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Results 1 - 13 of 13
1. Want to Write a Best Seller? Change Your Mind

Today, a treat! Dr. John Yeoman joins us from Writers' Village, a blog dedicated to helping writers succeed. Holding a PhD in Creative Writing, John is the author of eight humour books,  tutors at a UK University and judges for the Writers’ Village story competition. If you like, he offers a free 14-part course in writing fiction for profit on his website. If you've ever been interested in entering writing contests, this site might be a good starting point, especially for UK writers.

Now I'll turn things over to him, so read on!

~ ~ ~

Want to Write a Best Seller? Change Your Mind!

Teenagers know better than we do, how to write great stories. Sounds absurd? We’re experienced authors, right? We know the craft tricks. We’ve pounded the keypad all our lives...

Yet, it’s true. Because young people often have a freshness of experience that we can’t match. Simply, they don’t know enough as yet. And that’s their gift.

Of course, they might not be great shakes at grammar or punctuation. That’s dog work. It’s quickly learned. What they have, most of them, is a freshness of perception. And we can’t match it.

Perhaps we had it once. Then we lost it, around the time our teacher slapped us down for telling lies. Or we set our hearts on some literal-minded discipline like chemistry or bricklaying.

But maybe it’s still there, whimpering at us like a child locked in a closet. If we’re creative writers, we can hear it...

To see the world as it is, without labels, is the gift of genius. Maybe William Blake had it. For him, to describe a tree as an angel was not just a metaphor. He actually saw an angel.

Hemingway had a similar gift. He didn’t see angels, of course. He saw the bedrock of experience, stripped of its metaphors. He found the words to describe what he saw. Then he stripped off a thousand superfluous words for every word he used.

Can we find that freshness in our own writing?

Sometimes. There’s a trick to it. I teach creative writing at a UK university. As an exercise, I ask my first-year students to wander around the campus for 20 minutes. Stop at random, I say. Just stop for five minutes and look at what’s in front of you. (Be discreet, I tell them...)

Pretend you have never seen that thing before. Use all your five senses to perceive it. Then come back and write a few lines to describe what you perceived.

I tell them: “You can’t just write: ‘I saw a mop propped in a bucket.’” That’s journalism. Bring out the essence of that mop.

Some students ‘get’ it.

“The mop gazed at me like an old man with a grey beard and rheumy eyes.” “The garbage bin was an Aztec god. Cigarette butts lay around it, ritual offerings.” “Parked cars steamed in the forecourt. Beetles with bright carapaces. Roaches stained with rust. Everywhere, the tangled antennae of bicycles.”

Annie Proulx does this in The Shipping Forecast. Every line glows with epiphanies. Maybe she does it too much. The book screams: “Look at me. Don’t I write well?” David Lindsey gets it right in A Cold Mind. Among the routine squalor of a murder hunt, Lindsey hits us

22 Comments on Want to Write a Best Seller? Change Your Mind, last added: 7/8/2012
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2. Fun research trip: Frontier Culture Museum

trying out a yoke to carry waterFor Mother's Day, I told my family, I wanted one thing: a research trip.

For my current project, I wanted to experience frontier life in the Virginia/West Virginia area. So we headed off to the Frontier Culture Museum, which is about two-and-a-half hours south of DC.

As I recently wrote in this blog, I love to experience the settings that inspire my novels. This was a great way to crawl back into history and experience it directly. The Frontier Culture Museum has real (relocated and reconstructed) homes that tie to different parts of Virginia's frontier history. They've got part of a West African village, homes from England, Ireland and Germany, and then three American homes too.

The homes are furnished according to the time, and many have costumed interpreters that know a LOT about the home they are in--as well as the history of that time. I think one of my favorite things was watching a man play a hummel--a German "peasant" stringed instrument. He was excellent. Every single interpreter taught me something new, and they were game for any question. Which was good, because Little Dude's stock question at each house was "where do you go to the bathroom?" (Actually that led to some fascinating discussions!)

If you can make it to Virginia and you're working on a story that involves 1700s or 1800s Ireland, England, Germany or America, this is a fantatic place to go. I guarantee your story will be much richer for it.

They also have a great bookstore. I've got a pile of books to work through. My poor family will also likely be subjected to some fine frontier cooking, thanks to my new Log Cabin Cooking cookbook. My only regret? That we didn't buy the game Little Dude played with an interpreter, "the graces" (at left). He LOVED it. I didn't tell him it was typically played by girls to make them more graceful!

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3. Researching the environment of story

By happy accident, I discovered the  way to travel interstate, overseas, inter-culturally  and explore the  ambience of remote towns, cities, country lanes and outback outposts. Air tickets – well that’s the ideal, but no, I used Google Earth.

It started with my trying to locate a lovely country home in West Hougham, Kent, England. It was featured in Country Life for September 7th, 2000, and was the

Inspiration for “The Dolls’ House in the Forest”

inspiration for my story “The Dolls’ House in the Forest”. I was fascinated by the quaintness of the architecture compared to anything out here in Oz and the size of the immense, almost regal trees forming a perfect backdrop to the house. I tried to relocate the house by doing a ‘street view’ saunter down English lanes in the vicinity.  I located the area on the map and zeroed in from aerial to ‘here I am virtually walking down this street on the other side of the world the environs of which I just happen to need to explore.’

I didn’t find the house, but I had the most wonderfully inspiring time wandering down country lanes that were little more than wagon tracks, great boughs canopying overhead and wildflowers dotted in the fields…

Now, if I need to capture something of the ‘feel’ of an area. I seek out an address. Then in I go and wander around, exploring the architecture, streetscapes, lifestyles evidenced in things as random as  street art, verge gardens, bus stops, signage, graffiti, shop window decor, fences or lack of, litter, strays and the bystanders to my wanderings.

I have also found that  exploring the Realtor advertisements in the area I am exploring gives insight into the inhabitants of the town. Many homes  give a slideshow or even a video tour online.  This helps you pick up on details of life – home decor, layout, from wall hangings to  cushions, scatter rugs to artwork, the placement of chairs to take in a much loved outlook, the windows and their views out, the garden.

Perhaps this sounds a little bit the voyeur. It is not the intention, far from, it is seeking faithfulness in recreating a  ’feeling’ for place. It is gathering the elements of story , setting the stage, arranging a convincing backdrop to the action!


2 Comments on Researching the environment of story, last added: 5/23/2012
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4. Using "springboard settings" to write rich, real stories

CANDOR inspiration: engraved bricks, in Celebration FLI had a great time speaking today at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. Thanks to everyone who came out to hear me talking about my books, and to have me sign them. 
Today's talk focused on how my work is inspired by real settings. I call these places "springboard settings": my book isn't really set there, but lots of that real place's distinctive places, sounds and even smells do make their way into my story. They are "springboards" into my imaginary world.
I promised to post some tips to my blog; they are below. I hope they are helpful.
If you are interested in seeing some of the settings that inspired my novels, you can view CANDOR inspirations here and DROUGHT inspirations here. You may also want to visit the "real" website for Candor, Florida.
  • Visit the setting you'd like to use as a springboard. Take lots of inspirational photographs and videos and even sound recordings of the place. If you can't visit a place in person, Google. Google some more. Repeat.
  • Talk to people in your springboard setting, whenever possible. Listen to how they tell a story. Do they have a regional accent or use particular regional words? What things about where they live are important to them--and what do they hate about it?
  • Don't just load your inspiration pictures, photos and audio on your computer and forget about them. Put the audio and video on your desktop, where it's easy to click on them. Or if you're a Scrivener user, put them in a Research folder inside of your story's Binder. 
  • Spend the nine cents per photo to get decent prints of your setting photographs, and post them in your writing space. If you don't have a devoted writing space, make a little photo album that you can tuck into your laptop bag and flip through before you begin writing each day. Feed your muse with these photographs!
  • Give yourself permission to write setting sketches. Don't feel like you've got to dive into your story right away. Write sketches that aren't meant to be part of the story. Describe every little bit of your setting. When you're finished, include the very best details in your story.
  • Draw a map. In the outstanding how-to writing guide Write Away, Elizabeth George tells how she draws maps of her settings and posts them on her wall before she even begins to outline her plot. I found I had to do this during revisions of CANDOR, because I had people running in all directions. 
  • Listen to your springboard setting's music: Your springboard setting probably has some music especially associated with it. Try locating it and listening while you write. For CANDOR, I listened to the classical music that I imagined coming out of every home's speakers, embedding subliminal messages in people's brains. For my current project set in Appalachia, I'm listening to folk music of the time and place. I believe music can shape your story in subtle but important ways. Plus it can keep your fingers typing!
  • Immerse yourself in media about your springboard setting: Besides music, seek out movies, documentaries, TV shows, and other books about your springboard setting. But be skeptical of specific details. Don't let Hollywood, or any other artist, do your research for you. Verify any details you'd lik

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5. Canuck for a Day, and Whatnot


I was at Epcot this weekend with my Shmoopie, celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. Good times, people, good times. Dinner at the Germany buffet, listening to the British Invasion in the UK and...Canada. Oh, Canada. Of course, I had to prove that I actually went, so here I am. My tribute to Angela, and all our Canuck followers.

*insert Koo-loo-koo-koo song from Strange Brew*

In other news, I'm super excited to be guest-posting today at Letter Go. Owllady asked me to write something about settings, which, you know, I love to talk about. Settings are tricksy, my precious. They're either sitting silently in the background so as not to draw attention to their lameness or they're screaming for a complete Flip This House makeover. Either way, they usually need work. So if your setting needs fixing up, head over to Owllady's blog for a few tips.

10 Comments on Canuck for a Day, and Whatnot, last added: 4/10/2011
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6. Harry Potter the Exhibition Opens in New York City

Harry Potter the Exhibition” opened today at New York City’s Discovery Times Square. The video embedded above offers a sneak peek at the show that displays eight movies’ worth of props, costumes, and settings.

Featured costumes include Hermione Granger‘s yule ball gown, Cedric Diggory‘s quidditch uniform, and Professor Albus Dumbledore‘s wizard robes. We spotted three horcruxes, including Salazar Slytherin‘s locket, Helga Hufflepuff‘s cup, and Tom Riddle‘s diary (basilisk fang included). Dobby the house elf, Fawkes the phoenix, and the Hungarian Horn Tail dragon also appear.

The exhibition  includes interactive segments as well. A few lucky volunteers can draw a Hogwarts house assignment from a sorting hat. Everyone can pull out Professor Sprout‘s shrieking mandrake plants and sit in the half-giant’s leather chair inside Hagrid‘s Hut.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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7. Creating Unforgettable Settings, Part 4

So far in this series, we've touched on choosing the right setting, describing the setting, and maximizing the setting through various figures of speech and techniques. But what if the world you want to write about doesn't exist…yet? Then you've got some

WORLD BUILDING

to do. There are dozens of sub-topics I could address when it comes to World Building, but I’m going to focus on two: rules and elements.




Rules: the principles under which every aspect of your world operates
Know the Rules
Every world has rules. Consider Earth: water flows downhill; a complete revolution takes 24 hours, resulting in one day and night; people communicate primarily through speech, through a variety of different languages. If you’re going to create a world that readers will buy into, you have to know how everything works: the physical planet, climate, cultures, politics, religion, rules of magic, diet, social structure. I shared this link once before, but I’ve found Patricia Wrede’s World Builder Questions to be a great resource for world building. From this site, I created a 23-page questionnaire that I use when planning. Sounds like overkill, but thorough planning is key. The more you know about your world from the start, the more believable it will be to the reader.

Lay the Foundation Early
Every world is different. If they were the same as Earth, we wouldn’t have to create something new. Different is good, but it can also be confusing, so make sure you lay the foundation early for those potentially baffling parts. Do it gradually—a bi

11 Comments on Creating Unforgettable Settings, Part 4, last added: 1/17/2011
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8. Creating Unforgettable Settings, Part 3

Maximizing the Setting

Okay. You've picked the perfect setting for your story. You can describe it so clearly and compellingly that your readers will want to move there. Is that all there is to it? You might as well ask if I'd like plain vanilla ice cream or Ben & Jerry's Everything But The… It's a no-brainer, people. Maximize your setting to upgrade your story from vanilla to Mmmmmmm.

Set the Mood
Mood can be defined as the feeling a story evokes. Stories can be creepy (Pet Sematary), uplifting (Anne of Green Gables), tranquil (The Wind in the Willows), or any other emotion you want to put across. And the mood doesn't have to encompass an entire story; different scenes or sections within a story might make you feel different ways. Creating mood is tricky, requiring careful writing across the different elements of your story. The character's attitude and actions can reflect the mood you want to convey. Word choice will have a strong impact on how the audience feels while reading. Conflicts can propel your character toward a choice, or right into a particular mood. And then, of course, you have the setting. Want to convey a feeling of uncertainty? Make the weather unsettled—balmy one day, sleeting the next. Include things in your setting that can add to that uncertain feel: a lopsided power pole that wavers in the wind but never quite falls; a car that may or may not start; an early freeze and a citrus crop. Before you write, think about what mood you want your story or individual scenes to convey, and decide what you'll use in your setting to reinforce that feeling.

Pick a Symbol
A symbol is something that stands for something else. Symbols add depth to the story because they're things that just about everyone can relate to. They create connections between your reader and the characters because the reader gets that the howling wolf is scary to the character, or that the chuckling river gives him a feeling of tranquility. H

25 Comments on Creating Unforgettable Settings, Part 3, last added: 1/13/2011
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9. Creating Unforgettable Settings, Part 2

Tip #2: Describing the Setting

Some of this has been covered in previous posts, but I just couldn't talk about good scene-setting and not mention description, 'cause what good is the perfect setting if you can't convey it to the reader? So once you've figured out the right spot for your story, here are a few tips for describing it well .

Choose details carefully. For each scene, figure out what the setting should convey. Sometimes you simply want to set the stage for the reader, and that's okay. Other times, you'll want to use the setting to show additional things: mood, characterization, the story's time period, etc. For each scene, decide on the setting's purpose, then choose the details that will describe what you want.

Example:
The knee-high stalks snatched at Nora's skirts as she tore through the wheat field. Over her panting breath, she could hear the plants whispering, "You're late, you're late." Two years she'd been waiting for this, and now she was about to miss it.
The winter air burned her lungs, but she kept running. She cleared the field, passed the lone hemlock, and raced around the side of the house to find everyone waiting in the yard.

From this description you can gather that Nora is in a rural setting, probably a farm, in the winter. Nora's also late for something and she's desperate not to miss it. The sky may be full of snow clouds, cows might be grazing in an adjoining field, the wind may be whistling through the hemlock branches, but we don't know for sure because those details aren't shared. Enough clues are given to create a picture in the reader's mind. Remember that you don't have to describe everything in sight. Just pick the details that are important, and the reader will fill in the blanks.

Engage all the senses. For the most part, we're visual creatures, and when we describe something, we use a lot of visual clues. But the reader doesn't want to stand back and look at the scene. They want to be immersed in it, to feel like they're there. To do this, include details that show how the scene looks, but also how it sounds, feels, tastes, and smells. In the

21 Comments on Creating Unforgettable Settings, Part 2, last added: 1/10/2011
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10. How Might You Challenge Yourself as a Writer?

or - THE WRITER’S CHALLENGE


by Robert W. Walker



There are indeed many challenges a writer faces from beating back inertia to becoming redundant on the page to using the wrong tack on approach to opening the story or novel in the wrong place and on and on and on. Building character is a challenge, but we must have in our lead role, our star character fully-realized; we are challenged to live with him or her for a long time, but we take that challenge to make this character special as the more we know him or her, the more easily manipulated along a storyline. We are challenged too by plot, and many of us find this far harder to come to terms with than character, yet a fully realized character can suggest or imply a plot.

I challenge myself with each book I write. I challenge myself by doing a setting that is for me exotic—that is out of my safety zone as I may never have been there.

I challenge myself by creating a character at opposite ends of the spectrum than myself – say a female Medical examiner and FBI agent or an 1893 Inspector in Chicago or a pair of interns on the Titanic.

I challenge myself often with a storyline that is meant to tease the reader into thinking one thing but second guessing himself at the same time.

Most recently, I have challenged myself to set up a novel with two separate storylines running simultaneously in two different time “zones” – one in 1912, the night Titanic went down, and the other one hundred years later with divers capable of working two and a half miles below the surface and swimming into and through Titanic’s interiors in 2012. This was indeed a huge challenge but oddly enough, I based my structure and desire on none other than the film and book Fried Green Tomatoes. It may sound at odds but I wanted to duplicate my own feelings coming away from that story – that I at once wanted to be in the past story and the present story each time I was inside the other story than the one I wanted to be in; in other words, each storyline was compelling. So my challenge to myself was to make each storyline so compelling as to make the reader want to return to BOTH whenever he or she was in past (wanting to get back to present), and in present (wanting to get back to past).

So what sorts of challenges do you set for yourself as a writer? Would love to hear about them here. I know if you write, you face umpteen challenges but at times one might have been particularly prickly and you might be so proud that you met it and overcame it well. So let’s hear about that!

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/
http://www.1stturningpoint.com/

3 Comments on How Might You Challenge Yourself as a Writer?, last added: 9/17/2010
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11. The setting that inspired my upcoming book

Last weekend, we took a trip to the upstate NY books that inspired the setting for DROUGHT, my upcoming book. Keep your eyes on this space for announcements soon about DROUGHT. Until then, here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse into the world of Ruby, Ford, and the cruel Darwin West...

water streaming down a dirt road

a dirt road to nowhere... or anywhere, so long as it's away

cabins deep in the woods, overlooking a lake

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12. Sarah Hall Explains How To Describe Nature In Your Stories

Haweswater: A Novel (P.S.)"In March the running water of the valley is bitter, acid cold, as snow on the fells begins to melt and is brought down over chilled rocks and icy beds. It has in it all the breaking soul of winter, thousands of dying flakes in one long, moving water-coffin."

That's a powerful nature scene written by novelist Sarah Hall, describing earth-shaking changes in a rural area in Europe. Her novel Haweswater captured the difficult lives of a 1930's farming community in England, a setting she'd memorized during her childhood.

Last year she stopped by for a practical interview about her craft, showing us how to turn the most familiar settings into evocative novel scenes. That interview was one of my most popular posts, and I'm reframing the whole entry for your reading pleasure.

As winter looms, trapping us inside our houses, we should all follow Hall's advice and turn the environment outside our window into vivid setting? Click here to learn how to describe nature in your stories. 


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13. Where is your novel set, and why there? (Part 1 of 4)

LJuser acebauer asks: 
Where did you set your novel?  And why did you chose that particular setting?

(Part 1 of 4)


Kelly Bingham, SHARK GIRL (Candlewick Press, May 2007)

Another great question.  Buy my answer is so simple it's dull.  My novel is set in Southern California, because at the time, that's where I lived, so I felt I could set my characters inside that environment and let them walk around and I could see where they were.  Also, I needed my story to take place near an ocean and a public beach.  And the ocean needed to have a few sharks in it.  So, there you are.

www.kellybingham.net


Melissa Marr, WICKED LOVELY (HarperCollins US & UK 2007)

Both of my novels are set in a fictional small city with an abandoned railroad lot, a warehouse district that's looking a bit worn, and a high unemployment rate.  There are a number of smaller dying cities that influenced the aspects of my town, but I chose not to name the city after any one of those out of respect for those places.  Why there? It's set in such a place because there are so many smaller cities clinging to life but not thriving.  They have a character that intrigues me.  I can find traces of it in neighborhoods of larger cities, but it's not the overall pall that I find in small struggling cities. That pall feels like home to me, so I wanted to set my texts in such a city.

There were other reasons, of course. As the novels deal with faeries, I wanted to utilize the fey aversion to iron (& therefore steel) so I added the railroad.  As the novels deal with the mortal desire to escape and find a better life, I wanted a city where the very air felt oppressive, so I added the warehouse district.   It works. And, well,  it's where I and the people I've known once lived and left.  I love that odd beauty of steel and broken windows, and I wanted to write those images into my characters' lives.

Melissa Marr

WICKED LOVELY, HarperCollins US & UK 2007
INK EXCHANGE, HarperCollins US & UK 2008
www.melissa-marr.com


Carrie Jones, TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (ex) BOYFRIEND (Llewellyn/Flux, Spring 2007)

I set my story in a small, small city in rural Maine, because I wanted to have that small-town claustrophobic feel to Belle's struggles.

I set my story in a public high school because:

97 % of students in public high schools report regularly hearing homophobic remarks from their peers

53% of students report hearing homophobic comments made by school staff

80% of prospective teachers report negative attitudes toward gay and lesbian people

45% of gay males and 20% of lesbians report having experienced verbal harassment and/or physical violence as a result of their sexual orientation during high school

Those statistics are taken verbatim from: http://www.dreamworld.org/oystergsa/gsa_statistics.html

When I was talking to a NY-based agent about another one of my books, he said, "Carrie, nobody has issues with gay people any more, not even in rural Maine."
I would like to live in his world.

I set my story in a small city in rural Maine because that's what I know best. I could have set it anywhere. It would have changed some of the dynamics, but it wouldn't have changed the statistics.

Carrie Jones
TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (ex) BOYFRIEND (Llewellyn/Flux, Spring 2007) PREGGERS (Flux, March 2008)
www.carriejonesbooks.com


Heather Tomlinson, THE SWAN MAIDEN (Henry Holt Fall 2007)

he Swan Maiden takes place in a fantasy setting based on 13th century Provence. I had been reading about the era's troubadours, and one castle's family and history caught my imagination: Les Baux de Provence.

Then I remembered actually visiting the site, the year I was studying at the university in Aix-en-Provence. The town built around the hill-top castle has really narrow streets, so the bus parks down the hill and you have to climb up a steep path to get there. It was incredibly windy day the day I saw it--I was constantly spitting hair out of my mouth while we hiked around the ruins, and our picnic lunch got covered with blowing grit. Somehow, that added to the attraction: it seemed like the kind of place where wild and mysterious things would happen!


S.A. Harazin, BLOOD BROTHERS (Delacorte, Summer 2007)

Blood Brothers is set in Georgia in a fictional town. The protagonist bikes everywhere and the miles begin to wear him down. He also works in a hospital which gives focus to his dream of becoming a doctor. Because of this, I felt like it was important to establish setting as character.


Our questions come from our readers.  Feel free to leave a question or comment below.  We love to hear from you!

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