Writers in the Storm

Marsha West

I’m searching for a non-cliché way to say how happy I am to be guest posting here at WITS, but Margie Lawson would pass out at everything that has popped into my mind. :) Thanks so much for asking me, y’all.

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Several years ago, my friend Jerrie Alexander and I took Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp as a free on-line course because we signed up early to attend the NOLA Conference in Louisiana. The conference was excellent, but this course was awesome.

I’ve modified one of the tools Elle James and her sister, Delilah Devlin, presented in that Bootcamp class to use in my pre-writing work.

This is what they presented:

Picture a table about 6 sections across and 8 down. You can make them whatever size works for you. Across the top is Scene 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc.

Down the left side of the Bootcamp example were these words: Use a row for each

• External Plot
• Romantic Plot
• Heroine’s Character Arc
• Hero’s Character Arc
• Hero’s Character Arc
• Subplot 1
• Subplot 2
• Subplot 3
• Subplot 4
• Hook
• POV
• Setting
• Calendar

Well, after a couple of attempts, I still couldn’t get the hang of it. But it did seem like a tool that might help me keep up with my story -- a way that allowed for fact checks so I didn’t spend hours scanning backwards through the text. Have you ever done that?

Pantsers, hang with me a bit more and you’ll see how this tool is good for you, too.

I used to call myself a plotter, but somewhere I ran across the term “plotser,” which I think describes my process better. Yes, I make character charts figuring out all their backstory, why they do what they do, what they want, that whole GMC thing. (And thank you Clover Autrey for your GMC questions!) I use a Bootcamp chart for Internal and External Conflict. This chart gives me the flow of the action. I work through about half the story that way before I ever start writing.

Let me just show you an example. This is an abbreviated table for chapter one from VERMONT ESCAPE, which in July celebrated its first Birthday and will come out in print version in September!

Vermont Escape Chapters & Scenes

Chap 1 p. 1-19	S1 p 1-3 Wed 4/24 evening. Woodstock Inn Suite	S2 p 3-10 Thurs 4/25morning Inn Dining room	S 3 p 10-18 4/25 J’s office, street, his Mother’s	S 4 p.18-19 4/25 Evening Anne’s home
	POV Jill. Discovers note and flashdrive from her deceased father.	POV Jill Meet Karen, stash Flash drive in bank box. Dog saving scene. Goes to Anne’s store, meets Jerrod. Karen suggests Jill buy store. Anne invites to supper.	POV Jerrod Works on contract, vists with Sheriff. J. wants Mom to sell to Vermonter, goes to house to take her out to apologize for behavior in store. He stays for supper, is attracted to Jill	POV Jill at dinner, she’s upset to be attracted to him, agrees to go to store next morning. Asks Karen/Tim not to talk about murders of her husband and father.

I use landscape for these tables rather than this portrait layout.

The date, time, and location of the scene are super helpful to me so I don’t have something happening before it can have happened. Because I had a POV problem early on, I note the POV character to make sure I don’t head hop and that I stay in one character’s head a decent length.

The basic action shows up this way, too. I can check to see when character knew a fact or did something at a particular time. When did the sheriff arrive? It’s all there.

Now, Pantsers, I hope you’ve stayed with me. Here’s my confession:

I don’t write this until I’ve finished writing the scene or chapter.

Do you see how this can be a useful tool for you without messing with your creativity? You don’t have to fill it out after every chapter if you’re on a roll and those words are pouring out. But every couple of chapters for sure you should do this the purposes of fact checking later.

If you’re a really good plotter and can write it out before hand, which is what Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp suggests with all the other categories I listed above, good for you. I tried, but had to keep changing it as I wrote the story, which became time consuming. Humm. Maybe I pants more than I think?

So how about you?

Plotter?

Pantser?

Some combination of the two?

What do you call yourself? If you don’t use this kind of visual to keep up with the story, what do you use? I’m always looking for a good tool to make this writing job easier. Thanks so much for letting me visit.

Marsha R. West’s first published book, VERMONT ESCAPE, was e-released by MuseItUp Publishing in July 2013. TRUTH BE TOLD e-released by MIU May 2014. She’s sold a third book to MIU scheduled for e-release Winter 2014/15. That book SECOND CHANCES is the first of a planned series about four women who met when they were kids at summer camp. In SECOND CHANCES, the hero, Mike Riley, played a supporting role in VERMONT ESCAPE, which releases in PRINT in September.

Visit Marsha at her website for more info. She’d love to hear from you.

 

Kathryn Craft

Turning Whine into Gold

 

I had just turned in my second novel after an intense ten months of 15-hour days. Since most of that time was spent sitting, my first celebratory act was taking a walk with my husband to brainstorm ideas for this blog post, the fourth and last installment adapting Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements for writers.

And I couldn’t think of the fourth agreement.

I ramped up for momentum:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. and…still drew a blank.

Dave pulled out his smartphone and looked up the fourth agreement—and started laughing.

He finally paused to take a breath. “The fourth is, Always do your best,” he said. “That one’s so ingrained in you it’s no wonder you couldn’t remember it.”

Dave was referring to my tendency toward perfectionism (But I am not a perfectionist! I am a “recovering” perfectionist!), a condition that can, over time, destroy one’s soul and relationships.

Read what Don Miguel Ruiz has to say on doing your best, and you will see the difference between that and perfectionism:

 Always do your best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

If you’re a perfectionist, your life is all about self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

My circumstances

Seventeen years ago I butted up against the toughest circumstances of my life when my first husband killed himself after a daylong standoff at our idyllic little farm. He was an alcoholic, and even though he had plunged our family into financial jeopardy, and I was going to divorce him, I still went to the wall again and again to get him the help he needed, making the standoff’s violent conclusion all the more shocking.

I learned a tough truth: there are forces in this world that are more powerful than any one high-achiever’s means to combat them. But my actions absolved me of what could have been a horrific load of guilt and regret after his suicide. I knew I had done my best.

I also knew I would one day write this story, and when my agent presented The Far End of Happy as my option book, Sourcebooks gave me the opportunity to publish its novelization.

Ruiz cautions us to do our best “under any circumstance.” Writing this novel, which as anyone could imagine was emotionally wrenching, came with its own set of extreme circumstances:

• After writing The Art of Falling over the course of eight years, I had ten months to write The Far End of Happy—under contract.

• Those rights my agent sold? She did so with a sketchy 2-1/2 page synopsis and an author’s note. No sample pages. Meaning I had very few approved guiderails for the writing of it.

• In the midst of that ten-month period I had to suspend writing on it altogether for six weeks so I could complete my blog tour and launch for The Art of Falling.

• I had to wed fact and fiction and come up with something that felt true.

• I experimented with backstory and failed. I had integrated prior events in reverse order, which seemed the best way to get the story down on paper—but I hadn’t done my best at meeting my readers’ needs for an emotionally relatable journey. After my first delivery date I had three weeks to rip out all the backstory, re-order, and re-insert, revising to make all that work.

• At the moment of my second developmental deadline—when it seemed all was coming together—I discovered the manuscript had corrupted, garbling three days worth of changes, which demanded a 21-1/2–hour marathon to correct.

Despite all that I refused to exhibit the dreaded yet well-known sophomore slump, and wanted to meet or exceed the bar I’d set with The Art of Falling. Now that the book has been delivered, I must rest knowing I did my best given these circumstances.

Will it be perfect? No. There was nothing perfect about that goddawful day anyway. It was very human, and the book and the way it’s written will reflect that.

Was it simply “good enough?" Hell no. I have not, and will never, aspire to mediocrity. In a tough competitive industry, I do not believe that this is how one stays published.

I fretted a bit—but only a bit, because the fretting happens when you are NOT doing the work, and I didn’t have much time off! But I never panicked. I just wrote every day, enjoying the process as always, pushing into the sleeping hours when need be so I had the time to do my best. As it turned out, this past week I had a chance to polish it to my usual standards—and turned it in a day early.

I am simply a writer, doing my best. I encourage you to do the same. Don Miguel Ruiz promises, “If you do your best always, transformation will happen as a matter of course.”

To that I say, "Amen."

Do you have perfectionist tendencies? Have they injured your self-esteem? How do you work around it when it comes to your writing?

About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks: The Art of Falling, and The Far End of Happy, due May 2015.

Her work as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft, follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she now serves as book club liaison for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She hosts lakeside writing retreats for women in northern New York State, leads workshops, and speaks often about writing.

Kathryn lives with her husband in Bucks County, PA. Although a member of The Liars Club, she swears that everything in this bio is true.

Website: http://www.kathryncraft.com/

Margie Lawson

 A huge THANK YOU to Laura Drake for inviting me to be a guest blogger, and big miss-you hugs to all the WITS gals!

If you wish review the rule that started it all... Margie-Rule #1: Never Take Any Word for Granted

 

Are you an NCIS fan? A Jethro Gibbs fan? A Mark Harmon fan?

If you said YES, you know Jethro Gibbs has rules. Smart rules. I wanted smart rules too.

Margie’s Rule #4: First things first. Add power to blah.

None of us want to read blah.

I’ll share five examples, and show how you can give blah a boost.

We’ll focus on an interaction between characters most writers have written several times.

A hug. 

That’s right. Just a hug.

We’ve read sentences like:

• They hugged.
• She gave him a quick hug.
• He pulled her into a tight hug.
• She threw her arms around him in a quick hug.
• He grabbed his brother in a one-armed hug.

Nothing special there. No subtext. No power.

Check out these examples of hugs:

Live Wire, Harlan Coben, 3 examples

Mom hugs grandson and son:

Mom was at the door. She hugged Mickey first, the way only Mom could. When Mom hugged, she gave it her all—holding nothing back. Mickey closed his eyes and soaked it in. Myron waited for the kid to cry, but Mickey wasn’t one for waterworks. Mom finally released him and threw the hug at her son. Then she stepped back, blocked their entrance, and fixed them both with a killer glare.

Deep Editing Analysis:

The first hug is amplified. The second hug is shared in a fresh way:and threw the hug at her son. We feel her intense love.

But between those hugs, Harlan slipped in two goodies for the reader. First, Harlan felt his mom’s love for her grandson:

Mickey closed his eyes and soaked it in.

Second, he slipped in a hint of a Humor Hit that deepened characterization:

Myron waited for the kid to cry, but Mickey wasn’t one for waterworks.

It’s barely a snicker, and it’s quintessential Harlan. Plus, it informs the reader how close Mickey is to his grandmother, that Myron expected Mickey to cry.

The last sentence carries news-of-a-difference power. It’s backloaded with killer glare.The emotional set of the scene shifts.

Did you notice that Harlan slipped in three words in the middle of that last sentence, three words that add power?

…blocked their entrance…

We all know what is implied with that little hit of choreography.

Mom is strong. And she’s not letting them in the house until she knows everything.

Look at all Harlan Coben accomplished with that paragraph.

Harlan showed the love mom had for Mickey and Myron, they’d done something dangerous and she’d been crazy-worried.

He showed the depth of the relationships.

Harlan also showed that after mom knew they were safe, her anger surfaced, big time, and now she’s crazy-mad.

Emphasis on the word SHOWED.

Harlan didn’t give us a paragraph that TOLD the reader that Myron knew how much his mom loved Mickey, and blah-de-blah-blah-blah…

You all know those TELLING paragraphs. If it’s more than four or five lines long, you probably skim. You get the gist. You don’t miss anything important.

What if Harlan had written it like this.

Margie’s Blah Rewrite:

Mom was at the door. She gave Mickey a hug and held him close for a long time. Mom finally released him and pulled Myron into her arms. Then she stepped back and fixed them both with a cold stare.

The same message is shared in my version, but that paragraph wouldn’t rank high on interest. Nothing fresh. If longer, definitely an invitation to skim.

Would you skim Harlan’s paragraph?

I’ll share four more hugs, but I won’t dig deep. I’ll just add a few points.

Live Wire, Harlan Coben

Girl hugs guy friend:

She came over to him, spread her arms, and hugged him. Myron held her tight, feeling the warm belly against him. He didn’t know if that was weird. But as the hug lasted, it started to feel good, therapeutic. Suzie lowered her head into Myron’s chest and stayed there for a while. Myron just held her.

What did Harlan accomplish?

• Shared fresh writing
• Deepened relationship
• Took what could have been blah, and added power!

 

Hug between two best guy friends:

Myron hugged Win. Win hugged back. The hug was fierce and tight and lasted a long time. No words were exchanged—they would have just been superfluous.

• Short and powerful!
• Masterful writing.
• Fresh content. Compelling cadence.
• Used polysyndeton: The hug was fierce and tight and lasted a long time.

Polysyndeton -- one of thirty rhetorical devices in my Deep Editing class.

 

He pulled his brother into an awkward embrace. His arms trapped at his sides.

Test of Faith, Christa Allan, multi-Margie-grad, 2 examples

Carried by the irrational current of the moment, Julia embraced her. As could be expected, there was a reciprocal effort—the teacher treated hugs like a contagious illness—but Julia didn’t care

• Fresh writing
• Deepened characterization
• Compelling cadence
• Humor Hit
• Universal theme. We know this feeling. Most of us have been super excited, and hugged someone we wouldn’t usually hug.

 

She passed around her signature faux-hug, one hand on your shoulder and enough forward body movement to suggest hugging.

Wow!

• Fresh writing
• Compelling cadence
• Clear choreography – not always easy to convey
• Deepened characterization

You can see the difference between a shares-no-power hug, and a makes-your-scene-strong hug.

I could have focused on any scene element for this blog—facial expressions, dialogue cues, proximity, internalizations, dialogue, setting, action, character descriptions, visceral responses….

If it’s important, add power!

You can add power with subtext, internalizations that deepen characterization, rhetorical devices, humor hits, choreography, fresh writing, and cadence, cadence, cadence.

You can add power with everything I teach.

BLOG GUESTS: IT’S YOUR TURN!

Want to share a fresh hug?

Or comment on these hugs?

Or just say Hi?

Post a comment, and you’ll be in the drawing to win an online course from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

Due to a health issue, Margie will be not be here to comment today but she will answer your comments when she returns. Her drawing for a class will still be chosen using the comments on this blog.

Check out the courses we’re offering in September:

1. Submissions That Sell, Instructor: Laura Drake
2. Story Structure Safari, Instructor: Lisa Miller
3. From Blah to Beats: Giving Chapters a Pulse, Instructor: Rhay Christou
4. The Hero’s Journey in YA Fiction, Instructors: Jennifer McAndrews and Linda Gerber  
5. Mastering the Synopsis, Instructor: Jennifer Archer
6. Virtues, Vices, and Plots, Instructor: Sarah Hamer
7. Getting Serious About Writing A Series, Instructor: Lisa Wells

The drawing will be Sunday, August 24, 8:00 PM Mountain Time.

See you on the blog!

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

 

About Margie

Margie Lawson 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.

Margie is 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, keynote speeches, on-line courses, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit www.MargieLawson.com.