Meg Donohue's Blog: Reading, Writing, and Giveaways - Posts Tagged "meg-donohue"

I am so very happy to have finally started reading Amanda Eyre Ward's novels. I recently finished CLOSE YOUR EYES and now I'm halfway through HOW TO BE LOST. How am I so late to this party? Ward's books are right up my alley; I can't believe it took me so long to discover her! Smart writing + noirish plots + female protagonists = my favorite kind of book.

Ward is one of those writers who makes every word count...each sentence feels necessary and just right. Such spare prose could result in a spare story, but that's not the case here. Ward tells suspenseful tales that are emotionally resonant and slyly funny. Her protagonists are smart, tough, unpredictable women.

As a writer reading Ward, I'm reminded to weigh each word and sentence carefully. Long descriptions are rarely necessary...the right few words can set a scene and your capable reader can easily intuit the rest.

I'm often wrestling with unwieldy flashbacks in my writing, and it's interesting to see how Ward frequently solves this problem by setting flashbacks into their own chapters...almost creating two separate narratives. I'm always trying to weave my flashbacks into my story's "present" so I'm interested to note another approach.

Thanks for the writing lessons, Amanda Eyre Ward!
Amanda Eyre Ward

As I dive into work on my second novel, I'm learning that a sense of place is very central to my writing. In HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE, I felt that plot and place were closely entwined -- what happened to those characters wouldn't have happened in the specific way they happened in any other city than San Francisco. In the book I'm currently writing, three characters have a strong connection to the beach town where they spent their summers in childhood, and I hope I'm able to breathe enough life into that relationship and that place that it will become a central character in its own right.

Who better to teach a master class on place as character than Elin Hilderbrand? Silver Girl is the first Hilderbrand novel that I've read, and I found myself taking little mental notes the entire time I was reading. SILVER GIRL, like all of her novels, is set mostly on Nantucket, and she does a wonderful job of making the island, and her characters' relationships and history with the island, come alive. I've never been to Nantucket, but I found myself seeing the island clearly through the eyes of the two main characters, heading out with them to the market, the restaurants, and the beaches.

What hooked me? The details. Not untethered, omniscient details, but the details only these specific characters would notice, the details tied to memories: the beachside playground with the metal slide that was always too hot for Connie's now-estranged daughter when she was young, how the curves of the house that her now departed husband designed pull at her heart. These are the details that create place as character.

Reading Hilderbrand, I'm reminded to think about how each of my three characters would look at the beach town of their childhood summers and see, or remember, different things. Each character has her own relationship and memories with the place, and uncovering those unique details will be the way to bring place to life.

Thanks for the writing lesson, Elin Hilderbrand!

Less than one month to go until How to Eat a Cupcake's pub date! Let's celebrate with some homemade cupcakes. If you pre-order by the on-sale date of 3/13, I’ll email you a Meyer lemon cupcake recipe developed exclusively for HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE readers by Bar Bambino pastry chef Alyce Shields. Just email hellomegdonohueATgmail.com with “I Pre-ordered” in the subject line, and I’ll email you the recipe. Orders must be placed before 3/13. Print and ebook pre-orders welcome.

Happy baking!
Meg Donohue

Jennifer Close and I will be here on Goodreads chatting about our new books (The Smart One and All the Summer Girls) and answering your questions on June 5th! I hope you can join us!
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1...

I would also love to chat with any and all interested Goodreads groups at another time, so please don't hesitate to send me a message if you'd like to set up a separate group chat.

I'll be announcing a fun pre-order giveaway contest soon...more to come!

Warmly,
Meg
http://www.megdonohue.com
https://www.facebook.com/authormegdon...

Ever since I first read Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, a question has haunted me ... What if Catherine had lived? Would she have chosen her patient, generous husband or the forbidden love of her childhood? Well, readers, I wrote my own answer. I hope you all enjoy You, Me, and the Sea as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for reading, reviewing, and sharing your love of books!
You, Me, and the Sea
Wuthering Heights