EMOTIONALLY YOURS

I am such a sucker for real love. Not the kind that these reality shows depict but the ones that you feel when you are reading a great novel. I am also a sucker for a great emotional read.

One of my good friends, Jen Buckley, is a great reader and great critic. She recently described a book that she read; Give Me Your Hand by +MeganAbbott "as an amazing read with twists and turns." She said she had "to stop multiple times because of the twists and turns but by the end of the book it had her screaming, what the F***."

See, Megan Abbott got it right. She gave her readers, or at least Jen, an emotional reaction to her story line.

I learned at a conference, Thrillerfest to be exact, that each of your readers should be emotionally invested in your book by the middle of it. If they are not; you aren't doing a good job of telling a story.

I have a thing that I do on my Facebook page called, "Stepping onto my soapbox" and some times my followers/friends read it and are so emotionally attached to those three paragraphs that they are angry, happy, sad or just laughing so hard that they forgot that what I was saying may or may not have been true.

So when I read a book, I have to be emotionally yours, so to speak. I have to feel what you were feeling when you wrote it. I have to feel almost every emotional range that a human has and then be just like Jen at the end of the book. 

What the F***...yeah, if you have me cursing at the end of the book, I'm emotionally yours.

So, make sure to read through your manuscript. Are you having an emotional reaction to your characters. If not; START OVER. Ir's that simple.

Happy writing! 

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

Writing is one of those things that can come easy for some.

But for others, it comes a little harder.

Your instincts are built into your psyche to let you know when something isn't quite right.

Use those same instincts in your writing.

Writing is done by feeling your way through your story. Some use outlines to keep them on track but when you are writing, have you ever found yourself talking out loud or acting out a scene?

This is your instinct telling you that maybe it might not work out that way. Maybe someone wouldn't say a certain sentence or phrase that way or maybe a violent scene needs to acted out so as to be realistic.  

In writing, don't fall so in love with your characters that you can't erase or delete them before your novel is completed.

Trust your instincts in this as well. 

Even that scene that you loved writing might need to go. Ask yourself the following questions if your 'instinct' is telling you that something is not right.

1. Did this event slow down the scene?
2. Can this scene be told in a flashback or memory?
3. Why do I need this scene in the novel?

If you answer yes to any of those questions, your instinct knows what needs to happen. 

Writing is about following your heart but also following your instinct. 

What is your instinct telling you right now about what you are currently working on?

Just Part of the Family

Today I've turned my blog over to Sandy Humphrey. She makes us feel what it is like to have our characters as part of the family.

I’ve been working on a young adult novel that takes place at a summer camp for girls with emotional problems in northern Minnesota, and I find it more than a little disconcerting that some of my characters have recently moved in with me.

This morning I found the camp director, Mrs. A, at my breakfast table shoveling sugar into her herbal tea, and last night I found her rummaging through my fridge, looking for avocados for her guacamole dip.

           

And it’s not just Mrs. A who has moved in. Leslie (my Protagonist) and some of her camper friends are also showing up unexpectedly. I found Trisha (a young black girl who longs to have her own garden amidst the chaos of the inner city) wandering around my backyard last week. She wasn’t being a nuisance or anything. She was just out there smelling the flowers.

Then there’s anorexic Jennifer. She hasn’t actually moved in yet, but I see her in some of the young girls I mentor at our church. They talk about their control issues at home and how food is the only thing in their lives that they feel they have any control over. Jennifer doesn’t say anything at these meetings, she just nods in agreement.

And, of course, there’s Rachel, “the cutter.” There were so many Rachels at the state mental hospital who insisted that they had to cut “to feel better.” They shared with me how they could deal more easily with their physical pain than with their psychological pain, and how the physical pain gave them a temporary respite from their psychological pain.

I’ve even run into Cynthia Winston, the villain of the piece, right in my own bathroom—-usurping the bathroom mirror while she apples her makeup. Actually, Cynthia has pretty much taken over all my mirrors. She’s always there, preening and giving me her little Mona Lisa half-smile.

Although I have never invited any of my characters to move into my home and take over so much of my life, I find I’m becoming used to having them around. And I might even miss them if they were to move out.

I think what I’ve concluded from all this is that to make our characters real to our readers—-characters whom they really care about-—we must care about them first. They must be so real to us that we see them everywhere we go and in everything we do, and sometimes we may even find them in the most unexpected places!

Sandra McLeod Humphrey is a retired clinical psychologist, a character education consultant, and an award-winning author of eight middle-grade and young adult books.  She's also the recipient of the National Character Education Center's Award for Exemplary Leadership in Ethics Education (2000) and the 2005 Helen Keating Ott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children's Literature.

You can learn more about her books by visiting her Web site  at www.kidscandoit.com and her blog at www.kidscandoit.com/blog/

Getting the Adventures Started in the life of Marge McGugan

Rule # 20 – Draw inspiration from anything and everything.

<Scene Summary>

I met B. at the Bay to Ocean Writer’s Conference in late February. We sat next to each other in one of the many fantastic sessions. We got to talking about our work and exchanged blog information. She asked me to guest on her blog and discuss some of my Adventures of an Author writings and how I work.

<Present time>

Inspiration is having a hard time settling in my brain. There’s a lot going on around the house – recent trip to Jersey, great spring weather giving me the fever, 18 year old hound going downhill at a more rapid rate. Focus is not one of my current virtues. A big problem that I share with my hubby is that we are both hopelessly addicted to NCIS -the original, not the Los Angeles version (although some LL Cool drooling is always good). Hmmmm…..

<Bolts to computer and starts typing furiously… faster than in high school typing class on those old Royal typewriters>

I start my own Leroy Jethro Gibbs rules. These are rules for writing right. The blog can focus on a different rule where appropriate. GENIUS!!! Ok, stolen idea but still genius!

<Applies Gibbs-style head slap to self> <not too hard!>

You see, when I started writing about 2 years ago, it was because I needed something other than retirement in my life. I quit my job as a middle school Family and Consumer Sciences. It’s a job I did for almost 20 years and, yes, there was a true burnout element to the job change. I started writing by taking some online writing courses and found out something really surprising about myself – I was always a writer. In my job, I wrote lesson plans and curriculum guides. I’ve also done curriculum work for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. I’ve done the content and layout editing for my church newsletter. So this writing gig is nothing new.

So here sits a budding children’s book writer at her trusty Cyclops (computer) pounding the keys like a jazz pianist in love with his instrument. And it’s fun!! I can be other people through my characters when I write (Rule #30 – all behavior has a purpose). I can get into a child’s mind when I search for a 3-year old’s way of talking about dogs and the way to behave around them. I can pretend to be a Philadelphia rabbit chef at a soul food restaurant who is moving to Canada to be with family. At this point, many of you would recommend the name of a good psychiatrist to me right about now. It’s cool – writers can unleash their inner crazy (Rule # 25). WHOOO HOOOO! I am no longer bound by Maryland State Assessment instructional criteria!!! I’m free! (ok, sort of… the language does have rules I need to follow).

<Insert solitary hand clap and whoopee index finger twirl>

I can write about my travels… what will I see? How can I make the places I go into children’s books? How can I follow my passions (Rule #1) and make the stories readable for little kids?

<Insert deep worry music here>

It’s all a learning process. Just like life. And it’s all a fantastic journey. Check it out at Adventures of an Author, brought to you by Blogspot.com.

<You knew there had to be a commercial somewhere>

And as for this crazy format???  I used Rule #24 – Practice all types of writing. So much for the screenplay….

<Smiling while typing> <wrap scene><pour another glass of wine and celebrate>

Books-Kindle or Print?

Today I pose the question: Which do you prefer, Kindle or Print?

Now remember, this is only my opinion and just like everyone; I’m entitled to mine.

Kindle seems to be the instant answer to many of our ‘reading dilemmas”. In a world of instant gratification, the Kindle, Nook, and E-Reader has made life much more instantaneous for a lot of people. If they hear of a book that someone says, “they must have” they can pull out their Kindle and download it and read it within a matter of minutes.

Now, let’s look at the same scenario with a ‘print’ novel. Someone asks you if you have picked up the latest novel from Austin Camacho, The Piranha Assignment, and you say, no but you will as ‘soon as you get home and log into your computer and go to the Amazon.com website and type in his name and then check out all of his books”. It’s not as instant as the Kindle conversation that goes like this, “I’ll pick up the latest by Austin Camacho in five, four, three, two, got it. Wow and on Kindle it’s only $.99 versus the “print” copy of $11.66. Or maybe you just saw Karen Minors, author of It is What It Is and you want to read all about Miya and Milan; you will either go to Amazon.com and download a version for $7.69 or you will buy it and wait for it to ship in a couple of days for $19.95.

See for me, I like the ‘hard’ version in my hands. I like to hold the book, flip the pages, and dog ear them as I pour over the scenes. In a kindle, not so much. Plus, they haven’t found a way for you to get your book ‘autographed’ through Kindle; well they sort of have, but it involves buying software to download to your Kindle and then you have to ‘find’ the author again.

Now, don’t get your Kindle all in an electronic huff; I’m merely saying that for some of us, we like to slow down, sit with a nice cup of Chai Tea or Dunkin Donuts coffee, curl up in our pink Snuggie and read until we fall asleep and the book makes that familiar thunk when it hits the floor. If your Kindle hits the floor, you better be on carpet or be prepared to look at a possible crack on your screen or worse yet; a black one, because it has gone on to electronic heaven (with my beloved GRACIE—the laptop that I wrote about previously, but I digress)

All this to say  what? Whether you are a Kindle reader or Print (book –in-hand) reader; whichever one you chose, stay true to yourself and don’t fall for the fads. Sure Kindle will be around for a while, or Nook or whatever E-reader you choose, but so will books, because let’s face it; until there is a HUGE bonfire somewhere, there will also be Mom and Pop bookstores out there where the rest of us NON E-reader owners can go and get our fix.

Will you join me? (wait…I still want a Kindle; but I don’t NEED a Kindle) don’t judge me! (smile)

Happy Writing!