BookingIt

Wow! This was so long ago that I don't even remember watching this movie with the kiddos. I love rereading this, not just for the characterization perspective, but for the memories. *happy smile* In 2011, I watched Tangled with my kids. As the movie started, my six year old son couldn't help but give me a running dialogue about everything (he's seen it before). The movie introduced the hero, who happened to be stealing.  I asked my son, is the thief the guy Rapunzel falls in love with?  He turned to me, eyes round. "He's not a thief, mom."  "But he's stealing," I pointed out.  "No, no, no, he's not stealing. There are bad guys with him, but he's not stealing at all." My son shook his head and absolutely refused to believe that the good guy was doing a bad thing. I smiled and dropped the subject.  Let him root for the bad guy. I knew that by the end of the story, the thief would be the prince.  Have you ever rooted for someone...

Recently as I was traversing the blogosphere, I came across an author post that stated "Never blah-blah-blah." As in never do such-and-such when you write. I didn't read the whole thing. I'd read this author's work before and felt that the craft guideline being espoused was too extreme and perhaps breaking it a bit might've benefited this author's work. So I moved on, knowing that I'll never say never when it comes to my writing. The reason I'm writing this is because I love to give my opinions on this blog about how to write a great story and to share craft tips but...I'm not perfect. This is my official disclaimer. *wink* If you read my book and you're a writer, you'll see places where I employed active voice, kept tension on every page, and used deep pov. On other pages...well, let's just say I'm better at dishing advice than following it sometimes. :-) Do you worry about people reading your book and being disappo...

If there's one thing every great book needs, it's tension. Recently I was reading a book where, although I didn't really like the heroine, I empathized with her and the story even caused me to get some prickly eyelids (you know, the almost-cry?). Imagine my surprise though when fifty pages from the end all the tension suddenly dropped out of the story. The last part of the book was a tying up of plot threads. I almost didn't finish because the sigh-worthy moments had already happened. So how do we keep a reader turning the pages to the very end? Tension. But it's gotta be tight. I happen to think there should be some form of tension on every single page. Whether in the form of dialogue, actions or narrative, there needs to be something that makes the reader say, "oooh, this is going to be interesting" or "uh-oh". Not only that, but the tension has to be real. It has to be believable. It's possible to create paper-thin conflicts. Ima...

I used to watch NCIS...until I realized Ziva and DiNozzo weren't going to hook up. Turns out my real interest lay in the tension between these characters, and when their attraction seemed to take a backseat, so did my attention. I still like the show, but it no longer hooks me. Sometimes what one person loves in a story is completely different than what someone else loves. Same story, different draws. This is why it's so important that we have more than one hook in our books. Every plot has more going on than just action, or just romance. My husband's favorite movie is Braveheart. He loves the action. That's his hook. Mine is the lost love, but also the new love with the queen. What is your fave book of all time? Why? What is it about that story that hooks you? Do you have more than one hook in your WIP?

Most of you know my husband is a fishing show host. The man loves fishing. I don't really go with him, but I hear enough lingo to know if you want to catch a fish, you have to set the hook. Setting the hook involves forceful action: You've got to yank the rod at the right moment. Too soon and the fish gets away. Too late and the fish swallows the hook. Books are kind of the same way. We start our chapters with a hooky first line, but do we end the chapter that way? On a conflict or a question that the reader must read on to discover more? I think the end of each chapter is a solid place for setting a hook. And while the first few pages are great bait for getting a nibble, it's the hook setting that will allow you to reel your fish in. How does your book end? Do you think the reader is reeled into your author boat? Which authors have reeled you in? And did it happen on the first nibble of their books?

And I say Pah-tah-to. (heeheee, not really!) Better is niggling at me as I start a new WIP. What does it mean when I'm told to get better? Better at craft? Better at storytelling? Who determines what better is? I believe there is something intangible to a great story. A few posts back I wrote how I met with an editor and he encouraged me to keep getting better. Which I absolutely want to do. The thing about better is that...well...."One man's trash is another man's treasure." So what I think is better, someone else might think is no good. How do you decide or know if you're "better"? How do you gauge the worth of a book?

As you all know, I just finished my line edits a few weeks ago. One thing that immediately jumped out at me was the same word scrawled on page after page. Rep As in, repetitive. Now, this is a manuscript I finished the rough draft of in 2007. This thing has been through the ringer. I've edited and revised it a million times. But I was still being repetitive. Thank goodness for editors! What a great reminder for me when I start my next story. I see repetitiveness in books already and sometimes it can be annoying. Repetition is not necessarily using the same words or repeating a sentence. For example, I read a book recently which was a good story with some sweet romance, but I felt like every chapter was reiterating the inner conflicts of the main characters. The reader doesn't need to be told over and over why the hero and heroine can't be together. I find myself doing this in my own writing. Using the character's internal narrative to remind the reader wha...

Have you ever heard a parent tell their toddler to use their words? That's how I feel about writing. This Song captured me partly because of the lyrics. Lord, make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors Who would've thought forever could be severed by the sharp knife of a short life The writer uses words to make metaphors that create interesting images. She created a mood with her words, which is so important for us to do in our books. Do your words evoke the mood you're going for in a particular scene? What about your metaphors? Have you ever heard this song before?

After I got the call I was sent another revision letter. It was a mix of overarching notes on the story (things the editors want clarified or changed) and specific thoughts on different pages. The overarching notes were a little overwhelming at first. I had to sit and think about them. So I did the page edits first because I knew when I went in to fix other stuff it would change the page numbers. I'm almost done with my revisions and am pretty sure I'll have them in by deadline, which is so freaky (the fact that I have a deadline, eeek!) I can barely believe it. Is there a certain way you'd handle revisions? Do you use any kind of organizational tools like Excel? For a great, in-depth post on handling revisions on a contracted story, check out Jody Hedlund's post .

I sold to Love Inspired Historical !!! Here's how it happened: " You should write a book. You'd make more money doing that." In 2006 my editor at the newspaper I freelanced for told me this. In that moment, a lightbulb went off in my head. Write for money? Sure, I'd written stories all my life, but to actually write a book and be paid for it was a concept that had never occurred to me. That same year, I started a historical romance. Why historical? Because Love Inspired was launching a historical line in 2007 and I was aiming for that. I also love reading historical romances. "The characters should be talking by now." So said agent Steve Laube at my first writer's conference in 2007. He'd gotten to page 7 and my heroine was still thinking of backstory. I made every newbie mistake with that first manuscript. So I read articles and did my best to make the manuscript shine. Then I submitted it to agents. Form rejections. I decided to submi...

So last week I mentioned that critiques can smother or dull a voice. Well, the opposite is also true. Good critiques can smooth and refine voice. Just because a voice is strong doesn't mean it's the best it can be. Writing guidelines are tools, as are critiques. Use them to sharpen and shape your voice, to strengthen it and make it powerful. What is the best critique you've ever received in any area of your life? How did it change your writing or perspective?

Last week I talked about being deliberate with our writing. The words we choose, the length of our sentences, even the pacing of our scenes can all be traced back to voice. It's important to get comfortable in our voice, to know it, because if we write how other writers tell us to write and don't know our voice yet, we can lose it. It's important to learn from other writers, to gain knowledge and new writing skills, but in the end, we're responsible for using these things to strengthen our own voice, and not to carbon copy another's voice. Have you ever felt like you'd lost your voice, or are you still finding it? Are you comfortable in your voice?

The term Rules used in the below post really means guidelines but we're taught that they're rules, thus that's the word I use. In reference to breaking them, I mean departing from the standards we're taught :-) Rules are fun to break, but there's two things we must know before we break them. 1) What are the rules? 2) Why are we breaking them? As I've been reading contest entries, a commonality stood out to me. The overuse of exclamation points. I'd forgotten how much we writers love that bit of punctuation. And so when I was reading a very good book, I noticed immediately when the author used exclamation points in three consecutive sentences. I thought to myself: Now that's Voice. That author knows exactly what she's doing, and why. When we write, we must be deliberate. Every word, every character, every action, every scene must have a purpose to the story. It is up to us to discover what that purpose is. It is up to us to decide how to ...

Anyone remember that song? I loved it in sixth grade, having absolutely no clue what it meant. In the writing world, there's a Mary Jane too, and she's not welcome in our stories. My RWR (the RWA magazine) came in the mail last month and one writer did an interesting article on writer terms. I hadn't heard the Mary Jane one in a while so thought I'd pass it on. A Mary Jane is basically when the main character is too perfect. Ever written a Mary Jane? Ever read one? Without pinpointing authors, can you name any characters that were so Mary Janish you gagged? I'm officially a ditz. The term I'm referring to is MARY SUE, not Mary Jane...Whoops!

I've been in the midst of judging contests since November and I'm starting to see a pattern with entries, enabling me to see what I need to work on in my own writing. RUE Resist the Urge to Explain This manifests as telling most of the time. Good showing needs no explanation. A grin says more than "she was happy." RUE doesn't just occur in telling though. Sometimes the sneaky bugger pops into narrative (and there's a fine line, imo, between internal narrative and telling). For example, something will be said in dialogue or shown in action, and then we like to jump in and drop a few lines explaining what just happened. Just like in life, sometimes it's better to RUE. Another weakness I'm coming across is lack of conflict . I think many writers (including myself) make the mistake of thinking that bad things happening to our main character equals conflict. I've been pondering it though, and I'm beginning to realize that conflict cannot e...

When I first started writing, I did a lot of research. One of the things I began to notice was how long it took for authors to get published. The average, if I remember right, was 3-5 years from the point of starting to the point of contract. The numbers boggled me. Could I write for that long? With no guarantee? Of course, I could. It helped to think of the first few years as college. Still, I was overwhelmed by the thought of how long it took so I decided to stop thinking about it and just write, query, etc. About a year ago, I suddenly realized I'd been writing for three years. Somehow the time had flown by. How? Well, the best thing about publishing is that while there's a wait, there's also always things changing. For example, after I finished my first manuscript it took time to write the query. Then time to figure out who to send it to. And then I started a new story as I waited for responses. Between all that was editing and critiquing and contests. Basically, I'...

One of my pastors said something on Sunday that resonated with me. Speaking of the Christian life, and following Jesus, he said: "The proof of desire is in the pursuit." Writers love to write. Some of us are content to hide our stories away and write for our own pleasure. Some of us want to be published though. Our desire can be reflected in our pursuit of publication. How can editor buy our book if he never reads it? How will an agent represent us if she never sees our query? What are you doing to pursue publication? How do you get your work out there? Is your fear of failure greater than your desire to be published?

First chapters are always fun for me. I love setting up the story and creating some juicy conflict. One thing I try to keep in mind is that I start the story right. There's a lot of advice to start the story with action, which is great, but I also think there's another important aspect to the first chapter and it has to do with character arc. The first chapter should start with your main character in their ordinary world. This is the world they've been in before the story started. The same problems, the same people, the same moral structure. Somewhere in chapter one, usually toward the end, something happens or some choice is made which propels the main character into a new world. A new job, a new challenge, or maybe new choices. This change that occurs should be something that challenges your hero or heroine's character. Thus, the character arc begins and chapter one ends with your main character in a struggle that will continue throughout the story and at the end of t...

I picked up a book that I'd heard good reviews about. The cover was cute, the voice engaging. I was totally into the book for about fifty pages...until I figured out the plot. HEAs are my thing. That's why I read romance. But there are still ways to surprise me and hook me into the characters' lives. With this book, the author set up a plot that could've been really good with lots of tension and snappy writing but somehow I realized that the whole crux of the plot is a misunderstanding. I didn't buy that the husband was cheating because I didn't see the evidence (could be other craft problems or could just be me). There was a scene where the heroine is riding with her boss's son (who the husband doesn't know about) in a car and sees her husband drive past with his beautiful co-worker beside him. That's where I stopped reading. The heroine is worrying about her husband cheating but she just did the same thing he did! Why is she allowed to ride in the ...

Editing a manuscript reminds me of pruning. Sometimes you have to cut off perfectly good branches, perfectly good characters, perfectly good scenes, so that the story can flourish. Proper pruning enhances the beauty of almost any landscape tree and shrub, while improper pruning can ruin or greatly reduce its landscape potential. In most cases, it is better not to prune than to do it incorrectly. In nature, plants go years with little or no pruning, but man can ruin what nature has created. By using improper pruning methods healthy plants are often weakened or deformed. So while it's important to cut our work, it's also imperative we know what we're doing. How do you prune without ruining your work? Have you ever overedited? Took advice when you shouldn't have?