Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
April 24, 2019

Way back in the bookstore

Ten writers trooped into B&N Westside last week to hear Tracey Gemmell, Larry Sommers, and Paul Wagner share about what they learned at Writers Institute held a couple weeks ago in Madison. Our writers also critiqued the works of six of their colleagues. Here is some of what was said:

 

Tracey Gemmell (query letter and synopsis, Life Like Lavender) . . . Most agreed the synopsis for Life Like Lavender was too long. Larry also suggesting cutting much from the query letter and replacing it with more wit. Many thanks for your suggestions.

 

Kashmira Sheth and Amit Trivedi (chapters 12-13, untitled novel) . . .  Amit and Kashmira submitted chapters of their book. Readers wanted to see more interaction between Uma and her father to show she was aware of what was going on in the country. Also, some part of Kedar’s chapter sounded more like stage direction and readers wanted more description of what Virabha looked like. Thank you all for your comments. We will work on the chapters.

 

Cindi Dyke (chapter 7-8, The Mansion Secrets) . . . Group felt the 10 year-old boys and the relationship they share is authentic. Many shared suggestions on opportunities to tighten. Tracey observantly and knowledgeably suggested removal of adverbs. I will vigilantly and diligently search them out and will assiduously limit future use. I promise. Jerry suggested one eye-roll is plenty, but Jessica mentioned young boys are prone to multiple eye-rolls. It was suggested that the ruin of a ‘family heirloom’ is not authentic to the age of the speaker and it should be changed to a simple acknowledgement that Wart is going to be in trouble. I’m pretty sure the writers suggesting this have personal experience regarding a young boy’s realization that he’s in trouble. I am trusting their expertise and changing it. Thanks to all for sharing your insights.

 

Jack Freiburger (chapters 39-40, A Walk upon the Water) . . .   Helpful editing of my chapters and perhaps less cutting required than in the past few weeks, where editing down  by a few hundred words has been required, although Tracey is not fond of plumbing descriptions and suggested some tightening.  Larry deconstructed a hero’s journey in his comments, rather raising the bar.

I copy here Larry’s comment if full:

“Aye. You are a good lad, and have nearly drowned, and so I’ll tell ye.  I have an affinity for those dead by water and those nearly so, those like your very self. So here is the story, true all of it, but you must honor it by keeping it to thy own self.”

Those who go by the 12 stages of the Hero’s Journey would call this the key to the innermost cave, or something like that. Sean, by what he has endured and survived, almost by dumb luck, has earned access to the golden fleece he seeks—which of course has something to do with the wisdom he can glean from Lester’s most prized story.

Many thanks for all comments.

 

Jessica Smith (rewrite, Go-Go and His Glorious Wings) . . . Go-Go and his Glorious Wings discussion:

• Opinions were divided on the logic of the wings being physical, visible or not (I.e. “how does he put on a jacket?” “Magic” “Uh…”)
• Go-Go needs to practice flying before Mister Blue’s rescue
• Possible ideas for wings included them being collapsible, almost invisible
• I need to write out the entire story of Go-Go then remove unnecessary words to the word limit

 

Jerry Peterson (chapters 20, Night Flight) . . . Jack would like to see Simms and several other lesser characters developed a bit more so their respect and care for Rooster is more meaningful. Additionally, said Jack, “The blanket that Simms puts over Rooster you say could have seen service in the Great War. It did see service in the Great War. What does that blanket feel like to Rooster? Are there smells that remind him of the war?” Cindy spotted a clunker, Simms wondering, when he wakes Rooster, why Rooster doesn’t recognize him. Rooster, in response to Simms waking him, says he was so out of it when he was asleep that for a moment, when he woke, he didn’t recognize Simms. That, said Cindi, is sufficient.

 

Who’s up next

May 7

Lisa McDougal (chapters 10-11, The Tebow Family Secret)

Chris Zoern (chapter, Apostate)

Amber Boudreau (chapter, Avice)

John Schneller (chapter, Broken, rewrite)

Jack Freiburger (chapters, A Walk upon the Water)

Larry Sommers (???)

Bob Kralapp (chapter, Capacity)

 

Fifth Tuesday

It’s 10 days away, April 30. Tracey and Scott Gemmell will host us at their home in New Glarus. This is a potluck supper event, so bring some great food to put out on the feasting table.

The writing challenge, here it is: My worst critique ever. It can be real or fiction. Yes, you can make it up. Length: 500 words max. Email your mini-masterpiece to Jerry Peterson by Sunday evening, April 28.

 

Reports from UW’s Writers Institute

Amber Boudreau, Tracey Gemmell, Larry Sommers, and Paul Wagner took in the event. Here are some of their notes:

Amber:

R.R. Campbell, podcaster and author of novels, Accounting For It All and Imminent Dawn (EMPATHY Book 1) presented on The Dreaded Sag: Facelift Your Scenes with the Five Core Components of Scene Structure.

Scenes are “the nucleus to a single cell in the multi-cellular organism that is our manuscript.” Or you can think of them as discreet storytelling units with an arc.

Scene sag is listlessness or drifting that comes from a lack of forward momentum and missing stakes, tension, or conflict.

How do we cure it? With the 5 key components of scene structure:

Setting: It’s all about location. Push past the ordinary. Change the setting to increase MC’s tension developing character and enriching theme.

Goal: A scene’s first heartbeat. Gives a sense of direction. Makes a promise to the reader. Maintains focus for the readers, our characters, and us. What does your protagonist want? What are they trying to achieve? What do other characters want? How does this contribute to tension and conflict?

Conflict: What’s in the way? Not just characters arguing, fighting, or drawing lines in the sand. Sources of conflict include characters wanting different things or the same thing, but only one of them can have it. Internal vs. External. Collaborative goals. Characters can have a goal in common, but there’s a clash of personalities or ways to solve the problem. Allied force does not always equal an ally in that there may only be the appearance of cooperation.

Resolution: conclusion to goal-conflict tug of war. Doesn’t mean destination has been reached or goal achieved. Instead it’s the resolution if intra-scene tension. Diversity in outcomes. Not all or nothing. Both characters fail in some way. One cedes the battle to win the war.

Closing the curtain: cliffhanger, change moment, or pivot point.

Cliffhanger: character or world in peril, Danger! Push past the ordinary, get rid of default. ie, no fainting/blacking out, a telephone call/text, hanging from a cliff.

Pivot Point: giving a suggestion of what is going to come. A new goal for the character. More nuanced understanding of the current goal. Alternatively, a defeat has the MC question their whole strategy, or a win that comes at a cost does the same.

Change moment: Character shifts from lessons learned, self-reflection. These are a little softer than a pivot point. There can be combinations.

 

Kat Falls, professor of screenwriting at Northwestern and author presented on How to be Funny (Even if you think you’re not)

Comedy comes from incongruity or the unconventional pairing of things in a way that causes laughter. To make something funny, you must establish a norm, or pattern, and then an incongruent response.

When creating comic characters, the incongruity is between a situation and the character’s response to it.

4 classic comic types.

The ID or animal response – character’s reaction is inappropriate to the situation.

CHILD – character overreacts to the situation.

MACHINE – character underreacts to the situation.

LEFT-FIELD – character reacts in a nonsensical way to the situation.

Ensembles include one of each, except for the leader, who gets to use all of them.

The straight man is not a type. He’s the everyman, meaning his response meets our expectation of normal human behavior.

Try each of these reactions with your character to find which one works. Reactions can be verbal, nonverbal, physical, and even dark.

 

Larry:

The UW-Madison Writers’ Institute is, as they say, DA BOMB!! Several TWS Writers attended this year: Tracey Gemmell, Amber Boudreau, Paul Wagner, Meg Matenaer, and I. (Hope I didn’t miss any!) This was my second consecutive year, because I found it so helpful last year.

Tangible benefits received this year included vast and detailed overviews of the publishing industry from industry guru Jane Friedman and LA-based lawyer/agent Paul S. Levine; information and inspiration on building my “author platform” from Jane Friedman, Madison-based Web consultant Celeste Anton, content maketing specialist Rachel Werner, and others; writing advice from New York agent Steven Salpeter of Curtis Brown Ltd. and others; and much stimulation and encouragement gleaned from multiple fellow members of the Writing Tribe.

I gained the courage and insights needed to launch my website/blogsite—coming any day now! Most of all, I came into this April’s event in a bit of a quandary about where to go next with Freedom’s Choice, my Anders and Maria immigrant saga—both artistically and commercially. I came away with definite direction and sense of mission that I’m confident will carry me through the next year of the writing life, until next year’s (March 26-29) iteration of this premier writing conference, which happens to live right in our own backyard. This year the UW Writing Program launched the second cohort of its “Pathway to Publication” program, which gives aspiring authors either six months’ or twelve months’ individualized coaching towards realizing their goal of publication, at a very reasonable price (either $600 or $1,200). I seriously considered signing up for that; and the members of the program’s first class were unanimous in their praise of it; but in the end, I found that the conference itself had given me my own “pathway to publication.” Look for my name in the New York Times soon!  😉

 

Editor for May

We don’t have one. Would you like to take on the assignment? If you’ve never been the editor for our e-newsletter before, you will find it is not a difficult job.

 

The stuff that surrounds the story

It’s the human stories that are at the heart of his Game of Thrones books and the TV series that people respond to, author George R.R. Martin said in a recent interview. “The dragons and the zombie army, that’s just furniture,” he said. “The stories I create can happen anywhere.”

Great lines also help. When Sansa, in the opening episode of Season 8—the final season—worries about how she’s going to feed Daenerys Targaryen’s army of 10,000 soldiers and two dragons, she asks Daenerys, “What do dragons eat, anyway?” Answers Daenerys, “Anything they want.”