Florence Witkop's Blog, page 53

THE RIGHT LINK TO MY NEW BOOK!!!!

Okay, this time I got it right. The link was simple after all, I just thought it was complicated so, of course, I didn’t get it right.

Anyway, here it is:

http://www.Amazon.com/dp/B077RMTT2C

Whew!

My latest book is on Amazon

This time I did it. I eschewed self-publishing and went with a publisher. It’s a clean romance so I’m now part of the stable of writers for Forget Me Not Romances, an imprint of Winged Publications.

As you might guess, they publish only clean and Christian romances, as well as other cross-genre fiction. My latest story isn’t exactly Christian though it’s close but it’s definitely clean because every time I try writing a hot, steamy sex scene I re-learn a lesson I learned early on in my writing career. That I simply can’t write while rolling on the floor laughing. Sooooo I’m into clean romances only.

Anyway, Shhh — Don’t Tell is now live on Amazon and I’d love, love, love to have readers read it and leave a review, which are the lifelines of books, unless  your name is Steven King, and I’m definitely not him so any help in the review department will be much appreciated. Oh yes, you do have to have a valid Amazon account to leave a review. Sucks, huh?

And in case you are curious. Shhh — Don’t Tell is the story of a jilted up-and-coming corporate career woman who goes back to her small home town to recuperate emotionally, where she works in her aunt’s outdoor garden store and finds a clutch (I think that’s the correct term, correct me if I’m wrong) of Mallard duck eggs in one of the pots that’s for sale in the outdoor portion of the store. In her depressed state, as a kind of therapy, she decides to take on the job of protecting the mother  Mallard and the ducklings until they leave in the autumn and she decides no one must know of their existence because people love to watch baby birds and too many people could be deleterious to their health.

Of course, there’s a romance with the town newspaper reporter whom she won’t tell about the ducks though she tells him everything else for the aforesaid reason — he’d write about them and they’d be deluged with unwanted visitors.

Read the book to see  how everything works out. And, of course, it will work out because I wrote the book and I always, always, always end my books happily. I mean, why end a story any other way? Life is short and should be enjoyed and I don’t believe in wallowing in misery either in real life or in books.

As soon as I figure out how to link my newest book to this website, I’ll get it operational so all you readers who are panting with eagerness to buy the book can do so easily from this site.

I hope.

I love writing fiction (mostly Fanfiction and poetry) but I’m terrified that I’m terrible at it as I never get high marks on essays. How do I get better?

 This is one question with a very, very simple answer.

Don’t worry about it!

Essays and fiction are two different worlds. Completely, entirely different. In fact, each kind of writing is different from every other kind.

Once, in a conversation with a friend who writes non-fiction, we discussed the differences between our differing modes. We finally decided that if it was absolutely essential, we could— possibly— each learn how to do the other’s kind of writing but that we’d only do so if faced with imminent starvation because it would involve starting from scratch as if we’d never written a word before!

So stop worrying and start writing.

How do you deal with writer’s block? I have too many ideas and they are all trying to get out at the same time, which makes my stories a huge mess.

First you get your ideas down on paper on in a computer to wherever you jot things down that you don’t want to forget. That way, you can stop worrying that you’ll forget them because they are written down. Somewhere.

Second you organize those ideas using whatever system you prefer. Most important to least. Chronological. Most favorite to least favorite. Whatever works for you.

Third you put them aside and, now that they are in a place where they won’t be forgotten but can’t bother you any longer and keep you from thinking of your current work, you figure out what you DO want to do. What you DO want to write.

Fourth you outline that wonderful, creative work so you’ll have some idea of how you want to put it down on paper because, if your mind is the kind of mind that gets lost in a blizzard of ideas, then you’ll need to organize physically, on paper, in order to not have those new ideas start haunting you just like the old ones did and preventing you from writing.

Fifth you write.

What concepts are taught at fiction writing workshops?

Wow! What a question! A decent answer would take a day or two or three or four or more. A list could go on forever. Classes vary widely. Few teach everything unless they are very long and possibly expensive classes. Most emphasize one or two concepts while touching on others. But these are some of the most common cones:








Dialogue
Creating memorable characters
How to create heroes, heroines and villains that interact properly in your story
Character arcs
Flow
Story-boarding (This isn’t taught in all, maybe not even in most, but if you’re looking for a class, find one that teaches story-boarding. You won’t regret it.)
How to create tension
Plotting
Outlining
Creating a synopsis
Story arc
Description
Cliff-hangers
Point of view
How to include necessary information without boring your reader
The hero’s journey
Many specialize in a particular genre, such a romance, mystery, science fiction, adventure, and so on.

What should I do if I want to be a great writer?

The short answer is: read and then write.

The long answer is:

1) Read the kind of thing you hope to write but read with the intent of figuring out what the author did that was so wonderful and how he/she did it.

2) Learn the craft of writing. Yes, writing is an art but it’s also a craft and any craft can be learned. There are classes, many free online and many more in person and there are books you can buy. Here’s why you learn the craft… because many people make a decent living as writers without having one iota of artistic writing talent. But they learned their craft and they work at honing it until it’s ever better and better and better.

3) Use paper and pencil or a computer or a piece of chalk and a rock or whatever method you choose to nail down what you want to write. A story. An article. A white paper. Whatever. Then look over what you did and change things until there’s a semblance of order to the whole thing.

4) Write the story or article. Then look at it and figure out what should be changed to make it easier to understand and to go rationally from beginning to end.

5) Make those changes.

6) Repeat numbers 4 and 5 until you are sick of the whole thing. Then put it aside for a while because, when you go back to it, it’ll seem fresh and much better than you ever thought possible.

7) Publish your masterpiece.

How do you balance creative story telling with historical accuracy and how do you balance American exceptionalism against sounding like propaganda?

The word ‘balance’ tells you how you do it in both instances. You do the balancing yourself and you choose how to do the balancing act.

For the ‘propaganda’ part of the question, I can’t say it often enough. Use deep point of view, using the word ‘I’ if necessary for the first draft in order to get deep into the character’s mind. If you can do this, then sounding like propaganda isn’t a problem because you will be telling the story… and describing America… through that character’s eyes and if that character doesn’t think of what he/she is saying as propaganda, then neither will your readers.

The other point, balancing historical accuracy with storytelling is where the ‘choice’ truly comes in. If 10 writers are shown a scene and then asked to describe it accurately, you’ll get 10 different descriptions because they each see the scene differently. Same with history, which is a living, breathing and changing thing. Only the dates and who won or lost aren’t subject to interpretation. If you choose to change those things, then it’s a good idea to tell you reader in a ‘forward’ what you are doing so you won’t be inundated later by readers pointing out your inaccuracy.

Anyway, that’s the way it’s worked for me, though, to be honest, one of the reasons I love science fiction and fantasy is that I don’t have to worry about such things.

HOW DO I WRITE A DIARY ENTRY FROM A CHARACTER’S POINT OF VIEW

It’s called deep point of view. It means crawling inside your character and looking at the world through him/her.

The best way I know to do this is to use the word ‘I’ when you are writing because that forces you into your character’s mind. That’s called first person viewpoint, though what anything is called is irrelevant, the end result is all that matters. Using ‘I’ works especially well if you are writing a diary entry because diaries are written that way.

The thing you must remember, however, when using this point of view is that you can’t write anything into the diary that the character in your story wouldn’t actually know at that point. And if you try to make your character too all-knowing in order to get across some story point or other, it will come across as wrong to the reader.

So do it but don’t over-do it.

ANSWER TO: I HAVEN’T DONE ANY WRITING SINCE COLLEGE. HOW CAN I GET BACK INTO IT WITH THE GOAL OF WRITING STORIES?

The short answer is, just do it.
The long answer is to first think whether you wish to sell what you write or at least have it published or not.
If publishing isn’t your goal, then just put the seat of your pants to the seat of a chair and write whatever comes to mind.
If you want to be published, then be aware that the market for short fiction that pays a professional rate is small, mostly science fiction and those stories are read by gamers so must appeal to the problem solver mentality. But there are a lot of other publications out there other than science fiction that publish short fiction for token payment and/or name recognition.
Once you’ve decided what genre you want to write in, read that genre and see what’s being published. Then take your favorite story— one you think you could have written— and take it apart. Then rewrite it your way. Or write another story if that’s what your mind is telling you to do.
Then submit it. If it’s been a while since you went to college, you’ll find the submission process has changed. It’s now mostly electronic, which is much easier and cheaper than printing out and mailing off all those pages.
Then sit and wait and, while you wait, write another story.

What would be the easiest and the best topic for the ITGS extended essay for an IB (International Baccalaureate)?

Been answering a bunch of questions on Quora and decided to copy those questions and answers here. Some are relevant to writing, some aren’t. Here’s today’s question (above, the title of this post) and answer (below):







Unfortunately there is no one answer to this question for several good reasons:
1. The topic should be about something you like because you’re going to spend a lot of time on it. Different people, different topics.
2. It should be a topic that is included in the IB studies curriculum because that topic will be familiar to those who will guide you through the process and, later, grade the essay.
3. It should relate to your future because the knowledge you’ll learn from the process will help you later in life and will be seen by your adviser as an appropriate topic for you.
4. It should be broad enough that you can write 4,000 words about it and specific enough that there could be more written if you wanted to broaden the scope of your essay.
Of these reasons, the first is the most important because if you like what you are writing about, that liking will show through in your writing and, not only will the whole process be easier, your emotional input will be clear to whomever is grading your essay and just might improve your grade. So it’s not so much about what topic is easiest, it’s about which is easiest and most enjoyable for you personally. So what’s your favorite topic? Your favorite subject? Your favorite anything that falls within the scope of the IB curriculum?
Hope this helps.