Have You Ever Wondered What My Characters Look Like?

Seriously, have you?

I'm not a writer who normally goes around looking for pictures of my characters.  Like, ever.  Actually, I'm more like the person whose afraid to try and draw her characters for fear she won't do them justice, and who doesn't want to look for a picture that similar to them, because she thinks they are just way too unique for that.  If I could just snap a picture of my characters right out of my head to show you, I would.  Really, I would.  That's just how I am.

But the other day, I decided to actually go looking for pictures that made me think of what my characters are supposed to look like.  And (surprisingly enough) I actually FOUND SOME.  No, really! :)  Total surprise to me.  I just don't expect that sort of stuff.

So without further ado, here are (most of) the characters of SOTD.

(Disclaimer:  None of these pictures are actually mine... they are just pictures that I found on the internet that I'm using for character inspiration, and they belong to their respected owners.  That is all.)

Now, let's start with Curron, shall we?  I found three pictures for him.  :D

So this is what he looks like initially.  Just give him slightly longer hair, and WALLA!  And, interestingly enough, he's actually clean in this picture.  That's right folks... Curron doesn't always look this prim and proper.  Comes with working in the Stables a lot.  And with being a lower class servant. ^_^

NEXT!

 

There ya go.  That's more like it.  At least for the beginning of the book.  And I like this picture because I just can't decide on what his face is trying to express.  Which is fine with me: it means I can put that face in several different circumstances.  lol!

NEXT! ^_^ (I'm having fun doing that.)

This picture is fun because it's what I think Curron might look like grown up.  Not bad on the eyes, I'd say.  I like 'im. hehe!

Ok, that's all for Curron.  Now which character should I show?  Hmmm... how's about Olan?  I think I only have one picture of him...

Just make him a little bit heavier, and have him scowl at Curron a lot, and there ya go.  When Olan smiles, however, he looks pretty much like that.  Which is good to know.

Now for Caellahn:

This is probably what he looked like the night he first showed up at Fort Gallant.

 And this is a close up.  Actually, I picture his hair maybe the slightest bit shorter.  And he has blue eyes.  But still.  Good looking, no?

Here... have another. ^_^

Slightly different model for the last two pics, but you guys get the idea.  The mysterious, good-looking ranger type that the author just falls in love with as she's writing about him.  Yeah, that's Caellahn. :D  I suppose it should be that I love the MC the most.  Which I do.  But it's just so fun to think up the mystery around Caellahn... because, after all, he is a man of deep mystery.  *twinkly fingers*

Now For Allim.  You guys haven't met him yet, but he's an awesome character.  In SOTD, he and his son are the leaders of the outcast Believers.  They are Burri, which is a race I picture to look more Arabic than anything else.  They come from the deserts of Southland.  Here's a mix of pictures of what I think he (sort of) looks like... just so you guys can get an idea.  The top one resembles him the most.  (guy from lost... can't remember his name... <_<)

Yep... nothin' says that the burri can't look handsome too. :D  Allim is middle aged, but very in shape... thus that last picture.

And now for Allim's son, Drugan.  I found the perfect picture for him as well.  He's two years younger than Curron, but he looks more mature for his age and is quickly learning leadership from his father.  I have two pictures for him.  The top one is a slightly older looking version, and the bottom one looks closer to the right age but needs longer hair.

Last but not least, we have King Morven.  I'm sure you're all wondering about him.

I couldn't find anyone that looked EXACTLY like him... but I found a few things that I think are close.  Here ya go. :)

The guy would be the king, of course.  Just give him a goatee... and perhaps some sideburns.  IDK... I can't remember what color of eyes I gave him, but I think they were blue... so you'd have to change his eye color as well.

This would be Morven out hunting.  And he has longer hair.  The Morven in my story has shaggy hair, but it's not actually long.  I found a lot of the pictures of the men I looked for had long hair, but I never picture my male characters with actually shoulder length hair.  hmmm.... If you cut this guys hair shaggy up to about the bottom of his chin and taper it back around his neck, you might have it. :D

And that's all for now.  I'll leave you with one last picture...

GWALCH!  No really, that's the characters name.  He actually works in the palace, but you wouldn't know it by looking at this guy... however, if you cleaned him up a bit and made his hair whiter... maybe put him in some good clothes, you'd have him.  Gwalch really does look like this in my head.

And that's all.  Next time I'll have to do pictures of the characters from ELDREI.  See ya later. :D

My Journey with "Song of the Daystar"

Every writer has a different story behind them, a different path that they've taken that has led them to where they are now.  I have always loved to read the stories of other authors I admire, and hear how their stories were first born.  Most of these tales involve obstacles and doubts and some wild inspiration - all of which encourages me in the end, because I can SO relate.

So this is the story of my current project, "Song of the Daystar", and maybe I'll be lucky and it will inspire someone else.

Song of the Daystar started life at the beginning of 2006 as a rather short and choppy three page writing splurge titled When the Winds Change, and the "first chapter" was called The Secret of Ice, which actually had nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the so called first chapter.  That short and extremely messy splurge was stuffed into a digital folder called, Other Writing Projects, and didn't come out again until the spring of 2007 when I learned about a Christian contest for High School students called "The Tweener-Time Competition".  The object of that competition was to write a 25k chapter book, and the winner of the contest got a publishing deal with Bethany House, and a scholarship for Bethany Christian College in Indiana.

At the time, I didn't know what I was going to write: I just knew that I really wanted to enter that competition.    So I sifted through my writing files, and suddenly found that little, tiny writing excerpt in my Other Writing Projects folder.  I pulled it out and started to type.

No, I didn't have a plot.  I had no purpose for the story whatsoever -- well, except for 25,000 words when I finished.  I had NO idea what was going to happen or what the point was.  I just sat down and wrote.

Oh BOY have I come a long way since then!!

I didn't win the contest (of course) and I'm very glad I didn't.  Now, having come as far as I have on my writing journey, I would consider it a disgrace to have such a ramshackle piece of work on the market. *shudders*  Seriously, it's the stuff of my nightmares.

Of course, that was all before I started taking writing seriously.  Up until then (actually, up until a year after that) I had done little to no research on the creative writing process.  In fact, I barely knew about the internet, and I was already 18 and 19!!  Not that I cared for the interwebz all that much.  Myspace was still popular, and Facebook was just starting to thrive.  I wasn't allowed to touch either of them, of course, lest some mass murderer found my information and came to get me :p  And, of course, we had a dial up landline service (still do) which never worked correctly and took absolutely FOREVER to load.  <_<

With the end of that contest came the end of my interest in the story for a while.  I laid it aside and didn't pick it up for another year.  I was too busy working on another writing project, and felt like I had finished Song of the Daystar and there was no point in trying to kick a dead horse.   But in the winter of 2008 I became tired of working on my other story, and wanted something new for my tired eyes to look through.  So I reopened that old "dead horse" document and sat there for hours reading through it.

It was awful.  *Shakes head sadly*  Really, there was nothing "good" about it.  Like I said earlier, it had no point... and it also seemed to be lacking any sort of a middle.  Besides that, the end was extremely short and disappointing  and the beginning... well, it meandered every which way without motive.  My characters were dry and uninteresting, and the settings were all general.  In short, it was a disgrace to the writing world, and sadly it was mine... my very own Frankenstein Literary Monster.

But instead of burying the grotesque creature back in the shadows of my dusty digital folder, I decided to try and fix the darned thing. ;)  There just had to be a way to save it, for as the saying goes "One man's trash is another man's treasure".  Only this time the story was both my trash and my treasure.  I knew there had to be something I could pull out of it.  So I decided to keep some of the characters and start fresh, only with the newer version of the story I decided to brainstorm first.

Not outline, mind.  I had to do paper outlines for my High school work, and  had decided to detest them with almost every fiber of my being (It wasn't until later when I started college that I discovered the true value behind outlining).  No, this was just brainstorming.  I came up with a few more characters and gave them a real purpose.  Then I went farther and decided to give the story itself a purpose, since I didn't like the way the first draft had hopped, skipped, and jumped all over the place.  I tried to come up with a theme for the book (though it didn't stick in the end and I had to eventually toss it), and I also changed the title.

"It will just be an experiment," I told myself.  "It probably won't go anywhere in the publishing world anyway... and it's not like it has to either.  But maybe, just maybe, I can use this old thing to improve my writing.  And if I can do that, then maybe I really CAN get a publisher to look at me one day."

So I rewrote that story.  And rewrote it.  And rewrote it.  All in all, it went through the rewriting process four times before I finally decided to try to send it out in August of 2010.  I still didn't know if it was ready, but I'd felt at the time like I'd given it everything I had... how could I polish it any further?  I'd been vigorously studying the writing and publishing world.  I'd been reading every "writing how-to" book I could get my hands on.  I'd studied the current market.  I'd read and reread, and then studiously scoured through the words written by my favorite authors until my eyes were sore and I was exhausted from staying up too late.  I loved every minute of it, and truly I knew I was still a baby in the world of creative writing, but I'd felt like I'd taken my little experiment as far as I could take it and it needed to be set free.

So I started querying.  And of course I received a lot of rejections.  So I started praying to, and I felt like God told me to submit SOTD to a new, independent publisher called Flaming Pen Press.  It was so new, in fact, that it was just getting ready to release it's third book, Kestrel's Midnight Song, in September.  However, I'd been following the publisher's blog, and researching them, and I'd been following the author of KMS as well... (Jacob Parker was actually the very first follower at the P&P, even before I knew he was another writer. :D)  I learned that Mr. Appleton's book, Swords of the Six, had been picked up by AMG, which showed further promise in the company, and I decided to give it a try.  I started by emailing Mr. Appleton a few questions about his company and manuscript submissions (I wanted to get it right, after all), and he was kind enough to answer my questions and give me a few tips as well.  He even suggested that after I submitted my manuscript, I should start rewriting the book YET AGAIN, because usually publishers will want a revision to strengthen the book before they actually agree to publish it.

Well, at first I wasn't sure where to go with that advice.  How could I rewrite it yet again?  It was too painful to think about -- in fact, I truly thought it was useless to try for yet another revision.  I was burned out on it, you see.  But I figured I could at least get some feedback and see what other people thought.  I went to the writing forums I'm a member of and starting posting some chapters there.  Most of the answers were similar to each other: it was good writing - much better than my first draft - and often times they liked my descriptions and settings; I definitely had something good going, they said.  But something was still missing, they told me, and it seemed like they couldn't quite figure out what it was.  They encouraged me to keep writing though, told me they had faith in me.  They really helped me not to get too discouraged with the book, but they also kept me humble... kept me striving for the best I had, kept me learning to be better.

The problem was that I couldn't figure out what was missing either.

Then another friend of mine asked me if I would like to do a beta-swap, and I agreed.  I'd critiqued chapters before on the forums, and I figured it couldn't be much harder than that.  And really, it wasn't, but that's not what made my this beta-swap so special.  What made it special was the fact that my friend came back to me and told me what she thought was wrong with the story...

"It seems to jump from thought to thought," she said.  "I like your character, but I think he needs more... character.  More motive and more drive."  (she didn't say those words exactly, but it was along those lines...)

And I, of course, being so burnt out on the story as I was, I had to ask her what she meant.  We ended up having a long and very refreshing brainstorming session in which I decided to pick up the reigns of the dead horse yet again, and see if I couldn't get it rise up a just a little bit.

Surprisingly, I found that that "dead horse" wasn't dead at all.  In fact, it was very much alive... it'd just been stuck for a while, as if it were trapped in some sort of time-warp.  With the help of my friend, I'd found what was missing in that story and I was determined to fix it.  I also found my inspiration.  I started writing again - hard, and it wasn't long before I had two brand new chapters that were at least 50 times better than the old ones.  I posted bits of it to the writing forums I am a part of, and (much to my surprise and gratitude) the new chapters were highly praised.  At first I really couldn't really believe it, but after a couple months of working hard on the rewrite, I decided to pull out that old manuscript that I had subbed out and see if there was really that much of a difference.

There was.  In comparison to my latest rewrite, that old "finished" draft looks about as primitive as my very first RD when I first pulled it out again in 2007.

Not only that, but I now knew what I needed to work on my other WIP, Eldrei, and I started rewriting that manuscript at once  (the difference between the RD of that one and the rewrite is so IMMENSE, it's like the manuscript went from being a piece of rock to a shining butterfly overnight, even though it actually took much longer.)

Then I received the reply from the publisher I'd queried.  And he liked it!  Or rather, he liked the concept that I had in that old draft.  He  wasn't so sure about the writing though, and told me he was going to send me a revision request and perhaps a critique of the prologue and first chapter.

That's when I realized how much my friend had truly helped me.  I told the publisher that I'd already started revising, and asked if he would like to view the first couple of chapters, and he said yes.  I sent it to him, and his response was the most encouraging part of SOTD's progress of all; he liked it... very much.  :D  And he asked me to please resubmit when I finish the rewrite.

So that's what's brought my book, Song of the Daystar, to where it is now.  It's been a very long and arduous journey, but it's been worth every step.  I love writing more now than I ever did before.  And best of all, what started out as a halfhearted experiment - a mere dabble in putting words coherently together - became a project that's very close to my heart.  Slightly ironic, isn't it?

Since February, when I received the publisher's reply, Song of the Daystar has grown v.e.r.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y.  But it has grown, and every bit of new writing is gone over and over again to ensure that it is at it's very best.  No more second-hand writing... I'm taking this whole thing to the next level.  I now have more faith in my story than I've had in it since it's beginning.  In fact, I believe it has every bit as much potential as my other WIP, Eldrei has (which is really saying a lot, coming from me. <_< )

So all in all, that's the story behind SOTD.  Now you know.  It's the proof that "awful" can become "excellent" when hard work, good writing friends, and solid critiques are involved.  No one starts out great, but we all tend to think we do. (I don't say that to discourage anyone, but the proof is definitely in the pudding.)  I hope my story encourages someone to take their writing to the next level.  And then the next.  And the next.  It will seem like you are "reaching" forever, but if you never settle for "better" and always reach for your best, you will always improve.  Then one day you'll look back and realize how far you've come,  and you know what?  By God's grace you'll still be humble, because you know that with Him on your side and you friends behind you, you can still do better yet.

Some Poems from my Life

Hello bloggy friends. :)  I've been in a rather random mood lately, and the result has been that I've not been updating as much as I would like to, mostly because I feel that a blog post probably should have something meaningful or purposeful in it.  But today I've decided to take advantage of this random mood and do something I've been meaning to do for a couple months now, simply because I can: I've decided to post some random poetry that I've written throughout my life.  Perhaps I'll make a series of this; who knows. :)

This first one was written when I was 17.  This is actually a song.  I thought it would make a good walking or traveling song.  Perhaps I'll use it one day in my book sometime.)

Throw Me Out and Let Me Go

Throw me out upon the breezes

Let me fly, let me fly

Let me touch the rays of morning in the sky

Let me spread my wings and soar

Up in the sky forever more

Throw me out upon the breeze and let me go

Throw me up upon a horse and

Let me ride, let me ride

Let me take all my adventures in one stride

With a sword girthed at my waist

Let me hold a steady pace

Throw me up upon a horse and let me go

Throw me out unto the river

Let me sail, let me sail

May the breezes always hold a steady gale

To fill the canvas of my craft

And take me down the river’s track

Throw me out unto the river; let me go

Give me one last kiss for parting

Let me leave, let me leave

For if I could not go roaming I would grieve

Adventure’s calling in my wake

And my free heart it’s bound to take

So kiss me once but then I beg you, let me go.

***

This next one was again written when I was 17.  It's the story of the Matchstick girl, for those of you who have at least heard of the story.  It's rather sad though, but it's still one of my favorites.  I seem to have had a thing for poetry at 17. :)

Ode to the Story of the Matchstick Girl

(young matchstick girl):

When winter’s cold surrounds me in the dark of night

And my eyes are closed to all the frosted stars

I feel not winter’s presence nor his frosted breath

For long gone is my mind and though it’s cold, I’m warm

For I see not the icy limbs of frozen trees

Nor ponds of glass, the water powdered with the snow,

But to the golden summers past.  My eyes have turned

From fields of figured glass to glades of greening growth

I feel not the unseen hand of winter’s grip

Come stealthily through my clothes and grip my heart

For I am numb from cold, though warm with summers thought

And feel not when the soul and body part

(man walking by):

A lonely figure on the icy streets of town

A young girl rapped in rags with eyes now ever shut

Yet now she looks so happy in that frozen place

A gentle smile now permanently on her face

What thoughts she had in her last hour to make her smile

Now lie with her and never shall be known

They, her last comfort held upon the brink of death

Had etched a smile upon the lips turned blue with cold

Her innocence, now tattered shreds of memory past

Her lonely figure, peaceful but forlorn

She laid untended in the icy streets of town

For no one living knew, and no one mourned.

***

Well what do you know?  A poem from when I was 16. :)  That's the year I started writing Eldrei. lol!  It's fun to look back.

News From the Four Winds

(Sunrise)

I’ve heard the four winds calling

Softly come they to my ears

And I’ve asked them for news

As I stay lonely standing here

What news from you, oh West Wind

As  you travel far abroad?

What on your journeys have you learned

While racing sky unshod?

“I have seen the sun go setting

And the silver moon go down;

I’ve watched as all the rivers raced

Beside me on the ground

And I have seen no changes–

Only night and evening’s face.

In past live I beneath a sky

Of time and endless space”

Then will my head turn southward

And the South Wind will I ask!

What news from you, oh South Wind

Do you gather as you pass?

“I fear there’s nothing newer

Than what you before were told

The sky is getting dimmer

And dark shadows yet unfold

No news have I to tell you

O great deeds done in my way…”

Then I shall ask the North Wind

What he’s seen by light of day

Oh North Wind, Mighty North Wind

Tell me what it is you’ve seen.

The south and West have told me naught

With nothing new between.

“Well, I have seen stone fallen

And have watched trees grow old with age

But nothing new have I to tell

Though I be an ancient sage

But if it is the new you seek

Turn east then, my advice is

For she is young, the wind that way

Her news you’ll find suffices”

Oh East Wind, merry East Wind

North Wind says you hold the key

For news is what I’m seeking

And no old will do for me.

I’m searching for a story

What is it you have to tell?

And then I heard the East Wind

And her voice like silver fell.

“Oh I have news for singing

And not old is it, but new

For I have learned from West Wind

That no other kind will do.

So now this news I’ll show you:

It is better in display.

Look to the east, my friend,

And you will see the light of day!”

And so my eyes turned eastward

And no whisper could I find

To describe the lacey patterns

Of this intricate design.

Now stared my eyes in wonder

At the rose and golden hues

And I new that I had finally found

My little piece of news.

***

Another from when I was 16.  I liked poems that discribed nature or that told stories about children playing.  I was (and still am) especially fond of Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses".

Dance of the Heavens

It is time the sun sets on the kingdom of earth;

See her silently fold down her bed,

Pulling back quilts made of grass laden sod

And then tucking them under her head.

As she pulls in the last golden locks of her hair

And her gown slips back under the hills,

The Moon and his daughters slip into the night

For a ball decked with silvery frills.

They wear gowns made of silver and silver hair bows

And their shoes are of silver as well,

And their father is dressed in his best silver suite

With glass buttons and one crystal bell.

The Moon has a fiddle all shiny and bright

That he plays with a crystal-glass bow

And he saws on the strings ‘til they all start to sing;

Now up high and now purring down low.

The Star Daughters curtsy and then they all twirl

In a dance for the heavens to see,

All their lights bright reflecting in each little pool

Quite completing the fantastic scene.

But just as the dancers’ excitement is full

And the dance gets more wild to behold,

The first wondrous rays of the morning break through

In the east, turning silver to gold

As the sun pulls her covers back off of her face

And shakes out the gold locks of her hair,

Spreading warmth and bright light over hilltops and trees

And renewing the chilled evening’s air.

The Stars start to fade and their dresses go dim

While the Moon hides away in the hills

Leaving all to the sun who is having much fun

Warming each child’s windowsill.

***

Last one for tonight. :)  I like this one because I wrote it while I was thinking of the play times that my siblings and I had when we were younger.  I was once again 17 when I wrote this one.  It seems that since I've grown older, I've not written nearly as many poems. *sigh*

Bed Sheet Sails at Dinner Time

(Boy:)

O mama, mama where’s the sail?

It’s time to chart my route!

But now I found my bed is stripped:

No sheets to sail me out!

(Mother:)

I’m sorry Hun, the sail is gone;

It’d been through muck and mire

So I washed it with the laundry pile

And threw it in the dryer.

(Boy:)

Oh mama, mama where’s my ship?

It must have blown to sea!

The current caught it by the dock

And sailed it without me!

(Mother:)

Umm… Honey, try the kitchen;

I think you’ll find the answer there

For when I was making dinner, well…

I needed bad a chair.

(Boy:)

Oh mama, mama!  I need food!

My ship is at the dock.

I need plenty of provisions,

My ship’s larder for to stock.

(Mother:)

Now I can help you there, my dear

When ere you’re surly able

Come sail that chair up to my dock;

Your dinners on the table!

And there you go.  That's all for tonight; a small peak into my (slightly) younger years.  Hope you enjoyed it. :D

Our Stories Live -- a review of “Story Engineering” written by Larry Brooks

Recently I've been going through the book Story Engineering by Larry Brooks just to see if I agreed with what he had to say on the writing process. I received a free review copy of the book through Booksneeze.com, and at first I wasn't sure what I would think about it. However, it was a free writing "how-to" book and I am a big fan of writing how-to books. Seriously. If I see a book that's written on the process of writing or publishing that appeals to me, I usually save up to get it. I'm a HUGE fan of the Writers' Digest magazine, and just as HUGE a fan of the Writer's Digest Forums. I have a whole shelf dedicated to nothing but books about the writing process.

What I'm not a real big fan of is the thought that stories are engineered much the same as houses. (I read an article on that somewhere, and while it had a few good points, it just didn't feel quite right to me). You see, I'm one of those dedicated SOTP writers who throw in a little structure on the side just to make the story sparkle more. I follow my heart more than I follow my head (which can be both a good and bad thing). I'm artistic, which means I like to go with the flow of emotions that course through me as I'm writing, rather than write based on an outline… and what little structure I do have for my story is constantly changing.

With that in mind, the biggest problem I had was actually opening the book. I read through the introduction, and I wasn't that impressed. But, to be fair and completely honest, I think that's because I really REALLY didn't want my idea of the creative writing process to change. I HAD structure… just not the structure that I thought the book might refer to. I mean, come on! Its title includes the word "Engineering" which makes me think of building houses and working with giant machinery at CAT. I've never wanted to do that; I certainly don't want to apply something that makes me think of THAT to my story.

But you see, thinking that was my first mistake. I kept reading the book – oh yes, I kept reading – and I discovered that my idea of where the book would take me was WAY off the mark. And I first realized that at the bottom of the first page of chapter 2.

At the bottom of the first page of chapter 2 there is a header in bold print that reads "A Story Viewed as a Living, Breathing Thing", and right after that Mr. Brooks says this:

A story has many moods. It has good days and bad days. It must be nurtured and cared for lest it deteriorate. And it has a personality and an essence that defines how it is perceived. Just like human beings. In fact, comparing a well-told story to a healthy human being becomes and effective analogy to better understand the interdependency of the parts and the delicate balance of chemistry and biomechanics that allow the body – and the story – to move, to thrive, and to grow.

Reading that statement, I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks' idea of the story is much the same as mine. I totally think of my story as a living, breathing thing. I talk to my characters and, as crazy as this might sound to normal people, they talk back to me. (Yes indeed, I hear voices in my head. ;D) Sometimes I even fight with my characters… and my whole story for that matter. In fact, it can remind me of a little child or a rebellious teenager at times; it decides that it wants to do something and it throws a fit. Sometimes I can reign it in and make it listen to me, trying to convince it that my idea of where it should go is much better for it than where it wants to go. However, sometimes it runs away and then I have to chase it down. It has its own likes and dislikes, and its own ideas of what should happen next, and many times it's all I can do to hold on for dear life and ride out the craziness that follows.

Yes, Mr. Brooks: I agree with you. My story is totally alive. No, no! Don't pet it! It has sharp teeth and it likes to bite… <_<

Reading further, I was introduced to questions that really made me think over some of my writing life, like "What makes me a writer?" and "How do you know when your idea is capital?" and so forth and so on. Writers ask themselves these types of questions anyway, but this book also gives you possible answers and it helps you answer for yourself as well.

One of my favorite parts of the book was where Mr. Brooks talks about Showing and not Telling. He says this:

We must SEE and FEEL him (the character) bettering his weaker self, rather than simply reading the news of it, or having it spring from no logical, discernable source. He can't just wake one day and suddenly GET IT. (This is where some paranormal stories fall flat – the hero learns via a sixth sense or a random realization from something bigger than himself, rather than from the pain and consequence of experience.)

Yes, yes, yes, and YES. So very true. This is something that I've had to work on in the past: every action has a consequence, weather that consequence is good or bad. Things don't just happen because they happen. There is a reason for everything, and there always has been. It's like a chain reaction: something happens that makes something else happen that makes something else happen and so on and so forth. But the thing is that readers don't want to just hear what happened and how it came about… they want to FEEL it, to SEE it, to SMELL it (if possible). They want to be right there LIVING it. It's not always easy to know why something happens in a story and what the consequence is for the action, but as writers we must, MUST make sure that we have reason in everything we write. It CANNOT just be there. It must have purpose.

 

There was one thing about this book that I ended up not liking, and that was that SOTP writing seemed to be looked down upon for the most part. (Notice I said "seemed to"… I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.) The book centers around working with what is called "The Six Core Competencies" which is explained throughout, and it is very true that each Core Competency talked about is absolutely essential when it comes to good story writing. And yes, even SOTP writers must take such essential elements and apply them to their books at some point in time. However, what made me frown (and here it comes…) was the fact that just "winging it" and "writing intuitively" was not really encouraged, mainly because, as Mr. Brooks states on page 18:

It all seems easy when she (the writer) was reading her favorite novels of her favorite authors. Authors that demonstrate no more linguistic dexterity than she does. This is a writer who is winging it, writing intuitively, and after that first two-hundred pages she faces one of two challenges – she realizes that her story is broken and that she needs to start over, or at least revamp it; or she does not realize the sad state of things and presses on with a story that is already doomed.

This statement leads into Mr. Brooks' reasoning for why the Six Core Competencies are so important and how they can improve writing – all relevant points, I might add. And after all, that's only one statement in the entire book; how can it be that bad?

But did you see that? Did you see what he did right there? Without even a second glance he downplayed SOTP writing at its heart. SOTP writers absolutely "wing it", as he said. We write intuitively because we write with our emotions. We don't build our stories like one would build a house; not quite, anyways. "Angles" and "nails" and "boards" and "dry wall" aren't really the most important elements to us. In fact, SOTP writers are more like painters than they are builders. We have "structure" but it's not the kind of structure used when one outlines every move, or like when one is drawing out blueprints for a building. We like to throw in random colors at times, add a little pazzaz, a little texture… we insert some emotion and include some heart. Sometimes we smear mud in places, or slap on some red paint to draw the reader's eyes.

Perhaps Mr. Brooks was referring to brand new writers who haven't really gotten serious yet and/or who haven't studied any parts of the writing process at all.

Yeah… maybe that's what he was talking about. (Maybe…) And if that's the case then I guess I can understand him; I mean, I used to be one of those writers at the very beginning. (I don't even like to think about it, if you really want to know).

The thing is that I'm not like that anymore and I STILL write SOTP. I still "wing it". I am still willing to jump off a cliff (so to speak) without so much as a bungee cord and dive into the writing process without really knowing what's going to happen next. And the thing is, I DO know about the essentials of writing and I DO work to apply them as I write.

And then what about some of my favorite authors who have written SOTP and have become world renown? What about Tolkien and Louis? What about Bryan Davis, who has said outright that he's an SOTP writer all the way? What about Wayne Thomas Batson? What about hundreds if not thousands of other writers out there who have claimed to write SOTP works and who have been successful at it? All of them "wing it" to some degree. All of them "write intuitively" and at least most of them have been successful

My point is that both builders and painters are artists, but their art and their process of creating that art are so different that they can't be compared to each other by any fair measure. And neither can outlining be compared to SOTP writing like that. Yes, SOTP writers do need some structure in their stories; yes, I absolutely agree that the six core competencies should be included in an SOTP work – the essential elements of writing should be studied by all writers no matter what they write, how they write, how long they've been writing, or who they write for; yes, I think that writers of all kinds should read this book – trust me, it's good for you, even though I don't agree with some of it. But in the end, the process of how someone goes about writing something is totally up to the author of that work and should not be frowned upon simply because it's different than they way some other writers work.

To conclude, Larry Brooks presents good ideas and some rather good comparisons in this writing how-to book. He knows what he's talking about, that's for sure, and he applies it well. His lessons are solid and definitely worth using. Even after my little rant, I just have to give this book a 5 out of 5 stars. No matter how we go about the writing process, our stories end up living – to us, if not to others. What we want to do is have them "live" in the eyes of other people as well, and this book can help us get there. It breaks it all down in small, chewable bites and feeds us the info one small bit at a time. In fact, (and I don't say this lightly) I would pair this book with Jeff Gerke's The Art and Craft of Writing Christian Fiction. Both are essential for a writer's library. I'm absolutely certain that I will continue to study the content of this book long into the future.

However, for those of you out there who write more like I do, take his advice with a small grain of salt. The preference to the actual process of writing is ultimately
up to the author (as I'm sure you all know). No one, no matter who they are, can say that one style is better than another; such statements are only opinion, not fact. It is absolutely possible to apply these elements of writing to the SOTP process; if you are going to change your mind, change it for your own reasons and not just because someone else says you should or doesn't agree with your writing process.

 

(I received a copy of this book for free from Booksneeze.com. I was not required to give a positive review.)

Nichole

Updates, updates, updates... :D and My Portfolio

This isn't going to be a very long post, so there's no need to go and get all comfortable unless you want to.  Recently I've felt the need to update The Pen and Parchment yet again.  So I've been adding pages.  I finally got my entire Art Portfolio downloaded to the site (check it out at the top of my blog. :D), and I'm thinking about changing the look once more.  I also want to add a poetry page and a page that explains my art commission rates.  Just thinks to look for in the future.

It must be a sign of change you know, this sudden need to update things.  Update my profile pic on FB, update my blog, update my book... and school's coming up in another month: I'll be a writing consultant and the secretary of the choirs.  I'll be meeting Brock Eastman and working more on SOTD while learning Music and Writing theory and singing my head off.  And I bet you I'll love every minute of it. :)  This next semester promises not to be as difficult as last semester (so far), so I'm actually looking forward to it.  And in the meantime, I'm enjoying my time off.  Recently I've simply been doing... nothing. *sighs blissfully*  Nothing much, anyway.

So that's all for now my friends.  Sorry this post is just rambling, but I felt the need to ramble and update.

See ya later!

Nichole

Critiquing or Consulting? Interesting thoughts on what I’m learning about inserting your own opinions

Well, today I had Writing Consultant training and we were learning about how to approach foreign exchange students who bring in papers but may not know the English Language very well.

Ok, for starters, I can totally sympathize with such students.  I had to take German the last two semesters and it near drove me insane!  I love the language… I would LOVE to be immersed in it so that I can learn to speak if fluently… but the written grammar is so tricky to my English-wired brain.  I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it.

Anyway, getting back to my point (which actually doesn’t have much to do with the fact that we have foreign exchange students at my school… O.O)

As part of our training, we received some hand-outs that talked us through the approach we should take, and that also explained a few terms to us.  One of the terms commonly used in our writing lab is “Facilitative questioning”.  It was as I was reading through the hand-out that I got the idea for this blog post concerning personal opinions when trying to help another person improve their writing.

Now, I’m a writer who has rather tough skin.  I really LIKE it when people critique my work with a close eye and a hard pen.  Mark my stuff up, for goodness sake!  Let me know exactly what you are thinking!  Don’t “flame” me, but give me an honest and solid critique.  I am very, very open to it.  I encourage it.  I want to know exactly how the readers will respond to my writing, and if I feel that the response is not quite what I want, then I will keep tweaking until it becomes what I’m looking for.  I know what I’m going for, and I take suggestions accordingly.  I ask for the hard stuff: I can take the punches so GIVE ‘EM TO ME. J

As a creative writer, I often go to critique forums and beta readers to get feedback on my work, and before I post an excerpt of any kind, I try to make sure it is “reader worthy”, meaning that the writing is as far as I can take it by myself.  I get the work as tight as I can manage on my own, and then I ask for help, preparing myself for the knocks I’m bound to receive in the end.  This is what I expect in a critique, and often times, this is what I dish out. 

However, the first thing I learned when I started taking this class is that critiquing is rather different than consulting.  Consulting helps a writer improve their general, over all writing abilities and grow as a writer who understand the process, while critiquing helps the writer identify problems that may or may not need to be fixed within the physical body of the text. 

When I’m working with one of my personal writing buddies, beta readers, or people who I beta for - online or in person - I often give them a critique that might have a little bit of consulting mixed in there somewhere.

However, at school, I am 100% a writing Consultant.  I don’t actually critique anything outright, but I do try to help the writer identify for themselves the problems that I can detect within their writings.  As a consultant, I must first identify these problems for myself, and then subtly tell the writer what I feel might be wrong, and then help the writer discover for his or herself how to fix the problems without actually doing any fixing myself. 

Many times, I’m told, the people who come into the writing lab are very sensitive about their works and about accepting advice.  They don’t want to feel like any of the content came from someone else, even if it was only a suggestion.  However, they DO want the consultant to teach them how to do their papers right.  Rather counterproductive, don’t you think?

This is where it gets really tough for me.  You see, as a creative writer who is on many critique forums, I’m used to going in and just showing other writers what I think might be wrong. All along I know that my suggestions are just glorified educated opinions, but the other writers on the forums – usually experienced writers who have been doing such things for many years – also know this and they accept my suggestions for what they are… simply suggestion that can be taken with a grain of salt.  However, as a consultant at my school, I’m not allowed to teach or make outright suggestions or give solid opinions… Instead, I must let the writer come to their own opinions and conclusions about the problems I have identified.  I can suggest certain actions, but never actually say outright what I think the writer should do to fix the problem.  Basically, I’m supposed to let the writer learn for themselves while very, very gently nudging them in the right direction.

And that brings me right back to Facilitative Questioning. 

As a consultant, I am only allowed to ask Facilitative questions which are questions that avoid telling the writer what to do, and instead leads the writer through the process of identifying and revising their paper according to the Higher Order Concerns (or HOCs) such as plot, thesis, organization, detail, research, and characterization that need to be addressed in their writing. (Though some people come in asking for help with “grammar”, the consultants at the writing lab have learned that “grammar” can have multiple meanings to multiple people, so we never actually address any real grammar, such as punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure, until the HOC’s are taken care of.  We are not allowed to proofread in the writing lab, as I sometimes do for my online writing friends that I beta for.)

An example of a Facilitative Question might look something like this:

“I noticed that this is a complex assignment… can you show and explain to me where in this paper you have completed an assignment guideline?”

Or

“Why did you choose to organize this paper this way?”

Or

“How have you supported your claim?”

These questions prompt the writer to tell you what they have planned for the paper, and they also give the writer a chance to see and identify some of the HOCs in their paper for themselves.  However, these questions can also be frustrating.  Because, in all honesty the writer sometimes feels like the consultant isn’t really trying to help them at all, but rather is asking them a bunch of silly questions.  Some writers don’t want to be asked these questions… some writers want to be told how to fix the problem, and I’m not allowed to do that. :P

If I were asking Directive Questions, I would be doing exactly that.  Directive questions look sort of like this:

“Don’t you think that sentence is vague?”

and

“Did you mean (insert assumption) by that statement?”

Directive questions insert my own opinion into the question so that the reader picks up on what I’m thinking about certain elements of the text.  As a creative writing critique partner, such questions can be a good thing and they help the other writer see their writings from a different perspective, but as a consultant I am not allowed to insert my opinion and so I must avoid questions like the ones above.

I am allowed to give Opinions, but only subtly and always referring to myself as a reader and not as anther writer.  For instance, “As a reader I felt that perhaps you could be a little more specific when you mention (so and so).  What was your purpose of referring to that person?”

Notice how my so called “opinion” is phrased similar to a facilitative question. ;)

Well, that’s all I have for now.  I’ll probably come back to the subject at a later date, but I just thought some of you might find this method of giving out writing advice a bit interesting.  I, personally, find it both extremely intriguing and extremely frustrating, but perhaps that’s only because I must apply it. J

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Andrew Peterson in the Peoria IL Area

Well hello again. :)  I don't usually double post in a day, but I have some exciting news.

Andrew Peterson, Christian recording artist and author of the Wingfeather Saga (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, North! Or Be Eaten, and The Monster in the Hollows) is coming to Central IL this Sunday Evening.  So if any of you will be in the Peoria area, the concert will be held at Springfield Road Baptist Church, and it starts at 5:30pm.

But that's not the best part, friends!!

The best part is that my church's worship team is opening the night, AND I WILL BE SINGING WITH THEM!!!  ^_^  *dances around in happiness and awe*  Yep, I'm totally stoked.  First meeting Andrew Peterson this Sunday, and then a book signing by Brock Eastman in August, all within 45 minutes of my house and all within biking distance of my church. :)  God is so amazing, I'm just in total awe of how he works!!

Actually, it's really interesting because I started reading "North! Or Be Eaten" about a month ago when a friend lent me her copy of the book.  I'd heard of the series, but I couldn't find it in bookstores (for some weird reason) and I'm still a little wary of buying things off the internet.  Of course I love the song "Dancing in the Minefields" that plays on my local Christian Radio station, but I honestly didn't know that the author and the recording artist were the same person until two weeks ago.  Then I downloaded a CD, and fell in love with it (I've been singing the songs from it all week).

The fact that Mr. Peterson has done and been all of these things is totally inspiring for me for several reasons.  One -- I am a christian fantasy writer who wants to touch people with my books, and Two -- I am also a singer/songwriter looking to someday record my art.  Music and writing go hand in hand for me: I can't have one without the other, and I can't choose between them.  I'm studying for degrees in both Music and English because I can't separate my love for both arts; they've just melded together and refuse to be parted.  Some people have told me I should do one or the other, but now I know that I'm truly not alone; there are others out there who have done both and been successful, so why can't I pursuit all three of my "loves" (Music/singing/songwriting, Creative writing/English, and Painting/Drawing) and be successful at all of them?  Seriously, why  not?

Then I find out that Mr. Peterson is coming to Peoria for a concert, and then the worship leader at my church tells me that he wants me to sing with the church band this Sunday evening to open that self same concert.

I'm telling you, GOD IS SO AMAZING. :)  See how He works?  See how awesome He is?  He knows the desires of our hearts; He wants to tell us how much he loves us... and He does it in ways we never saw coming!

I can't wait until Sunday evening!!!!