When I’m drafting my novels I think in threes: first draft is fast and lean and messy (remember Anne Lamott and shitty first drafts); second draft (aka revision) comes after I’ve had the chance to take a breather and then give my book a focused read so I can sense what needs expanding, cutting, honing, deepening, this time moving at a slower pace–remember that revision is seeing again with fresh eyes; if all goes well my third draft is about “housekeeping”–tidying up, freshening up, tossing out, and adding the final touches. When I speak with writers, some new to the …
Sarah’s & Cynde’s Blog
#NaNoWriMo2015–Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #3)
Make it easy on yourself–keep your characters in action and in relationship. Physical interaction and dialogue between two (or three) characters is one of the easiest ways to reveal deep traits. When we witness your hero counseling a 12-year-old runaway we will judge your hero’s level of compassion and concern, we will probably get a glimpse of her past and the wound that leaves her vulnerable, and depending upon the 12-year-old’s responses, we’ll know if she is street savvy or naive–in our eyes and in the eyes of the ‘tween. When you begin writing the scene, you will likely identify …
#NaNoWriMo2015 — Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #2)
Don’t get stuck believing you must draft your novel by a) rigidly outlining OR b) driving your story through the dark blindly with no gas can and no sense of destination. Writing a novel is not an either/or process. Try creating a loose outline with some idea of beginning, middle, end–and fill in the major turning points as you write. Let your hero’s “want” drive the story. Ditto your antagonist’s “want”. Free-write scenes, be a voyeur and watch your protagonist interact with people who are most important in her life. Those moments are vital even if they do not end up …
#NaNoWriMo2015 — Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #1)
Get to the heart of your story-it lives inside your hero: know what she wants, what drives her, and why. Give her a goal that matters. Know her deepest wound. Show us her fight to reach her goal and make sure that the forces of opposition might destroy her. Give her a friend who can make her laugh and let us readers catch our breath. Know that her fight is always a fight to the ‘death’-she will face a dilemma between what she wants and what she needs. She can’t have both. She must surrender her old view and be …
Pump Up the Faith Muscles
I just finished a phone conversation with a writer I know. He is new to writing and he’s eager to learn his craft—although he already understands how to write strong, entertaining scenes. I remind him of this often. Still, he worries a lot. I remind him, also, that his characters are strong and they have suffered and we care about them. Characters have the power to invite us into their book so we follow them eagerly across the most tumultuous narrative seas; characters also have the less-than-desirable power to shoo us away from reading because we don’t care about them …
Shadow and Light, Yin and Yang—Driving Your Story from the Dark Side into the Light
Around 1915, Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin developed his vase illusion (sometimes known as the figure-ground vase), an intentionally ambiguous visual tool for studying human figure-ground perception. It is known informally as the “Rubin vase” because the central image is a vase or goblet, in this case filling the white space. But if you focus on the black background around the vase, it usually takes very little time for that “background” to morph into two black faces in profile, their noses almost touching each other. One of our brain’s jobs is to interpret visual patterns in the eye created by …
Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch NM
I was a guest speaker this weekend with Valerie Plame Wilson, former CIA NOC and my coauthor for the “Vanessa Pierson spy-thrillers.” We were invited to talk to a smart, witty group of journalists at the New Mexico Press Women’s annual conference, “The Power of Storytelling.” This year’s event was held at Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, NM. Famed painter, Georgia O’Keefe, visited Ghost Ranch in 1934; she was so drawn by the astounding natural beauty she spent many summers in residence, painting the countryside and soaking up the solitude. Eventually she managed to purchase a few acres and a house …
The Care and Feeding of a Writer Committed to Staying Alive and Reasonably Sane and Happy!
I’ve spoken recently with several writers who are overwhelmed by their struggle to write intensely personal and emotional stories. One has been hit by waves of emotion and fear because he finds himself feeling as if he’s reliving decades-old betrayal perpetrated by those closest to him. The writing has begun to feel like a prison keeping him locked in with ghosts of childhood trauma. Another is so frightened by the possibility of exposure, he has transported his story across time and space and culture—jumping 200 years and 1,000 miles to write about a world that is almost completely foreign to …
More Thoughts on a Writing Life: The Long View
I’ve quoted below from writer Benjamin Moser’s thoughtful “Bookends” essay for The New York Times, January 27, 2015. “We never know if we are doing it right. Even the best writing will never have the immediate, measurable impact that a doctor’s work has, or a plumber’s. To discover if we are on the right track, we can, and do, become obsessed with our “careers,” which is the word we use for what other people think of us…there is something dreary about wanting writing to be a real job. The sense of inner purpose, so often unmentionable in a society enamored …
The Memorable Character Line-Up
A writer friend trying his hand at fiction recently asked, “…since my protagonist is a woman, what traits might both men and women find appealing in her?” My first response: Whether readers are male, female, gay, straight, transgender or some combo thereof, almost everyone is drawn to someone who passionately and actively yearns for something we consider meaningful. The person on the page who truly catches our attention, emotion and heart is the character who shows desire, yearning, drive and who takes all steps possible to achieve their desire, no matter if the pursuit is misguided, and no matter the …