She barely had a foot out . . .Monday's Writing Prompt

Monday's writing prompt should be a swift kick to get your writing started.

Writing prompt: She barely had a foot out . . .

Remember, have fun and grab that reader's attention.

I'll put out out a response post to last Friday's prompt later today.

Writing Prompt Wednesday

Today's writing prompt is going to be about emotion, movement and what our heroine sees. Let's see what you come up with.

Prompt: The longer she waited. . .

Looking foward to reading waht you share. Good luck and have fun.

Write your way to Monday morning motivation

Good morning!

Well, it would be good if we had a little motivation, right? This creative writing prompt should give you a boost to your Monday writing.

Promtpt: In a tattoo parlor. . .

Cannot wait to see what everyone comes up with. Don't forget to keep the reader hooked with whatever you write.

Risky Writing Prompt for Tuesday

Tuesday's writing prompt deals with risk.

Here is the prompt: At the time, it didn't seem risky. . .


Write a sentence or a paragraph, or as much as you like and share with us.

Remember to hook your reader when you finish that prompt sentence and keep their attention from then on.

Have fun!!

Book Hooks Day 4

How else to create a hook for your book?

Start with action. "Action" does not necessarily mean a gunfight, a fistfight, or an explosion. Action means starting your book or story at a compelling place, in a scene, with something at stake for your characters.

Look closely and you may find that you have pages of material that should not be in the beginning. They fill in some important blanks for readers, but that backstory can safely be moved to somewhere after your opening.

“Uh – hem.” Yup, that was me. The first time I took my pages to a NHRWA critique session, I found out that the action of my story actually started on page four, so I moved it up to page one.


The key is to start your story with a riveting moment that grabs the reader by the shirtfront and does not let him or her turn away.


Example: “Twelve hundred pounds of charging horseflesh hit the wooden railings chest high and somersaulted into the north stands. Faces frozen with horror moved in desperate slow motion to get out of the path of the crazed beast.”

The first lines of Cut Throat by Lyndon Stacey a horse has crashed through the gate protecting the crowd and someone is going to get hurt.


Now that's some action!


A general rule is to never put dialogue or straight description in your opening lines. Dialogue is fine in the first scene. Many experts agree that first scenes without dialogue do not achieve their potential.

"Why is that?"

The most compelling reading material involves tension between people, and people usually talk to each other. However, if your very first lines are dialogue, it is impossible for the reader to understand who is speaking right off the bat. It would be like walking in on the middle of a conversation between two people at a party and trying to decipher what they are discussing.

“I think she is a very attractive girl.” “Yes, but can she sing.” You do not have a clue about who they are or who they are talking about.

Similarly, the use of description right up front will not pull your reader into the story. Not because it confuses or disorients the reader like dialogue, but because description can be dull and it does not tell the reader anything about the story itself.

If (and this is a big IF) the setting is somehow crucial to your first scene and you feel you must start there, limit it to one or two sentences and then get right into the meat of the scene. There will be time for description later.


Example: Death was not taking a holiday. New york may have been decked out in its glitter and glamour, madly festooned in December of 2059, but Santa Claus was dead. And a couple of his elves weren’t looking so good. ~from "Creation in Death" by JD Robb

Your homework, should you choose to accept it is. . .

Exercise: Write two different opening hooks. They can be just a paragraph or a page. But remember, you are to hook that reader and make them want more.

At least one of the opening hooks has to have action in the opening paragraph.

Have fun!

Book Hooks Day 3

A hook is a concise, one-sentence tagline for your book. It’s meant to hook your reader’s interest, and wind them in. The best way to understand how to write a hook is to read the loglines of books.

A logline is usually a sentence you see in big print on the back of a book or the one sentence you hear at the beginning of a movie trailer.

Example: On the back of my book, It Happens in Threes, you see the sentence, "Once burned, twice learned, did she dare trust again?" That is a logline. It makes you wonder how was she burned, and who or what was she afraid of trusting.

Example: On the back of "Identity: Unknown" by Suzanne Brockmann, the logline is

"What he remembered
His clothing size

What he didn't remember
Everything else"

So your first question is why didn't he remember anything beyond his clothes size.

These are both hooks that as a reader you see first and foremost and go, "Hm. That sounds interesting." Now you want to know more.

Now that we know this, let's talk about how to actually write this.

A typical and effective way to create a hook is to use the "When" formula. Stop waving your hands in the air and I'll tell you, oops! show you what the "When" formula is.

"Bridges of Madison County": When Robert Kincaid drives through the heat and dust of an Iowa summer and turns into Francesca Johnson's farm lane looking for directions, the world-class photographer and the Iowa farm wife are joined in an experience that will haunt them forever.

"The Corrections": When family patriarch, Alfred Lambert, enters his final decline, his wife and three adult children must face the failures, secrets, and long-buried hurts that haunt them as a family if they are to make the corrections that each desperately needs.

The "When" formula is “When such and such event happens, your main character—a descriptive adjective, age (maybe), professional occupation—must confront further conflict and triumph in his or her own way.

I don't recommend this for every hook, but it is a good starting point to get the basic high points written down in one concise sentence. From there, you can modify it and make it even stronger and stand out more. Remember, you're trying to take a 350 page book and tell a reader, agent, or editor what happens in 1 sentence.

Your assignment: Write two hook sentences that use the "When" formula. Tomorrow, we'll talk about other ways to write the hook.

1.

2.

Good luck!

Response to Tuesday's Creative Writing Response

The prompt was: Her phone rang. . .

My short free write:

Her phone rang and Jane's heart stopped. It rang again and her heart jumped into action, her palms sweating. When the cell phone played the death march a third time, she swallowed the knot of fear that threatened to choke her, and pressed the talk button.

Tuesday's Creative Writing Prompt

This should be an interesting one.

Prompt: Her cell phone rang. . .

Feel free to share whatever you come up with, whether a single sentence or a paragraph, or more. But treat it like all the others we've done. Be sure to grab your readers attention in that first sentence.

Have fun!

Book Hooks Day 2

What is a hook?

It is not the thing dangling at the end of a fishing line, but pretty darn close. A hook is a concise, tagline for your book. It hooks your reader’s interest, and reels them in.

It refers to the first line, paragraph, or page of a story, or sometimes all three. It is the first impression a reader has of the story and the first impression an editor or agent has of a submission. For both, it may mean the difference between buying this story and buying something else.

Why do you need them?

The hook is the part of the story that draws the reader in. It says, "This is the one you want to read." Since the first person to read your completed story will be an editor or agent who has millions of books, proposals, and contracts to read, if he/she doesn’t like the very beginning they will not be reading any further. Neither would any other reader who has a few minutes to grab a book and go.

Where can you see a hook?

The best way to understand how to write a hook is to read a few examples.


Your exercise, should you choose to accept it, is to post 5 examples of hooks from books that you have READ, not written. Why am I suggesting that? Because. . . what made you buy the book? Show us what made you buy 5 books. It can be the first sentence, the first paragraph, or the beginning of the jacket blurb. You choose.

EXERCISE:

1. Roger Seagraves walked out of the U.S. Capitol after an interesting meeting that, surprisingly, had had little to do with politics. That evening he sat alone in the living room of his modest suburban home after arriving at an important decision. He had to kill someone, and that someone was a very significant target. Instead of a daunting proposition, Seagraves saw it as a worthy challenge. ~first paragraph from The Collectors by David Baldacci

2. She was dead the minute she answered the ’link. ~ first sentence from Promises in Death by JD Robb

3. When Lizzie Rush uncovers evidence that thrill-seeking billionaire Norman Estabrook may be at the center of an international criminal network, she finds herself playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse. ~first sentence of jacket blurb from The Mist by Carla Neggers

4. Ellen Gleeson was unlocking her front door when something in the mail caught her attention. It was a white card with photos of missing children, and one of the little boys looked oddly like her son. ~first two sentences from Look Again by Lisa Scottoline

5. THERE ARE SOME men who enter a woman’s life and screwit up forever. ~first sentence from One for the Money by Janet Evanovich


Don't forget to share your examples! See you tomorrow.

Pets and story ideas

I know - great title for a blog, right?

I have these two cats (pictures are on the left) and they just love to play. This morning when I was making the bed, one of them decided to attack me toes from underneath the bed skirt. Talk about a heart attack!

Of course, after the initial shock, I teased the little guy until he got tired. :-)

Then I started thinking, as I often do. Wouldn't someone (not a cat) under the bed waiting to do evil be a great part of a story? But then I thought, yes, a cat would be cool because you could use that as the prelude to a person being under the bed.

First event a woman comes home at the end of a day, exhausted, she kicks her shoes off, and gets undressed standing next to the bed and the cat attacks her foot. Yes, the woman jumps, but then laughs, and plays with the cat.

The next time though, she thinks it's the Fluffy the cat and thinks it's funny until the person under the bed grabs her ankle and pulls. . . Where it goes from there is up to you. Have fun!!

Have you ever noticed...?

Have you ever noticed that the busier you are the more creative you are?


On Sunday when I planned to sit with the football games on television and do nothing but write and eat homemade soup I couldn't write more than two sentences.


Yesterday, in between phone interviews, making homemade soups, and getting ready for my Saturday Holiday Open House (kicking off the shopping season with chocolate and friends), I managed to write over 2000 words (not a lot, but decent). Plus, I revised the last chapter I had written and even if I do say so myself, it is way better. Much more tension andit jumps off the page.

SO why did this happen? I have no clue, do you?

Anyway, it's after 5:30 AM my time and I have to get up and get ready for what I hope will be another productive day of writing and other. Gotta see if I can get my hero's chapter to jump off the page. Wish me luck.

Writing Prompt Response

Sorry it took so long. Sometimes life just bites, and recently I've been bitten. Unfortunately, it wasn't a love bite. :-)

Not to worry... I'm back on track. Here's my writing prompt response.

She never expected to find. . .

She never expected to find an envelope of diamonds and a 9MM when she pulled up the floor board.

Writing Prompt

Time to put on the creative thinking cap. Here's your latest writing prompt.

She never expected to find. . .

Last Week's Writing Prompt Response

Sorry for the delay in sending an idea. Hopefully you all came up with something exciting. Here's my off the cuff shot.

Prompt:

When she entered the motel room...

My sentence:

When she entered the motel room, Angel stopped short, covered her mouth and nose with her free hand and attempted to keep the contents of her stomach down as the stench that washed out of the room assailed her.

Writing Prompt

Time for another boost of creativity. Here's this week's writing prompt.

When she entered the motel room. . .

Show vs.Tell

I'm sure some of you writers attend writing critique groups, or maybe you belong to an online critique group, perhaps some of you have sent work to an editor. At some point on your path to becoming a published author you've probably had someone use the phrase "show, don't tell".

Do you really know what that means?

The best way to explain this is to show you. :-)

Tell:
Carol was walking on the beach near the ocean.

Show:
Sandals hooked to a finger, Carol inhaled the salty air. She strolled, the warm crystalline sand sinking beneath her feet, and scrunching between her toes. When she turned in the direction of a seagull's squawk, water-laden air wafted against her face, and lifted her hair from the back of her neck.

See the difference? The "telling" was flat without emotion. In the showing I never told you Carol was walking on the beach, but instead I drew you a picture with the words and from them you could gather she walked on the beach near the ocean.

Showing pulls your reader into the story, let's them see, feel, experience what your characters are going through.

Why don't you try this? Use the same example or show me. . .Cold, Anger, Scared

Weekend Writing Prompt Response

You've had the weekend to come up with something. Anything grab your attention? Were you able to hook your reader?



Remember, the prompt was:


As she applied pressure to the brakes. . .

My hook:

As she applied pressure to the brakes, the airplane pulled to the right, and another explosion ripped the air.



Hm. Does it leave you in suspense? Make you ask questions? Make you wanna read more? Who applied brakes? ANOTHER explosion? Did the plane stop? Did it explode into pieces? Did the person applying the brakes survive? Was the person flying the plane the pilot?