Writers in the Storm

Live to Ride – Write to Live

By Laura Drake

Most of you know me on some level - I am not an ‘old soul.’ Seriously. My method is to make every mistake possible until I finally bumble across the way that works for me. I was the one who hung back for decades, stuck in fear and my own opinions of myself.

What helped change that for me, was a motorcycle.

I rode 100,000 miles behind my husband on his motorcycle. Every vacation and three weekends out of four, we spent on two wheels. In the boring stretches, I’d prop a paperback on his back and read. Got some weird looks, but I loved it. I was content.

Then the Universe intervened. On our way home from a ten day vacation, at dusk outside Kingman Arizona, a dog ran in front of our bike. A big dog. I still remember the sound, the shock, the pain, when my knee hit the pavement and both the bike and my husband fell on top of me. He got aches and bruises; I got surgery and 6 months of rehab. The dog trotted away.

When I was able to bend my knee enough to throw it over the bike again, I discovered that had a bigger problem. I was terrified. The cars seemed much bigger, much faster, and much closer. I spent panicked hours, my sphincter holding me to the seat. This would not do. This is what Alpha Dog and I did together. This could have marital repercussions.

So a friend suggested that I take a class to learn to ride (read; the front seat.) I was horrified – who was I to think I could ride a motorcycle? But her logic made sense. If I knew how to ride, maybe I’d relax on the back.  So I took the class. I loved it.

Don't get me wrong; I was white-knuckle terrified every second. But I felt like I’d grabbed hold and taken charge of my own fate for the first time in my life.  More than that, I was proud. I had done something I’d hadn’t believed I could. I began challenging my opinions of myself for the first time in my life. If I could do this, what else could I do that I’d thought impossible?

Writing a novel.  I even had an idea floating around for over a year and wouldn’t go away. Emboldened by my motorcycling success, I wrote. I sucked. But I wrote. I joined RWA. I took classes. I read. I learned. I sucked less.

Fast forward, 15 years, and 413 rejections. I know that’s right, because I just added them up. I SOLD!!!!

Why did I keep writing through all those years, through all those rejections?

Because my first goal wasn’t to be published. It was to experience the thrill I found behind the handlebars of my motorcycle – the thrill of finding out I could do something I didn’t think I was capable of.

I have now logged 100,000 miles on my OWN motorcycle. My debut year, I’ll have three books released, and I’ve been contracted for a total of seven books.

So I challenge you:

What could you do, if you didn’t believe you couldn’t?

by Fae Rowen

On the plane home from Atlanta in July, I re-read my notes and handouts, highlighting tips that resonated with me as I prepared for a major edit on my WIP. When I participated in the UC Irvine Writing Project, I learned the technique of highlighting a few word in an article, an essay, or short story that were lessons for me and my writing. The instructors called these highlighted snippets "golden lines." This method is different from using up the ink of a yellow highlighter as if you're getting ready for a test. It's much more selective. Think of it as a "for immediate implementation" list.

Here are my Golden Lines (in no particular order) and how they've helped me step it up a level (or two) in my writing:

1. Be grounded in emotional reality. We 're human. We feel. I've run the gamut of writing characters who are off the chart emotionally--mean and angry without enough reason--to "pump up" the story. And I've written characters that are human but act like unfeeling robots. My critique partners cried foul (and rightly so) on both counts. If you missed them, last week Tiffany Lawson Inman wrote about Emotional Barriers: Part 1 and Part 2 and how to break through them to become better writers.

2. Secondary characters have their own lives. Especially in a series. I'm working on a New Adult series. This Golden Line helped me see my secondary characters as people rather than props. In my revision I'm adding their feelings and reactions to scenes. And guess what? They are becoming much more three dimensional. I think that's another hook to keep my readers turning the pages. And readers are going to want the stories of my secondary characters!

3. When your story is bogged down is a good time to have the character realize she's going after the wrong goal. I tend to have so much plot and action that "saggy middle" is not a big issue. But, pantster I may be, I think this is a great tool for those plot points/turning points that outliners and diagrammers have at the ready--and I rarely know when they should happen.

4. What would be the biggest shock to the reader now? This can be a hard one to figure out and even harder to implement in your writing. But think about your favorite books or movies. I'm a sci fi freak, so my example is from Star Wars. Do you remember how you felt when you found out that Darth Vader was Luke's father? Nooooooo.

I'd been thinking of adding a short scene at the beginning of my book to work in some necessary backstory between the heroine and her mother. Laura Drake suggested I write the scene between the heroine and her step-father. I wanted the reader to have a visceral response, so I got out the metaphorical wires and water and sent a little jolt through the reader at the end of the scene with a question the step-father asks the heroine.

5. Give the secret to the reader, but not the character. This accomplishes a multitude of possibilities for foreshadowing and creates curiosity in your reader to see how your character is going to deal with this secret. As you stack the deck against your character with details that revolve around the secret and possibly obscure the hidden information, your reader has a heightened awareness of danger, betrayal, or whatever plot-twist is in the works and will turn the pages to find the answers to their questions. Readers will want to know how the character finds out the secret and then how the story changes.

6. Hooks keep us on the edge of our seats. Hooks entice the reader to find out more. I used to make sure that I had a decent hook at the end of every chapter. I tend to write longer chapters with up to four scenes. Now I make sure that I have a hook at the end of every scene. If readers are emotionally involved in the story, they're hooked.

How about a hook from this year's Oscar winning movie, Argo? The body hanging from the crane as Ben Affleck drives through Tehran foreshadowed very bad things. Here are some other types of hooks:

• Small "bread crumbs"
• A discovery
• A new awareness of something
• A lure
• Something left unsaid
• A surprise or secret
• Reveal something that will create emotional fallout in the next scene
• Sexual tension--moments of denial, resistance, exploration and acceptance are all hooks (It's not about the sex.  It's about building the tension before the sex!)
• Something forbidden
• Anticipation

7. Emotion grows out of conflict. In our lives, and in our character's lives, when do we get most emotional? When the stakes are high. That conflict can be internal or external, but you have to show your readers the character's emotional reaction to what happens to them. Otherwise your characters are just chess pieces you're moving around your story board, and who cares when the rook falls? (Seriously, if you didn't read Tiffany's blogs, go read them now.)

Do you have some golden lines to share from a class or lecture? Or maybe a quote that keeps you writing?

First, for those of you who read and commented on one or both of Tiffany Lawson Inman's Emotional Barrier posts last week, Tiffany left a comment announcing the winner of a free slot in the Madness to Method class:  JUDY HUDSON. Congratulations, Judy.

Writers in the Storm is pleased to welcome Kathryn Craft as a monthly contributing guest. She'll be sharing inspiration, writing tips, and much more. Thank you for joining us, Kathryn.

by Kathryn Craft

If you book a trip and everything goes perfectly, you’ve had a vacation.

If everything goes wrong, you have a story.

This observation is from Janine Latus, author of the non-fiction memoir, If I am Missing or Dead. Do you see the truth in it?

Of course you do, you’re a storyteller. You know a good yarn isn’t worth a damn to your readers if your characters don’t confront obstacles.

Only extreme pressures can force a human to change. It’s why we are so addicted to story—we need reminding, again and again, that we humans are not alone in the ways we are challenged. And then when all seems lost, we want to be inspired by our hero’s courage as he throws his back to the wall to fight for change. This give us great hope.

So why is it we keep resisting the story of our own lives?

To understand we must confront the great paradox successful authors must embrace.

• Authors must be capable of complete control and complete surrender.

The tug-of-war between these dueling notions will occasionally drag us off-center. We must expect this, and cultivate the resources needed to help us regain balance. These resources must feed a deep spiritual reserve from which we can pull when the going gets rough.

•  If we are cognizant of the challenge, and accept it, we can come closer and closer to holding both control and surrender at the very same time.

I use the word “authors” advisedly, because I’m talking here about writers seeking publication and some measure of critical success. Writers who privately press pen to page can exert complete control, allowing their imaginations to manipulate the lives of their characters until they feel like minor gods. But at some point, those who seek publication—traditionally or self-published, and no matter how far down the path—must surrender control of their work.

That’s a tall order for someone who has devoted years to the full command of her craft. But you can’t control what is no longer yours. Once published, a story exists somewhere between you and the reader.

Let’s look at all the typical obstacles in the path of the growing traditionally published writer with this new lens. You know, the things that make us whine. An author can control none of these:

• number of years until completing the learning curve for the type of book she seeks to write

• number of submissions until she finds an agent that connects with her work

• number of agented submissions until a publisher decides the project meets his business needs

• fluctuations in market demand

• the national economy, news events, etc.

• similar releases by other authors

• reviews

• publishers going out of business

• your editor getting a new job

• a health crisis while writing your next book

…and I’m sure you could list a bunch more.

I was moved this past month by the self-written obituary of Seattle-based writer Jane Lotter. Yes, you read that right: dying slowly of endometrial cancer, Lotter had the time, courage, and presence of mind to summarize her own life. She wrote to her daughters:

“May you, every day, connect with the brilliancy of your own spirit. And may you always remember that obstacles in the path are not obstacles, they ARE the path.”

Let me leave you with a story.

A writer works for a year, lucks into an agent on her first submission, then gets a six-figure deal at auction for her debut novel.

Hmm…leave you flat? Give me one more chance:

A single mother toils on a novel for a decade, writing by night while her children sleep and slogging through work by day to support them. She soldiers on, believing in her story. Never willing to relinquish hope, she has submitted all those years, racking up more than a hundred rejections. Yes, she’s disappointed at times, but she takes what advice is given, seeks support from other writers, soaks up new techniques from favorite library books, and continues to write. The story takes on such brilliance that one day an agent offers representation. Two years later, after another developmental edit and numerous rounds of submissions, things look bleak, and the author settles for publication with a small press who offers no advance. But something happens over the following year. Sales steadily increase—the book catches fire by word-of-mouth and lands on the New York Times best-seller list.

Any better?

Go live your obstacles. Make of your life a good story.

Anyone care to share some of the obstacles they’ve had to surmount on their road to publication?