A Few of My Favorite Things Right Now

I'm reading:

Fiction: Martha's Patience by Sally Brinton
 

A sweet, historical romance novella.

Martha Gilbert's third London Season looks no more promising than the previous two. Despite her best efforts, she has yet to receive an offer of marriage from the one man who matters, her escort and friend, Mr. Brody.

George Brody returns to London every year, going to the same parties, balls, and seeing the same people. The one bright spot to fulfilling the role expected of him by society is squiring Martha around town.

This year, Martha is determined to wed, and George must to decide if he wishes to remain friends or become something more.





Audible: Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help?

Nonfiction: Writing Deep Scenes: Plotting Your Story Through Action, Emotion, & Theme by Martha Alderson & Jordan Rosenfeld

Take a Deep Dive into Plot and Scene and Improve Your Writing

Whether you're planning your first novel or have already written a first draft, you need to master the concepts of plot and scene to truly realize your story's potential. Writing Deep Scenes teaches you how to write strong, layered, and engaging scenes--the secret to memorable, page-turning plots. It's filled with practical tools for building layers and nuance into your scenes, employing the right scene types at the right junctures, and developing a profound understanding of how plot and scene intertwine.

I'm watching:  Sweet Magnolias

Lifelong friends Maddie, Helen and Dana Sue lift each other up as they juggle relationships, family and careers in the small, Southern town of Serenity.

I'm writing/editing: Snowy Kisses

Passing out while trying to help a woman in a car accident wasn't what Mason McCormick had in mind. Asking her to be his plus one at his estranged family's Christmas party wasn't what he had in mind either. 
Will his family forgive him and let him in again?

Goldie Sanderson was only driving a little over the speed limit when she hit black ice and slid into a snowbank. Now, she's strapped with babysitting a baseball player with a concussion and a chip on his shoulder. Why would she say yes to going to Juniper Valley to his family's Christmas party? It's only for the weekend, right?
But as she gets to know Mason and his family, she finds she's falling in love with them. Or is she falling in love with the idea of having a family again?



FOOD: Brie Cheese & Almonds


I'm loving this new snack!





What about you? 
What are you reading? 
What are you watching? 
What are you working on?



This post has affiliated links

Writing conferences and posts and self-editing

There are many, many writing conferences in the states, but some of my favorite ones are in Utah. My #1 favorite conference is usually held in May: Storymakers Conference.

This year, the conference went virtual, due to #covid19. And while I didn't get to "see" my friends I usually see once a year, I was able to 'attend' more classes than I ever did when the conference was live.

For the next couple of months, I'm going to write out my notes in, hopefully helpful, posts. These will be based on my own notes that I will try and make sense of all the words!

The Final Draft: Advanced Self-editing by Kelsy Thompson (editor)

You can edit in different ways and I'm sure I'll be posting more about editing. In Kelsey's class, she taught different levels of editing and how to self-check them.

Start by looking at your:

Narrative

Plot

    Self-check:

      Are your character's goals specific? Attainable (but not too easily)?

       Does the story have too many or too little subplots?

Character

   Self-check:

       Do the characters serve the main plot?

       Are supporting characters fleshed out?

       Do I have too many characters?

       Do they have a symbiotic relationship?  Symbiosis defines three basic relationship types occurring between living entities: mutualism, where both species benefit; commensalism, where one organism benefits and the other experiences no harm; and parasitism, in which one entity benefits, sometimes at the cost of the other.

Tension

    Self-check:

         How does the tension flow?

         Is the tension internal AND external?

        Are you pulling punches to protect your character?

        "In places of higher tension a very agreeable person can be put to their limit and blow up  

Tension exercise:

Examine every scene, define your source of tension

Assign a level of tension 1-10 --> 1 lowest, 10 highest

This exercise should give a fresh look at the scenes and where the tension lies. Where do you need to amp up the tension or give some down time?

Subtext

    Self-check:

        Use incongruence as a way to 'show' there is more going on then meets the eye.

            For instance, A Type A personality who is having a hard time might not shower or clean their apartment for days when upset.

        Is there more happening on the page than just words?

       

Pacing

    Self-check:    

        Do I have a mix of slow and fast pacing?

         Are flashbacks slowing the pace?

Voice

    Self-check

        Am I using the right POV for my characters?

        Am I carrying in sentence length?

        Is my character's voice consistent?   

Tone

    Self-check

        Do I establish tone from the first chapter and carry it through the whole story?

        Does every scene have a tone?

        Does every character have their own tone?    

Line editing and proofreading

    Self-check

        Show, don't tell

        Avoid adverbs

        Find and crutch words

    A cool way to do this is to use Wordcloud to find your crutch words and edit them for better words or take out completely. I love this idea! Look at the words of my Work In Progress and what words I need to eliminate:

The story is about Gretchen, but maybe I've used her name too much? How about 'said?' I use that a ton, as well as didn't, like, hand, head, time, etc. I'll plug those words into my 'search and find' tool in Word and see if I can cut those words or restructure the sentence to be stronger.

Proofing work

    Read your manuscript out loud

The labor of editing

    Let your brain rest between your editing passes

    Don't edit more than a couple of hours a day

Two great editing books:

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

Writing Deep Scenes by Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld