Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
August 28th, 2010
How nice to have a writing event in my neck of the woods! My daughter and I attended a workshop in
St. George a couple of weeks ago (on the 14th). It was hosted by Rick Walton (author of nearly 100 picture books) and Mette Ivie Harrison (author of The Princess and the Hound series). We participated in the novel workshop with Mette.
Quotes from Rick Walton:
“The way to make a lot of money in publishing is to start with a lot of money.”
“You start out with garbage, and the revision process is what turns it into gold.”
“I think we’re born creators.”
“You can write an awful story in an hour, but it’s good practice.”
(on book marketing) “It is mostly magic. It’s voodoo. I have seen no correlation between how hard I work on a book and how it sells.”
Quotes from Mette Ivie Harrison:
“All writers are thieves except those who say they aren’t—they are liars and thieves.”
“Be aware of the threads that you’re holding and tweak them at just the right moment.”
(on writing the first draft) “I like to experience the story, be surprised by my own novel.”
“I’m always telling people not to have prologues.”
Mette also talked about novels having both an external and an internal plot as well as the different plot patterns such as romance, quest, adventure, and tragedy. She mentioned that Twilight was actually a romance plot with magic and fantasy woven in, which explained why I didn’t like it so much. I preferred New Moon because it was more about the fantasy elements than the romance, since Edward was gone for most of the book.
And a little aside to Erin, if you happen to read this: as we were driving home, I told Emalee not to lose the purple stickie with your email address written on it; so, of course, she promptly lost it! Hopefully you still have mine.
:0)
June 24th, 2010
Here are some pix from the conference (finally got around to transferring and resizing them…I’m a procrastinator).
Also, one of the gals in my group sent me a link to a YouTube video that shows some conference highlights, including a clip of the Bad Romance performance: click here for that. Thanks, Jeni!
All of us in Brandon Mull's morning workshop group.
Me & my daughter, who also loves to write.
Emily Wing Smith, my Emalee, & Alane Ferguson.
Me with my dear friend and client, Beth Moore.
June 19th, 2010
I got back from this weeklong conference late last night. I’ve attended three previous years but missed the last two, so this one was long anticipated. And wow. What a learning experience.
First of all, let me just say that Brandon Mull is awesome.
Awesome.
I was in his morning workshop class and gained so much from the insights he shared. Brandon agreed to do an interview for this blog; stay tuned for that. My daughter and I came up with a bunch of questions, so it might take a little while for him to answer.
As if the whole week wasn’t amazing enough, during the “closing extravaganza” members of the faculty (including agent Mary Kole) busted some moves to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance with slightly modified lyrics: “Write, write, write, rewrite…” Talk about a cherry on top. If anyone has a DVD of that, I’d like a copy. I think I have a new favorite song.
Okay, below are some quotes from the conference.
Alane Ferguson, novelist:
“For me, I have to get that foundation right [or] the rest of it is not going to sit right and I could go way far afield.” (talking about the first chapter)
“If you’re going to do every little body function, you’re going to get dragged down. The minute you chronicle every twitch and spasm, I’m out. Someone wrote, ‘His eyes flew around the room’ and I said, ‘Catch them quick, they’re going to get away!’”
“Pick the best and then throw out the rest.”
“Go for it, really go for it. We want to vomit the words onto our page and then clean up the mess. Our internal editor can clean it up on the next pass.”
“Your tendency is to overdo it at the beginning. Let me discover it along the way. Throw your back story cards down carefully. Don’t play every card at the beginning. They are gold.”
Mary Kole, associate agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency:
“Make me care about your character and what story you’re taking them on.”
“I always give the pages a chance.”
“Character is an entry point to a really exciting story.”
“Dig deep and tell the truth.”
“Developing voice is all about cutting out the parts that suck and making the rest sound natural. The most alive, compelling voices sound like an actual person in my head.”
“You don’t have to be edgy to write YA.”
“Now go out there and write an irresistible book.”
Mary E. Pearson, novelist:
“You see images and you hear voices, and you don’t even want to take medication for it. A pen is the only cure.”
“Story is who we are…as deeply woven into us as DNA. It’s what makes us uniquely human.”
“Real writers write. They snatch the moments they can and they make it happen.”
“If it didn’t advance the story, it had to go. I was ruthless.”
“There’s a saying that ‘Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts.’ Writers have more nuts in their fudge than most people.”
“Even if a book only speaks to an audience of one, it has altered the world.”
“Each of you has your own story. All those turns in your path, the good and the bad, will make you the writer that’s uniquely you. I’m waiting to hear your untold stories.”
Ally Condie, novelist:
“I get fulfillment from this that I don’t get from other things.”
“Believe that who you are writing for are smart and wonderful kids.”
“Tough love is different than utter annihalation.”
Ann Dee Ellis, novelist:
“The better you know your characters, the easier the plot will fall into place.”
Jennifer Hunt, editorial director at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers:
“If you’re brilliant, let me know it on the first page.”
“Skip the trends and look for universal truths.”
“What’s inspiring to me is the voice. If I fall in love with an author’s voice, I can overlook other things.”
“As an editor, I say ‘I believe very strongly in this person and I want to see them do their best work.’”
Brandon Mull, novelist:
“Whenever I have an excuse to go gross, I do it.”
“I try to relate to them in some way and put myself in my characters’ shoes.”
“Daydreaming is my strength.”
“We include things in stories to see the characters’ reactions to them.”
“…hearing a story from your cool, funny friend vs. your boring friend. It’s all about how they arrange the details; their attitude; and pacing. It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” (talking about voice)
“There’s no substitute for massive amounts of reading and writing for finding a voice.”
“This is what I sound like when I tell a story.”
“The outlining is done by daydreaming, playing the movie in my mind.”
“I’ve got more and bigger and better in me.”
“The best way to learn writing is to do it.”
April 25th, 2010
This weekend I attended a writing conference in American Fork, Utah with my daughter. It was great.
Friday night, after the Plot Shop activity, we went down to the hotel jacuzzi. A woman was there with a group of kids. She told me they were in town for a karate competition and asked what we were doing.
“We’re here for a writing conference,” I said.
“Oh, you ride horses?”
Huh?
“No, writing.” I mimed writing in the air. “Writing books.”
Not riding horses.
“Oh, they teach you how to write books?”
Well, they try.
“They have workshops and presentations about different areas of writing.”
Huh? She looked vaguely confused and we didn’t say much after that.
HA! What a funny experience! I really got a kick out of it and my daughter says she’s heard me tell the story at least 10 times.
First, the riding horses visual gave me a chuckle. Not that I’ve never ridden a horse…I have…on a few memorable occasions. And I’m definitely not “riding conference” material (I think they call the thing a rodeo). But aside from the humor, this little conversation played into an analogy I’ve been contemplating lately: writing is actually a lot like riding.
I was originally thinking of bikes, but horses fit, too. If I study riding by reading books and attending workshops on the subject, I could get to be quite the expert in theory. I could learn everything there is to know about riding (bikes or horses). But until I get my butt in the seat or the saddle and get some actual practice, I won’t be much of a rider. Sure, I’ll fall or get bucked off a lot in the beginning, but if I stick with it and keep working, I’ll get better and better.
Writing is the same way. Conferences and classes and groups can teach me and help me improve…if I’m putting in the necessary seat time. Sure, I’ll fall and get bucked off (rejected) in the beginning, but if I stick with it and keep working, I’ll get better and better. Several of yesterday’s presenters reinforced that point as well.
What started this train of thought was doing a BIAM (Book In A Month) in November…and continuing through December. I had never finished a whole novel before, and finally made myself do it. What a valuable experience! Wow. All that stuff I had learned in theory came into focus in practice. And I was able to gain much more from this latest writing conference because I had put in the seat time beforehand…on that first completed novel as well as the one I’m working on now.
I’ll share some of the conference highlights in future posts.
July 9th, 2009
Don’t get discouraged about making mistakes in your writing. Learn from them, and learn from the mistakes of others, including published authors.
Nobody sits down at the computer and cranks out a perfect first-draft manuscript.
Nobody.
And sometimes mistakes even appear in published books after careful editing and revising. I’m not just talking about typos, either. I’m talking about glitches in characterization, plot, voice, etc., that are like speed bumps in the reading. Sometimes the bumps are almost imperceptible and sometimes they cause readers to catch air in their seats. I read a book this week that got me thinking about the latter.
The book is an oldie: “Spindrift,” by Phyllis A. Whitney. First, let me say that I have loved her books ever since I was a teenager and she is one of those authors I hold up on a pedestal. So I was very surprised by the mistakes in this book. But pondering what didn’t work for me as a reader has helped me learn as a writer. I recognized in practice some principles I already knew in theory.
1. Stay current by reading new releases. Nostalgia led me to pick up “Spindrift,” which was copyrighted in 1975, so obviously some of the stuff I noticed wouldn’t have been considered “mistakes” 35 years ago when she was writing this book. Still, it’s been a helpful exercise for me to identify these things.
2. Don’t start with an information dump. The first five pages (hmmm…that sounds familiar) were solid flashback/recollection.
3. Have a strong protagonist. The main character, Christy, was weak and not very bright. Knowing there was a killer in the house, she would immediately blab about anything she discovered, what she intended to do, and so on. Also, she allowed her interfering mother-in-law to control not only her own life, but her small son’s as well.
4. Have a strong premise. One of the big “threats” was supposed to be that the mother-in-law could send Christy back to the hospital where she’d been sedated for months because she had a come-apart after finding her father shot. Even back then, I don’t think someone would have that kind of power over doctors. The idea wasn’t believable. What doctor is going to keep a healthy young woman hospitalized and heavily sedated because she insists that her father’s death was not a suicide?
5. Write a satisfying ending. Ooh-boy. The bad guy blurts a confession to Christy, and then expects her to love him even though he murdered her father and even if she loses her son. So then she does an abrupt about-face and decides she’s still in love with the husband she couldn’t stand throughout the whole book and ends by saying she doesn’t think her “foolish eyes would ever be blinded again.”
There were other problems that I won’t mention. The point is, writers can learn a lot about both what to do and what not to do by reading. And it’s fun…the book was entertaining in spite of the speed bumps, because Phyllis Whitney was a master of suspense and goosebumps.