Snip Skimming in the Bud: How to be Eloquent and Snappy

Skimming. A writer’s nightmare. Here we are pouring intense thought and meticulous planning into each layer and fold of our story... but the reader is getting antsy. And thus, missing the sheer genius of those carefully prepared words.

I hate to admit that I do this sometimes. Skim. A sacrilege! And I know that some poor misguided reader has likely glaze over those precious details I've slaved over to get to the meat.

Because I write suspense I tend to be driven by action, pacing, and cliff hangers. But interestingly enough, I am equally wooed by the details, the little nuances of romance that tease and excite until we are chomping at the bit for more.

 

The point here is balance.

We’ve all been schooled with rulers to “show don’t tell,” because well, a plainly told story would bore us all to tears. We want to touch, taste, smell, see, and hear everything the characters are feeling because therein lies the magic of story. It’s power to transport us outside of ourselves into another dimension.

But sometimes, more isn’t really better for the reader. The excess becomes clutter, it bogs our pace, dwindles our excitement, and your beautiful message-your long labor of love-becomes the casualty of overwriting.

To sound official I am going to coin this affliction Hyperwriteosis. Please consult your editor if symptoms worsen.

Prescription to keep you snappy (Use in moderation):

-Insert action tags to break up heavy introspection.

If we can see what is happening outside of the mind, how the person responds physically, we are more inserted into the moment and the scene has movement. Your page will have a pulse. 

         -Sprinkle in your senses.

            Susan May Warren does a great job teaching about utilizing the five senses in every scene. If they are all present, they almost disappear and the scene is alive all around you. But don’t plop them all in at once because it becomes an information dump. And you don’t want your scene to read like a checklist. 

            Yep, she’s smells the dank air of the alley. The brisk wind shivers through her coat. It’s umm… dark, and the casts of shadows warn that she’s not alone. She can taste her own fear as nervous bile creeps up and spills onto the back of her tongue. And well, despite the cold, her fingers are slick with sweat. These are all great things to know, and each detail is a new smear of paint on your canvas, but I doubt your character notices them all at once so why paint like a three year old?

-Write with purpose.

            Everything you plant on that page needs to be a seed. Some thoughts are seedlings—little sprouts of insight into your characters personality, their uniqueness, their setting, what makes them tick. Other thoughts have roots that run deep under the foundation of your story. They peel away motivations and fears. They raise the stakes and bring the house down when we get hit with the black moment. Bam!

            My point is, don’t waste your words of things that aren’t important to your story. The reader is smarter than you think and will not always be patient with your tangents. They will skip over your nonsense, or simply become annoyed by the delay, and forgo the rest of your fabulous book.

-Create compelling characters.

            Yes, this is fiction so we get to play. We could technically sculpt some super fine hero with rock-hard abs and a smile dangerous enough to be illegal in all 50 states. But we also want these people to seem real. Beautifully flawed. We want to fight through their struggles alongside them. Believe in them. Creating characters with honest vulnerability can be a challenge. Sometimes it’s easier to write the uber-confident-smokin’-hot-bad-boy/nice-guy that any woman would trade her left ovary to ride off with into the sunset with. But we don’t fall in love with cardboard cutouts. We fall in love with wonderfully broken pieces of humanity that somehow fit with our own. Make these people and their problems real and relate-able. Your reader will swoon and will most definitely stay tuned.

-Write a chasing pace.

            It doesn’t have to have an actual chase scene with explosions and tumbling cars to have a fast pace. It can be an achingly slow and tender kiss scene that reads like a pedal to the metal ride on the Autobahn. Keep your sentences short. Stay away from large blocks of script or dialogue. And for me personally, puh-lease avoid reader uncertainty. Be clear about what is happening. Okay, so what, they are kissing. Not all kisses are created equal. If I am bored during a kiss scene you are missing the boat! Utilize those senses; draw me in so I can see it play out like a scene from a movie. If I don’t know where anyone’s hands are, what they are thinking, feeling, or even if they are still kissing after an unspecified time elapses, am I to assume it was a crusty peck kiss? Oh, that will win her over! You can be specific without being graphic. Your reader will thank you! They will sigh and remember exactly what it is like to be kissed senseless. Ow ow!

When do you feel you usually start skimming? And do you have anything other remedies to add to my prescription?

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Amy Leigh Simpson writes romantic mysteries with honesty and humor, sweetness and spice, and gritty reality covered by grace. When she’s not stealing moments at naptime to squeeze out a few more adventures in storyland, she’s chasing around two tow-headed miscreants (Ahem)—boys, playing dress up with one sweet princess baby, and being the very blessed wife to the coolest, most swoon-worthy man alive. Amy is a Midwestern-girl, a singer, blogger, runner, coffee-addict, and foodie. Her Sports Medicine degree is wasted patching up daily boo boo’s, but whatever is left usually finds its way onto the page with fluttering hearts, blood and guts, and scars that lead to happily ever after.

Check out her NEW romantic mystery novel FROM WINTER'S ASHES! Available NOW!

So, How'd You Two Meet?

In any love story, great and even those not so great, the romance is set in motion by an inciting incident.

       Boy meets girl. 

We all have those stories. Whether it is something dramatic like "I started falling down the stairs, and he caught me. And never let go." Said in the right tone that one might induce some nausea.

Maybe your story was something simpler like "We met at work when he spilled burning hot coffee on my silk blouse. I thought he was a total idiot. But well, I fell in love with the big lug anyway." :)

In storyworld this is what we refer to as a "meet-cute."

And because we dream in a world of fiction, we get to create these moments and sprinkle them with some magic.

So, lets talk about how to make a "meet-cute" extraordinary!

-Write outside the box

Ever feeling like the story you are reading was cookie cut from dozens of others? I don't know about you but the idea of shocking the reader is often my goal when I am piecing a story together. No matter what genre you prefer, whether it be romance, historical, speculative or suspense, the last thing you want to be is predictable. 

Why would anyone want to read my story if they know not only how it ends, but how the characters get there? Boring.

We don't want to recycle ideas. We want to present something fresh, something unexpected. So when you are thinking about your character's first meeting on the page, make of list of all the "meet-cute's" you can remember. As our brains are often at capacity, this should not be an exhaustive list. This can be your point of reference. See what's been done, and do something different. Spice things up.

-Sparks or friction? Or both!

Ooo, this is the fun stuff! When those characters meet on the page there should be a different dynamic between the two than say, the heroine and her teenage brother, or the hero and the Barista at the coffee shop. (And let me just say that when your characters meet on paper they might already be otherwise acquainted, but the same principles apply.)

Whether you start things off with a spark... 

As in—Holy cow, her skin was about to melt off because he was seriously THAT hot. She could do nothing but gape at him, nearly incinerated into a brainless, wordless ditz with one smoldering glance.

or

With some friction. 

But then he opened his mouth, and it didn't matter one bit that he was tall, dark, and devastating when he said, "Listen up, Blondie. I don't care who sent you, you're interfering with my crime scene. If you don't remove yourself from the premises in five seconds, I'll charge you with obstruction of justice and haul you off to jail."

(Sorry, that was seat-of-my-pants so it might not make a whole lotta sense)

May I just point out that both spark and friction produce what? ... Heat.

It's all about the chemistry here. It doesn't have to be love at first sight. They might hate each other. But there is a very fine line between love and hate. Those who get under our skin the most are often the ones that wiggle their way into our hearts.

Crank up the tension here. Start off with a bang. Rile their emotions.

A sure-fire way to create a memorable "meet-cute."

-Establish some mystery

Intrigue will hook your reader fast and pull them along for the ride. Plan how you want to stir the pot here. Do you drop subtle hints at backstory through their thoughts or their actions? Use body language to expose their greatest fear, or their greatest dream? Splice in some double entendre into their dialogue that peaks the reader's interest but also the interacting character's.

And in doing this, go back to those first two points. Go for the unexpected. Make them aware of or agitated by each other. Ignite the spark and the conflict and draw the reader in from the get-go. You sure don't want them closing your book before it gets good. So start it strong.

Most importantly…

 

-Wet the reader’s appetite for more!

Get them curious about these characters. How the next interaction might play out. Keep them guessing. Make them crave the next time they are thrown together on the page. You can do it! Get creative!

Your turn: What is your favorite “meet-cute” you've written? Do you have a favorite from a book or movie? Or, what is your very own, real life “meet-cute” with your sweetheart? 

***********************************************************************************************

Amy Leigh Simpson writes Romantic Suspense that is heavy on the romance, unapologetically honest, laced with sass and humor, and full of the unfathomable Grace of God. She is the completely sleep deprived mama to two little mischief makers and would challenge anyone to a cutest family contest. Represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary Inc.

A Pantser's Plotting Plan

Laurie here! Hello from my editing cave :) Nice to see you. Today, I'm revisiting one of my favorite posts -- the first time this pantser ever attempted plotting. As I do final revisions on my third manuscript, I can safely tell you I will NEVER write a book without a plan again. Weeding through all of this is not for the faint of heart. So I hope you enjoy! And I hope you do as I say, not as I do... :)

---

I am not a plotter. This is no secret if you know me or have read any of my blog posts. My stories start with characters, and the plot comes along as I go. In the past, I’ve maintained that plotting stifles creativity in my case. But I want to go on record and amend this statement.

It’s all the time wasted banging my head on the keyboard wondering what to write next that stifles my creativity.

For the first time in the history of my life, I’ve discovered a plotting book that doesn’t make my eyes glaze over after the first chapter. In fact, I'm almost finished!

It’s well-written, informative, and doesn’t have the confusing code language some of the other ones seem to have. The focus of Jordan Rosenfeld's Make a Scene is building a story intentionally based on each scene. Stories tend to come to me in glimpses anyway -- kind of like movie clips -- so this approach works. But the key I need to work on is developing a framework so I don’t have to do so much editing and reworking after my first draft. I need the puzzle box with the big picture to help me piece it together, so that if and when I become a published author, I can deliver my finished product in a timely manner with as little stress possible. :)

Author friend Jessica Patch recommended this book to me, and I’m so glad. As you can see from the notebook above, I’ve been going all Hermione Granger on it with several pages of notes over the holidays. I’ll be sharing much more about what I’m learning later, but for starters, this is my tentative plan for how I’m going to plot my current manuscript:

Character studies. I wrote an entire blog post on what goes into this process for me not too long ago, but to sum up, I learn about their quirks, deepest desires, the ways they sabotage themselves, and what sets them apart as people I’d enjoy talking to over a slice of pizza.

Plot threads. Hopefully in the above step, I’ve learned at least the gist of what my main characters will learn and how they’ll grow throughout the story (the heart of the manuscript!). So my next step is to write out a shortish sort of synopsis for each of my storylines -- as much as I know about them already, anyway.

For example, continuing the theme of Pepper’s post yesterday, if I were doing this for the Lord of the Rings series, I’d have one “synopsis” for the ring’s journey from Bag End to Mordor, one for Aragorn’s ascent to king, one for the Battle of Helm’s Deep, one for Aragorn and Arwen’s love story, etc.

It sounds complicated, but it really helps. I think having a map like this up front will show me what to focus on and how to most effectively strengthen each plotline (and consequently each main character's journey) in relation to the others.

Scenes. From there, I can separate the sequential events of the synopsis into bullet points and then imagine specific scenes to flesh out these bullet points and further my story. For this step, I will likely stick to my pantser roots and write as I go. But having the map shaped in the previous steps will help me keep my characters on track and hopefully give me purpose for each writing session. I can’t emphasize how much the Make a Scene book has helped me in terms of being intentional/impactful with each scene!

So that’s the tentative plan for how this pantser is going to try her hand at plotting. I have all the essentials to make this work.

Now to stop planning and WRITE. Hopefully word count will be spared, the delete button will get a rest, and any unnecessary *facepalm* moments will be avoided.

Are you a plotter, pantser, or as Casey calls it, a hybrid "plotster"? Any tips or tricks that have worked for you?

---

Laurie Tomlinson is a wife and mom from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is passionate about intentional living, all things color-coded, and stories of grace in the beautiful mess. Previously a full-time book publicist, she owns a freelance copywriting, editing, and PR consulting business called 1624 Communications. 

She's a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, a two-time Genesis Award winner, and the runner-up in the 2015 Lone Star Contest's Inspirational category. Her work is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such Literary.

You can connect with Laurie here:

Facebook - AuthorLaurieTomlinson

Twitter - @LaurieTomlinson

Web - www.LaurieTomlinson.com

Avoiding Melodrama in Your Story

Background image: BettyCrocker.com

There’s a reason chocolate chip is the king of cookies. Buttery batter with a touch of salt, dotted with rich chocolate in every bite. Amen.

Just like with writing, the secret is in the right balance. For me, the perfect chocolate chip cookie is made with Kerrygold Irish butter, a pinch of sea salt, and mini semisweet chocolate chips: A perfect amalgamation of richness and sweetness. And the best novel has just the right recipe of tension, characterization, romance, conflict, etc.

Today we’re going to talk about that fine line between drama and melodrama. Don't get me wrong -- there's a time and a place for a sprinkle of melodrama (CW primetime television, I'm looking at you). But in most genres of fiction, it’s a delicate tightrope to tiptoe.

If you’ve been following my posts here, you know I’m a big fan of a craft book called Make a Scene by Jordan E. Rosenfeld. She identifies melodrama as excessive, over-the-top emotional intensity that can make a reader feel bullied. While most can take tragedy and emotional turmoil in stride, there’s a certain unspoken trust in the limits of drama within a given story.

And when that line is crossed, trust is broken and the reader can feel violated.

For example, Nicholas Sparks is perhaps the king of drama in today’s romance market, and I was the girl who devoured A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. But his latest releases have felt incredibly unrealistic with long strings of events that seem to exist for shock value more than anything else. And I get what Jordan Rosenfeld is saying exactly because I've felt a little violated when I leave his movies (or throw his books across the room). 

See what I did there with the whole throwing books across the room? Melodrama. I recognize it. But how can you tell if your own work is melodramatic? Rosenfeld says the typical markers include:

• cliche or cheesy “greeting card” sentimentality
• character hysterics that last a few beats too long
• larger-than-life romantic gestures or uncharacteristic overreactions
• unrealistic dialogue
• overdone descriptions

Critique partner and beta reader reactions can be a good indicator if any of this is going on in your work. Sometimes it’s hard to recognize in your own words. But here’s how you can check yourself:

Make sure pacing is executed correctly. Is drama portioned strategically so it has the most impact? Do your plot and scene intros build to the drama instead of dropping it into a reader’s lap like scalding coffee? This is where Nicholas Sparks has gone a little wayward, in my opinion. Too much and too strong to take it all at once.

Does the amount of emotion last an appropriate amount of time? Readers might be less sympathetic to a character who seems immature or unwilling to move past heightened emotions toward healing/resolution.

Would a “less-is-more” approach work better in your scene? Sometimes stunned silence, numbness, and a softer approach can communicate much more powerfully than bold emotions. You'll know when it's right, and you might not even have to do that much work because characters tend to show you for themselves in these situations. You don't even have to be tempted to tell what's going on.  

Do your dialogue and emotional reactions fit the characters you’ve built thus far? You’ve spent your story laying the groundwork for this moment, but if readers don’t have a hint of the impending eruption, it might end up leaving their tastebuds burned so they can't enjoy the smooth, velvety hot chocolate you intended to create for them.

Is your writing grounded in reality? On the same note, character dialogue and behavior should be realistic (assuming you’re not writing fantasy) to human nature to avoid being over-the-top. Reactions should be the result of a plausible cause-and-effect scenario, warranted by the actions and decisions that set them off. So resist the urge to skimp on reality or create unrealistic coincidences just because it's convenient.

Hopefully asking yourself these questions will give your story a good balance. Because just like something sweeter or spicier than expected can send people scrambling for relief in a cold glass of milk, melodrama that crosses the line can quickly get a story abandoned.

Do you have the tendency to lay it on thick sometimes? You can admit it here! No judgment :) Have you ever put down a book because the melodrama was off-putting?

---

Laurie Tomlinson is a wife and mom from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is passionate about intentional living, all things color-coded, and stories of grace in the beautiful mess. Previously a full-time book publicist, she owns a freelance copywriting, editing, and PR consulting business. 

She's a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and two-time Genesis Award winner in 2013 (Contemporary) and 2014 (Romance). 

Her work is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such Literary.

You can connect with Laurie here:

Twitter - @LaurieTomlinson
Web - www.LaurieTomlinson.com
Facebook - AuthorLaurieTomlinson

The Story in the Detour

**Naptime hasn't gone well for the past few days--and I'm more than a little delirious at this point--but this old post hit me just right! Please forgive the re-post.**

Has life ever thrown you a curve ball? Ever felt like you were thrust off course?

The detours God puts in our path don’t usually take us on a road that is wide and paved and easy. Most often those detours not only intrude on our plans, very often they derail us down to the core and challenge who we really are. What we believe. Where our strength really comes from.

Often times when I am writing a story there comes a point (okay, sometimes more than once) when I feel like the characters or the plot starts to veer in a dangerous direction. Someplace uncertain. Scary. Not what I had planned at all. How will I find my way out of that mess? How will the characters navigate the challenges without completely falling apart.

Whether in real life or in fiction, this is where we test our mettle and see what we’re made of. THIS is where the story really lies. 

I’ve shared recently about an unexpected twist in our family plan. Life plan. Survival plan. Now, it’s hard to see a baby as anything but a blessing. Especially when the circumstances are so miraculous (God is quite the storyteller, is He not?) But what could be seen as a life-threatening detour, is really an incredible adventure. An amazing story of God’s work in my life. A challenge that is testing me in so many ways and proving that my story isn’t yet over. That God’s plans, however different from my own, are ALWAYS for my good, even when the road is rocky and uncertain.

I'd love your perspective: What adventures in your own life have been birthed from an unexpected detour? Or when you write, whether you're a plotter or a pantster, do you venture into those unknown fissures of uncertainty, or do you stick to the roadmap you’ve meticulously planned? And in which instance did you find the beating heart of your story?

***************************************************************************

Amy Leigh Simpson is the completely exhausted stay-at-home mama to the two wild-child, tow-headed toddler boys, one pretty little princess baby, and the incredibly blessed wife of her hunky hubby.

She writes Romantic Suspense chalked full of grace that is equally inspiring, nail-biting, and hilarious. And a little saucy! Okay fine, a lot saucy. :) She is an active member of American Christian Fiction Writers, and now uses her Sports Medicine degree to patch up daily boo-boos. Her greatest ambitions are to create stories that inspire hope, raise up her children to be mighty warriors for Christ, invent an all-dessert diet that works, and make up for years of sleep deprivation. 

She is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc.

 

A Pantser's Plotting Plan

I am not a plotter. This is no secret if you know me or have read any of my blog posts. My stories start with characters, and the plot comes along as I go. In the past, I’ve maintained that plotting stifles creativity in my case. But I want to go on record and amend this statement.

It’s all the time wasted banging my head on the keyboard wondering what to write next that stifles my creativity.

For the first time in the history of my life, I’ve discovered a plotting book that doesn’t make my eyes glaze over after the first chapter. In fact, I'm almost finished!

It’s well-written, informative, and doesn’t have the confusing code language some of the other ones seem to have. The focus of Jordan Rosenfeld's Make a Scene is building a story intentionally based on each scene. Stories tend to come to me in glimpses anyway -- kind of like movie clips -- so this approach works. But the key I need to work on is developing a framework so I don’t have to do so much editing and reworking after my first draft. I need the puzzle box with the big picture to help me piece it together, so that if and when I become a published author, I can deliver my finished product in a timely manner with as little stress possible. :)

Writer friend Jessica Patch recommended this book to me, and I’m so glad. As you can see from the notebook above, I’ve been going all Hermione Granger on it with several pages of notes over the holidays. I’ll be sharing much more about what I’m learning later, but for starters, this is my tentative plan for how I’m going to plot my current manuscript:

Character studies. I wrote an entire blog post on what goes into this process for me not too long ago, but to sum up, I learn about their quirks, deepest desires, the ways they sabotage themselves, and what sets them apart as people I’d enjoy talking to over a slice of pizza.

Plot threads. Hopefully in the above step, I’ve learned at least the gist of what my main characters will learn and how they’ll grow throughout the story (the heart of the manuscript!). So my next step is to write out a shortish sort of synopsis for each of my storylines -- as much as I know about them already, anyway.

For example, continuing the theme of Pepper’s post yesterday, if I were doing this for the Lord of the Rings series, I’d have one “synopsis” for the ring’s journey from Bag End to Mordor, one for Aragorn’s ascent to king, one for the Battle of Helm’s Deep, one for Aragorn and Arwen’s love story, etc.

It sounds complicated, but it really helps. I think having a map like this up front will show me what to focus on and how to most effectively strengthen each plotline (and consequently each main character's journey) in relation to the others.

Scenes. From there, I can separate the sequential events of the synopsis into bullet points and then imagine specific scenes to flesh out these bullet points and further my story. For this step, I will likely stick to my pantser roots and write as I go. But having the map shaped in the previous steps will help me keep my characters on track and hopefully give me purpose for each writing session. I can’t emphasize how much the Make a Scene book has helped me in terms of being intentional/impactful with each scene!

So that’s the tentative plan for how this pantser is going to try her hand at plotting. I have all the essentials to make this work.

Now to stop planning and WRITE. Hopefully word count will be spared, the delete button will get a rest, and any unnecessary *facepalm* moments will be avoided.

Are you a plotter, pantser, or as Casey calls it, a hybrid "plotster"? Any tips or tricks that have worked for you?

---

Laurie Tomlinson is a wife and mom from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who enjoys stories of grace in the beautiful mess. 

She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and received the Genesis Award in 2013 (Contemporary) and 2014 (Romance). 

Her work is represented by Rachel Kent of Books & Such Literary.

You can connect with Laurie here:

Facebook - AuthorLaurieTomlinson

Twitter - @LaurieTomlinson

Web - www.LaurieTomlinson.com