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Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

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MamaWriters are thrilled to welcome back the wonderful New York Times bestselling author Angie Fox!

She’s talking with us about brainstorming, and some of those great overlaps between being a mom and being a writer. AND she has a very cool quiz we can take (What Supernatural Pet is Right for You? )

If you post your answers in the comments section, you may win a copy of her latest release A Tale of Two Demon Slayers!

Moms being creative

Last week, my daughter managed to make yellow Play Doh toast and slip it into the toaster without me seeing (until I smelled it). My son painted the entire kids’ bathroom with pink foamy soap. And while both bouts of creative expression were messy (to say the least) they were done with complete dedication and a willingness to explore.

When you think about it, that’s not terribly different from what we do everyday as writers. I’m always looking for ways to break out and think about my books in a new light. And while I can’t always be as creative as a three-year-old, I do have a few tricks that have worked when it comes to taking my stories to a new level. Or at least they’ve done a good job at keeping the writing part of my day fairly sane.

The character push

In the beginning of my series, the heroine’s long-lost grandmother shows up and – whoops – locks the heroine in her bathroom with an ancient demon. I’d pushed the situation, but the grandmother was too nice. My critique partner called me on it and, blast her, she was right. I sat down and brainstormed a few pages of alternate “grandmas” before I hit on an idea I loved – a Harley biker witch grandma who hurls recycled Smuckers jars full of home brewed magic. One character change and the book became a lot more fun to write.

The mini-brainstorm

Sometimes, the first idea isn’t the best idea. Mini-brainstorms during the writing of a chapter always help me see if where I’m going is where I want to be. Sometimes, I go back to my first idea. Other times, after I’ve forced myself to come up with a page full of alternatives, I find I like a new idea better.

It works on big plot points, but just as well on little details. For example, in A Tale of Two Demon Slayers, Lizzie finds a mysterious egg-shaped stone. I had no idea what it was, but decided to play with it. Turns out, it was a dragon egg. The egg hatches and Lizzie’s talking dog, Pirate, decides he has a pet. It made me smile to think of a pet owning a pet. Lizzie is not happy about that. She has enough going on and doesn’t think her dog needs to own a pet.

So she tells Pirate to find a new home for Flappy the dragon (Pirate named him, not Lizzie). So Lizzie is battling evil people and losing track of what Pirate is doing. He keeps promising to find a new home for the dragon, but instead Pirate is hiding the dragon, and loving the dragon and teaching him tricks. Every time Lizzie realizes the dragon is still there, it’s gotten bigger and bigger and, well, it’s just one more thing she can’t quite control.

Kind of like motherhood.

The “chill out – this doesn’t have to count” brainstorm

Sometimes, when a chapter just isn’t working, I have a hard time making the (often necessary) massive changes, because I don’t know if I’m going to make things better or (gulp) worse. But one day, I borrowed a technique from my days as an advertising writer and lo and behold, it works on fiction too.

I made a duplicate copy of the impossible chapter, and then went to town on changes. By letting my brain loose on a “throw away” chapter, I freed it up to stop thinking about “How am I going to get my heroine out of the love scene and ramped up for hell?,” to “Hmm…pillow talk. This is a good time for the hero to admit he wasn’t one hundred percent honest with the heroine at the start of the book. Now the heroine can get so mad that she dumps his boxers in the ice bucket, throws his pants off the balcony and almost goes to hell without him.”

Brainstorming is all about freeing up your mind and your creative energy. You get to surprise yourself, and feel the rush of excitement as you hit upon new ideas and new places to take your story. Because when you’re fully engaged in the story, pushing your characters harder, waiting to see what’s around the next bend – chances are, your audience will feel the same way.

Angie Fox is the author of A Tale of Two Demon Slayers, a new release from Dorchester. And she’s giving away a copy right here. Just take the quiz, inspired by Pirate and his pet dragon. What Supernatural Pet is Right for You?

Post your answer below and you’re entered to win!

Categories : Career And Family, Celebration, Craft Topics, creativity, Encouragement, Kris Kennedy, MamaHood, Similarities-Motherhood & Writing, special guests, Teaching Your Children, Uncategorized

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Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

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Judging writing contests has become a real love/hate relationship for me.

Love, because it’s my chance to read without guilt…after all, I HAVE to do it, people are counting on me!!

Hate, because – always — I feel I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, with a stack of books I have to read and not enough time to get my reading and my own writing done. Because each time I start to read someone’s work, I end up wondering what makes me think I’m in any way qualified to judge their art.

Do I count point of view switches as more important than back story? Should I worry about whether or not the author started in the right place? Too many instances of passive voice? Heroine’s motivation not believable?

It was 3:45 in the morning and I was bleary-eyed, reading my second book of the day trying to finish all the books I’m judging for the RITA contest when it happened. I had one of those interesting writer-epiphany moments.

I’ve been looking at this judging stuff all wrong!

The book lying in my lap is in a completely new-to-me category, one I’ve never judged in before. I’ve found all sorts of little technical problems – point of view is all over the place and the heroine is annoying the heck out of me.

And yet… it’s 3:45 in the morning, I can barely keep my eyes open, and I don’t want to put the book down yet. Not until I find out what’s going to happen next.

And THAT was my epiphany. An “exceptional” book, one I want to keep reading, one I’ll end up telling someone else they need to read, isn’t about the technical imperfections. I’ve judged books that were technically perfect but were sheer torture to finish because they were so boring.

No, for me, an “exceptional” book is all about the story. It’s when the author is telling me that story, drawing me in so that I can see myself in the places they describe, visualize the characters and feel the action around me. It’s when I forget which character’s head I’m supposed to be in and want nothing more than to know what all the characters are thinking and what’s going to happen next.… THAT’S a great read.

And THAT is really all I need to know when I’m judging. Do I love it or do I simply like it? Did it keep me up until 3:45 in the morning wanting to know what happens next or could I hardly wait to be done so I didn’t have to read any more?

Of course, that’s MY take on it. No matter what criteria we may try to use, bottom line, judging is a very personal, very subjective activity, because what I love and what you love could very likely be two different things.

After all, we’re readers!

As readers, we each make that judgment call every time we pick up a new book. I’ve shared what it is that I look for in a good book, now it’s YOUR turn. What is it in a book that makes you love it enough to buy the author’s whole backlist and tell all your friends about it?

MELISSA MAYHUE writes award-winning paranormal romance for Pocket Books, all set in an imaginary world of Faeries and Mortals. Her fifth book, A HIGHLANDER’s DESTINY released on December 29 and her sixth, A HIGHLANDER’S HOMECOMING, hit stores on January 26, 2010.

You can visit her on the web at: www.MelissaMayhue.com or come Twitter with her at www.Twitter.com/MelissaMayhue

Categories : Craft Topics, Melissa Mayhue, Worry and Insecurity

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Monday, January 25th, 2010

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Remember Romancing The Stone? Shoot, who couldn’t?

I was too young to watch the flick when it debuted in 1984, but easily fell in love with block-buster a decade later. By that point in time, I had already been devouring romance novels by the bag full. So, it was no surprise that I loved every aspect of the storyline, especially the characters.

I wanted to be Joan Wilder.

She was a writer- kind of dorky, but sassy, too. And Jack T. Colton . . . oh, my! Now, he was dreamy. Brave, adventurous, and devil-may-care, he made the perfect hero. I could watch this movie over and over again. (and have )

So, last week, during a particularly rainy and cold day, I popped in the DVD and got ready to be entertained. Instead, I found myself watching the movie through new eyes. Really seeing the elements of the story.

A plot line with twists and turns? Check!

Well-developed characters with sound goals, motivations, and conflicts? A believable character arc? Check, Check!

I may have been watching a movie, but for once I was tuned into the framework of what made Romancing The Stonesuch a phenomenal movie. This was studying, but BETTER. Kind of like back in college when I would tape note cards with study questions to the individual milking stations. Wipe off a cow’s udder and read a question. Hook the cow up to the milk claw and read the answer. Of course, by the end of my shift the cards were completely dirty, but it was still studying made easy! Ok, so I was a bit of dork, but I did very well on tests considering by the time most students got to class, I’d been up since 2am studying. Ha!

It was fun and very enlightening to apply what I’ve been learning about craft and writing. (I’m just thankful I didn’t have to get covered in muck to do it!)

I’ve been actively pursing writing for just about a year and a half and never would I have thought there was so much that went to crafting a good story. In a way, I’ve had to attack the learning curve in pretty much the same fashion I did when chasing my degree. I was tenacious and very, very driven. It’s why almost 8 years later, I can still recall the percentages of how much water and solids make up milk. Or what the length of a pig’s pregnancy is. (It’s 87% water to 13% solids and 3months, 3weeks, and 3days, by the way. lol)

It’s kind of weird how things just slide into place and then smack us upside the head. I think one of the most important tidbits I’ve picked up about writing is to never EVER stop paying attention. Never stop learning. There is always room for improvement!

So, the next time you need a slap shot to get your thinker-tinking, take a break and watch your favorite flick. You never know what you’ll walk away with.

What about you? Do you find ways to apply the cache of writing skills you’ve honed to everyday life? Better yet, how do you keep your passion for writing alive?

For more on Sarah Simas, check out her blog, The Lovestruck Novice. Or Friday Night Write, a blog she shares with her critique group.

Categories : Career And Family, characterization, Craft Topics, creativity, Encouragement, Heroes / Heroines, Humorous, Reading and Books, Sarah Simas, Writing and self-care

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Thursday, January 21st, 2010

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Nothing can stop him . . . June, 2010

Yes, another post on the topic of not sweating the things that just don’t matter. Why, you ask? Because I do just that, of course. But here, I’m talking the submission stuff that just doesn’t matter, but that we often waste valuable time and energy worrying about.

(Now, if it wasted sufficient calories, I might actually suggest it. But it’s negligible, really.)

My agent now takes care of all the things that make a submission look good, such as a potent sales pitch (otherwise known as a ‘query’–don’t forget that, and confuse a query with something silly like ‘tell them what my story is about’. No, No. It’s a sale pitch. Hook ‘em.)

And my editors want a synopsis and sample pages for as-as-yet uncontracted &/or contracted-but-not-yet-written books.

Here’s what they care about: Story arc; Strong conflict; characters who have story-important things to do, like outwit bad guys and come to find trust their own inner strengths and thereby, be ready for real challenge: living someone for the next 40 years.

Mostly, they care about writing that hooks them and pulls them along. They care about how the story simultaneously ‘stands out’ and ‘fits in’ on a shelf somewhere, and who knows who they do this unquantifiable and yet somehow mathematical computation. (Aside: This amazes me. Yes, they may be wrong sometimes. But they are also quite good at it, whereas I am terrible at marketing-type things, so I want my editors to do this.)

What agents and editors do NOT care about are precise margin measurements.

They do not care about fonts, except that they’re easy to read.

They do not care about paper weight or proper headers, so long as they are numbered with contact information readily available.

They do not care about whether your bio paragraph comes first or last (There are wonderful agent blogs suggesting where to place it, and why. You should definitely understand the reasoning behind these suggestions, so you can decide for yourself where to put it in your query. But in the end, the do not care. It’s not a thing that matters.)

(Nor do editors and agents care how much you as a human grew during the writing of the book, or how much your critique partners or beta readers loved it, so don’t put that in there either, but I digress.)

England, 1152: After seventeen years of civil war, things are about to change...

Therefore, you should not care either.

Writing contests can be incredibly valuable tools to teach new writers the basic protocols for manuscript writing and submission. They can be wonderful ways for more experienced writers to get feedback on their works-in-progress from non-friend/crit partner sources. But bear this in mind; they are not the Ultimate Truth of Manuscript Submission or Story. They are the proving grounds, where you and your story can get blown up a few times. They are not the real battle. That is faced day-to-day, in refining your craftsmanship of Storytelling in the modern age.

So, when you’re submitting, don’t sweat the small stuff like margins and whatnot.

Use your query as a sales pitch, and concern yourself with a constructing and writing a great story. Strong conflict, increasing tension, external events and personal goals which force the protagonists into facing their worst inner fears, and characters who we care about. Compelling writing.

Margins just don’t matter (much).

Kris Kennedy writes sexy, adventure-filled medieval romances for Kensington and Pocket Books. Her debut book,THE CONQUEROR, came out May ’09. Her second, THE IRISH WARRIOR, winner of the 2008 Golden Heart Award for Best Historical Romance, releases June ’10. She loves hearing from readers–stop by her website, sign up for her newsletter, and say Hi!

Categories : characterization, Coping, Craft Topics, Encouragement, Kris Kennedy, Worry and Insecurity

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Thursday, January 7th, 2010

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Making Things Active In Your Mss;

Or, If The Amazing Captain Underpants Has More Plot Twists Than Your Ms, You May Be In Trouble

Nothing can stop him . . . June, 2010

My son has recently discovered The Amazing Captain Underpants adventures. Fortunately, I greatly enjoy them too. With lines like, “George and Harold were usually responsible kids. Whenever anything bad happened, George and Harold were usually responsible,” how wrong can you go?

In any event, as we ripped through the first book at lightning speed, in one sitting, Christmas night, I realized there was a lot happening in those pages. Like, a lot. Not deep, dense thematic stuff stuff, nor layered complications of the sort single title length popular fiction writers (us) aspire to. But just . . . stuff.

Now, whenever I recount a book I’ve read or a story I’ve seen, rarely do I say, “It was a majestic sweeping survey of human relations and human frailty blahblah.” I, and others, generally say things more like, “And then they ran around the corner, right?, and there was this car, and it EXPLODED! So, they went back the way they came and….”

i.e. Stuff Happens.

I’m not saying we should pack our novels with titillating, pointless conflicts or the literary equivalent of car chases and pyrotechnics just to fill pages. I believe firmly that we need deepening risks and complications for our protagonists, not high-speed, successive-but-unrelated-conflicts. I cheer when I get a story where the tension is ramped up via the use of subtext. I love underlying themes, revealed through character blind spots, Black Moments and triumphs.

I’m just saying we need to make sure there’s enough actually happening in our story world, actual story events, that will make the reader turn the page.

This means the reader has to have questions. Questions like, “OMG, how will she ever get out that window with him standing right there?” Or “Oh man, they are SO going to fight about this. Wonder who will win, and what they’ll do to the other person when they do?” Or “No, way! That army just camped beneath the tree they’re in–holy cow, what next?”

In short, something of more or less value has to be at risk, so the reader can wonder, “How will they make it out of this?”

And for me, that is one of the most fun things about writing,. Making things bad for other people.

On the topic: http://www.therejectionist.com/2009/09/little-kids-can-write-books-better-than.html

And then, of course, there’s this: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0&feature=related )

See what she’s talking about? Story. Story, story, story. Not themes, not character arcs. Things That Happened That Made Stuff Really Bad for Characters We

England, 1152: After seventeen years of civil war, things are about to change...

Care About.

Because, in the end, we readers aren’t necessarily supposed to ‘hear’ the larger issues at work in a story. We’re just supposed to get a good story. Make that: A Good Story. The actions and unfolding events are supposed to communicate any larger issues or themes. And those unfolding event and subsequent character actions are best when they increase the stakes, when something changes as a result of the event and choices made.

(Hint: Sitting in a coffee shop chatting probably won’t do it. It may reveal information or character, but if it doesn’t change anything in the next story scene, it doesn’t count.)

When you ask a child to tell you a story, or the synopsis of a story they’ve read or heard, you get the important Story stuff. Plot twists, explosions, the big Black Moments, what the bad guy did, and how the good guy fought back. (Of particular note: They will usually, although not always, mention warrior-heroes with swords if one was, in fact, present. I am in favor of this.)

I’m telling you, if you have a young child, and his/her reading material contains more plot events than your current work-in-progress, you may be in trouble.

(Said by the woman furiously trying to write a wip with value-relevant plot turns that deepen conflict, increase stakes, and generally emotionally sucker-punch the hero and heroine who are already, poor kids, in a very tight spot. )

How about you? How’s your work-in-progress? Feeling stuck? Would a Captain Underpants-type plot turn help get you going again? Remember, sometimes (often) this writing gig can be fun too.

Categories : characterization, Craft Topics, Heroes / Heroines, History, Kris Kennedy, Love/Loving

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	Hey, all Writing, motherhood, trying to do it all has shown me that sometimes plates have to drop, and marketing and support -- ESPECIALLY during the summer months, is the thing that slips. Just b/c I've been gone doesn't mean I don't think of you and often. HUGS to everyone... and keep writing! Ash
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	Hello friends! Just thought I'd drop a note on the community. Even as the blog slows for a while, this site will NOT go away. The community remains open and we hope will become more of a place for MamaWriters to connect. Please join us!
	Wall Post last year
	Hi everyone! I am writing tonight and hitting a road block in my plot. Just needed a break to read some posts and get inspired to push through. This is first draft so it is going to be awful no matter what, right? The book doesn't really need to be good until revision. (Self pep-talk...) Ok, ladies. Hope you all made some good progress today!
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	I'm starting a new project so I bought Jeannie's WIP Notebook to help me out. Can't wait to get it! It looks so cool. :-) Welcome to all the new members! I love how the community of mama writers is growing.
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	played in the garden. Now to spend the day with kids sports and outside play.
	Wall Post 2 years ago

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Archive for Craft Topics

Renee Knowles

Jeannie Ruesch

Kris Kennedy

Eliza Knight

Melissa Mayhue

Viola Estrella

Ashley Ludwig

Allie K. Adams

Helen Hardt

Sarah Simas

Our Special Guests

Community

From The Community

Latest MamaWriter News

Recent Comments

Polls

Recent Posts

Finding Balance

Encouragement

Career and Family

Mamahood

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