Darcy Pattison's Blog, page 22

Scene: Fast or Fast-Paced?

" Saucy is a real character dealing with real stuff—hard stuff that doesn’t have easy answers, not in real life and not in fairy tales, either. This is a really compelling and ultimately hopeful story. Highly recommended."
– Debby Dahl Edwardson, National Book Award finalist and author of My Name is Not Easy
Read a sample chapter.

Is your scene fast or fast-paced? There’s a difference, an important difference.

A fast paced scene has lots of small changes happening, which keeps the reader on the edge of his/her seat. Think of it as the last few minutes of a basketball game where the ball changes hands often, and the score bounces back and forth.

These could be called small zigzags of action and emotion, or it could be a rapid list of beats or actions. Each action lasts a short time, before something else happens.

Fast-paced scenes aren’t necessarily fast scenes.

A fast scene means that the whole scene is quickly over. The entire beginning, complication, development, and resolution of the scene takes just a few moments, a few lines.

Fast-paced scenes are almost always welcome.

Fast scenes have a place in fiction when you need something to happen in an economical manner.

However, you should avoid fast scenes for the Big Moments in your story. These are scenes such as the Opening, the climax of Act 1 (sometimes called the Inciting Incident) which moves the action into Act 2, several big moments in Act 2, the scene that send the action into Act 3, and of course, the Climax scene. Those scenes need to take up more space, and should probably be fast-paced. But there’s more happening, emotional content, twists, and surprises; these are extended scenes. These are the things that make a scene big. Of all the scenes, the longest will probably be the Climax scene, by a matter of pages.

There are fast-paced, fast (or short) scenes.

There are fast-paced, medium length scenes.

There are fast-paced, long scenes.

Make sure you know when and where to use each one.

Bad First Drafts–And Why They are OK

" Saucy is a real character dealing with real stuff—hard stuff that doesn’t have easy answers, not in real life and not in fairy tales, either. This is a really compelling and ultimately hopeful story. Highly recommended."
– Debby Dahl Edwardson, National Book Award finalist and author of My Name is Not Easy
Read a sample chapter.

Never cry over first drafts! Instead, take heart in Katherine Paterson’s wise words: Make ice cream.

Once again, I am writing a really, really bad first draft.

That’s OK.

I know that I can clean it up.

But every time I do this, I am slightly embarrassed. Really? That’s the best I can do?

I have avoided the draft of the last two chapters of this story for over a month, but finally, deadlines loomed and I had to buckle down and do this.

I tried my best to write two good chapter. Instead, they are very bad.

I knew that was going to happen!

That’s why I put it off.

But putting it off doesn’t change the reality. Sometimes, no matter how you try, you must just write the draft, even if it’s bad. Then, you can revise and refine ad nauseam. But you can’t revise what isn’t written. It’s a cold reality.

I should have embraced the bad.

Just done it a long time ago.

But I want so badly to write well. (That’s really all I ever want–to write well.)

The writing process is crazy. But it works. Bad first draft is done today! Now, for the joy of revising.

Genres Promise Certain Emotions: Are you Keeping Your Promise?

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Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

When readers pick up a genre novel, they are expecting a certain emotion. For romance, they expect an emotional range of love, heartache and connection with someone. Mysteries evoke curiosity, a puzzle to be solved and emotional satisfaction when you figure it out before the detective. Horror writers provide a scare, a thrill, and a repulsion for something.

When you write a story, in other words, you are promising the reader an emotional ride of a certain kind.

Before you start a story, think about the emotional promises of what you are planning. Does it fit into a genre or could it? If so, take advantage of the genre conventions to enhance your story.

Creating a Mood

When you start the actual writing, it’s easy to enhance that emotion by creating a certain mood. To do that, think hard about the setting and what your character would experience in that setting. Think about the sights, sounds, textures, temperature, tastes, and smells.

For example, if you wanted to describe a scary wedding, here are some possible sensory details: sharp cake knife, stiletto heels, startle of broken champagne glass, the bang of the champagne cork popping out, sickly sweet perfume, or cloudy and overcast day. As you write the story, you’re looking for words that have a scary connotation. Poets Miller Williams and John Ciardi say that a novel is a context for making choices; and within those choices, the important thing is connotations speaking to connotations.

I love that way of saying it: connotations speaking to connotations.

This isn’t to say that you will only have one emotion in a story. instead, you’ll work for a range of emotions throughout the story. Even at a funeral, it’s boring is everyone is sad, sad, and furthermore, they are sad. Instead, characters should joke about the deceased, tell a touching story, fight with relatives, and so so. Never hit just one emotional note, but a range of emotions that keep the reader interested.

Yet, overall, your story should give the reader one strong overall emotion. Why? Because that’s what you promised your reader.

How would you describe this photograph to create a mood of mystery? What would you smell, taste, see, hear, and feel in this place?

Revising a Picture Book: Length, Common Core, Details and Research

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Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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I just did a quick revision of a picture book that’s in progress.

Shorter. One goal was to shorten the story whenever possible. I cut out an entire page, and an entire sentence. Doesn’t sound like much? At only 700 words, the story is as streamlined as I can make it. Well, no. I just cut out one page and a sentence. Honing the text to the tightest possible is important for picture book texts.

When I’m asked to read someone’s manuscript, here’s my main comment: Cut it in half.

And a friend adds this: After cutting it in half, cut another 100 words.

Classroom reading center: Will your picture book be useful in the classroom?

Common Core. The Common Core education standards are a couple years now and their requirements are definitely on my mind. I am constantly consulting the standards for each grade level and working to make sure the picture book is useful in the classroom. Because I write for early elementary, I consider this a crucial aspect of what I do.

First, I focus on the story. Is the story itself compelling and interesting for the audience? If so, then can I add anything that will enhance it’s use in the classroom, without changing the essential story elements? For example, my picture book, THE JOURNEY OF OLIVER K. WOODMAN is now ten years old and still selling well. Part of the reason is that the story is told in letters and postcards. Of course, children’s learn about writing letters and postcards in early elementary, so this book is a natural for teachers to use as a mentor text. The story came first and demanded to be written in an epistolary (big word for letters) format. But after the story worked, then the layout and design decisions enhanced its usefulness in the classroom. Story first; but don’t ignore the book’s classroom usefulness.

Details. The Work-in-progress is about cats and I’m looking at about 20 cats that could be used in various places in the story. Which cat goes where? It’s a balancing act which requires me to know something about different cat breeds and match them to my story. I also have to carefully tabulate and re-tabulate which breeds I’ve used. I can’t use one breed twice, but each of the 20 breeds must be used. Check. No, move that one to this place. Re-check. It was a morning of detailed work!

Research.

I know–everyone loves cat videos. But have you ever seen a Devon Rex cat?



If you can’t see this video, click here.

In case you were wondering, according to the Cat Fancier’s Association, here’s the top 20 most popular cat breeds in 2013. (In other words, I am doing research to document and justify the breeds I am using in the story.)

RANK BREED

1 Persian

2 Exotic

3 Maine Coon Cat

4 Ragdoll

5 British Shorthair

6 Abyssinian

7 American Shorthair

8 Sphynx

9 Siamese

10 Devon Rex

11 Norwegian Forest Cat

12 Oriental

13 Scottish Fold

14 Cornish Rex

15 Birman

16 Burmese

17 Tonkinese

18 Siberian

19 Russian Blue

20 Egyptian Mau

May News: Earth Day, Featured Blog and Mother’s Day

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Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

This is a newsy post for May:

Celebrating Earth Day

Authors for Earth Day.

This week, I did a couple school visits to celebrate Earth Day, as part of the Authors For Earth Day program. Yes, it was after Earth Day, but it was the only time we could schedule it.

Darcy Pattison presenting at Gibbs Magnet Elementary School, Little Rock School District, as part of her participation in Authors For Earth Day.

Darcy Pattison signing books at Authors For Earth Day event.

Student at Gibbs Elementary holding my book, ABAYOMI.

Fiction Notes: Featured SCBWI Blog for May/June

I’ve been notified that Fiction Notes will be one of the featured blogs on the SCBWI home page for the next two months. They choose about nine blogs to highlight and rotate them six times a year. I am surprised, but pleased to be included. I was the Arkansas SCBWI Regional Advisor for six years and Conference Director for 10–it’s an organization that has meant a lot to me.

Mother’s Day

Are you active on Pinterest? Here’s a new possibility for promoting your content. Pinterest has announced a Mother’s Day Inspiration Challenge.

“Create a public Pinterest board with your favorite mom memories and the things ‘mom used to make.’”

If you want to join the fun, the deadline is May 7.

The challenge is always how to take someone else’s writing/publishing prompt and make it your own! Here’s my Mother’s Day Pinterest Board, where you’ll see a couple photos of my mom and my tribute to her–plus a few classic books, of course.

Arkansas Literary Festival: Cocktails, Glossolalia, and Orphaned Pumas

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Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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Cocktail Party – Author! Author!

Friday night, I went to the Author! Author! party with Carla McClafferty, my author friend. We chatted with local radio celebrity, Ann Nicholson, host of KUAR’s Art Scene show.

Arkansas author, Carla McClafferty, and KUAR radio “Art Scene” host, Ann Nicholson.

Of course, they had good food.

Author! Author! Cocktail party at the AR Literary Festival.

Arkansas author Erica Taylor was accompanied to the party by her husband, Middleweight boxer Jermain Taylor. Here’s his plate.

Middleweight boxer Jermain Taylor’s plate at the Author! Author! Cocktail party, AR Literary Festival.

If you read my first blog post about the Arkansas Literary Festival, you know that I featured 71-year old Catherine Coutler’s legs. Here, I am confessing that I wrote about her; Carla, Catherine and I also tried to outdo each other by telling horror stories about author visits.

Arkansas author, Darcy Patti son talking with Catherine Coulter.

Catherine also talked about the process of working with co-writer J.T. Ellison on her new Brit in the FBI series. Like James Patterson and Clive Cussler, Catherine is looking to establish several ongoing series by using cowriters. She said that she firmly believes in paying a co-writer well; of course, being an instant NY Times bestseller is also an incentive for a co-writer. Catherine is usually a panster, writing with no outline. For this series, though, she and J.T. sat down and planned out the next 90 or so scenes and the story has pretty much stayed on track. It is possible to learn a new writing strategy, even after 70 books.

Would you be interested in co-writing with a NY Time best-selling author? Why or why not?

Speed Dating for Authors

For me, the second day of the Arkansas Literary Festival kicked off on Saturday with a Treasure Hunt at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library, a gorgeous new facility dedicated to children’s literature and children.

We describe the Treasure Hunt as “speed-dating for authors.” Kids go from station to station, looking for clues, and of course, there is a treasure (snack and small gift) at the end. In the past, the speed dating has had ten minutes at each station, and then a bell rings to move kids to the next station. This time, kids were just set free to complete the treasure hunt at his/her own speed.

For authors, this didn’t work well and I hope we’ll go back to ten minute sessions next year. For example, one boy who was the right age for my ABAYOMI book breezed through, totally focused on gathering clues and getting the prize at the end. He was probably the first to finish in record time–but he saw none of the books and talked to no authors. If the setup had allowed ten minutes per station, he might have been pulled into a couple of great books that were unfamiliar to him.

Still–it was a great morning with kids, and I was so busy, I took no pictures.

Short Stories

I wanted to attend at least one session on Saturday and chose to go see David Jauss, author and writing teacher. He teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Vermont College and is the author of one of the most amazing books on how-to-write: On Writing Fiction: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About the Craft. His essay on point-of-view is unconventional, but brilliant. I used his ideas as the basis of a 3-post discussion of POV in The One and Only Ivan, winner of the 2013 Newbery. I had never met Jauss and wanted to hear him.

Jauss and author Cary Holladay were talking about short stories and both read interesting selections. Then, the moderator asked, “How do you know when a story is done?”

For Holladay, she intuitively knows when a story is done, because it wraps up something and just feels done. Jauss posed an interesting question. At first, he quipped, “A story is done when you die.”

But he went on to point out that some writers feel a published story should be archived at the moment of publication as an expression of where the writer was at that point of his/her career. However, Jauss feels its his duty to improve his stories each time it may be published. One short story has seen print about seven times in various journals or anthologies and each time, he tweaks it.

Where do you stand? After a story is published, would you tweak it again when it is republished?

Arkansas Author, David Jauss talking about his story story collection, Glossolalia

Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma

For my author session about ABAYOMI, THE BRAZILIAN PUMA: The True Story of an Orphaned Cub, I was at the Witt Stephens Nature Center. Situated right on the Arkansas River, just a block east of the Main Library for the Central Arkansas Library System and a block west of the Clinton Presidential Library, it’s a jewel of a place that is dedicated to the wildlife in the state.

Arkansas author, Darcy Pattison discussing her new book, Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma.

My last session was about self-publishing. As a hybrid author, I now have lots of sources and information for those just starting the indie process. Here’s my handout for the session. IndiePublishing-2014LitFestival.

I saw a tiny slice of the festival this year, which featured over 85 authors. Still, it was an intensive and fun two days and i am already looking forward to next year’s festival.

Arkansas Literary Festival: Ankle Bracelets, Revised Sex Scenes, and Bees

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Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

This weekend is the Arkansas Literary Festival, and I’m busy and having a blast.

The day started at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion, where First Lady Ginger Beebe hosted Literacy on the Lawn for the sixth year in a row. Mrs. Beebe extends invitations to schools in the state to bring classes to the Mansion for Arkansas authors to read to them. After a Mansion session, they go to the Clinton Presidential Library across town; this year, they met with the amazing Kadir Nelson for a session about his books. That’s the bare facts. Here’s the behind the scenes story.

The Arkansas Literacy Festival Started for Me with the Literacy on the Lawn at the Governor’s Mansion

When I arrived at the Governor’s Mansion, I was met by Mrs. Beebe. Because of laws limiting a governor’s term to eight years, this is the last year for Mrs. Beebe to host the Literacy on the Lawn and there was a touch of sadness, and perhaps, she was more relaxed this year, too. Wearing a bright pink dress and white blouse, she chatted about past years. After a cup of coffee, she directed me to my station. I was to expect two classes of third-graders about 30 minutes apart.

A first-time author wondered if these were souvenir cups that we could take home. No. They were just here for early morning refreshments to get the day started right.

Meeting Erica Taylor

Erica Taylor, Arkansas author, who read her books at the Literacy on the Lawn.

Before the kids arrived, I chatted with another presenter, Erica Taylor, Arkansas author of Figler: My Imaginary Friend. Erica was cheerful and we chatted about books and life. She played college basketball for Louisiana Tech University and was drafted for the WNBA by the Washington Mystics (she’s the tall one in the photo!). She told about trying out for the Olympic team at the age of 16 and not making it; however, at the trials, she met her future husband, Jermain Taylor, who became in 2005, the Undisputed Middleweight Boxing Champion. Mother of three, Erica now writes and is a dance mom, shepherding her daughter through many dance competitions.



Reading to Kids: I Always Learn Something New from my Readers

The sessions with kids went well. Students from Lynch Drive Elementary School in the North Little Rock School District were attentive and asked great questions about Laysan albatrosses and Brazilian pumas. For me, the most interesting thing was that third graders didn’t seem to understand how the world of nature is interconnected, in other words, what an ecosystem truly is. We talked about why we might want to save the orphaned puma and many were surprised that scientists wanted to return it to the wild, where it might potentially harm someone.

In Brazil, I explained that ticks carry Brazilian spotted fever, a lethal disease similar to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and which is on the increase nationwide. The host for the ticks are capybaras, the largest rodent in the world. The predator for capybaras is the puma (also known as cougar, Florida panther, mountain lion, etc.). By encouraging puma populations, you defeat the Brazilian spotted fever. These connections were difficult for the kids to understand. Perhaps this means I need to write a book explaining ecosystems?

Learning to Revise a Sex Scene

California author, Catherine Coulter teaching us how to write better sex scenes.

I had a two hour break and had planned to actually attend a session at the Literary Festival. I chose Catherine Coulter’s “Kill ‘em Clean” session because she was talking about writing and I thought it could be interesting. In honor of this decision, I am listening to the Audible version of The Final Cut (A Brit in the FBI), which is co-written with J.T. Ellison. At 71 years old, Catherine was a knockout, wearing high heels and wearing an ankle bracelet. Her session was a knock-out, too, because it’s the first time I’ve ever had a teacher read an awful love scene and then talk the participants through a revision of the love scene. Yes, I learned how to revise a sex scene. But I have no clue when I will use this new-found skill!

At 71 years old, Catherine Coulter still wears a knee-length skirt, high heels, and an ankle bracelet for her presentation. Wow!

Of course, Catherine covered much more in her session (Read the classic Strunk and White for a quick overview of what Catherine covered), but she will forever stand out in my mind because she’s the first writing teacher I’ve had who tackled–in public–revising a sex scene.
Luncheon at the Governor’s Mansion

I returned to the Governor’s Mansion where the festivities had died down and kids were boarding buses to return to their schools. Traditionally, Mrs. Beebe hosts a thank-you luncheon for the docents who gave tours of the Mansion to the students, and to the authors who read to the students. Kadir Nelson joined us from the Clinton Presidential Libary.

We dined on Cobb Salad.

Cobb salad with vinaigrette dressing was served for the luncheon after the Literacy on the Lawn.

Dessert included an Arkansas-shaped sugar cookie and mixed berries.

Coffee and dessert on the Governor’s Mansion china: a sugar-cookie in the shape of Arkansas and mixed berries.

A Note: Why, you might ask has this post included so many pictures, especially photos of food? This week, I read a fascinating post from the Buffer App folks that summarized scientific studies of what works on Pinterest and what doesn’t. The most repinned photos were of food, especially when combined with a recipe, and of certain colors (No blues!). No recipes here, just great pics of a beautifully laid table, interesting decorations and tasty food. Notice that I snuck in some photos of my newest picture book, Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma, while I was at it. Look at the my Pinterest board on the Arkansas Literary Festival; I’ll add to it tonight after the Author! Author! cocktail party and tomorrow, after my sessions.

Mrs. Ginger Beebe, First Lady of Arkansas tells a story about bees.

During the luncheon, Mrs. Beebe told us a story of bees. It seems that the Mansion’s pergola has been invaded by a swarm of bees, which have been there a couple years. But this spring, over a two week period three swarms of bees left the pergola to take off and find a new home. That means the bee colony was very healthy with three queen bees emerging rapidly and taking off with each swarm. They decided it was time to get the bees out of the pergola, partly because it was damaging the structure, and partly because the Mansion committee had recently installed two hives of bees on the other side of the grounds.

Animated, Mrs. Beebe told us, “The bees in the hive are Italian banded bees, but the ones in the pergola are mutt bees. Mike (the AR-governor) asked, ‘Do we have to import bees from Italy?’”

The pergola was slowly being dismantled because as each board was removed, it revealed massive honeycombs which had to be cut out and taken to the Mansion kitchen for processing. “They haven’t even found the bee colony yet,” Mrs. Beebe said.

And here we thought that the First Lady only knew about Republicans and Democrats.

Mrs. Beebe telling a story about bees.

And the somber-faced Kadir Nelson actually smiled and laughed at Mrs. Beebe’s stories!

Kadir Nelson enjoyed Mrs. Beebe’s stories about bees on the grounds of the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. She’s a great hostess!

Instead, she painted a lively scene of grandchildren playing king and queen from the balconies, bee colonies providing entertainment, and a certain sadness as her time at the mansion comes to a close. Mrs. Beebe, we appreciate all you’ve done for literacy in the state. Thank you for hosting authors and kids and books and connecting them in such a gracious and welcoming manner.

The Festival is far from done! There’s the cocktail party tonight, where I’ll take more food pictures for the sake of Pinterest. And, three sessions tomorrow. I’ll post!

A Writing Career: Be Yourself!

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Goodreads Book Giveaway








Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Do you ever sit and plan out your career?

Recently on a listserv, authors were talking about careers. Some knew exactly where they wanted to go and were laser focused. Some were looking all around and trying a bit of this and a bit of that. How do you plan a writing career?

What are you good at?

Which pieces of writing are bringing you the most attention? This is a hard one because some of the writers were having success with nonfiction pieces; yet, they longed to write fiction. (Not many vice versa!) The question became, do you stick with nonfiction to build a career? Some needed the income from their nonfiction and considered it their job; fiction was their passion, but not the bread-winner, so they could only fit it in around other projects.

There’s nothing wrong with this! Good writing is good writing. Why not make money at what you do and do well? Often, we don’t see ourselves and our work clearly. The marketplace has a way of rewarding good work and it’s clearly something to which you should pay attention.

Where do your passions lie?

“Six of One, Half a Dozen of Me,” self-portrait quilt. c. 2014 Darcy Pattison

Are you a frustrated poet? Do you love YA novels? Or do easy readers excite you because you’ll be helping someone learn to love reading? For me, everything I do winds up being teaching. I like to take complex material and simplify it for others so it’s practical and easy to implement. But I also love poetry, writing fantasy and science fiction novels, and writing for this blog. Picture books are especially exciting for me to write. I’m all over the place. When you have a multifaceted set of passions, sometimes you need to prioritize. Or understand that for this season of life, one passion will sell better than anything else.

If you need some tutoring in order to be great at a passion, then get it.

Unique: No One Else Could Do This

One way of thinking about this is to answer this question: What can you do that no one else could do? What’s the one type of writing/publishing in which you could be the best in the world? Top Dog! Why mess around writing mediocre pieces? Instead, find the one thing that you do best and no one else can match you.

Maybe it’s one of these:

Nature poetry for K-3.
Erotica for New Adult readers.
Christian fiction set in NYC for New Adult readers.
YA dystopian stories set on Mars.
Picture book family stories for the MidWest.
Preschool picture books that include a grandparent.
Vietnam War stories for middle grade girls.

It doesn’t matter that you are the only one in your category and you’ve even invented the category. Vietnam War stories for middle grade girls? Yikes! Unlikely. But it that’s your passion and you can pull it off with integrity and excellence, then do it!

That’s how you build a career. Do something no one else has done and do it with such excellence that no one can turn you down.

Easier said than done? Of course. But a career plan worthy of striving toward. And in the end, that’s all we can do. Butt in chair. Write. You might as well choose to write what will build your career.

Abandoned Story? Pick up the Story Lines Again and Create Magic

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Goodreads Book Giveaway








Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Some fear the blank page. I fear the half-written page.

I was writing along, doing great on a story when life interrupted (how dare it!). Has that happened to you? You know where the story is going, you’re in the drafting mode and going strong and BANG! Something happens. You have to set the story aside for a while.

Momentum is lost.

The story almost seems lost, too.

When life interrupts your story, how do you get back into it?

Picking up the Threads of an Abandoned Story

The first thing I’ll do this week is re-read the story. It’s important to see what I actually put on the page.

Next, I’ll try to recapture the excitement and recreate my mindset. This means looking at notes, images, reference material or anything else that will help remind me of my place in the story. Maybe I’ll need to write a letter to myself about how excited I was when I was writing the story.

Retype a chapter. If that doesn’t help, I’ll retype a chapter and make small edits as I go.

Move the pen across the page. When I taught freshman composition, I used a technique that always worked. I insisted that the student move the pen across the page and write words. In other words, they had to go through the motions of writing.

“What do I write?” they moaned.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t know what to write.”

OK. Write this sentence and keep writing it until you want to write something else:

I don’t know what to write, so I am writing this dumb sentence.

Inevitably, after writing that sentence once or twice, the student segued into something else.

If all else fails to get me back into the story. I’ll do the same thing. I’ll sit and go through the motions of writing until I get so bored with the drivel that I’ll start to get creative and something will happen. I only hope what happens on the page is magic!

Walking the Ground: Researching Setting for a Novel

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Goodreads Book Giveaway








Vagabonds


by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends May 09, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I am researching the setting and background for a new novel, which I hope to set near Seattle, WA. I’m going there next month for a week and am trying to sort out what I need to know by the end of the week.

What I Need to Know

Sensory Details. I’ve written about the importance of vivid sensory details here, and here, and again, here. As a young writer, I heard over and over, “Show, Don’t Tell.” When I finally made that more specific–use vivid sensory details–my writing took off. I can’t over-emphasize the importance of great sensory details. I consider it the basic writing exercise for fiction.

That means, I need to walk around the proposed setting and be a fully-present human. I need to soak in the smells, tastes, sounds, sights and what it feels like to move around in this place. I remember a couple years ago, I was at a conference on Puget Sound and a salmon was swimming up a tiny stream. Thrashing, 3-foot long salmon, powerful tale, the smell of salt water and the bacon I was eating at a restaurant, the stream only 2 inches deep, the salmon like a Gulliver in Lilliputia.

When I write details, I don’t care about whole sentences. I’m just creating a word bank so that later, I can draw from the memory what I need. I also need to be able to extrapolate. If it’s like this on Bainbridge Island, would it also be like this in the San Juan Islands far north of there? I need specific enough, yet general enough details so that the story comes alive, but isn’t bogged down by details so specific that I can’t move around the area.

Port Townsend, WA. My husband took this photo when we were in the Seattle area a couple years ago for a sailing trip. Photographs are great research tools. Click to enlarge and see just how spectacular this photo really is. Copyright 2008, Dwight Pattison.

Facts. Oh, dear. There are so many facts that I need to know about the Seattle area. Volcanoes, Puget Sound, school system, boats and on and on. I can absorb lots of that just by visiting the area, but fortunately, I do have long-time residents who can vet the story for me after the first draft. I need to know enough to get the STORY right, and then details can be tweaked.

Logistics. Of course, this is another category of facts, but slightly different than what I meant earlier. For this, I need to know transportation details. How long does it take to go–walk, bike, drive a car, swim, take a ferry–from point A to point B. This is crucial to developing a reasonable time line. Part of this is understanding maps, of course, but mostly it’s about physically moving a person around the landscape.

Culture. Now, here’s a fuzzy one. What cultural elements will impact the story I am planning. Attitudes, beliefs, institutions, dialect/slang unique to the area, how people here DO something–so many subtle and not-so-subtle things need to be taken in (and again, vetted by long-time residents after the first draft).

Whether you create your setting from historical details, contemporary details or create a a fantasy world, this is a crucial step in creating a believable story.