Category Archives: Workshop Wednesday series

Workshop Wednesday: Memoir Writing

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

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I’ve been contracted to do manuscript assessments on quite a few memoirs lately, so it’s probably timely for me to clear up any confusion over what a memoir actually is and how to create a good one.

We can all look back over photographs of ourselves and see how we’ve changed as a person, but how do we bring those changes to life in an engaging and compelling way for readers? A good memoir is so much more than an extended CV, and for that reason I’d like offer advice on how to create a really memorable memoir! First let’s start with:

Definition: “A memoir reads more like a novel than an autobiography. While an autobiography often covers a long time period and provides many details, a memoir deals with events related to a specific theme. Examples of topics for memoirs may include recovering from an eating disorder, dealing with an abusive spouse, or what it’s like to live with a chronic illness.” Diana Harris

Difference between a memoir and an autobiography: “A memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked.” Gore Vidal

Purpose of a memoir: To make meaning of life experience and in the process, inform and entertain a reader.

Format of a memoir: Usually told in first person by a narrator who writes with complexity and layered thought – not just telling the events along with the accompanying emotion, but analysing them in retrospect.

Okay! Now that we’ve got the academic stuff out of the way, I’d like to put on my writing teacher hat and pretend you’re at one of my workshops. These are some of the things I’d share with you as being important in the development and drafting of a good memoir:

Memoir overview

  • Facts are not as important as the emotional truth of the scene and how you felt about it.
  • Memoirs are written less formally than an autobiography, conveying the “voice” of the author, whether that’s humorous, eloquent or blunt.
  • They are usually always written by the subject of the memoir.
  • They encompass only a portion of your life – focusing on the theme of the memoir.

Ways to generate ideas for your memoir

  • Go through your photo albums and let them trigger memories. Write notes of interesting events and what theme they might come under: romance, career, mental health, sexuality, etc
  • Read your diaries or journals if you kept them. Visit family or old friends and get them reminiscing.
  • Go to a school reunion.
  • Read your work CV and let that trigger memories of what was happening around your career.
  • Go through your mother’s cookbook if it’s still available or write a list of foods you ate back then. That will trigger memories.
  • Write a list called “Seasons” where you write every memory you have for each of the four seasons – sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures.
  • Make a list of ‘family stories’ that were handed down (struggling to find food during the depression for example)

Planning your Memoir Structure

  • The beginning should grab the reader’s attention.
  • The middle of a memoir shares important actions and details about the experience.
  • The end comes after the main action and needs to show what was learned
  • There should be enough information to make the reader care about the characters who feel real, but not so much that they’re bogged down with backstory or boring everyday details of meals, dressing, showering etc.
  • All scenes in the memoir should pertain to the theme.
  • Most authors will write in chronological order to build characterisation, momentum and tension, but examples of other plot structures are: writing in two time lines, skipping back and forth from childhood to adulthood, or writing an amnesia memoir backwards to the event that caused the amnesia.

Writing your memoir in draft

  • Show don’t tell. Use descriptive words and phrases, incorporating all the senses to make the reader feel like they were present when the action took place.
  • Include dialogue that shows feeling. In this case, less often means more. Include only the most important dialogue that has the most impact.
  • Feature a beginning that catches the reader’s attention. Hook your readers immediately. A few ideas include starting in the middle of the action, having the characters talk, beginning with a surprising statement or fact or giving some important background information.
  • Add sensory details. These are words or descriptions that appeal to one of your senses. Sensory details provide a complete look at the story and make your memoir more interesting.
  • Share thoughts and feelings. This allows readers to understand how the experience affected you, and what you were going through. Thoughts and feelings help build a connection to the narrator.
  • Reveal why the event was important. Writers share what they learned from this experience, building a connection with the audience. Writers want to evoke an emotional response from the reader.

As a writing teacher, there is naturally more I can say on the subject, and I’m happy to share that as part of my mentoring service (via Skype or phone) helping writers who need more intensive advice constructing or editing their memoir. I also offer a manuscript assessment service for memoir and most fiction genres, and this is a great way to find out what’s working and what could be improved in the manuscript you’ve already completed.

So whether your memoir is as intimate as a family heirloom or as public as a bestseller that inspires thousands, I hope I’ve helped you along the way in making it as engaging and memorable as it can be!

How do you build characterization?

13 Friday Nov 2015

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I taught a workshop on characterization over the weekend at the beautiful Gold Coast, and was thrilled to be able to meet the local writers and share some of the craft lessons I’ve learned through assessing over 200 manuscripts. At the end of the workshop, one piece of feedback I heard over and over was, “Thanks for giving us specifics to work on.”

On the drive home, I couldn’t help remembering the first time I’d had feedback on a story I’d written. The competition judge told me that my characterization was “thin”, and I remember feeling really confused, because to me, those characters were very real. I clearly had to do something, but I had no practical method of making my characterization stronger.

If only I could go back in time and tell that young writer what I know now!

Of course I can’t. But I can share my hard-earned craft tips with you: so the first and foremost (with both characterization and plotting) has to be Goal Motivation Conflict (or GMC as we call it in the trade).

gmc

Write this out for every main character in the story. I keep mine on a file card next to my computer so I can pull it out each time a character is about to step into a scene. I want to remind myself about what’s important to this character and why. Here are a few tips for filling it in:

1. Clarify in your own mind who your main CHARACTER is and give them the lion’s share of viewpoint in the novel (if it’s a two-hander, say a romance novel, give them equal share of the viewpoint). The more viewpoint a character has, the more their characterization develops through the Show Don’t Tell method.

2. Clarify early in the story what GOAL the character is trying to achieve, and ensure there are serious consequences (either physically or emotionally) if they are unsuccessful. This creates a high-stakes novel with a clear thread for the reader to follow through the story (NOTE: ensure all subplots either help or hinder the main character achieve their goal. If they don’t, the plot can feel loose and unfocused).

3. Create strong MOTIVATION for the character to pursue their goal. You’ll want to put obstacles in their path to create tension and reader empathy, but that will only work if readers believe in the character’s motivation to stick with the goal. The last thing you want is readers wondering “Why don’t they just go home?”

4. Create a balance of Internal (emotional) and External (physical) conflicts for your character to overcome on their way to the goal. The genre of your novel will dictate some of this balance. At one end of the spectrum, Romance novels are usually heavy on Internal Conflict, while Action Adventure tales tend to have much more External Conflicts and less emotional angsting.

My next tip is that CHARACTER TRAITS MUST SERVE A PURPOSE:

AidenTurnerToplessYes, well, of course I’d prefer it if this picture actually had anything to do with the topic, but I suspect it’s simply a good looking man with no shirt on. The things you find while you’re looking for content…

Anyway. Character traits. Don’t invent virtues and flaws for your characters unless they’re going to serve a plot purpose. If you do, your novel will feel loose and unfocused. If a character’s virtue is honesty, put them in a situation where they’re forced to steal or lie (for some greater purpose, of course). The take home here is: A strong plotline tests the character’s virtues and highlights their flaws. Try not to forget that.

And my final tip on characterization is on VIEWPOINT, sometimes called Point of View. The more you are in a character’s viewpoint, the more readers will learn about the way they perceive the world (what they actually notice of the world around them), what their biases and preferences are, what emotional baggage they’re carrying, etc. When you are delivering the story from inside a character’s viewpoint, the character’s internal life becomes obvious via their internalizations (thoughts) which Show Don’t Tell us why they’re doing what they’re doing and saying what they’re saying.

When unimportant characters come into the story, don’t give them viewpoint unless you absolutely have to (they have a piece of information to deliver that we can’t find out from inside the main character’s viewpoint). The more you hand out viewpoint in a story, the more you dilute characterization. You can’t bond us to everyone, so make damn sure you use viewpoint to bond us to the main character/s!

If you don’t understand what Viewpoint is or how to do it, please learn! Viewpoint is the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox. Learn it and use it carefully to craft your story.

I hope this is helps you develop your characterization. Naturally it doesn’t cover all the details I’d get across in a 2hr or a day workshop, but it should give you a few ideas to work with. If you have any questions, please feel free to pop them into the comments below. Cheers!

 

A short dream workshop with Sophie Masson

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Getting Published series, Uncategorized, Workshop Wednesday series

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I’m excited to be inviting Aussie fantasy author Sophie Masson to share some writing tips with us today. But first a little about Sophie:

Sophie portrait blue and redBorn in Indonesia of French parents, and brought up in Australia and France, Sophie Masson is the award-winning author of more than 50 novels for readers of all ages, published in Australia and many other countries. Her adult novels include the popular historical fantasy trilogy, Forest of Dreams (Random House Australia). Sophie has always had a great interest in Russian myth and history, an interest reflected in several of her books for younger readers. Her latest Fiction novel is TRINITY: The Koldun Code (Book One)

Sophie is also a teacher of writing, and her book By the Book: Tips of the Trade for Writers is full of practical and entertaining tips on the craft, business and inspirations of writing. From using your dreams to craft great fiction, to writing dream outlines to attract the attention of publishers, from knowing how to make the most of literary festivals to understanding how magical characters tick, from coping with reviews to being inspired by fairy tales, By the Book is bursting with practical, entertaining and illuminating tips on the writing life. Written by an author whose career spans more than twenty years and more than fifty books published, this book offers advice for writers both new, and not so new.

Sophie has very kindly offered to share an extract from the book:

A short dream workshop by Sophie Masson

From time immemorial, human beings have dreamed–every night we go into what one of my sons’ friends once referred to as ‘those brilliant eight hours of free entertainment.’ And from time immemorial, writers have used images or scenes from dreams, or entire dreams, to enrich and expand their creative work in waking life. I’m certainly no exception. My night-imagination has always enriched my day-imagination. Several of my short stories have started directly as dreams, for example, ‘Restless’, a chilling ghost story I wrote not long ago, began as a really creepy and unforgettable nightmare. Another disturbing story, ‘The Spanish Wife’, a vampire story set in the 1930’s, started as a dream in which someone said, very clearly, ‘No-one took any notice of him till he brought home a Spanish wife,’ and that turned into the very first sentence of the short story. Images and scenes from dreams have also gone into my novels, and in one case, a very vivid and intriguing dream inspired an entire six-book children’s fantasy series of mine, the Thomas Trew series. It’s not always fantasy or supernatural stories that have sprung out of dream-compost for me, though; everything from family stories to thrillers to historical novels has benefited from it.

Over the years, I’ve learned quite a few techniques on how to best use vivid, scary, tantalising or intriguing dream sequences in my writing, and how to investigate them for best effects. Here’s a short workshop based on some of the techniques I’ve developed over the years:

*Think of a dream you’ve had. Any dream. It doesn’t have to be anything exciting or unusual. Go back over the dream-scenes, as if you were a police witness being asked to remember an event. Who was in it? What did they look like? What were they wearing?

Were they people you knew or strangers? Were there any animals in it? What sort? What was the setting like? Indoors, outdoors? What could you see? Smell? Touch? Hear? Taste even? What were you in it—a participant, a helpless observer, a godlike figure?

*If you did something supernatural, like flying, what did it feel like, physically? (I’ve often had flying dreams and in them I feel a strong pull in the chest, arms stretching. Once I even woke up with what felt like an actual slight ache in the arm muscles—very spooky indeed!)

*Were there any machines in your dream? If so, what sort?

*Did anyone speak, and if so what did they say? Many dreams in my experience are like silent movies, with thought-subtitles and maybe some music, but a few have dialogue, even if it’s often minimalistic and quite enigmatic.

* Knowledge: Do you know why you were in that particular place, at that time? If you had some supernatural ability, did you know why? If there are interesting objects or gadgets in the setting of your dream, do you know what they can do, and why, and who made or used them? Backstory is very often missing in dreams, but is very important in a story, even if you only spend a few lines on it.

*Now, once you’ve written down as many descriptive details as you can about what was there in the dream, think about what wasn’t there, and write that down. While you were dreaming, did you know for instance why you or other people were doing things(even if it was a kind of weird dream-logic?) Did you understand the sequence of events? Was there a sense the dream was moving towards some conclusion, or just randomly jumping about? Motive, continuity and plot—all very important in actual stories—are often missing from dreams.

*Think of your own self in the dream, however you appeared in it: did you recognise yourself? Did you feel it was fully you or something that was only partly you, or a stranger? Did characters behave randomly? Character development is usually absent in dreams too though it very much needs to be present in a story.

*What about the setting? Were there things missing: for instance, if you were in a house, were there doors? Windows? Furniture? If you were outside, was anything odd: for instance trees growing upside down, or a wall of water appearing out of nowhere?

*Now put those two things together—the things that were there, the ones that weren’t—and you have the beginnings of a real story framework, where the wild imagination of the night and the more disciplined one of the day cross-fertilise and turn into something amazing and wonderful.

bythebookcoversmall_1Thanks Sophie! I’m so looking forward to putting these tips into action. If you’d like to buy a copy of By the Book by Sophie Masson, you can source it here:

Australian Society of Authors or via Amazon if you have a kindle eReader.

You can find Sophie Masson here: Website  Facebook  Twitter

And if you’ve every turned a dream into a story (as I know Stephenie Meyer did with Twilight) I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

Happy writing!

Writers: The Power of Viewpoint

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in Getting Published series, Uncategorized, Workshop Wednesday series

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Last year 7 of my clients were contracted for the first time by some pretty prestigious publishing houses. In the current publishing climate that deserves a Wahoo! But it also warrants a bit of analysis. Why did those 7 manuscripts get across the line and not manuscripts from the other 15 clients who I either mentored or did manuscript assessments for. In a word, their strength was…

Viewpoint.

Each of those 7 ‘lucky’ authors had a strong grasp of viewpoint hold (sometimes called point of view) and as a result their characters came alive on the page. We saw the world through the filter of the character’s senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing) and were privy to the character’s internal life (thoughts and feelings) which revealed inner conflicts that upped the ante of the external conflicts the character was already facing. Each genre has it’s own formula for how much of the character’s internal life should make it onto the page. Action adventure novels at the low end, romance and women’s fiction at the high end. But wherever your novel fits into that spectrum, you do need to understand and use viewpoint to make us care enough about your characters to read a whole book about them.

I recently assessed a manuscript that had viewpoint problems and I’d like to share here a small section of that report:

iStock_000017868898XSmallTo create an internal life for the characters and thus build characterization, we need to know what characters are thinking and feeling. If the majority of the novel is action and dialogue with hardly any thoughts and feelings expressed, it doesn’t help us get to know your characters. And if we don’t know him and care about his journey, why should we bother to read about it?

The proviso here is that you only give us the thoughts of the character who has viewpoint at the time. Stay deep in their thoughts, feelings, physical reactions, to help us bond with them and feel as if we are them for the period of time that we’re reading.

We need to feel the character’s fear, not just see the circumstances that would inspire fear. And I don’t mean to write He was scared. In a story written for adults you have to pull us into the character’s emotions by ‘showing’ them, not ‘telling’ us about them. Does his pulse jump when he’s excited? Does his heart slow when he’s scared? Does it thump unevenly when he’s terrified? Can he stride when he’s confident and stagger when he’s overwhelmed? Show us how his emotions affect him, and above all keep us in the loop with his thoughts. Not just thoughts about what’s happening right now.  Memories, and visualizations of what you think the future may hold, both have the power to evoke emotion. You need to create a depth to the story because action and dialogue just skims the surface of the character’s experience of what’s happening. You have to make us feel if you want us to care!

Whenever I meet agents or publishers and ask them what they’re looking for, they always give me some version of “An interesting story with characters that I care about.” Every time. Interesting story (plot). Characters I care about (characterization).

Your number one tool to build characterization is viewpoint. Learn it (there are heaps of resources on the internet to help you and I’ve got one on my website here). Practise it. Get published!

Workshop Wednesday: The Chemistry of Reading

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

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nikki_loganToday’s Workshop Wednesday guest is Nikki Logan, talking about her book The Chemistry of Reading which she’ll also be giving a seminar on at WRITEFEST in Bundaberg on 18th May, 2013.

But before we get to that, here’s a snippet of info about the author:

Nikki Logan is the President of the Romance Writers of Australia (Inc). She writes nature-based romance for Harlequin Enterprises and Entangled Publishing and has published sixteen books in addition to her craft book ‘The Chemistry of Reading’. Visit her at: http://www.nikkilogan.com.au 

Louise: I’ve attended Nikki’s seminar on The Chemistry of Reading at the Romance Writers of Australia conference and found it fascinating (must-hear info for writers) and am thoroughly looking forward to attending Writefest in May to revisit the info.  But without further ado, here’s Nikki…

WriteFest 2013 – The Chemistry of Reading (Nikki Logan)

I write full-time in the world’s most commercial of commercial fiction genres, romance. But I cling to my two-day-a-week ‘day job’ to make sure the basic bills get paid because, more than most, I know the difference between writing full time and writing for a living.

To make a living, commercial fiction writers need to build a following large enough to guarantee repeat readership. They need to be prolific, consistent and visible if they want to hold—and grow—their readership but above all they need to engage and excite readers. Readers are fickle and easily swayed by the next good looking book that buys them a drink, and so the mechanism that bonds a reader and an author’s work together needs to be much deeper than just a conscious ‘reader loyalty’.

Ideally, it needs to be cell deep.

The key to that level of cellular-engagement is arousal.

In 2011, I was asked to present in the romance stream of SwanCon/NatCon50. I planned a short examination of the different ways readers can be aroused by fiction. The visceral arousal of a good thriller, the emotional arousal of a romance, the intellectual arousal of a mystery/intrigue novel, the sensual arousal of erotic fiction or the creative arousal of an interplanetary fantasy.

As I got deeper into my topic, I realised that I was only telling part of the story. Before I could look at the technical aspects of how to increase the arousal of your readers, I had to examine why you would want to. And before why, it was important to understand what you were trying to achieve. What was it that happened, chemically and biologically, in the body that fuelled engagement and fed arousal.

And what I found was fascinating. A world of mirror-neurons, insatiability, and experiential ranking, and some of the most ancient, base functions of our bodies being utilised in the commission of one of our most modern, cerebral ones—reading.

And so my workshop ‘Arousing your Reader’ became ‘The Chemistry of Reading’.

I hunted the internet for papers and websites and books relating to the body’s physical response to reading, pulled what I could together, chewed it up and regurgitated it first into a presentation and then into a how-to book – ‘The Chemistry of Reading: Arousing your Reader’. The book seeks to help us understand how reading impacts on the human brain and how to make the most of that knowledge to enrich and empower your own writing.

In essence, how to have someone sitting up in bed at 2am on the morning of an important meeting ‘finishing the damn book’.

Your damn book.

Chemistry cover_lizardAt WriteFest I’ll be presenting a live 90-min version of this workshop (and the how-to) and taking participants through some practical workshop examples to show the theory in action on a couple of commercial blockbusters. Come along if you’re interested in how you can, as a writer, exploit the basic biology of the reading experience.

But if you can’t make it (or if you can’t choose between awesome WriteFest sessions), check out The Chemistry of Reading: Arousing your Reader instead. It’ll be the best $2.99 you’ll ever spend on your writing.

Louise:  Thanks Nikki. I’m looking forward to catching up with you over the Writefest weekend. If anyone has any questions for Nikki about her book or about Writefest, please drop them into the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

And if you’re interested in other Workshop Wednesday topics, the full list is here.

Workshop Wednesday: Worldbuilding with Rowena Cory Daniells

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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Today’s Workshop Wednesday guest is Rowena Cory Daniells, sharing her top tips on fantasy worldbuilding.

Rowena is the author of the best selling King Rolen’s Kin trilogy. Her new fantasy trilogy The Outcast Chronicles has just been released. And she has a gritty crime-noir also just released, The Price of Fame.

Rowena has an impressive publication list of fantasy titles, and once you begin reading it’s hard to stop. They’re addictive stories!

Readers adore her worldbuilding, and we’re lucky to have her here sharing her insights into the process:

World Building and the Flypaper-mind

Building secondary/created worlds gives you the chance to put your characters through experiences that force them to grow and adapt. Your readers go along with your characters on this journey, but only so long as your world building hangs together. If, at any time, the reader spots an inconsistency, they’ll stop reading to think about it. The moment they do this, you’ve broken the ‘Willing Suspension of Disbelief’. Once you’ve lost them, it’s twice as hard to win the reader back. So world building is important.

World Building requires a broad knowledge of societies throughout history. In fact…

What you need is a mind that works like flypaper. When I was a kid we didn’t have fly screens on our windows and in summer you couldn’t keep the windows shut so flies were a problem. My grandmother would hang a flypaper strip in the kitchen. It was coated with something that flies thought smelled nice so they would land on it and get stuck. (I was going to include picture but it would probably put you off your dinner).

When I say you need a ‘flypaper mind’, you need the kind of mind that remembers interesting/quirky/worrying things. For instance, in some New Guinea tribes it was the custom for female members of the family to mourn for dead relatives by cutting off part of a finger from the joint up. By the time they become old women, their fingers are just knubs.  I don’t remember where I read this, but it stuck with me. I haven’t used it in a story, but when I do, I’ll give it a slight twist. The underlying theme will be the same — the high price of ritualised mourning — but it will be consistent the world and society I create.

To create interesting secondary worlds you need to have a broad general knowledge, packed with all the weird, wonderful and worrying things human beings have done over the years. This means that while you are writing, things will spring from your subconscious contributing towards a richer world.

Your created world must be logical, but not too logical. As a species we aren’t particularly logical. It’s only in the last hundred years that half the population could vote and get an education, only in the last fifty years that equal pay for equal work was made law. (And this is only in first world countries).  It is those little illogical things that remind us ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’.  Your characters will believe the way they live is normal because they have grown up in their society.

And it is hard for us as writers to step outside our society. If you read science fiction and fantasy books from the 1950s, you’ll find that attitudes of the characters often reflect society’s attitudes. Try reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick. (The movie Bladerunner was based on this book). By researching history and other societies, you can glimpse how people have lived and are living even now.

Research is wonderful and a great place to start. If you are list-minded you can build your world from the ground up. There is no way I could do justice to the breadth of what must be considered to World Build in this short post. I recommend Patricia C. Wrede, who has done a brilliant job over on the SFWA site (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America). Here’s the link and from this page you can go through: The World, Physical and Historical Features, Magic and Magicians, Peoples and Customs, Social Organisation, Commerce, Trade and Public life and Daily life (All with subheadings of their own!).

When a reader comes to a fantasy trilogy, it is like taking an adventure holiday with the characters. They have to care about the characters and the world needs to be interesting, so take the time to work on your world building.  Read about other times and other societies because you never know when you’re going to come across an interesting fact that sticks in your mind.

Louise:  Thanks for fascinating perspective on World Building, Rowena. I’m sure beginner fantasy authors and experienced writers alike will have picked up ideas to help them create realistic fantasy worlds that stick in readers minds. If anyone has questions or insights of their own about World Building, please drop them as comments below and add onto the conversation.  We’d love to hear what you think.

And if you’re interested in other Workshop Wednesday topics, the full list is here.

Workshop Wednesday: Write What You Know with Katherine Howell

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Today’s Workshop Wednesday guest is best selling crime novelist Katherine Howell, sharing her tips on how to use the details of your life to enhance the authenticity of your fiction. But before we get started, here’s a snippet of bio:

Katherine Howell worked as a paramedic for fifteen years and uses that experience in her bestselling crime novels, the sixth of which will be released early in 2013. Her books have won awards and are published in multiple countries and languages, and in print, e-book, and audio form. Katherine holds two degrees in writing and is studying female doctor investigators in crime fiction for her PhD at the University of Queensland. She teaches workshops in writing and editing, and lives in Queensland with her partner, who owns a bookshop.

Katherine’s latest release is Silent Fear:

On a searing summer’s day paramedic Holly Garland rushes to an emergency to find a man collapsed with a bullet wound in the back of his head, CPR being performed by two bystanders, and her long-estranged brother Seth watching it all unfold.

Seth claims to be the dying man’s best friend, but Holly knows better than to believe anything he says and fears that his re-appearance will reveal the bleak secrets of her past – secrets which both her fiance Norris and her colleagues have no idea exist, and which if exposed could cause her to lose everything.

Detective Ella Marconi suspects Seth too, but she’s also sure the dead man’s wife is lying, and the deceased’s boss seems just too helpful. But then a shocking double homicide related to the case makes Ella realise that her investigations are getting closer to the killer, but also increasing the risk of an even higher body count.

I’ve read and loved several of the Ella Marconi series and am looking forward to this latest edition!  But without further ado, here is Katherine’s advice on adapting your experience into fiction…

Katherine: My first novel, Frantic, was published in Australia in 2007 and features police detective Ella Marconi alongside paramedics. It’s been followed by four more novels, and each continues the angle of using paramedics as protagonists, something that not only provides a point of difference for the books but also draws on my experience of doing that job for fifteen years.

I’m often asked about the process of turning that real-life experience into fiction and I always answer that it wasn’t easy. I initially resisted the idea and instead wrote bottom-drawer manuscripts about – variously – cults, forensic science students, and cops chasing a killer with assistance from a ghost. When I did finally recognise the drama and story value in the job, my first attempts to put it on paper overflowed with my grief and anger about the situations I faced daily and the people I tried to save. It took counselling and my eventual resignation to manage these emotions, and even then it was months before they disappeared completely from my writing. Once that happened, however, I was faced with the next problem: how to use these paramedic stories in the procedural crime series I wanted to write.

I’d wanted to have a paramedic as my protagonist, but couldn’t see how to have her plausibly solving crime. Over time I realised I needed a police detective; a scary thought at first, because I felt a huge gap in my knowledge—I knew the paramedic’s world so well, it seemed wrong to not have the same understanding of the detective’s. I wanted to be true to these jobs, and to not know it all made me think I couldn’t do it justice. I saw, however, how many crime novels are written by non-cops (ie, most of them), and decided to give it a try.

This then brought up another problem: to me, being true to the job of paramedic meant putting in every moment of a case, every question and answer, every action, every step of treatment. But as my manuscript grew longer, with scenes rolling on interminably for pages, it was clear this wouldn’t work. I reread a heap of crime novels, analysed how the authors delivered information, and saw that I needed verisimilitude rather than total adherence to the facts. The real-life details were like a garnish, to be sprinkled in here and there to add flavour and impact. Too much of it overwhelmed the most important elements of all, the reasons people pick up a book: characters and story.

I went back to the start of the manuscript and changed how I incorporated my experiences, and finally saw the work come alive. Months of hard work later, and a year after I quit that job, the ms sold as part of a two book deal to Pan Macmillan, and as I write now I keep the ideas of ‘detail is garnish’ and ‘story is king’ foremost in my mind.

Louise:  Thanks Katherine!  Great to see the process of adapting your career experience into best selling crime novels. If anyone has questions for Katherine, or has used their own life experience in fiction, we’d love to hear about it. Just drop in a comment below.

And if you’re interested in other Workshop Wednesday topics, the full list is here.

Workshop Wednesday: Productivity 101 for Writers

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Today’s Workshop Wednesday guest is Marianne de Pierres, sharing her tips on how to have a productive writing career.  Marianne is one of the most productive writers I know.  In the last ten years she has produced 3 Paranormal Crime novels (Sharp Shooter, Sharp Turn, Stage Fright), a teen dark fantasy series called Night Creatures (Burn Bright, Angel Arias, Shine Light), 1 comic (Peacemaker), 7 sci fi novels (the acclaimed Parrish Plessis and award-winning Sentients of Orion series. Note: the Parrish Plessis series has been translated into eight languages and adapted into a roleplaying game) plus 1 science fantasy short story collection (Glitter Rose).  Phew!  I feel exhausted just typing all that!

But before we get to Marianne’s productivity tips, here’s a snippet of info about her: Marianne de Pierres is the author of all the titles mentioned above.  She is also an active supporter of genre fiction and has mentored many writers. She lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband, three sons and three galahs. Marianne writes award-winning crime under the pseudonym Marianne Delacourt. Visit her websites at www.mariannedepierres.com and www.tarasharp.com  and  www.burnbright.com.au.

Marianne’s upcoming (November) release is Shine Light (Book 3 of the Night Creatures trilogy)

Can Naif Shine Light in the darkness? Read the thrilling conclusion to the Night Creatures trilogy to find out . . .
Ixion. The island of ever-night. 
If she had a choice, Naif wouldn’t go back. But her friends will die if she doesn’t find a cure for the badges that are slowly killing them, and her brother is there, fighting against the Ripers who hold everyone in thrall. And Naif has knowledge that might save them all.
First she must solve the mystery of Ixion’s eternal night. Then she must convince everyone – rebels and revellers alike – to join her cause. And all the while, she must fight the urge to go to Lenoir – her greatest love, her mortal enemy. 
The secrets of Ixion must be revealed. The evils must be stopped. A new dawn will come.

I’ve read and loved Burn Bright and Angel Arias and am thoroughly looking forward to reading Shine Light when it comes out in November!  But without further ado, here are Marianne’s…

Top Tip for Productivity:

There are so many wonderful sites around with detailed, extensive writing tips, so I’ve provided links to some of my favourites. I’ve also listed my simple but *golden* rules for writing. These are the things that have kept me consistently published and productive.

  • Finish what you start

There is absolutely no point, that I can think of, having scores of unfinished literary masterpieces in your files. Make a point of finishing what you start. This can be very difficult in the beginning as you learn the technique for seeing a story through to the end. Persevere.

  • Put your work away for a while before you send it out

I cannot emphasize enough, how a story can benefit from being left to mature before re-working –  and believe me, I’m the most impatient person in the history of the world.

  • Seek professional development

Never cease trying to improve. Search out opportunities.

  • Learn how to take constructive criticism

Constructive criticism is your key to success. Surround yourself with people who can give it.

  • Be consistent

Novels take time. Develop the habit you need to produce enough words.

Links to Writing Advice Worthy of your Time

Resources

If you’re an Australian writer then you NEED a copy of the Australian Writer’s marketplace.

Louise:  Thanks Marianne. Sometimes writers get so caught up they can’t see the forest for the trees, so it’s refreshing to have simple yet profound tips to keep a writing career on track. Many thanks for taking the time to share them. If anyone else has productivity tips they’d like to share, please drop them as comments below and add onto the conversation.  We’d love to hear what you think.

And if you’re interested in other Workshop Wednesday topics, try: Deep Point of View, Writers working with the Media, From Writing Contest to Contract and Characterisation with Dr Kim.

Workshop Wednesday: Characterisation with Dr Kim

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Today’s Workshop Wednesday guest is Kim Wilkins (aka Kimberley Freeman) sharing her tips on how to develop characterisation.

Firstly, here’s a little about our guest today: Kim Wilkins was born in London, and grew up at the seaside north of Brisbane, Australia. She has degrees in literature and creative writing, and teaches at the University of Queensland and in the community. Her first novel, The Infernal, a supernatural thriller was published in 1997. Since then, she has published across many genres and for many different age groups. Her latest books, contemporary epic romances, are published under the pseudonym Kimberley Freeman. Kim has won many awards and is published all over the world. She lives in Brisbane with a bunch of lovable people and pets.

Kim’s upcoming release is Lighthouse Bay:

1901: Isabella Winterbourne has suffered the worst loss a woman can know. She can no longer bear her husband nor his oppressive upper-class family. On a voyage between London and Sydney to accompany a priceless gift to the Australian parliament, Isabella is the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the sun-drenched Queensland coast. But in this strange new place, she finds she cannot escape her past quite as easily as she’d hoped.

2011: A woman returns from Paris to her beachside home town to reconcile with her sister. But she, too, has a past that is hard to escape and her sister is not in a mood to forgive her. Strange noises at night and activity at the abandoned lighthouse raise her curiosity, and she finds herself investigating a century-old town mystery.

Nothing better than a good mystery! I’ve loved all the Kimberley Freeman novels and am really looking forward to this release. And to show that Kim can not only write beautifully, but is an amazing teacher as well, here are her top characterisation tips:

Four ways to get to know your characters

When embarking on a story, writers often agonise over their characters. It takes a while for a clear sense of them to emerge, and they seem always poised to fall into stereotype. Try these methods to flesh your characters out.

1. Fears and desires

To start with, you need to know the character’s greatest fear, and their greatest desire. These are what I call the “big engines” that drive characters at a fundamental level. But don’t ask your characters to tell you, as often they won’t even know what their greatest fears or desires are, let alone be able or willing to articulate them. Those things might be secret, or unacknowledged, or repressed. (Yes, yes, I know they’re not real people).

2.  To list or not to list?

How-to-write books often suggest that you make lists of character traits. While there’s no great harm in doing this, these abstract facts are meaningless in themselves. If you decide that your protagonist is a Catholic socialist whose favourite colour is yellow, you don’t necessarily know him or her any better. Far more interesting is the character’s relationship with those traits. That is, how does the character feel about being a Catholic and a socialist? Does he talk about socialism in church? And how does yellow make him feel? What associations does it have for him? Use character traits as prompts to think about deeper complexities.

3. Off-stage life

Sometimes you’ll read a book where it seems the characters pop out of the box for their scenes, then go back into it when they’re not required. Instead, aim to give a sense that the characters have something to do when they’re not “on-stage”: that way they seem real and textured. Photocopy a blank diary page and nut out—hour by hour—what your character does in a typical week. Sure they will sleep: but how long? What time do they get up? Do they work? What kind of tasks do they perform? Do they eat regular meals? And so on. You can gain great insight into a character this way, even if you never use most of the information you create.

4. Write your way in

Really, the best way to understand your characters is to write about them. It’s like any relationship: spending extended time with somebody is the only authentic way to get to know them, and it can’t be forced. You must be brave enough to write your way into their heads and hearts, and trust that by the end of the story you’ll know them well enough to come back and fix the beginning.

Louise: Great advice! I can heartily recommend all those methods, and my favourite is simply to write the characters and see what they reveal to me. If you’ve got characterisation tips you’d like to share, or would like to comment on one of the methods above, please drop in a comment below. I’d love to keep the conversation going.

And if you’re interested in other Workshop Wednesday topics, try: Deep Point of View, Writers working with the Media and From Writing Contest to Contract.

Workshop Wednesday: From writing contest to contract

01 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Today’s Workshop Wednesday guest is Harlequin romance author Helen Lacey sharing her tips on how to use writing contests to snag a book contract.

Firstly, here’s a little about our guest today: Helen Lacey grew up reading Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables and Little House on The Prairie. These childhood classics inspired her to write her first book when she was seven years old, a story about a girl and her horse. She continued to write with the dream of one day being a published author, and writing for Harlequin Special Edition is the realization of that dream. She loves creating stories about cowboys and horses and heroines who get their happily ever after.

Her latest release (available for pre-order from Amazon) is:

Marriage under The Mistletoe – Harlequin Special Edition November 2012

HE’S SO WRONG FOR HER, HE JUST MIGHT BE THE ONE

Strong. Sensible. Dependable. That was Evie Dunn’s type. Certainly not young, fearless gorgeous firefighter Scott Jones. She knew the wisest course was to keep her distance, but she couldn’t resist the allure of a holiday fling. Now the widowed single mom found herself with an unexpected post-Christmas gift – she was having Scott’s baby!

Scott came to Crystal Point to see his sister tie the knot, not fall for the alluring owner of the town’s oceanfront B and B. He knew he was all wrong for Evie, but he would do anything to win her heart and build the family he’d always wanted. All he had to do was persuade Evie to take the biggest risk of her life…on love.

I’ve read book one and can thoroughly recommend Helen’s Crystal Point series, so if you love romance novels too, make sure you grab a copy of Marriage under the Mistletoe.  And now, here’s Helen’s advice to aspiring authors…

Helen Lacey: I spent many years trying to get published and received close to twenty rejections in that time. My plan and process to achieve the elusive published author goal was a simple one – I actually didn’t have one. Oh, I knew what kind of books I wanted to write and which publisher I wanted, but that was about it. Which, considering I had worked most of my life in a day job that thrived on planning and organisation, seems oddly out of character to me now.  It was this realization a few years ago that shifted my focus.

Of course I knew I had done a lot of things right – I joined writing organizations like Romance Writers of Australia, went to conferences, had critique partners etc. And although I had entered a few writing contests over the years, generally this was done ad hoc and without any real objective other than to win. When I worked out that contests were in fact a window of opportunity to avoid the dreaded slush pile and get noticed by an editor, I started looking at them with purpose and strategy.

Within eighteen months of developing this approach and through two separate contests that I had won, I signed with my agent and sold my first book, Made For Marriage, to Harlequin.

So here are my top tips when entering writing contests:

  • Do your homework – By this I mean make sure you enter contests that are run by professional writing organisations, editors, publishers or agents. With writing organisations, they usually have an entry fee and you don’t want to waste money or time on contests that aren’t credible.
  • My advice if you’re entering contests for judges feedback or critique – don’t. Many contests have first round judges who are very often readers or other writers, often unpublished themselves. If you’re looking for critique/feedback on your MS find a critique partner or writing group. Or utilise the services of a professional manuscript assessor. If you reach the final round you’ll have opportunity to take note of the feedback, particularly if this is from a final judge who is an editor/agent /publisher.
  • Look at who the final judge is for the contest. Is it the editor/agent you are hoping to work with? If it’s an agent and you don’t know them, check out their website, see what they’re acquiring, what they’re looking for, what deals they’ve made recently. It’s worth doing your research to work out if this is someone you want as an advocate for your books.
  • Look for contest opportunities. There are some great sites that give detailed lists of upcoming contests such as Stephie Smith – and keep up to date with what’s happening on publisher’s websites. Work out where you book would best fit and make it your business to know what that publisher/editor is up to. Many publishers and agents have online pitch opportunities. Maximise opportunities by looking for contests where the final judge is the editor/agent who you are targeting.
  • Follow the guidelines. It might sound obvious, but now that I do first round judging for several contests, it’s amazing how many entries are marked down because of silly spelling and grammar errors, or disqualified for being over allowed word count. You might have written a brilliant first chapter – but if it’s poorly edited it could miss out on a coveted top three placing that usually goes to the final judge. Think of each contest as a proper submission – would you send a poorly edited manuscript to the editor you were targeting?
  • Don’t get bogged down by low scores or negative first round judge’s comments. Contests are subjective. Do keep a file on what you’ve entered and who was the final judge and how the entry placed or scored, and use this data to watch for improvement and celebrate successes.
  • And finally, if you get a request from a final judge who wants to see more of your manuscript, make sure you send it!

Louise: Thanks so much Helen.  Great advice for aspiring authors who are wanting to take a more professional approach to their careers.  As Patrick pointed out in last week’s Workshop Wednesday on How to Self Publish an ebook, many writers are losing the opportunity to enter contests for ‘unpublished authors’ by racing their novels to ebook prematurely.  Information helps you make informed decisions, and belonging to organisations like RWA or the QWC (Qld Writers Centre) keeps you ‘in the loop’ with vital industry information.

If you have any questions for Helen regarding writing contests or romance writing, please ask them below as comments.  We’re looking forward to helping you on the road to publication!

Other Workshop Wednesday topics: Deep Point of View and Writers working with the Media