
• Do your protagonists have flaws, and do your antagonists have redeeming qualities? One-dimensional characters make for dull reading.

Plot:

Before you begin revising the manuscript, I suggest you create what I call an “X-ray” or blueprint for the story—essentially an outline. Basically, make a bulleted or numbered list of the main plot developments—for each one, you will have just a line or two at most. This is just a sketch, an X-ray of sorts of the story so you can see its “bones” more clearly without the “flesh” of the whole narrative covering it. Now it’s time for more questions:

• Are there holes in the plot line? Perhaps you see you need to show how C leads to D, or X leads to Y.
• Does each and every development accomplish something—develop character or further plot—in a way that is tied into the central, overarching plot? (If not, chances are it doesn’t belong in the story.)
• Can you identify the story’s “inciting event”—that thing that sets this entire story in motion? If not, find that event. If you do have it, but it appears well into the outline, consider how to begin the story at that point, rather than before it.
• Can you identify the story’s arc? Is there a clear beginning, middle, and end?
• Examine why each plot event happens. Is it realistic? Believable?
• Is there any easier or better way out of the mess for your characters? (The answer must be no.)
• Are there loose ends? Unanswered questions? Anything unresolved?
• Any unmotivated actions, or deus ex machinas (unsupported resolutions to the plot)?

Stakes:

What separates a compelling book from one readers will put down is keeping the stakes high throughout the story. I used to be an actor, and the best piece of acting advice I ever got was that great actors make the strongest possible choice in every situation, however big or small. If a character leaves the room, is he simply leaving in accordance with the stage directions, or is he furiously retreating? If a man kills his wife’s lover, is it stronger if he does it out of wounded pride alone, or also a desperate, painful unreturned love for her? The latter is stronger, and therefore more dramatic and compelling. The same holds true in fiction. Characters must want something desperately, and there must be consequences—meaningful ones—if they don’t achieve that goal. When looking at your first draft, consider whether you have maximized every motivation, made the strongest possible choice in every moment for every character. That’s what makes for great, memorable fiction.

Now that you have the tools for approaching your edit, it’s time to go back in and start addressing what you’ve discovered in the above “dissection” of your main elements of story—filling in gaps, deepening motivations, raising stakes, building character, etc.

In future articles, we’ll talk about specific ways to execute these elements of craft, and examine other key story concepts, like tension/suspense, show versus tell, point of view, and flabby verbiage.
And though you may feel you’re standing at the foot of what can often seem like Revision Mountain, take time to acknowledge your accomplishment so far—writing a full first draft is no small achievement, and you’re well on your way to a finished novel you can be proud of.

What's the hardest part about approaching an edit for you? What techniques or "tricks" do you use when approaching a revision?
 

 Tiffany Yates Martin has worked in the publishing industry for more than twenty years, currently through her editorial consulting company, FoxPrint Editorial, helping authors hone their work to a tight polished draft. As a developmental editor she works both directly with authors as well as through major publishing houses.

As a freelance copyeditor and proofreader, she has worked with major New York publishers, among them Random House, the Penguin Group, and HarperCollins. She holds a BA in English Literature from GSU and is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association.

Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she is the author of the Breakup Doctor series (Henery Press); the second in the series, Bedside Manners, will be released in March of 2015.