Friday, August 20, 2021

Writing from the End: How Endings Create Satisfying Beginnings in a Book

Many years ago, I read a debut novel by M.L.Stedman, called The Light between Oceans. It taught me something important about endings and reader satisfaction.

The gorgeous title and very interesting premise called to me--a lighthouse keeper and his wife who live on a remote island off the coast of Australia find a baby in a boat that washes up on shore. The wife, desperately childless after three miscarriages, argues to keep the baby. The husband wants to contact the mainland and let them know, thinking that some mother there will be equally desperate. But the wife wins, they keep the child, and their world cracks in unexpected ways.

Although I love reading just for reading's sake, I have been reading as a writer for a very long time now. I have a writer's high expectations. I found the prose lovely, with generous use of images and tense character interaction. The setting of the rocky island and its isolation, the keen details about the lighthouse, were amazingly crafted.

Friday, August 13, 2021

Rest Breaks for Book Writers--Feeding the Inner Artist--and When to Get Back to Work

We packed up our camper van and headed to the beach for four days. The puppies are very happy in the camper; it's a contained space, so monitoring their housetraining is easier.

The first two days, I had planned to write. I was enjoying--so much--editing the final chapters of my new novel from my agent's suggestions. But, to my dismay, I could barely open my ipad or laptop. Instead, I found myself sitting in the sunshine, watching the dogs play.

I lay in our travel hammock and stared at pine trees, wondering where I was.

More important, who I was. Clearly not the writer I'd planned to be during this trip--far from it.

Friday, August 6, 2021

Approaching Summer Reading--Like a Writer

Back in the day, I came across a book on writing by the renowned teacher and author Francine Prose. Reading Like a Writer changed how I approached my reading. I still read for the pleasure of being immersed in a story, of learning, of becoming inspired. But now I took something else away from my reading time: techniques I could use in my own books as a writer.

Prose's book is one you've no doubt read yourself--if you haven't, be sure to!--and I learned much from her step-by-step unraveling of story.

It was a similar change in awareness that happened when I discovered storyboards and the five turning points of well-structured stories. I remember watching a film not long after my first storyboard immersion. My family grew very tired of my muttering "a perfect point #2" or "there's the all is lost moment." But my admiration for good structure and my new understanding of how writers achieved it did change my take-away from good movies.