Tag Archives: guest post

News & Contests

New book, new guest post!

Sigh. I have many things I want to blog about, but right now, most of my writing time is taken up with preparing for the LDStorymakers conference next week, where I’m teaching about Structural Self-editing on Friday and Gesture Crutches on Saturday (twice!). We may not be back to our regularly scheduled bloggy goodness until after that’s over. And I’ve recovered.

For now, I do have some awesomeness to tide you over!

heart COVER 300Character Sympathy now has a foreword by RITA award–winning author, best-selling novelist, fiction writing teacher, editor extraordinaire Alicia Rasley! Her articles were among the first really good resources I found for learning more about character sympathy, so I’m thrilled to have her for the foreword!

Also for Character Sympathy: the print version of Character Sympathy is now available! Thanks to those Sneaky McSneakersons who’ve already found it and bought it! The print version does include the foreword. And it’s beautiful! Just check out the proof (side-by-side with Character Arcs):

fiction university faculty logoFinally, I have a guest post at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University about finding and working with a cover designer. Your cover is your book’s first impression, so make sure it’s a good one! Learn how to find a good cover designer and work with them to create an awesome cover for your book.

I’m privileged to be part of Fiction U’s faculty in the Indie Author Department!

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Technique

Staying Inspired

Today my friend Emily Gray Clawson is sharing great tips on staying inspired about your WIP! Also: it’s the last day to enter to win an ARC of Spy Noon!

Staying Inspired

by Emily Gray Clawson

Sometimes it seems that writing (at least drafting) is a giant shot in the dark. No matter how well one manages to outline their story, inevitably you get to a point where you start to question everything. At least I do. I wonder if my characters are relatable, if my conflict is gripping enough, if my motivations make sense, and if I am ever, in a million years, going to be able to pull this off.

As soon as I reach that questioning point there is usually this little monster that sits on my shoulder and starts whispering in my ear. He says things like, “You should just give up on this one. It’s unfixable.” Or maybe, “Doesn’t a Downton Abbey marathon sound like SO much more fun?”

Even if the answer to that last question is a resounding, “YES,” there are methods I have found to help me push through and stay invested in my manuscript clear to that wonderful moment of typing “THE END.”

Begin with the end in mind
Even if you are a pantster, it is oh, so helpful, no, crucial, to know where you are trying to end up. Keeping that beautiful moment of resolution painted clearly in your mind’s eye is helpful when the middle doldrums get you down. When you hit a section of your book that seems unbeatable, with no way through, try skipping the scene entirely and moving ahead to a point of the story that inspires you. Shannon Hale talks about writing the “big money scenes” first, then going back and trying to connect them all in the most succinct way possible. That will help with your interest as a writer, and will definitely be a great way to keep your readers engaged.

Create an inspiration board
Whether it’s on Pinterest or taped to your wall by your desk, a collection of inspiration photos and quotes can sometimes be the thing to keep your creative wheels spinning. This suggestion comes with a caution, though. If your writing time is all spent in adding things to your inspiration board, you’re in trouble. Use it sparingly and only collect those things that are the most evocative.

Write in public
It may sound crazy, and this may not work for everyone, but I often find that the simple act of being around other people can increase my creative energy and re-inspire me. Whether it’s at a library, book store, café, or even the park, the energy and sheer quality of people-watching inspiration, is often all I need to give me that extra oomph of creative power.

Share a favorite scene with an appreciate friend
And I mean, in person, so you can see their reactions. Pick someone who is good at enjoying your work and then invite them over for a live reading. This can be such balm for the lonely writer’s soul and help you to fall in love with your characters again. After all, you get to see your creations through new eyes. This can also offer the bonus of helping you problem solve. You may see that the real reason you’re struggling, is that something is lacking. Reading out loud to a trusted friend, can help you work through those problems and fill in the gaps. Note: drafting is not usually the time to have your work critiqued. Pick someone who will “ooh and aah” appreciatively, maybe asking probing questions. In other words, don’t invite your mother-in-law over.

Write Badly
Just as I mentioned above, drafting is not the time to be fixing the little problems. This is big picture, unloading-your-building-materials time. Don’t be concerning yourself with nuances of grammar or even worrying about motivations working in every scene. Get the general story down, find your characters’ voices, and create the foundation for a story. Giving yourself permission to write badly is crucial. You will edit later. You will revise later. You will rewrite later. Don’t worry about that now. Just write as badly as needed to get through that first draft.

There are plenty of other ways to stay motivated but these work for me. In fact, writing this post has helped re-inspire me to get back to work on my manuscript. I hope it does the same for you!

About the author
emilyEmily Gray Clawson is the author of A Way Back to You and the Of Great Value series. She is co-author of Jennifer Graves’s memoir of the Susan Powell tragedy entitled A Light in Dark Places. Emily also runs a youth leadership program, and she’s an incredible critique partner!

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News & Contests

Win a Kindle Fire & fill it with great books, free & on sale!

2 Comments

You guys, I have so much awesome news.

First and foremost, I’m guest posting today at the new home of the Bookshelf Muse, Writers Helping Writers! Come learn how to turn your character’s strength into a weakness to create a character arc! Also, check out the post to find out when Character Arcs is coming out, gear up for their Amazing Race and the debuts of the Positive Traits Thesaurus and the Negative Traits Thesaurus

Second, we have the winners of the review contest. The Grand Prize winner, drawn at random is . . . comment #8! MINDY HOLT! You’ll get the $25 Amazon Gift Card as well as ARCs of Spy for a Spy and Character Arcs. Also, Lindzee Armstrong gets ARCs of Spy for a Spy and Character Arcs!

Okay, third, and getting back to what I promised you in the title of this post, I’m part of a huge promotion today and tomorrow. You can enter to win a 7″ Kindle Fire giveaway (scroll down), and find over 50 free or sale-priced books to fill it!

bookmark

Check out Bookmarked Bargains to find them all!

There’s more good news to share but . . . this is so much that I think we’ll spread out the happy. We deserve more happy days, right?

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Technique

Rachelle Christensen’s Secret Sauce: the unexpected

by Rachelle J. Christensen

Rachelle ChristensenOne of the things I love most about writing is the capacity to learn. I love learning! At times it seems overwhelming because there is so much that I need to learn, to master, and I’ve already been working hard on my craft for over a decade. On the flip-side, writing will never be stale to me because there is always room for improvement. Thank goodness I enjoy a good challenge—usually!

Some of my favorite books are those that have an unexpected twist and they aren’t found only in mystery/suspense novels. I’ve found the unexpected in every genre of fiction and each time it has made the story more memorable because of how the twist affects the characters, the plot, even the setting.

I’m a critical reader, so I take note of how predictable a plot might be, what surprised me pleasantly or unpleasantly. It’s been suggested that if we look at things from a different angle, a whole new world opens up. I agree, and I think that if we turn scenes on their ear, so to speak, we often discover something fabulous just waiting for us to incorporate into our plot.

Often, when I’m writing and/or revising, I’ll come across a scene that needs some work. If I dissect my scene and then turn a few things in a different direction, new life flows into the scene. It might be something simple. Perhaps my character has sudden insight into a problem, a car stops working on the way home from the mechanic, or the power goes out on a perfectly sunny day, but each of these things creates a shift in the scene with more questions that must be answered. When you create the unexpected in your writing, you invite the reader to become more invested in the story.

After I’ve gone through the first few drafts of a novel, I like to go back and examine each chapter to see if there are any weak spots. When I find those spots, I ask myself if everything is going along just as expected. If it is, then I know I need to shake things up by re-examining the scene for different possibilities. Instead of having my character run down her usual trail, I’ll have her spot something—a deer, an abandoned tent, or a sack lunch in the weeds—that takes her off-course.

There are bigger ways that we can create the unexpected. The villain could turn out to be the hero or vice versa. A person of trust might betray the character or a safety net ends up making someone more vulnerable.

I’m sure that you can think of a number of books and characters in those books who did something unexpected. Those twists make stories memorable. I encourage you to look at your story from a different angle and see if there is something fabulous hiding there, just waiting to be discovered.

About the Author
Rachelle J. Christensen is a mom of four cute kids. She has an amazing husband, three cats, and five chickens. Her first novel, Wrong Number, was awarded Outstanding Book of the Year from the League of Utah Writers and was also a 2010 Whitney Finalist. Her second suspense novel, Caller ID, was released March 2012. She is also the author of a nonfiction book, Lost Children: Coping with Miscarriage for Latter Day Saints. Rachelle has a novella coming out in the fall with a Timeless Romance Anthology by Mirror Press.

Rachelle enjoys singing and songwriting, playing the piano, running, motivational speaking, and of course reading. Visit www.rachellewrites.blogspot.com to learn more about upcoming books.

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Technique

Michelle Davidson Argyle’s Secret Sauce: Why Wasn’t I Getting Any Better?

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by Michelle Davidson Argyle

michelledargyleWhen I started writing again after a five-year break, it was like riding a bike. I jumped in headfirst, but I was soon thrown off balance. Everything was a bit wobbly, and it took me a full year to get to a place where I was riding straight without fear of breaking my neck. The last thing I wanted to do was make a fool of myself, so I worked on one project until I realized I wasn’t going to get far if I didn’t start working on something different. Let’s say I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

Of course, this leads into the biggest change I made in my writing—altering the way I think about writing. You see, when I started writing again, I picked up the first book I ever wrote and started rewriting it. I kept writing and rewriting, over and over and over. My belief was that the more you work on a novel, the better it will get and the better writer you’ll be. But I was frustrated that nothing I did would make the book what I wanted it to be. I was working so hard. Why wasn’t I getting any better? That’s when November rolled around and I heard about National Novel Writing Month. Intrigued, I thought, why not?

I have to admit, doing NaNo was really difficult for me. All I wanted at the time was to get my first novel published. I wanted to query like all my friends were doing. I wanted to be a good enough writer to move forward to the next step. Little did I know that the ‘next step’ was to throw out that first novel and move on. Luckily, NaNo kept me so busy that it forced me to do just that. I fell in love with another book and didn’t go back to that first novel for a long time.

I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned as a writer is to recognize that gut-feeling when a book needs to be set aside. It could only come with getting obsessed enough with a project that it was hindering me, and then forcing myself to try something new. If it hadn’t been for NaNo, who knows where I would be right now. That first novel finally did get published (in fact, it’s my most successful novel so far, in terms of sales), but it was published only after I learned a lot more about writing by completing other novels first.

If I have any advice for writers, it’s to listen to your instincts. If you’ve been working on one project so long you can hardly see straight, you’d probably better make yourself put it away for a long time, or even forever. In my opinion, writers should write, not tinker like I did for so long. I’ve found that the more novels I complete, the more I learn and the better I get. The longer I spend on one novel doesn’t seem to get me nearly as far. I am not expanding my mind to different ways of thinking, different characters, different viewpoints, and different ways of experimenting with structure and telling a story. For me, at least, only new projects have been able to do that.

I think what helped me the most when it comes to getting a book published to write more and more. I’m still growing as a writer because of this, and I think most new writers are smart if they learn when to move on and work on something new.

Special thanks to Jordan McCollum for inviting me here today!

About the Author
Michelle Davidson Argyle is a mother, artist, and writer who lives in the Rocky Mountains with her sword-wielding husband and energetic daughter. She writes contemporary Young Adult and New Adult fiction (and other genres when she feels like it).

Michelle’s latest release is Pieces, sequel to her YA novel The Breakaway. Two years after watching her kidnappers go to prison, Naomi Jensen is still in love with one of them. Jesse will be released in a few years, and Naomi knows college is the perfect distraction while she waits. But when her new friend Finn makes her question what is right and what is wrong, she begins to wonder if Jesse is the one for her … until she discovers he’s out on parole. Naomi must sort through her confusion to figure out where love and freedom truly lie-in Finn, who has no connections to her past, or Jesse, who has just asked her to run away with him.

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News & Contests

More secret sauce!

Three fun announcements!

I, Spy is on sale here on my site! Get $2.99 off Mr. Nice Spy and/or I, Spy ebooks through June 30!

Donna Weaver and I switched places this week! Today I’m blogging for her on Motivation-Reaction Units. Come comment!

Also, I think I forgot to mention that my guest post on Darlene’s Book Nook also came with a giveaway with several prizes—a print copy (US & Canada) and two e-books. There’s still time to enter!

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Technique

Elizabeth S. Craig’s Secret Sauce: Subplots

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ESC Head ShotWe’re kicking off our guest author secret sauce series today!

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’m a real fan of subplots. In fact, subplots are frequently my favorite parts of books and movies. I love to see relationships develop or fail or watch in horror as the protagonist gets thwarted again. Subplots also often show a faster, more linear progression than the main plot (and I’m the tidy sort of person who loves seeing that type of progression.)

So what makes a great subplot?  Here are some different things that subplots might accomplish:

Subplots can create complications or a conflict of interest for the protagonist as they try to reach their goals.

Frequently, subplots are relationships between a protagonist and a minor character (for example, in detective fiction, this could be the detective’s private life and relationships, away from work.) Arguments with a teenage child, the collapse of a troubled marriage, or a budding relationship can add either tension or joy to the story.

Subplots could offer a different side of our protagonist and provide him with more emotional complexity and texture.

Subplots can help provide integration of a theme or hook in your book.

If you’ve got a serious book, subplots can provide moments of levity—or vice versa.  They can help make your story better-rounded.

Subplots can give readers a feeling of satisfaction in terms of plot progression . . . particularly if the main plot seems to be stalling out or if the protagonist’s goal appears out of reach.

Tips for approaching subplot inclusion:

It’s helpful to have a clear arc with your subplots—as with your main plot.  You introduce it, develop it, then tie it up at the end (it’s particularly effective if you tie the subplot into the main plot.)

I like to add subplots in as a separate layer after my first draft is over.  Somehow, this helps me organize it better and weave it more seamlessly into the story.

My subplots will sometimes intersect with my main plots in unusual ways—to save the sleuth in a moment of danger, or provide important clues to help solve the case or gain added perspective on the puzzle.

More help online:            

Here are a couple of my favorite posts on writing subplots.

The first is from a screenwriting site, Cracking Yarns, and the post is “The One Subplot You Really Need.” Interesting reading and very helpful.

The second is from Writer’s Digest (if you haven’t discovered their archives, you’re missing a great resource.) The post is by Elizabeth Sims: “7 Ways to Add Great Subplots to Your Novel.” In it, she covers different ways of including subplots in your story.  A must-read.

Are you a fan of subplots, as a reader or writer? What are your favorite types of subplots to include?

Rubbed OutAbout the Author

Elizabeth’s latest book,  Rubbed Out, launches July 2. Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque series for Penguin/Berkley (as Riley Adams), the Southern Quilting mysteries for Penguin/NAL, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and independently.
Writer’s Knowledge Base–the Search Engine for Writers
Twitter: @elizabethscraig

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News & Contests

Word for writers

1 Comment

Last year, I blogged about Scrivener vs. Word. The number one complaint about Word in the comments was problems with Word’s Styles.

Today I’m honored to be guest posting at Jami Gold’s fantastic blog about making Word more friendly for writers!

And of course, we have more stops on our launch tour!

Today’s clues

Today, you’ll collect your clues for the inspiration song contest from:

Me, at Jami Gold’s blog – I, Spy

Tressa’s Wishful Endings – I, Spy (Also: a giveaway!)

Lisa Swinton – Mr. Nice Spy (Also: spy skills to escape from . . . a cat?)

Chris Jones – Mr. Nice Spy (Also: the spy skills of a dad!)

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