Every once in a while, a friend and I go out of the area for a writers’ retreat.  This isn’t sponsored by anyone or anything–it’s just us–Judith Laik and I, and sometimes our two other friends can make it if we’re lucky.  We pack up our clothes, food, and writing materials [...]]]>

Every once in a while, a friend and I go out of the area for a writers’ retreat.  This isn’t sponsored by anyone or anything–it’s just us–Judith Laik and I, and sometimes our two other friends can make it if we’re lucky.  We pack up our clothes, food, and writing materials . . . oh, and an itty bit of wine . . . and off we go.

This time we left Monday morning and came home Friday night.  Believe me, every minute is useful.  The drive to the condo is our planning time.  We decide what books each of us will work on, and how much time we require for actual writing versus brainstorming.

We discuss new techniques for either brainstorming or craft, and we decide which ones we’ll try and how much time we’ll give each to produce results.  After all, we do have tried-and-true methods, but we’re always on the hunt for something new.  We learned a long time ago that every story evolves in its own way, no matter how we try to force it.

Some techniques we used this time:
April Kihlstrom’s BIAW class
Discovering Story Magic
Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict
A deck of cards with story ideas (can’t remember where Judith bought these)

After we arrive, the first item on the agenda is to unpack as quickly as possible and go to the grocery store for fresh foods.  We plan it so we can get everything we need for the week, because we didn’t drive all this way to shop.  We hurry with life’s mundane chores so we can get down to business.  Even during our chores, we’re still discussing our stories.

Yay!  Dinner is done, the dishes are in the dishwasher, the wine is poured, the chips and salsa are on the coffee table, our AlphaSmarts have new batteries–we’re set!  After spending several hours in the car, as well as discussing our stories’ needs during our chorse, we have a good idea what needs to happen.

This time, we both needed the same things: 1) gaining confidence that we could write our stories; and 2) analyzing our stories’ weaknesses and brainstorming how to fix them.

We took turns, working first on my book, then on hers.  We started using April Kihlstrom’s technique for preparing for a Book In A Week challenge.  Wow, she has some great stuff and I highly encourage anyone to take her classes.  I immediately identified the flaw in my story (the conflict wasn’t sustainable), and we proceeded to figure out how to fix the problem, which took a while, but we did it.

Then we had to work on Judith’s book.  Her first priority was to decide what the ending will be so she can plot toward it.  That took a while, but we managed to brainstorm a rather clever ending–clever in its simplicity.  Off to our beds with  only our AlphaSmarts for companionship (Judy has a laptop, too, so not quite true).  We wrote until we were either stuck or asleep.

Each day is pretty much the same: discuss our stories, plot out the next scene, then go our separate ways and write.  We think about our stories in the shower, we discuss our plot problems over meals, and we even try our best to dream stories and remember them when we wake up.

We also take a break mid-afternoon and go for a walk.  A little exercise stimulates the brain and we find we get more done if we schedule a walk.  What do we talk about?  Yep, our books.

These writers’ retreats aren’t holidays–they’re working trips and we get a lot done.  This time, I didn’t burn up the pages with words, but I certainly made significant progress so that now I can burn up the pages with words, which I plan to start doing today.

It’s wonderful to jumpstart my Muse a few times a year, and I wish everyone could plan their own writing retreats.  If you do, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Not every writer needs the same thing.  Some might need actual plot brainstorming, some might want to discuss theme or the philosophy of their story, some might need to go write after minimal discussion.
• Whether a writer takes it or not, each person should be allotted the same amount of discussion time.  It’s vital that everyone leave the retreat knowing they’ve accomplished significant progress.
• Be careful not to get off on tangents or gossip.  It’s too easy to fritter away valuable retreat time.  Believe me, even five days (three full days and two packing/driving days) is too short.
• Decide ahead of time how you’re going to share expenses.

This would have been a great prelude to NaNoWriMo.  Maybe we can schedule it for the last week of October next year.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, how’s everyone doing?

Faery Merry Christmas

Faery Merry Christmas: A Heartwarming Novella

by Jacquie Rogers
(Kindle only at this time)

Romance has gone awry in Faeryshire.

Who would’ve thought Mr. and Mrs. Claus’s daughter would be “on the shelf”?  Yep, Cheshya’s all a’flutter because her 2,000th birthday, the last day she’s eligible to take a mate, is on Christmas, only four days away, but Liam of the Red Clan, the only man she has ever wanted is otherwise occupied . . .

Terra Humanus in 1956: carhops on roller skates, the submarine races, a pink Nash Metropolitan, Lucky Strikes, Little Richard, and the Shoreline Sharks Baseball Club starring ace pitcher Liam Stone.

For the past five years, Liam of the Red Clan has lived in Terra Humanus, pitching for the Shoreline Sharks and obsessed with signing as a major league pitcher with the Cincinnati Reds.   The faery queen sends Cheshya to help him achieve his goal, but in signing with the Reds, will he lose out on his true heart’s desire?

What will it take to make a Faery Merry Christmas?

“What faery fun!  A winsome sprite’s barely still-ticking time clock.  Mayhem in the land of Claus.  And the man who could wave just the right magic wand obsessed with baseball.  A Christmas story to cuddle up with–and keep you really warm.” Stella Cameron, NYT Best-selling Author

If I knew what to write, I’d write it!

How many times have you heard that? Or said it yourself? Or thought it?

POV–It’s What Tells the Story

POV is an acronym for Point of View, also called Viewpoint.

This class isn’t about how to write limited third-person POV; rather, how to use POV to tell your story. It is, after all, one of the most powerful toolboxes. While writers have great fun arguing over [...]]]>

POV–It’s What Tells the Story

POV is an acronym for Point of View, also called Viewpoint.

This class isn’t about how to write limited third-person POV; rather, how to use POV to tell your story. It is, after all, one of the most powerful toolboxes. While writers have great fun arguing over which type of POV is best, they sometimes forget that it’s a toolbox, not just one tool. Each event is best shown with a particular tool, and it’s up to the writer to choose the correct tool to tell the story.

Up until now, we’ve discussed how to shape the story, but POV is how to tell the story.

First a brief definition of the more frequently used forms of POV.

POV is what the character sees, feels, hears, touches, smells, and thinks. How that is written depends on the type of POV you’re using.

First Person: the story is from only one character’s viewpoint and told with “I.” First person POV is sometimes used in mysteries, westerns, chick lit, and urban fantasy.

Second Person: the story is telling what “you” are doing or need to do. Very little fiction is written in second person POV.

Third Person Limited: this is commonly used technique in the Romance genre. The story is told from the “he, she, it” POV and we stay in that viewpoint for the duration of a scene.

Omniscient: from the point of view of an outside observer, omniscient POV is sometimes used in epic fantasy, and also prologues. “Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away” is omniscient POV.

Lee Masterson wrote an article with more comprehesive explanations of each, posted on the Fiction Factor site.

So what does all this have to do with Plotting Your Story? No doubt about it, your heroine’s eyes and ears will send observations to her brain dictating her next move. As does the hero’s–and of course, the villain’s. Who has the most to lose? Do you want to be in that person’s head or do you want to observe him instead?

According to Laura Baker and Robin Perini in Discovering Story Magic, the protagonist is the character who changes the most, and the antagonist is the one who drives the story. In determining POV, it’s likely you’ll need to know which character is the protagonist: whose story is it? Generally (but not always), this character will receive the larger portion of stage time.

Advanced POV

Learning how to write a scene in one character’s POV is the first step in learning what POV is all about. Some other important considerations are:

How does your hero relate to a stimulus?

Two people are in a car, a 22-year-old cowboy on his way to a rodeo with a big purse, and one is a star-struck 17-year-old young lady. A bee flies through the window and is buzzing around the interior of the car. How do each react?

1. The young lady lets the cowboy rescue her, so she plays helpless and frightened.
2. The young lady wants to show how independent she is, so she manages to get the bee out of the car.
3. The cowboy wants to impress the girl with his macho prowess, so he whaps the bee and squishes it.
4. The cowboy is deathly allergic to bees, and the young lady is wanting to be protected by the brave cowboy, but ends up protecting him.

Same characters, same event, but different viewpoints, different decisions, different outcomes. Let’s talk about #4. Would you write this in the cowboy’s POV? His thoughts would reveal his embarassment and maybe shame for showing a weakness, and desperation to convince her to get rid of the bee. Or would you write this in the point of view of the young lady, and show her irritation that her big, brave cowboy was scared of bees?

What does your character see?

When we walk into a room, what we see depends on what we consider non-remarkable. We seldom observe something unless it’s out of the ordinary. Let’s say your hero is a chef–what will he notice when he first enters a stylish new restaurant with the heroine? The last time I was around two chefs, they discussed the gears in Hobart mixers. Does your hero peek into the kitchen to see what model of mixer they have? Would your heroine care?

A good example revealed itself when I was writing a western. The bad guy was in the process of robbing a bank during the Fourth of July fireworks. My hero, the marshal, rides into town. I needed the marshal to know that bad guy was in town so he could foil the robbery. But how? I mulled this over for two days. Then, at dinner with my husband, I told him my woes. He said, “Easy, the marshal sees the villain’s horse.” I protested that the marshal had only seen the villain’s horse once, but my husband informed me that every man in his company knows what car everyone else drives, and if he doesn’t know a car on the lot, he makes a note of it. Bottom line: most men observe what others drive, and in the Old West, they observed the horses others rode. Most women don’t.

How does your character think?

This comes across in word choices, not just in dialogue, but in internal thoughts and narrative as well. Often, dialogue conveys the exact opposite of what a character thinks (called a reversal), and the writer can pull a lot of emotion out of a scene where the character acts one way and believes the other.

Let’s go back to the cowboy and the chef. A waitress plops down a huge steak dinner in front of each. The cowboy is impressed with the quantity, the chef checks to see of the steak is properly cooked. Now let’s say the waitress was topless. Neither the cowboy or the chef remember they ordered dinner. So sometimes very different people react the same.

Narrative word choice

I actually don’t know what to call this section but I guess “narrative word choice” will do. This is a mixture of the author’s voice and the character’s outlook on life. What words are chosen to describe a character’s actions?

Here’s an example: my hero was observing the bad guys. When their attention was diverted to his direction, he stepped back behind a bush. An editor changed “stepped back” to “retreated.” Nuh uh. My hero does not retreat. Very out of POV, so stet that one, and I explained why.

Summary

All these things come into play when you’re designing scenes. You might not be conscious of it–I rarely am–but it’s there. You know what you can do with a character, what part of that character you show the best by either using his POV or staying away from it. You know how you can torture a character by withholding information, or giving him too much info, or incorrect info.

How best to show the character’s arc that plopping a dilemma in his lap so he can show you what he’s really made of? After all, that’s the only purpose of events, to build a structure for the character’s growth arc, and in Romance, the journey toward true love and Happily-Ever-After.

Happy Magical Monday!

Jacquie
Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video)

lotting Your Story, Part 3: Structure by Jacquie Rogers

Without Conflict, There’s No Story!

This is the third class in a four-part workshop exclusively at Texty Ladies, Plotting Your Story. If you’d like to read the other classes, they are:

Part 1: Theme Part 2: Character

Today’s class is on Structure.

In the first [...]]]>

lotting Your Story, Part 3: Structure
by Jacquie Rogers

Without Conflict, There’s No Story!

This is the third class in a four-part workshop exclusively at Texty Ladies, Plotting Your Story. If you’d like to read the other classes, they are:

Part 1: Theme
Part 2: Character

Today’s class is on Structure.

In the first class, we developed a solid theme–a premise that plunged our characters into a life-changing journey. In the second class, we let the characters reveal themselves to us. We learned their strengths and weaknesses, their vulnerabilities, secret hopes and genes, and personal guilts and shame. Our situation is set and our characters are there.

Now all we need is for something to happen.

Ever look at a blank screen and wish something would magically appear. I have, but nothing has magically appeared yet. I’ve had to plow through some hard-thinking, some brainstorming, bother all my friends, ask my husband and kids a few hundred questions, and at some point, all this information solidifies into a story.

Let’s take a look at events. Events are what create emotion in the character: his reaction to a dilemma. Readers read because they want to experience the character’s feelings. So what must an event do?

Several things. First of all, each event must up the stakes to some degree. Granted, some events don’t up the stakes much, but always at least a little. Rising action carries the reader along. It’s what makes a book a page-turner. An event blends the action with the character to create conflict.

Without conflict, the character has no dilemma.

Without dilemma, the character can never be multi-dimensional.

No matter how fantasic the premise is, or well-drawn the characters are, the story will fall flat if the events don’t allow the characters to change. Each event should carry the character to an emotional place he’s never been before. We read to see how the character handles that. We read to feel his feelings.

That explains why we have to have events, but just exactly how do we know which events will help in our pursuit of eliciting character growth? Most writers have an inate understanding of what makes a story work, but describing it is a little more difficult. That’s why I rely on those who have ventured into this territory before me.

Carolyn Greene has a fabulous method for plotting a story. Actually, she touches on all aspects of storywriting. Her workbook as well as Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Dwight V. Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, and You Can Write a Romance by Rita Clay Estrada and Rita Gallagher.

All the above, as well as workshops given by Stella Cameron have contributed to the form I use to develop the structure of my story, Story Bones. Let’s take a look:

***Note: This form is a bit antiquated because many houses have now gone to actual computer word count rather than page count at 250 words per page. I have intended to update it for about six months now . . .

Call to adventure

This is the change in the protagonist’s life the propels the story forward. I judge half a dozen contests a year and in nearly every judging packet, half the entries start with backstory. Please don’t. Readers want to know what’s happening now. That means something must be happening now. Go to the NYT Bestsellers rack and read all the opening paragraphs. In nearly every bestseller, you know the character, the conflict, and the story question right out of the gate. Questions that arise from that, backstory, and whatever else, is fed in bits at a time . . . later.

First Turning Point

The first turning point signifies the end of the story set up and the beginning of the escalating conflict. In a romance, the hero and heroine should be at least smitten with one another, and the event you chose for the first turning point should give them a platform to show their growing attraction (even if they’re annoyed with one another) as well as up the stakes in the external conflict.

Crunch

The crunch is generally a reversal, whatever you expected to happen, the opposite did. Just as the protagonist thought she was getting somewhere, back down the hill she goes. This event, should set up the house of cards for the midpoint. In a romance, there will be growing affection as well as attraction by this point.

Midpoint

At the midpoint, everything appears to go along swimmingly: the quest is on track, the romance is getting hot and heavy (maybe some hot sex) . . . but then . . . Yep, you guessed it, everything goes to h*ll in a handbasket. The treasure map is burned, the only car is stolen, and the cat’s mad at them both. And the lovers know that true love is elusive, if not lost. All is not lost,however, because we’re saving that for later. This is only a medium crisis, but it is a crisis.

***Note: Keep in mind that if you plot your story with high action at the midpoint, it will be impossible for your book to have a sagging middle, and you’ll be the envy of all your friends.

Third Turning Point

Christopher Vogler calls this Tests, Allies, and Enemies. (Actually, he would include anything from the first turning point on, but I find that too big a chunk of story to process at once, so I like to break it down more.) So now the hero and heroine face a series of challenges, physical and emotional. They must determine who’s the enemy and who’s the friend. There might even be a mentor thrown into the mix. And romance fills the air. The hero and heroine are falling in love and each event draws them emotionally closer.

In all these events, the author needs to keep tabs of the characters because sometimes it’s easy for a character to depart from her established path, confusing and annoying the reader. I remember a mini-series called A Town Like Alice. The British heroine, Jean Paget, was a wonderful character and throughout the series she’s shown overcoming hardship, making lemons out of lemonade. She’d find out what the townspeople needed and empower them to meet their own needs. A wonderful character. Until Jean got to Willstown in Australia. All of a sudden, she starts telling the townspeople what they must do, a complete departure from her established character. What a disappointment for me as a viewer. I’d greatly admired the character until she pulled a magic switcharoo on us. (I haven’t read the book, but I’ve always hoped the book didn’t have this flaw.)

Fourth Turning Point

I only stuck this fourth turning point in because this is the event that has to set the ball rolling toward the Black Moment. Everything looks good–the quest is on track, the enemies are sorted out from the allies, the Force is with them, and the hero and heroine are madly in love, even if they know obstacles will keep them from ever being together–they still have hope.

Dark Moment

I used the term dark instead of black because I write humor and, well, things really shouldn’t get too dark in a lighthearted book. All stories require a moment of utter loss, though, or else the dawn’s light simply won’t look as bright. In a romance, this is where the protagonist has to sacrifice his or her goal in order to save the person he/she loves. All is lost.

Resolution

But things work out! The character reaches deep inside and because of their character growth, can overcome even the darkest obstacle. The trick here is to remember this is ALL about the character’s arc, and each one of the above turning points is a milestone in the character’s journey. The resolution and in a romance, Happily Ever After, come from the character’s growth and realization of self in relation to his/her partner. The characters are happy, the author is happy, and the readers are happy. Whew!

What a journey for us, too.

I’ve enjoyed hearing about all the character development methods. Thanks to all you who commented or emailed me privately. You’ve given me even more great ideas and you can bet I’ll be trying them on for size. I’m really looking forward to hearing what people have to say about structure, conflict, and events. (And yes, I know this was too much to cover and I skimmed a lot, but we’ll be discussing more about these topics in 2009.)

OT: I’m happy dancing about Book Reviews by Crystal’s review of my latest release. Thank you, Crystal!

Happy Magical Monday!

Jacquie
Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video)

Plotting Your Story, Part 2: Character by Jacquie Rogers

It’s All About the Characters!

This is the second class in a four-part workshop. Last Monday, in Plotting Your Story: Part 1, we discussed Theme. Today’s class is on Character.

Authors seem to love to debate which is better, a plot-driven [...]]]>

Plotting Your Story, Part 2: Character
by Jacquie Rogers

It’s All About the Characters!

This is the second class in a four-part workshop. Last Monday, in Plotting Your Story: Part 1, we discussed Theme. Today’s class is on Character.

Authors seem to love to debate which is better, a plot-driven story or a character-driven story. Currently, the tide is with those who espouse character-driven stories. I’ve never understood either side of this issue because characters create plot and the plot creates multi-dimensional characters. How can you extricate character from plot, or plot from character? To me, a well-written story makes this impossible.

Last week, I hope you were able to get a good handle on what your story is about (Dwight Swain’s Theme), and now it’s time to flesh out your characters. Obviously, since you have this terrific situation in mind, you already have a good idea about at least one main character. I like to dig into my characters’ pasts and psyches before I begin the first chapter because then it’s easier to become that character when I’m writing.

At one of the first writers’ meetings I attended, a very well-known and successful author (one of my all-time favorites) said she didn’t know her characters until along about the third or fourth chapter. I was utterly mystified because I couldn’t possibly write three chapters–any three chapters–without knowing how my characters would react in every conceivable situation, since that reaction and decision sets up the next scene. This just goes to show that we all take different paths to writing our stories, and our choice of tools is equally as diverse.

A lot of the information on character, including the forms I’ll discuss in a minute, are from the following awesome authors: Megan Chance, Gerri Russell (who studied Dwight Swain), Lisa Hendrix, and Karen Harbaugh. To be honest, I collect tools wherever I can so there are many more influences, but for the forms mentioned, those authors were my main sources.

So picture this character in your mind–let’s say your hero. Do you know who he resembles? Does a picture of a model or actor help? If you like pictures, models in western magazines seem a little more realistic to me than some of the skinny models who look half-starved–just a personal preference. Let’s describe him physically. Get the Character chart–Physical Traits from my website.

All the traits on the right side of the form are what you’d normally expect, so go ahead and fill in the blanks. What I’d like to talk about here are the traits on the lower left of the page. Voice quality plays a huge role in the novella I’m currently writing. Is your hero’s voice harsh, raspy, baritone? How do people react to his voice? Posture is important. I once worked in a water delivery business, and the owner said he picked his delivery men by their posture, because he could always who would be self-motivated by the way an applicant stood and walked.

***NOTE: For paranormal heroes, other traits are important as well; e.g., a shifter’s appearance both as animal and as man.

On to Character chart–Psychological Traits. Here we explore how he feels about himself and what his world looks like from the inside out, his strengths and vulnerabilities. We don’t have the space here to discuss much, but please delve deep, two or three layers down, and don’t use the obvious, superficial answers. Readers read for feelings, and here’s where you find them.

Next is Character chart–Sociological Traits. The questions here have to be adapted for your story’s setting. This form is for a contemporary, but doesn’t include fantasy or paranormal, so adapt it to whatever you need.

***NOTE: An incredibly comprehensive form for paranormal worldbuilding that is also helpful in character development is Patricia Wrede’s Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions.

Now you know your character’s world and are getting to know how your character works. At this point sometimes it’s good to explore other events that made the character who he is when he enters your story world. A good way is to list all the major events plus smaller events that happened, because each one of these is internalized and shapes the character in some way. Let’s say your character is 28 when the story starts. On a blank piece of notebook paper, write 0 through 28 on the left side. Beside each age, write an event that occurred that year. It could be a world event or a family event; e.g., sibling’s birth, starting grammar school, wrestling victory (or defeat)–anything. We start with zero because it can be very interesting to discover how his birth affected the family and changed the dynamics.

To uncover your character’s voice, sometimes it helps to close your eyes, be him, and write his autobiography.

One of the best books on writing I have ever read and I use it for every single character I write, is Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation and Conflict. I can’t even imagine a writer not reading this book–if you haven’t please do! The GMC Chart is straight from her book and will do more than anything else to put your character on track and keep him there.

These are a few of my favorite methods to build a character. There are many other tools that I haven’t mentioned. One of the best is Discovering Story Magic, a method developed by Laura Baker and Robin Perini. Margie Lawson has a terrific class called Empowering Characters’ Emotions. Laurie Schnebly Campbell has a powerful workshop called The Psychology of Creating Characters.

In my pursuit of tools, I’d love to hear how you build your characters. How much do you need to know? How much is too much? Do you have a favorite tool you use with every characters? Let’s have it!

Happy Magical Monday!

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video)

Plotting Your Story, Part 1

by Jacquie Rogers

Thanks to Jane and Pam for inviting me to be with you at Texty Ladies during the month of November. We were discussing how to plot a story, and how we all love to add new tips and tricks to our toolboxes. Since 1997, [...]]]>

Plotting Your Story, Part 1

by Jacquie Rogers

Thanks to Jane and Pam for inviting me to be with you at Texty Ladies during the month of November. We were discussing how to plot a story, and how we all love to add new tips and tricks to our toolboxes. Since 1997, that’s exactly what I’ve done—collect pearls of wisdom from here and there, adding what I could use to my repertoire, and saving the rest for later. A few times I’ve thought that a technique would never work for me but then I ended up using it five years down the road, so I’ve learned to store, not dismiss, new tricks.

This workshop will be divided into four parts:

Situation/theme
Character
Events/pacing
Point of View

Most writers probably think only the third part and maybe the first have anything to do with plotting, but I agree with Robert McKee on this: character is story and story is character. To paraphrase Dwight V. Swain, the events are only there to show how the character reacts to the dilemma presented by that event, and the feelings evoked. Story is about feelings. We read for feelings.

Ultimately, the author hopes that after a reader has finished her book, the memory of the feeling will linger long after the details of the story have faded away. That is a successful story.

Some people love lush language, some readers prefer a fast-paced terse read, but all want to buy into the theme of the story, so that we can root for the hero and heroine, hiss at the villain, and laugh at the sidekick. To understand theme, I went straight to Dwight Swain’s Technique of the Selling Writer.

***An aside: This book is dreadfully difficult to read, and circuitous at that. The only way I (with my short attention span) could get through this book was to outline it. I’m not kidding about that. But it worked: I managed to get the entire book read and assimilated into my recalcitrant brain. This book, hard as it was for me to digest, really made a difference in my writing and I heartily recommend it. Whatever it takes to get this book read, it’s worth it.***

On page 130-133, Swain talks about the key elements of a story. These are:

Situation
Character
Objective
Opponent
Disaster

If you know these five elements, you can answer Blake Snyder’s question, “What is it?” (Save the Cat, ISBN: 0-8061-1191-7) which he considers the very most important part of plotting a screenplay or book. We have to know the genre and what to expect, or else we have no desire to view or read the story.

So back to Swain’s key elements. If you string these together, you have the theme (or some call it a premise) of the story. Look at the handout I made using this structure. The first three components, character, situation, and objective, form the first sentence, and then opponent and disaster form the second sentence. What do you have?

A pitch!

You haven’t even written the story but you can already pitch it. Expand on this and you have a back cover blurb. Expand a little more and you get a nifty two-page synopsis that’s so popular now.

Let’s take a look at my theme. This is taken from a short story called Single Girls Can’t Jump, originally printed in No Law Against Love, and now available individually as an ebook. Oh, and I forgot to say that no matter how short your piece is, it still needs a theme. It has to be about something.

The first element is situation.

Thrown a thousand years into the future and sitting in jail with a crazy blue-haired woman bent on social reform

This tells you the setting and the heroine’s circumstances. We know it’s a time-travel to the future, and she’s in jail with an aging social activist.

Second component is character.

social activist Shelley Clark

Aha! And the main character is a social activist, too, so why does she think this other lady is off her rocker?

Now we need to know Shelley’s objective.

just wants to get back to 2006 and work to repeal the silly Florida law that bans unmarried women from parachuting on Sundays.

Shelley wants to complete her original goal, but . . .

Her opponent comes on the scene.

When Kael busts her and his mother out of jail

That doesn’t seem like much of an opponent, since he wants to help, but Shelley is a social activist, not a fugitive. Well, until now, anyway.

And if that weren’t bad enough . . . Disaster.

how can Shelley fight a matchmaking mother, a gang of bounty hunters, and the loss of her heart to a man she can’t allow herself to love?

So now we know this is an exciting adventure story and a romance, similar in tone to Romancing the Stone.

You try it! Let me know how you’re doing.

Is anyone participating in NaNoWriMo? If so, be my writing buddy. My username is jacquierogers. Jane is participating, too.

I’ll be checking in throughout the week, so if you have questions, additional remarks, comments, I’ll respond shortly. Have fun!

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video)

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Faery Special Romances *** Book Video

Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation,
ending Neurofibromatosis through Research