Writing Inspirational Quote #amwriting #writingtips

“If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough” – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s First Female President

Writing a novel was my dream.  Getting started was the hardest part, because with a dream that–at the time, with my schedule and inexperience–would certainly take me years of work (two and a half to finish the first draft, to be exact), then take years to edit, submit, wait, revise, resubmit, wait more (one very long year), and might possibly never even succeed in terms of getting contracted, the list of reasons to NOT begin such an overwhelming task stack up quickly. Because it’s scary.

A printed out first draft -
that's a lot of red pen!

But it was my dream, and I told myself if I didn’t even try, I certainly wouldn’t achieve it.  And then I finally typed up those first pages (which are long gone from the final novel, but apparently still exist, as I discovered when I cleaned out a desk in the basement), then I had started, and when I start something, I rarely stop until I’m finished.  Even if it takes years.

So embrace those scary dreams.  The time will pass anyway, whether you are going after your goals or not.  That first novel of mine, SILVER LAKE, was eventually acquired by a bigger publisher, and recently hit the #1 Bestseller ranking in Ghost Mysteries on Amazon, almost four years after the original publication.  That’s a dream I never even entertained when I began this journey!  So dream big, push the fear down, and go for it!

Creating Tension + Suspense in Fiction #amwriting #writingtips

I infuse a lot of suspense into my novels, since in addition to romance, each of my books also involves some type of paranormal mystery: either spooky hauntings that need to be unraveled, or supernatural secrets that pose a dangerous threat.  Recently, I was invited to meet with a local writing group as a consultant, and one of the topics they asked to cover was methods of injecting suspense and tension into a story.  While these two things work together and are even listed as synonyms for each other in dictionary definitions, they are not exactly the same (although the definitions are pretty close).  Suspense is "a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen" (source link).  In fiction, it's that growing desire to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next.  Tension is "a feeling of nervousness, excitement, or fear" (source link).  In fiction, this is driven by emotions and is the element which causes us to worry about the characters.  It can ebb and flow based on the situation.  To try to give a simple example, in Silver Lake, my ghost story/romance, part of the suspense comes from wondering what happened to Brandy.  Tension comes from the dangerous situations Brandy's ghost's best friend, Rain, finds herself in as she tries to answer this question...assuming, of course, the reader has come to care about this character.  A novel doesn't need to be labeled "suspense" or "thriller" to have these elements, either.  Romance involves suspense and tension in terms of the fate of the couple and the obstacles they must overcome, and so I use the following techniques in both aspects of my novels.

As mentioned, suspension and tension work together, and below is the list I came up with for my class on ways to create these two elements in a novel.  I originally posted this as a feature of Writing Tip Tuesday on The Pearls of Writing Wisdom blog, and I'm sharing it this week on my own blog with a few examples.

*Conflict is key.  There should be conflict in any type of commercial fiction.  To increase tension, load on the conflict, both internal and external, to keep characters from their goals.  (See my post of Goal, Motivation, and Conflict here).

*Escalation of story problems, which add new questions beyond the hook (ex: the mystery of Brandy’s disappearance in Silver Lake—questions move from “Could ghosts be real?” to “Is Brandy’s ghost really trying to communicate?” to “How can we help her communicate?” to “What really happened to her five years ago?” to "How far will this desperate spirit go to expose the truth?", ect.).

*Stack the odds against the protagonist. (ex: In the movie MacFarland, USA, a coach new to a predominantly Latino high school in a very low-income area starts up a track team, recruiting boys with speed and endurance from working in the fields...but they have less time and energy to practice, due to field work, less support from their families, since earning extra income is the priority as opposed to sports, and no money for appropriate shoes and uniforms.  All these disadvantages make us anxious to see these underdogs prevail.)

*Make the stakes high.  This does not necessarily mean the entire world will end if the character does not meet his or her goal, but the consequences of not meeting a goal should be extremely negative or even disastrous for the character.

*Give characters impossible choices (ex: Katniss in The Hunger Games—she either must kill other kids (both morally reprehensible and potentially difficult) OR be killed herself.  Neither is a good choice, but she could decide morals take precedence over her own life.  However, her family’s existence depends on her survival, as she provides the source of food.  Plus, she’s promised her sister she’ll survive.  So now we have a truly impossible choice: Kill other kids, who are trying to survive themselves and kill her, including the friendly boy from her district, OR be killed herself, break her promise to her sister, and possibly condemn her family to death.)

*Have some plans fail. (ex: in the movie The Martian, the character's first attempt to rig a system to create water fails...now we are even more worried for his long-term survival.)

*Create urgency.  A time constraint is useful for this (ex: The Finest Hours movie—the Coast Guard rescuers will have to reach the foundering tanker before it sinks into the stormy ocean, or everyone on board will die.)

*Use foreshadowing.  Foreshadowing is used to both build suspense and prepare reader for an event or scenario that otherwise might come out of nowhere.  There are many methods of foreshadowing, from blatant to extremely subtle.

*Make readers care about the protagonist.  Again, there are many ways to do this, including using deep POV to connect reader to character, creating engaging characters with realistic flaws, and avoiding Mary Sues.

*Use dramatic irony to create apprehension.  This can be employed when writing from multiple POVs.  (ex: In Gull Harbor, the reader sees what the bad guy has planned for Claire from his POV chapters.  However, neither Claire nor Max know—this knowledge is only between the reader and the villain.)

These are some of the methods I use...please add your tips for creating suspense and tension! Happy writing!

Just Do It! #amwriting Inspiration #writingtips

"The only way to do a thing is to do it" ~ William Painter

This is the quote I used for my contribution to the Friday Writing Inspiration feature over at The Pearls of Writing Wisdom, a blog offering writing tips and inspiration from ten published authors.  I tore this out of my daily paper because it struck a chord with me.  Many people have the dream of writing a novel.  Many people have an idea in their head, complete with nagging characters who want their story told.  "This would make a great novel," you think...and maybe it will, but you have to write it first.  The only way to do a thing is to do it.

And yes, it's scary.  I had the entire plot, beginning to end, of SILVER LAKE in my mind for years.  I already knew the characters intimately...in fact, I would imagine conversations between them each night as I drifted off to sleep.  My husband encouraged me to start writing it down, but I resisted...how could I do that?  It's such a huge endeavor.  And what if it never panned out?  All those hours--years--would be wasted.

Which is what I told a good friend, at a party.  And he shook his head and told me I had to try. "What if it doesn't get published?" I said.

"What if it does?" he countered.  And he met every one of my arguments with a similar rebuke, finally pointing out that at the very least, I will have finished a novel, published or not, and that is no small thing.

I started the next day.  And now my fourth novel is awaiting a release date.

These days, I teach a class on writing fiction to aspiring authors.  And the biggest hurdle is usually convincing them to start.  It's the only way to get it done.  So don't wait for some magic guarantee of success--it won't come.  Just write.

Writing Inspiration ~ #amwriting #Nanowrimo

Last November, I tried NaNoWriMo for the first time ever, and while I didn't finish a complete manuscript in one month, I did "win" in terms of word count.  By February, I had typed "the end" to my fourth novel, and now Haunted Souls is awaiting a release date.  I decided not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, as I've branched out into teaching writing classes as well, and to say I'm over-scheduled at the moment would be a tremendous understatement.  But I wanted to cheer on all the writers working on getting their daily word count in by posting the inspirational quote I keep on my keyboard.  And if your fingers need a break and you care to read the story behind the quote, I've included it below.  The original post first appeared as one of my contributions to The Pearls of Writing Wisdom ~ a blog co-written by ten published authors dedicated to sharing weekly writing tips on Tuesdays and inspiration on Fridays.

The quote taped to my keyboard came to me in a fortune cookie on New Year's Eve in 2010. It seemed appropriate for what I was feeling, since my resolution was to begin sending out queries for my first manuscript, Silver Lake.

Real courage is moving forward when the outcome is uncertain. - Michael Angier

Now, I'm not comparing writing to the kind of courage it takes to go into battle to defend your country or something like that.  But it does take courage to go after your dreams, especially when the dream is as big as writing a novel and getting it published.  It's easy to say "Someday, I'm going to write that novel." It's much harder to actually do it.  Even once those first words get typed, there's no guarantee your energy and inspiration will hold out until you get to "The End". A writer pours blood, sweat, tears, caffeine, and days spent in pajamas into a manuscript, and the outcome IS uncertain.  Will it all come together?

But if you don't start, you definitely won't finish.  And if you don't send queries out and risk rejection, you won't find a publisher willing to back your story. Putting your creation out there is nerve-wracking at best.  I knew I was about to enter a very unpleasant stage of the process for most writers.  And there was no guarantee that if I stuck with it, my novel would find a home.

I weathered the rejections.  I rewrote and made cuts.  I tried again.  I began receiving full requests, and then an R&R (a request to Revise and Resubmit) - with suggestions on what needed to be fixed.  Again, no guarantees, but I did the work.

And the day that contract offer came for my debut novel was one of the best days of my life.  December 16, 2011, almost a year after I opened that cookie and found the words of encouragement that remind me daily not to give up.

Keep at it, writers!

The Pearls of Writing Wisdom #writingtips #amwriting

I'm part of a great new blog dedicated to providing writing tips and inspiration twice a week!  Nine authors from my agency take turns posting - on "Writing Tip Tuesday" and "Friday Inspiration". We write in a variety of genres, so there is something for everyone here - please join us by following our blog, The Pearls of Writing Wisdom, and Like our Facebook page too!

Today's post is by yours truly, on Goal, Motivation, and Conflict charts (GMC).  The green bolded title is the link to the post, so please stop by an comment...I'd love to hear from you! Happy Writing.