Tag: writing characters

Storyboarding Fiction

I went to the Southern Literary Festival in Blue Mountain, Mississippi at Blue Mountain Christian University this weekend. What I did was give a talk on how I constructed most of the stories in Hurricane Baby. It was often not as neat a process as this pattern makes it seem, but I did apply it to most of the new stories I wrote for this version of the book. I used the story “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” to illustrate the moving parts of the story.

SET THE SCENE: Answer the questions who, what, where, how, and why your characters are in whatever situation they find themselves in at the start. Always include action to bring the reader in. The reader sees Tommy wake up the morning after Hurricane Katrina, gets a sense of what he’s been through and where his head is at, and learns a bit about the character as well.

RISING ACTION: Get the characters moving. Show the reader what is happening in the world of the book. This piece of the story needs to set the events in the story in motion. Tommy Hebert gets a text message asking for people to come help a family in Mandeville. So he goes out on his boat and meets other men, his best friend Mark, and Mandeville cops who take them to the destruction.

MEAT OF THE STORY: You relay the most important part of the story here. This event should have the potential to cause a change in the characters who experience it. This is where the action is: this is where the heat is. In this story, Tommy and the other volunteers work to dig out Amy Thompson and her baby, Avery Thompson, out of the destroyed house. Tommy and a fireman are able to rescue the baby and get him to the hospital to be helped. But Amy Thompson has a heavy beam on her legs, crushing them–and Tommy finds out later that she didn’t make it.

CLIMAX: For me, the climax is not when there’s a big reveal of information to the characters and the reader. It comes when it’s revealed how the characters react to the big event/the meat of the story. In this story, Tommy is sitting in his house waiting on Mark, and a thirst for something to drown out Amy Thompson’s screams comes on him–and he succumbs to it.

DENOUMENT: The denoument is the fallout of the characters’ reaction to the climax. Tommy drinks three beers before Mark can get to him and starts a fourth as he comes in. They talk and decide Tommy’s in no shape to do the cleanup they had planned–neither physically nor emotionally. Mark leaves, and the reader is left with Tommy continuing to drink and the question of what happens next.

So this process is just one way to organize a story, but it’s been a very effective way for me to think about how to make all the events in a story/book fit together and flow naturally in a cause-and-effect manner.

No more book events in April as it’s usually a busy one for family in our house. Keep writing!

Revision Finished!

So last night I finished the last few issues I had discovered in Looking for Home at the first of January! I managed most of the revisions and took two sections out of the book–they were short scenes, and while I knew what I had meant to do when I first wrote them, when I came back around to them, the story was cleaner for me having taken those sections out. All done!

So now it’s the waiting game. I sent it out to six beta readers, which sounds like a lot. But I had many, many more people read Hurricane Baby through the years than that. And each person had expressed a desire to read it when I got finished. So there you go!

So what’s next?

Some papers for conferences are next in the writing queue. I’m thinking about trying to write a few craft articles, which I’ve never done, and shop them around a bit. I want to read more. Maybe think about the next book? Too soon? 🙂

I feel very satisfied with this draft as a draft–there are areas that need work, especially in the first section. So we will see what suggestions come across the transom! Have a great week!

MILESTONE UNLOCKED!

I finished this draft of my current fiction project Looking for Home on Thursday night!

I fought so hard to get to that last page. I realized halfway through the chapter that I was writing that I needed to scrap a planned final chapter on this section because where I was happened to be a perfectly serviceable ending in and of itself and heaping even more bad fortune on the character might seem excessive.

So I wrote over 2,100 words Thanksgiving night. So far the manuscript is just under 300 pages with 78,697 words total. And getting to the last page really was a fight–I knew exactly what image I wanted to leave the reader with; I just had to wade through some setup to get there. The characters were in no hurry to finish talking. I kept thinking, “Really? Another page? Do you really need another page?” and the answer was “Yes.” Until it finally wasn’t any more, and I was done.

I looked it up–I started on this project almost right at a year ago. I queried and shopped it at the HOMEGROWN conference on the Coast in February of this year and already have a press that may be interested based on that pitch alone. So that’s exciting to think about.

But I’m trying not to think too far ahead. I’m going to take out some time to rest through Christmas, then I’ll review it in the New Year and rewrite, then let some readers take a look at it.

In the meantime, I’m going to try to do a little reading, keep up with this blog, and keep hustling to get events set up where I might get more sales here and there. And keeping you folks up to date on all of that.

Off to relax until I start back to work tomorrow. Happy reading!

Writing Differently

I have been doing something very interesting. I am writing differently than usual.

I started off writing Looking for Home in the same style I did Hurricane Baby. A lot of immediate action, twists, and turns. And it was working for me because I was writing the end of the story, and it needed a rush to the climactic moment, and it was told by an impetuous sixteen-year-old girl, Cassie Beck.

When I began writing the beginning of the book, incidents that had happened eighteen years earlier, I still avoided much narrative–Carlton Dixon was also sixteen years old, learning how to grow into being a man in Tennessee in the late 1960s. A lot of his story was pretty action-packed as well because he rarely had room to think before he had to handle a situation. But towards the end, it turned somewhat more contemplative–more narration, more time in Carlton’s head with his thoughts about what was happening to him.

Then to bridge the two stories together, I worked on telling Merrilyn Beck’s story. Right away I encountered trouble==she was a well-brought-up girl, trained to make some up-and-coming young businessman, lawyer, or planter a fine wife. Instead she had fallen for Carlton Dixon, was pregnant with his child, and Carlton had been drafted into the Army. Merrilyn had also been molested at the hands of her father–an open secret in the family.

Merrilyn turned my tendency towards action on its head; she was a planner and a thinker. She considered her words and chose them carefully before she said them, even as young as she was at sixteen. The abuse had made it where she didn’t live in her body but in her mind, so that’s where most of the action was in her story.

I fought this. I wanted the story to be the same as the others. But once I finally figured all this out about Merrilyn, writing her story became much easier. So today’s lesson is to listen to your characters when they tell you who they are. Sometimes there are surprises.

Next Saturday I will be in Hattiesburg, MS at the Author Shoppe in the downtown area from 2:00-3:30 pm. Wish me well!

Mississippi Library Association 2024, Natchez, MS

Hello! This week’s book event took me to Natchez MS for the Mississippi Library Association meeting. We arrived Wednesday afternoon because when we made the reservations, we weren’t sure when the panel was. Turns out it was at 3 p.m. the next afternoon. I went with my hype girl MJ, and we had the best time exploring all the shops Thursday morning. Then after lunch, we made our was to the convention center and did a little networking around with the librarians and vendors at the event.

Our panel was called “Diverse Southern Voices in Southern Literature”, and we all three certainly had diverse perspectives and approaches to our work, so it wasn’t a misnomer. We each talked about our books and asked ech other questions, then opened it to the floor. We had a decent crowd–maybe 10-15 people in the room. The signing part fell through, so that was sad. But no matter–onward we must go!

Fridy me and MJ just toured a couple of houses and ate some fabulous meals. MJ loves all things books and literature so she made the best travel companion for this. We drove back yesterday morning.

All in all, I think the event was worth going to, and I handed out my bookmarks for Hurricane Baby out all over town. And I actually added about a thousand words to the work-in-progress as well. A great trip all around!

Progress!

I finally feel like I have a handle on Merrilyn Beck, one of the two female main characters in Looking for Home. I’ve been writing steadily for about a week now. I usually don’t write over 500 words at a time, so progress is a little slower than I like. But it’s finally become fun again! How did this happen?

First I had to do some serious mental gymnastics to convince myself that choices I made that turned out to be wrong for the manuscript were not a crisis now and wouldn’t be a crisis in the future. I have to get words on the page before I can decide if they’re the correct words or not. I can’t fix what’s not there.

Then I really let myself live in Merrilyn’s head for a while. How would she react to the events I had planned for her in the book? What could her possible reactions be? What did those reactions and feelings say about her character?

Finally I convinced myself that ultimately, I was in control of what happened in the book right now, and I know what I’m doing. I know how to write; I know how to tell stories; I know how to craft a narrative. (It’s not always true; the characters often surprise me and carry the action in another direction!) But I told myself I know these characters now and could follow the path I had envisioned.

So that’s what’s been working for me this week. Tune in next week and see how my Natchez event goes next Thursday!

Of Two Minds

I am realizing that I might need to take a break from my work-in-progress, Looking for Home. I’m in the last third of the book, and I suddenly just dread sitting down, opening it, and writing. There’s a multitude of reasons why I could be stuck–the other two sections were more drafted, while this one is not. The events in this section are hard scenes to write. The character goes from a teenager to a battered wife and on and on. I don’t think I have a handle on the main character in this section.

What I do know is I feel bored with it. And if I’m bored writing it, you’d be bored reading.

But there’s a really good argument to be made for keeping on. I only have a few chapters left before I have a full draft. You can’t edit and refine what you haven’t written yet. The discipline is the key–if you keep showing up for yourself, eventually you’ll break through. Always finish projects, Neil Gaiman said. You have to keep your forward momentum going. I felt this way close to the end of Hurricane Baby and pushed through because I had something to prove.

And that’s all very true, too.

But I no longer have anything to prove right now.

I do know I’m about to go through a time with my book launch where my mind will be distracted. I want so much to enjoy this time upcoming. Maybe making working on LFH only a sometime thing after going through the whirlwind of events with my launch.

Ill have to think some more. Any advice, drop it in the comments!

Break

I took an involuntary break from writing on my work-in-progress since my oldest daughter and her son came up here from Florida. I decided that spending time with them was more important. So that’s what I’ve been doing the past two weeks.

It’s not been wasted time. I’ve thought about the manuscript every day. I decided I’m going to play Merrilyn as a woman who knows what she wants but has to find sneaky ways to get it because of the volatility of the people around her. And that affects her by making her a volatile person, too. The idea is to take the Merrilyn of the first section of the book and move her to be the Merrilyn of the third section. That’s going to take some heavy lifting.

So I suppose I need to get back to work at some point, and it may as well be now. ‘Til we meet again!

What to Do When You Don’t Have Anything to Say

Just start typing. “I don’t have anything to say today. I wish I did but I don’t, I don’t understand why but the words just aren’t coming. Mabye I’m tired. Maybe I’m burnt out. Maybe I’m still thinking about the things where what my husband said made me feel some kind of way.”

Do you see what’s happening here? I’m problem-solving as I go. I’m sorting out solutions or answers or suggestions for what might be the root cause of the situation of not having anything to say.

Or you could get more specific–“Why am I having so much trouble writing from Merrilyn’s point of view. Is it that I don’t know her very well yet? Is it that I’m unclear on what needs to happen in this section to get from point A to B to C, etc.? is it because she’s never had a voice before, and she needs to assert herself–and that’s something you’ve always had trouble doing in your own life? Do you feel like she can’t assert herself because you have always had the same problem?”

Now I’m getting somewhere. Maybe if I just sit down and just write out what all happens to her in a rush, covering incidents from the next eight years of her life. Then I can fill in the details on another rewrite.

Just start typing and see what you have to say.

Progress!

If you remember, my current work-in-progress is a set of three novellas that tell a story of a young couple giving up a baby for adoption in the 1970s and the child finding them in the mid-80s. The final novella from the point of view of the adopted child, had been published in a novella collection, and the rights have reverted back to me, and I’ve been developing into a longer work. I started with revising the section that had already been published into something with more weight to it.

After i completed that section, I started on the first section, narrated by the birth father of his moving to Counce, Tennessee and meeting his girlfriend and how their relationship developed. I still had the original novel written in 2006 that I chopped down into the novella in 2017. I pulled flashback scenes from the novel to set up this first section and wrote more material about his life and . . .

Last night I finished the first draft of that section!

So tomorrow I will start on the middle section from the birth mom’s point of view about the years after giving up her daughter. And I have only a handful of half-bakes ideas for this part–I’ll be drafting almost from scratch. So that’s going to be. . . interesting. Definitely stretching my storytelling chops. I hope to finish it before Hurricane Baby publishes in late August this year.

So that’s my new goal. Wish me well!