Category Archives: Writing

Publishing, Writers, Writers Conference, Writing

Writing Conference

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This past Saturday I attended my first writers conference. It was free and not to far away.

“Getting Published: What Do Publishers Want?” was the first seminar I attended. While the information obtain was not earth shattering new I still enjoyed being in the presence of actual publishers. Copious notes were taken for me to share with fellow writers who had not attended the conference.

I got two things out of this . The first was that small independent presses are willing to work with the author up front without a literary agent. In fact most prefer you don’t have one. Second, I was introduced to five more firms I can send my query letter to. For me these two things were worth my attendance.

The next seminar that caught my eye was “How To Write for Children”. One of the presenters was a 12-year-old boy who has three books in print. Most of the information was not new to be but I did learn again two thing. What I gained from this was two more publishing house names that I had not come across through the Writer’s Market book.

The last seminar I attended was “Traditional Publishing vs Self Publishing”. This section reaffirms what I have been doing since last March which is creating an online presence through social media outlets.

One of the panelist stated that people who go the traditional route are taken more serious. Also, more doors are open to them through the contacts they meet apart from the publishing house they are with.

If you are an aggressive individual and can promote yourself well self- publishing would work for you. If that is not your style and you need the help of a publisher it was recommended to try to get your book in print.

At the moment I am trying to go the traditional route. My books deserve the chance to shine in this avenue. For the past three weeks I have steadily been submitting query letters, chapters, synopsis and cover letters to various publishing houses. The list I am working from is only half way crossed off. A deadline in my head has been given and when that time frame comes then will be looking at self publishing.

Whether I am aggressive enough to promote myself remains to be seen. At least in this day and age I’m fortunate to have the option of ebooks where years ago that was not the case.

Character Development, Characters, Class, Writing

Bringing Good Things To Life

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Week 3: Bringing Characters to Life

The notes from my Character Development class.

The chart below was passed out. This is one way of testing your character from your storyline. The four sections are for action, how it is revealed, feelings and appearance.

character_trait_chart

Your story should have all of these. The action that occur and how is it revealed. How does the character feel about this occurring and lastly what do they look like physically.

If the function of our characters are not convincing or can act out or function in a believable and right proportion then the reader will get bored.

When you start revising from the first draft onward, your character should stay consistent. If you need to change their actions or thought patterns from A to B, it needs to make sense to the readers and the story.

We need to grab the audience within the first few pages about the main person or else you will lose readers.

One more thing, the naming of one’s character is not something to be taken lightly. You have a small window at the beginning of the book to grab your audience. Giving them a memorable yet interesting name will help.

There were little notes taken during this class since we discussed and asked questions throughout.

Author, Blog, Books, Character Developement, Creative Writing, Writing, Writing Advice

Character Development

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My class “ Character Development” started Monday night. The class was amazing and I have six more to go. Learning how to make our characters strong, believable, lovable, loathed, and focused is something we all should strive for as writers. For as an avid reader, I want to fall in love with my character or hate them so badly I want to see how the book ends. Most times I follow through with the liking of a character. There are some books by the time it ends I wish the one I fell for would just go away as my alliances has shifted to the villain who is suddenly amazing.

If we just stick to the physical aspect of what our characters look like ,while we may describe them so well our readers can image them in their minds, you can only go so far with looks. Well that is what they say right? So invest in your characters, go to the root of what makes them who they are, what they are and why I should as a reader get so invested in this one person. For if you don’t chances are the book will not be read

So the instructor asked how strong were our characters in our book? Do they make the reader get invested in them relatively soon or does it drag on? The format my professor suggested was very simple and something I am sure most of you are all aware of.

Who? Where? What? How? When? Why?

Simple enough but then break it down even further. Who did what where and how did they do it and why? Or you can say how did it happen to this other character that is in the book? The possibilities are endless depending how big your cast is in the book.

So in my mind I mentally went through the two books I am trying to get published and did the math so to speak to see if the characters in those books matched up to the rigor of those six questions.

Fortunately they did, and I did not even know I was doing it correctly. I was happily surprised. For in those two books the main characters I broke down to the core. Not just the physical aspects of what they looked liked. But I talked about their character: weakness, likes, fears, hopes,goals,strengths and so on. I started each character from birth and worked my way up. By doing that you give your person the best chance of working whether it is to be loved or hated. Without that, for me as a reader, the book no matter how well written, will be either read and honestly reviewed or just not read at all.

Each class I will share what I have learned, in hopes I can pass on some insight to others so we can all somehow improve our craft.