OK, OK, here I am. Sorry for being absent last week. Life has been crazy busy. Last week, Aug 16-22, was county fair week here in Northern Illinois and I spent 4 of the seven days attending the fair for at least 3 to 4 hours each visit. Plus my niece was visiting from California. Then we had one of our children, with spouse and child, staying over the weekend and one child heading back to college—all in all a very crazy week. So finding the time to sit down and write was nearly impossible.
The Impossibility of Writing
Which leads me to a problem that has been plaguing me today. I’m trying to write some poems as I’ve committed to being part of a poetry anthology. Why I was asked is still a bit of a mystery to me. Don’t get me wrong, I have composed several poems I am exceptionally proud of, but I only have 8 poems to offer up for the anthology. But those poems were written as an emotional reaction to something happening in my life. One that I’m particularly proud of was written in response to our daughter Dayna getting married in May. I’ll post it here some time for you all to enjoy.
Anyway, now I’m trying to write poems on purpose and finding it a difficult trail to navigate. I’ve written one poem a dozen times now. I think what I started doing today may be the final, but it’s going to take me days to finish what I think will be a seven stanza poem with an abcb rhyme scheme. Meter I’m not even worrying about. If I can get this one done that will make nine poems and I’d like to have at least a dozen written for the book. But I only have 7 weeks and this one poem has taken me nearly two weeks. Not looking good.
Sitting on the Deck
So in order to get a different perspective on things I sat on the deck on this absolutely beautiful August afternoon. Low humidity and mid 80 temps—heaven. I went out armed with an old notebook, dictionary, thesaurus, and my notes and handouts from the RWA conference in July. Thought I might have time to read through some of my notes—um, yeah, right.
Anyway, I started out just observing the day. I live in the middle of twenty acres, 3 miles from the nearest town of 1,100 and 15 miles from the nearest city of 150,000 and only 4 neighbors bordering our property and those far enough away that I can only really see one of the houses. The view from my deck is currently a field of corn with a woods at the far edge of the cornfield—very relaxing. As I sat there thoughts of my dad, who passed away a year ago, crept into my mind. My dad loved to sit on the front porch on summer afternoons armed with the radio tuned to WGN for the Cub’s game, wood for whittling and a cold beer at hand. Sitting there in my solitude I understood why he loved it so. It refreshes the soul and clears the mind like nothing else I know. And it made me think of him and smile. I miss seeing him sitting on the front porch. I’d stop if he was there and we’d talk and share a beer. My mom is now living in a Alzheimer’s care facility and I drive a different route back and forth to work so I don’t go past the house very often. And I did find a little inspiration for my poem—I decided on the abcb rhyme scheme and actually accomplished writing two stanzas in the new rhyming scheme.
Notes for 2009 RWA Conference
In the back of the notebook I took out on the deck with me I found notes from the 2009 RWA conference in Washington D.C. I started reading through the notes and came across some from a workshop I attended on building layers into your writing. It was a very interesting workshop. The presenter was author Renee Ryan and she explained how she writes. She creates her first draft and then so goes back through her first draft and begins building layers into her ms. There are seven layers she adds into her scenes, but not all scenes will need all seven layers.
The first layer is action. Renee made a point of noting there a no talking heads in her books. Stationary people do not exist in real life and so they shouldn’t exist in your manuscript either.
The second layer is adding in the five senses. The sense of smell can have a very powerful pull on a person’s memories, as do songs. These things can be layered into the scene to add dimension.
Layer three is setting the scene. Putting your characters into a setting adds richness and puts your readers into the time period of your story.
The fourth layer is emotion. This is an important aspect of any fiction, but is especially important to romance. You want your reader to feel what your characters are feeling. When you add emotion you give the reader a richer experience.
Layer five is dialogue. Make sure your dialogue rings true, is true to your character and to your character’s gender. Dialogue that is stilted or rigid or is not something your reader thinks that character would say will throw the reader right out of the story.
The sixth layer is weaving in your backstory. Be careful not to do a backstory dump. Keep the reader on a need to know basis when it comes to backstory by only giving them the essential information for that scene. Do you really need to tell the reader the heroine loved to bake pies with her Aunt Maude? Only if it pertains to the scene.
Layer seven is sexual tension. Adding this in gradually and carefully will make the romance believable. If you skip building sexual tension and it’s just lust that brings your hero and heroine together your reader won’t buy into their being compatible and staying together for that all important HEA (happily ever after).
Now, not all of this layering has to happen in each scene. That’s where the talent and creativity of the writer comes into play. As a matter of fact I believe that adding all of this into each scene will make your writing rather tedious for your reader. Be discerning and look at each scene and see what it needs to have more depth.
If you have any thoughts I’d love to hear from you.
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