Writers in the Storm

Two months ago I wrote about writing lessons I learned in the Galapagos Islands. I've been thinking about that post. After returning from a week floating on a lazy river in Mexico, I've got more ideas on the subject, especially since I now have characters and a plot for another brand new book. (I can't travel anymore, my brain might burst if I get any more book ideas!)

As a math teacher, I'm always on the lookout for new, better ways to help my students understand abstract concepts. As writers, I believe we're all on the lookout for new characters and fresh plots because, unfortunately, compelling characters and plots rarely materialize out of thin air. I'd like to share three gold nuggets for crafting your humdrum experiences into amazing stories.

1. What task are you grumpiest about in your daily routine? Amplify that activity and figure out who would be willing to complete that activity every day of their lives? Why would that person be willing to do that probably-thankless job?

Example from Fae's life: A couple of years ago I decided to do my first "cleanse"–twenty-one days of protein powder drinks and protein (not sweet energy!) bars. After the first week I decided I was crazy, but I wanted to finish what I'd started. By the end of the second week, I wondered who would knowingly ever agree to do what I was doing. Easy, only a prisoner in jail would survive indefinitely on my "diet." Only a terrible crime could sentence a person to such a facility, which would have to be inescapable. Riots by prisoners would be useless. (This is obviously how I felt every time I turned on that cursed blender.)

My YA prison world was born. The whole farthest-away-from-Earth planet was the prison for the losers of a planetary war. To the young people born on the world, protein drinks and bars are normal. They don't relate to their parents' stories of a barbecued burger or ice cream.

2. Think of your last vacation or week-end trip. What was the best part–the location, the people you were with, something you planned to do, or something that was spontaneous and not under your control? Whether it's a contemporary, historical, paranormal, or futuristic, you can morph that experience into something for your characters to enjoy, something where they can connect.

Example from Fae's life: Last week I floated down a lazy river, looking at the iguanas on the edge, the palm trees surrounding the river, listening to conversations of others who raced past me. I bobbed down little rapids, swam out of doldrums, ducked under waterfalls. By the third day I was reveling in what great–and necessary–R & R this trip was after the stress of the previous month. And the seeds for a new book emerged.

Okay, I write science fiction, so I'm looking at an R & R planet with outdoor activities, including my lazy river, a casino, and other leaning-to-the-corrupt options. An excursion to the countryside would work for a historical. A paranormal could have wonderful possibilities in such a setting. Perhaps one of the characters would own the property.

3. Think of the last really bad thing that happened to you, either physically or emotionally. Yep, make it happen to the character that will have the most trouble handling it.

 Example from Fae's life: Last week, I went down a waterslide for the first time in my life. It's not that I'd been afraid, but as a former lifeguard, I was always the one to catch the kids at the end of the slide. I climbed the three stories of stairs and watched kids throw themselves down the chute. I did the same. It was exhilarating. It was fun. Right until I landed on my knee at the bottom of the shallow water at the end of the slide.

Luckily I was traveling with my friend who is a physical therapist, so I was confident she was right that nothing was broken. But the pain was terrible, and the movement and icing were brutal. Two days later I was back in the lazy river, protecting my leg from the rafters passing me, worrying if I'd be able to exit the river when I got tired. I walked like a peg-legged pirate and couldn't sit or stand without groaning–an improvement from swallowing screams the first twenty-four hours.

And guess what? My  SEAL-type hero of the new R & R book, well, he does something stupid, hurts his knee and is incapacitated for 24 hours. Only he's not just in excruciating pain, he's in jeopardy. Heck, if I hurt, I can make my characters hurt. And the best part is, since I felt it, I can get the words down on the page to help my readers feel it, too.

Do you have an example from your life that you've used as inspiration for a scene or a whole book? Is there something you'd like to use but haven't figured out how?

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 horrors of algebra 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 enjoys sharing 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.

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

 

Margie Lawson

I’ve talked to dozens of agents and editors about what makes them stop reading submissions. We’ve chatted on planes and on yachts, in several countries, on several continents. We’ve chatted at luncheons and dinners and late nights in bars.

Some agents and editors shared general ideas regarding why they quit reading.

They said things like:

• First paragraph didn’t impress me.
• Story didn’t hold my interest. I wanted to skim.
• Couldn’t connect with characters.
• The writing was amateurish.

Many shared the dreaded, “I don’t know why, but it didn’t work for me.”

Aack!  Not useful for writers.

Writers need to know what to avoid doing, and what to do. They need specifics. I teach writers how to make their writing stronger.

I compiled a fifty point list about openings that includes points from agents and editors as well as deep editing points from me. We’ll look at my top ten.

Margie’s Top Ten Reasons Why Agents and Editors Stop Reading

1. Didn’t get locked in POV character’s skin in first or second sentence.
2. No setting. No idea where we were. Floating heads.
3. No hint about a story promise.
4. Boring blocks of backstory.
5. Voice wasn’t distinctive.
6. Flat writing. Didn’t use structure and style to make the read cadence-driven.
7. Opened with a dream or flashback. Fooled the reader.
8. Confusing. Stuff happened, but I didn’t know why, so I didn’t care.
9. Too nicey-nice. No tension.
10. Overwritten. Writerly. Trying too hard to impress.

 

I’ll share two openings in this blog. The first is the opening from Katie McGarry’s debut novel, a YA, Pushing the Limits.

Pushing the Limits, by Katie McGarry, Margie-Grad

"My father is a control freak, I hate my stepmother, my brother is dead and my mother has, well, issues. How do you think I'm doing?"

That's how I would have loved to respond to Mrs. Collins's question, but my father placed too much importance on appearance for me to answer honestly. Instead, I blinked three times and said, "Fine."

Mrs. Collins, Eastwick High's new clinical social worker, acted as if I hadn't spoken. She shoved a stack of files to the side of her already cluttered desk and flipped through various papers. My new therapist hummed when she found my three-inch-thick file and rewarded herself with a sip of coffee, leaving bright red lipstick on the curve of the mug. The stench of cheap coffee and freshly sharpened pencils hung in the air.

My father checked his watch from the chair to my right and, on my left, the Wicked Witch of the West shifted impatiently. I was missing first period calculus, my father was missing some very important meeting, and my stepmother from Oz? I'm sure she was missing her brain.

Katie McGarry’s strong writing put me in her POV character’s skin in that high school counselor’s office. Her writing also made me smile.

I’ll flip my top ten list now and make it what to do, not what to avoid.

Margie’s Top Ten Checklist for Openings

1. Locked reader in POV character’s skin in first or second sentence.  Yes.

2. Shared setting.  Yes.

3. Shared hint about a story promise.  Yes. Dealing with her brother’s death and father and step-mother.

4. No boring block of backstory. Correct. We learned a lot about the POV character, but the backstory was shared in a fun way.

We learned she’s seeing her high school counselor, and has a long history of counseling. Her father is a control freak, her brother died, she has a wicked step-mother, and she’s probably a junior or senior, and smart, because she’s taking calculus.

5. Distinctive voice.  Yes. Several humor hits. Fun style.

6. Empowered writing. Used structure and style to make the read cadence-driven.

She used three rhetorical devices: alliteration, eponym (Wicked Witch of the West, Oz), and mesodiplosis.

Mesodiplosis -- repeating a word or phrase at the middle of three or more subsequent clauses.

7. She did not open with a dream or flashback or try to fool the reader.

8. Clarity ruled. I knew what was happening to whom, and why.

9. We had tension.

10. Nothing was overwritten or writerly.

Writerly is my term for those words and phrases and sentences that don’t sound like natural thoughts or natural dialogue. They sound like a writer wrote them.

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The second opening is from Laura Drake. 

Sweet on You, Laura Drake, 2014 RITA Winner, Margie-Grad, Immersion-Grad

Chapter 1

Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan

Another night of blood and adrenaline.

Katya Smith pulled her shower-wet hair into a bun. The weight of exhaustion tugged at her, but the fine hum of tension running just under her skin warned that she wouldn’t sleep.

Yet, beyond that, resting close to her heart, was a firm pillow of satiety. They’d saved two soldiers’ lives last night.

Being alone in the small, fake-wood–paneled room of the Quonset hut was an odd occurrence, given her three roommates. But Role 3 hospital inhaled medical personnel. They must be working a shift. The army was so desperate for medics that Katya had been transferred from physical therapy to triage medic two years ago.

She took the few steps to the American flag-draped wall and the small chalkboard beneath it, almost covered in chalk lines. Neat bundles of five, representing men that they’d saved from the enemy. She picked up the chalk, to add her night’s conquests, but hesitated. Keeping score against the bad guys only made sense if you were clear that there was an actual bad guy.

That’s not right. The enemy they fought in the ER wasn’t the Afghani insurgents.

It was death.

Laura Drake always delivers powerful openings, and powerful books. Masterful writing. If we used my checklist above, we’d have every point covered.

Laura shared a hint about the story promise. We expect a trauma, probably a death. The full story promise is revealed within a few pages.

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Review the list. Which of those ten points can you control?

The writer can control all those points! No excuses. You can learn how to make your opening pop!

Remember—this post just shared my top ten out of fifty teaching points about openings.

I teach a month-long online class through Lawson Writer’s Academy: A Deep Editing Guide to Make Your Openings Pop! I’ll teach Make Your Openings Pop online next May. But the lecture packet (over 130 pages of lectures) is available through my website all the time.

BLOG GUESTS:  IT’S YOUR TURN! Say Hi!  Or – share what makes you stop reading. 

Post a comment and you could win an online course from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

Check out the courses we’re offering in January:

1. Screenwriting Strategies for Fiction Writers, Instructor:  Susie McCauley

2. From Blah to Beats:  Giving Your Chapter a Pulse, Instructor:  Rhay Christou

3. Virtues, Vices, and Plots, Instructor:  Sarah Hamer

4. Creating Reader’s Guides for Young Adult and Middle Grade Books, Instructor: Koreen Myers

5. 30 Days to a Stronger Novel, Instructor:  Lisa Wells

Thank you for your time. See you on the blog!

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

Want to read Margie's other five rules for bestselling writing? Click here.

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About Margie

Margie Lawson —psychotherapist, editor, and international presenter – teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners. Margie has presented over eighty full day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Writers credit her innovative deep editing approaches with taking their writing several levels higher—to publication, awards, and bestseller lists.

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

Chuck Sambuchino

To celebrate the release of the brand-new 2015 Guide to Literary Agents, I am bringing back one of my most popular recurring contests: The “Worst Storyline Ever” Contest. Except this time, it’s hosted on the Writers in the Storm blog. So if you’re looking for an agent and want a big database, check out the book. And if you’ve got a horrible idea for a story, I want to hear about it. Welcome to the “Worst Storyline Ever” Contest—a competition that encourages terrible loglines.

2014 “Worst Storyline Ever” Contest

A logline is a one-sentence line that explains what your story is about and shows the “hook” – the unique idea that makes people want to see more. You see loglines all the time on the back of DVD boxes. Here are some examples:

• “Three middle-aged men defeat their midlife crises by starting a college fraternity.” (Old School)
• “When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by an evil emperor, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge.” (Gladiator)
•  “In a future where criminals are arrested before the crime occurs, a cop struggles on the lam to prove his innocence for a murder he has not yet committed.” (Minority Report)

But that’s all the examples I’m going to give you, because I’m not looking for good examples of a logline; I’m looking for bad examples. Nay – terrible, stupid, “oh-my-gosh-that-idea-REEKS” examples.

(Hi, everyone. Chuck here chiming in for a second. I wanted to say I am now taking clients as a freelance editor. So if your query or manuscript needs some love, please check out my editing services. Thanks!)

Examples of Bad Loglines (Previous Winners/Finalists):

a. “After an unidentified cow swallows an armed nuclear device in a botched Homeland Security raid, Agent Tom Anderson is thrust into an unlikely partnership with buxom organic farmer Daisy Jones to sift through three hundred cows and 10 barns full of manure as the clock runs down in a desperate quest to save Kansas City from a moo-clear disaster.”

b. “A young woman discovers she is half unicorn after farting a rainbow at her bat mitzvah, and must go on a hijinx-filled voyage of self discovery to find her real father and fit as ‘one of the herd.’ “

c. “Leonard the narcoleptic snail sets out on his lifelong dream of running the Boston Marathon while humming ‘Macarena,’ and invites you to join the excitement in real time.”

Here are the rules:

1. Stick to the format, but have fun with the idea. You want your logline to be one sentence only and must be 60 words or fewer, and explain what the movie/book is about. It’s what you put in that one sentence that will win you this competition. So the trick is to make your logline a terribly creative idea that’s pitched in a minimal, professional manner. (Please note that about 10% of submissions are disqualified because more than one sentence is submitted. Do not make this mistake.)
2. The contest will go until the end of the day, 11:59 p.m., PST, Friday, Nov. 21, 2014. Submissions received after that will not be considered. Once the contest closes at that point, allow up to the end of November for judging to occur. This post will be updated with the winners’ names by Dec. 1, and all winners will be contacted individually by e-mail.
3. I (Chuck) will judge the contest, with some possible input from other Writer’s Digest staffers.
4. To participate, simply click on “Comments” at the end of this post and leave your submission as a comment with your full, real name. If you are super paranoid about leaving your full name, abbreviate; use “L. Smith” instead of “Leonard Smith.”
5. You can submit up to one logline for free. If you want to submit up to 3 loglines, all you have to do for such eligibility is tweet news of this contest and sharing the URL/link. Here is a sample tweet: Got a hilariously awful idea for a movie or book? Enter the “Worst Storyline Ever” Contest: http://bit.ly/1xe69JI – via @chucksambuchino. Include all entries in the same comment, and put your Twitter handle in the comment (if applicable), as well, so we can see if you tweeted.
6. The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA’s publisher, F+W: A Content & E-Commerce Company (formerly F+W Media).
7. If you have any questions about the contest, do not leave them in the comments and do not e-mail WITS. E-mail me directly at chuck.sambuchino [at] fwmedia.com

The Prizes:

The top 3 winners (no order) receive 1) a critique of either their one-page synopsis or one-page query letter from me; and 2) a copy of either the 2015 Guide to Literary Agents or the 2015 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market.

Good luck!!!

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About Chuck

Chuck Sambuchino of Writer’s Digest Books edits the GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENTS and the CHILDREN’S WRITER’S & ILLUSTRATOR’S MARKET. His Guide to Literary Agents Blog is one of the largest blogs in publishing.

His 2010 humor book, HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK, was optioned by Sony Pictures.  Chuck has also written the writing guides FORMATTING & SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT and CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM.

Besides that, he is a freelance book & query editor, husband, sleep-deprived new father, and owner of a flabby-yet-lovable dog named Graham.

Find Chuck on Twitter and on Facebook.