The Write Spot Blog by Marlene Cullen

Author: mcullen

  • How to write fiction based on fact. Prompt #41

    Part Two of how to write fiction based on fact.  Part One is Prompt #40.

    Alla Crone-Hayden began one of her first historical novels with this opening line:

     On the cold Sunday of January 9, 1905, the pallid sun hung over the rooftops of St. Petersburg trying to burn its way through a thin layer of clouds.

     The weather matches the mood of character, of story.  Perhaps draws you in.  Maybe you want to know more   .  .  .  does the sun succeed in burning through?

     Second sentence:

     By two o’clock in the afternoon the dull light had done little to warm the thousands of people milling in the streets.

    The second sentence answers the unasked question about the sun. Notice the word choices:  cold, pallid sun, thin, dull light . . . words match the mood or tone of the day/event.

    Alla used weather to match the narrator’s mood. The weather matches the tone of the story. It’s probably not going to be a pretty story. It’s probably going to be gritty.

    Writing Prompt:  Take a pivotal event from your life and write it as fiction.  Suggestions:

    Use weather to mirror your narrator’s emotions.

    Add any details you want. . . whether they really happened or not. Remember, you are writing fiction based on a true event.

    Here are some lines you can start with:

    In the early morning light, while still calm and quiet. . .

    The sun played peek-a-boo . . .

    Just as day was fading into night . . .

    I could feel the storm gathering . . .

    The sky opened and rain bellowed down . . .

    Sunset, that quiet time of day, good for reflection . . .

    Mid-afternoon, hot sun beating down . . .

    Mint julep time, or as Granny/Grandpa used to say . . .

    You get the idea. . . use weather or time of day to match the mood of your story.

    For brilliant fiction based on fact, check out Alla Crone, author of Captive of Silence, Winds Over Manchuria, and more.

  • Writing is like being a salesperson . .

    Elizabeth Berg, Escaping Into The Open, The Art of Writing True on Persuasiveness, page 32. Excerpt:

    In some ways, writing is like being a salesperson. you are in the business of convincing someone to buy something, as in, believe something. Try to develop your skills of persuasion so that your villain, say, is really felt as a villain. In doing that, think about the small things—everything really is in the details. For example, it’s not so much the description of the murderer killing someone that demonstrates his evil nature, it’s the flatness in his eyes as he does it; it’s the way he goes and gets an ice cream immediately afterward. Similarly, a man offering a diamond bracelet to a woman shows love; but that same person smiling tenderly when he wipes the smear of catsup off her face shows more.

     Your turn. Write a scene showing the bad guy as a villain. Really. . . show how he or she has no remorse. Show the evil. OR, write a scene showing the love felt between two people. Just write.

  • Make a list of pivotal events. . . Prompt #40

    Today’s Prompt is Part 1 of 2.  Part 2 is “How to Write Fact Based on Fiction,” Prompt #41.

    Part 1

    Make a list of pivotal events in your life. Those times when, at night, you were not the same person you were in the morning.  By day’s end, you were a different person.  Just write a list.

    When you are finished writing the list:  take something from your list and write the details . . . as you remember them.  You can be as detailed, or as general as you want to be.

    Write about an event that altered your life:  all the gritty details. . . be as honest and as genuine as you can. Bleed onto the page.

    Part 2 will be the next prompt post.

  • Your Life. . . in 100 words

    Reader’s Digest 100 words contest. In 100 words or fewer, tell a true story about yourself. One grand-prize winner will receive $5,000 and have his or her story published in our June issue. One runner-up winner will receive $500, and six finalists will receive $100 each.

    Entries must be received by March 14, 2014

    Good Luck!

  • Guest Blogger Maria Victoria: My novels are not for free.

    Guest Blogger Maria Victoria: My novels are not for free.

    Give away your stories for free, suggests the book marketing “expert.”

    He insists that if I follow his advice, readers will immediately download my novels on their reading tablets and once they read my work, they will be so enamored with my pen that they will buy everything else I publish from here on out.  His logic reminds me a little of the slogan for Lay’s Potato Chips, “you can’t eat just one.”

    The problem is that I’m not a potato chip. And if I don’t eat now (even a bag of Lay’s) how will I survive to write more novels? Moreover, this guy forgets that I’m paying for his advice and if I give my work away, how am I going to pay him? Of course I understand the marketing strategy of “giving a taste,” like when we get a slice of watermelon at the market. And that is precisely why I write my blog “for free.” Readers can browse through the novels I publish on Amazon – if the reader likes my work they can buy it; otherwise they can keep searching for titles more to their liking. But giving away the whole watermelon?

    There is another reason, perhaps much deeper, which compels me to charge for my work. I am of the opinion that people do not appreciate what they get for free. This is something I learned from my father. When I was young, one of my responsibilities was to help him every Saturday in his clinic. That was the day his assistant rested. My father was an obstetrician in the city of Veracruz, Mexico. With great sacrifice, he had bought a house,which he divided into two, reserving one side for his private clinic. Among the many lessons learned from him, was how to collect fees with humility and respect. He charged the same fee, whether the patient was rich or poor. However, when the situation was appropriate, he would ask for “whatever you can pay, señora.” Even the poorest patient paid “something” – eggs, mangos, chico zapotes, or homemade plum pie, his favorite. Sometimes his patients asked for credit and he always said yes, accepting their “word of honor” as sufficient guarantee for the debt. If any of those women didn’t pay, I wouldn’t know, because he never mentioned it. What happened inside his office never left his office; the sanctity of professional privilege being another of his great teachings. My father’s philosophy was simple: people come here for help, not handouts or charity; even the poorest will pay “something.”

    Last week I went with my grandson to a bookstore in the beautiful little town of Poulsbo. There we were, admiring books for children, when the young man at the cash register casually remarked to a customer, ” I just found out that in the Nordic countries (he did not say which) the government is giving away all the authors’ works that have been registered with their copyright agency.  Isn’t that wonderful?” Before the woman could comment, I had to intervene. “Excuse me, sir, but who is going to pay the authors?” The guy, very surprised, replied, “Well, that’s the only problem … I don’t know…”

    Because I am not only an author, but also a reader, I think it would be wonderful if suddenly our US Copyright Office released all titles to anyone wanting to read them. Access to literature, for rich and poor alike, is something I support wholeheartedly, which is why I love our libraries. The difference with libraries, however, is that they do, ultimately, pay authors for their work; a very small royalty indeed, but at least “something.”
    Perhaps the real reason I am not willing to give my work away is because I seek readers like you. I want readers who appreciate culture and art and are willing to pay for that painting, that song, or that book before buying a hamburger; readers who are very aware that when they buy one of my novels, they are not buying just anything, but a piece of my soul.

    The truth is that although our capitalist system does not promote art as a need for society, artists will continue to pursue their true calling. They will continue to paint their canvases, make their music and write their poems, and will also continue to have a second job to survive. My only hope is that my colleagues stand firm and demand, like I do, to be paid “something” at least, out of respect.

    Selling online does not allow me to decipher if the situation warrants that I accept “whatever you can pay, señores (and señoras).” But let it be known that in exchange for my novels I accept mangoes and chico zapotes. And that my favorite pie is lemon.

    From Veracruz, Mexico, Maria de Lourdes Victoria is an award-winning author whose work has been published internationally in English and Spanish. Her first novel, Los Hijos Del Mar (Children of the Sea), was the finalist for the Mariposa Award (Best First Novel in Spanish) at the 2006 International Latino Book Awards in Washington, D.C. Her second novel, Más allá de la Justicia (Beyond Justice) took third place in Barcelona, Spain, at the prestigious Premio Planeta de Novela book awards (2010), as well as honorary mention as the Best Novel in Spanish and Best Popular Novel at the New York Latino Book Awards (2012). Maria’s short stories have appeared in prominent literary and legal journals and her books for children have received numerous awards. She resides in Seattle and Petaluma and is currently working on her third novel, Los Hijos de las Nubes (Children of the Clouds). Her website is www.mariadelourdesvictoria.com

  • When you look for things in life like . . .

    “The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you. ” — Neil deGrasse Tyson.

     Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.
     

  • A strong feeling . . . Prompt #39

    Today’s writing prompt:  Write about a strong feeling or attachment you had when you were young.

  • Take a risk and go long.

    In the January 2014 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine, Elizabeth Sims writes about “Miscalculations and Missteps.”  One is, “take a risk and go long.”

    “The value of a relatively long description is that it draws your readers deeper into the scene. The worry is that you’ll bore them. But if you do a good job you’ll engross them. Really getting into a description is one of the most fun things you can do as an author. Here’s the trick: Get going on a description with the attitude of discovering, not informing. In this zone, you’re not writing to tell readers stuff you already know—rather, you are writing to discover and experience the scene right alongside them.”

    Sims continues with “Go below the surface.”

    “A gateway to describing a person, place or thing in depth is to assign mood or emotion to him/her/it.  . . . The Bay Bridge was somber today, its gray girders melding with the fog.”

    Alla Crone expertly illustrates what Sims is talking about in her historical novel, Winds Over Manchuria.

    Here’s an excerpt from Alla’s book:

    “On the cold Sunday of January 9, 1905, the pallid sun hung over the rooftops of St. Petersburg trying to burn its way through a thin layer of clouds. By two o’clock in the afternoon the dull light had done little to warm the thousands of people milling the streets.”

    More about Alla Crone-Hayden and her book’s journey in Chris Smith‘s January 21 article in The Press Democrat.

    Your turn.  Make a list of inanimate objects, perhaps landmarks in your town. Write a few sentences, giving them moods and emotions.  Or, use weather to describe and mirror your characters’ emotions.  Write a scene and, as Sims says, “take a risk and go long.”

    Note:  Check back here for Sunday’s book review of Alla Crone’s riveting novel, Captive of Silence.

  • Play with anaphoras. Prompt #38

    Anaphora: Repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect. For example: Abraham Lincoln’s speech, “We cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground.” — Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

    When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous 1963 March on Washington speech, he repeated the phrase “I have a dream” at the beginning of his sentences.

    Prompt:  Using Lincoln’s speech or King’s speech as inspiration, incorporate anaphora in your next story, poem or essay.

    Repeat a statement or idea that drives home the core message of your narrative. — except from January 2014, The Writer magazine.

     

  • Every Day Fiction

    Every Day Fiction is a magazine that specializes in fine fiction in bite-sized doses. Every day, they publish a new short story that can be read during lunch hour, on transit, or over breakfast.

     Every Day Fiction is looking for very short (flash) fiction, of up to 1,000 words. “There’s no such thing as too short — if you can do the job in 50 words, have at it! — but our readers prefer pieces that tell or at least hint at a complete story.”