Get Out of My Way: Guest Blogger Tara Taylor Quinn

I’m delighted and honored to welcome my friend and fellow Harlequin author Tara Taylor Quinn to my blog today. Direct on the heels of her new series from MIRA Books, The Chapman Files, Tara is the author of her own story, the first reality-based romance from HCI Books. Rather than say any more, I'll let her tell you all about it...and how to get out of the way and let your characters tell their story.

Get Out of My Way

I’m not sure when in my writing career I learned the lesson that too much of me was not a good thing – but it’s a lesson I’ve had to learn and re-learn through out the writing of my fifty-five books to date. So many times in life we learn lessons that will serve us later, and I think that was supposed to the be the case here.

Unfortunately I’m not that great of a student and the lesson didn’t stick well enough. So, here I am, just coming off from finishing a book (mailed it to my editor at 7:00pm Friday, December 10, 2010.) And on Friday, December 17, 2010 I have revisions due to another editor, another publisher, on another book. An April release that is due to production. Revisions in and of themselves are not a problem for me. I’m pretty good at them. I actually like them because the pressure is off in terms of making a book happen and I get to just take what I’ve done and make it better. A seven day turn around for me with revisions is comfortable enough.

Not this time. I know, technically, what I need to do to make this book better. To clean it and make it pop in every place not just some places. What I can’t seem to do is find the wheres and hows. I’m in the way. I’m not letting the story flow from that deep place inside me to the page. I’m not even getting to the deep place. Half way down, there I am, all over the place, blocking the path.

This is the one time I really needed to be good at getting out of the way. Because this time, I’m not just the writer who has to put my butt in the chair and type until the words start to flow. This time I am also the heroine, who has to tell me her story.

A few months ago I was asked by HCI books (the original publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books among hundreds of other non-fiction bestsellers) to write my own true life love story. Like all of my books, this story has deep life issues, the healing power of true love, and real happiness. The book, It Happened on Maple Street, is out in April, 2011. And while that sounds to me like a long time away, it’s only three and a half months from now!

So here I am, heroine and writer all in one. We have four and a half days to do revisions on an entire manuscript. One of us is in the way. And this time, instead of it being the writer, I think it’s the heroine.

I’m not panicked, though. I’m a seasoned writer. I’ve been at this long enough to know that panic is not going help. I also know there’s no reason to panic. Writing is an art, it’s a spiritual experience. It involves the deepest connection, the deepest communication, and the deepest trust. As a writer, I have to find out what is preventing the deep communication and tend to the problem. In this case, I already know the problem. The heroine isn’t communicating because she doesn’t trust the writer to tell her story.

Parts of this book are hard. Painful. Not the kind of stuff the flows easily. Not the kind of story you trust anyone to tell.

But I have to trust me to tell it. So I have to find a way to tend to my own mistrust. I’m finding it, oddly enough, in the revision letter that started the current stand off.

This is from the beginning of the revision letter: “This is truly a groundbreaking piece of literary work that is shocking in its raw honesty and starkly poignant in its message. What you have created out of the fabric of your life is sexy and sad, unsettling and moving, inspiring and infinitely compelling.”

So, to my heroine self, I say, I’ve only got four days to make this better. Get Out of My Way!

To pre-order a copy of It Happened On Maple Street and receive 20% off the cover price, one of the first editions off the press, a collector, autographed glossy It Happened On Maple Street poster in time for Christmas, click here: http://vows.hcibooks.com/2010/11/21/romance-author-tara-taylor-quinn-true-story-domestic-abuse-write-true-vows-reality-based-romance/.

Or enter to win a Kindle: http://vows.hcibooks.com/vows-giveways/win-a-kindle-reality-romance-giveaway/.

And to have a chance to win an e-copy of The First Wife, Book One in The Chapman File series that is out now, please leave a comment!

Ann Voss Peterson on Pacing...

Guest blogging today is my good friend, award-winning author Ann Voss Peterson, who pens intense, emotional suspense and thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. With her 23rd nail-biting Intrigue, A COP IN HER STOCKING, now on bookstore shelves, I think it’s safe to say Ann has mastered the art of suspense – and I’m delighted to have her here to chat about one of the most important writing techniques in a writer’s tool kit. Welcome Ann!

Thanks for inviting me, Linda!

Today I’m going to tackle a bit of a thorny topic but one that’s near and dear to my heart. Pacing. It’s one of the last things you master before you can write a book of publishable quality, and for good reason. Pacing can be tough. Is the story too slow? Too fast? What is just right?

There are a lot of articles out there featuring lists of tips and tricks for speeding up novel’s pace. If the story slows, kill someone. Add a ticking clock. Keep a secret. But I believe it’s more important to understand the WHY behind something than to just stick in a trick here and there. So in trying to understand pacing, I wanted to know why some prose feels fast and some feels slow. And this is what I came up with.

Pacing isn’t about speed.

That’s right. Pacing doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with how fast the action unfolds on the page. Think about it. We’ve all slogged through novels that felt either slow or sketchy and undeveloped. And it has little to do with genre. There are plenty of frantic thriller novels that feel as if they’re moving as fast as a glacier, just as there are literary novels or family dramas which don’t have a lot of exterior “stuff” happening, yet leave us breathless. So if a novel’s pace isn’t about speed, what IS it about?

The secret to pacing your novel is making the reader NEED to turn the page.

Well, I just happen to be a reader. I’ll bet you are, too. So in my quest to understand pacing, I asked myself what makes ME want to turn the page, and here are the four things I found.

1. Sequence: I turn the page to uncover what happens next. Stimulus and response.

2. Conflict: I turn the page to discover who wins.

3. Delayed Gratification: I turn the page to learn the answers to my questions.

4. Escalation: I turn the page to see how on earth the protagonist gets out of this mess!

That’s it. The secret to pacing. Those four concepts. Don’t believe it could be that simple? Think about the tips and tricks I mentioned above. If done right, killing someone is going to provide conflict. It’s also going to give those story stakes a boost (escalation). That’s why it can make a slow area feel faster paced. But it only works if the murder does those two things. If it doesn’t effect the stakes or if it doesn’t increase the conflict, it’s going to muddy your story instead of making the reader need to turn that page.

How about the other two tricks? The ticking clock is an example of escalation. The characters had to do something in your story (right?), and now they have to do it in a very short time span. Keeping a secret is an example of delayed gratification. The reader has to race through those pages to find out what the secret is or to see it revealed to another character. And of course, the character’s reaction to that secret is her response to a stimulus...sequence!

I give a workshop on how to use each of these things to improve the pace of your story in everything from the construction of sentences to the structure of the entire novel. Obviously that would make for an overly long blog post. :) So instead of me telling you ways to use these concepts to make your prose and your story FEEL fast, you tell me.

What makes you NEED to turn the page in books you read? Are any of these tips and tricks examples of sequence, conflict, delayed gratification or escalation?

To catch an example of the way Ann paces her novels, pick up her 23rd published novel, A COP IN HER STOCKING, a Harlequin Intrigue in stores this October. Also check out Ann's website at www.annvosspeterson.com

In the Zone...

Wow, it's hard to believe this is my first blog. And to make it even more wow, it’s my first Bootcamp blog, which gives it a specialness all of its own. In fact, I kinda, sorta feel obligated to write something pithy and incredibly astounding...but since I’m writing this after midnight, the pithy neurons in my brain cells have ceased to fire. Part of that problem has to do with the fact that I’ve been writing a pivotal scene in a new story and I can’t get the plot developments out of my head. So, pithy Bootcamp stuff is definitely at risk.

Actually, I’d still be writing on my story if I didn’t have to sleep. It was amazing...the words just kept coming and coming. How good they are is another story, but tonight, they’re the best words I’ve ever written. I’m sure of it!

I’m always amazed at how that writer’s passion in me can still exist after years and years of writing. When I’m in the zone, nothing else exists. If you’re a writer, you know what I mean.

That passion, that fire in the belly, is at the very heart of what we do. It’s what made me get up at 4 a.m. to write just a few paragraphs before work when I was desperate to finish a book and send it out to an editor, who would, of course, snap it up and make me the next Nora. That passion is what had me hurridly stuffing hard copy of my manuscript into my briefcase so I could edit even a few lines on my lunch hour at work. It’s what gave me the perseverence to write five books over five years in the few spare minutes I had while raising four sons...and it gave me the cojones to spit in the face of rejection upon rejection. Passion is not only an essential part of a successful author’s makeup, it’s a necessary ingredient. It's part of who we are.
http://bootcampfornovelists.com
As writers, our passion has few boundaries. We’re passionate about the process of writing. Some of us love some parts more than others, but we looove the act of writing...the sitting at the computer and keeping our butts in the chair. It doesn’t matter if we get rejections, we still write. We have to write. We can’t quit. We write...even if what we write sucks pond water. (okay, that’s cliché, but it’s now 1 am.) We write even when it feels like drawing blood from a stone. We write because we can't not write!

As writers, we love the art of putting together scintilating words and colorful phrases to create a story that is not only structurally and grammatically correct, but one that is also evocative. Some writers literally feel the words as they flow perfectly from their brain through their fingers and leak onto the page. (lucky them.) Others (most of us) struggle mightily with the execution, but in the end, we looove how our words come together.

And lastly, but not leastly, we looove the story we’re writing. And that passion for your story is by far the most important writing passion you can own. When you’re passionate about your story, you bring your emotions to the page. When you write about something that touches and excites you, it's going to excite someone else. When you write stories that are emotionally significant for you, you’re writing from your heart and your voice rings true. Writing from a place of passion allows your voice and style to shine. It gives your voice and story authenticity. When you write authentically, your emotions are conveyed to the reader and your story will feel deep and personal. When that happens, the reader is compelled to read on.

Infusing a story with emotion isn’t just about how your characters think and feel, it’s also about what you, the author, think and feel. Passion for your story means owning it…giving it your all, no holds barred. Release your passion when you write and it will reverberate in the conviction in your voice...and, as we all know, in commercial fiction, voice is king. To use another cliched phrase, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."

And that’s an awful lot of words for someone who started out with nothing to say. But, hey, it's my blog...and I looove writing!

Ciao for now,
Linda

PS - Check out my blog on Tuesdays, and on Thursdays, Connie, my partner in crime, will be blogging in her corner. That does not mean we won't be blogging otherwise, but for sure, we will on those two days.

And do let me know your thoughts on writing with passion...or passionate writing...or anything else, because I know you looove to write, too.