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New PDF: Character Arcs!
Yep, I have character arcs on the brain. It happens every time I finish a book and think about how I can better align the internal journey and external plot climaxes. (I think I have it for this last one. Still have to hammer out the details.)
Since we revisited character arcs last week, it seemed like the perfect time to compile the PDF of the series, including last week’s post. Even though I didn’t look back at the original series as I was writing the new post, I was surprised at how well the new material meshed, expanding on some topics I mention in passing.
So if you’re having trouble figuring out how to found, form or finish your character’s emotional journey, check out the PDF version of Character Arcs!
Photo by Riccardo Romano
Posted in News & Contests, Technique
Tagged character arc, character arcs, emotional arcs, free guide, free writing guide, guide, internal conflict, pdf, story architecture
2 Comments
We’re going to have a good time!
Yep, it’s my birthday! I also finished writing my latest novel laaaate Saturday night, as I’d hoped! After three intensive weeks of writing, managing a “March-a-thon” and keeping up (mostly) with my normal life, I’m so ready for the day off.
Source: elegantweddingcenterpieces.com via Corinna on Pinterest
I’ll have posts throughout the week still, but Marketing Monday is taking a break for this week. Be sure to join me back here next week, though! We’re going to move from author websites to author blogs (dun dun dunnn!), a topic I know we all want to hear more about.
Book Spotlight: Promises by Caroline Twede Frank
My friend Carolyn Twede Frank is publishing her first novel today! Hooray! Promises is about a young girl named Hattie who has to move to a tiny town:
Hattie is barely twelve when her pa’s “business adventures” disrupt her family and move them to the new town of Tropic, nestled in the shadows of old Ebenezer Bryce’s Canyon. Her pa views the town as opportunity. Hattie is hopelessly shy and views it with apprehension; she dreads the task of making new friends. More than anything else, Hattie wants to be like her father—not afraid of meeting new people, talking to strangers, and standing up for herself. So it is with trepidation that she accepts her pa’s challenge and promises to make new friends.
Hattie forms more promises as she struggles to make friends, finding companionship in places she wouldn’t have expected and learning that there is a difference between complaining and standing up for oneself.
Drawn from the memoirs of early Utah settlers, Promises is a heartwarming story of friendship with a touch of mystery and adventure set in the days before Bryce Canyon became a national park.
Carolyn has a great idea to tie the entries in her blog tour together: having us write about promises, too! After reading about her book, I keep thinking about the promises one of my ancestors made. Along with his family, Christian Emil Nielsen joined a new faith in Denmark in the 1850s, when he was about the same age as Hattie. Their family soon decided to immigrate to Utah to join other members of the church, so they would better be able to keep the promises they made when they were baptized.
During the journey, Christian’s father Rasmus kept a journal recording their delays and setbacks. After spending what seemed like months just getting from Denmark to Britain, they finally crossed the Atlantic, and into the Gulf of Mexico. They transferred to a steamship to sail up the Mississippi River. Just past New Orleans, a serious illness swept through the passengers (cholera, if you’d like to know). Rasmus wrote that his wife had begun to show the symptoms.
The next day, Christian took over keeping the journal: both of his parents had died. But with the help of a family friend, Christian and his surviving siblings crossed the plains and arrived in Utah. Christian spent the rest of his life living true to the promises he’d made to God, serving him by helping to tame the wilderness wherever he was assigned.
Read more personal stories about promises on each day of her blog tour!
You can also enter to win a full-sized puppet stage and puppets, value of $290 by participating in Carolyn’s blog tour giveaway. Check out her website or blog for more details.
Christy has the guy. The terrorists have been taken care of, and she has a shot at becoming popular. Life is GREAT! Until they find her. Now she must run and leave behind everything she knows, including herself.
You can follow Cindy’s full blog tour here.
Good luck and happy book birthday, Carolyn & Cindy!
Posted in News & Contests
Tagged book birthdays, Carolyn Twede Frank, Cindy M. Hogan, promises
3 Comments
The three diminutive swine
Forsooth, Shakespeare.
I think I’ve mentioned him about eighty jabillion times in this context, but once again, hat-tip to my dad, who sent me a link to this via Big Geek Dad. Which is totally appropriate.
The debt I owe to Davy Jones
In the ’90s, Nick at Night began airing The Monkees. My sisters and I got hooked on the absurdity pretty quickly right before I started high school. (What can I say? We were the target audience, 30 years too late.) Over the next couple years, I met and saw two members of the Monkees in concerts (three different events)—Peter Tork and Davy Jones.
Two weeks ago, I got a text message from two of my sisters within seconds, basically saying the same thing:
I’m so sorry about Davy Jones!
That was how I found out he’d died. He had a heart attack at 66. For some odd reason, the youngest of the Monkees was the first to go.
It was a sad surprise, even if it’s not completely unheard of (I mean, Peter Tork, the oldest of the Monkees, hit 70 just two weeks before). It hit me that night as I saw a clip from the old TV show that he was really gone. But let’s be serious here: he wasn’t a close personal friend, and I’m not going to mourn him like one. His death didn’t make me face my own mortality, or give me a sobering wake up call, or anything else. It was a sad note.
One of my favorite songs actually sung by Davy
But then over the last weekend, I remembered what I owe to Davy Jones.
When my sisters and I started watching The Monkees, I liked the show so much, I had to write about it. Yes, it’s true—I came to writing through fanfiction. Monkees fanfic. (Is this as shameful as I think it sounds?) And though Davy himself wasn’t the biggest reason for my doing that, he was part of the ensemble. He was part of the reason I started to write.
From left to right: my sister (holding one of my favorite photos of Davy from the 60s), my friend, my sister, Davy and me (holding records?), in 1998. And yes, that extra hand on my waist is Davy’s. I’m 15, he’s 52. Is that skeevy? Oh well. (Don’t know where my other sister was 
.)
So thank you, Davy Jones.
How did you get started writing?
March thinky links
It’s the second edition of Thinky Links! Wherein I share a bunch of articles and features that have made me think lately.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here before, but I have a problem with the usual, chapter-a-week critique group format. I’ve taken chapters through that format, and while the chapters themselves get better, it’s like putting lipstick on a three-legged pig. The thing needs a prosthetic, not make up. Kristin Lamb has a new approach to the traditional critique group with a Concept critique. (I love the idea, but shudder at the thought of writing out 75 pages of outlines before I begin.) This inspired my fledgling critique group to totally change up our format—and so far, it works! Now if only we could get our schedules to do the same.
I’ve mentioned a couple of Vince Mooney’s points on book marketing, but he also has some fun lists on his blog, including more than 100 nonverbal cues, 200 triggers for creating emotional responses, 100 ways a character might grow in the course of a romance and how to show it and more. While every one of these suggestions obviously won’t work for every character, hopefully there will be something to jog your imagination and personalize your character.
Want to inject more humor into your writing? Author Julie Lessman posts at Seekerville about the whys and hows of humor even in non-comedic novels.
Every week, author Julie Coulter Bellon offers a free first page critique from an anonymous national editor. Interested? Here are the guidelines:
Want your first page critiqued by a national editor? Submit your double-spaced, 12 point font, first manuscript page to juliecoulterbellon@gmail.com with First Page Friday in the subject line. Ms. Shreditor and Angela Eschler critique every Friday. (Please no swearing or explicit sex scenes).
In February, author Kathi Oram Peterson devoted the month to writing about faith—specifically, having faith in yourself and your writing. If your faith is flagging, check out her posts!
Every time I go to author Jody Hedlund’s blog, I read pretty much everything I get my hands on. Most recently, I really liked her articles on time management for busy writers (from a home-schooling mom of 5 and published author!), how to make more time for blogging (and writing), living intentionally but with breathing space (on time management and meeting goals). Apparently my subconscious is worried about something. . . .
Which of these links makes you think? What other great articles have you read lately?
Some fun news!
Hey folks! In case you missed it yesterday, I put out my first PDF writing guide in years, this time on emotion. And my friend and new critique partner, author Julie Coulter Bellon, featured me and my writing guides on her blog today. And man, am I blushing after all the nice things she said. Thanks, Julie!
Also today, it’s the first of March, in case you didn’t notice. That means it’s time for the first ever AI MARCH-A-THON!
!I’m part of the executive committee of a writing community called Authors Incognito (our one and only membership requirement: have attended an LDStorymakers Conference). And this month, we’re setting the bar really high for ourselves. We’re shooting for a Nano-style “31 days of going for the gold”—only instead of 50,000 words, we can set whatever writing-related goals we want.
You don’t have to be a member of AI to join in—come post your goals now and work together with us!
So I dreamed big. I’m already afraid I dreamed too big. But I’m hoping to finish revisions on one book (1/3 of the way through now), read one book, and write one book.
Yeah, a whole one.
See what I mean?
And I’m going to keep up the blog? Oy.
Diving back into my revisions!
Commentator Spotlight!
So I’ve added a Top Commentator widget on the sidebar, and I’d like to spotlight a couple of the top commentators today!
Our first spotlight is:
Trisha!
Trisha hails from Western Australia! She’s a writer, a singer-songwriter, an artist and a travel(l)er (to get our American/Commonwealth spellings covered)! This week, she knocked off the first of her goals for the year: completing one of (one of?!) her Nano 2011 novels! DANNA (title tentative, of course) is a YA paranormal novel.
(That’s right: for Nano 2011, she wrote 50,000 words each on two different novels!)
Hooray for finishing! And hooray for 100,018 words—now that’s 30 days and nights of literary abandon.
You can catch up with Trisha on her blog, Word + Stuff! Thanks for commenting here, Trisha.
And our second spotlight is:
Deniz!
Deniz is from Canada! She is a writer and a knitter (I knit too!).
She writes historical fiction of many kinds. And, like, really historical. When I say “the 40s,” I don’t mean the 1940s. Just straight up 43. And the 1490s! (I guess I’m the only one who sees 1492 and thinks about what a seminal year that was for Spain, huh? Well, me and Deniz, amiright?)
She’s in QueryLand, so send her good vibes!
You can keep up with Deniz on her blog, The Girdle of Melian. Thanks for commenting here, Deniz!
And thanks to everyone who leaves comments here. Every one of them (and you!) makes me smile.