Brooke E. Wayne: Romance with a Kiss of HumorLeave a comment

Putting the Creative into your Writing

Everybody is an expert these days. It doesn’t matter if you’re self-published, traditionally published, or hybrid—everybody has something to say about “How To’s” based on experience or simply something cool he or she lifted from Pinterest.

I’ve steered clear of joining the ranks mainly because I don’t have anything published yet. (Uhm, not including all that boring copy I wrote for an encyclopedia set to pay for my MA a long time ago.) Somehow, I got it stuck in my head that until I had earned the title author by means of publication, I wasn’t one.

Then, a few trad pub mentors spanked me for being too unassuming. My mantra has been, “Inspired by Love and Laughter—Aspiring to Write About It,” for almost a year now in my social media outlets.

Cute, huh?

Except for the Aspiring part.

Ouch!

I didn’t even realize how condescending I was being to myself until it was pointed out to me.

Turns out, I’m not aspiring to be a novelist; I am one. I wrote a novel—a big ass novel that at one point weighed in at 100K but is now hovering over 83K. It’s alive and well and hanging out with some agencies for the time being. It might not be published … yet … but someday, it will be.

It’s a lame reason to hold back all the knowledge I know about writing. I get that, but, nonetheless, it did cage me in … for a while.

I sloughed off the “Aspiring” part this week and have decided to add some lessons to my blog posts. I’ve been an English Language Arts teacher for nearly twenty years. I know a thing or two about plot structure, character development, cultivating voice, the importance of arcs in dynamic characters, and layering to reach the ultimate climax. I teach the ancient Hero’s Journey Archetype (not Campbell’s or Vogler’s adaptation—but I am quite familiar) and The Coming of Age Cycle Archetype. I even wrote my MA thesis on the latter to the tune of nearly 140 pages, and don’t even get me started on the value of symbolism in prose (eh-hem, more than just discovering clever names you might have snatched off a baby naming website).

When it comes to my novel, as lighthearted as it is, I aim to have my reader cock an eyebrow and think, “I see what you did there,” as she’s reading. I am still humble enough to know I have a helluva road ahead of me in learning more as an author, but at this point, it’s time for me to start spilling the beans on what I do know.

Rookie novelist that I may be, I actually have a lot to offer, and lately I have had to combat the I’m not worthy feels when pressing send to the agents I am approaching, so to remedy my querying jitters, I am going to start dipping out of my bag of tricks and share some tips that can elevate someone’s writing:

A Lesson on Length: Size Does Matter

Here’s a popular pin from my PINTEREST board: Writing Tool Kit

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If you’ve done Word Press’s Writing 101, you’ll recognize this writing exercise. The assignment was to take the choppy, droning, monotonous cadence of the seven-words-per-sentence prompt and revamp it using varied sentence lengths.

Varying the amount of words per sentence creates a lilting effect for the reader, but rather than packing the lines with extra adjectives and a few unnecessary adverbs to stretch their lengths, I weaved in some poetic devices to bring the setting in the varied lines to life.

ORIGINAL PROMPT:

“The man rode hard through the woods. The black horse’s effort lay in lather. The sun beat down from high overhead. Dark birds circled, drifted, and then returned. The land baked, and dust hung suspended.”

MY INTERPRETATION:

Naked branches tore at the man’s shirt, gnarled and twisted, bending their claws in desperation, as he broke free from the parched woods. They were closing in. A merciless heat beat down on the wasteland. Desolate. Wrought with lifeless wreckage caused by the blistering sun. His black horse, never faltering once, pressed forward upon the scorched riverbed. Hot breath burst from the beast’s flaring nostrils. Closer still. Men’s cries rang out. Their gunshots shattered dark birds against the stark white sky, once drifting in aimless circles. His freedom neared. He could see the border just over the horizon. Sensing the man’s adrenaline, his horse bore down, and dust hung suspended in the wake of their escape.

Personification:

Giving something that doesn’t have a heartbeat life in the form of humanlike characteristics or attributes

naked branches … bending their claws in desperation … parched woods … merciless heat beat down …

Alliteration:

Two or more words beginning with the same consonant, thus creating sound effects

wrought with lifeless wreckage … hot breath burst from the beast’s …

Imagery:

The use of any of the five senses—sight, scent, sound, taste, and touch

(The whole damn thing—okay, okay… here’s my favorite:)

gunshots shattered dark birds against a stark white sky …

Another trick I used in varying my sentence length was to break the rules of grammatically sound sentences and go for some one and two word punches.

… desolate … closer still …

Using poetic devices to add layers to your writing can elevate it in both quality and quantity.

Class dismissed.

Brooke E. Wayne: Romance with a Kiss of HumorLeave a comment

#NaNoWriMo Prep

Today, I’m spending the afternoon wrapping my mind around NaNoWriMo, hoping to empty out a 50,000 word bare bones rough draft this coming November that’s been buzzing around in my head for the last few months. I’m a newbie to the event, and I’m liking what I see as I continue to snoop around the website for the umpteenth time this week.

I’ve been taking copious notes today on the plot I plan on drafting. It’s loosely based on the horrors of my 1980s high school experiences that I can freely laugh my tush off about now. As I’m pulling together information on the various characters and scenes that are essential to my story, I’m realizing something about the category I thought I was aiming for… though my novel will be set in a high school, this will not be a Young Adult novel. Just because the characters are teenagers, that does not mean the novel is meant for a YA audience.

Molly

I am decidedly targeting the forty-somethings who regard the glory days of their dayglow turned pastel youth with fondness—like me. It’s also going to be a comical love story, of course, because romcoms are my thing.

Would a YA or NA person enjoy the novel—absolutely… the 80s are back in a huge way, and our youth are obsessed. I see 80s terms on graphic t-shirts at least once a day (I’m an English teacher), and they’ve ALL watched at least a half a dozen 80s movies because their parents were 80s teens and have made them. Who doesn’t love that era right now?

As far as my plans go for the novel, I’m naming it Breaking Rad because it pulls in the 80s generation with the term Rad that’s hot right now, plus it’s a pun-tribute to one of my favorite TV shows that will hook adults, and yes, there will be a breakdancing dance-off at a Sadie Hawkins Dance which is the location of the climax of the story. –But that’s all I’m going to reveal for now. I just wanted to stress that I’d mentioned in my previous blog that I was considering tackling a YA novel for NaNoWriMo, but alas, I’m targeting Adult again with my writing in tone, voice, heat-levels, and whatnot, but I’m sure anyone who loves a bitchin 80s throwback story is going to enjoy it, fer-sure.

Brooke E. Wayne: Romance with a Kiss of HumorLeave a comment

Taking the Plunge

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Writing a novel is like strapping yourself into the first cart on a roller coaster, knowing damn well what you’re getting yourself into, but screaming your head off anyway as you rise and fall, spin around, hold back the urge to puke, and finally squee with excitement from the thrill of it all.

Then, as soon as your ride’s over, you run *with arms flailing* and jump right back in line to do it again.

I’m once again returning to my work in progress. I’m revisiting the WIP outline to shake things up a bit (and what I mean by that is switch scenes around on my outline).

The plot has the potential to be a sequel or even a second in a series if I opt to highlight secondary characters instead of continue with the love story from my first novel, and I could even squeeze out the back story paragraph in the first chapter, change the names, alter the initial location a tad bit, and voilà, have myself another stand-alone project to work on. How I managed to pull off a secondary plot that is so flexible is beyond me, but I’ll own it because, shuh, it’s that unique. (Borrowing my MC’s voice ;-)) But no matter what I end up doing, I’m only making adjustments to notes.

Then I’m going to set it aside again. Yep, you heard me right.

Before I go all roller coaster on it, I am going to wait out the verdict on my first round of querying (ever!) that I began this weekend. I’m holding off doing any actual writing for the WIP in the event I land a fabulous agent, and that person has a vision I can share in for the future of my first novel that will impact what comes next, (see all the possibilities above). I’m flexible like that, and so is the novel’s concept.

With NaNoWriMo coming up in November, I’m then going to switch gears and start prepping for the event over the next six weeks. I’ll be reviewing and adding to my concept notes on a different novel I plan to write, which is intentionally designed to be the first in an adult contemporary series, and I’ll also begin building an outline for another novel I am aching to pen but is in another category (YA, R) other than my focus (Adult, CR). I’m leaning heavily on working with the Young Adult novel for NaNoWriMo because, in the end, it’ll need to be shorter in word count than my usual category, and it’ll definitely be a stand-alone, and, after completing it, I will be able to polish it quickly because it’s a much simpler plot than I’m used to constructing while the verdict is out on my first round of querying (and hopefully my only round).

Whether I go for the first in a series or the YA stand alone, I’m definitely mounting that roller coaster again and gearing up to squee as NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. Who’s with me?