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Writing Workshop: Gripping Beginnings/Killer Endings
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Dancing Word Writing Workshop with Rosey DowMay 15, 2008
Hosted by Jason McDonald Dancing Word Assistant Editor Rosey: We only have about three minutes. I want to say if anybody is listening to the replay, the recording just started but we’re not going to start for three minutes. A lot of times when people come into the replay they think there’s a mistake because the recording begins before we actually start the teleseminar. Just hang on for about two minutes and 45 seconds. You’ll hear some intro music and that’s when we’re actually going to get started. Jason: So ignore everything you hear up to this point. Rosey: [laughing] Until you hear the music! We’re basically killing time. I believe I have about 20 or 30 minutes of teaching, and then we can go into questions. Jason: Okay. I’m just going to be quiet now. Rosey: Please excuse me if I sneeze. I’m trying very hard not to. I went to Georgia to visit my son. My little grand-daughter is six months old and she had a really bad cold, so I caught the cold from the baby. My son was telling me, “Watch out, you’re going to catch her cold,” and I said, “I have to kiss the baby! I can’t be here and not kiss the baby.” So I’m taking my punishment now. It’s cause and effect, and I’ve got the effect. It’ll be better in another day or so. Jason: For any of you who are used to us doing the chat room and are wondering, “Why are we doing this on a teleconference?” it’s because Rosey can’t type that fast right now. Rosey: I broke my wrist. Although it’s been out of the cast now for three weeks, I’m still struggling with typing and writing with a pen and a lot of things. It’s going to take at least two or three more weeks before it gets back to normal, so I really appreciate the grace of doing this a different way to accommodate my needs this time. We have about ten seconds and then you’ll hear music and we’ll get started. Jason: Where’s the music? Rosey: I’m having a little problem with my web page. We might have to stick the music in later. Jason: [hums some music] Rosey: [laughing] Thank you very much! Ok, we have five people who are on. Welcome! Let’s just go ahead because something happened. When it hit the top of the hour something happened and it won’t let me have my audio now. Maybe there’s a limit on when you can start it, so let’s just go ahead. Jason: Welcome to a very creative chat this evening. We’re talking with Rosey Dow about writing, “Gripping Beginnings and Killer Endings.” Rosey is the director of www.ChristianFictionMentors.com and she has published 13 books with more than half a million copies in print. Just a note for anyone listening. If you have questions you can type it in on the page where you saw all the teleconference stuff, or you can sign into the Dancing Word chat room at www.DancingWord.net/chatroom.htm. You can sign in there and you can ask questions and I will relay them to Rosey. So please welcome our guest! Rosey: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here. We had to reschedule like three times and finally we’re getting it done here. Fiction is one of my passions, my most intense passions. If I stop writing for any amount of time I just have to sit down and write a little bit because I just get that urge. Anyone who’s a writer can understand that. Tonight we’re going to be talking about “Gripping Beginnings and Killer Endings.” I’m going to start with the beginnings. Actually, both of these could be put into one session by itself, beginnings and then endings, but I’ve combined them both because actually a lot of times your ending is found in your beginning, and your beginning in your ending, so they kind of connect each other. If you’re on the web page online, you see a link there that says, “Get the handout.” There is a handout, and if you want to go there there will be a page that will come up and you can print that. Then as we go through you can fill in the blanks. If you’re on that page, you can go there. If you’re not on that page, you should have gotten an email today with a link. Do you have that link? I don’t have it right in front of me. Do you have the link for the web page? Jason: Which web page? Rosey: The one with all the teleseminar stuff and the buttons and how to call in. It starts out with InstantTeleseminar.com. Jason: It’s http://www.InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=2932428 Rosey: Okay, 2932428, is that right? Jason: Yeah. Rosey: All right. If you go there you can get your handout and print it out. I’m going to go ahead and get started. The replay will be up, so if you miss something, or maybe you’re writing and you hear something but you don’t have time to go ahead and write it down, you can just come right back to this same page and listen to it again and get whatever you missed, right here from this same web page. That’s one of the great things about doing the teleseminars. They’re very quick and easy to get your recording. Okay, beginnings, reeling in the reader. When we have the beginning of the book, the first thing you want to do is capture the reader’s attention. The opening paragraph and the first few pages will make the difference between having a novel published or rejected, because the first reader that you have to impress with your beginning is the editor. You have one chance, just like a job interview. The first impression is of utmost importance, and you’ll never get a chance to do it over. Acquisitions editors are crazy busy. They have manuscripts piled up on their desk galore. They’ve got them stacked by their bed. They have so many manuscripts to look at and to evaluate, that when they pick one up they are looking for a way to reject it. They’re not looking for a way to accept it, they’re looking for an excuse to reject it. So it’s our job to keep them from getting to the rejection stage by capturing their attention from the very first words. Cliché’d Beginnings Let’s talk about clichés. Now clichéd beginnings are like a death sentence to a manuscript. Unless you can put a twist on it, these beginnings are very, very much to be avoided.
The next one is very important, and it’s one that most beginning writers fall into.
Don’t do that. That is the sign of a novice. In the old days, way back in the 1800’s and those times, you could start with talking to the reader, but you can’t do that anymore today. So if we don’t want to do all those things, what do we want to do? The First Paragraph In the first paragraph, make a promise, and make a promise on several levels. When you start out your story, you’re making a promise about:
So the first paragraph makes a promise about the writing style.
“This person is important because he’s at the beginning.”
There’s a really good book called Hooked and it is very, very good about how to dive right into that conflict. It should have something about the initial conflict, and we’re going to talk about that conflict a little more later as we go through this lesson.
Whatever you deliver at the beginning is going to set the pace for the rest of the story, and the reader is going to expect to see that in the rest of the story. If the work is sloppy, if there are spelling errors and poor grammar, the editor is naturally going to assume that the rest of the novel is also poorly done. If the characters are interesting and the conflict is compelling, if it has good manuscript form, then the editor is liable to read on. Setting up the beginning Setting up the beginning involves a series of very critical decisions.
The beginning is both the first part you’ll write and the last part. It’s first because it’s the start of your initial draft. You’re going to start on the first page. But it’s also last, because once the ending has been written you’ll need to go back and adjust the beginning to fit the ending. During the entire writing process, you need to let your subconscious simmer as you’re alert for critical items that you could hint at in the beginning to reel the reader in. This is what makes reading a book two or three times interesting. If the writer is really good, he or she will go back and insert small things from the rest of the story in the beginning. The first time through the reader won’t catch it, but the second time through they’ll say, “Oh yeah, there’s some things in here I missed. I’ve got to go back and read this book again because I want to catch all those little nuances that I missed the first time around.” Essential Elements in the First Scene The Hook A hook is a line of text that forces the reader to keep on reading. Not only does the hook add power to the opening, but it also gives a taste of what is to come by setting the pace, the tone, and revealing the initial conflict to some degree. You don’t have to reveal the initial conflict totally, but just to some degree. How long will the hook be? Will it be the first sentence? The first paragraph? Or maybe the first scene? All this depends on how strong your hook is. If you have a really strong hook, you may be able to carry that off for two or three pages, but if your hook is just kind of a normal day, one paragraph, one sentence, that’s where you’re going to have your main thrust, your main hook. Is it strong enough to last five pages? If not, look for a shorter hook. The very best writing has a hook within the first few sentences, expanding the conflict as the story plays out. So the idea is to maintain the tension as the first chapter unfolds, and end with an even bigger hook at the end of the first chapter. You bite into the main conflict of the story and now you’ve got them, you’ve got your reader by the end of the first chapter. You have like a small hook at the beginning, keep them reading, keep them going, and they by the end of the first chapter you’ve got that big hook and they bite on that and they cannot put it down. That’s what you’re looking for. What a hook is not A hook is not an advertising gimmick, like a slogan. It has to have its root in the heart of the story. Don’t use any gimmicks or things to shock people. Your hook has to have its root in the heart of the story. A hook is not a melodramatic beginning that fizzles into the bland after a few lines. It is not a carefully-disguised flashback. Save the flashback for Chapter 2. Chapter 1 is only for drawing the reader into the conflict. What a hook needs The hook should contain the following vital information:
The setting Although the setting will be mentioned on the back cover of the book, you still have to have the time and the place very definite in the first scene so you can anchor your story. I like to have the time and the place in the first paragraph. This includes the region of the world, as well as the particular spot where the action takes place. It could be an old barn in Colorado (the place) in the early 1800’s, or it could be a high-class restaurant in the Tokyo in the present. Wherever it is, the reader should never be left guessing. Is this a historical novel? Is it a current novel? Or where it is? The setting can be defined quickly and easily. Just have the items around the character, like the clothing styles and the household goods, have them define the time and the place. A young woman wearing a starched apron and kneading dough by the fireplace would live in a different time and place than a girl who wears a metallic jumpsuit who pauses to have her eye scanned when she goes into a laboratory. You can see what we’re talking about by having it be integral to the story. The setting is the time and the place. You can use items and actions to reveal the setting in a natural way. The Conflict The initial scene must show and not tell. This is very important. If you summarize the situation in the first scene, you’re robbing the reader of the thrill of seeing it for themselves. That just fizzles out the energy that you’re trying to create to reel the reader in. It’s essential to begin with an emotional hook that will engage him and urge him to find out more. The best way to do this is to show the scene and to show the character facing some kind of conflict, and that means trouble. You’re getting your character in trouble right from the first. As you introduce the problem, you can raise a question and make the reader curious to learn the answer. This technique is very important. When you begin the first chapter, start with a smaller conflict that will ultimately move into the central conflict of the story. Again, we start with a smaller hook and have it go into the central conflict of the story. I’m going to give you some examples of this. It’s very interesting the ways we can see this in books and movies. Just an example out of the air, Mamie is a young woman stranded beside the road with a flat tire. That’s a compelling conflict if she’s on a lonely stretch of road or in a seedy neighborhood. What if a man comes to her aid and he ultimately involves her in a bigger conflict. Then the small hook of the flat tire leads to something bigger. In the movie, Absolute Power, or in the book, Absolute Power, either one, by David Baldacci, the first scene shows a small conflict. A jewel thief is trapped inside a vault. Now he’s in trouble. But that leads to a bigger conflict – murder involving the president. You see how this works? In The Firm by John Grisham, Mitch McDeere is desperate for a job. He’s got a lot of college debt. He’s married. He has a wife to support. This smaller conflict leads him to a bigger one, where he joins a corrupt firm that tries to corrupt him. The smaller conflict gives a perfect opportunity to reveal the character’s core values and give a hint of his back story, just a hint now. That’s all that should appear within the first scene, a hint of the back story, nothing more. Most new writers feel compelled to tell all right away. They feel that the reader won’t understand the characters without knowing all about their past. That was me. I had that problem when I first started writing, but this is a false impression. Let’s do some examples here. Again we go back to Absolute Power. When Luther Whitney is robbing a wealthy man’s home in the book, the book lets us know that he only robs the rich and he never hurts anyone with violence. We don’t approve of him being a robber or jewel thief, but on the other hand we don’t hate him either because we’re willing to give him a chance. Maybe he could even turn out to be the good guy. All that comes through just in the first few pages because of his history of what he’s doing now when he gets his tools and he goes into the man’s house. Then I love the movie Hitch. Will Smith is one of my favorite actors anyway, but Hitch opens with Hitch agreeing to take a tough case. He’s got this klutzy guy and this socialite, so this is like his ultimate challenge. That small conflict takes him into the bigger conflict because he gets interested in a local paper’s society columnist and now the socialite and the society columnist are drawing him into where his two worlds are meeting. His business and his personal life intersect, and that’s really bad for him and for his job. The movie Sabrina opens with the initial conflict where Sabrina comes home and distracts David Larrabee from his fiancé. That’s the first conflict. Everybody wants David Larrabee to marry Elizabeth, so Linus comes in to solve the problem and he starts spending time with Sabrina. This leads to the bigger conflict, which is he falls in love with her himself. That was definitely not in his program. In Sabrina we start with the smaller conflict that leads into the bigger conflict, and that’s what you need to aim for. Going right into the bigger conflict could potentially overwhelm the reader, and also the smaller conflict gives you a chance to set it up so your characters can become known by what they do. The Character We’ve already touched on the setting and the conflict, and now we’re going onto the character. Who’s going to tell the story? Whatever vantage point you choose, it must be evident from the very first paragraph. Usually the main character will tell the story, but not always. Sometimes in mystery stories a side character will tell the story, like Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes. But in a romance novel, the heroine is almost always the point of view character throughout the story. Sometimes there are stories that have both, the hero and the heroine, but mostly it’s the heroine. From the first few words, the reader should know the point of view’s character first and last names, with a tidbit about his personality and the way his mind works. It can include the character’s inner need that will develop throughout the story. What is the character after? What does he need? Does this girl need a home? Is she insecure? Does she need to prove herself? What is her need? That should be all wrapped up in that first conflict that you see when the book opens. From the first few words the reader should know the point of view character’s first and last name, with a tidbit about his personality, and the way his mind works, and then the character’s inner need that will develop throughout the story. The tone Tone is the attitude of the storyteller. This is so important and sometimes it is confusing, so pay close attention here. Tone is the attitude of the storyteller. Now remember the storyteller is not the writer. The storyteller is the point of view character. What is the attitude of your point of view character? Is the point of view character sarcastic? Discouraged? Desperate? Thrilled? What is the attitude of the point of view character, and that is going to set the tone for the story. That should be very evident in the beginning scene of your book. Tone varies according to the genre, so if we have a suspense novel then the tone would be intense and edgy. If we have a romance, usually romances start out with some kind of a down. Something is wrong. Something needs to be fixed. It’s kind of tentative or maybe discouraged or some kind of a problem that the person is facing. This uncertainty is usually in the romance genre, but it all depends on the personality of the author, what the author wants to portray through this character, and then how the genre can handle it. A hard-boiled detective novel would have a cynical tone, while a sweet romance has a heart-touching quality. To find out how to do this, read books within your genre. If you read other books within the genre then you’ll get an idea of the tone that readers expect from that kind of a story. Your point of view character will tell the story through his eyes, so his outlook will color the scene where he appears. If you have more than one point of view character, then whenever each character appears then his outlook will shift the tone of the story. Basically what I’m trying to say is this. The writer must become the character and write his words for him. The writer must lose himself so that each character can speak with its own voice and not the author’s voice. This is something that develops as your first draft goes on. You’ll get more and more into your character’s voice as you go through the first draft. A lot of times it’s necessary to go back to the beginning of the book and re-do the first few chapters because now you’ve got that mature voice of your character as you’ve developed him. The writer is writing the voice of the point of view character in everything about the story. This includes the descriptions. Everything should be in that character’s voice. Tone is determined by:
If you have a Chinese character and it’s set in China, the attitude is going to be much different than if you have it in downtown New York City. How much education does he have? Is this a farm boy who’s never even gone through fourth grade, or is this the daughter of a college professor? What mood is he in? Is he mad, discouraged, angry, belligerent, thrilled, excited, exuberant? What is he trying to achieve in the scene? Is he frustrated because what he’s trying to do isn’t working? What is he trying to achieve in the overall story? All of these things will determine his vocabulary, his grammar, and his tone of voice, not just in dialogue but in the narration, because the narration is his head talk and your prose at the same time. That’s going to wrap up our beginning. Let’s move onto the ending. The ending is not nearly as long. Killer Endings These endings are very interesting. I didn’t leave a lot of room on that paper to write, but there are some definite ways of making your ending satisfying. The ending is the satisfaction of a job well done. If there is one outstanding characteristic of a good ending it’s satisfaction. In the plot we always have a dark moment when all is lost. It’s about one chapter in from the end. Then we feel especially gratified when everything turns out all right after all. The more hopeless the dark moment is, the greater the gratification will be. There are a lot of techniques for crafting a memorable ending. I’ve put five of these on your paper there. The end is in the beginning You’re tying the ending to the beginning. Ultimately a story starts at point A and ends at point B. That’s a timeline, but you can mold your story into a circle by bringing the ending back to touch some point at the beginning. Jason: I’ve seen that done in Agatha Christie books. Rosey: Yes, and Louis L’Amour, the western writer, was really good at this, too. This technique is really intriguing. If you perfect this skill, your fans will have that “aha!” moment just before they close the book and gaze into the distance with a smile on their face. Can you think of a better way to end a book? If you haven’t read Von Ryan’s Express by David Westheimer, this is an excellent story. The story opens with Col. Ryan arriving at a WWII POW camp as prisoner of the Italian Army. The book is serious. It’s a serious book about POW’s in WWII, but there’s so much comedy in it. It is so hysterical the way everybody acts. They’re in character, but their interactions are just great. When Von Ryan comes in, when he’s first captured and first gets to the camp, he walks in. He’s immaculate. His uniform is perfect. As he comes in, he looks at the Italian guards and he starts berating them and calling them down because their uniforms are not pressed and their shoes are dirty and they’re slouching. He just tries to whip the guards into shape. With the force of his personality, the guards cower and they apologize. So right away that gives him an advantage, and he just carries that persona off through the entire thing. It’s really amazing how the writer was able to get into the character like that and to make a character like Von Ryan. The book ends with a celebration. Von Ryan smiles for just a little bit and enjoys the moment, but then he bellows that they’d better police the area. “Clean up that mess, and now!” So you really smile because now life is going back to normal. This is the way he always acts and this is what his troops expect of him. He brings it completely around and back to the same kind of a mood at the end. In my Christy award-winner, Reaping the Whirlwind, Jessie knocks over a chessboard at the beginning of the story. Then when the book ends the villain knocks over a chess board as the authorities come in, so something that simple can just strike a chord in the reader and bring them a feeling of completion. The ending can contrast the beginning On the other hand, the ending can contrast the beginning. In the Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett, this is the story of a man who’s on the verge of death in the desert. He’s dying of thirst in the desert, but then it ends with him in a sumptuous oasis with lots of water, food, and a great place to stay. The contrast there is very good, so you can work it that way. The frame The frame is a very interesting ending as well. The frame begins the story with some obscure event, and then it breaks off before the event is completed. You have something happening, and then you don’t find out the ending of what happened, and it’s something compelling. Then the ending switches back to the event and finishes it out. This is sometimes used when the main character is in a hospital bed badly injured, and then you go back to the beginning and learn how did he get to the hospital bed. Then you find out what happens to him later. Sometimes authors use this when a person’s coming home after a long absence, or maybe they’re picking through the rubble of a house fire. Then you go back and find out how it happened. Louis L’Amour uses an unopened package in The Last of the Breed. In The Last of the Breed it starts out in a prison camp and the commandant gets this very unusual package. It’s wrapped in animal skin and tied with rawhide and it rattles. It’s not very big but it rattles. The commandant gets this package, he shakes it, he looks at it, and then it breaks out. Through that book – I think it was about 350 or 400 pages – the whole time I’m reading it I’m thinking, “What was in the package?” Then at the very end you find out what it was and it really is a “Wow!” That was a really “Wow!” ending. The set-up and pay-off Another ending is the set-up and pay-off to an emotional response. Somewhere within the story line is a character who has a special ability to draw an emotional response. This could even be a minor character. As the story’s going along, there’s somebody who’s funny or maybe poignant or something that draws out an emotion. Then the payoff is at the end that person comes back to reinforce that idea or bring up that emotion. Alistair MacLean is a very good excellent model for good writing. In When Eight Bells Toll, Alistair MacLean has a minor character and he describes the man in detail near the center of the story. The man’s name is Donald MacEachern and he’s a grizzly old man. He hardly ever shaves. He almost never bathes. He’s a pathetic powerless character and he’s intensely worried about his wife because his wife was kidnapped, along with several other people. This kidnapping situation is the whole focus of the story, the central conflict. MacLean goes into this emotional draw. These two old people, or this old man who’s not even well-kempt and can hardly even take care of himself, he is in the middle of the story, and then at the end of the story this is what Alistair MacLean writes as his ending: “Mrs. MacEachern wasn’t having her foretaste of paradise. She was already there. A calm, dark old lady with a wrinkled brown face who smiled and smiled and smiled all the way to her home on Eileen Oren. I hope old Donald MacEachern had remembered to change his shirt.” That idea of him being dependent on her and the love they had for each other comes out. It’s a very satisfying ending if you read the book. In my book, Megan’s Choice, Banjo is a very popular character. He’s a tough but loveable ranch hand and he has a habit of singing hymns, but he has a terrible voice. His voice is raspy, kind of like mine tonight, and he always goes off-tune, but he sings throughout the entire book. At different times he sings, and he has such an emotional draw because of who he is. The story ends with him belting out a song of praise to God, and that is ending the book on a very emotional high. Thematic ending The last ending is the thematic ending. The thematic ending pulls into the theme of the story. It uses the final scene to punch home the theme. This isn’t moralizing or preaching to the reader, but it’s showing in a concise and dramatic way the story’s moral core. This is very difficult to master. It can be very effective, but it needs to be treated with care because you don’t want to get into the moralizing thing at the end, because the editors look very poorly on that. Samuel Shellabarger uses this technique brilliantly in The King’s Cavalier. The King’s Cavalier is about the Middle Ages. If you like Middle Ages stories it’s terrific. If you don’t like Middle Ages stories you might find the beginning dry, because in that day they started off with long descriptions. It’s a medieval story where the villain is a powerful man at court, and this villain uses a brilliant twisting of the truth to bring down his enemies. He can put a spin on just about anything. The hero is a forthright and honest young man. He has good moral character, but at the dark moment the villain pulls the hero into court and starts doing a spin on what the hero has been up to. Not only is he putting a spin on his actions, but the young man’s life is in jeopardy. He could be hung because of what this villain is trying to say he did. But then Samuel Shellabarger does something that is pure genius. He has his hero turn the tables and spin a yarn of his own. Now the hero tells a tale. He takes the entire event of the entire book and he twists the whole story around, putting a slant on every single event, and brings it against the villain. What he does is he uses the villain’s weapon against him and he outwits him by his own weapon and comes out victorious. While this hero is spinning this tale, all of a sudden it’s like a light bulb goes on in your head and you just love it because all this time the villain has been getting the best of everybody with his lying and now the hero has brought him down by using the same weapon against him. You just want to stand up and cheer at the end of that story. Then he gets the girl in the end and everybody is happy at the end of the story. It can be your crowning moment or your greatest failure using this method, so be careful. Today’s reader has no patience for the story that ends with a heavy moral lesson, so it has to be action at the end that portrays the theme. That is a very, very effective way. That’s the end of my lesson, Jason, so if you have questions for me I can start to field those now. Jason: I don’t have any questions at the moment, so I’ll ask you one of my own, but for anyone who is tuned in this is just a reminder. You can submit questions two ways. I’ll tell you about my favorite way and then Rosey can tell you about the other way. The first way is by joining The Dancing Word chat room. If you don’t know how to do this, there are two ways to get in. On the conference page where you have the link to hear this conference, on the bottom right corner there’s a button that says, “Join the drawing.” If you click that button it will bring up the chat room. If you don’t want to do that or if you can’t find the page I just mentioned, then you go to www.TheDancingWord.net/chatroom.htm and you submit your questions there and I will relay them to Rosey. What’s the other way they can do it, Rosey? Rosey: Right there on the page there’s a Q&A box where they can type in a question and just hit Submit. Then I’ll see it on my screen. I have two questions here on my screen. I’m looking at the online questions that came in through the teleseminar page. This is from Leanne in Victoria: Do you think cliffhanger endings, where the book ends in the middle of action or a key plot point is left unresolved, are appropriate or useful, and in what context? Leanne, I’m assuming that you mean cliffhanger endings like when you have a three-book series and the first book ends with an incomplete ending and then the second book ends with an incomplete ending. Personally I don’t care for those because I feel so discouraged when I get to the end of the book and I don’t find out what happened. If they’re going to do that I would like to see the three volumes in one binding. It’s very useful for selling books, because when you get to the end of a book like that then you just have to go out and buy that next copy, and I think that’s what publishing houses are after. I think that sometimes the author doesn’t have a choice in those kind of endings because the publisher has a criteria for selling the series and they need those unfinished endings so you’ll get the next book. I personally don’t care for them, but I guess in their context it’s ok. I’ve seen it done a lot of times by some very successful people. Jason: I’m a personal fan of cliffhanger endings, so some people like them, some people don’t. Rosey: Okay, that’s it! [laughing] I have another question from Lenore in Waynesville: Is this workshop as pertinent to romance writers as to mystery/suspense or action adventure writers? Absolutely, yes. I am a romance writer. I write romantic mysteries, so I am both a romance writer and a mystery writer. All these points and these tips that I’m giving tonight are definitely appropriate for romance, as well as others. Really no matter what genre you’re using, some of these style issues and some of these points of writing a good story would definitely cross over – how to get the reader into the beginning, starting with a small conflict that leads to a bigger conflict – all those would apply to the romance as well as the mystery/suspense or action adventure story, so yes, definitely. Jason: I have one here from Angel: What do you do when you hit a writer’s block? Writer’s blocks are due to a couple of different reasons. One of them is because of an unresolved issue that you have in what you’ve already written. There’s something in there that your subconscious is kind of saying, “Uh, I don’t think so.” Something back in there is bothering you. You need to go back through your story and see if there’s any loose end, anything that strikes a false note with you as you read through it, and see if there may be a problem there. Maybe it’s some research that you discovered that you need to do and you really don’t want to do it. I’ve come to those points in my own writing where I realize, “Wow, this is going to take a lot of work to develop this part and I’m not really up to it right now.” It could be something like that. It could also be that you’re not sure where to go with the story from here. You want the character to do this, but the character now is becoming developed and you realize that the character really wouldn’t do that, or the way I say it is he doesn’t want to do what I want him to do. Characters a lot of times have that problem. They start getting a mind of their own and they just don’t want to do what we want them to do. You have to kind of analyze what the problem is, because there’s something there that needs to be resolved in order for you to move forward. Check your character development and see if maybe your character is not turning out the way you had imagined he would. Let him be who he’s going to be, even if you have to alter the ending of the story. You’ll find yourself feeling much better about the story if you allow the character to do and be who you created him to be. Those are basically my two answers for writer’s block. Jason: I have one of my own here: I have noticed in a lot of books, even best sellers, that sometimes some of the rules you mentioned, like not starting with dreams or quotations or whatever, where those rules are not followed. Are there any exceptions to this? Is it when you know how to pull it off, or is this an end-all rule? Rosey: No rules are end all, they’re guidelines. You just have to be careful that an editor doesn’t see what you’re doing as cliché. If you’ve already published a couple books then they’re not going to be as skeptical as if it’s your first novel. If it’s your first novel, try and stay within the lines. It’s very difficult to get past that prejudice that an editor may have over certain things. Basically it’s a matter of experience. If you feel that your scene is okay, you can pull it off, you can try it. If you do that as a first-time writer I would get some other people to read it and get some feedback on it. Absolutely there are no rules written in stone. We’ve seen just about everything come down the pike, especially things like “Never do this, never do that.” For example, Groundhog Dog, every scene begins with a ringing alarm clock. It’s just like, “Never do that!” but they pull it off very well. It’s mostly just on an individual basis, but beginning writers need to try to stay within the guidelines to keep that editor reading. Jason: I have another one here from Angel. This is one that I could also benefit from the answer. How would a busy teenager find time to write? Rosey: I can tell you I was a busy mom with seven children. I had seven children and I was homeschooling my children. That’s when I wrote my Christy award-winner. It took me two years to write that book, but my advice is this. Find a time when you can do it. For me it was at 5 in the morning before my day began. I would sit down for an hour at my keyboard. You might think, “Oh, I could never do that,” but to me it was exciting. Whenever I sit at the keyboard to write a story I get kind of a rush because I’m so excited that I get to do this and I have this time to myself. So find a time, and then just look at writing as a process. You’re not going to be able to write everything in one week or one month, but if you just write a little bit and keep writing and see advancement every week, eventually you will have your story done. The key thing is to just keep working at it and don’t stop. Don’t get discouraged and quit. Just keep pecking away one scene at a time, then scenes become chapters, and chapters become a finished story. You can do what you want to do. John Grisham was a lawyer and lawyers work 60-70 hours a week. What he did was he got a yellow legal pad, and when he was sitting outside in the waiting room waiting to go into court he wrote with a pen on that legal pad and that was his first story, The Runaway Jury. It was written on that legal pad, then he had someone else type it in for him. Regardless of what your schedule is and what your life is like, if you can just find 15 minutes at a time, just keep working at it. Eventually you will get there. That’s my personal testimony as well. Jason: Would you mind if I threw in a quick comment here? Rosey: Sure. Jason: Okay. You probably have figured out by now that I’m pretty busy myself, but one of the ways I find time to write is that at night I always have a cup of tea before bed. I’ve found that I like nights. I’m not a morning person, so I find that I shut my door, turn off my light, but I bring out my laptop and I just write for about half an hour while I’m drinking my tea just before bed. That’s another way that night owl teenagers can do it. Rosey: That’s excellent. That is really excellent. Whatever time works for you, that would be it. I have another question here from Avril in Atlanta: I often find myself writing one scene per chapter. Is that a problem? That is not a problem. I’ve seen a lot of writers write one scene per chapter. It used to be that the publishing companies said one chapter was 10 pages or 12 pages, but that’s not necessarily the case anymore. I’ve seen very accomplished writers writing just a page or three pages or whatever, and end up with 60 chapters because every scene is a different chapter, so I don’t think that’s a problem. The key is having good transitions so that at the end of your scene the reader will definitely want to keep going on. When you have two or three scenes in a chapter then it’s easier to get the reader to jump across to the next scene because it’s in the same chapter. The danger is that at the end of the chapter the reader will shut the book and say, “I’ll finish this later,” and you don’t want them to do that. So by having one scene per chapter you’re making a greater challenge for yourself to get them to jump over to the next chapter by having something compelling at the end of that scene, but that is really the only issue. It’s really personal preference. If you feel comfortable that way and you feel that you can keep your reader moving ahead, then it’s okay. Jason: I have a question that’s a little bit off, but I have to ask this. You were on for a chat back around 2000 or so. My mom asked you this question then and I know you’ve moved since, so I can’t help but ask it now. What does your writing space look like? Rosey: My writing day? Jason: Your writing space. Rosey: Oh, my writing space. [laughing] When I was with Annie in 2000 I had a closet that my husband had fixed up. He built a little shelf in there and I had my chair sitting up to the closet door and I had my computer in the closet, so I was a closet writer for about three or four years. Now I have my computer in my master bedroom, my computer and my filing cabinet and all my shelves and my books. A section of my bedroom is my writing office. We live in an old Victorian home so we have an alcove in our bedroom. My desk is pushed out into that alcove with windows all around. That’s what it looks like. My desk is not neat by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not neat but it is organized to some degree. [laughing] I don’t want anybody fooling with it because I know where stuff is. Jason: Creativity is a messy business. Rosey: Oh yeah! Jason: I know this is a little off-topic, but knowing you you’ll probably find some way to drag it onto topic. I have another question from Angel: What is your favorite and least favorite thing about being a writer? Rosey: My favorite thing about being a writer is second drafts. I really don’t enjoy first drafts because you have to kind of pull all that emotion out of yourself and get those characters to breathe life, and it’s hard work. Writing that first draft is always very hard work, but then the second draft is what I really enjoy because I’ve got it down there and I can tweak this and tweak that and add a little here and there and polish it up. I feel excited because I feel like I’m really making progress now. This thing is finally coming together. My least favorite part of writing is book promotion. You can spend a lot of time promoting your book when it’s already out, doing book signings, interviews, and all those things you’re supposed to do as a writer. I just don’t enjoy that aspect of being a writer, that book promotion. I wish somebody else could do all that for me. Jason: I have another question from myself. How do you handle criticism when you’re working in a critique group, and slightly related to it, how to you tell negative criticism from constructive criticism? Rosey: Criticism in a critique group can be a very touchy thing because a lot of times the other people in the critique group are also new writers. Unless you have someone who’s actually mentoring the group who can give you some definite feedback, then sometimes that can turn into where you’re not sure whether you should trust their opinions or not. When I submit my books to my publishing company there is an editor who’s going to look at the story and tear it to pieces. This happens every time. They’re going to come back with questions like, “Are you sure those mountains were in the east? I think they were in the west when they were at this spot,” or “Do they really ride the horses with this kind of a saddle? I’m not sure about that. You need to check your source and make sure that it’s correct,” and things like that. It’s really difficult to have someone nitpick at your story like that, but that’s part of being a professional. Really, getting input from other people can help you because it gives you a feeling for how you’re coming off to them, and you want that. You want to have input from other people because we cannot analyze our own work. We’re too close to it .We’re too emotionally tied to it. It’s like our child. So being able to objectively look at what other people say is a very important aspect of becoming a professional writer because we all have to deal with people talking to us about what we did and whether it was good or not. When you get to the publishing house, there’s going to be two or three different people on two or three different levels who are going to give you feedback, and sometimes you’re not going to enjoy what they say. So be able to accept that kind of input and take the good from it, learn from it what you can, and work with it. Positive criticism is helping you to do better. Negative criticism is just saying, “This is awful,” and not giving you anything to build you up or to help you correct it. Basically that’s my input on criticism. It’s not easy. It’s never easy, but you have to put your feelings aside sometimes and look at your work objectively if you’re going to be able to improve and bring it up to the level that you want it to be when it goes to publication. Jason: I have a quick note before we move onto other questions, if it’s all right with you, Rosey. Rosey: Sure. Jason: Anyone who wants to be in the drawing – we’re holding a book drawing for Rosey Dow’s book, Reaping the Whirlwind. However, I need to know you exist for you to be in the drawing. If you wan to win this book, please sign into The Dancing Word chat room. Again the link is on the page where you signed into the conference to listen to it. Just click on “Join the drawing” and you’ll go into the chat room, so if you want to be in it jump in there and I’ll put you in the drawing for it. Normally we have eligibility and stuff like that, but I don’t know who’s eligible so if it’s all right with you, Rosey, I’d say it’s just a free-for-all. If you’re here, you’re in. Rosey: Oh, no problem. Jason: So back to the questions. Here’s one from Angel: What is your biggest inspiration? Rosey: My biggest inspiration is my life story. I try to incorporate something from my life into whatever I write, anything I write. Whatever the situation, the conflicts or whatever that people are facing in my story, if I have already been there, done that – now I’m not saying that I have to take the exact situation, but something similar to what has happened to me. You can make a different slant on it or put it in a different place or something like that, but using things from my own life that have deeply touched me, that’s my inspiration, especially things that God has shown me as I have grown in Him. That’s what makes your books multi-dimensional where people really relate, because everyone has troubles and trials in their life and everyone has needs. If you can go there and tap into those feelings, and sometimes it’s painful. I’ve sat and typed and cried over the story because of whatever was happening there that touched me and I remembered how I felt during that period of time in my life. Then you can also go the other way. How did you feel when your husband first asked you to marry him? How did you feel after you brought your first baby home from the hospital, and things like that that are joyous times. You can also tap into those kind of things. My inspiration basically is my own life story. It takes courage to go there because you have to dig into yourself and experience all those emotions as you write and be willing to feel those things again. I’ve got one here from Adam in Natchez. Hi Adam! I’m glad to see that you’re on the call tonight. Do you ever go with what your gut feeling is about something in your story, no matter what others think? Rosey: There are times when I am definite about something in my story, but I try to be careful because if someone says, “This character isn’t working and this isn’t ringing true,” then I really look at that and try to figure out why it’s not ringing true and how can I make it right. But if it’s just something that someone just doesn’t like it – “I don’t like this ending. I don’t like this happening to this person. Why did you have to let this person die? I didn’t like that,” – those kind of things, then I would go with my gut on that because you know what you want to accomplish with your story and what you’re trying to portray. So if it’s just a situation where someone just doesn’t like some event that happened, then I would definitely go with the gut, but if it’s something about the construction of the plot, or if the character isn’t acting like he should act to be realistic, that kind of thing, then I would definitely take advice on those kind of issues. Jason: I have a question that’s being typed out here, so if you have any others there go ahead, and if not I’ll think one up. Rosey: Adam asked another one here: In your own stories, how do you know when you’re giving too much detail? Rosey: Basically, the way you can tell on that is if the action starts to drag. Is there something happening on every page, or is it just description of the setting and what they look like and what they’re wearing and those kind of things? If there’s too much of that, then it makes the story slow down. Basically what you’re looking at is the pacing to make sure that you’re having something happening and continuing to happen, one thing and then the next thing and then the next thing, without too much space in between. If you get too much space in between the action then it starts to drag, and you definitely don’t want your story to drag. You want to keep it moving. You can add a lot of detail in with the action. That’s another thing you can do. Take those details and insert them into the action. Like instead of describing the man, “He was wearing this suit of armor and he had this kind of a sword,” and on and on for three or four paragraphs about what he was wearing, instead take those same things and put it into the action. “He grabbed the hilt of his sword that was encrusted with jewels. He swiped it across and the man hit him on his leather breastplate and scratched the yellow cover off,” or whatever. You can see the detail in the action and that’s the best way to do it, to include the detail in the action. Jason: I have another one from Angel. Have you ever in the process of writing a book looked back and say, “Oh man, that’s garbage. Who’s going to want to read that?” If so, what do you do then? Rosey: I would get help. Get some people to critique it. Try not to ask your family members, because I’ve found f | ||