Once Upon a Halloween...

As part of the WEP Blogfest, I'm sharing a Halloween-themed short story today. This story features Zane, Kev and Elise from MY ZOMBIE DOG in an all new tale:

Once Upon a Halloween

I lean in, the torch illuminating my solemn expression. Outside the wind howls and our tent rustles. It’s the perfect backdrop for my Halloween story. 'Once upon a time—'

   Elise exhales a dramatic sigh and makes a show of dropping her shoulders.

   'Something wrong Elise?'

   'S-boring Zane. Don like 'pon time stories.'

   'Yeahsh,' Kev agrees through cheekfulls of marshmallow. 

   My turn to sigh. 'Fine. A long time ago, in a faraway town—'

  'Uhhhghhh.' They complain in unison. A marshmallow bounces off my forehead.

   I point the torch at my little sister. 'Do you want to tell the story?'

   Elise shrugs. 'Spose to be scary.'

   Kev scrambles up from his sleeping bag. 'Zanie boy here doesn’t like scary stories—do you Zane?'

   Elise giggles.

   'He gets so scared he needs to leave all the lights in the house on when he sleeps.'

   This is totally unfair of my so-called buddy. It was one sleepless night, I’m really not that easily scared. The torch light dims and we are thrust into a moment of darkness. I shake the torch until finally the light flickers back on. Phew.

   'Wan a story with a sseep.'

   'A scary story with a sheep?' I ask.

   'Yeah, and a turtle.' Thanks Kev.

   'How is a sheep and a turtle scary?'

   'Zaaane.' Elise’s bottom lip pokes out.

   'Okay… One dark and stormy night a sheep and a turtle set out to cross through forbidden tunnel—'

   'Why would a sheep and turtle want to go through a tunnel?' Kev asks.

   'Because… they were meeting with a duck at the fountain in town. So anyway, they set toward the forbidden tunnel and the turtle says—'

   'Why’s it forbidden?'

   'Because there were rumours that a scary monster lived under it.' Pretty proud of that one, made it up on the spot.

   'Eh, that’s alright, but it’d be better if one year ago to the day a horrible, horrible murder took place right in the middle of that very tunnel.' Kev snatches the light and flashes it on his face. His ginger eyebrows are casting fuzzy shadows on his forehead and it’s creeping me out.

   I cough and nod my head toward Elise.

   'Wan’ scary hobbible murder story!' She squeals. 

   Great. She’ll probably have nightmares.

   'Ohh, I don’t know Elise,' Kev says, 'Zane might get too scared!' 

   Elise giggles.

   'Will not! I’m fine!'

  'You sure Dude? Remember what happened last time we went camping?'

   'That was ages ago, and besides, I told you, I just had too much orange juice.'

   'All right then… so the sheep and turtle approach the tunnel and the turtle’s saying how it was exactly midnight that the last animals were slaughtered in this very tunnel one year ago. The sheep looks at his watch—'

   'Hey!' I protest, but Elise shushes me and turns attentively back to Kev’s illuminated face. I try not to look at his dancing eyebrows. 

   'The sheep looks at his watch and says, Hey it’s almost midnight now. Well sheep are pretty stupid because they continue on into the tunnel, which is very, very dark. Halfway through they stop and the sheep asks: did you hear that? They listen and there’s a scraping noise along the wall. It sounds just like a sharp knife being dragged along the stones. Scrape… scraaaape… scraaaape…'

   I grab Elise’s arm. You know, just to make sure she’s okay. We both lean in close.

   'They try to run to reach the exit of the tunnel where they can see a slither of moonlight, but ahead of them comes that same scraaaape…. scraaaape… and they see…' Kev’s voice trails off into a whisper.

   I bite my lip and lean in closer.

   'What? What do they see?'

   Kev leans in too, so we’re all really close and he whispers, 'They see a shadow, it becomes clearer in the moonlight … and that’s when they notice its face…'

   Friday the 13^th stabbing music blasts from Kev’s phone.

   'Eeeek!' I squeal, I mean, I think it was Elise who squealed.

   'Zane scared!' Elise giggles.

   Kev speaks into the phone, 'Yep … no probs … I’ll ask.'

   'Dude,' he nods to me, 'it’s your mum, she wants to know if we want hot chocolate?'

   I look out the flap of the tent and see mum waving from the kitchen window. Sure. Hot chocolate would be good, may as well have it inside, no point in making her bring it all the way out here. I very calmly agree and slowly make my way up to the house.

   'Hey!' Kev calls after me, 'You don’t need to run!'

Find more spooky stories, or join the blogfest at:

Read More

Join the Spooky Blogfest for Halloween!

Denise Covey is hosting a fun Halloween blogfest. We might not be big on the actual trick or treating here in Australia, but we do like our spooky stories!

Want to write something spooky for Halloween? Pop on over to Denise's site: 

http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com.au/

 to join up.  You could write a story... or a haiku!

On my new site for kids and teens, I show how to write a spooky haiku - you can check it out at:

iTeenWrite

I'll be sharing a story here on October 30, and I look forward to reading a few spooky tales!

Read More

How to Write Better Stories

What really drives your story?

I'm going to share with you a secret that will knock your socks off. This tip will make your plot richer and deeper and... more meaningful. Okay, when I say secret, it may be that I'm the only one that didn't know about it before. But I'm still excited, it's made a world of difference for my writing. Alison Goodman, author of the well known series Eon, revealed this writing technique in her course on narrative structure. Goodman passes on this golden advice from Robert McKee, who outlined the method in his book on writing screenplays, Story. 

The importance of character motivation in fiction is obvious. Characters must want something real bad, this is their goal. Your character might even have more than one goal. They should have an existing goal before we meet them, you know - they want to travel the world but they've been stuck in a small town since they were born, they want to meet their prince charming but only meet pigs in the strip club they work in, or they want to be a rock star but their parents expect them to become a priest. This goal drives a lot of the protagonist's decisions. In Warracknabeal Kids, Harry Conner's existing goal is find his mother, or at least uncover what happened to her. But then something happens...

We have the sneaky old inciting incident. The moment that things change for the protagonist and their everyday life is shaken up in some way. The inciting incident may provide a new goal for your character. My inciting incident involved a fire and the discovery of a body. Now Harry has a whole new mystery to solve. 

I always thought the protagonist's goal drove the narrative. But that's a limited view. There's something missing here. If you want to have a character with realistic depth then they need more than motive. They must posses an underlying need.

This need is something your protagonist won't be aware of. And here's the kicker, it's this need that will drive your story, everything in your novel should in some way address the character's need. 

I was floored by this news. I always thought Harry NEEDED to find out what happened to his mother. She disappeared and left him alone with a father who can't connect with Harry. But when I explored the fact that Harry can't know what he really needs, I realised... Harry NEEDS to connect with his father. These two people need to find a way to be together, because Harry's mum is gone, but his dad is here.

Suddenly my narrative developed a new thread and theme. A stranger comes to town, and he was important to the story before, but now he is important to Harry as well. The charismatic stranger encompasses all the traits Harry wishes for in a father. 

Your character's underlying need should contradict or conflict with their goal or desire. The character who wants to travel the world, might really need to recognise the value in belonging in a small town and the satisfaction of living up to your responsibilities. They might NEED to stay.

When your story reaches its climax, your character should be facing a serious dilemma. It is at this time they need to make a difficult choice. Go for the goal or the need? This dilemma is resolved when your character manages to acknowledge their need and unify the goal and need. That is, either they will find a way to have both, or they will release their grip on one and be satisfied with the other.

Knowing about my character's need to connect with his father has added a theme of fatherhood to my mystery novel. Other characters in the novel either compliment or contradict this theme. The theme touches everyone in this town in some way. 

I've fallen even more in love with my novel and my very flawed characters. So here's what I want you to do right now, start brainstorming your character's need. You might not hit it straight away, keep going, you'll feel it like a punch in the stomach when you get the right one.

Read More

12 Key Rules for Writing

Found this re-shared so much on Facebook, I have no idea of it's origin.

Check out rule 1. I've learned something about the writing process recently. I know we've all heard the saying, 'writers write' and we're told to just keep the hand moving across the page. But this is more. My writing workshops often sing the praises of free writing. 15 minutes every day. But what do I write about? And I'm told not to think, just write. 

What a waste of time, I have a novel to write, I can't be dithering away notes about my dreams and what I need to pick up for dinner. Honestly, for about the first week, that's what I came up with. Random nonsensical stuff that did not contribute to my fiction at all. But then I started noticing changes. Now when I free write (every day, like a good little author) I find new plot ideas for my story emerge, or a deeper understanding of a character's motivation. 

Practice writing and you'll become better at practicing.

Of course you need to actually work on your novel too, otherwise you'll only become better at practicing.

Read More

Writing Fiction from Fact

Mummy collection visiting the QLD Museum

I've been bowing out of family excursions lately, choosing instead to hole up in the State Library to work on my manuscript. It's been very productive, but I think the kids would like me to join in. Yesterday they talked about the trip they would make to the Queensland Museum to see the Mummy exhibit. They asked if I would join them this time.

"Hmm, give me a plot involving mummies, then I'll need research."

"Mummified cat?" they try.

Pfft!

"Mummy comes to life?"

Now they were talking! So I went along, enjoyed the exhibit, made notes and have tossed out my war story to do a teen mummy novel.

Part of my May challenge has been to meditate each day. Straight after, I do some free writing, this has helped develop my story. Here's the blurb for my Mummy story (names and titles will likely change). I have no idea what the 'dark evil' will be, but figure there'll be some consequence to resurrecting a mummy...

Curse of the High School Mummy

Nim lives in the shadow of her big sister Isis, but that’s what happens when you’re related to a Queen and Goddess of Egypt. When Isis dies, fifteen year old Nimatehah is to be mummified before her time, just to keep her spoilt sister company in the afterlife. Only the High Priest, Jezzikah, shows sympathy for Nim and promises to perform the resurrection ritual.

She has no idea what went wrong, but her resurrection is three thousand years late. 

Zac Miller is on an excursion to see the museum’s Mummy exhibition. In his usual clutz manner, Zac bumps into a stand smashing an ancient priceless jar. The eternity amulet it contained falls straight into the mummy’s mouth. Before his eyes, Princess Nimatehah takes human form. Zac helps Nim try to fit into this strange modern world in return for help with his history paper on Ancient Egypt. Together they need to find the rest of the ritual to transcend Nim into a Goddess before a dark evil takes over the world.

Read More

The Writer's Notebook

My love affair with my notebook runs hot and cold. Sometimes I dive in and scribble away many times a day, then, for no particular reason, I put it down and struggle to motivate myself to pick it up at all. Today I'm using it to knock myself on the noggin and chastise myself into scribbling again.

After all, the notebook has featured as a writer's tool in about 20 of my blogposts, including my most popular post:

13 BEST RESOURCES FOR WRITERS

I also included using my notebook more as a New Year goal in:

7 TIPS FOR A WRITER'S YEAR

I have no excuses, there are plenty of notebooks lying around my house in all sorts of sizes, textures and designs. If anything, I think I have too many. I start new notebooks for each WIP (fair enough), I have a separate notebook to record how much writing I'm doing (little bit pointless at the moment), one for ideas and notes, one for dream journaling, one for writing courses, I have my iPhone app for when I'm out and about.... I could go on. I think it's easier to ignore your notebook when there's many. I'm scaling back. I'll still use my iPhone app when I've forgotten (gasp) to bring my notebook, but my idea-pad of choice is:

I love this notebook. I love the cream colour (the lined pages are also cream, that feels less mocking than blank white pages) and the way it's already a little battered. I'll just use headings to identify the different notes I'm taking: Ideas, Dialogue, Plots, Problems, etc. I let myself become distracted and now it's time to write again. What will I write? I think I'll start with my distractions, I might be able to grow something from these seeds.

I've been:

• Writing up Spanish worksheets for my language class (you can see them here)
• Having an icky lump removed from my head, which was gross, funny and cool. Gross, because the doctor showed it to me afterward (retch), funny, because halfway through he calls 'oh-oh!' and I think about how doctors (and pilots) should have a code word for 'oh-oh' - something like 'puppies', 'cause you don't panic when someone in charge calls 'puppies'. And it's cool, because the Yr7 & 8 boys at my school will love hearing my war tales and seeing the scar.
• Watching the new 'Sherlock' series on TV while reading the novels on my Kindle. Really like the show that brings Sherlock Holmes to the current day, but must admit it means crossing one 'new idea' off my list in my notebook (I'm very original, just a bit slow).
• Reading Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks. You'll notice my notebook has the optimistic number '1' in the top right corner, Agatha numbered all her notebooks. I hope mine head up in the hundreds.
• Biting my nails while my family and writing buddies read my finished manuscript, Dog Show Detective.

How's your writing goals going? Anyone else lagging? Can you turn your excuses into writing exercises or ideas?

Read More

Nature writes conflict scenes

The white-peaked roof is where we bought ice-cream in December,

while visiting my dad.

As writers we try to come up with the strongest themes and story-lines. Add conflict. Create tension. But no matter how creative we are, nature always seems to create a bigger, scarier scene with all the conflict you could ever imagine. It always manages to surprise and frighten me.

I always thought floods were slow moving events. The water gradually rises until it blocks of roads or fills your house, wrecking your carpet. I never understood that it could rush through a town wiping out everything in its path without notice. I've been shocked by the destruction, but mostly by the loss of life. There have been some tragic stories, and some very heroic ones. I've heard of people managing to save lives, only to lose their own. Parents sacrificing their safety for their children. It's heart-wrenching and I don't think you could ever 'create' characters like this. I'm sad for the survivors and proud of them.

As my dad's place has no power (he's up on a hill, so his house is fine, but just down the street the shops are underwater), he's been spending his spare moments writing (good on ya' Dad). He's about to become very busy in his neighbouring towns with the clean-up.

There are a lot of people helping out at this time and I found a Facebook group of writers doing their bit:

Writers Auction 4 Queensland Flood Appeal 

I thought I'd post the link because they will be holding an auction filled with books, writing and editing services - so you might find some useful goodies there!

Do you think fiction can ever capture the level of conflict that nature can create or the characters that emerge from these tragedies?

Read More

Steve Cole - Writing for all Age Groups

If we were starting to get drowsy towards the end of the CYA Conference day, Steve Cole was the perfect speaker to re-invigorate us all (even his eyebrows were super-animated as he mimed characters from his books!).

Picture from Steve Cole's website:
http://www.stevecolebooks.co.uk/steves-space/about-steve/

Steve was visiting from the UK where he writes books for... all ages! Many times in writing blogs and books, I've come across the advice that you must market yourself for one genre and age-group. This apparently makes it easier for publishers and agents to know where to place you. It was a relief to hear that authors can be successful writing many different types of stories for every reading age-group.

As a beginner writer, how can you find your perfect style unless you experiment and write varying genres aimed at different markets? Steve was an example of a writer that understood the available markets (having worked editing before having his own books published).

Literacy and how we approach it for different age groups was addressed. I was impressed by Steve's thoughts on 'Emotional Literacy'. If you are wondering what themes or feeling are appropriate for younger readers, Steve suggests no boundaries. Kids feel love, grief, anger, pride and so on, feelings do not change across ages, but understanding of those feelings does.

And adult and a child can both experience grief, how they deal with it and what they understand about their emotions will be different.

Steve took us through one opening chapter idea and reformatted it to suit three different age groups (tweens, teens and YA). What does that age group find scary? What things are important to them (parents, friends, mobile phones)?

When writing for young chapter readers, Steve advises making characters' motivations clear. You must reiterate, tell the reader what needs to be done, show the character doing what needs to be done, and, then explain what has just been done. He also recommends tying up ends as younger readers like a firm resolution to the story.

After Steve's seminar/workshop, I realised what my problem with Dog Show Detective was. I had the first three quarters of the book aimed at one age group, and the climax aimed at another. After whinging about losing a great ending, I finally 'killed off my darling' and re-wrote it to make it more appropriate (but being the miser I am, I'll save the 'thriller' end for another story).

This workshop was a great experience as well as being rather entertaining with Steve's pantomimes.

You can check out Steve's website and learn about his fantastic series about dinosaurs in outer-space!

http://www.stevecolebooks.co.uk/

I just ordered this great book about a Z-Rex (so much more powerful than the T-Rex!) for my dinosaur lovin' daughter:

Read More

L is for Links - lots a' links

L is for LINKS!

I've collated some fantastic links here on the craft of writing fiction, these links are focused on tips for writing - the do's and don'ts. They're worth bookmarking and reading through:

• Short Stories: 10 Tips for Creative Writers
• Advice on Novel Writing by Crawford Kilian
• Bohemian Word Werks - Writing blunders
• 8 Unstoppable Rules For Writing Killer Short Stories
• Writerisms and other Sins: A Writer's Shortcut to Stronger Writing
• How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method
• Ten rules for writing fiction AND Ten rules for writing fiction(part two)
• How to write a novel in 100 days or less - this is a calendar of tips and motivators

And... (because I didn't want to get left out) a link to one of my previous posts on opening lines:

Wagging Tales: Opening Lines and Hooks

L is for Love and I love followers!

Just a reminder that time is almost running out to enter the book giveaway contest - you get to choose two of the books I've found most helpful in writing and editing. I LOVE these books and want to send you a brand new copy! Just go HERE or click on the image below for the entry form and details - open worldwide but only to followers :-)

Share

Read More

Monkeys Need Love Too

I was thinking about emotions and how we reveal them in characters. Now I'm not a big romance novel lover, but I always assumed there would be lots of 'oh darling, I love you!' as the big climatic (he he - pun) ending.

In a recent post I talked about 'who-ness', the element that individualises your character from the others, you can see that post by visiting: James Baldwin and Character Who-ness, but today I'm thinking specifically about how characters express love.

LOVE. It's one of the big novel themes; finding love, losing love, loving the one you're with, love can heal all wounds, love is where you find it... etc and etc. Then of course there's romantic love, family love, friendship love and the love of a pet.

Love is a fundamental need. Harlow is well known for his experiments on baby monkeys, raising them in isolation chambers without a mother. Some of the babies were given terry cloths as a substitute and during times of fear those monkeys would cling to and hide behind the terry cloth, they would also hug it for support. Overall it was found that monkeys raised with a mother lived longer than those without. Monkeys need love too.

So all characters are in someway affected by love in their lifetime, even if it's from a lack of love, but how do you express that?

A good friend of mine was telling me that her father doesn't say things like 'I love you', he's just not comfortable with those emotions. What he does instead is always check if her car is running okay when he sees her, or when they talk on the phone he asks about her car. That's his way of saying 'I love you'.

My mother shows her granddaughters love by buying them loads of toys, she also supplies and endless amount of junk food and ice-cream follows every meal, in fact ice-cream usually follows ice-cream. This is her love.

Sometimes love can be revealed in unwanted ways, perhaps a teen character is being controlled by a mother and not allowed to socialise the way other kids can. But if you look into the mother's background you might find that she was raped as a teen, which explains her fear of letting her teenage daughter out at night. Now you have emotions that move the narrative forward.

So really think about your characters, can you think of any ways they express 'I love you' without words? Baking? Cleaning? Beating? (it doesn't have to be positive to be truthful). Share some of the odd ways they show love with us :-)

Share

Read More

Blame the Environment

What Does Your World Do?

I've come across some more insightful information about settings and worldbuilding that I wanted to share with you. You can see my recent post on settings here: Using Settings Effectively For Fiction.

Do you know why your story unfolds in the setting you've chosen?

• it seemed like a pretty place
• you live there, and you know all the locations
• it's a fantasy so you made it up

Any of those sound familiar? You might choose a setting for your own reasons, but WHY is that setting important for your characters and your story?

My current WIP is a mystery set in 1939 in a remote town of Victoria, called Warracknabeal. My reason for picking this location was because an interesting event occurred in this country town at that time. This sparked my 'what if' thoughts and a story idea formed. 

BUT, I could have easily changed the location to suit my story needs. I could have made the location an inner-city football club, or a Polo-club in England instead of the country town racetrack. Changing the location would change my characters, their motives and the way they interact with their surroundings.

I'm re-doing Holly Lisle's writing course How To Think Sideways and applying the steps to my current murder mystery, The Warracknabeal Kids. In lesson 7, Holly addresses the process of worldbuilding. Simply put, she suggests you can avoid a lot of superfluous writing when doing your pre-writing work in building your background world by asking two questions:

• Does this bit of worldbuilding create a conflict for the story?
• Does this bit of worldbuilding force a primary character to change?

Conflict and change. That's it. These are the elements that will add a good pace and interest to your story. The scenery, weather, culture, etc, it's all has to contribute to the plot.

Sometimes there is an obvious connection. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) protagonist's family hides a Jewish man in their basement, and the story explores how this both risks and enriches their lives. This is set in Germany during WWII, and without this setting the story would loose the strong tones of fear, defiance and hope it carries so beautifully. 

In the movie Avatar, we see the visual splendour of the alien planet's environment, not to show us pretty landscape but to make a clear binary for the destruction caused by the humans. We are technology, they are nature and the protagonist must choose a lifestyle because you can not infinitely pass between the two, something must force a change. And it does.

An important thing to remember about your story's world, or setting, is that it includes the location, time and history. A location's past contributes to the story.

Great, you know the setting needs to push the story forward but how can you find ways to do that?

James Frey in How to Write a Damn Good Novel suggests once you've made a decision to set your story in a certain time and place, you should do some research to provide ideas for conflict and subplots. For example, while researching Warracknabeal and Australian life in 1939 I came up with a few interesting elements to add to and push the story and subplots:

• The infamous Victorian 'Pyjama Girl' murder was still unsolved, but new information led to newsreels being shown in cinemas. 
• On the 13th January 1939, the 'Black Friday' fires affected approximately three quarters of Victoria.
• Films released in 1939 (I'll have to dig deeper to find when they came to Australia) included; The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver's Travels, Another Thin Man (a mystery) and Gone With the Wind.
• Australia was still recovering from the Great Depression.
• WWII would break out later that year.

Those are just a few points that I can work into my story. This is not just to give the reader a glimpse of country life in 1939, but to create an understanding of the characters, their motivations and their limitations. I like the idea of backdropping my story with the 'Pyjama Girl' investigations and updates, and the experience of the fires would have an impact on residents and may create a lynch-mob attitude to a firebug in their own town.

You could also do up a map of your setting and see what physical barriers and opportunities there are. Google maps is always a helpful tool for that. If you're at the edit stages of your story already, this is a good way to find ways to link the various plots of your story and to revise with setting value in mind.

Old picture of the main street of Warracknabeal

A movie clip I found about the early days of racing in Victoria:

Disappeared Racecourses

Share

Read More

A Linky Kinda Day

I was thinking about how pictures can be used as story prompts (something I like to do in class) and I came across this pic entitled "There's always one idiot to spoil your holiday snaps" in an environmental newsletter. It made me laugh and think about the classes I teach, there's always one kid like that seal, exasperating but delightful too.

I've decided this week is a Linky week, I've been spending a lot of time blog hopping (when I should be editing) and wanted to share some writer's links I've found.

Publishing:

Dreaming In Text Brian Keaney took the time to comment on my blog about self-publishing last week, and his site has many posts regarding this topic. This link will take you to Brian's posts on publishing.

A Newbies Guide to Publishing for the flip side, here is an author exploring what works when self-publishing on Kindle.

Editing:

NaNoEdMo If you've read previous posts from me you'll know I became a huge fan of NaNoWriMo this year, to the point of creating a lesson unit for high school English. NaNoEdMo is a separate site which starts in a few days and encourages you to edit a novel for 50hours in one month. I'll give it a go with my NaNo novel: The Costume Maker.

Story in Literary Fiction this site has essays on editing fiction.

Reviews:

I also branched out more this week and started reading more book review sites (usually I stick to the blogs about writing fiction). Reading reviews can help you find your market, see what similar fiction is out there and get direct feedback on what readers like and don't like in fiction. Here's where I was reading reviews this week for YA fiction:

Rhiana Reads the reviews here are quite honest and critical. Positive and negative feedback is given for popular YA fiction, this week was Evermore.

Teens Read and Write I think I was most blown away with how professional this site looks, makes me want to make mine a bit more snazzy now.  What better way to write YA fiction than to hear what YAs have to say about it?

Hooked on YA Books Blog on YA literature by YA.

Have a favourite link or blog about writing or books? Feel free to add the link in comments, I'd love to visit!

Read More