Let’s Talk About Writing

Let’s talk about writing. Not just about the craft, but also about the life. This is a sharing blog, so I hope you’ll feel free to participate by commenting.

Whenever I teach basic writing workshops, one of my top suggestions is:

EVERY WRITER SHOULD READ…WIDELY

So…

1. What do you read?
2. Why do you read what you do; what draws you to that genre / author?
3. What’s the most recent book you’ve read and what made it good / bad / great?
4. What’s your favorite book / author from the past year or two?
5. What reading format(s) do you prefer and why?

I’ll answer from my perspective and you can chime in too. It’s always fun to compare, consider and learn…

I read all the time.

 

I’m what you might call a chain-reader, a story addict.

 

 

1. I read mostly fiction because I’m a story person, but I also read non-fiction to learn more about my craft and especially, these days, about indie publishing. I especially like cozy mysteries and historical novels, but I’m also a sucker for the occasional romance read, as long as there’s more to it than the romance. I read genre fiction as opposed to literary fiction because it makes more sense to me. Some of my reasons for reading are:

– to be entertained

– to lose myself in another world

– to learn about people and places

Genre fiction does this for me.

2. I think I read mysteries for the game: trying to figure out what will happen and why people do the things they do. The cozy part is because I don’t like to read much violence. I appreciate historical novels because that’s what I write, mostly, and I love to imagine and learn how people lived in various times and places.
3. I am currently reading a book called The Woods at Barlow Bend, by Jodie Cain Smith. It’s quite good for the following reasons:

– the storyline is unpredictable

– the point of view character is a fourteen year old girl who doesn’t understand her world

– tension is heightened when her father is accused of murdering her mother

This is neither a historical nor cozy, but I downloaded it for free from Bookbub (there’s a great site for readers) and it has me hooked.
NOTE: If you decide to read this book, I’d love to talk to you about the ending.

4. One of my favorite authors in the past few years is Kate Morton. I love her long stories that peel away secrets and meanings like the layers of an onion. They deal with many issues, about how people respond and react to life’s events, about bad decisions and redemption…or not. The stories are all-consuming, and the mood of the piece runs all the way through each book.

I also love the quiet stories of Botswana told by Alexander McCall Smith through the eyes of Mma Ramotswe, proprietor of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
They are simple and calming.

5. I prefer print books when I’m sitting comfortably on the couch with good lighting, but if I’m awake at night, or at the hairdressers’, I always have stories on my iPhone. I also listen to audiobooks while I’m doing housework or cooking, and these are often Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries.

What about you? What do you like to read?

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Fiction Writing 101 — #3 — Genre

Before we begin talking about plot outlines, character development and setting, let’s discuss a little concept called genre. The word is pronounced john-ra or zhon-ra, and it simply means kind or variety. In our case, it refers to the kinds of stories we read and write.

There are as many kinds of stories out there as there are crayons in a box. Some of the basic genres are:  Mystery (Anne Perry’s William Monk or Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series), Thriller/Suspense (books by Brandilyn Collins), Horror (Ted Dekker), Sci-Fi (DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul) , Fantasy (J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings), Western (Louis L’Amour), Romance (Karen Kingsbury), Historical Fiction (Bodie Thoene’s Zion Covenant and Zion Chronicles), Children’s (classics like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle), Young Adult (excellent theme books by Melody Carlson), and Short Fiction. Each of these genres can be broken up into sub-genres, of which new ones are being developed every day. For example, some of the sub-genres in the Mystery theme are:  Amateur Investigator, Bumbling Detective, Cozy, Legal, Police Procedural, Whodunit, etc. See the following link for more information: http://www.cuebon.com/ewriters/genres.html.

What’s your genre? The key question to help you discover this is usually: what kinds of stories do you most like to read? I say usually, because I love reading and listening to mysteries, but I haven’t figured out how to write a good one…yet. I also love reading historical fiction, and the more I read, the more I learn about how it’s done.

Based on your favourite genres of fiction, which would you most like to write? Why? I like Historical Fiction because it reminds me that every historical figure that inspires me to write about them has actually lived and died, loved and hated, succeeded and failed. Each is real and unique and deserves to be known and understood, at least to some degree. When I create characters in historical fiction, it is with the hope that they will become as real as if they had actually lived.

Perhaps you wish to write Children’s Fiction because you love to tell stories to the little people in your life. Maybe you want to try writing for teens in order to help them better understand themselves and their parents and life in general. The draw to Fantasy may be the opportunity to create a new world with its own set of rules and parameters. Of course, there’s always help on the web. Here’s just one site of many to check out:  http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/genrefiction/a/How-To-Choose-A-Genre-For-Your-Novels.htm

Although most of us know what kind of story we want to write, the conundrum that presents itself is whether to write what’s on our hearts or what will sell best. The answer depends on our goals. If our number one objective is to sell our story, then we must research and write what’s selling. My agent once suggested that anything with a buggy and bonnet on the cover would sell. (I can’t tell you why, after all this time, but that’s another issue.) We can still be creative when we write for the market, but we must make sure we’re okay with it.

Personally, I need to write from the heart, whether it sells immediately or not. Pair that with the premise of Kevin Costner’s movie, Field of Dreams:  “Build it and he will come.” Write it, and the readers will come, so we hope and pray. The choice is up to us as individuals.

For the Christian writer, published or not, the choice of genre is important. If we plan to build a platform (the genre and style of writing that people think of when they recognize our names, also referred to as our brand), we will need to concentrate on writing in one genre until we are known by our readers.

Read Full Post »