Author Spotlight: Karen Hancock

Author Spotlight: Karen Hancock

08/20/2005

by: Remade Gold & Alicia Beckerman

Dancing Word Reviewers & Editorial Assistant

Anne McDonald: Today, we have Christy Award winning author Karen Hancock in the Dancing Word spotlight. Karen, welcome,

Karen Hancock: I'm happy to be here.

* Anne McDonald hands the floor over to Remmie and Alicia

Remade Gold: Hi, Karen. I've got the first question. Could tell us a little about yourself?

Karen Hancock: Well, I'm a wife and mother, and a graduate of the University of Arizona in Biology and I've been writing since I was in high school. I also home schooled for eight years.

Alicia Beckerman: Are you a writer by trade?

Karen Hancock: No, not really. I've never had to write to eat. I've always looked at it as a talent that God has given me and a calling that he's put upon my life. It's been something I've had to do, kind of like breathing. I would do it whether I was published or not; and did for probably close to thirty years.

Remade Gold: For the writers on Dancing Word, we had a few technique questions for you. First, do you plot out your stories start to finish before writing, or write on the fly?

Karen Hancock: I have never actually been able to plot them out start to finish. In the past I've tried, but things always strayed off the outline before long. Then I'd do a new outline.

Since I've been published, with deadlines, I have had to write more on the fly. This was particularly true of Shadow Over Kiriath, the book I've just finished.

I have made great use of the scene and sequel technique that Jack Bickham recommends in Scene and Structure, but it seems to have become more internalized for me now.

I do tend to loosely plot the entire book I have five main events that will I know will occur in the next book.

Then I work in a more detailed outline for a few chapters at a time, get them written, do some more detailed outline, etc.

Alicia Beckerman: Can you tell us a little more about this scene and sequel technique?

Karen Hancock: It's similar to what Randy Ingermanson teaches with his snowflake. Scenes are active and real time, with a stated goal at the beginning, and usually the frustrating of that goal by the end. It is the sort of thing you could see in a play.

Sequels are the character's internal reactions to the scenes. Their feelings about what has just happened, their thoughts about what to do next and then their formulating of a new goal that will lead into the next scene.

Everything has a cause and effect sequence. Bickham recommends in his book that you plot out every scene and sequel in the entire book before you start writing but I've never done it.

Usually the characters refuse somewhere along the line to do what the outline says <g>

Remade Gold: hehe. Speaking of characters, how do you come up with/develop them?

Karen Hancock: I used to make detailed character dossiers -- pages and pages of stuff I'd written out in answer to questions about them. Though I would never look at the stuff again, I think it was helpful.

Now the characters tend to find me. Maddie, for example, wasn't supposed to appear until book 3 and suddenly there she was intruding into Book two!

Remade Gold grins

Karen Hancock: I still do some of the dossiers, but more for minor characters. Which strikes me as odd, but more and more I'm learning of the power of the right brain, subconscious, creative function... whatever it is.

Alicia Beckerman: Trap is my favorite character. I love how he never gets fazed no matter what happens. And how he knows Abramm so well. Do you have a favorite character?

Read the rest of the interview

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