Digging Deeper

I had the good fortune last Saturday to attend the Donald Maass Workshop, Writing 21st Century Fiction, put on by the Rose City Romance Writers (see Meggan's post from Tuesday). If you're a writer and ever have the chance to attend one of his workshops or lectures—do it. You won't be sorry.

A lot of the information was familiar, but it was presented in a way that it struck a new chord (for me, anyway). Here are the highlights that resonated the most with me.

"Don't write what is safe."

Writing what's easy, expected, common, familiar, will not touch readers. You need to dig deeper into the story—and into your own experiences—and write what you're afraid to write.

We—and by extension, our characters—never feel just one emotion at a time. Use those secondary emotions, instead of "skimming the surface" by writing the primary (expected) emotion in a scene, to create a visceral connection to the reader.

"Write the unexpected."

What is the one thing your character would never do? Write that. Now what happens?

Yes, this is a variation on "don't write what is safe," but I can't tell you the epiphany I had as I thought about this question. I'd done all the usual things while plotting and writing The Lazarus Gambit — escalated the conflict, made the bad moments worse, and, and, and...I realized I'd played it safe, for my heroine and for myself. Well, not any more!

"Stories are inherently bigger than life."

Don't be afraid of the fromage! Just be sure to set the context before you deliver the cheese. In other words, don't be afraid of writing "over the top." Readers are engaged with and want stories that are bigger than life.

"Story is an infinite well."

Don't save things. Series writers have a tendency to hold things back/save things up for future books in the series. Don't! Put them in — you'll find more later! Story is an infinite well, and the more you write, the more the ideas will come. If you hold back, out of the fear that you won't be able to think of something later, you'll short-change what you're writing now — and it will show.

These are a few of the things that stood out to me in a workshop packed with great information. I've already planned serious changes to The Lazarus Gambit, and I know I'll apply these to future books, as well.

Deborah Wright
Website: www.Deborah-Wright.com
Twitter: @DeborahBWright
Facebook: Deborah.Wright.Author

 

On Blogs, Facebook, and Zombies

Current Project: Romancing the Genres
Status: 23 Days to Blog Launch

Like many other pre-published writers, I didn’t want to believe the published author who first told me that I needed a Website, a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter account before I sold my first book. But she’s a really savvy author with years in publishing under her belt and a strong career. I respect her opinions.

So, despite the fact that I wanted nothing more than to finish my damned book, I forced myself to accept the unwanted truth. Whether I liked it or not, agents and editors would google me when I queried or pitched. They’d expect to find an established blog demonstrating my ability to write to a schedule, as well as my ability to entertain with my writing and create buzz. They’d look for a Facebook page and/or Twitter account to evaluate my social interactions (i.e., manners, professionalism, friendliness, charm, appropriateness) to evaluate our possible compatibility level.

Another light bulb went off: I needed to check them out through blogs and social media as well!

I bought (and read) Facebook for Dummies and The Twitter Book. I even understood some of it, but I was still very intimidated. Social networking sites seemed so complicated that I felt overwhelmed. So I decided to check out blogging. I read lots of blogs and articles about blogging. This, too, seemed overwhelming.

Then a writer friend, Sammarie Ashe, graciously offered to help another social-media-phobic writer friend, Judith Ashley, and me set up Blogger and Facebook pages. She went on to do so with infinite patience and good humor, I might add. She gave us confidence.

Judith and I began to blog and friend people on Facebook regularly. For a few weeks, I did pretty well with Facebook. Then life got in the way. I faded out. Resurrected myself. Faded out again. I call myself a Facebook Zombie. J

I kept up my blog for a few months, posting three times a week, but the time demands overwhelmed me. I had no idea how to promote my blog aside from sending posts to Facebook (and you already know how that was going.) So I closed the blog down. When an opportunity to blog twice monthly here at MWVRWA this year came my way, I decided to try again.

That was a smart move. I have wonderful co-bloggers for support and examples. I’m writing to deadlines. I’ve gained the confidence that only time and overcoming obstacles can instill. And blogging here inspired me to plan a new group blog with Judith that launches May 1^st – Romancing the Genres.

Guest bloggers, including reviewers and quirky/informative writing-related bloggers, will post on weekends and ‘extra’ days of the month.

We recruited over twenty amazing romance writers from ten states who write in many different subgenres and categories, across genres and in between genres to join RTG. Half are published, many are award-winning authors, some have long careers and some are debut authors.

One is our own Paty Jager!

Among our wonderful unpubbed bloggers are contest finalists, including Golden Heart and Daphne Finalists. Some are long-time bloggers, some are beginners. They all have one thing in common: a love of romance writing and a commitment to blogging monthly about romance writing from their unique perspectives.

And best of all, each of our bloggers has the help and support and networking capabilities of all of us!

Not bad for a Facebook Zombie, eh?

Current Project: Spirit of the Sky
Status: A third of the way

My struggle is trying to promote my books when they are several subgenres.

Subgenres are the more dissected genres.

The major genres are:

Romance stories that focus on love and relationships.
Westerns historical fiction that deals with life in the American west pre1900.
Mysteries these books have characters who investigate crimes or mysteries.
Science fiction these books have scientific data as the basis with stories that have apocalypse scenarios, future worlds, or space travel, etc.
Fantasy or Paranormal has “unreal” or magical things, or things not possible in the real world, and may contain alternate worlds and/or mythical and made up creatures or peoples.
Thrillers have themes with or without spies who usually are involved in investigating various events, many times on a global scale or a government scandal.
Horror deals with supernatural or apocalyptic events, usually graphic cases of murder or mutilation caused by humans or other sources.
Historical fiction invents characters or deeds for a specific time period telling the story of that time period through fictional and non-fictional but fictionalized characters.
Suspense these are books that keep you on the edge of your seat like a thriller or a mystery but not as worldly as a thriller and more murders/violence than a mystery.
Action Adventure The words pretty much sum it up. It's a read that has lots of action and adventure. Not as spy-filled as a thriller, but can have some mystery and more lighthearted than a suspense.
Detective/police stories are just that; books with the main characters carrying out detective and police work.
Woman's Fiction stories about women and their struggles and triumphs. They can be about best friends, mothers and daughters, sisters, cousins, any female relationships.
Literary these are books where a story is told which may or may not have a clear meaning.
Mainstream are books on any subject hat isn't clearly stated in the genres above.

The description of subgenres from Free Dictionary is: A subcategory within a particular genre: The academic mystery is a subgenre of the mystery novel.

So you can combine any of the above genres and you have subgenres.

What do you like to read? A pure genre book or do you browse and read the subgenre books? What do you write? A pure genre or a subgenre? Is there a reason you prefer either or both?

***Disclaimer- This is not all the genres, these are the main ones.

www.patyjager.net
www.patyjager.blogspot.com