Storymakers Writing Conference

I feel so jazzed. I got back late Saturday night from a wonderful writing conference. They held it at a larger venue this year so there were over 600 attendees. The organizers also expanded the number of class options each time period and repeated some of them.

Today I'm sharing a few of my notes from a class taught by the awesome J. Scott Savage. He taught what was called an Intensive which was a limited attendee (meaning you had to sign up in advance) two-hour session. His class was about using subtlety.

Eighty percent of what a reader gets from a story is not on the page - J. Scott Savage

We were shown examples of what he called thesis statements. We should all remember those from school. A thesis statement kind of an opening remark. Bill was tired. (hint: was should be a warning sign--besides being passive, it  Then the author goes on to describe all the things that indicate the character is tired. That opening statement of Bill was tired is actually the author intruding in the reader's experience to point something out. Better to just show the reader.

After doing some exercises where we all reworked a thesis statement Scott provided (the examples were fascinating in their variety and how they could completely change a story), he talked about a few other things and had us once again work through scenes provided:

Foreshadowing
* Good foreshadowing doesn't call attention to itself.
* If the reader notices it all, they shouldn't know what is being foreshadowed.
* It increases the power of the story when the event occurs.
* May have circularity (great blog post explaining this here).

Misdirection
* To get you looking in one direction while bringing something else from another.
* One of the most powerful tools if you're not too heavy handed--don' let the reader see you doing it.
* Mention it early as an aside - let the reader assume something that turns out to be wrong.
* Ask yourself what your character could believe that might end up not being true.

As anyone who knows me, knows I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd. J.K. Rowling is the queen of foreshadowing and misdirection, of things hidden in plain sight, of subtlety. Her hints about so many things are often only obvious when rereading the series. For example, there are hints in both Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince about Snape's Patronus. Anyone know what those were?

Cover Reveal - "Pop Travel" by Tara Tyler

I've been a follower of Tara's blog for a while now and been fascinated by the little snippets she's let out over time, so I'm thrilled that she's so close to launching this story out in the world.

I'm excited today to be part of the cover reveal of Pop Travel.

Private Investigator J. L. Cooper always knew pop travel laser teleportation was too good to be true. Finding video proof of a disintegrating traveler is the stomach turning “I told you so.”

Cooper can’t broadcast the video on the nosy, government monitored Qnet, so he digs around, revealing more suspicious traveler disappearances, the death of his client, and threats to his political little brother, who is in jeopardy of turning to dust anyway for disregarding Cooper’s warnings not to pop. Cooper has to do everything himself. 

To stop the disappearances and save his brother he must shut down the ruthless mega corp Pop Travel International (PTI). And that means convincing Hasan Rakhi, the celebrity Creator of pop travel, to publicly admit the deadly flaw. No problem. Under constant surveillance, Cooper will have to be unpredictable, facing his fear of popping to crash a party at Hasan’s well-fortified plantation compound. Yes, the laser fences are real. As long as he survives his next pop, Cooper won’t let anything distract him from getting the job done. Not the android security guards, who aren’t as bright as they look, or even Southern Comfort in a purple dress, Geri Harper (an undercover Agent). Nothing Coop can’t handle.

Release Date: July 7, 2013
Publisher: Curiosity Quills

About Tara:

Math teacher by day, sports mom by night,

When does she have time to write?

Good question, but the Lazy Housewife makes time! Tara Tyler writes sci fi, thriller, and fantasy, with dabs of romance and humor and tips for efficient living. Something for everyone.

Literature and film have touched on interesting ways to quickly get from one place (or time) to another. There's apparting in Harry Potter. There's the fax-like transportation through time in Crichton's Timeline. And, of course, there's the transporter in Star Trek. The cartoon below is from a 1967 edition of Mad Magazine which did a spoof of classic Star Trek.

But it does address some problems inherent with travel of this kind. What do you think of it. Cool? Crazy? Would you do it?

Harry Potter Ebooks--a New Trend in Marketing?

I have a Nook Color and got it before the Kindle Fire came out. I love it. I have a huge library of books on my Nook. I either downloaded them from Barnes and Noble, or I downloaded them from Smashwords as epubs.

I believe in competition. I don't want Big A (either them) to be the only places we have to go to purchase.

But I digress.

Yesterday I bought an iPad. I've wanted one for a long time because I attend a lot of conferences (both for my day job and as a writer), and the iPad--with its little keyboard set that makes it a mini laptop--will be much easier to carry around and take notes on.

But I also want it to be my ereader of choice. I'm giving my Nook to my hubby to use for church books, so I need to move all the books I've downloaded from B&N and a handful of Kindle books I've downloaded to my laptop but haven't read yet.

I wish they didn't make it so hard!

If you haven't had a chance to read the article "What Book Publishers Should Learn from Harry Potter" by Matthew Ingram, you should check it out. He discusses the model that Jo Rowling and Pottermore have developed for the new release of the Harry Potter ebooks.

Imagine! You can download EIGHT digital copies of each book for the multiple digital places you want to read them or for lending. One of the reasons I've continued to buy paper books is because it's hard to lend digital books, especially if your friends have competing readers.

I love this quote from the article:

"Charlie Redmayne, who left HarperCollins to become the chief executive officer of Pottermore, said that all of these developments and enhancements for users stem from a single principle:

My view is that the one thing we should learn from the music industry, is that one of the best ways of fighting back against piracy is making content available to consumers at a platform they want to purchase it on, and at a price they are willing to pay, and if you do that most people will instinctively want to buy it.

Redmayne is right, and if book publishers could only learn one thing from the Pottermore launch, it should be this: that one of the biggest drivers of piracy is the inability to find or consume the content that a user wants in the format or on the platform or at a time they wish to consume it . . . ."

click the picture

Jo gets it.

Why don't the others?

Banned Books Blog Giveaway--And the Winners Are ...

For Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

the winner is ...

(both using random.org)

Darlene

For To Kill a Mocking Bird

the winner is ...

Melora

Banned Books Week Giveaway Hop

Hard Cover

Anybody who knows me knows I'm a rabid Harry Potter fan. The books and films have been so wildly popular that some of you may have forgotten that there were (and still are) lots of people who would like to see them banned.

So no one should be surprised that the banned book I'm giving away for the Banned Books Week Giveaway Hop is one of Harry's books.

    And another ...

 

But to spice things up, I'm going to have a second winner. This winner will get a hard copy of another banned book. A Pulitzer Prize winning book.

Hard Cover

You only have to do two things for your name to be entered in the giveaway:

1. Comment here that you're interested in participating in the drawing.
2. Tell what your favorite banned book is and why.

I invite you to do the following but neither is required:

1. Visit the other members of the Banned Book Giveaway Hop and see what books they're giving away. You can find the list here. The Giveaway lasts a week, so you don't have to hit them all at once.
2. Feel free to follow me if you aren't already.

Harry Potter

I wasn't going to post anything, but I decided I just had to. I saw Deathly Hallows 2 this afternoon. It was the second time I saw the film. Loved it just as much as I did Thursday (though that first audience was a bit more vocal in their enthusiasm for certain scenes, which really adds to the experience).

So why is Harry Potter so important to this nearly senior citizen grandmother? Because just like my kids, I got sucked into that amazing world that Jo Rowling created. We bought the book Sorcerer's Stone (SS) for a son who wasn't a fast reader, hoping it would make him want to practice. Didn't work. Then.

The book sat on his bookshelf for a year until his next younger brother (who is a fast reader) decided to try it. Didn't take long before he was begging us to pick up Chamber of Secrets (CoS)and Prisoner of Azkaban (PoA). This was about the time Goblet of Fire (GoF) was coming out, and there was tons of talk about the books on TV.

I asked my son who'd read them to let me have his copies, so I could read them. I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about.

My life hasn't been the same since.

My family's love affair with the series began then. Everyone read them (my oldest son is the only one who never got past the first couple of books). My son who's not into reading, is very much into audiobooks. He LOVES the series. We've had some lively discussions about where we thought Jo was headed.

When I finished the 4th book, I told my hubby that I thought he'd love them, too. I went back to SS and started reading them aloud to him.

And that's when my first inkling began of what a treasure trove these books are. The thrill doesn't just come with the school book titles or authors (though they're hilarious) or the moving scenes about this poor abused boy seeking to find friends and acceptance while refusing to become an abuser himself.

It comes when you realize how that crafty Jo Rowling has hidden so many things in plain sight. Examples: Sirius Black is mentioned casually in SS but becomes a major play in PoA. Or that vanishing closet that Draco worked so hard on in HBP was first introduced in CoS. It's in that clever little spell Fred gives Ron to turn that stupid rat Scabbers yellow. We assume the spell doesn't work because it wasn't a real spell or because Ron did something wrong. But it might not have worked because Scabbers wasn't really a rat at all.

Clever, clever girl, that Rowling.

Because of the information that we learned with each new book, we had to go back and read the older books in the series again. The new information changed the way we viewed things.

It wasn't until Half Blood Prince (HBP), though, that I just HAD to have some answers. After reading the book, I wrote down a page full of questions. I talked with other people I knew who liked the books, and we bounced ideas around. But I wasn't satisfied. I thought perhaps there must be something online.

Uh, yeah.

I first went to Mugglenet and signed up, though I never posted. I went to Jo's website and found that she'd awarded The Leaky Cauldron with the best fan website that year, so I went there. Turns out they had a forum called The Leaky Lounge, so I signed up there, too.

And that's where I found the Dumbledore Isn't Dead thread.

I got pulled into the debate (one of the three hottest ones discussed--the other hot topics included Snape's loyalty and whether or not Harry and Hermione would get together, what we called the 'shipping wars' with 'shipping' meaning relationships). The debate about Dumbledore still being alive included some pretty amazing discussions with people who were writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, college professors, physicists, etc. The depth of the discussions was amazing. Seriously, people were looking at the trajectory of when Snape's spell hit Dumbledore and comparing the description of the spell compared with all the other Avada Kedavra deaths that had been described. Adults. Adults of all ages.

Kids' books? Who is anybody kidding to suggest these are just kids' books?

At the Lounge I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

And then I did.

Go to heaven, that is.

Five years ago last March, I was invited to become a moderator. I was absolutely stunned but thrilled. I've met so many absolutely wonderful people through that experience, both Lounge members and other moderators. I have friends now from all over the world ... including some other aspiring authors (like Donna and Suzie).

As the frenzy began a few months before the release of Deathly Hallows, I got to mod the forum that was Unfogging the Future (named for one of Harry's Divination textbooks) and then once we had a title Unfogging Deathly Hallows and eventually Deathly Hallows Unfogged. People were so busy theorizing about what everything meant that for the two months prior to the release I'd spend my entire lunch hour and usually three hours each evening reading posts and making sure people behaved themselves (and didn't spoil--that was a battle for all of us, believe me).

Because I knew about the epilogue, which Jo had written before she wrote the first book, I worried about someone at a large bookstore event opening their book and going to the back to see who lived and died. You see, Jo told us that the last book was a book about war and that it would be a bloodbath. I had emotionally prepared myself that any and all characters might die.

I volunteered to help out with a release event at a small bookstore at Gardner Village. This resulted in me being interviewed on television the day before the book came out. You could have blown me over with a feather when I got that phone call and the guy said he heard I was a Harry Potter guru. The call came to my work. O_o Turns out the lady at the bookstore had been contacted about doing it and she referred them to me. My hubby graciously gave them my phone number. Because of all the theories I'd read, I was quite versed in the possibilities.

And just so you know, I called it. They asked me if I thought Harry would live or die. I said, "Yes."

That night I attended the release party with my family. Another moderator lived in that community, and she attended with her children and the two of us did trivia quizzes for people. The atmosphere fit, and the people were wonderful. I got my book at midnight and we headed home. I was (mostly) spoiler free.

We got to experience something no others will be able to. We lived through the time when no one knew what the outcome of the series would be.

My life has been enriched. Not just with the books, though they'd have been plenty. But with the people I've gotten to know and care for.

Thanks, Jo.

Books, Books, and More Books

I went to a BBQ tonight hosted by Canda over at Canda's Ink Blast. Lots of food, good conversation, contests and prizes. I took some pictures but my son's moved my thingy that lets me get the pics off my memory card. I came away with FOUR books!

Including the one on the right. Orson Scott Card wrote the book based upon the screenplay for the movie. We enjoyed the movie, though the theatrical ending was sadly lacking. Card got permission to continue writing well into the filming. He brought depth to the characters that most novels based on screenplays can't capture. This book is one of my favorites. There was something in it that struck a chord with me, something that never got translated into the movie. The book's out of print. I have a copy of the paperback already that my brother lent me. I may--MAY--do a giveaway. I'll have to stew on it.

If you think you'd be interested in having a shot at it, let me know. Persuade me.

Back to the BBQ, I experienced a sense of deja vue as I sat at a table with other aspiring writers, eating and chatting about writing in general, about books we love/hate, and learning about each other. What it reminded me of was the first time I attended a moderator meetup with five other mods from The Leaky Lounge.

Bear in mind, that this was a group of adult Harry Potter fans. Rabid Harry Potter fans. So rabid that we'd all been asked (or volunteered) to help with a very busy and award winning (one from Jo Rowling herself) website. We all knew each other online but were finally able to meet in person. There's a language (modified netspeak) that we use on the discussion forums.

HP = Harry Potter
LV = Lord Voldemort
DE = Death Eaters
HBP = Half  Blood Prince
DD = Dumbledore, etc.

It was funny during dinner at that long ago meetup that one of the moderators (who happened to be a producer at one of the large local radio stations) used one of the above shortcuts in her speech. She paused, flushed, and then gushed her amazement that she'd actually said it out loud, in person. It seemed so geeky, and we all thrilled at the release. Closet HP fans coming out.

At the BBQ tonight, it felt a little like that. Sitting around with a bunch of other writers, talking about these voices we all have in our heads trying to get out. Discussing the benefits of using that Dragon software program so you can speak rather than type. Dissing how lacking some kinds of modern literature can be.

*sigh*

If I hadn't eaten so much yummy food (and now my stomach hurts), I'd be completely satisfied.

Thanks Canda! And thank your sweet husband for cooking all those burgers and dogs.

Don't forget about Cindy Hogan's Blog Hop.

If you haven't entered to win, you still have time.

Seriously, I thought this was going to be a short post. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm even capable of short posts.

Grammar

When I was a little girl and in school, I could have sworn that my teachers presented grammar as set-in-stone rules. The way they showed me how to do something was the only way to do it. I graduated from high school and moved on to college, and no one ever said anything different.

Well, guess what? I moved into the business world and attended a training session that provided me with a "Duh!" moment.

Latin grammar never changes because Latin is a dead language. Dead? Yes. Because there's nowhere in the world where people actively speak it, so it never changes.

That doesn't work with English. English is a vibrant, ever-changing language. It's the official language in several countries, and each one manages to tweak it in their own way. For example, in 2007, the word Woot was the Merriam-Webster Dictionary word of the year. If you follow the link you'll see what it means. But do you know where it came from? We Owned the Other Team. It's a gaming term that's now being used by people who aren't gamers.

Snarky is another word I like. I heard it for the first time when I became a moderator at the Leaky Lounge. Many of the other moderators are British, and that's been mostly a British term, according to Dictionary.com. But I'm hearing it a lot now, both from people I associate with and on American television and in American books.

This is my first post in a weekly series on grammar (future posts should be shorter). From what I read in books, we writers seem to have a bit more discretion than people in the business world. For example, Jo Rowling uses comma splices all the time. What's a comma splice? It's when you use a comma to connect to standalone sentences. In business writing, it's considered poor grammar.

Ted grabbed the ball. He threw it at Bill.

Ted grabbed the ball, he threw it at Bill. (this is a comma splice.)

Grammatically correct options? You can connect the two sentences with the word "and".

Ted grabbed the ball, and he threw it at Bill.

If the sentences are closely related, you could use a semicolon.

Ted grabbed the ball; he threw it at Bill.

But Rowling's editors didn't find it necessary to edit out all her comma splices, so that implies to me that for writing books (not about grammar or for business), we may have some discretion. Who decides? My guess is your editor.

But everyone needs to know there are different styles of grammar. And the rules are different, depending upon the style you're using. When I teach classes on grammar, I suggest that my coworkers choose one style and be consistent. At work, we use the Gregg Reference Manual. This is business oriented, but it's still a good resource about grammar rules. They update every five years to keep up with trends. Click here if you'd like to see a list of other sources.

Notice in the following (hilarious) video the reference to the Chicago Manual of Style. They aren't talking fashion.

So where are your grammar strengths? How about your weaknesses? What resources do you prefer to use?

Storymaker Conference - Report 4: Keeping Your Readers Up Past Their Bedtimes

I took two classes from Traci Abramson at Storymaker. I'd taken a class from her at the UVU Book Academy, too. She's got some very interesting real life experience, having worked for the CIA, which she does a good job bringing into her writing. I'm currently reading one of her books to my hubby, and he keeps dreaming about it.

Keep Your Readers Up
She helped define the difference between mystery (begins with a question) and suspense (begins with a threat). While both will have an element of suspense in them, both are meant to let both the reader and the character be scared.

Regarding the hook, I loved the way Traci phrased it. Say what you mean and then get out of the way. This made me think of my Show, Don't Tell class and the need to not tell the reader what they should be experiencing but letting them do that for themselves.

She quoted Alfred Hitchcock who said "emotion is an essential ingredient of suspense". It's important for the reader to make an emotional connection with the main character. I can vouch for this because there's a very popular writer out there who's put out a lot of books, but I haven't connected emotionally to the writer's main characters in a very long time. As a result, I haven't picked up a new book in several years.

It's important to make your reader curious. Like Hansel and Gretel, we need to leave breadcrumbs--not infodumps. Be careful about your scenes; every scene should move the story forward. Be realistic with your clues but don't be too obvious. This makes me think of Jo Rowling, who does a wonderful job with her clues and red herrings in the Harry Potter books. You really need to pay attention when you're reading because she has so many things hidden in plain sight.

You have to raise the stakes for your characters. I heard this over and over again in the conference. You have to be mean to your characters ... and then be meaner. Make it hard on them. Danger and time pressure add to the suspense. But be realistic, plausible. Don't give the reader a "Yeah, right" moment.

Use action words and sentence structure to move the story along at a quicker pace. Don't let description slow the action down. I've read books where the writer did that. O_o Totally kills that feverish, forward motion.

Do you have guidelines for breaking chapters to keep your readers reading?

Blogging Challenge N(otes)

Creativity is a fickle creature. That great idea that comes to you while you're in the shower somehow makes off on its fleet feet before you have access to pen and paper. So what do you do when you have the flash of brilliance at an inopportune moment? Do you grab your smart phone and start talking into it? Do you keep a notebook handy in the restroom, your nightstand, your desk, your car?


JK Rowling's Plot Outline for Order of the Phoenix

 What do you do to capture those illusive thoughts?

ETA--thanks to BayGirl for being my 100th follower!

End of An Era

A Facebook link motivated today's post (see below for the video). Can you imagine being an author whose creative endeavor captures the imagination of millions?

What is the Harry Potter phenomenon? Obviously, it began with the books. But Jo Rowling and Harry Potter have done more than make Rowling one of the richest women in the world and Harry Potter a major moneymaker for Warner Bros. The inspiration of the Boy Who Lived and Dumbledore's Army have inspired millions, adults and children alike, to expand their creativity and to strive to make the world a better place.

When I finished Half Blood Prince, I wanted more. I knew the movies had garnered millions of fans, but I had no idea there a was whole other world online. Sites like The Leaky Cauldron and its forum The Leaky Lounge drew people to discuss and dissect the books and share in the wizarding experience. There was the battle to keep the books from being banned. Melissa Anelli, webmistress of and adminstrator for TLC's forum, does a wonderful job capturing the entire fan experience in her book "Harry, A History."

So many muscial groups were started and began touring that a new music genre was created called Wizard Rock, nicknamed Wrock by their adoring fans. You can download their songs on iTunes. The groups include Harry and the Potters, The Moaning Myrtles, The Ministry of Magic, and Draco and the Malfoys to name a few. The list is huge. (Some of my favorite songs are Snape vs Snape and The Bravest Man I Ever Knew {spoiler alert on this one} [serious songs], and Cedric [hilarious]).

There have been (and are still planned) educational symposiums and conferences to discuss all aspects of the HP books (LeakyCon11). There are organizations such as The Harry Potter Alliance that pattern themselves after Dumbledore's Army. HPA describes itself thus:

We are an army of fans, activists, nerdfighters, teenagers, wizards and muggles dedicated to fighting for social justice with the greatest weapon we have-- love.

Last July they were awarded $250,000 by Chase to help continue their efforts around the world.

A theme park as part of Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure in Florida has been created, so people can experience the wizarding world first hand. There are colleges hosting Quidditch teams, and colleges which offer courses on the books.

So what happens when the final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 is released on July 15th? Will this delightful story that has captivated the imagination of children and adults for over a decade fade away?

I had the opportunity new readers won't have. I was one of those rabid fans who participated in a midnight release party waiting anxiously for the final book that would tell us how the story ended, if Harry lived. The story is out there. There are no more secrets.

'End of An Era - Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls.


But is it the end?