A Labor Day Break

With today being part of a holiday weekend, I really didn't get to accomplish much today in the way of writing, marketing, etc. I've mulled over some ideas, but that has been about the extent of things.

The review from The Lulu Book Review has been posted to Amazon.com, so I was very happy to note that it was there. I was also happy to note that the review posted against both the paperback and Kindle versions of the book. Now all I have to do is post the review to Barnes & Noble.

All for now - tomorrow I'll get back on the horse and get something (anything) accomplished.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com

Book Trailer or bust

Today has been about the book trailer. I have been searching for what I want to use and developing the concept. I have found the pictures that I want to use and have a part of the concept developed.

I am now trying out various software to assist me in putting the trailer together. I ran into a little bit of a snag because Windows Movie Maker is only importing 3:08 seconds of the video that I put together, but it may be due to the fact that the software used to create the video is a demo software. I will have to do some further testing.

The next step is to come up with the music to underscore the project and then I will be well on my way. Since it is late, that is all for now. I will continue to work on the trailer so I can get it completed and launched.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com

Being Compared to Judy Blume

I am drifting on a cloud. . . my work has been compared to Judy Blume. Now, that may not seem like a big thing to some, but I remember a time when Judy Blume was THE author for young adult books, when the concept of young adult was in its infancy.

I have just received a review of my young adult novel, Misfit McCabe, from The Lulu Book Review, and it was a stellar review. I haven't come down from the heights yet.

Waiting for a review can be a little nerve wracking because you have taken your work and actively sought out someone else's opionion. Will they like it? Will they hate it? Will they be able to give you a quote you can use to help promote your work? When will they get to your book on the mounting pile of submissions?

My first experience with a review was not quite the experience I was hoping for. I submitted to a fairly new review site, and because they were new, the turn around on the review was faster than normal. The review was positive, but the reviewer was so green, that it was not a well constructed review, and left me with no quotable material.

My next experience was better. I submitted to a student reviewer site and the 11 year old student wrote a better constructed review of my work than the adult reviewer. Of course it was helpful that the student reviewer liked the work, and I finally had something to quote.

At the time I submitted my book for review to the above two sites, I also submitted my book to a third site, for which I am still awaiting a review. It will happen one day - and hopefully, I'll still be checking the site when it does ~ otherwise I may never know.

Because The Lulu Book Review is a newer review site, I was able to get a quick turn around from submission to review (the fastest ever). I knew that the review itself, whether positive or not so positive, would be well constructed, because I had done my homework and read through the reviews on the site. The only remaining question was whether or not the reviewer would like the work.

I was absolutely amazed by the positive review. It started with the comparison to Judy Blume and continued to get better. Thanks so much to Shannon Yarbrough, author of Stealing Wishes, for his vision and drive and talent for writing.

Read the Complete Review

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Joining Facebook

I joined my first social networking site today - FaceBook. So far, I am finding it a little frustrating, because they categorize groups and finding friends in a different manner than I would and the search functionality to me is a little cumbersome. Other than that, we will see.

My reason for joining was that Flamingnet.com, the young adult review site, is starting a Facebook presence, and I wanted to show my support for the site by joining as a fan.

I think that I am going to have to wait until this weekend to really be able to work on the book trailer for Misfit McCabe. I have been trying to devote some time to it, but have ended up getting involved in other things or had some distractions.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Coloring Page

I had a brainwave today and have been able to put it together and get it posted to the website already. As I was driving along on my way to the dentist, I realized that I had a black and white copy of the cover of Misfit McCabe which would make an excellent coloring page companion piece to the book. I don't even know what made me think of it, but once the idea was in my head it took root and by the time I got to the dentist's office, I knew how I was going to put it together and what I am going to do as far as marketing uses.

I have made it available on my Lulu Storefront site as a free download, as well as making it available on Griffie World with a link on the home page. I will include several copies with the marketing kits that I am getting ready to send out to local schools as well. I also figure I will post the link on some of the Young Adult reader forums, such as Flamingnet.com and Young Adults (& Kids) Books Central. I don't have all of these things done quite yet, but I am definitely on my way.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Developing a Book Trailer for Misfit McCabe

I have been doing my homework today and looking up book trailers on YouTube as I try to develop a book trailer for Misfit McCabe. A book trailer is a very good tool for marketing and in today's publishing environment, pretty much a requirement. I haven't started the process for obtaining all of the pictures that I want to use, or music for that matter as yet, but am starting by viewing book trailers in the young adult/juvenile fiction genre to see what I think works and what doesn't work in my opinion.

I have taken some of the information posted by Brenda Coulter on her blog
No rules. Just write called Promoting Your Novel: How to Make a Book Trailer. I will keep track of my progress and setbacks via this blog.

I have seen some things I have liked, and some things I definitely haven't so, I am starting to compile my list of things I want to include in the trailer. I definitely want it to be eye catching and to POP!

On with the homework.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Will Wonders Never Cease

Upon signing on to my computer after work today, I found that I had actually become a prize winner. Now mind you, I never win prizes. I enter contests from time to time, but wins usually don't come my way. So, I was absolutely delighted to win a copy of John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, which is very apt for a writer. I happened to win this volume by entering a contest held by The Lulu Book Review. This site has gained over 10,000 visitors in less than a six month time frame and provides well thought out reviews for those writers who publish using Lulu.com

Anyway, I can't wait to receive my prize as I am currently working on the marketing materials and strategy for my book Misfit McCabe, and more ideas will never hurt.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Writing Break

Tonight I took a little break from writing to assist my in-laws with the installation of their DSL line. I have finally brought them into the technilogical age. It took a little longer than it should have. . . ok - a lot longer than it should have, as the phone company canceled their account, but installed the line and sent them the equipment. It was a snafu from start to finish. But the good thing is that they are now up and running and it only cost me about an hour and a half on the phone (most of it waiting to talk to SOMEONE - ANYONE.)

The girls, Gryphon, Phoenix and Elsa, hung out with their Papa while I worked on trying to get the account issue resolved. They played in the back yard and ran away from their crazy cousin dog, Daisy. Ultimately, I did get everything resolved and everyone is happy.

I was even able to show them my website Griffie World, and this blog. What was funny to me was they apparently didn't realize that I am working on the sequel to Misfit McCabe. They received a letter from a friend of theirs in Omaha, who happens to be a librarian and is currently reading my book and she had checked out the website and told them I was working on a sequel. I thought I had told them that - oh well.

It is gratifying to think that a librarian in another state is reading my book and liking it well enough to look at the website. Oh, the Omaha connection is that every year, my in-laws go to Omaha for the College World Series and they have met several people of Omaha and have developed friendships over the years. I think it is a great tradition and hope that it continues. Of course, they like it best when Cal State Fullerton goes to the College World Series, because that is our "home" team that we root for (and support in the stands).

Well - it's back to the writing desk tomorrow.

PS - It was nice to see that Shannon Yarbrough saw the article that I wrote about the Lulu Book Review on Author's Den. He also posted a comment along the lines off my previous blog, stating that not all reviews are positive (nor should they be or they would be meaningless), but his strive to provide a positive slant mixed with constructive criticism. As a writer, that is the best we can hope for. Someone to tell us what they liked, why they liked it, as well as what didn't work quite so well, so we can improve upon it the next time.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Perspective

Interesting happening today (well to me anyway). Last night I wrote and posted an article on Author's Den about the Lulu Book Review site. The intent of the article was to make the author's at Author's Den aware of the site. When you are a POD (print on demand) author, it is sometimes difficult to get a review for your work. I was very pleased to find this site, especially since it looks so well put together and already a lot of information is appearing on it for such a new site.

Anyway, the intent of the article was to hopefully entice some authors to take a look at the site and maybe, if they felt it was right for them, to submit their own work for review. Let me make very clear, that I am not affilitated with the Lulu Book Review site in any way at this time, and was simply helping someone who is helping out authors (as I see it).

Wouldn't you know, but the first comment posted to the article was by someone who advised that they personally would not use the review site because there are so many nasty people out there, and if you get a bad review it sticks like mud.

Well, I did post a response back to that, but here is my candid response. If the person posting the comment had actually look at the site and read some of the reviews (as was my recommendation in the article), then they might have noticed that the reviews on the site are positive, and in fact there is a post stating that no negative commnets would be posted to the site. A little ironic perhaps that a person cautioning against negativity is doing so in a negative fashion.

I would expect that anyone who would submit their work for review would first do an assessment of the review site, because not every review site is for every author. you need to make sure that you are submitting your work to a party who appreciates/reads your genre. For example, I would NEVER submit my work to a site which had an emphasis on romance/erotica because that is not what I write. Generally the people reviewing those do not necessarily read Young Adult, which is my main area.

Now to work.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Dancing a Jig

I am so jazzed to have completed the posting of the 17 articles that I have written (so far) that are geared for Young Writers. I wanted to get that off my plate before really getting into the purpose of this blog which is to talk about writing, the writing process, my novels, articles, etc. Reformatting them for the blog took a little bit of time. . . it wasn't a simple copy/paste job.

I have been writing for several years, but intermittently and have recently decided that this is something that I need to do on a more regular basis. One reason is that I definitely have been bitten by the writing bug again, another is that writing allows me to get rid of some of my creative energy that would otherwise drive me insane.

I am currently working on drumming up a couple more book reviews so that I can use some of the blurbs in my marketing kit, which I am also working on.

The sequel to Misfit McCabe is in progress, but still has a very long way to go at this point. So, I am busy on several levels of the writing game.

The WritingBug

I've broken out in glitter. . .I'm just so happy to be done with posting the articles and ready to take on new material.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Article: The Birth of a Character

When you are writing a story, one of the most important elements of the story is the characters it contains. Without interesting characters to help drive your story forward, the reader will lose interest and stop reading. Henry James, one of the founders and leaders in the realism school of fiction, went as far as to say, "Character is plot." Since character is so important to writing a story, how do we make the characters in the story come alive on the page for the reader?
You can bring your character to life by:

• The things they do.
• The things they say.
• The things they think.
• They way they look.
• Gestures they use.
• Their reactions to other characters.

If you only use a couple of the above methods to help bring your character to life, you are missing a chance to make them as complex and individual as real people, and as a consequence your reader will not care about the character as much. Let's take a closer look at each of these 6 elements which help reveal the characters to the reader.

The Things They Do

A character reveals themself by the things that they do. The expression "actions speak louder than words" is especially true for character development. Your character can say one thing, but then act in a completely contradictory manner, just as people do in real life. Let's see what Harvey reveals about himself in this excerpt from Misfit McCabe. Katie and Harvey have just arrived at the malt shop.

     Harvey was standing right behind me.
     "What do you want to eat or drink?"
     "Nothing, thanks. I don't have any money with me."  I felt somewhat self-conscious by
having to say that, but I didn't want him to ask why. That would have been worse.
     "I already fixed it with Max, so go ahead and order what you want."
     "Thanks, Harvey." Maybe he did have a good side to him. I was a little surprised by it
though.

So Harvey has given Katie the impression that he would pay, and that she could order anything she wanted. But then later, when Katie was getting ready to leave with Tom because Harvey had already left:

     When we got to the door, a plate banged on the counter. "Hey! Where do you think
you're going?"  My head whipped around.  Max was leaning forward, his fists bunched
on the countertop.  He didn't look very happy either.  "You can't leave until you pay
for the hamburger, fries, and malt."
     "Pay for it?"  Tom had already paid for his, so this must be Harvey's petty little way of
getting back at me for having hit him. "Harvey told me he would take care of it for me."  I
didn't even have a hamburger and fries.  He must have stuck me for both his and my bill.
     Max frowned. "He told me when you walked through the door that you would be
paying the bill."  That little snake.

While this is a relatively minor incident in the course of the story, it reveals a lot about Harvey's personality and character. While all 6 of the elements are necessary to create a fully developed character, emphasis on the actions of the character as a first priority will help make the character real to the reader. By putting the focus on the actions of the character, you are showing the reader who your character is rather than telling the reader, which is the goal of good characterization.

The Things They Say

In your classroom, in a restaurant, in a grocery store, and everywhere else you go, listen to the conversations around you. By listening to actual conversations, you will learn that no two people talk exactly alike. Each person has a distinct speech pattern that is all their own. What our characters say and how they say it reveal some of the qualities of their character, and can even reveal attitudes and current mood. Something as simple as expressing that the character is thirsty can be done in several different ways. Here are a few examples:

     "It's hot today. Would you mind if we stopped to get something to drink?"

     "Oooweee! I'm hotter'n bacon in a fryin' pan. I need a drink."

     "I'm sweatin' like a pig here, are we gonna stop for a drink, or what?"

     "Do you think I'm part camel? If I don't get a drink soon, I'll shrivel up."

Spend some time developing your character's speech pattern. Think up different situations and figure out how your character would say certain things in that situation. It is important to be able to distinguish each character by the way that they speak to make them distinct. Use speech patterns, conversational style and diction (the accent, inflection, intonation, and speech-sound quality manifested by an individual speaker) to separate your characters.

The Things They Think

Thoughts enable the writer to further individualize their characters as long as the thoughts allow the character's attitude to come through rather than just summarizing situations. For example, in Misfit McCabe, when Katie first meets Harvey Junior, her thoughts reveal that she doesn't like Harvey from the start.

     He smoothed back his hair, which had fallen into his eyes again, before answering. "I
thought I'd take you to see my old man first. He owns the bank, and just about everything
else in town." He sounded smug. I could tell he thought his father owning things made him
important. Maybe he was, but to me he sounded like a weasel.

Just that one line where Katie thinks Harvey sounds like a weasel sets up the beginning of the conflict between them and leaves the reader with no doubt that she doesn't like Harvey. A characters thoughts can also allow the reader a glimpse of the inner self of the character. By sharing the character's most intimate thoughts, it brings the reader closer to the character and helps them care more about the character or dislike the character more when the character is unlikable.

     I wanted to be by myself so no one could bother me. A rock lay in my path, and I kicked
it as hard as I could. I wanted to go home and have things back the way they were.  At
home I had friends, things to do, people who loved me.  Here, I had nothing. I didn't fit in.

In the above passage, Katie's loneliness clearly comes through. She is not happy with where she is and is feeling isolated by her situation. A paragraph later we find out more about Katie's state of mind.

     I missed my Daddy. I missed the strength of his arms hugging me, comforting me. Why
was this happening? I should have known he was sick, why didn't I see it?

Part of her isolated feeling comes from blaming herself for not recognizing that her Daddy was sick. Without this scene, her reactions to Sarah and Uncle Charley would make her seem like a spoiled brat, but since the reader knows that she is acting out her pain, her actions become a little more understandable.

The Way They Look

The way your character looks should not be limited to the physical characteristics of the character. While it is important to describe the physical characteristics, you can reveal more about your character's personality by describing appearance factors that they can control than simply the physical appearance. What is meant by looks that the character can control? How do they dress? What is their level of cleanliness? Do they habitually carry an object? Consider a character who's eyesight requires correction. Do they wear contacts? If they wear glasses, are they wire-frame, thick frame, broken frames that are taped together? What does the choice say about your character?

Elizabeth Peters has a series featuring a character named Amelia Peabody who is an Egyptologist, and she carries a parasol everywhere. The parasol is used not only to provide shade, but in the case of Amelia, she uses it as a weapon as well. She started carrying one when they were fashionable, but as the fashion changed, the parasol had become indispensable to the character, and she continues to carry it despite fashion.

It is easy to fall into stereotypes when developing characters, such as the beautiful blonde, the tall, dark stranger, and so on. When characters fall into stereotypes, they tend to become caricatures (any imitation or copy so distorted or inferior as to be ludicrous) rather than real characters. That doesn't mean that you can't have a blonde character who is beautiful, but you will want to establish some appearance issues outside of that stereotype to help make the character real to the reader.

Gestures They Use

Body language can be used to show character, mood, or attitudes. By describing the characters minor actions while speaking, the body language can add a different layer to the scene, or reinforce what is being said. Minor actions would be things like slouching while walking with hands in the pockets, staring into space, slumping down in a chair, smoothing the wrinkles out of clothing. Let's take a couple of examples from Misfit McCabe of gestures to see how they convey meaning and add to the personality of the character.

     Placing his hands on his hips, his blue eyes pierced straight into mine.

The above description comes from the beginning of the book when Katie's dad asks her what she had to do with burning down the shed and Katie was trying to bluff her way around it. The hands on hips gesture shows that her Daddy was upset and not going to put up with any of Katie's nonsense, even without having the accompanying dialogue.

     "Stop right there and turn around and look at me."  There was a new demanding tone
to her voice that irritated me even further.  I stopped and kicked my foot against the
ground.  Who was she to be ordering me around anyway?

While the surrounding words tell the reader that Katie is irritated, the kick of the foot against the ground shows the reader Katie's petulance, coming close to temper tantrum, which reveals that Katie has anger control issues.

One of the methods I use to assist in interspersing gestures throughout the story is to visualize every scene. What does the character look like when they are talking? Are they doing anything with their hands? Does their hair need to be brushed out of their face? When your character is deeply perturbed, do they rub their forehead between their eyes, or start cracking their knuckles? Once you can "see" everything, you can then add enough gestures to the dialogue and thoughts to help move the story along, but not so many that the pace of the story becomes bogged down with too much description. You want your reader to get the flavor of the emotions without becoming bored by the description.

Reactions to Other Characters
When someone says or does something and we react to it, we are revealing information about ourselves. It works the same way for our characters, by the way they react to a situation, they reveal more of their personality to the reader. In the below excerpt from Misfit McCabe, Katie is returning to the shop with Harvey and expecting that Harvey will tell Sarah that Katie punched him.

     Sarah had her back to us as we entered the shop. "It's about time you two. I'll be with you in a minute." When she turned around, the smile of greeting quickly faded from her face and her hand flew up to her mouth. "My goodness Harvey, what on earth happened to your face?"
     Now I'd get it. Harvey pulled himself up as tall as he could make himself, kind of a losing battle I thought, and looked like he was going to try and bluster his way through the story of what happened. "Some guys down by the lake started picking on Katie, and I tried to stop them." What? I couldn't believe my ears. "There were three of them and they started by making rude remarks and then things got worse. One of them started stroking her hair, even though she told them to stop and tried to walk away. Then another of the guys caught her and forced her to hug him. She was struggling to get away, so I grabbed one of their arms and then they all got mad. One of them held me with my arms behind my back while the other two started to hit me."
     I just stared at Harvey. I think I was going into shock. "Katie started screaming, so they let go of me and ran off." I still couldn't believe it. I expected him to say right out that I hit him, and then sit back and watch me squirm.
     "That's awful." Sarah took a closer look at his jaw. "Go on back to the office and let your mother take care of it. If she needs me to, I'll stay until she's had a chance to ice it to get the swelling down."
     "No, you go ahead. I'll be all right."
     Sarah still looked pretty horrified with the damage that was done. She turned to me. "Katie, are you okay?" Sarah seemed to believe the story, unbelievable as it was. Maybe I was off the hook after all. "Did you get the names of the boys who did this?"
     I started to shake my head when Harvey decided to stick the knife in and twist it. "I think it was Tom Pike and his buddies. I'm not sure because I don't really know them that well, but I think it was them." My jaw dropped. What a filthy, rotten, lying, scumbag. No word I could think of was too bad for Harvey.
     Sarah looked very concerned. "I know Tom, and that just doesn't sound like something he'd do. He's always seemed like a very nice, polite boy."
     Harvey tried to give her a world-wise expression, but the swelling caused his face to twist into a grimace. "You'd be surprised how much he has changed now that he's on the varsity football squad. He thinks he can do anything he wants, just because he might be the starting quarterback this year."
     Sarah put her arm across my shoulders and gave me a quick squeeze. "I'm so sorry that something like this had to happen on your first day in town. Uncle Charley will be very upset, and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't go and visit Tom's parents."
     This was getting worse and worse. "No. I'm fine. Really." I barely stammered the words out.
     "Well, we'll talk about it later. I can't thank you enough Harvey for looking after Katie for us."
     I was at a complete and total loss of how to start fixing this whole mess. If I had called Harvey out on his lie right at the beginning, it would have been better, but I was speechless. I didn't even know what to say. And then the little creep decided to throw Tom and his friends, who had been perfect gentlemen, unlike the slimy Harvey, into the mix and it felt like the whole thing was spiraling out of control. For once in my life, I wasn't getting into trouble for something I had done wrong, but this was even worse.?

Instead of telling Sarah that Katie punched him, Harvey lied. What was Katie's initial reaction? Did she put the record straight immediately, or did she keep quiet in the hopes that she wouldn't get into trouble? When Harvey saw that Katie was going to keep quiet and let the lie stand, his reaction was to extend the lie and blame Katie's new friends. What does that say about Harvey's character? To this continued lie, Katie had some choices, she could speak out and call Harvey a liar, or continue to keep quiet. Katie chose to continue to keep quiet, because she was still trying to figure out how to make the situation go away without getting herself into trouble. What does that say about Katie's character?

So, before you can put a character on the page, you need to get to know the character; they need to be "alive" in your head. When writing Misfit McCabe, when I got to the part where Harvey entered the story, I started having some trouble writing. I didn't have a good feel for who Harvey was, I just knew that I needed him as a character. It was like I could see him coming down the street, but didn't know anything about him, and couldn't see all of his features, he was just a figure in the distance. I spent a lot of time struggling to continue writing, but couldn't get anywhere until I walked away and spent some time letting Harvey tell me who he was. Once I could "see" his hair hanging in his eyes, his shirt half untucked, and the beads of sweat across his upper lip, and could sense his underlying nastiness, I was able to return to the blank page and start writing again.

Once I was able to start writing about Harvey, more and more of his personality and character traits became apparent to me and his character started taking on a life of his own. In a sense, Harvey took the book in a direction that I had not contemplated at the outset, but it worked and made a much better book. To me, it is always exciting when the character starts to get away from me and starts doing their own thing rather than what I have pre-ordained because then I can rely on the characters in the story to tell me what the story is, and I become merely the chronicler of the events. It gets to be new to me, in the way that it would be for the reader.

If you are having trouble with a character, take some time thinking about the character and asking yourself simple questions that help define who the character is. What is their favorite food? Do they text message or call people? In a clothing store, pick out items that the character would wear and pick out items that they wouldn't. Imagine a scene that is not a part of the story with the character in it, and watch how they react to the situation; how are they talking, what are they doing, what gestures do they use, what are they wearing, what are they thinking? Once you are able to do this and know your character better, return to your story and you will find that it will be easier to work with your character.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World

Article: In the Words of Mark Twain

Author Mark Twain, while best known for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is also known for being a literary critic. During a period of time in his life when he needed to help make ends meet financially, he started writing reviews of other author's works for newspapers. In 1865, he famously wrote a review titled Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. Twain maintained that there were 19 rules governing literary art in fiction and that Cooper had violated 18 of them. Let's take a look at the rules Mark Twain felt were violated in Cooper's Deerslayer, and see how we can apply them today.

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. This goes back to our discussions on conflict. Without conflict you don't have a story. A story must drive forward to resolve the conflict or come to terms with it in some way.
   
   
2. The episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. This means that if a scene in your story is not essential and does not help tell the story in some way, then it needs to be deleted from the story.
   
   
3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. This is one of my favorites: don't make your characters stick figures - make them as real and true to life as you can.
   
   
4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. If there is not a reason for a character to be in the story, then they don't need to be there. Much like the scene of the story, if the character is not essential and does not help to develop the story in some way, then it should be eliminated.
   
   
5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. The main point here is realistic dialogue. Do not force your characters to say things that are uncharacteristic. Keep the conversation to the point of the story and don't meander. Remember, if your reader gets bored with the dialogue, they will stop reading.
   
   
6. When the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. If you describe a character as being well-educated and slightly stiff with formality, then you can not have the character picking booger's out of his nose during a formal dinner and saying things like "I don't got none." However you describe your character, their words and their actions must support your description.
   
   
7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. Be consistent with how your characters talk. Dialogue is one of the ways to distinguish your character, and it should be evident from the phrasing used as well as the words which character is speaking. Unless the character in question is trying to learn to speak in a different way, such as improving their grammar, or deliberately trying to sound like they belong on the street, then they shouldn't change they way in which they speak throughout the course of the story.
   
   
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. Don't allow your character to have more knowledge or ability than is humanly possible. For example, it is not possible, even for the expert woodsman, to be able to see a fly on the trunk of a tree at 300 yards.
   
   
9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. Whatever happens in your story, even if you are writing in the realm of fantasy, must be realistic based on the rules of the environment. For example, you may have invented a world where it is reasonable that pigs can fly, pigs being the intelligent ruling class, but where donkey's are earthbound creatures. A donkey can not suddenly take flight because it happened upon some pixie dust.
   
   
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. Make your characters interesting. A reader should feel emotion when bad things happen to the good people as well a being upset when it appears that the bad people will triumph. Make your characters become real for the reader.
    
    
11. The characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. Your characters should be so real to the reader, that they can imagine how the character would act outside the confines of the story.
    

In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

1. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. Be clear about the story you are trying to tell.
   
   
2. Use the right word, not its second cousin. There is always the right word for what you are trying to say to give the right flavor to the story. Find that word.
   
   
3. Eschew (to abstain or keep away from; shun; avoid) surplusage (an excess of words). Don't use ten words, when one will do.
   
   
4. Not omit necessary details. Don't leave out things that are necessary to the story.
   
   
5. Avoid slovenliness of form. Keep your writing clean and tight.
   
   
6. Use good grammar.
   
   
7. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: The First Page

Your goal when writing a story is to get the reader to turn the first page. If they don't want to turn that first page, then they won't read your story. You have approximately three paragraphs to get the reader involved and to make them want to turn that page. So, how do you get your reader hooked in those first few paragraphs?

There are four fundamentals which can help to increase interest in the opening paragraphs: character, conflict, specificity, and credibility.

Character

If you think about when you are reading a story, one of the first things you want is to be introduced to the protagonist so that you can start to get to know them. We don't have to know everything about them in the first couple of sentences, but we want to get a flavor for who they are. Will they be someone that we like? Can we identify with what the character is feeling, thinking or doing?

How do we best introduce our character? Readers always like to know what a character looks like so that they can form a mental image. Do we need to fully describe the character's looks on the first page or is it more important to start establishing their personality? If there is something important about the way a character looks that will enhance the first few paragraphs by including the description, then the answer is yes, you do need to describe that part of the character right away. Otherwise, it is probably better to build the description of your character a little at a time rather than all at once. A story which starts with a detailed description of a character drags, and your mind wants to race ahead to find out why we care about the character.

Misfit McCabe opens with a scene between two characters, Katie and Timmy. From the opening, there is a sense that Katie is the leader between the two who is always coming up with ideas that get the two of them into trouble. Timmy is trying to impress Katie by coming up with a twist to the original idea, to make it seem even more wicked. Plus, he is trying to show her that he can be as "bad" as she is. There is also the impression that as both Katie and Timmy are changing as they age, Katie is unsure about the person her life-long friend is turning into.

Conflict

Without conflict you don't have a story, so you want to make sure that you at least hint at some conflict during the first page. This does not mean that you need to start the opening sentence with your character running for his life or hanging from a cliff. You will not be able to fully develop the conflict in the first few paragraphs either, so how do you handle conflict in the opening? Some conflicts may be overtly dramatic, such as opening with a character being stabbed through the heart, but others will be more subtle and can take place within the thoughts of a character.

     "You know I'll swear it was all my idea."
     "But, Katie, it was all your idea."  Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask.
"Except for this."
     "Are you getting sly on me, Timmy Lawrence?"  He never tried anything without
checking it out with me first. " What's in it?"  Other than something to get us both into
trouble.
     He shrugged one shoulder and leaned back against the side of the shed. " Oh, nothing
much.  Just a little rum to go with the cokes I brought."  He cracked open a can and
handed it to me.  "Drink some out, so I can spice it up for you."
     Swallowing as much as I could in a mouthful, I passed the can back to him. " What
made you think of this?"  A new Timmy was emerging, and I didn't know exactly how
to handle him.
     He grinned as he concentrated on pouring the rum into the coke.  "I just figured that
if we were going to start smoking, we might as well mark the occasion with a drink of
celebration."  He doctored his drink and set the flask on the ground.  "Anyway, you're
always saying that I never come up with my own ideas.  So I did."
     "I'll say.  And what an idea."  I could see the faint flush of pride on Tim's cheeks. 

In the above opening passage of Misfit McCabe, the conflict of Katie rebelling against her everything she has been taught is intimated by her experiment with smoking and drinking. By doing something she knows is wrong, she is trying to break away from the mold of who she is expected to be in order to find out who she really is. There is also the minor conflict hinted at surrounding her changing relationship with Timmy and that she is not sure how she feels about things changing. So, on the one hand, she wants things to change, and on the other she wants them to stay the same.

Specificity

The more specific the detail of the story, the more vividly you paint the picture for your reader. The easier it is for the reader to visualize, or empathize with the character, the more involved they become with the story. Use specifics rather than generalities in the characters speech, description of the setting, and the character's thoughts. Let's take a look at the difference using a specific term versus a more generic term makes in the way something reads.

Version 1 - "But, Katie, it was all your idea." Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a bottle. "Except for this."

Version 2 - "But, Katie, it was all your idea." Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask. "Except for this."

The word bottle and the word flask both mean a container which holds liquids, but the word bottle is much more generic than the word flask. A bottle could contain milk, water, or even Kool-aid. A flask contains alcohol. By using the word flask, we leave the reader no question as to what Timmy has brought with him. When polishing your opening page, examine each word to ensure that you have used the best, most specific word you can to draw the reader into your story.

Credibility

How do you make sure that your first page is credible? That may be the most difficult question to answer because what it means is that you have started your story well enough to allow the reader to trust you as an author. So how do you get the reader to trust that you can tell the story well?

• Make sure what you have written is tight. Don't use ten words, when just a few will do. As authors, we tend to use more words when we are struggling to bring a scene to life than when we know where we are going with the story. When you are reviewing what you have written, go over each sentence and see whether or not you could "tighten" it up by reducing some of the words, or changing several general words to the use of one specific word.
• Use the word that comes closest to the image of what you are trying to convey. This goes back to specificity. Remember the example of the use of the word flask versus the word bottle and which one best conveyed the image to the reader.
• Your reader should not have to try and decipher what you mean. Work on making your meaning clear. Just because the meaning is clear to you doesn't mean that it is clear to your potential reader. The best way to find out whether you have been successful is to have different people read the passage and if they have questions about what is going on, then you need to make some changes to clarify the meaning. Sometimes we really like the words that we have written and think that it says exactly what we want it to. The question that you then have to ask yourself is whether you are writing for your eyes only, or do you want more people to enjoy your story. If your answer is that you want more people to enjoy your story, then swallow your pride and rewrite the confusing passage so that it is understandable to the reader.
• Remember, your words should reveal your story and bring it to life. If you are trying to show the reader how clever you are as a writer, chances are the reader will sense that you are trying to show off and will then have a negative attitude about reading your work.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Storytelling Methods

So far, I have been able to share with you what I would call an overview of writing. How to set up your environment, some tips on how to get the ideas flowing, and things of that nature. Now we need to start discussing some of the nuts and bolts of writing. This is where we get to break down what we're writing and identify what it is that we're doing and then we'll be able to make some decisions as to whether it is effective or not. I used to argue with a teacher of mine about knowing what things are called, because if I was writing correctly, why did I need to know what it was I was doing? Actually, what I was really asking was why we had to study things that were so BORING. I'll try to keep the boring parts to a minimum. The reason it is important for you to know what you are doing or what is correct, is when you want to change it or deliberately break the rules for effect or simply try different mechanisms to see which works the best. Let's get started with an examination of narrative mode.

So, what do I mean by narrative mode? Narrative means a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious and mode is a manner of acting or doing; method; way. So a narrative mode is simply the method or way in which we tell a story. There are five methods to telling a fictitious story: dialogue (the conversation between characters in a novel, drama, etc.), description (a statement, picture in words, or account that describes), action (description in motion; an event or series of events), thoughts (the act or process of thinking; cogitation), and exposition (writing or speech primarily intended to convey information or to explain).

Usually, during the course of a novel, most, if not all five, of the methods listed above will be used. Your characters will have dialogue, you'll describe some of the scenery, there will be passages full of actions, you'll take the reader into the thoughts of the character(s), and sometimes you will simply explain what is happening. This will happen most of the time in a natural way. So why is it important for us to be able to identify which method is being used?

I've mentioned before that your opening is the most important and when you start writing, you will be using predominantly one of the above five modes. But, which one really works the best to get the attention of the reader? That will vary from story to story. You might need to try writing an opening using each of the five modes to see which one works best for your story.

How would that work? Let's take Misfit McCabe as an example. In the actual book, I used dialogue as the predominant narrative mode to get the story started.

     "You know I'll swear it was all my idea."

     "But, Katie, it was all your idea." Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask.

"Except for this."

     "Are you getting sly on me, Timmy Lawrence?" He never tried anything without
checking it out with me first. "What's in it?" Other than something to get us both
into trouble.
     He shrugged one shoulder and leaned back against the side of the shed. "Oh, nothing
much.  Just a little rum to go with the cokes I brought." He cracked open a can and
handed it to me.  "Drink some out, so I can spice it up for you."

     Swallowing as much as I could in a mouthful, I passed the can back to him. "What made

you think of this?" A new Timmy was emerging, and I didn't know exactly how to handle him.

     He grinned as he concentrated on pouring the rum into the coke. "I

just figured that if we were going to start smoking, we might as well

mark the occasion with a drink of celebration." He doctored his drink

and set the flask on the ground. "Anyway, you're always saying that I

never come up with my own ideas. So I did."
     "I'll say. And what an idea."  I could see the faint flush of pride

on Tim's cheeks.

While the above passage has dialogue, Katie's thoughts, and things that describe what Katie and Tim are both doing (action), the bulk of the opening is dialogue. This helps to draw the reader in and jump start the action of the story.

What if we were to start Misfit McCabe with the description mode rather than dialogue? The first beginning that I had for the book did open with a descriptive passage.

     The bus rattled and bumped its way down the road, the seats creaked, and the sides
seemed to groan more with every mile. The windows didn't stay shut, so my mouth felt
as dry as cotton from the dust that poured in, and the heat of the day made the bus feel
like the inside of an oven.  I felt cranky from lack of sleep, and my eyes felt gritty and
burned from the dust.
     At least I had the seat to myself, and could sit through the long ride without someone

interrupting my thoughts. What a sight I must be for the other passengers, my arms folded

across my chest, a scowl for an expression, and my long, blonde hair hanging in my face. I

crouched down low in the seat and thrust my knees against the back of the seat in front of
me.  I didn't want to make this trip, and didn't care what anyone else thought about me
either.  How could Daddy send me away from him, especially when he was sick? What if
he didn't get better?  I had to push that thought out of my mind. I didn't even want to
think about that possibility.  He had to get better, he just had to. The motion of the bus,
along with my sleepless night, soon lulled me to sleep.

What this accomplishes is to establish Katie on a bus leaving home as well as some of her features and attitudes. How does this compare to the actual beginning of the book? Let's look at how a descriptive beginning would look starting it in the shed.

     Although the afternoon sun shone brightly, the inside of the shed remained dark.  The
only light filtered through the cracks in the walls. We kept the light off in order to keep
from attracting any attention, not that we would. Even with the lights on and the door
open, the shed was hidden from the house and people were used to seeing me on the
property because I helped Mr. Pickford with the care of his animals. In the dim interior
of the shed, I could see Timmy's skinny silhouette sitting on a bale of hay waiting for
me to join him. It was definitely cooler inside than out in the dry heat of the afternoon.
As I sat down, Tim reached behind his back and pulled out a flask, a sly smile crossing
his face. He cracked open a can of soda and I could hear the fizzing bubbles as he handed
it to me.  Brushing my blonde hair away from my face, I tipped my head back and
swallowed as much as I could in one mouthful and handed back the can for him to spice
it up for me.  Tim doctored his own drink and set the flask down on the ground.
     Timmy grinned at me. "I figured if we were going to start smoking, we might as well
mark the occasion with a drink of celebration."  Excellent.  At least we would have tried
a few things by the time we started high school next week.

This essentially covers the same part of the story line of the opening paragraphs of Misfit McCabe but does it through description of the scene rather than dialogue. If we wanted to start the book with the narrative mode being predominantly action, then we need to start a little farther into the story in order to help make the story start more dramatically.

     I heard a crackling sound behind me.  As Tim turned to look at me his eyes got big and
all of a sudden I could smell smoke overpowering the smell of the cigarettes.  The dry hay
had caught fire.  It must have started from the match I thought had gone out, and the
flames were starting to rage.  Grabbing Timmy's hand, I followed my instincts and ran.
     Running as fast as I could, I wanted to get as far away as possible. I noticed that
somehow I lost Tim.  Turning around, I saw him looking back at the shed.  "Timmy!
Come on! We have got to get out of here."  Tim refused to run away because if we
didn't try to put it out, the fire could spread rapidly.
     Sending Timmy for help, I turned around and faced the burning shed once more trying to
determine if there was anything I could do while waiting for help to come.  At least I
couldn't see the flames outside yet.  Running over to a young tree, I broke off a long, leafy
branch.  I placed my hands on the outside of the shed door to feel for heat. It was still cool.
Stepping to one side of the door, I balanced on one foot and kicked the door in.  I jumped
back.  No flames came shooting out.  That was a good sign. I looked inside. Almost the
entire floor was engulfed in flames.  I started beating those closest to me.
     Sweating from the intense heat, I kept beating the flames in a losing battle.  My eyes and
throat stung from the smoke and I felt like help would never come.  After I singed the first
branch completely, I ran back and got another branch and continued beating the flames
the best I could.

Notice that with the action beginning, you spend less time describing the scenery or characters and more focus is spent describing the events that are occurring. How would you start Misfit McCabe using the thought mode? In this case, because the story is written in first person, it is not possible to shift from one person's thoughts to another, so it will all be from Katie's point of view. Plus, when writing, you want to make sure that you have clear, concise changes in view point. Unless your aim is to cause your reader some confusion, you want to make sure it is clear which characters' thoughts you are following.

    As I walked into the shed to join Timmy, it came over me all of a sudden how much he
meant to me.  He was always there for me.  Skinny, tousled hair, and clothes that had
always seen better days.  I'd known him my whole life, or as long as I could remember,
and he was as close to a brother as I would ever have. We had both grown up in this small
town and were both restless and aching to try something new, something that we had not
experienced before.  Our bond was formed early because neither one of us had a mother,
mine because she had been killed in a car accident and his just up and left.
   Timmy wanted things to change between us, for us to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and I
wasn't sure that I wanted things to change. I loved him more than myself, but he was too
familiar, too close to me. As I sat down next to him, he surprised me by pulling a flask from
behind his back. A new Timmy was definitely emerging. Tim, I had to remember to call
him Tim. It was hard because I'd always called him Timmy. He wanted to start high school
as Tim Lawrence, and while I understood, my tongue slipped on the name all the time. I
used to be able to read his thoughts like an open book, but that was changing too.

Now let's take a look at what the beginning would look like using the narrative mode of exposition. You may recognize the style as similar to the fairy tales that were read to you as you were young.

     Once upon a time, in a small, isolated town, lived a fourteen year old girl named, Katie
McCabe.  Katie lived with her father, who was the county sheriff. She lost her mother
when she was a small child when her mother was hit by a car.  Katie's best friend in the
whole town was a boy her own age, named Tim Lawrence. Katie and Timmy did
everything together.  It seemed to her Daddy that the thing that they did the most
together was get into trouble.  Katie was getting restless with life in a small town and
was wanting to go out and experience more of life.  Unbeknownst to her, her Daddy
was beginning to think that he should send her to live with his older brother.  He was not
well and Katie was getting to be too much of a handful.

Exposition is where you, as the author, take the time to set up the story by explaining things to the reader up front.

Now that we have explored all five of the narrative mode types, you should be able to try writing a story, or the opening to a story using one of the five methods. Sometimes, the best way to find out which type of narrative mode should be used to help you create a strong beginning is to try writing the beginning in each of the five styles and see which one works the best for you and your story.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Tips for Creating Your Masterpiece

While you are working on your story, there are a few things to keep in mind to help you write your best.

1. You don't have to write the WHOLE thing all in one sitting. Even if working on a short story, it is a good idea to take some rest breaks, even when your ideas are flowing well. A regular break from your story will allow your brain to take a breather and keep you energized and refreshed, which ultimately allows you to write even better.
   
   
2. Don't try to keep plowing through when you are getting sleepy. When you are tired, call it quits for the day and pick things up again the next day. The worst mistakes start creeping in when you are tired, and your ideas start to become muddled.
   
   
3. While you are working through the creative process, just write. Don't stop and edit as you go, just keep writing. You will have plenty of opportunity to go back and edit the work once you have reached the end. By stopping and changing gears from creative mode to critical thinking mode, you can end up stifling the very creativity that you need to finish your story.
   
   
4. You know yourself better than anyone else, so if you need something, like food or music, or even a pair of drumsticks by your side as your work, then make sure that you have that with you. The more you can do to help yourself get the creative juices flowing the better. I like to have music playing, but the only songs that I want to play are ones that I know all the words to so I can sing along without thinking about the song itself. What this does is occupy the part of my mind that gets easily distracted, and allows me to focus on what is important - getting the words down on the page.

Hopefully these few tips will assist you while creating your masterpiece. They are also good for studying as well.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Battling the Blank Page

You've made sure that your writing environment is comfortable, you have done some brainstorming and come up with an idea that you want to make into a story, you have written the synopsis, made character sketches and drafted your outline. You are ready to actually get down to the business of writing the story.

For some writers this is the most difficult part; facing the blank page. There it is staring at you, no words written or a blinking cursor on a blank page of a computer screen. The beginning of any story is the most important isn't it? So how do you start? What should be the first word?

I have written many first sentences to start a story, re-read the sentence and scratched it out, or deleted it. Again, and again I would write a sentence only to deem it not good enough. I would end up with an entire page of scratched out entries and still not have a beginning to my story. How do we avoid this?

1. Do some writing prompts. When we exercise, it is always best to do some warm up activities before starting the actual exercise itself. Stretches are recommended to limber up the muscles and get the blood flowing to all of the right parts of your body. Writing prompts are just like those exercises for the writing side of your brain. By starting with writing something that has absolutely nothing to do with your story gets your creative juices flowing and gets you ready to focus on your main task, which is writing your story.
   What is a writing prompt? A writing prompt is an idea jogger or brain starter. Simply put, it is a question or an idea that you write a response to.
   
   Where can you find writing prompts? If you have access to a computer, you can use Google, or Yahoo, or any other search engine and do a search for writing prompts. Writers Digest has some good ones. There are also books that you can buy which are designed to help you stimulate ideas. Some good examples of those types of books are The Writer's Book of Matches and Writer's Little Instruction Book.
   
   A few sample writing prompts would be:
   
   Create a character that has an unusual phobia. Write a scene that causes that character to face his fear.
   You bump into a genie and she offers to grant you three wishes. What are your wishes and why?
   Write a 26-word story where every word begins with a different letter of the alphabet.
   
   


2. Relax. If you get too worked up over writing a sensational beginning, your work will suffer for it. By putting too much stress on yourself to write a fantastic beginning, what happens is that your creativity is stifled and is not being allowed to flow. By relaxing and realizing that you don't have to write the perfect beginning the first time out, your ideas will flow much more readily and your story will improve.
   
   


3. Don't sweat it if you get stuck. Get up, walk around. Sometimes a change in environment for even a few minutes is all you need to do to get the creativity flowing again. Walking tends to clear your mind.
   
   


4. Don't edit what you are writing while you are writing it. A first draft is always very rough, and trust me, you'll have plenty of other opportunities to go back and edit your work. Your purpose at this point in the writing game is to simply get the ideas down on paper. You're not aiming for perfection or anything even close to it. It's time for the critical part of your brain to pipe down, go to sleep, or if necessary, send it on vacation. When you can block out the critical part of your brain, your ideas will flow onto the page and give you plenty of good stuff to edit later.
   
   


5. Start off generally. You don't want to start you story in the middle of your plot, so take some time to do some introductions first. Set the scene.
   If you are still having trouble getting started, then opt for a classic style beginning. Start with a description of your characters or the surrounding scenery.
   Once you get started, you'll notice that the writing becomes easier.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Preparing to Write

Before you start writing your story there are things that you need to do to prepare to write it. These are things that will help keep your writing focused and on track and that will help you have a better understanding of the story that you will ultimately write.

1. Write a synopsis (a brief summary of the plot of a novel). Before starting the story itself, write down a couple paragraphs summarizing the story. This should be a general description of the main story line. What is the story that you want to tell? If you're not sure how to summarize the story that you want to write, practice by summarizing some of your favorite books. A sample synopsis of Misfit McCabe might be:

As summer comes to an end, Katie McCabe learns that her father is ill and will not be able to care for her for awhile. Motherless, she is sent to live with an uncle and cousins that she has never met. Starting a new school in a new town is hard enough, but Katie makes an enemy of the town bully her first day in town. She is angry with her father for sending her away and sets out to make life as difficult as possible for her uncle.

When her father passes away, her emotions spiral out of control and on top of that, the battles with the town bully escalate until Katie finds herself breaking the law to extract revenge. Caught red-handed, Katie is brought home by a deputy sherrif, and is horrified to learn that her uncle feels that he has failed her. Through one final act of revenge by the town bully, Katie finds herself lost and alone, struggling to get back to the only family she has left.

2. Write some character sketches. List each of your main characters and write a few sentences about each one. You can include as much detail as you'd like, even things that you don't plan to use in your final story. This helps solidify your knowledge of your characters. Writing down information about them that doesn't actually go into the story itself is an example of background information. The more background information you have about your characters, the more three dimensional they become. The reactions to the events of the story are always colored by the background information of the character. For example: In Misfit McCabe, Katie reacts very strongly to the accusation that she cheated on a test and is extremely dismayed that no one appears to believe that she has not cheated. Part of Katie's back story is that she has been accused before, and no one believed her then except her Daddy, who made sure the record was set straight. So, part of her reactions are due to a part of her story that has never been told.

3. What does the setting of your book look like? Can you draw a picture of it? Or can you find a picture that looks like the place you are writing about? Having a firm grasp of the place you are setting your story in makes a great deal of difference in the small details of the story.

4. Now that you have the synopsis, your character sketches and a firm idea of the setting of your story, it's time to start writing the outline. Start with your synopsis and start filling in the details, as much detail as you can. It doesn't matter what the outline format is, just get down as many details as you possibly can to provide the backbone for your story.

5. Now that you've done all of that, it's time to let the ideas simmer for awhile. Take a few days off, and let your story really solidify in your mind.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: The Writing Environment

Since I am getting ready to start working on some new material, I thought it would be a good time to share with you some of the things that are important to determine before you begin writing. In order to help you do your best writing, you have to know what it is that helps you focus on the writing. The below are some things to keep in mind.

1. Where do you do your best writing? Is it in your bedroom, the living room, or somewhere outside? Where do ideas seem to flow for you? Wherever that place is for you, that's where you should set up your writing space. While I was writing Misfit McCabe, my best place was the kitchen table. I thought it was my room, but for some reason, in my bedroom, I kept getting off track and couldn't focus on writing. Now I do my best writing in a spare bedroom, also known as our computer room. Wherever your best place to write is, make sure it is comfortable and you have everything you need to hand.
   
   A comfortable seat - it could be a chair, a bean bag, a nice tree to lean against.
   If you write using pencils, make sure that you have several sharp pencils and erasers available. Or if you use pens, keep more than one on hand so you won't run out of ink.
   Do you have enough paper?
   I work on the computer, so I don't have to worry about pencils, pens, or paper during the creative process, however, I do need to make sure that where I am working is properly setup and comfortable.
   
   
2. What time of day do you get your best ideas? Is it morning, during the middle of the day, or at night? Of course, during the middle of the day will probably be hard for you because of school, and for me because of work. I have always done my best work at night going into the wee hours of the morning. For some reason, the creative juices seem to flow much better for me then and I can concentrate more clearly while my characters become alive for me. It's almost like I can feel the creative vibrations in the air.
   
   
3. Noise is definitely a factor. Some people can't work with noise and some people can't work without it. I find the noise of television or conversation a distraction and for the most part like to work with only the sounds of nature creating the background noise. Sometimes, I do like to listen to classical music while I work as well. If you do like noise while you work, then play music or have the television on low sound. The last thing you want to do is to distract yourself from what you are working on.
   
   
4. Light makes a difference in your concentration factor as well. Do you like the light soft, or bright, or even no light at all? I do the majority of my writing now while looking at a computer screen, so my optimum light is a soft, indirect light. Overhead fluorescent lights tend to bother me, so if I am in a place that has those, I turn them off so I am do not get a headache from the glare that they cause.
   
   
5. Pay attention to the temperature of your writing area. If it is too cold, or you get too hot, you will start thinking about your comfort, which interrupts your writing process.
   
   
6. Do you write better with things to eat close to hand or not? I myself like to write with a big mug of tea to the right of my keyboard, within easy reach, so I don't have to think about where the mug is, but can just grab it while I am thinking.
   
   
7. Make sure that your writing area is well organized. Some people believe that the area should be uncluttered to lead to an uncluttered mind, but others like to have toys around to help them in the creative process. I like to have a few familiar things around me as a stark writing area for me creates a blank mind rather than an uncluttered one.

By the way, all of the above are also good tips for creating a good environment for doing homework as well.
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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: The Cover

What is the purpose of a book cover? Practically speaking, since the cover is made from a paper (for paperbacks) which is heavier than the pages of the book, part of the purpose of the cover is to protect the pages. But what other purpose does it serve?

The primary purpose of a book cover is to get the attention of a potential reader. You as the writer want the cover to be something that makes people want to pick the book up off the shelf and take it up to the cash register. For me, something eye catching means bright bold colors. In the first color draft for Misfit McCabe's cover, I didn't like the title because for me the color was much too soft. I wanted something brighter. I also didn't like the girl as a brunette, the dark hair felt too harsh too me (besides, Katie is blonde).

Think of the book cover as part of your marketing material. While not everyone buys a book only for the cover, if your cover is not attractive or striking, it is likely to be passed by. With books sales over the internet increasing, it is again your artwork that will grab the attention of a potential reader. This then begs the question, how close should the book cover be to the material inside? The cover should contain something of the essence of the book, but does not have to be exact in every detail. Think about movie posters; they are designed to capture your interest, but may illustrate a scene that never crosses the screen in the movie. This same type of concept should be used when designing your cover.

A class I was working with as the book cover was being designed had some criticisms of the cover that they shared with me. They felt that the burning shed looked more like a house than a shed, and that the characters on the front looked older than what they had imagined. A few thought that the cover should have realistic people rather than cartoon figures. I understood their criticisms and went on to explain why I made the choices that I did. The burning building on the cover does look more like a house than it does a shed because it appears to be much larger than what a shed would be. By being larger, the fact that it has flames coming out of it makes it more dramatic.

As far as the cartoon, or even comic book aspect of the cover, I wanted the designer to come up with something that was more stylized looking rather than something that looked like a photograph. I find that when I am reading a book, if the cover has a picture of the main character of the book and it is like a photograph or painting and the description of the character in the story doesn't exactly match, I become a little irritated. Plus, When I read something, I visualize everything in my head and I wanted my readers to be able to do the same without being given a concrete image from the cover.

The class was at somewhat of a disadvantage, as far as the cover was concerned, because they had already read part of the story and had already had a chance to picture in their mind what Katie and Timmy and the shed looked like. Before deciding what your cover should look like, you should look at several covers of books that are similar in content to yours. What do you like about the covers? What don't you like? What is it that catches your eye? Which ones would you pass without picking up?

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: The Hook

What is the most important part of your story? What can take the longest time to get right?

The beginning.

When writing a story, you have to capture your audience (the reader) so that they want to continue reading the story after the first few paragraphs. It is said that for movies, the screenwriter/director has 10 minutes to get you interested in the story that is going on, or they will lose you. If you think about it, how many times have you started to watch something and within the first 10 minutes you get bored and then turn it off. That happens to me all the time. Or the reverse is true, you're getting ready to turn something off and you figure you can watch just the first few minutes of a show, and within the first 10 minutes you're hooked and you end up watching the whole show.

It works the same way with writing a story. Description is very important to story writing because you want your reader to be able to visualize what is happening throughout the story. But, does that mean that you have to start off by describing the setting of the story in great detail? Or, should you start off with something that is action packed? In my writing class, I learned that the beginning of your story needs a hook. You want to have a quick start to a story to draw your reader in and after they have read through the first few pages and been "hooked", then you can slow the pace down a little bit and start throwing in some description.

If you remember, with Misfit McCabe, I started off with Katie doing something she shouldn't have been doing, and she ended up in trouble right away, and it was filled with action. Through the action, you are getting a glimpse of who Katie is, and it puts in your mind the question "What happens next?" Your job at the beginning of any story is to get the reader to turn the page. It is always a good idea to lead with action.

Are there great books which start off slowly with a great deal of description? Yes, some of the best books ever written start off slowly with lots of descriptive phrases. They were written, for the most part, in a time in history which was slower than our current fast paced world. For today's reader a more action packed start is recommended. Plus, as a writer, I am only trying to tell a story, not write the greatest book ever written.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Story Flow

As you further develop your writing skills, you need to know that there is something called the "flow" of a story. The flow of the words on the page can help create a mood for the reader without you having to spell it out specifically. Short, punchy sentences packed with verbs heighten the feeling of anxiety or action, while longer sentences full of adjectives may give a calmer, more relaxed feeling. Are the words you have put down on the page the right ones? Do they work together to tell the story, or can they be awkward, not fitting together quite right? How do we, as the writer, know whether the story flows well or not?

The single best piece of advice I can give you for being able to tell whether your work flows well or not is to read it out loud. Hearing the words gives you a sense of how they actually flow. Any time you stumble reading something out loud, mark it and continue on because you know that you need to go back and re-look at that passage. There is probably something that can be done to make it better. I realize that, at first, reading your work out loud will be uncomfortable, but it is a very important step to make sure that everything "sounds" right in your story.

I don't embarrass easily, but when starting out writing, any time I read my work out loud (or heard someone else read it) I would turn bright red and wish the floor would open up so I could sink through it. When I was writing Misfit McCabe, I took a writing class and the structure of the class was that we had to bring in two typewritten pages each week and hand them in, and the class reader would then proceed to read everyone's work one at a time, and then the class would discuss it and provide the feedback. When I realized that I had to sit in a class of strangers and hear my work read out loud by someone else, I was mortified. What if I wasn't a very good writer? What if what I wrote sounded stupid? I was the youngest person in the class - what if I was just too young?

When it came my turn and the reader started reading my two pages, I couldn't lift my eyes from my desk and I felt like my face was so bright red, I could have replaced Rudolph at the front of Santa's sleigh to lead the way. I managed to survive and the teacher liked my work and provided some positive comments and gave me one or two pointers where I might make it even better. After the class, one of the other students asked me if I saw the teacher's face when my pages were being read, and of course I had to say "no". Week after week, it got a little easier to hear my work being read by someone else, and after that first week, I was able to read my own work (while by myself) without blushing.

Why am I sharing one of the moments in my life when I felt the most embarrassed? Because I want you to know that even though it may feel weird to read your work out loud, to hear the words you have written, that it will get easier with time and it's very important to do. If you have someone who can read the words out loud while you follow along with a printed copy, it's even better. The reason is that when someone else reads it, they don't know the story and they will stumble over words that you as the writer know in advance and can unconsciously tweak so that they don't sound awkward to you. It's just another way to help you make your work better.

I have caught more mistakes in my writing by the simple method of reading the words out loud. Before I sent the book to a test reader group, I sat at my computer and read every single word in the book out loud once again, to make sure that I had taken care of all of those areas where the words might not be quite right.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Writing Tags

What is a tag in writing? It is when the author uses phrases like "he said" or "she said" added to dialog (the conversation between characters in a novel ). There are many ways to tag on to dialog, such as "he laughed", or "he angrily shouted" and these phrases are intended to help describe the feelings, emotions, or some action associated with the dialog. Most writer's use tags in their writing, and the better the writer, the more effective the use of the tags. They are used not only to help provide some description, but to help identify which character is talking as well. One of the major problems that beginning writer's face is how to vary the use of the tags so they are not too repetitive. You don't want to use "he said" every time as the tag to the dialog. You also don't want the tag to sound forced because you are really stretching for something different.

One thing to keep in mind is that the tag should not disrupt the flow of the action or dialog, but help to move it forward. As I writer, I found that I was having a very difficult time with writing tags. Nothing I put down on paper ever sounded right to me; each time it felt forced and I felt like the words on the page were "stupid". As I struggled with this part of writing, the pile of crumpled pages grew higher and higher, because I just wasn't satisfied with my work.

Frustrated, I started to analyze where I was having a problem with the words on the page instead of continuing to try and put them down. I realized that it was the tags that were causing my issues and I decided that I would try and write without them. So, I started putting words down on the page again and all of a sudden, I actually liked what was there. Other writer's use of tags in a book don't bother me at all, but they bother me in my own writing. You might notice in Misfit McCabe that there is not one "he said" or "she said" in the entire book.

Is it easier to write with or without tags? Writing with tags is actually easier, because it allows you to take a shortcut to the description of the speaker's attitudes, thoughts, emotions, or actions. For example, if I used them in Misfit McCabe, it would have been easier to clarify who was speaking by putting a passage of dialog followed by a comma and "Sarah said with a laugh." It does take more work to ensure that your dialog is clear and to make sure that your reader will understand at all times who the speaker is when writing without tags. For me, writing without tags gives the work a "cleaner, crisper" feeling to the completed work. But, that is for me. What works best for you?

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
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Article: Voice and Point of View

Before you start writing a story, you need to determine what voice and point of view you are going to use.

Voice: Are you going to write using the first person or third person voice? When writing in the first person voice, you use "I" (or for first person plural, "we") and the storytelling is limited to one character's viewpoint. When writing in the third person voice, you use "he" or "she" and you have some additional options, like telling certain parts of the story from different characters' view points. Most of Misfit McCabe is written using first person. See if you can tell when third person is used.

Point of View: What point of view boils down to is who is telling the story? Is one person telling the story, do you need several people to tell the story? Does the reader only get to experience the thoughts and feelings of one character or do you want them to know things that happen outside of your main character's perspective? Sometimes a story will have so many different points of view that it becomes confusing to the reader because they are not sure who is telling the story now. If you are writing a story that has a shifting point of view (you want to tell the story from more than one character's perspective) then you need to make sure that when you change point's of view that the shift is well defined. Some ways to capture this is the start of a new chapter or paragraph (for shorter stories). As someone is reading your story, they should always know who is "talking".

Misfit McCabe is written in first person and from the point of view of Katie for the majority of the book. We know what is happening to Katie, what she is thinking and feeling and we know it as if she herself is telling us the story. We don't know anything outside of Katie's perspective, what is happening to other people in the story when they are not with Katie, and we don't know what the other character's are thinking or feeling. If you choose to write something in first person, you can only write about that one character's thoughts and feelings. For example, when Katie and Timmy are in the shed, I couldn't write what Timmy was thinking or feeling, I could only tell you what seemed to be happening through Katie's eyes, or what Katie thought Timmy might be thinking. What first person allows the writer to do is to bring a reader closer into the mind and feelings of their character. The use of first person is less common than third person, because in some ways it is more limiting. Sometimes detective or mystery stories are written in the first person, because the writer doesn't want the reader to know anything outside of the point of view of the detective. That helps the writer to sustain a little more of the mystery. I chose to write Misfit McCabe in the first person because I thought it would help the reader's identify more with Katie and help them to understand some of the way she was feeling.

When using third person to write your story, you can introduce the point of view of more than one character and you can describe thoughts, feelings, and actions that happen away from the main character. You can also choose to write a story from one point of view, but use third person to create a little distance between the reader and the character whose point of view is telling the story. For example, if you were writing a horror story and your character was a horrible person who went around killing people, you could choose to tell the story entirely from that character's point of view, but you might want to use the third person voice because you want to create some distance between the reader and the character. In this case, you probably don't want the reader to identify with the killer.

I am going to try and illustrate how the use of first person can help the reader identify with the feelings of a character vs. how third person can create a little distance.

Here is the first person example:
I was so mad that I felt like my head was going to burst. I had taken all of the insults from him that I could stand. It felt like they were churning inside me and any moment would come spewing back in the bitterest words I could find.

Now for the third person example:
Lorraine was so mad that she felt like her head was going to burst. She had taken all of the insults from him that she could stand. She felt like they were churning inside her and any moment would come spewing back in the bitterest words she could find.

Because first person uses I, it is easier for us to think in those terms of ourselves. We can say - "Yes I have felt just that way before too." Using third person, we, as the reader, feel more like it is happening to someone else.

There's actually a lot more I could say about point of view, but I think I'll save that for another time. I just wanted to give you something to think about so that when you write a story, you know that you do need to think about these very important items and make a choice about which voice and point of view you want to use and why.

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Copyright 2008 © LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World