When you are writing a book, you must learn to listen very closely for what editor Tom Jenks calls the heartbeat of the story. Sometimes you may confuse your own heartbeat with the narrative heartbeat. If you allow your emotional highs and lows to push you around–they may also end up pushing around your prose. Your anxiety, exhaustion, or mania may show up on the page. It’s not that you shouldn’t use your own experience to connect with characters–you should. Your fears and the fears of your protagonist are the same when it comes to their deepest nature. Your shared …
Tag: Writing lessons from Puppy Class
#NaNoWriMo2015–Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #23)
If you are a fan of the classic 1983 coming of age/holiday film, A CHRISTMAS STORY, scenes come vividly to mind when I cue you: pink bunny suit; Scut Farkus; Santa and his elves; soap bar; leg lamp; Red Ryder; the dogs and the turkey. Today’s post is a day late and my only excuse is that a version of the ‘dogs and turkey’ scene unfolded in my home yesterday. This morning, I am still carrying around three different brands of carpet cleaner, still sweeping up broken glass and scrubbing butter from the oddest places, still highly miffed at certain …
#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 …
Always End With a Smile~and Other Writing Lessons from Puppy Class
Last week my daughter and I and our 10-month old recently rescued puppy, Jazz, all graduated from ‘Puppy Basics’. Jazz, who is 13.5 pounds of clever terrier-plus-guess-what, and my daughter, who is wise and a few days shy of her 11th birthday, breezed through the lessons: relax, sit, stay, off, down, lineup, come, and leave it. I did fine, too, as I am fascinated by animal behavior and what it teaches us about ourselves and others. At the end of the class, as is her custom, our instructor Judy reminded us to generously praise our dogs and ourselves because the …