Saturday Seven

What I’m Reading: the Host by Stephanie Meyer and The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (I’m about ½ way through both of them. Both are very good.)

What I’m Working On: I’m getting deeper into the emotions of the Slayer series – not just the book, but the whole over-arching series.

I’ve been absent this week because we’ve been doing the local Florida theme park vacation circuit. It’s too expensive to travel far this year. As a matter of fact, I’ve had to cancel my trip to San Francisco for RWA Nationals for a variety of reasons, but one being it’s just so expensive to travel so dang far.

However, I’m finishing up a Discovering Story Magic workshop online, and I’m signed up for another in September. I’m also taking Barbara Samuel’s voice class in October. I’m psyched about both of these because I know they’ll both be great.

Since I’m thinking about writing and improving it and how to do that (see the workshop/conference focus above), I decided to list a Saturday Seven: Seven things I’ve learned or rediscovered about writing this year.

1) It’s all about emotion. It doesn’t matter what the plot events are as much as getting the emotions true for your characters.
2) It’s all about characters. People calls stories either character driven or plot driven. The character emotions drive the plot. It’s all about the characters.
3) The antagonist has to drive the change in the protagonist. Your story should be set up this away.
4) Sometimes breaking the rules is exactly the right thing to do for your story.
5) Plotting is much easier if you’re open-minded.
6) Find a trusted brainstorming partner (or several). Listen to what they have to say about your story. Open your mind to all ideas. Let them simmer, then take what works for you and discard the rest.
7) The first draft always sucks. (At least for me……)

Happy writing.

M