Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Some hints for new writers like myself

 I had mentioned in my last post, how much I enjoyed attending the Philadelphia Writer's conference. The instructors were amazing and gave some great advice. One of the instructors, K. Simmons, gave the workshop on Novel plotting. Here are some suggestions that helped me and hopefully will help you.
1. Give the reader a character, they will enjoy, even if they don't like that character.
2. Take the character on a journey.
3. Give the character something they want.

K. Simmons gave us a guide to help with our novels. She called it "Sailing the 7 C's of Story Plot"
1.Combustion-creating a premise of interesting characters, and high stakes at the beginning will create a natural flowering of your story.
2.Coordination--getting the action, voice, and premise to go together.
3.Conflict--creating conflicts between characters to fuel the plot.
4.Characters--make your characters believable. Character has to grab the reader's attention from the beginning.
5.Conclusion--wrapping up the plot in a satisfying way.
6.Complettion--Too many plot points? Know when the plot is done.
7.Commitment--Where is the story coming from and are you being true to the story.

Does your story have tension? check conflict and combustion.
Premise:
1. Where are we?
2. Who is the lead character?
3. Who tells the story best?
4. What do they want?
5. What needs to be said first?
6. Why should we care?
7..Where are we going?

I'll have more on my next blog.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The benefits of attending a Writer's Conference

     I had the opportunity and pleasure of attending the Philadelphia Writer's Conference on 6/3-6/4-6/5. It was the best move I have made since I decided to seriously begin writing my novel a year ago. I've completed the first book of the trilogy, and right now I'm in the process of editing. I've also started to outline the second book of the series.
     The amazing instructors that spoke at the workshops encouraged, gave insight, common sense solutions, and much more to all that attended, and I will attending this conference again next year.
     The series that I'm working on right now is a supernatural romance and deals with the biblical and off world battle between good and evil.
     I'll be keeping all my followers updated on my ongoing adventures to get published.