Nancy Christie's Blog, page 29
March 9, 2022
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 3.9.22 from Ray Bradbury
The post Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 3.9.22 from Ray Bradbury appeared first on The Writer's Place.
March 8, 2022
Thoughts on writing and life for March 2022
Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash
Just a few thoughts on how reaching the top (i.e., success) requires us to take one step after the other—without giving up.
This is an excerpt from my newsletter, The Writing Life for March 2022.
You can also listen to it on my Living the Writing Life podcast.
It’s March, which means we are fast approaching the end of the first quarter of 2022. (Really? And how did that happen?) And if you’re like me, that means you have a ...
March 4, 2022
Speeding Up Your Story Flow
This is an excerpt from my post on Focus on Fiction
If you’re worried that your story is dragging a bit or you’ve filled your chapters with so much detail or backstory that the focus is hard to figure out, author Chet Meisner has go-to strategies to get your story out of its rut and back on track!
(Read all his tips and get his downloadable pdf at my full post—see the link above!)
What are some of the major causes of story slowdown?
Here are a few of the most common ones:The premise of the story isn’t strong enough to keep the reader wanting more. A premise like A baseball player must learn to cope with his wife’s death and avoid committing suicide will get and keep the reader engaged a lot more than Bob reminisces about his days as a minor league pitcher.
The writer is holding back information from the reader so he or she can “surprise” the reader later. The reader will only wait so long and then you’ll get the I just couldn’t stick with it long enough to get to the end reaction. Give the reader enough “anchors” early so they’ll stay with you for the rest.
The writer has created chapters that just “set thing up,” “introduce characters,” or “establish place,” but don’t move the story along or create tension. This will elicit the I kept waiting for something to happen reaction from the reader. Treat every chapter as a complete short story, with its own beginning, middle, end, rising and falling action. Make something compelling and interesting happen in every chapter.
The chapters are too long. Shorter chapters with good page turners will keep the reader moving through the story faster and wanting more.
Are there times when writers should balance the pacing—speeding it up in some cases and slowing it down in others?
Yes. If the writer paces the whole story at ninety miles per hour the reader will eventually get exhausted, and everything will run together. I think of my stories as a piece of music. In fact, I get many of my pacing ideas by listening to music and translating the emotional impact of the various movements to important points in a story. I call this “orchestrating my story.”Can backstory cause the story to get bogged down?
Absolutely. This is a common problem with a number of story submissions I have critiqued or judged. Sometimes writers confuse “backstory” with the research they did when creating the character. The reader doesn’t need to know everything the writer knows about the characters’ histories, but just enough to understand why the characters act the way they do.
How can writers determine if the backstory is necessary or if it is just “filler”?
My rule of thumb is that I try hard not to use pure backstory unless I absolutely cannot find a way to explain a character’s behavior through dialogue, action, interaction, or reaction. And even then, I keep it as short and concise as possible. At some point the writer has to trust the reader to fill in the necessary blanks if the writer drops enough breadcrumbs.March 2, 2022
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 3.2.22 from Confucius
The post Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 3.2.22 from Confucius appeared first on The Writer's Place.
February 25, 2022
Check out my latest short story!
I’m thrilled to announce my latest short story, “The Message Is Understood,” was published on CommuterLit.
A little background about the story… I have a folder on my computer labeled “WIP Short Stories” that at last count, had more than 300 stories in various stages of completion. Some are pretty closed to being finished, others are just a title and a few paragraphs.
So when CommuterLit was looking for Valentine and love-themed stories for this month, I started working my way through those stories to see if I had anything that fit.
Well, surprise, surprise, I found a folder labeled “LoveTalk” and in it was this piece. I opened it up, did some polishing, and sent it off. And I was absolutely thrilled to have it accepted.
Check it out here and let me know what you think!
And if you want to read any of my other stories, go to My Short Fiction page on my website!
February 23, 2022
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.23.22 from Robert McKee
The post Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.23.22 from Robert McKee appeared first on The Writer's Place.
February 22, 2022
My Thoughts On… Published by Chandler Bolt
Back in 2016, I had received a copy of Published.: The Proven Path From Blank Page to Published Author by Chandler Bolt, founder and CEO of Self-Publishing School, and found a great deal of useful information.
So when Chandler released an updated version, now titled Published.: The Proven Path From Blank Page To 10,000 Copies Sold, I was thrilled to receive an advance copy because book marketing can be such a challenge and I needed to up my game!
Being an impatient person, I didn’t start at the ...
February 18, 2022
Living the Writing Life podcast with author Casie Bazay
Here’s some background on Casie: she’s a former middle school teacher whose debut novel, Not Our Summer, was released in the spring of 2021 by Running Press Kids.
A freelance writer and editor, Casie lives on a hay farm in Oklahoma with her husband and two children, and in her spare time, enjoys exploring the great outdoors, spending time at the barn with her horses and goats, reading, and watching movies.
Casie also loves traveling to new and exciting destinations whenever she can.
For more about Casie, visit her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Listen to the episode here.
February 16, 2022
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.16.22 from R.J. Ellory
The post Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.16.22 from R.J. Ellory appeared first on The Writer's Place.
February 15, 2022
Prison and Poetry: Jorge Nuñez’s Unexpected Road to the Arts
I have Deborah Tobola to thank for this introduction to the poet Jorge Nuñez. When I interviewed her on my podcast, Living the Writing Life, she mentioned a poet she team-teaches with at the California Men’s Colony, then explained he was one of her students years earlier when she was holding classes for the incarcerated.
I was fascinated by that little bit of his story and reached out to him, wanting to know how a former teenage gang m...
