James Phelan - What a Thrill

I attended a writers workshop on the weekend, hosted by thriller writer, James Phelan. This was my first workshop with ACT Writers (located in Canberra), it was a small and friendly group and James was very approachable.

James Phelan is an Australian Thriller writer well known for his Lachlan Fox series. James told us he makes sure each novel in a series stands alone and can be easily read out of order. In fact, James suggests reading his later Lachlan Fox books, because, like all writers, he improves as he writes and learns.

Always one to do what I'm told, I bought:

I've started reading it already. You can really learn how to increase pace and tension by reading a good thriller, I'm flying through these short punchy chapters.

You may also recognise the name James Phelan from his dark 'Alone' YA series. I picked up the first book to read (even though James totally blew the ending for me!): 

I love the sound of this one, this is what the back cover says:

Four Teenagers. One Destroyed City. Thousands of Infected Predators.

Jesse is on a UN Youth Ambassadors camp in New York when his subway carriage is rocked by an explosion. Jesse and his three friends, Dave, Mini and Anna, crawl out from the wreckage to discover a city in chaos. Streets are deserted. Buildings are in ruins. Worse, the only other survivors seem to be infected with a virus that turns them into horrifying predators...

Outnumbered. No sign of life. Just them. And you... ALONE.

I've also ordered:

In this book, James interviews writers and literary figures to discuss the craft and industry.

In the workshop James shared stories of writing and publishing and we looked at different aspects of writing Thrillers, such as pace, weaving clues and even script-writing. Now you may not be a 'Thriller' writer, but to me, all good novels must have thrilling moments.

Some advice James Phelan gave:

• Seriously consider using a pseudonym - once you get known as an author you can attract some followers you'd rather not have.
• In dialogue - the tag 'said' is most accepted by the reader and can disappear without pulling you out of the story. James does not like dialogue tags like 'pushed' (so if you're ever editing his work...)
• Look to classic examples for creating characters with depth. James favours the character Rick Blaine from the timeless movie, Casablanca. Rick gives us examples, hints and outright tells us what type of character he is (he never sticks his neck out for anybody) - but, in the unforgettable ending, Rick shows us just how selfless he can be. He reveals his 'true' character. (You can learn more about character development in a previous post: Prue Mason - Character to Plot Workshop)
• James prefers to use concise sentences and sparse language in his novels. 
• For a great book on writing structure, James recommends Robert McKee's Story:

I've just downloaded his course on audiobook from iTunes, but will check out the paperback as well (you can also get some of James Phelan's thrillers on audiobook).

Overall, it was a valuable experience and I hope to see a bigger crowd next time. You can find out more about James Phelan by visiting his website:

http://jamesphelan.com.au/

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Learning and Writing

It's been a busy writing time for me lately - and I'm loving it. Today I'm off to a writers workshop in Canberra on writing thrillers. Okay, my writing is for kids, but they like a thrill too.

This week I undertook the first module for my course Online Writing Books for Children and Young Adults through the Sydney Writers' Centre. The course offers PDF handouts and MP3 downloads. This week we looked at some beliefs about children's books and explored our own history with reading. We also had an exercise in writing, we wrote a vivid memory from our childhood and then rewrote it from a different character's point of view. It was a good way to explore different angles of the same scene. 

Have you had a scene which is pivotal for the main character but have a secondary character just sort of standing there? How about trying to write the scene from their point of view? It can give them more value.

Anyways I must dash to make my workshop, but here is what I wrote for my writing task (and probably not well edited so excuse any bloopers):

The Lie:

We are quiet because Miss Coombs is speaking and we love her, and we’re nine and afraid of getting in trouble.

Ever so carefully, I tear a lined piece of paper from my book. Then I start to write, asking Cathy about her holiday plans. I hope Miss Coombs won’t notice the scratching sound my pencil makes on the paper. I slide it to my left. Brian Smith takes it with a stupid grin on his face. He’s pulling some expression, like he’s smiling while someone punches him in the gut. Now he’s reading my note?

I nod towards Cathy and when he still doesn’t get it, I point at her. Finally, he slides it on.

‘My family is going to Scotland.’

I write back that I’m going to my Dad’s in Queensland. Slide.

‘Sounds boring’.

Some friend!

‘I’m moving up there, so I won’t be coming back’ – I lie.

That’ll show her.

She cries. Not just tears – big loud hiccup sobs.

Miss Coombs snatches the note. She calls me up to the front of the class. All the kids are looking at Cathy. Not me.

“Charmaine, did you write this?” Miss Coombs asks.

It’s hard to meet her steady gaze. In her hand I see the note. My palms feel sweaty.

“Yes Miss.”

“Is it true?”

I should tell the truth. I should.

“Yes Miss.”

Miss Coombs’ face goes all... weird, and she... hugs me!

I’ll tell the truth tomorrow, it’ll be fine. Won’t it? Miss Coombs announces my plans to the class and informs them we’ll be having a farewell party at the end of the week. Oh-oh.

* * * *

Girls are stupid. They ruin our footy games. We can whack Roger right into the ground and the teachers laugh, but tap Poppy Salvietti and you’re sent off because she cries. They’re always crying about something. Now we have to do dancing for sport. Dancing! Yesterday Charms was my partner, which is not too bad (better than the blubbering Poppy Salvietti). Charms is okay, for a girl.

Not that I like her or anything. Maybe I’ll see if she wants to play tag at lunchtime. I’ll ask. It’s no big deal. I’m gonna do it.

Slide.

Wha…? Charms just passed me a note. She must like me! What do I do? Okay, look cool. Can she hear my stupid heart pounding so loud?

There, gave her my best smile. She really digs me.

She looks… confused? Annoyed? I should read the note! My hands are fumbling, why’d she have to fold it up a zillion times?

‘What are you up to for the holidays?’

Huh? Not, do you like me, or, I like-like you. Maybe she wants to catch up over the break. I’ll bet that’s it. I bring back the smile.

Ow! She elbowed me! Now she’s nodding and pointing to McMurray, the girl that sits on the other side of me, Charms’ best... friend.

Oh.

I slide the note to McMurray and sit back in my seat. I’m just sliding notes back and forth. Great! Now McMurray’s crying! How do they ever make it through the day?

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Taking Writerly Advice

I received so much good advice on writing from the recent conference I attended, that I figured I should follow some of it! Most experienced writers suggested joining critique groups, writers associations and groups. 

This week I joined up with ACT Writers. Almost straight away, I got a groovy newsletter filled with tips, news and upcoming workshops - why haven't I done this sooner? On Sunday I'll be attending a workshop for writing thrillers, so I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.

Other advice I received was to continue doing courses in creative writing - sure thing! I've signed up for a course with the Sydney Writers' Centre: Online Writing Books for Children and Young Adults. This is my first week and I have to write a memory from my childhood, then I have to write the same scene from a different character's point of view. Also as part of the course, I'll be re-reading The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (on my Kindle!).

Other news for Wagging Tales - our first ever author interview will be coming up in October!

K.M.Weiland from Wordplay will be joining us and talking about her upcoming release: Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration. Be sure to come by and check it out!

In the meantime, I have plenty more advice to pass on from the writers conference 

:-)

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Emma Mactaggart SWOTs Writers

Get used to the idea of selling yourself

Emma Mactaggart did not speak at the CYA Writers Conference about how to write a novel, she talked about marketing yourself as a product. Emma knows a fair bit about marketing and self-publishing, she currently works on a project of publishing kids books written by kids.

As a writer you would be aware that it is no longer enough to simply write. You must turn yourself into your brand, because readers buy a writer, not just a book.

Emma suggests doing up a SWOT analysis. If  you're not familiar with this term, a SWOT analysis is a plan that a company will do to identify its strengths and weaknesses hoping to recognise any opportunities and threats they will be facing. It's simple, here's how you do one:

Simply divide a page into four sections with a cross (+) or draw up a chart with four sections and label each one:

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES

THREATS

Being as objective as possible, write up the skills and traits that you see as your own strengths as a writer, and so on. Here is an example of some of my own points I did for this exercise:

STRENGTHS

• Financially able to spend time on my writing
• Studies in literature and creative writing
• Social networking (Twitter, blogging, Facebook)
• Marketing background
• Working in education

WEAKNESSES

• Afraid of flying
• Not confident talking to strangers
• Start more projects than I could ever finish

OPPORTUNITIES

• Self-publishing more acceptable and achievable now
• Publishing for Kindle and e-devices is easy
• Internet for marketing
• Many Beta-readers in the perfect age-group
• Building contacts and markets online

THREATS

• Travelling by air may be necessary for promoting books
• Undoubtably, I will HAVE to talk to strangers, agents, publishers, etc
• Time management
• Confidence

Hopefully from the above example you can see the value in examining yourself as a product and drawing up your own SWOT analysis. You will see how some points will link with points in another section, for example, working in education (strength) means that I have beta readers available in the age-group I write for (opportunity). You can also use this information to overcome or avoid potential threats or problems, for example, knowing I have time management issues means I should schedule my writing time and stick to it. I can also overcome the potential threat of not enough confidence by taking on more writing courses (which I'm currently doing) and just put my work out there more.

Give it a try - do you find any points that surprise you?

If you would like to learn more about the talented Emma Mactaggart, you can check out her sites and blog:

http://speakers-ink.com.au/index.php/emma-mactaggart.html

http://www.boogiebooks.com.au/

http://www.childwrites.com.au/_blog/Child_Writes_Blog_Spot

So, besides my fiction, this is the product I need to learn to sell:

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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:

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Prue Mason - Character to Plot Workshop

A strongly formed character can tell his own story

One of the more interactive workshops of the CYA Writers Conference focused on how to build a story starting with a character. Prue Mason was our presenter and quickly got us started on an exercise she calls 'Wearing the Hat!' 

We started off by brainstorming some of the things we would want to know about a characters (such as gender, dreams, talents, personality, name, faults, place and era they live, etc) and then broke those into inner qualities and outer factors (fears, dreams and virtues belong to the inner character, whereas location, family and name are outer characteristics and influences).

Prue then handed us each a seven page worksheet and... hats. Yep, hats. Several hats in various styles and condition along with small containers hosting items such as stones or keys. The idea was we should get our first impression of the hat and work out what kind of character would wear it. I found this exercise quite powerful. I'm very visual (read: daydreamer) and had a strong image of my character in the worn bush style sun-hat.

The worksheet asks us questions about the character, including their birthdate based on an astrological personality. We then go on to explore the influence of the special item (mine was an old key), does it give your MC special powers, or help to solve a mystery?

Then the fun really began. We tried on the hat and interviewed ourselves as the character! I started to see a different perspective on my character and their situation.

From there, a plot started to form and we recorded our story ideas for this particular character. There were some great variations put up from the participants including:

• A female miner all butch but with a femininity she hides who needs to be rescued after a mine collapse, but, ends up rescuing the man sent in for her, and,
• A wombat well known for rescuing his national park friends from a bushfire.
• A young palaeontologist student who has the gift of seeing how creatures died when she touches their remains, comes across a colleagues body at the dig site and must help the detective solve the crime without revealing her 'gift'. (That one was mine, and I'll write it for this years NaNoWriMo, but must admit I'd just finished hearing about Sheryl Gwyther's story set on a dinosaur dig, so my imagination points are lower).

You can find out more about Prue Mason, her workshops and the books she writes at her website:

http://www.pruemason.com/

Want to have a go at the hat task? Pick a hat (try to go with your first instinct and don't think too much about it):

Or grab a hat from your own collections, you could always google something like: mysterious hats and see what you get!

Then, combine your choice with one of the following items:

• a key
• a scrap of paper
• a bloodied knife
• an expensive pen
• a dog collar
• an old book
• a folded photograph
• a ring

Now start building a character and see what story forms!

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Secrets of Sheryl Gwyther

My last post was about Angela Sunde and her new book Pond Magic, Matilda was so wrapped with this story she read it in just 3 days and has reviewed it already on Paper Dolls. For today's post I'll be digging into the writerly advice from Sheryl Gwyther at the CYA Writers Conference.

Sheryl spoke to us about her journey as an author and spoke about her books. Her latest, Charlie and the Red Hot Chilli Pepper promises to be a fun read for kids. But, it was when she spoke of her children's novel Secrets of Eromanga that I sat upright. A novel about a twelve year old girl on a dinosaur dig in outback Queensland? OMG, my eldest is twelve and guess what she loves more than anything else in the world??? DINOSAURS. Yep, Emily has since pre-school had paleontologist on her future CV. And, until her pre-teen years, she always had a room decorated with dinosaurs and fossils. I had to get a copy of this novel!

After Sheryl's talk I quickly asked her where I could get a copy and lucky for me, she had a couple on her. Sheryl even wrote an inscription for Emily and posed for a picture with her book. I can't even begin to tell you how much Emily treasures that book! She'll be reviewing it on Paper Dolls soon.

"For Emily, Aussie dinosaurs Rule!!

Best wishes Sheryl Gwyther 2010"

Sheryl's advice to writers included:

• STUDY the format of the genre you wish to write for. What works, what doesn't?
• Get first hand EXPERIENCE where possible. Sheryl volunteered on an actual dinosaur dig in Queensland.
• READ as many books as you can. I know, it eats into writing time, but reading improves your writing.
• Write DAILY. Anything. (Here's a previous post I did on Ways to Make Yourself Write)
• Get used to the idea that your manuscript needs many REWRITES.
• Acquire writerly friends (check - I have you guys!).
• Take notice of SUBMISSION GUIDELINES. Don't waste time sending your manuscript to the wrong people.
• Never give up. (I never will - which is why I'd make a brilliant stalker).

You can visit Sheryl's website and blog at:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/sgwyther/index.htm

http://sherylgwyther.wordpress.com/

http://sherylgwyther4kids.wordpress.com/

When our dog had puppies, just days after Emily's 4th birthday, she decided the first born was present and named her Fossil (after we suggested Diplodocus was a bit hard to call out at the park). There are days when I'm ready to make this mutt a real fossil.

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