More from Brandilyn

Last month at the Christian Writers Renewal, I sat under the teaching of Brandilyn Collins. I promised some highlights from her class on Getting into Character.

The first class was Character Desire. As an author, I need to know my character's insides first. Why is he the way he is? What drives him? What's his Super Objective? What does the character WANT more than anything? This drives his thoughts and actions, especially in moments of high stress. Conflict is opposition against desire, so conflict is necessary to contrast with the character's desires.

1) The objective is an action verb. Not  "I want to be rich" but  "I want to raise to the top of the structure in my law firm."

2) The objective must be very specific. "I want to build trust in my marriage by never lying again to my husband so that..." Make sure the "so that" creates conflict. It's gotta be strong!

Answering End: What the character gets if he achieves his desire, or gets close to his desire. Sometimes it costs too much and he realizes he doesn't want it, after all. "I want to build trust in my marriage by never lying again to my husband so that he won't leave me for a younger woman and I'll be all alone."

3) The objective must be absolutely correct for the character and the story. "I wish to build trust in my marriage by never getting caught lying to my husband" says something completely different about the char than the original version. Find out characters inner values and core beliefs. Make sure they fit. Then use them to thwart the objective.

Example: Steinbeck's "The Pearl" - father finds a magnificent pearl. His objective is to sell the pearl for it's full value so that his son will have a better life and won't live in poverty. If the father didn't already live in poverty, this wouldn't fit. If the son hadn't been endangered by a scorpion in the first bit of the book, it wouldn't fit. If father was willing to sell pearl for significantly less than it's full value, then it wouldn't fit.

4) Desire arises partly from the inciting incident and partly from the character's personality. Put the character in a problem before the inciting incident happens. Then his desire conflicts with the previous problems. In The Pearl, the son is stung by a scorpion and almost dies. This builds in the father a fear for his son's life. Then when he finds the pearl, he sees a way past this fear that's built up within him.

Protagonist has conscious and unconscious desires. Throughout the story, the unconscious desires come into play and character must choose. In the moment of greatest stress, the character realizes what he REALLY wants: the unconscious desire. (Note: the conscious and unconscious desires should be diametrically opposed.) Note: Show glimpses of the unconscious desire at the beginning of the book so the reader doesn't feel cheated.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's conscious desire is to marry Ashley. Unconsciously, she wants a manly man to tame her. That would be Rhett. When she finally gets her shot at Ashley, she realizes she doesn't want him because he's a wimp. She really wants Rhett – and it's too late.

Next time I'll highlight Brandilyn's discussion on Character Emotions.

-Sonja

It's a Contest!

I usually don't post twice in one day, but it's your lucky day. Or mine. There's a writing contest called "Dear Lucky Agent" for fantasy or sci-fi book-length novels. I found it at Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog). Submit the first 150-200 words of a completed novel and keep your fingers crossed! Because the Top 3 Winners get a critique of the first 10 pages of the work AND a free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com.

The contest runs until May 26, so get your submission ready and head on over to Chuck's site for all the rules and regs. It's easy, and someone gets to win.

-Sonja

Shameless Name-Dropping

It's time for my favorite post-conference blog entry, when I shamelessly name all the famous, near-famous, or infamous people I actually met. These aren't listed in any particular order, other than they came out of my head this way. Here we go:

1.) Brandilyn Collins, who proved to be an excellent keynote speaker, engaging teacher, and down-right gracious lady. At the beginning of her class, she personally greeted each student with a hand-shake and a word of encouragement. Classy. On a completely unrelated note, her hand and facial gestures reminded me of the actress Patricia Heaton. She's famous, too.

2.) Jesse Florea is the editor of a Focus on the Family children's magazine and a published author. He was sitting all by himself at lunch the first day, so I asked if I could join him. We were soon discussing the future of speculative fiction in the CBA and out popped Jeff Gerke's name (you CAN'T talk about spec fic without Jeff showing up in some fashion). Jesse is so passionate about his magazine, he almost talked me into writing a short story for kids. I still don't know how I resisted.

3.) Jim Rubart joined Jesse and I at the lunch table. Jim is most noted, in my mind, as the author of the spec fic novel ROOMS, the MC for the Reality Panel of Publishing Experts (held after lunch on the second day), and most importantly, a runner-up in Chip MacGregor's Bad Poetry Contest 2010. Jim proved he can pen utter tripe while showing true deepfulness and reflectivosity. He's also a really great luncheon conversationalist.

4.) Holley Gerth also joined the lunch table. She's an editor at Dayspring Cards, but what made her famous (to me) was her name tag. It said she was from Arkansas. When I told her my husband's family was from a tiny town in Arkansas, she proved to me, yet again, that this is a small, small world. She's from the same small town as all my husband's relatives. And she knows them. I don't know if I should be proud or take pity on her. . .

5.) Sandra Bishop is an agent at Chip MacGregor Literary Agency and blogs periodically. She shredded my pitch, told me how to fix it, then sent me off to conquer the next editor. Who was. . .

6.) Nick Harrison. He works at Harvest House, writes a great blog, has published several books, and taught an excellent course about selling fiction in hard economic times (see previous post). He patiently listened to my pitch and politely said, "No, thank you." I chalked it up as another learning experience.

7.) Clint Kelly was the MC for both evening sessions with Brandilyn. He's a funny guy with tons of published books to his credit and a great singing voice. He also works with my second cousin, Ray, proving that this is a REALLY small world. 

8.) Chris Miller, the genius behind the Hunter Brown series, sat with me for the evening meal on the second night. His brother, Allan (the other half of the writing dynamic duo), couldn't make it to the conference (wedding anniversary, or some such nonsense) so Chris held down the fort on his own. We had some intriguing discussions about spec fic (Jeff Gerke showed up again) and the fabulous books we'd both read recently. Then we entered a highly controversial debate over the correct term for "a series of four books." We finally turned to Brandilyn, at the next table, and she gave us the correct term: quadrilogy. Now you know. 

I could also bring up Luke Hinrichs, fiction editor for Bethany House (he liked my pitch!); Greg Johnson, who works with Rachelle Gardner (her blog was rated one of the Top Ten in the Publishing Industry); Les Stobbe, agent-extraordinairre, whom I didn't actually meet so much as run into in an elevator (didn't have my elevator pitch ready, so the opportunity slipped by. Plus the fact that cornering an agent in an elevator is almost as rude as cornering him in the restroom, which I would probably never do); Athena Dean of Winepress Publishing, who's got such a cool name I may have to steal it and put it in a novel; and Shannon Woodward, a published author and master conversationalist.

That concludes my trip down the star-studded conference line-up. For what it's worth.

-Sonja

What Nick Harrison Said

Nick Harrison, senior editor from Harvest House Publishers, taught a class entitled "How to sell Your Fiction in Tough Economic Times" at the writer's conference last week. If I may be so bold, I'll share with you ALL the ideas he shared with us:

1. Look toward future events and write books that WILL BE WANTED in two or three years. Example: in 2012, the Mayan calendar ends. It's also the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Two different authors pitched books based on these two upcoming events, and both books will be published in late 2011 or early 2012.

2. Be willing to enthusiastically jump on trends. If you can write a great Amish Romance, you will be published!

3. Use Writer's Edge (an on-line listing) to get your fiction noticed. (Note: Nick said he looks at this site--and others like it--all the time. But other editors don't bother with it. This one's a stretch, in my opinion.)

4. Once you finish writing a novel, send out queries and diligently work on getting it noticed. Then start writing your NEXT novel. Keep a healthy career plan, and have plenty of books in your arsenal. Maybe your writing style will catch an editor's eye, but he doesn't like the story you sent him. You'll have a lot of others to pitch to him.

5. Self-publish your excellent book, sell 10,000 copies, then approach a royalty publisher. Numbers like that catch their attention.

6. DO NOT WRITE message-driven novels or memoirs. They don't sell. (There are exceptions, like "The Shack" and "In His Steps," but they are few and far between.)

7. Next huge wave in the CBA: Southern Historical Romance. Write one of these and you'll have a good chance of getting published.

Some of these tips, like #1 and #4, are valuable to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't write an Amish romance or a southern historical romance if my children's lives depended on it, so I won't get to take advantage of tip #2 or tip #7. Hopefully you'll find something in here to help your career!

For what it's worth,
-Sonja

Words of Wisdom from the Seatbelt Suspense Lady

I attended the Northwest Christian Writers Renewal Conference in Seattle last weekend where Brandilyn Collins gave the keynote address and taught three classes on creating dynamic suspense. My next couple of blog entries will be devoted to passing along some of the wisdom I soaked up, who I met, what happened, and why these conferences are worth deserting your family for two days.

To quote the conference brochure, Brandilyn is a leading force in Christian mystery fiction. She's the Seatbelt Suspense Lady (as in, "put on your seatbelt before you pick up the book, otherwise you'll jump right out of your chair") and the founder of the Big Honkin' Chicken's Club (a club for wussies who don't think they can read the scary books Brandilyn writes but want to take the chance, anyway). She also blogs (Forensics and Faith), Twitters, Facebooks, and hostesses great Fourth of July parties. In other words, she's a stick of dynamite in a petite package who successfully does absolutely everything.

During her keynote address, Brandilyn talked about her ten-year struggle to break into print and the lessons she learned along her journey. Two points really stuck out to me:

1. People don't read your books to learn about God, they read them to be entertained. In other words, tell a really great story! If it happens to contain truths about God, that's fantastic, but it's the remarkable story that will stick with people and prompt them to pick up more of your books in the future.

2. The pre-published days in an author's life are a true gift, and Brandilyn encouraged us to find joy in them. It's okay to quit writing during this period, because if it's a true calling from God, you'll pick it up sometime in the future and keep going. Once you're a published author and under contract, there's no option to quit or take a break or get lazy. So cherish the pre-published phase of the journey and use the time to truly learn the craft of writing. Because when the inspiration deserts you and you're under contract, your knowledge of the craft will carry you through the deadlines until you re-discover your creativity.

Tomorrow I'll share content from the three classes Brandilyn taught.

-Sonja

You're Reading WHAT?!?

Here's what's in my reading stack this week:

-Void Moon, City of Bones, A Darkness More than Night, The Poet, and Trunk Music by Michael Connelly books (the Harry Bosch series)
-The Bourne Sanctum by Eric Van Lustbader
-Night Shift, Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher, and Danse Macabre by Stephen King
-Fantasy in Death by JD Robb

Normally, I don't read Stephen King. I LOVE his writing, but he scares me out of my daylights (words of wisdom from a four year old). However, I need to add an element of fear/mystery to my latest WIP, so I'm studying the master. How does King make something scary? How does he get my heart racing? What words does he use to make me turn on all the lights, lock the doors, and huddle under a comforter while I turn pages? I need to know, so I'm being brave--just this week--to study how it's done.

-Sonja

Flawed Heroes

I've been studying Donald Maass' book The Fire in Fiction and came across an exercise that I thought I'd share regarding the protagonist.

My protagonist should be someone strong, but that can't be enough. The exercise challenges me to find in him something conflicted, fallible, humbling, or human. (I like that last category!). It can't be fatal or overwhelming, but should be a personal problem, a bad habit, a hot button, or a blind spot.

Once I've discovered this flaw, I need to demonstrate that flaw within the first five pages of my story. The last comment on the exercise is the key: Be sure to soften the flaw with self-awareness or self-deprecating humor. This helps the protagonist from being overwhelmed by the flaw.

I found this helpful. Hope you do, too.

-Sonja