Looking ahead -- Texas literary events & contest updates

 When I last posted here about spring literary events in the state, some had only limited information available. So, some updates!

Now-April 30: Submissions are open for the Houston Writers Guild anthology Journey into Hope contest. Word count should be no more than 5,000 words, and submissions in all genres must involve the anthology's theme, journey into hope, in some way. Winners and honorable mentions will be published, with first through third place winners also receiving cash prizes.

In addition, all prize winners will receive complementary 3-Day Pass registration to the AuthorPalooza Conference hosted by the HWG October 3-5, 2025.

Entry fees: $30 for HWG members, $40 for nonmembers.

Site the site for details.

May 15-18: Tickets will soon be available for the annual Dallas is Lit! festival of the Dallas Writer's Garret. Events include music, an evening with U.S. poet laureate Jo Harjo, books and author fair, Common Language Project reading event, and more. Check the site for details and to reserve space for authors, bookstores, literary organizations, and creative businesses.

Now-July 11: The site for the Writer's League of Texas manuscript contest is now open with complete information.

Use the online form to submit approximately the first 10 pages (not more than 2,750 words) of a fiction or nonfiction manuscript in any of several genres. Writers do not need a completed manuscript but should also attach a synopsis describing the rest of the planned book.

Winners in all categories will meet virtually with a top literary agent (the final judge in their category) via Zoom. All entrants, winners or not, have the option of written feedback from an experienced editor.

Fees: $75 for Writer's League members and $95 for nonmembers who request the written critique/$35 members/$75 nonmembers without critique.

See the site for online submission form and additional information.

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Of course, check my previous posts for ongoing contests and state literary events. Meanwhile, wouldn't it be nice to have something local, preferably free, especially for those of us not close to major metropolitan areas?

Image by XWu from Pixabay

Lucky us! Besides its many in-Austin and online classes, the Writers League offers two free morning writing workshops in small Texas libraries in April.

April 19, Meg Gardiner (Unsub) and Stacey Swann (Olympia, Texas) visit the Coleman Public Library, 402 S. Commerce St., Coleman, for a writing workshop beginning at 10 a.m. Pre-register at (325) 625-3043.

April 26, Swann teams with Amy Gentry (Good as Gone) at the Salado Public Library, 1151 N. Main St., Salado, beginning at 10 a.m. Again, free, but pre-register at (254) 947-9191. Light refreshments provided at both sites.

By the way, attendees at the Coleman workshop are only about a half hour drive from the town of Cross Plains, home to early 20th-century writer Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian and more. However, note that Howard's house at 625 SW St. in Cross Plains probably will not be open to the public until the annual Howard Days festival June 13-14. More on that still to come!

What I learned when it was too hot to blog: part 1

 Just because I didn't post over the summer doesn't mean I was goofing off. When the outside temperatures hovered over 100 degrees F. for most of the summer, I could barely step outside for more than a few minutes. Except of course, for the multi-hour-long drives to and from one of my favorite small fantasy and science fiction literary conferences -- Austin's ArmadilloCon -- from which I returned bearing gifts of insight.

The first insight is, don't wait until the last minute to write a short story. But the result, messy as mine was, was my ticket to ArmadilloCon's writing workshop, an adjunct to the regular conference. I love this workshop! Comments from its critique group years ago enabled my first published short story to see the light of day. Several more have also benefited from the experience.

The second insight -- more like a question -- is, how the heck does one writer critique another's writing? For anybody looking to join a writing critique group, or establish a new one, or wondering why those they're in keep going off the rails, ArmadilloCon's offered some help.

The staple method is called the Milford style. Many of us may already be familiar with this one, but here's a basic review:

• Read each writer's story in advance
• Sit around as one by one the readers deliver their critiques without interruption
• Authors take notes of the points made
• Once all critiques are given, the author may respond without interruption

This can work. But -- it can get repetitive. And boring. And bog down in minutia. And although the form theoretically eliminates arguments, without a strong moderator and time limits, it can go so, so wrong. (I speak from sad experience.)

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

It's also possible to use the Milford style of critique without advance reading, by having each author read aloud, preferably while providing shared copies to the others. But that places more limits on the amount of material each author is able to present. 

And, honestly, just because you're a great writer doesn't mean you're also an engaging verbal reader. (Cue confusion. And maybe snores.) Reading aloud further penalizes authors who may be shy in groups or not fluent in the language of the group's majority or who may have physical/speech difficulties.

So, enter an alternative writing critique method introduced by this year's ArmadilloCon workshop -- Mary Robinette Kowal's ABCD Critique Style. 

Robinette Kowal divides critiques into the three categories of a clinical trial:

• Symptom -- "this is the reader's reaction"
• Diagnosis -- "this is why"
• Prescription -- "this is how to fix it"

Initial critiques, however, will only deal with the "symptom" phase. These include:

• Awesome -- "don't fix it!"
• Bored -- a pacing issue
• Confused -- an order of information problem
• Disbelief -- violation of reader's sense of how the world of the story work (hint: extraterrestrials and unicorns are seldom found in the same world)

(Robinette Kowal adds, "stream of consciousness reactions such as 'don't go there!' are also fair.")

May readers who are confident of their own writing skills still provide notes about such line editing issues as spelling, punctuation, and grammar? Maybe, in on the copy. Not by alluding to them in the verbal critiques. And no, absolutely no readers should offer diagnoses or prescriptions without being asked.

Although the workshop members at ArmadilloCon were writers themselves, the Robinette Kowal method, unlike the Milford style, adapts easily to critiques by beta readers. These are readers who are, preferably, just ordinary people who enjoy reading. That's because the ABCD method is only about the story and its flow. Not about how many spaces the writer put after the end of sentences. Or whether they used American or British spelling. Or, well, you get the idea.

And writers, don't argue about the symptoms! They are true. It's our job to address and fix them, not deny their existence.

For more information about the Robinette Kowal method, including additional tips to authors, see her site at www.patreon.com/maryrobinette.

Information about the Milford critique style is readily available online. For this post, I followed https://manchesterspecultivefiction.com/the-milford-system. Just don't ask who Milford was. Nobody knows!

To put emotion on the page, you gotta dig!

I went into author/agent Donald Maass’s workshop this fall with a major concern: how to put emotions on my pages in ways that would rock the worlds of both the characters and readers. Steeped in the “show, don’t tell” dictum, I had shied away from flat out telling readers that a character felt sad. Or mad. Or whatever. But when I tried to “show” character emotions through their actions and expressions, critique partners were sometimes left feeling puzzled about exactly what was going on.

 

Image: Stefan Keller from Pixabay

As usual, Maass had something to say about that, although it was so seemingly counterintuitive I initially rebelled: don’t either show or tell the character’s primary emotion. Instead, write something else the character is feeling.

 

Are you like me in thinking, what? why?

 

The reasoning behind Maass’s answer, which he lays out specifically in his book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface, is that “. . . readers may believe they’re living a story along with its characters. Actually, they’re not. Readers are having their own experience that is merely occasioned by what’s on the page. . . (the novelist) is not causing readers to feel as the novelist does, or as his characters do, but rather inducing for each reader a unique emotional journey through a story.”

 

He justified his answer by using a (ta-da!) show, acknowledging its hackneyed nature in his self-deprecating way: “His guts twisted in fear.”

 

Isn’t that supposed to terrify readers, he asked. But does it? Read it again and notice whether it evokes any reaction in your gastrointestinal system other than, perhaps, indigestion. The reason such writing fails to have the desired effect, he insisted, is because we as writers are asking readers to feel something they don’t want to feel. (Obviously, who would want, well. . . )

 

High, primary emotions such as terror, rage, even love, Maass believes, are too much for readers to process, and even less memorable. (He claimed to have had this epiphany while talking to a friend who writes thrillers – hardly a genre in which we might expect layers of emotional depth.)

 

The work around he advised involves sneaking up on readers’ emotions. Jot down something else your character is feeling – a second level of emotion. Then another emotion the character feels at exactly the same moment – a third level of emotion.

 

“When we feel fear, we can also feel excited, anticipatory, shamed, even glad,” Maass noted.

 

Does the character believe whatever else she is feeling (as well as fearful) is the right thing to feel? Is it a bad thing? Does she feel justification, guilt, revulsion? Is this a necessary and natural way to feel?

 

In describing how the character feels about her feelings – metaphors welcome -- especially the inner conflict of those feelings, the writer can “create the emotional space the reader needs to process their own emotions, to fill in the feeling that they are experiencing” as they relive their own remembered emotional memories.

 

These second and third level emotions also surprise readers with their unexpectedness. And “when you’re working with the internal life of a character, make it surprising!”

 

And while we’re surprising our future readers – and ourselves – how about using our post-NaNoWriMo revision months to find a dozen or more moments of high emotion, take them apart and explore that third level?

 

Have we forgotten my original problem, the old show vs. tell dilemma? Maass recommended resources such as The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression in the Writers Helping Writers series for help with showing through the body language, vocal cues, and visceral reactions associated with emotions. Not that telling is bad in itself, he noted. It’s all in how you do it, and the deep dives of third level emotions can be effective even in telling.

 

(I highly recommend Maass’s book, The Emotional Craft of Writing, whether you’ve been able to attend one of his workshops or not. Both it and The Emotion Thesaurus are available on Amazon. And while you’re at it, dear reader, also check out my August 5, 2020, post on this site, “Shh! Show, don’t tell – unless you must!” with more tips from romance writer Lori Freeland.)

Grab bag of goodies for Texas writers

My (multiple) inboxes are overflowing with more goodies than I can categorize, so I’ll toss them out for whoever can use them. 

Contests:

February 1: Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest, 8,000 word maximum, set in the near future (no more than 50-60 years out) of manned space exploration. Free, but limited to one entry per contestant. See the site for details. And hurry – submissions must be received no later than 12:01 a.m. February 1, U.S. Pacific time! (If you’re unsure what that translates to in your part of the world, check out this time conversion site.)

February 2: The Masters Review announced that all of its contests in 2020 will end on Sundays, starting with its Winter Short Story Award for New Writers, closing February 2. (This is an updated submission date, but I can’t find an exact time for this one.) Entry fee: $20. First, second, and third-place winners receive cash prizes, publication, and agency review.

February 3: On a personal note, my query + first 5 pages is among those editors will be tweeting about in Revise & Resub’s #10Queries posts on Twitter. Thankfully, all participating writers will be granted anonymity!

image: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Whew! Now get started on your submissions for D.L. Hammons WRiTE CLUB readers’ choice contest. Although Hammons is currently busy revising a novel for his agent (and writing a sequel) he promised at the recent group critique meeting we attended to hold the annual WRiTE CLUB contest in 2020, with celebrity judges to be announced on his site March 23. 

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Literary events:

March 7: African American Book Expo + Mixer-Dallas, Grace Banquet Hall, 7111 Marvin D. Love Freeway, in Dallas. Noon – 10:30 p.m. See Eventbrite site for tickets and details.

Not yet on the FenCon website but workshop organizer says I’m free to spread the word that the Dallas-area sci-fi/fantasy convention’s September 18-20, 2020 workshop instructor will be author Kevin Ikenberry. Keep an eye on the FenCon site (and this one!) for specifics.

Also up – registration is now open for the North Texas WORDfest’s March 21 “all-you-can-meet” festival of creative connection. Free is always an option – registrants get all the activities plus a map. But WORDfest now offers $10 premium and $35 ultra-deluxe options. These include raffle tickets, discount codes for other Dallas-Fort Worth-area writers events, goodies from the treat counter, and more. Whichever way you decide to go, you can feel good about making this event even better!

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What else have I left out? Drop me a comment, and I’ll consider updating. Still to come, I haven’t forgotten about all those class/workshop events I promised earlier this month. (Where has the year gone?) 

Squeeze character to develop plot & keep juice flowing!

Today it’s the conclusion of the inimitable Tex Thompson’s Juice Box Hero: Squeezing Plot from Character presentation. And since nothing beats hearing Texas in person, I’ll only give the barest skeleton of the writerly techniques which received their world before the recent meeting of the Writers Guild of Texas. Want more? You’ll have to persuade your own writing group to host Tex herself for the full meal deal!

And although you’re welcome to see last week’s post, here’s a brief review of the first five of Tex’s 10 big ideas:

1. Dial up contrast between characters and/or characters and their environment

2. Turn “and then” into “but” or “therefore” to create consequences for character actions

image: pixabay

3. Eliminate “reasonable” choices and/or add mutually exclusive gains for character actions

4. Add multiple kinds of conflict – personal, interpersonal & external

5. Force a character to do whatever he/she is worst at

Now – are you ready for the final five ideas? Ta-da!

6.     Use the four stages of competence 

Uh, what? Right, that’s how I felt. Like, you’re either competent or not, aren’t you? So Tex expanded this concept for us. She also graphed it, which I’m sorry I can’t show you. But as I said – consult Tex herself for the whole show. 

Here are those four stages of competence: unconscious incompetence (the we don’t know what we don’t know stage); conscious incompetence (we’re at least aware of our own inadequacy); conscious competence (we can do it, but we have to think about it); and unconscious competence (the never forgetting how to ride a bike stage). 

Tex also mapped these onto the three-act plot structure, remembering that Act 2 has two parts, with a major change in the middle: Act 1 – the character is unaware that a problem exists until, boing! his incompetence reaches his conscious level. Act 2 – the character starts to figure things out (moving from conscious incompetence to conscious competence), with numerous falls off the bike. Act 3 – ride the heck out of that bike! 

7.     “Jump before you’re pushed” 

Which in Tex-speak means, “that awful thing that happens to your character is something she brought on herself.” (Review the three forms of conflict and “choose whichever one most advances the story.”) 

8.     Include a well-intentioned catastrophe

Think “Gift of the Magi,” Tex urged us, in which each character, with the best of intentions, fails to realize what the other is doing. (Note: Catastrophes that can be averted by five minutes of honest communication don’t count. Our job is to prevent those characters from having those communications!)

9.     Use “so” to turn emotion into action  

Haven’t we all been at some point letting our characters wallow in their emotions? Tex’s solution aims to keep those emotions from descending into navel-gazing, while providing “kindling to make your plot catch file.” Her example of the solution: “. . . he’s upset. How upset? So upset he decides to (fill in the blank)”  

And the final idea is like unto it: 

10.   Use “so” to turn virtues into faults

“She’s generous. How generous? So generous that she takes on too much, gets overburdened and then . . .”

And then, as a special treat for us, her original audience, Tex shared a bonus idea, but I’ll let you in on it as well: Let the worst thing happen.

We’ve probably all heard this one, but how often do we act on it in our writing? Maybe because we thought that worst thing was unbelievable?

“We have to rethink about what happens not only to the story but to the character,” Tex said. “That forces the character to rewrite his own identity.”

Flesh and blood characters for stand-out stories

You know how, when you’re thinking about something, everything around you seems to be that same something? For me recently, in writing, that “something” has been character. Everywhere I turn, strange, even bizarre characters have appeared. First, there’s the news, replete with characters to study. Then the writing course offered by NaNoWriMo through the online site Coursera includes a segment on character. Even when I turned to what seemed to be a delightful book about a woman and her pet bulldog, darned if the “character” aspect didn’t appear again. (For both woman and her canine friend!) Finally, half of this fall’s writing workshop sponsored by the Writers Guild of Texas hinged on the aspect of character. 

Creating fictional characters, we as human beings can relate to is such an essential element that the basic formula for story is: character + action = plot. But how to create those characters? (I’ll save the action portion of the formula for another post!)

image: Wikimedia commons

During the Coursera lessons, novelist/instructor Amy Bloom noted, “Most of us have enough trouble being ourselves, without having to then take on the task of (inventing) other people. But when you’re a writer, that’s the job. You have to enter into their body, into their soul, and see the world as they see it.”

So no wonder that after bestselling romantic suspense author Cindy Dees, who taught the WGT workshop, confessed that character development isn’t her strongest point, she developed an entire course on the subject to help her compensate. Because I was a student of Dees at a creative writing course at Southern Methodist University several years ago, I knew there would be character description worksheets. This time they were even bigger and more detailed than I remembered. 

There are innumerable sample character building worksheets online, including one developed just for NaNoWriMo, but I’m addicted to Dees’ version.

I don’t want to – in fact, it’s not even possible – to include the entire volume of information Dees lists in a single blog post. They include all the generalities available online: ethnic, social, economic, religious and educational background; behavioral descriptions; and physical description. (The Dees version emphasizes the way the physical characteristics evoke the main aspects of the person’s character.)

Digging deeper, she asked her audience members to list the main qualities that describe and define each character, the characters’ ethics (what they believe) and their code of honor (what they do), and consider the possibility of internal conflict these present.

“Some characters talk about their values,” she said, “but don’t do a darn thing.”

Dees’ character spreadsheets included side by side listings for both the main character and another primary character (and can be expanded to include multiple other characters). What I found particularly interesting was her suggestion of placing a checkmark by each point at which the characters’ personalities, background, etc., would conflict. And using these points of conflict to help build the story. 

“Is there a moral crisis that challenges (the character’s) values? If there’s not, why the hell are you writing the book?. . .What makes (the character) argue passionately about after they’ve had a few drinks?”

Then there are the detail such as: What’s this character’s most embarrassing moment ever? When did this character feel like the greatest fool ever in his/her life? “Such profound and visceral moments” can make readers so emotionally involved with a character that Dees tries to include at least one in every book.

And the often talked about issue of character likeability? As novelist Amy Bloom also noted in her discussion of character in the segment of her Coursera class, “You don’t have to like your characters, but you do have to love them and be willing to see the world through their eyes.”

It’s great to “have your heroic characters do something heroic off the bat to show us they’re the good guys,” Dees said. But watch out for cliché moments. 

Since the appearance of the late screenwriter Blake Snyder’s handbook, Save the Cat! “I’ve seen a rash of characters who climbed trees and saved cats recently,” she noted wryly.

She continued. Is the character interesting? Fascinating? “Interesting is someone I’d like to talk to at a cocktail party,” Dees told her audience. “Fascinating is, I can’t look away from that train wreck. A person can be terrible and be fascinating. Bad guys are where you can really (write) off the rails.” (I’ll add – study your news sources for examples of off-the-rails, over the top versions.)

As I flipped through the pages of character sheets Dees passed out to the workshop audience, I groaned inwardly at her suggestion to “give a symbol set to each character.” I should have known she had more in mind that yet another magical piece of jewelry or sparkly slippers. Not. She wanted us to think of our characters as that symbol.

“If I think of a character as a motorcycle, I can create a whole set of characteristics without ever calling him a motorcycle.” He/she can be noisy, powerful, eccentric, a loner, with as many of the attributes the writer attributes to motorcycles as the dog writer at the beginning of this post attributed to her bulldog. 

And I thought, yes, I do have a character who’s a motorcycle. . . And maybe one who’s a bulldog, as well.

Superpower or kryptonite? Our writing personalities at work

“What kind of writer are you?” was the question author/instructor Cindy Dees asked at this weekend’s writing workshop sponsored by the Writers Guild of Texas.

Cindy Dees

So, she put us to the test. Specifically, the visual type personality testing software from the Smarter About People site. This is similar to the software used to test the fitness for occupation of professional athletes, lawyers, and doctors. Based on 15 different temperament tests, it sorts users – including now, writers -- into Jungian psychological types.

And unlike the football teams used to determine whether their professional players are better suited to become quarterbacks than line backs – test which can cost thousands of dollars -- the writing version is free. And fun. Plus, it comes with a cute, color-coded chart of our writing strengths and weaknesses. Or as Dees prefers to say, our superpowers and our kryptonites. 

She considers this knowledge so useful, she spent an hour of the workshop coaching her audience of writers on how to use their charts. 

I worried, and maybe you will too, whether the test might reveal somebody who has no business writing anything more complex than a grocery list. Never fear. There’s no thing as a “bad” writer profile, Dees assured us. It all depends on how we use what we’ve got.

To demonstrate my lack of fear, I’m putting my own chart online here: 

Now for an explanation about the organization of the chart, and translation of its terms into those used by writers.

Read from left to right, it deals with abilities in the areas of research (labeled as now on the chart), defining (termed stabilize, which includes such activities as genre and market research), world building/character development (stabilize on the chart), plotting (connect on the chart), drafting (execute on the chart), editing/revision (analyze on the chart), characterization (consideration on the chart), and theme (value on the chart). The relative size of the boxes indicates a writer’s comfort with each of these abilities. 

Boxes that extend above the horizontal line indicate “extrovert” qualities. Those below the line are “introvert” qualities. 

The chart can be divided in half vertically. The four left-hand boxes: now/research, stabilize/define, invent/world building, and connect/plotting represent the planning/plotting functions of writing – the way in which writers gather and formulate ideas for a story. 

The boxes to the right half of the chart represent the ways in which writers put their ideas on the page and finalize them. (Dees prefers to transpose the blue and red boxes on the right side, so that characterization and theme occur before the actual drafting and revision of a story.) These right-hand boxes would then read: consideration/characterization, value/theme, execute/draft, and analyze/revise.  

I was surprised not to have a larger box for my research function, not surprised at all to have such a large revise/editing box. (My critique partners won’t be surprised by the size of that part of my personality either!)

Dees shared her chart with the audience. No surprise for a woman with nearly fifty books to her credit, her “drafting” function box is huge. But there can be pitfalls even having a super-sized, “superpower” of a characteristic.

Writers with huge drafting muscles can be guilty of writing too fast and thereby skimping on important story details, failing to deliver fully-developed characters, skipping editing, and just plain burning out.

If we’re only gifted with tiny drafting boxes – i.e., drafting is our kryptonite -- we may find ourselves procrastinating, failing to meet deadlines, becoming resentful, or – worst! – hating to write.

Did you notice that skimping on the development of fully-rounded, emotionally satisfying characters can be among the pitfalls of the fast and furious drafting superpower? Then you won’t be surprised to learn that Dees’ box for “characterization” is relatively small. Still, she manages to come up with the dozens of fleshed-out characters her writing specialty of romantic suspense requires.

How does she do it? By being aware of her innate preferences and working to overcome them, which is why the second half of her workshop dealt with character building in fiction, a treatment I’ll save for the second of my posts on her workshop.

For now, I’ll provide the 100-mile an hour summary of the pros and cons of each psych characteristic: 

Research – if it’s your superpower, you may be in danger of disappearing into the rabbit hole of the internet. If research is your kryptonite, you may find yourself glossing over too many details. 

Apple polishing: fall classes to revive a writer

So many of my friends and family are students or teachers, eager for the start of the academic year, I longed to go back to school too. Only not a regimented way. Not by taking entrance exams or aptitude test. Not, just by choosing classes I wanted to take, when I wanted to take them.

For anyone else feeling that yearning (or if members of your writing critique group keep saying, dude, just take a class!) I’ve compiled a list. Some of these are local to my area of North Texas. Many are online, available anywhere in the world with internet access. Costs vary, schedules vary. The following options are listed in alphabetic order.

2-Day Film School: Carpe Diem Pictures presents a live workshop on the fundamentals of filmmaking October 21-22 at the Dallas Marriott Suites Medical/Market Center, 2493 N. Stemmons Freeway in Dallas. Early bird registration (through September 21) is $389. Later registration $439. Register at the site. For additional details, email questions to dfw2dayfilm@gmail.com or call 940-600-3939.

image: Pixabay

MasterClass: This online classroom offers an incredible number of instructors in various fields, including writing. When I took James Patterson’s course here this past year, the cost was $99, but check the site for specifics, including authors in other disciplines.

NaNoWriMo: If you’ve ever signed up for NaNoWriMo, the annual November writing marathon, you’ve already received their email about the online creative writing courses. If not, read on. (Warning: the discounted rates mentioned here only apply if you at least intend to be a NaNoWriMo participant.) This year, the internet learning project, Coursera is teaming with Wesleyan College to offer five online writing courses for WriMos. Check out the site for details. Each class is offered at a discounted price of $29. After November, participants will be able to share their first chapters with the group for another round of peer review.

The Writer’s Garret: This Dallas institution founded by the late Texas poet-laureate Jack Myers and his wife Thea Temple offers both online and in-person classes in elements of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, from overviews of creative writing elements, to voice to writing with diverse characters, to pitching a project, and more. Costs typically in the $100-$160 range for multiple session classes, but see the site for early bird and members' discounts.

The Writer’s Path at SMU: This is Southern Methodist University’s continuing education program in creative writing. You can take their complete pathway, from which selected participants are chosen for a seminar in New York with editors and agents. Four to six-week long on-site classes leading to the New York seminar range in price from $450 to $625. More intensive tutorials in editing, revision and manuscript evaluation are also available. See the tutorial site or email suzannefrank@smu.edu for more information.

Writers Guild of Texas: This North Texas group offers in-person, daylong semiannual writing workshops. It fall workshop, October 7, features Cindy Dees, New York Times bestselling romance author (who also now writes epic fantasy). 9 a.m. to noon, in the Richardson Civic Center, 411 W. Arapaho, Richardson, Texas. Registration is $25 for WGT members, $35 for nonmembers. Limited seating, so the group urges registration by September 23. Price increases by $5 at the door, to the extent seats are available. See the site for details.

Writing Workshops Dallas: Online classes in fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting and poetry, from a plethora of published, often award-winning Dallas-area writers, teachers and editors. Classes can run multiple weeks or require no more than a single afternoon of your time. Costs range from the low double digits to mid-triples. See the site for details.

Kate Forsyth’s secrets for page-turning suspense

So, the book started off great. And then . . . you as a reader found yourself flipping pages, looking for something to catch your eye until you finally put the book down. Never to pick it up again. And probably never, ever to buy another book by that author.

Now you’re the one writing a book. And from time to time, you glance at that long-neglected volume on your shelf, and a chill runs down your back as you wonder whether readers of your book will grab it happily also, only to put lay it down well before they finish. Never to look at it, or any of your books, again.

image: wikimedia commons

What we need here are Australian author Kate Forsyth’s secrets for keeping those pages turning.

Forsyth has shared her tips on how to keep readers reading in writing workshops all over the world, and she recently gave Texans a glimpse of them as well. Like her discussion of the exposition plot (see Tuesday’s post), some of these tips may seem counter-intuitive, but Forsyth has the credibility gained from writing dozens of international bestsellers.

Secret # 1: Put characters that readers care about in jeopardy.

She really, really likes (and writes) likable characters. Likable, of course, doesn’t mean perfect. Far from it. It means a character readers can empathize with. Give the character ample time on the page to make his/her wants and needs known. She won’t rule out the use of “dark” characters (rules, in her mind, are made to be broken). But be aware that we as writers will have to try a lot, lot harder, to make readers empathize with unlikable characters. And then, of course, there’s the jeopardy part. . .

Secret #2: Action does not equal suspense.

           

You’re thinking, I’ll amp up the jeopardy by making my heroine run around like a meth-crazed Yorkie terrier. Wrong. “Too many high-action scenes can actually dissipate suspense,” Forsyth warns. “Suspense happens . . . in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival.”

           

Secret #3: Surprise the reader.

Let bad things happen early in your story. It shows you can do worse things later. How much worse? They’ll have to read the story to find out. . .

Secret #4: Maintain suspense even in low-tension moments.

Remember that old saying about story structure – a sequel of reflection follows a scene (or several scenes) of action? Don’t lose readers during those periods of reflection. Characters can reflect like crazy while they know, and readers know, that something really, really bad is waiting to jump out and say, boo!

Secret #5: Don’t overdo the violence.

This may seem as surprising as secret #2, but readers can become desensitized by too much gore. As Forsyth noted, if you’ve seen 17 characters skinned alive, what’s one more? Meh. The same caution applies to sex scenes. Postponing gratification lets the sexual tension mount and mount and . . .

Secret #6: Tension always rises.

Each event has to be more dramatic than the one before. Quicken the pace as the climax approaches (pun intended). Chapter lengths will also get shorter as the pace quickens.

image: wikimedia commons

Finally. . . Should I even reveal Secret #7? Who will she choose? Will they be in time? Will it finally happen?

OK, here’s the big reveal of --

Secret #7: Vary the type of suspense.

Forsyth recognizes three types of suspense, affecting three parts of our bodies  – intellectual curiosity (head), worry and apprehension (heart), and creeping dread (gut). Use all of these, in different ways and at different times.

Of course, Forsyth provided much, much more information. Maybe I’ll write more about her workshop later. Or you can keep an eye on her for more tips. And keep an eye on this blog, and on sites such as the Writers Guild of Texas, which helped sponsor

Forsyth's Texas visit, for more writerly help.

The voice in your head, other voices in the room

In my previous post, Texas writers Rosemary Clement-Moore and Melissa DeCarlo began a dialogue with members of the Writers Guild of Texas  about writing fictional dialogue. With a mutual background in theater, Clement-Moore and DeCarlo know dialogue both from the standpoint of writers and of actors – both what it is, and what it isn’t.

Clement-Moore (l) & DeCarlo

Far from being mere transcriptions of “actual” speech, fictional dialogue – like stories themselves – are creations of art, realer than real-life semblances of speech with the boring parts left out.

But as the term “dialogue” implies, it’s a two-sided process. One character says something, then another. And adversarial, tense, or oblique though the exchange may be, it’s not hard for a writer – or reader -- to keep track of who said (or didn’t say) what.

There will be more tips later in this post for keeping track of who’s talking at a given point, but what about the still trickier situation when several people are talking together? Or when your character is talking to himself.

The technical term for the single character’s silent soliloquy is internal monologue, but as many of us know – however much we try to hide it from our medical advisers – it often takes the same two-part structure as dialogue. And thinking of this internal discussion by a character with different facets of herself – “interrogation or rumination” -- can give monologue the dynamism of spoken dialogue.

As such, treat it with respect. Use it in first, second, or third-person, but always in present tense.

Interior monologue should perform the same functions as spoken dialogue – information, characterization and tension. And, incidentally, it has the same ability to break up the pattern of print on a page or screen as dialogue, so keep it as terse as a conversation between characters.

Should interior monologue by italicized? a workshop participant asked.

That depends on personal preference (as well as the style of a writer’s editor or publisher. Whatever you do, however, whenever tempted to write “thinks to himself,” Clement-Moore said, “scratch that.”

But what about scenes in which three or four people are talking at once?

“It’s a juggling act,” Clement-Moore admitted. “You want to make sure you have them (speak) with different points of view. Every person is going to have their own agenda, and conversational tactics to get what they want.”

Her suggestion for learning how to differentiate between multiple speakers is to study how well-written dialogue is handled in TV and movies.

“Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The West Wing (or classic on-screen works of your choice). Willow wouldn’t speak like Zander, and her concerns wouldn’t be the same as his.”

It’s also permissible to use speech tags – Willow said/Zander said -- just as with two-character conversations, to give readers less subtle cues to who’s speaking a given line of dialogue. Just don’t overdo the tags.

“Use them when necessary,” DeCarlo said. “(But) I use business as much or more than tags.”

Business – “what some people call action tags,” Clement-Moore said, include statements such “Willow scanned the pages,” inserted before, after, or within lines of dialogue much as “Willow said,” might be.

But whether speech tags or action tags, they should be as close to invisible as possible. Unusual speech or action tags, they warned, can interrupt the narrative stream. And anything that gets between the reader and the character, that shouts, hey, look at me, I’m a writer, is deadly.”

She said/she said: two writers dish about dialogue

If anybody knows how fictional characters do – or don’t – talk, it should be actors. Fortunately for attendees at the Writers Guild of Texas  spring writing workshop, dual presenters Rosemary Clement-Moore (Texas Gothic and more) and Melissa DeCarlo (The Art of Crash Landing)

Clement-Moore (l) & DeCarlo

have not only the writing but acting chops (Clement-Moore in theater and improvisational comedy), DeCarlo in community theater, to know how dialogue works on the page – or the stage. And their she said/she said rapport kept the room full of writers on the edge of their seats.

Don’t dread dialogue, they assured us. It’s not only fun to write but a great way to overcome fear of being confronted with a blank page (or screen).

Clement-Moore admits being so addicted to witty repartee on the page that she’s been known to write it by the page without regard for what it does for the story. Is it word lost? Not at all! Even if the dialogue didn’t work, “At least now you have words on the page you can work with. It’s how I discover things for myself (and) the easiest way, when you’re facing a blank page, to kickstart your writing.”

None of which means, they told us, that dialogue is simply a transcription of actual speech.

Ever listened to a verbatim transcript of speech, say from a court reporter? they asked. Boring! Instead, dialogue, one of the major components of fiction, is “a semblance of speech” that needs to convey information, develop characters, and add tension to the story.

About that tension. . .

Clement-Moore: “As human beings, we learn to reflect (mirror) each other, (but in fiction), that’s what we want to get rid of. Get rid of the nicey-nice stuff.”

Instead of following the polite rules of conversation, in which people are expected to answer questions put to them, in fiction, when “one person asks a question, the other doesn’t answer, or answers only obliquely – anything other than what you expect.”

DeCarlo: “You almost want dialogue to be awkward. Keep everybody a little off balance. When you can, avoid pointblank questions. Misunderstanding is a great dialogue tool.”

Clement-Moore: “When you sidestep the obvious answer, it’s a good thing.”

How to manage that “sidestep”?

One way is the nonsequitur sidestep, in which a character responds with something completely different from either the question asked, or the general tone of the preceding conversation, wrenching the dialogue in a completely different direction.

Other sidestep methods: simply being quiet. Still another: action, both of which allow a character to say a lot without saying anything.

DeCarlo: On the other hand, “You can’t ever have people avoid answer a question either or it looks like an argument. It doesn’t have to be angry for there to be tension. It can be teasing, but even teasing is tension.”

“Conflict occurs if we both have different goals. (Dialogue) should move the story forward,” Clement-Moore said, urging writers to ask themselves “what changes in the story over the course of the dialogue? How does the conversation change the outcome, for better or worse?”

“Dialogue has to earn its keep,” DeCarlo said. “It takes up a lot of space on the page. It should earn that space.”

***

More dialogue tips to come, including conversation between multiple characters in a scene and conversation with only one character involved – the internal monologue (or is it a dialogue)? But until I return to the subject, check out other tips from one of Clement-Moore’s and DeCarlo’s own sources, How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them, by publisher/instructor/author Sol Stein.

And check here for more about the Writers Guild of Texas and its programs (including this summer’s visit from Australian author Kate Forsyth).

Wordcraft. Our stories: let the chips fall where they may!

First in an occasional series about literary publication and promotion

OK, there wasn’t a mention of chips in the title of the panel at the 2016 ArmadilloCon writing workshop panel. But it was after lunch, which for all of us, included a bag of, well, chips. And while we were recovering from the critiques of our stories and wondering what to do next, panelist Tex Thompson , asked us to consider the Frito-Lay model.

When a major food company considers launching a new product, it doesn’t just stuff a bunch of whatever in a bag. It turns to focus groups to consider, “is this the optimal chip?” And that focus group metaphor is also a metaphor for writing workshops, Thompson’s fellow panelist K.G. Jewell agreed.

And asking whether the stories we have written the optimal stories seemed the starting point for the longing I’ve developed, to bring coherence to posts of the last several years about what to do, and how, to get our stories into the literary marketplace.   

(Disclaimer: the illustration for this post is not of a Frito-Lay product. I do not own stock in Frito-Lay. It was simply the most photogenic picture of chips – corn, potato or whatever – I could find on Wikimedia commons. And for those seeking information about how to write a story – well, that’s a different series, which I may make an effort to write later.)

So, about those focus groups. For North Texas writers, I recommend checking out several groups I mentioned in the post, “Need a writing group? Try one of these,” from May 5, 2015. These were: Dallas Mystery Writers, Dallas Screenwriters Association, DFW Writers Workshop, Sisters in Crime North Dallas, and Writers Guild of Texas.

Other possibilities include the Dallas Writer’s Garret, Dallas Area Writers Group (DAWG), and Dallas Area Romance Authors (DARA) a chapter of the Romance Writers of America, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators(SCBWI). There are also a number of smaller groups focusing on specialties such as fantasy, science fiction, and Christian fiction.

A check of meetup groups will probably net even more possibilities. And of course, writers can always form their own groups with like-minded individuals. I happen to belong to two of these, one alternating between in-person and online critiques, and one with members from multiple states operating strictly online. Of the groups I mention above, the Writers Guild of Texas in particular operates both online and in-person critique groups, as well as periodic readings before the entire group.

For writers outside the North Texas area, an internet search will bring up a multitude of online groups. My only particular caveat about online groups is that they limit readers to a closed group, so that stories don’t circulate on the internet.

For both online and in-person groups, the next step is finding a good personal fit. I’ve grown away from a once (and still) loved group because the mix of writers has changed from those focusing on long works to those more interested in shorter works, or works in more specialized genres. Not that genre mixing is a bad thing. Reading a variety of work helps keep our minds open.

However, don’t be afraid to leave a group if anyone present is in attack mode. Very often a group leader or instructor will moderate and keep order as necessary. Most workshops I’ve attended use a variation of these basic writing workshop rules: a reading, either oral or silent; a sharing of impressions by workshop members while the writer remains silent, taking notes; ending with the writer’s chance to ask questions or clarify intentions.

Depending on available time and the number of workshop members, it may be necessary to limit the time for reading and discussion.

So, we’ve got our stories and a focus group/writing workshop (or two or three) to determine whether we’ve got the best chip (sorry – story) for our genre.

The next step: finding the right fit for that perfect chip, which I’ll get to in the next installment of this series. But before that can happen, there’s a fresh round of fall literary events begging to be mentioned next Tuesday.

Wordcraft – It’s your world and welcome to it!

You know how sometimes you hear the same thing so many times you tune it out, and then somebody says it a different way and wow! it’s brand new? That’s how I felt at last weekend’s ArmadilloCon writers workshop in Austin about the world building discussion. Hadn’t I memorized the Five P’s of World Building (people, places, problems, practices and peculiarities) espoused by Jaye Wells ,(author of the Prospero’s World and Sabina Kane paranormal series), among others?

Was there anything new, I wondered, that the ArmadilloCon workshop leaders could say about world building? And then they did.

The keys to world building are to choose emotionally-charged, telling details that convey information to readers without burying them under a pile of information and to display those details through the characters’ interactions with their world

“Find the right details that will show something that you may not think of,” said Amanda Downum, particularly sensory details – texture, taste and scent. And, added Joe McKinney, author of the Dead World series, “those details have to come organically through your character.”

And as with any information, the best way to reveal details is through our characters’ interactions. “It’s the characters’ impact on the world and the world’s impact on the characters that world building happens without your readers knowing it,” said Patrice Sarath.

An example McKinney particularly likes is the tea ceremony in the City of Stairs series by Robert Jackson Bennett, in which a character’s enactment of the ceremony not only allows the writer to describe it, but to have the ceremony become an integral element of the plot.

That kind of integration requires writers to have a grasp of the world their characters will inhabit before starting to write. “Sometimes people get excited about a plot and start writing before the world is fully formed in their heads,” cautioned writing instructor Urania Fung . Right, Sarath agreed. “Don’t retrofit your characters’ actions to fit something in your world later. In romances, this is called ‘too stupid to live’. Readers will understand when you’re playing them false.”

Is this starting to sound very, very complicated? Maybe you’re saying, hey, I write contemporary fiction set in the here and now, so do I really need to build a world? Isn’t it already there for my readers?

Panelists said, yes. Even when dealing with a real city, it may not be one readers are familiar with. And consider that even the town you live effectively contains multiple worlds, such as those within Austin, Texas. Is the story set in the rapidly gentrifying version of Austin or the funky music and arts version – or a myriad of others?

And don’t discount the limits of that world, whether mostly real or wholly imagined.

“Think about constraints,” Sarath said, including economic constraints – yes, even in fantasy and science fiction. “When you tighten the screws on everything, interesting things happen. When you take away freedom, you have an interesting plot.”

And finally, leave room for the readers’ imaginations as well, because their participation is integral to a story.

Well, almost finally, because there’s still a lot of brick and mortar help out there, including those “Five P’s” of paranormal fiction writer Jaye Wells, which I discussed at “Jaye Wells on building a world all your own” on this site.

(Next Tuesday, Wordcraft continues tales from ArmadilloCon: now that you’ve written a book, how do you get anyone to care?)