The Invisible Workings of Story

Have you visited the TED site for inspirational and educational videos? There are some amazing resources there, and many of these can act as free workshops to improve your writing.

The video below is Andrew Stanton telling us the essential ingredients required for a good story. If you're having trouble with your manuscript, check and see what you might be missing. For those that don't like to sit still for a video, I have summarised in my own thoughts, what the key points are below.

1. Every story should open with a promise. Can the reader see straight away the adventure awaiting, or the romance that will blossom? If you don't have a clue in the opening, then why would they want to read on?
2. The reader wants to work at the story. Carefully constructed absence of information draws us in, we want to solve the puzzle. Don't give the reader 4, give them 2+2.
3. What drives your character? This is their internal motivation, one they usually have no idea exists, it's an itch they can't scratch. When revealed it comes as a shock to the character, but not us, we knew this what they really needed all along.
4. Change. If your story is remains constant, you have no story. Insert changes to force action.
5. Anticipation - have you made me wonder what will happen next? This is the 'page-turner' element.
6. A strong theme is present through the whole story. So that every single thing you put into your novel is moving it towards the inevitable end (even though the end won't seem inevitable during the journey).
7. Can you evoke wonder? This is tricky to explain because Stanton even says there is no way to fake this. I think if you are true to the next suggestion, you will achieve wonder.
8. Draw from what you know is real, infuse your core beliefs into your story (without preaching). Any element of simple truth will resonate with the reader.

There's my interpretation of Stanton's elements of the invisible workings of story. Hope you get a chance to watch the clip (and many more) from TED.

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Christine's Odyssey - Win Books & Amazon Gift Voucher!

Today I'm celebrating the release of Christine's Odyssey by J.L. Campbell - this looks like an amazing book, I've already downloaded it and can't wait to get stuck in! 

Howdy. I’m glad you’ve stopped in. My name is Christine and although I’m only eleven, I’m what some adults might call precocious. A lot has happened in my life, some of it bad, but like my dad used to say, good things can result from the bad stuff that happens to us. 

To help me celebrate overcoming my challenges, a great gang of authors have teamed up and will be giving away copies of their books. Sweet, yes? 

For a chance to win a pair of the books listed, you can do anything included on the Rafflecopter below or on Facebook. However, for those who’d like to win a $10.00 Amazon Gift Voucher, hop on over to the Jamaican Kid Lit Blog to enter. 

Anyway, I tend to talk a lot, so before I carried away, here’s my story:

Raised in a hotbed of arguments and fights, eleven-year-old Christine Simms is the victim of her mother's cruelty. A domestic dispute ends in tragedy, sending the family into a tailspin. 

A shocking discovery sends Christine on a quest to find the stranger who left her behind in Jamaica. Determined to unravel the mystery of her birth, Christine uses every tool at her disposal and treads with courage where no child should.

Thanks so much for dropping in! I hope you win the novels of your choice. I should tell you that you get to choose books based on how the Rafflecopter does the drawing of the winners. So, if your name comes up first, you get to say which pack you want. 

Christine’s Odyssey is available in ebook format at Amazon. 

J.L. Campbell is a proud Jamaican, who is always on the hunt for story-making material.

She writes romantic suspense, women's fiction and young adult novels. She is the also the author of Contraband, Dissolution, Distraction, Don't Get Mad...Get Even, Giving up the Dream, Retribution and Hardware (written under the pen name Jayda McTyson).

Visit her on the web at:

http://www.joylcampbell.com

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Writing Blurbs

Kitty's little dog Spade, sometimes known as 'No-Spade-No!'

Dognapped? A Dog Show Detective Mystery is almost ready for release. As the cover is getting put together by the team at Book Cover Cafe, I'm writing the blurb. Hey, it's just a short description for the back of the book, how hard can it be? 

Um, yeah. How to summarise the story without making it sound dull or too complicated? 

There are no rules, but, I try to include: Character (this is the most important part for me), premise or plot, setting, conflict and a hint at the theme or message of the story (although I don't think it needs to be stated). Then I try to find a creative way to portray this, so it doesn't read like a list.

So how do you start? I cheat. Yep, I do. I grabbed about twenty novels in the same genre (girls' mystery novel) then rewrote their blurb out with my story's information. 

Here's an example changing Trixie Beldon's story to suit mine:

Kitty can't believe she's stuck in this sleepy little town with nothing to do and no friends. Then she enters her miniature schnauzer Spade into the local dog show, and things start to liven up. A lost dog is found, and another stolen, a secret inheritance is revealed and Kitty teams up with an unlikely sleuthing partner. Could all this lead to murder? Maybe living in the country won't be so boring after all!

I didn't stop there. I rewrote at least ten more. By the time I finished this exercise I knew which things were important for me to include, and what could be left out. If the blurb is too long, the reader will lose interest. Then I took the parts I loved, tweaked and merged them and came up with this:

One dog found

One dog stolen

A mysterious will

All this equals murder!

Introducing Kitty Walker and her mischievous dog Spade in the first Dog Show Detective Mystery: 

Twelve-year-old Kitty, friendless bookworm and amateur sleuth. All she wants is to gain her mother's attention, spend time with Spade and avoid Miss Perfect, Jessica Jones. But now she needs Jessica's help to find the owner of a lost dog, hunt down a dognapper and solve a murder!

Can you solve the mystery before Kitty?

And look, I managed to get a list in! What do you think, does it work? Do you like writing blurbs? Any tips on blurb-writing?

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Choosing Your Detective

Romantic Friday Writers provide an interesting writing prompt every month. I try to join in when I can because it's fantastic practice and allows you to get feedback on your stories. This month I was extra-excited because the prompt is:

I love crime novels, especially mysteries. On the Romantic Friday Writers' site, I posted an article about the need for a strong motive in mystery stories. Another essential element is a great detective. Who will solve your crime? Will it be the:

• world-weary detective who's seen it all before;
• young enthusiastic copper, who makes too many mistakes;
• suspended police officer working outside the law;
• criminal only slightly more moral than the perpetrator;
• old lady playing amateur detective; or
• a child or other innocent, now exposed to the harsh truth of life and death?

I've been consuming a lot of kids' mysteries lately and here are some of my favourite child detectives:

Miranda from When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Beautiful story about friendship. Read a review from 11yr old Milly at Paper Dolls.

Phyllis from Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto. Reviewed at Paper Dolls.

The Masked Avenger in The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey.

Here is my flash fiction for the prompt Driven to Murder (if you're motivated, feel free to critique for improvement):

Grisly Business

'Think it’s too late Sergeant?' Officer Sarah Camden hurried to catch up as Sergeant John Hart trudged across the gravel parking lot.

He looked up from his extended sigh. 'Too late for what?'

'For the woman sir. I mean, if someone grabbed her between here and the tavern then it was an opportunity attack—not likely they’re keeping her somewhere.'

'Yes, I’d say it’s too late for Donna Locke.'

'Think we’ll turn up something on the CTV cameras?'

'Nah.' John clicked the button on his keyring and the Commodore’s lights flashed once. With his hand on the door he added, 'What we’ll find Camden is that Donna Locke did indeed walk home alone at 2:15am this morning after her friend’s hen’s night and that her walk was relatively uneventful.' He got into the car and shut the door.

Sarah rushed around to her door and scrambled in.

'You don’t think she’s really missing?'

'Oh she’s missing to some, her friends, colleagues, and her children. She’s missing to them.'

'Think she’s pulling a Fairly Arrow Sir?' Referring to the hack pop singer who’d faked her own abduction in the nineties, hoping to gain celebrity status on her 'miraculous' return.

John grunted as he fastened his seatbelt and adjusted the rear-vision mirror. 'That’d be the best outcome. But no, she didn’t strike me as the type.'

Sarah pondered this for a few moments and slapped her knee. 'A lover! Donna Locke met up with a lover and chances are she doesn’t know there’s a search on for her.'

'Hmm, maybe.' John checked over his shoulder and the car rolled out of the lot.

'What? That’s logical.'

'Yeah, except she made no calls. How would this fellow know where to meet her?'

'She jumped in a cab?'

'I’ve got Johnson on that now, don’t reckon it’ll turn anything up. Hope I’m wrong.'

'So if she didn’t get grabbed or take off, why didn’t she make it home?'

John indicated and merged into the traffic. 'That’s just it Camden, experience has developed my gut feeling, and my highly-trained intestines are telling me she did make it home.'

'Then why… the husband?'

'Usually is.'

'You think he killed his wife, dumped the body, then reported her missing?'

John sighed again. Thirty years with Robyn, they’d had a lot of rough ones. Even now there was no knowing if things could be repaired. Still, the act of murdering your spouse? It was just so… final.

'But Sergeant, why’re we putting out a media release to find Donna Locke?'

'Two reasons, I’m hoping to pick up an eye-witness who places Donna entering her apartment around 2:30am, and, because I don’t want Damien Locke to suspect we’re onto him. There’s evidence in that apartment and as long as Locke thinks he’s in the clear, the better the chance he’ll slip up.'

A horn blasted, and a silver Audi zipped around them. Sarah glanced at the speedometer, as usual the Sergeant was driving ten kilometres under the speed limit.

'Sir?'

'Hmm?'

'You think he did it because of the affair?'

John raised an eyebrow at the girl.

'I mean… if there was an affair.'

He shrugged. 'Jealousy or money are the most common motives, although money usually wins out.'

Sarah opened her mouth to speak again a few times, but the deep furrows across his forehead and the weariness in his eyes stopped her. 

They pulled into the station car park.

'Grisly business Sir.'

'It always is.'

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4 Essential Elements of a Successful Logline

Blake Snyder is well-known for his screenwriting advice. Turns out what works for film also works for novels! This guide offers advice on using index cards to write your scenes, finding that one saving trait in an unlikable character, marketing your manuscript and much more. My favourite advice is on writing the logline. Not only do you need a killer log line, but Snyder says write it before you write your novel. This will check if your story idea is strong enough.

What do you need for a killer logline? There are four essential elements every logline must have:

Irony - Character sets out to do/avoid one thing, until circumstances flip that plan on it's head! Look for key words like 'until', 'but', 'however'. Shows your characters original motivation/intention and the conflict that changes everything.

Promise - A good logline suggests a whole story. It promises big things to come. It should set up more than just the start of the story. For example, don't write: Sarah moves to France to open a flower shop. Put in the twist: Sarah moves to France to open a flower shop but finds reality does not match the dream when she is swindled out of her life savings for a run down store, can't speak the local language and discovers she's allergic to roses.

Audience - Suggests the market, who will want to read this book, who does it appeal to? Snyder suggest including an idea of the cost in production - if it's an epic film that will promises amazing special effects and big stars. That's helpful for scripts, but books have the equalising affect of all requiring the same medium to deliver (digital or paper), unless you have a specialised app with personalised games, or other expensive elements.

Killer Title - Your title should say what the story's about. Don't be vague. The title should 'nail the concept' without being overly obvious. When a reader spots your title they should start imagining the plot. This one line will show if your character and conflict are strong enough for an appealing story.

Snyder suggests holding off writing your story until you've written the killer log line. If you have to keep fudging your logline to include all the elements above, you may spot something your story is missing.

This review is part of the Progressive Book Club hosted by M L Swift. Want to challenge yourself to reading more writing manuals? Join up!

Want to learn more about writing loglines? Check out these links:
Gaston Broadcast: Logline examples
Creating Bomb-proof Loglines by Lenore Wright

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Why I won't do A-Z, but you probably should.

I'm not actually a participant this year, but I couldn't find an A-Z silent-supporter badge.

A-Z is a popular blogfest held every year in April. It started out as writers joining together to support and follow each other in 2010, but has now expanded to include bloggers of many topics. The idea: You are challenged to blog 26 times in one month, starting with an A theme for your post and moving though until you hit Z. Here's some good reasons to sign up:

• This gives a sense of deadline, you be amazed at how productive you can be with your blogposts when you know you have to get one up almost every day.
• For new bloggers, you'll gain a LOT of new followers. Back in 2010 I gained at least 100 new followers in the month of April. This was a big deal for me, I think I only had about 60 followers at the time.
• You'll discover new blogs that you'll want to come back and visit again and again.
• You'll improve your writing skills from all that practice.
• It's a great sense of community.

Now you're probably thinking, if it's so good, why don't I join up this year? Fair question. I thought it over and here are my reasons for not participating in the A-Z for 2013:

• Rules and me don't mix. I'm a bit of a hippie and want to feel free to post on Sunday and miss Tuesday, I might also mix up the letters. This seems to irritate others.
• I don't sign up for bloghops that stick to one time zone. I live in Australia and post my Monday post when it's Monday here. I can't be bothered checking the time difference and adjusting. And I don't like to schedule posts. I like to write them and click send.
• While I LOVE getting new followers, I don't want people to feel obligated to follow because I stopped by their blog. Also, last year I found myself following a lot of blogs that were not on topics I'm interested just because it seemed the right thing to do.
• But mostly - I have a lot of writing to do. I'm rewriting two novels, working on short stories for submission, and participating in an anthology. I'm also putting together all my activities for the children's writing workshops I run. In the past I've found I get no writing done while I try to keep up with all the posts. It's not just writing the posts, but visiting the hundreds and hundreds of blogs.

So there's my wrap-up. I'll just blog once a week as normal during April, but I will cheer you all on from the sidelines and get to as many blogs as I can. Good luck! To sign up for A-Z, click the link below:

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2012-to-z-challenge-sign-up-list.html

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8 Ways to stay positive when the world says 'give up'

I had no idea what to blog about for this month's session. I've been so incredibly busy and working long hours on readying my next publication, DOGNAPPED? A Dog Show Detective Mystery, that I haven't had time to feel insecure. Then life had a good chuckle at my expense and provided a reminder that sometimes things can go wrong in gloriously disastrous ways. Sigh.

I won't go into the dull details, but it reminded me that even ditzy little giggle-heads like myself can get down sometimes. I've never been a very sympathetic ear, I'm always the one that wants to devise an action plan to tackle any adversities. So, instead of sulking (alright, I may have given myself five minutes to whine), I decided to look at actions we can implement whenever we're down. Here's mine:

1. It could be worse. I know, I know, that's bad luck to say. But it's true. I reminded myself that this issue was just damaged property, it's only a money issue. Everyone is safe and well in my house.
2. Meditate. Stress can affect your sleep and lack of sleep increases stress. I listen to guided meditation recordings I've picked up from Audible and iTunes. I turn the volume down low, focus on my breathing and pretty soon I'm all relaxed. They also help inspire creativity.
3. Write it down. When things turn over and over in your head, your brain becomes active trying to process what can sometimes be a problem on a loop. Even if you wake up at 3am worried about something, grabbing a notepad and writing down the problem allows you to go back to sleep. Your brain needs an action to be taken, this small action allows it to move on.
4. List the positives. If you've had a super-crappy day, list all the positives in your life at the moment. My list included finishing another manuscript, being offered a place in an anthology, invited to run children's writing workshops at a local bookshop/cafe and receiving heart-warming feedback from beta readers for Dognapped? Oh, and My Zombie Dog made a few extra sales this week. Listing positives can put the negative in perspective and remind you that life comes in waves with ups and downs. If you just ride the down out, you'll get another wave of gleeful times.
5. Make a Plan. A plan within a plan! What actions, regardless of how unappealing they seem, could you take to remedy the situation? Choosing to do nothing is still making a choice, it's just a passive choice that rarely helps.
6. Get over it. Sounds harsh? Whenever my kids are devastated over some loss (usually an electronic gadget), I tell them to imagine explaining their problem to a child suffering extreme poverty and life-threatening conditions in a third world country. This makes me feel too guilty to wallow in self-pity.
7. Laugh about it. It's not always easy, but humour lifts the spirits. I think laughing at our adversities is part of the Australian culture.
8. Do something nice for someone else. Can't feel sorry for yourself if you're busy helping others. Plus good deeds make you feel better.

There it is. My list of cheer-ups for those really cruddy days. Any extra ideas I can add to that list? I'd mention chocolate, but I think it's just become out of my budget (see, humour... yeah).

Speaking of doing good deeds for others, Nick Wilford has put together an anthology to raise money to help a young man with cerebral palsy attend a specialist college. You can grab the Overcoming Adversity for just $2.99 at Amazon, or check out Denise Covey's blog for more details.

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10 Tips for creating classroom resources to promote your novel.

Have you written a novel for kids or teens?

One way to reach your audience is through schools--lots of kids there!

How can you get your book into the classroom? One way is to offer author talks at your local schools--you can speak about the novel and offer a few fun activities for the kids. Another way is to create classroom resources that teachers can download from your website.

That's what I've been busy doing and I have a whole worksheet booklet prepared for download:

Click on the image to open the PDF

If you want to create classroom resources for your book, here's a few tips:

1. Make it a PDF, it'll be easier to share and download. I use Adobe InDesign for mine.
2. Include images. Straight out text can seem dry and boring. You want it look life fun! I mostly use Shutterstock for images, they've a huge range and they're cheap.
3. Check curriculum and syllabus requirements on the Education Department's website. I aim at years 6-7 English (novel studies, genre study and themes), but if you have a historical novel you might find it fits in History studies.
4. Include activities that enable students to explore their own opinion on topics. Don't just have questions where the answer is right or wrong. Allowing children to reflect on their own experiences and express their ideas is just as valuable, if not more, than testing information retention.
5. Relate to a variety of subjects. I include creative writing, essay, craft, art, puzzles, poetry and genre study in mine. This means teachers can choose to use your worksheets any time through out the school year.
6. Include games. I have doubts that a wordsearch really tests any skill. You don't even have to know how to spell to find the word. BUT kids enjoy solving these and they're easy to create. Just Google 'create your own word search puzzle'. You could include mazes, or crossword puzzles or anything that adds a bit of fun to your worksheets.
7. Promote your website. Every page should show your web address, or some way for potential readers to find your books. I list my www.charmaineclancy.com address on every page.
8. Prepare for sales. If a teacher loves your resources and wants to acquire a class set, are you ready with information on price (class sets can be up to 30 books, and budgets are usually tight). Can you offer a discount? How will you handle distribution?
9. Don't make it all about your novel. What? Isn't that the idea? No. It's not. You're offering a resource to enhance the education of children. My novel is a humorous horror for kids, so I include exercises on the horror genre that do not mention my book. Your web details will still be available on the sheet.
10. Create a link to your PDF on your website/blog. On Wordpress you can insert the PDF right onto your blog (I created a Wordpress page to host mine). There may be a widget for Blogger, or you could use Google Docs or Scribd. Place a link in your navigation bar. Make it easy to find!

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