Rachel Hauck, Author at Learn How To Write A Novel

Rachel Hauck, Princess Ever After, royals, royalty

The Solution of Tension

We’ve also been watching the TV show Nashville on iTunes. It’s a night time soap opera set around country music.

Hubby and I make a game of “calling it.” What’s going to go wrong, when and how.

It’s almost NOT fun to watch TV shows where you know, just know, someone is going to do something stupid to mess up a budding romance or promising job.

Husband hates it. He doesn’t want to watch people be so stupid.

I get why the TV show writers do this… to drag the viewers along. To create a “Oh no, what’s going to happen?” curiosity.

In television, the writing goes from episode to episode and the writing is “episodic.”

Meaning from week to week, the tension and threads change to fit that show while carrying story threads forward.

For example, twenty years after they first toured together, country great Rayna James and Luke Wheeler get together. They’ve been married to other people and have children.

When The Backstory IS The Story

Sometimes writing a story takes a left turn.

The normal structure just doesn’t seem to work.

You can’t seem to get any life when writing scenes in the present day.

But every time you reference the past or the backstory, wow, things happen. The story pops. You’re excited about writing.

Sometimes a story’s backstory is so large it really IS the story.

This is different than backstory drifts where the author wanders off the main stage and “reminisces” of some past event with prose.

I’m talking about when the set up of the story, the life of the characters before the story opens is so large and complicated the present day story, the on stage scenes, really exist to highlight the backstory.

At this point, your book is about fixing and healing the past and bring the characters to a new place in life.

Most of the time, backstory sprinkles a story with motivation, helps expose the wound and lie and fear.

But it’s minor.

The problem on the stage, the present day story, is what drives the scenes.

And So She Climbed A Rock

Here at MBT we talk about the protagonist’s happiest and saddest moments.

These to elements are used to shape the deeper layers of emotion between the characters. Expressly the hero and the heroine.

Often use of symbolism or metaphor can deepen the emotional layer of sharing a raw, tender moment between the stars of your story.

But wow, it’s really easy to miss these moments. To kind of skip over them and wrap it all up in prose summation.

Okay, what do I mean?

Let’s create a scenario.

Your hero is wealthy, grew up in a good family. His whole life he had nice things, a nice car, great vacations. He’s a star athlete and student.

Your heroine grew up poor, without, never had anything nice. The old beater car she purchased for $200 had to be pushed all over town by her friends because the starter didn’t work right. She never went anywhere for vacation but a night at the country fair. She’s pretty, a good student but never ever did anything out of the ordinary.

What’s The Advantage of A Writers Retreat

I’m in sunny yet sometimes rainy Destin, Florida at the 5th annual Deep Thinkers Retreat.

Seventeen writers (all women at this event) gathered to learn the craft of writing a novel.

There’s laughter, fun, frustration, confused looks, pondering, break throughs and friendships being forged.

A writers retreat like Story Crafters and Deep Thinkers is the pressure cooker of learning craft.

You can’t escape. It’s all around you!

Everyone is talking, breathing, sleeping STORY!

So how do you know if a writers retreat is right for you?

It is a commitment of time and money.

Are you really ready to invest in your writing journey at the retreat level?

Maybe you’re asking what’s the difference between a retreat and a conference.

How To Manage Manuscript Feedback

Well, it’s contest time and with that, unpublished writers often get some sort of feedback.

Feedback we want. But often it’s harder to digest than we think.

So, what are you to do with input from readers, judges or critique partners?

Digest it.

Consider it.

Pray over it.

Reread it.

Chew up the meat and spit out the bones.

Not all feedback is good. You have to know that, right?

But how many of you immediately dismiss the good things said and focus on the negative things?

Yeah, I see those hands waving in cyberspace.