I hope you are finding ways to beat the heat in the steamy HOT weather that has invaded a good part of the country.  The heat outside is giving me a good reason to sit my butt on the chair and work on my novel, TESSA AND CLAUDINE. 

In Chapter 17, Tessa has a disastrous experience during her first week of college and is now highly suspicious of all males.   After a short downhill slide, she gets involved in her classes and campus life and is able to move on.  By Christmas break, she’s learned to love  her freedom.  Back at home, she gets immediately slapped in the face by her controlling mother.  She feels her independence slip away.  She turns to her sister for support but Claudine, too involved with her dominating husband, ignores her.   Tessa is ready to give up on her family.  She can’t wait to get back to her dorm.

Tessa and Claudine are drifting farther and farther apart.  They are at a fork in the road.  I’m just hoping I can figure out a way to get these sisters on the same page again. 

I have read several good sister stories. Does anyone have a sisters’ novel to recommend to me?  I’m always looking for another good book to read.

Stay cool.  Lisbeth

I get this question all of the time.  The answer is no my book is not finished yet.  I am still revising my novel, Tessa and Claudine, so I say no, that I expect to be finished by March of 2015.  Of course, I’m just  joking.  I certainly hope to be done way before then.  

At the moment, I’m fine-tuning Chapter 16 and am about ready to tackle Chapter 17.   In Chapter 16, I cut a few scenes down in size when I felt I’d stepped out of the narrative.  I keep a sign by my computer reminding myself not to add anything that doesn’t move the story forward.  A writing instructor once told me, “If you’re writing about an Indian, remove everything that doesn’t  relate to the Indian.”   

I love it when I can read along and feel like I am simply telling myself a story.  I hate it when I discover that I’ve added narrative simply to explain things to the reader.  That means it is time for more chopping.

In chapter sixteen, soon after Tessa arrives on the huge University of Illinois campus as a freshman, she faces an experience that throws her into a tailspin.  I’m working carefully to let the reader feel the depth of  her emotion.   I want to show her vulnerability and also her strength.   She has plenty of hurdles left to jump over.   She can’t fall apart now.    

Revising is a challenge but every day I tell myself, ”Okay, your characters are waiting, sit your butt on the chair.”

June is coming soon.  Stop in and say hello. 

Lisbeth

Believe me, it takes true grit to write every single day.  And it takes a double dose of grit to revise a manuscript and turn it into a finished product.

I mean there is that first draft.  I struggled through that with my current book, Tessa and Claudine, and then I plodded along on a second draft, and still I found myself saying to no one in particular, “Who wrote this drivel?  Surely, not I.”

Now, I’m back at the drawing board with revision number three, and with the help of an insightful leader and encouraging cohorts in a novel writng workshop, I finally see the scenes coming to life. 

I love dialog.  It’s comes natural to me.  However, I get so involved in relaying my story via conversation that I forget to let the reader inside my protagonist’s head.   I need to pause and slow down the action.  I’ve been told that I need to blow up the balloon.  My readers need to relate to my main character.  Is she hurting?  Is she ready to make  a decision?  Is she gaining ground or losing?   Does she feel abandoned or loved?   Is she hiding her true feelings?  What is she learning?

It takes true grit to keep on revising, and it take a double dose of grit to plod along when you and your characters are running into brick walls.  But, the more you face  the truths inside the characters, the easier it gets.  And the reward will be a better finished product.

I’m beginning to like this idea of  blowing up the balloon. 

Happy writing and Happy New Year.   By the way, I saw True Grit on New Year’s Eve and loved it.   Any other movie recommendations? Perhaps this year’s blogs will revolve around movie themes.  Who knows?

I love it when I’m reading a book and I come across dialogue, especially after I have plowed through several paragraphs of description and exposition.   All of a sudden the characters are talking to one another, and the story really rolls along.  I feel so good because I get to listen in on the conversation.  I’m anxious to hear what the characters have to say.  I never want to know too much about what they are thinking about.  I just want them to spit out those wonderful words.  

And, I want the characters to sound like real people.   If they speak in long sentences, it doesn’t work for me.   People don’t talk that way.   Really good dialogue sounds clipped.  It includes both what is said and what is left out.   What is not said allows me to wonder.  I learn a lot about the characters by noting the way they speak. 

Often in good dialogue, I can tell that one person is not listening.  Instead, just like in real life, they are thinking of what they are going to say next.

As for me, what I am going to say next, is that it’s time to go back to revising my novel, Tessa and Claudine.   Tessa just gave her sister, Claudine, a tongue lashing.   As usual, Claudine ignored her. 

Bye for now.

I’m a workshop junkie.  I attend these gatherings to get a critique of my work.   I used to come home, look at all of the pen marks on my chapter, and then begin to make changes.  I don’t do that anymore.   Now, I return home and mull over the questions my workshop leader and others in the class asked about my protagonist, about the relationships between my characters, and about the structure of my story.  I check to see if certain scenes move my story line forward.  I remind myself to trust my reader.

The next day, I work on the next chapter of my novel, and get excited thinking about the new directions in which my plot can flow. 

I also begin to correct small changes in my critiqued chapter but save major changes for down the road, when I can see where the story line is taking me.  I make notes in the margin and clip or stick-on notes regarding changes I’m not exactly sure about.   And, eventually it all comes together.

I find that, after a critique session,  taking time to think about revision is valuable.   I learn more this way.  I often take a walk and rehash my story.  I focus on the scenes and recall the constructive comments I’ve received.  That’s when the creative juices begin to flow. 

Sometimes, when I go out to dinner with my husband, Doug, I still have the juices flowing.  He gives me this look and says, “So how many characters are out to dinner with us tonight?”

“Only a couple,” I say with a sly grin.  “And they don’t eat much.”

Hello all.  Glad you stopped by.   I got my chapter back from the 3rd the summer workshop session, and it was covered with a gazillion pen marks. 

It turns out that I’m only touching the surface of my main character’s emotions.  Stephen King says in his book, On Writing,  ”Don’t stop writing a scene because it’s hard emotionally.”   I think that’s why I’ve been simply skimming the surface.   (Twenty lashes with a wet rag for me.)  When Tessa’s sister, Claudine, goes after her boyfriend while she’s lying in a hospital bed after getting her front teeth knocked out in a car accident, I don’t show her emotions.  I’ve got to let my readers know that she feels like she’s been stuck in the gut with a sharp knife.  And it hurts like hell. 

A second critiqued comment was about my tendency to jump into a journalistic mode.  I did just that in a scene where Tessa’s friend Lisa comes by and insists Tessa get her butt out of the house where she’s been  hibernating while her face heals.  The teenagers walk downtown.  I have a golden opportunity to show character in this scene.  Instead, I give a journalistic report.   In my revision, I plan to let the reader see the buildings, smell the doughnuts in the bakery, get a glimpse of what other shoppers are wearing, hear the clerk comment on Tessa injuries and Lisa’s trendy outfit, have Tessa see her face in a store mirror and get teary-eyed, and listen to the two girls share their thoughts.   Tessa may even notice the sawdust on the floor of the remodeled drugstore when they stop in for a milkshake.  These are only ideas, but it will be a real scene, not a newspaper report.

I hope my ramblings have helped you realize the importance in digging deep for emotion and in setting a scene in your writing.

Happy writing.  Have a good day.

I’ve got more writing tips.  The good news is that there weren’t as many pen marks on my manuscript at the second workshop.  There are two things I want to pass along.

1.  Let the reader SEE the scene.  In other words, show don’t tell.  I know you’ve heard these words over and over.  But let me give you an example.  In my novel Tessa and Claudine, Tessa is in the hospital and her Dad shows up.  Sounds fairly normal, right?  But it isn’t because she’s sixteen and hasn’t seen her dad since she was a toddler.  Her parents are divorced.  She’s a mess after an accident, and she;s shocked when he comes to visit her.  He’s about to leave, and I jump in and tell the reader why he’s leaving.    It turns out that this is a bad move.  I need to let the reader see the scene instead.  It’s better to  show the action, indicate just what the Dad is doing at this point  — after all he has to feel uncomfortable around her.

2.  Next tip.  Do not undermine the tension.  Okay, now I have a tense scene going.  Tessa’s Dad has just left her hospital room, and she hears a loud commotion in the hallway.  It’s her mother yelling and screaming her head off at her dad for coming to see the daughter he barely knows.  I slow the story down by throwing in a line about how the nurses tell her mother to keep her voice down.  (My workshop leader says NO, don’t do that, “It undermines the tension.”)    The  mother needs to walk into Tessa’s hospital room as if the confrontation with her dad never happened.  Great advice, I think.

I’m learning a lot by having my work critiqued and by listening to the critiques of others.  Stop in after my July workshop for more  tips.

Right now I’m spending hours revising my novel, but hey, it keeps me out of trouble.  It’s good and hot here in Savannah, but I love it.  I think those summers  growing up in Southern Illinois without any air conditioning prepared me for the hot, humid South.  

Happy writing to one and all.  And safe travels if you are hitting the road this summer.

Lisbeth

I went to the first meeting of my summer writing workshop.  When the first chapter of my novel, Tessa and Claudine, was critiqued, our workshop leader pointed out several instances where I’d stepped out of the narrative to explain something.   He emphasized the importance of character development and staying in the character’s voice.   He showed where I’d listed details and explained how it would be better to filter in the details by showing them.  I did some backdooring, meaning I tried to stick in info I wanted the reader to have.  He said to be patient. I could tell the reader later on when it worked better.   “It’s a novel,” he said.  “You have plenty of time.” I did a bit of overwriting.    The good news is I came home and spent hours revising this chapter. 

.My main tip from the first workshop is this:  watch out for those times when you are simply telling the reader something.  It stops the narrative.  Trust your reader and keep the narrative moving.  I found that to be such good advice.  I’m often afraid the reader won’t understand the narrative, so I stop to explain.  DON”T do this.  I hope you won’t  step out of the narrative either.  (Nobody said novel writing was going to be easy.)

(By the way, a few other tidbits from our workshop leader  regarding my manuscript, “This is nice.  Great line.  Another great line.  Perfect line.  Cut.  Cut.  And, what does this mean?”)

If this helps only a few writers, I will be delighted.  If you have any tips for me , I’d love to hear them. 

Cheers, Lib

www.lisbeththom.com

Hello readers and writers.  So glad you stopped by.   I’ve got exciting news to share. 

I visited the Library of Congress  in Washington D. C. this past week.  At this absolutely gorgeous building, I actually got to check out my own book , Row Away From the Rocks, in the main reading room.   It was SO exciting.  Sorry to toot my own horn, but I can assure you it was a grand experience.  The main reading room is a such a beautiful place with this marvelous high ceiling.  The Library of Congress gets 20,000 books each day.  They select about half of those, and most books go to various other buildings in Washington D. C. (The leftovers are donated to various libraries.)  Some books make it to the Library of Congress.  I feel so honored to have my book there. 

So you writers, keep on writing.   If you also get a book in the Library of Congress, you will need to apply for an official Library card at the Madison Building, across the street from the Library of Congress.  You will be required to fill out some forms and have official ID with you.  The card you receive is then good for two years.   You readers may go through the same process and check out a book at the nation’s library.   Try it.  It’s a fabulous experience.  And if you go, let me know what you think of this gorgeous building. 

Now that I’m back home, Tessa and Claudine, the two sisters in my novel in progress, are clamoring for my attention.  I’m still working at getting them to form a bond.  There are times when I think it’s simply not going to happen.  I start a new writer’s workshop on June 7.  I’m taking along chapters of Tessa and Claudine.I will let you know how the critiques go.  In the meantime, I wish you would let me know when you stop by.  I keep telling Tessa and Claudine I have blog fans, but they don’t believe me.  Sometimes my characters are a pain in the butt.

Lisbeth

          I love March Madness.  Here we are almost to the end of the NCAA tourney.   I’m still revising TESSA AND CLAUDINE and my main character, Tessa, has become a big basketball fan now that she’s moved to Indianapolis, a big basketball state.  In fact in a recent chapter she attended a high school tournament at the Butler fieldhouse, so in light of that I’m rooting for the Butler Bulldogs.  I know it’s a long shot, but Tessa wants me on their side.

          The fun part about writing fiction is that the characters slowly come to life as the story progresses.  At first, they are like paper dolls.  I can get them to do what I want.  But, not for long.  The characters soon start driving the story forward on their own.  I remember the time, when I was writing my first book, ROW AWAY FROM THE ROCKS, and my husband invited me out to dinner.  (I think it was because he came home from golf at dinner time and I was still working on the computer).  

          At dinner, he said, “So how’s your book coming along?”

          “Okay, I guess,” I said, “but I’m so angry at Carrie, my main character.  She always has to have everything her way.   I’m getting sick of her attitude.”  

          My husband rolled his eyes and looked at me like, oh man, she’s really gone over the edge.   As for me, I got excited because at that moment I realized that my character had become real.  

           And now my characters in TESSA AND CLAUDINE hve reached this stage.   Each time I sit down to redo a chapter, I reread the chapter before making changes and wonder just where some of the scenes came from.   I suppose I have my characters to thank for some of the fun surprises.

           Well here’s hoping we have some plenty of surprises in the tournament next weekend.  Obviously, we have four dynamite teams– Duke, Michigan State, West Virginia, and Butler – vying for that top spot.