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Entries categorized as ‘craft of fiction writing’

Say What?

Monday, September 29, 2008 · 11 Comments

“Is the dialogue between characters natural and not stilted, revealing plot and emotion in a way that narrative cannot? Are the characters’ voices distinct and appropriate for the setting (time period or scenario)? Is narrative necessary and well-placed with the dialogue, not overwhelming the reader?”
~2008 ACFW Genesis Contest Score Sheet

“Does the dialogue sound natural and/or realistic? Note author’s use of tags, beats, and word usage- is it appropriate for the character/time period, etc.?”
~GothRom Haunted Hearts Contest Score Sheet

“Is there an effective balance between narrative and dialogue? Does the dialogue read naturally, for the time, and reveal the voices of the characters? Does the dialogue and narrative reveal characterization, move the story and/or relationships forward? Is the narrative skillfully used so that the reader is not overwhelmed with information?”
~Crested Butte Friends of the Library Romance Score Sheet

“Dialogue: Natural; believable; well-balanced with narrative; progresses the story; characters’ voices consistent and individual to their personalities.
“Narrative: Well balanced with dialogue . . .”
~The Sheila Writing Competition Score Sheet

“Is the amount of dialogue balanced in relation to the narrative? Is the dialogue natural and genuine? Is the dialogue appropriate to the category/genre? Does the dialogue have a reason for being there or does it feel superficial? Do the dialogue and narrative serve to advance the plot?”
~Virginia Romance Writers’ Contest Score Sheet

“Is there a good balance between dialogue and narrative? Is there enough narrative to support the action and keep the story moving without being so overwhelming that there’s nothing else going on but internal thoughts of the character? (Think about the movie Castaway…even though he was on an island alone, he still had dialogue.) Is the dialogue natural or stilted? Is the author able to relay important information through dialogue without it coming across as a lecture or one character saying something to another character they already know? Is the dialogue appropriate for the region/era in which the book is set? For the characters’ education and socio-economic status?”
~Kaye Dacus, Critical Reading series

I hope you get the point from these examples of questions I’ve posted as to what some of the topics we’re going to be delving into in this series on dialogue will cover.

In How to Grow a Novel, in the chapter “Our Native Language Is Not Dialogue,” Sol Stein writes: “Dialogue is a language that is foreign to most writers of nonfiction and many newcomers to fiction. Totally different from whatever language a writer grows up using, dialogue is also a triumphant language. It can make people unknown to the author cry, laugh, and believe lies in seconds. It is succinct, but can carry a great weight of meaning. In a theater, dialogue can draw thunderous applause from people who have paid heavily for the privilege of listening to it. At its best, as in Shakespeare’s best, dialogue provides us with memorable—and beautiful—guides for understanding the behavior of the human race” (pg. 90).

Wow. What a burden to put on this portion of our writing!

Since 99% of writers are readers, we all know when dialogue “works” and when it doesn’t when we read it. We just may not be able to put our fingers on exactly what it is that makes it work or not. Well, that’s what we’re going to try to figure out in this series.

Now, your assignment for this week:
Find a reality show—like America’s Next Top Model or Big Brother or something where the characters are somewhat confined in an area with each other, which leads to sit-down conversations and not just people yelling instructions or encouragement at each other. It needs to be a conversation. Record a couple of minutes of it and then transpose—word for word, um for um, like for like—the conversation into text. Then find a contemporary-set movie that you’ve enjoyed, one that you think has great dialogue (a romantic comedy like You’ve Got Mail or something like that would be good) and transpose a scene of conversation from it (the scene in You’ve Got Mail when Joe stops by Kathleen’s apartment when she’s sick and he brings her the daisies is a good one for this exercise). Aside from all the words that have to be bleeped from the reality show’s conversation, what differences do you find between the “real” conversation and the scripted one? Be prepared to discuss this on Thursday’s post, when I’ll post the examples I find.

Until then, let’s kick the comments off with questions from y’all—what problems are you having with dialogue? What do you want to know about it? Are there any concerns that the score-sheet questions I posted above raise for you?

Categories: Fiction Writing Series · Say What?--Writing Dialogue · craft of fiction writing

“Say What?” Series Contest

Sunday, September 28, 2008 · Comments Off

Every topic-related comment you leave during the “Say What?” series will earn you an entry for a 15-page critique—to be drawn at the end of the series. To count toward the contest, comments must be left before midnight the day the article is posted—so no going back and leaving comments on old posts to get more entries in the contest the last week!

Categories: Fiction Writing Series · Say What?--Writing Dialogue · craft of fiction writing

ACFW Recap 3–Saturday Night & Sunday Morning

Thursday, September 25, 2008 · 8 Comments

As I suspected, the details of everything that happened during the day at the conference has become sketchy—whether due to brain overload or the head-cold I brought home with me. One of the best classes I remember taking on Saturday was Chip MacGregor’s “Building a Brand” class. From now on, everyone is to refer to me as the Princess of Amish-Vampire-Bouncing-Grandma-Young-Adult-Inspirational-Romance Novels (just want to make sure I’m not leaving out any trends there).

But anyway, on to the pictures from the awards banquet. Everyone showed up in his or her finest (or favorite) outfit to learn the names of the Book of the Year, Genesis Contest, Mentor of the Year, Agent of the Year, and Editor of the Year, as well as who would be receiving the Member Service award.

Here I am before the banquet with my wonderful agent, Chip MacGregor—who really should have won Agent of the Year:

Last year, “Clan MacGregor” started a tradition of getting as many of Chip’s clients to sit at his table at the banquet. There were more of us there than would fit at one table, but we love sitting at his table because it’s definitely the classiest table at the event, as demonstrated by Jim Rubart and Chip:

Lori Mynheir and Susan Meissner think about getting in on the action as author Mark Mynheir (who taught the “Police Procedural” continuing session at the conference) looks on:

My forum buddy, suspense writer John Robinson, has the “hang” of it, as award-winning YA author Jenny B. Jones tries to keep her mirth under control in the background:

Hey, Susan Page Davis, I think you need to tell Brandt Dodson that the point is to let go of the spoon!

I couldn’t really get good pictures of the award winners, but this one came out okay. Here’s Sharon Lavy winning the Member Service award. Way to go, Sharon!

And of course, Banquet is the time when we want to get our pictures taken with our friends whom we only see dressed up once a year—I mean, whom we only see once a year and we want a photo of us when we’re dressed up . . .

Here I am with Harvest House editor, and friend, Kim Moore:

And with three of the four other ladies who attended from my local group: Tamara Alexander, J.M. Hochstetler, and Krista Phillips:

Oh, and that reminds me to give a huge congratulations to Tamera Leigh, another Middle Tennessee Christian Writers member, whose novel Splitting Harriet won Book of the Year in the Lits category. Way to go, Tamera!!!!!

Here’s another shot of me with dear friend and author Ronie Kendig, whose suspense/thriller novel was just contracted by Abingdon Press:

And I had to have my picture taken with Cinderella and Prince Charming—Tiff “Amber Miller” Stockton and Stuart Stockton. Of course, it would have helped if they weren’t trying to explain to someone else how to use their camera!

Let’s try that again:

DCCPs (that’s Dazzlingly Clever Critique Partners) Erica and Georgiana and I were going to try to get a new picture of us at the banquet, but lines of communication got crossed. We did, however, get a new picture of the three of us together:

that we could compare to last year’s photo so that we could see how far we’ve come:

Aren’t my crit partners gorgeous?

Before they all could get away, I had to get a picture of my Sunday morning breakfast companions—Connie Stevens, Stu & Tiff Stockton, Erica Vetsch, and Georgiana Daniels:

And finally, to close out the conference recap, here’s a little video I took Sunday morning at the end of worship time. Don’t worry about the fact the video is sideways, what’s important is the sound:

(If the video player doesn’t work here, you can view the video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4346850505312081379&hl=en)

Categories: Conference Prep Series
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ACFW Recap 2: MOA Book Signing

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 · 4 Comments

We’ve always had an “open to the public” book signing at the ACFW conference, but it’s always been at the hotel and rarely drew more than a handful of people from outside of those attending the conference. This year, because of our proximity to the Mall of America, ACFW decided to hold the book signing at the mall. They had signs up all over the mall to draw shoppers attention to the event:

Originally, it was supposed to take place in the Best Buy rotunda. In addition to the tables where authors were signing, they also had a stage where panels of authors answered questions and talked about writing and ACFW. Here’s the panel that included Angie Hunt, Karen Ball, James Scott Bell, and Brandilyn Collins:

Here’s another view of the rotunda:

But they had to add a couple of tables due to the number of authors who wanted to participate.

The tables kept going . . .

And going . . .

And going . . .

And going . . .

And going . . .

Here’s Nashville author Tamara Alexander (with Nancy Moser) signing outside of Bloomindale’s (sorry it’s blurry!):

And Nashville author J.M. Hochstetler signing outside of Old Navy:

And I caught MTCW member Krista Phillips getting a book signed by Rachel Hauck:

So, just in case you can’t tell, this book signing was MASSIVE and great exposure for Christian fiction and ACFW with the thousands of people who experienced it!

Categories: Conference Prep Series
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ACFW Recap 1

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 · 5 Comments

I don’t think I’m going to be able to do a day-by-day recap of everything that happened in the week that I was in Minnesota, but I will try to hit the highlights.

After I spent several days in Rochester with Erica and her family (will post about that later this week—including photos from our visit to the Spam Museum in Austin, MN), we drove over to “the Cities” (actually, the suburb of Bloomington) where the conference was to take place. One of the first things we did was go to the airport to pick up several people: Brandilyn Collins, “Mama” Ruth Seamonds, Rose McCauley, agent Sandra Bishop, and DCCP Georgiana Daniels. Here Erica and I are with Mama Ruth at baggage claim:

Our Keynote Speaker for the conference was best-selling author Angela Hunt:

And, as she has been since the first ACRW conference in 2002, best-selling author Brandilyn Collins served as our emcee:

Author Rachel Hauck did a wonderful job of putting together the worship times and leading us in singing:

And here I am with authors Patty Smith Hall (who won the Historical Romance category of the Genesis Contest) and Rachel Hauck, the two women who are responsible for encouraging me to join ACRW when I met them back in April 2001 at the Blue Ridge conference:

Thursday night, after the opening keynote address, I went to the “Start Your Writing Career with Barbour” late night chat. Here are our three beloved Barbour editors: Susan Downs, Rebecca Germany, and JoAnne Simmons:

Friday morning, I had the honor of giving the devotional to help get the first full day of conference off to a running start:

After a day of stuffing all the knowledge into our heads as we could (and I spent two hours helping Ronie Kendig keep the editor/agent appointments running smoothly), I went to the Mall of America for dinner with some of my Nashville gals (JM Hochstetler, Krista Phillips, and Esther Gross). After that, I went to the aquarium for the Barbour authors event.

Here I am with author Kelly Hake:

And here’s Tiff Stockton, who writes HeartSongs as Amber Miller, riding the giant statue of a tortoise at the aquarium:

The rest of my MOA/aquarium photos can be seen here.

So that gets us through Friday night. Tomorrow, I’ll post photos from the massive book signing at the Mall of America, and Thursday, I’ll post photos from the banquet. Hope you’ll come back to see what a good time we had!

Categories: Conference Prep Series
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Home from Conference!

Monday, September 22, 2008 · 4 Comments

Just wanted to put up a quick post to say I’m finally home from Minnesota. I had a wonderful time and have some great info and pictures to share in the upcoming days, but right now, I’m too tired.

I do have to share this though . . .

At conference every year, the Barbour editors announce three names of new authors they’re offering contracts to. This year, the HeartSong Presents contract went to my critique partner and very dear friend ERICA VETSCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So please jump over to her blog and congratulate her!

Categories: craft of fiction writing

From the Archives–Inspiration: The Breath of Life

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 · No Comments

This article was originally posted in March 2007.

This past weekend was the monthly meeting of my local group of writers, Middle Tennessee Christian Writers. Whenever we’re together, we always talk about our current works in progress or story ideas we’re thinking of. Sometimes, these turn into brainstorming sessions when someone is having trouble with a particular plot-point or character. Most months, I think we all leave with so many fresh ideas swimming in our heads that we have to go home and write before we lose the spark of inspiration.

But what is the “spark of inspiration”? What is it about us creative-types that leads us into wild flights of fancy from something as simple as an overheard sentence or as complex as the Revolutionary War?

Sure, there’s the whole left-brain/right-brain science where those who are lefties are more analytical and those who are righties are more creative–but where does that leave those of us who are firmly in the middle? It must be more than just which hemisphere of our brains dominates our thought processes.

If you type “define:inspiration” into Google, there are lots of interesting results:

  • arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity
  • a sudden intuition
  • an unusual or rare occurrence or fact, often one that cannot be explained
  • The process by which the lungs take in air
  • To breathe into, to breathe, to animate or enthuse, the action of the Holy Ghost moving through all the soul’s vehicles on every inhalation of the Holy Breath

I love that the same word we use to describe how we come up with ideas for our stories means the same thing as breathing. In Genesis, we read:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27, NASB)

God created. We have creativity built into us. In His image. Image . . . imagination. We can think of things that are abstract, even make things up because we are images of Him. But there is, oh, so much more than creativity and imagination.

The LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7, NASB)

God spoke everything else into being–every other living, breathing creation came into being because God spoke. But Adam received inspiration–the very breath, the very life force–of God.

When we see a beautiful Tennessee sunset and call it inspiring, it is God breathing His breath of life into us. When we are inspired to pray or to share Christ with someone, it is the breath of God filling our lungs. And when the inspiration for a story strikes, it is God’s breath tickling our ears as He whispers, “Write it. I will give you the words.”

Categories: Writing Process · craft of fiction writing

Writing Every Day

Thursday, September 11, 2008 · 15 Comments

Is it harder to write every day, or is it harder to not write every day?

I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m a lazy person by nature. And having been without a regular 8 to 5 job for the past six weeks hasn’t helped. Before I lost my job, a girl that I worked with told us that her husband, who teaches Creative Writing, was off for the summer and had committed to writing four hours a day. Later, I actually laughed about that. Only four hours? If I didn’t have to work, I’d be writing all day!

Yeah, well, God decided to put me to the test, and I have to admit that I’ve failed miserably. I’ve only managed to add about 14,000 words to this draft of Menu for Romance—that’s barely over 2,000 words per week when I should be banging out at least that many per day! But therein lies the problem: I haven’t been disciplined enough to write every day. I’ve been treating these weeks since getting laid off somewhat like a summer vacation instead of just like a change in employment, since I’m now basically self-employed. The excuse I’ve been giving myself is that I’ve been working nonstop since I was seventeen years old—part-time in high school and college (the first go-round) and full-time ever since I left school in 1992. I continued to work full-time when I went back to college to finish my degrees in 1999.

Yes, I’ve enjoyed my time off. But I still need to earn a living. And I have a couple of deadlines coming up soon for books I’ve already sold that I don’t want to miss. And If I’m going to live up to my commitment (and I hate missing deadlines!), that means I have to get on the ball and get Menu for Romance finished and get started on A Case for Love. Which means I have to write every single day.

Which I started doing this past weekend. It’s not that I didn’t like my story—I love my characters and have great ideas for what’s going to happen to them. It’s just that I got to a point where, as James Scott Bell said at the ACFW conference last year, I wanted to “have written” instead of wanting “to write.” I wanted the story to write itself with no effort from me.

Well, guess what—in the couple of weeks since the last time I’d opened my manuscript file, it hadn’t written itself. So I forced myself to sit down and write. At least 1,000 words. That’s my goal every day. Do I give myself the next day off if I reach 2,000? No. Because having days off isn’t the point of writing. The whole point of writing is that it’s something I used to love doing. Something I used to look forward to doing after a long day of crunching numbers, creating sales presentations, or dealing with irate customers when I worked at the newspaper. Something I sort of lost my desire to do after long days of reading and editing other people’s work when I was at the publishing house.

So what’s my excuse now? Yes, I’m doing some freelance editing. But it’s nowhere near the level where it’s a full-time job right now. Yes, I’ve been busy this week trying to get a bunch of stuff done before I go out of town.

But each night before turning off the bedside lamp, I’ve made myself fire up the laptop and tap away at the keyboard until I’ve added at least 1,000 words to Major and Meredith’s story. And you know what? Each night, it comes a little easier. Tuesday night, after writing more than 2,200 words, I had to turn the light back on after about twenty minutes and write down several ideas that were still swirling around in my head.

And last night, sitting at the desktop computer—the one that I’m writing this on now, the one that’s connected to the outside world—as I was starting to think about shutting down for the night and going to bed, I suddenly heard the opening of a conversation between Meredith and her sister that made the perfect opening for the next chapter I needed to work on. Do you know how long it’s been since I could clearly hear the voices in my head? In about an hour, I’d written over a thousand words and fulfilled my quota for the day.

Even though I’ve read in book after book that writers who want to be professionals must write every day, which I’ve always advocated here on the blog, I’d never really fully comprehended why it’s so important. See, I knew that the longer of a break I took from writing, the harder it was to come back to it and get momentum going again. I’d just never really realized that the reason why it’s harder is that because the longer I go without writing, the harder it is to hear my characters, to see the scenes happening in my head, to be open for the story to come to me when I least expect it.

So now I have a set time for writing: from 11 p.m. until _______ (whenever I’ve written at least 1,000 words or come to the end of a chapter or scene where it’s a good stopping point—with a good place to pick up and continue from the next day). Why so late at night? Because as I learned many, many years ago, it’s at that time when writing comes easiest to me. So why try to force myself to do it at some other time of day when I’m not ready for it?

What about you? What’s your writing schedule? Do you write every day? When’s your ideal time of day to write?

Categories: Road to Publication · Writing Process · craft of fiction writing · writing business
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Trip to the Library

Tuesday, September 9, 2008 · 4 Comments

I had lunch with a friend this afternoon, then afterward went to get my haircut. Since the salon is less than a block from the Green Hills Library, I decided to stop there and see what, if any, writing-craft books they had that might be helpful in preparing the Say What? series (since that seems to be the winner by a long shot!). They didn’t have anything solely on the subject of dialogue, but I couldn’t leave without picking up a few, so here’s what I picked up and a little tidbit from each:

Gotham Writers’ Workshop: WRITING FICTION The Practical Guide from New York’s Acclaimed Creative Writing School

    “In the beginning is an idea. Ideas are seeds from which the mimosa tree or watermelon, or delphinium of a story will arise. There are no rules about what constitutes a proper seed. It can be a character, a name, a situation, structure, overhead dialogue, a setting, a theme, even a vague feeling.”

The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates

    “Write Your heart out. Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject. Your ‘forbidden’ passions are likely to be the fuel for your writing. . . . What advice can an older writer presume to offer a younger? Only what he or she might wish to have been told years ago. Don’t be discouraged! Don’t cast sidelong glances and compare yourself to others among your peers! (Writing is not a race. No one really ‘wins.’ The satisfaction is in the effort, and rarely in the consequent rewards, if there are any.) Again, write your heart out.“

Letters to a Fiction Writer ed. by Frederick Busch

    “Probably you are a great or a good noticer. You may well be the one in your family who paid attention to your family members more than the others did. You sometimes knew what they would say before they actually said it. When they were out of the room, their voices sounded in your inner ear. Quite possibly, you were good at imitating all of them. You were the watcher. Sometimes, you felt like a spy: you were spying on the whole of life itself. This condition has its own kind of excitement and pathos, but it very clearly carries along with its discoveries a feeling of tension, and estrangement. Without quite knowing how, you fell just a bit outside the groups of which you were a member.” (Charles Baxter)

How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them by Sol Stein

    “A writer is someone who looks forward to the day’s work, even if it lasts only an hour or two before the writer has to dash to a job that supports him and his family until such happy time that the writing itself may be economically rewarding. On those days when external circumstances prevent his writing, a writer feels a hollowness, an absence, a longing. . . . True, some writers suffer while writing. I regret their pain, and am glad to report that as one masters the craft, the pain ebbs, and the pleasure of being able to control the result can bring the second-greatest pleasure of life, the creation of text that arouses the emotions of distant readers.”

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

    “A word of warning: because writing and editing are two different skills, they require two different mind-sets. Don’t try to do both at once. The time to edit is not when you’re writing your first draft. But once that first draft is finished, you can use the principles in this book to increase—dramatically—the effectiveness of the story you’ve told and the way you’ve told it. You can drop your amateurish look and give your writing a professional edge. In other words, you can edit yourself into print.”

And then I ordered this one from Amazon yesterday:
Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella

    “The world is crowded with voices. While we can retreat to our silences from time to time, most of us are called on to speak and listen for the better part of every day. From the beginning of our lifes we listen, in preparation to speak. . . . So what’s hard about writing dialogue? It’s just speaking, right? Well, the truth is, writing dialogue is not all that hard.”

Categories: Authors/Reading · Writing Process · craft of fiction writing

Autumn 2008 Series

Monday, September 8, 2008 · 10 Comments

So this morning, I’m wondering what I can blog about this week since the conference prep series is over (much to some of my readers’ great relief), but I don’t want to start another series right before I go out of town. And then I realized: I have a bunch of series I said at the beginning of the year that I was going to do and haven’t gotten around to yet. So I’ll put it up for a “vote” for y’all to decide which series should come next—beginning September 29th:

Say What?: We’ll look at how to make our characters’ communication realistic—from dialogue to facial expressions to body language. We’ll also discuss how to find the balance between dialogue and narrative, and figure out what’s up with dialogue tags.

Marketing, Branding, and Self-Promotion: In addition to Networking, learning how to build name-recognition, brand yourself by claiming a unique niche of the market, and market your own books—both prior to and after publication—are some of the most important skills all writers need to learn.

Writing to the Market: Can you write what sells without compromising the story of your heart? How can you find out what’s selling and what isn’t? What do editors really mean when they say what kinds of stories they’re looking for? I hope to include lots of feedback and advice from published authors on this subject.

Feeding the Muse: How can we keep the flame of creativity burning when we’re completely burned out by real life?

As always, I’m open to suggestions for other topics, and would love for you to submit questions you have about any of these topics so that I can be sure to cover them.

Categories: Fiction Writing Series · craft of fiction writing