FOR WRITERS, Guest Bloggers•
on February 26th, 2009•
This week, the authors of the My Book Therapy Blog Tour have stopped by to introduce their new book and their thoughts on the writing life. Rachel Hauck offers some great tips for getting serious about writing.
A therapist thought: Writing in the midst of a busy life.
By Rachel Hauck
Early on in my writing life, I had to give up the notion that writing time would come easy, be ideal and full of inspiration.
When I signed my first book contract, I was working full time for a software company as a department manager. I’d recently become a worship leader at my church, adding that to my job as youth pastor’s wife. My husband and I also gathered with other area pastors to start a weekly multi-church prayer meeting and I’d become the Vice President of a national writers organization and was coordinating our second annual conference.
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FOR WRITERS, Guest Bloggers•
on February 25th, 2009•
If you haven’t noticed yet, there has been a growth spurt in the young adult Christian fiction arena. Today, YA author Sarah Anne Sumpolec, stops by via the My Book Therapy Blog Tour to tell us why she loves writing in this genre.
Why I Love to Write YA
by Sarah Anne Sumpolec
My first book idea grew out of my work with our church’s youth group. I tried going to Women’s Bible Studies and do all the grown up things, but I always felt called to care for the youth. So writing for them simply became a natural extension of what I already loved to do.
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Devotions•
on February 25th, 2009•
Before I began my fifth grade year, my parents made the decision to take me out of the New York public school system. Fourth grade had not been a very good year for me, so I think my parents thought I needed a change. The change proved to be one of the highlights of my childhood … four years at Catholic school. To this day, while I’m a Protestant, Catholicism still fascinates me. I can still remember the Wednesday of each school year when the priest would stick his thumb in a bowl of ashes and make a cross on everyone’s head. At that time, I didn’t quite get the reasoning behind the smudge on my forehead.
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FOR WRITERS, Guest Bloggers•
on February 24th, 2009•
Today, Susan May Warren stops by via the My Book Therapy Blog Tour to answer the question, “Do you feel if a person is a Christian that he or she should only write in a Christian Genre?”
NO, I do NOT think that Christians should only write in the CBA. I think there are many Christians out there following God’s leading, writing for ABA – case in point, John Grisham. I think the key is to do what God wants you to do. Some stories are meant for CBA. Some are meant for ABA. I think also, you need to decide what you are comfortable with in the industry…ie, I leaned toward CBA because those were the stories I was burdened to write, but also, I didn’t want the ABA asking me to put into my books anything I found objectionable. I look at singer Chris Daughtry, who is so clearly a Christian, and yet, he’s playing for a primarily secular audience. And Rascal Flatts, a country band who clearly love Jesus. Or even Deborah Macomber, who is a successful CBA romance novelist who is a professed Christian. I think the key is to keep writing for your audience of ONE, and let God determine where and what He wants you to write.
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Bible Study•
on February 23rd, 2009•
For the past few months, I’ve been revisiting older devotions and bible studies I wrote years ago. I also have notes I have collected over the years. Since we are approaching the Season of Lent, I decided to post these notes. — Ty
The Season of Lent
Lent is the season of the church year in which Christians celebrate Jesus’ life, death and resurrection during a forty day period. The forty day period is based on the 40 days and 40 night, Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting after his baptism(Matthew 4:2). Satan knew Jesus was hungry and exhausted and proceeded to tempt Jesus to sin on three occasions, but of course, Satan did not succeed.
During this season, the color purple is used to symbolize repentance, humility and suffering. read more
FOR WRITERS, Guest Bloggers•
on February 23rd, 2009•
I usually don’t post many blog tours on my personal blog unless it’s a tour I coordinated or a book I really think is worthwhile for writers. This week, I’m participating in the My Book Therapy Blog Tour. I joined Susan May Warren’s Ning group sometime last year. I’ve enjoyed getting to know other writers in this almost 300 member online group. Susan along with Rachel Hauck and Sarah Anne Sumpolec are offering their services as book therapists. Read a description of the book below and stay tuned for guest blog posts each day from these three authors.
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Story Structure: Pressing Through the Middle
by Tyora Moody
Originally written for Urban Christian Fiction Today
If you are reading this article, you may have written the first chapters of your book and like many writers, you’ve reached an invisible wall. You’ve been wondering how you can stretch your story idea to 85,000 words? When you think about it, there’s a bit of pressure to keep a reader’s attention from beginning to end.
For my first manuscript, When Rain Falls, it took me months to get past Chapter 10. I kept revisiting the previous scenes and trying to figure out where to take the story next. I eventually pressed my way through to the end. I will share a few techniques that helped me keep the story flowing.
1. Adding Conflict
Life is messy. You really can’t avoid conflict. I recently re-read the Book of Job. If you are familiar with this Old Testament story, you will recall life was all good in the neighborhood for Job. He was wealthy, blessed with ten children, well-respected among his colleagues and he loved God. The antagonist (or villain) stepped forward to spice the story up. With permission from God, the greatest adversary of all time, the devil, brought one catastrophe after another on poor Job. The chain of events happened with such swiftness, Job barely had time to catch his breath. There are many biblical lessons from this story, but the one a writer can take away is the art of making life difficult for your protagonist (main character).
For a mystery or a suspense thriller, the villain, may appear periodically, sharing their diabolical plot. The reader can see what the killer is plotting, having knowledge that the protagonist doesn’t have. In a suspense book I read recently, the author took the time to introduce a character in the first few chapters. To my horror, in the middle of the book, this really likable character was killed. The plot twist upset me, but it also motivated me to really want to find out who was the villain.
Now, it’s not necessary to have a bad guy or villain to bring in conflict. If you write romance, you know even with love at first sight, a man and a woman are going to bump heads at some point. Maybe the man mislead the woman by not revealing the whole truth about his past. What if the woman’s ex-boyfriend returns town? There are variety of ways to keep this couple apart, even though they are clearly attracted to each other. Just be creative and think of new ways to write the storyline with a twist.
2. Add Subplots
Subplots help strengthen the main plot as well as lengthen the word count. By the time I started the second draft of When Rain Falls, I realized that I could work in more scenes with my protagonist, Candace, and her two children. She is widow who has become attracted to the male protagonist in the story. The problem. Her teenagers are old enough to remember their dad very well. Accepting another man in their mom’s life would not be easy, especially since the tragedy was still in the not too distant past. Adding this subplot, allowed me to deepen the character development as well.
One thing about subplots, you don’t want to get to far off course from the main plot. I ran into that trouble and needed to remove scenes so I still kept the “who-dunnit” part of the story in focus.
Just remember your characters have families, friends, jobs, co-workers, etc. Use current events like the economy or global warming to add depth to the storyline and make it relatable.
3. Add Supporting Characters
You can probably think of a movie where the supporting character almost stole (or did steal) the scene from the main character. You don’t want that to happen, but don’t forget you can use supporting characters to strengthen the story. I mentioned adding more scenes with my protagonist’ children above. I also included two older women in the protagonist’ life, with woman bringing comic relief and the other one sharing wisdom. Each woman had their role in Candace’s life during certain pivotal moments of the story.
Now you have to be careful not to build a cast of characters until you acquire enough skills to not confuse yourself and the reader. Not many authors can write multiple points of view without at some point confusing the reader. There are some books I’ve read where I have had to flip to previous chapters to figure out where did this character come from and what was his/her purpose in the scene.
Keep in mind that word, “purpose.” Don’t add characters just to lengthen the story. Be sure all scenes relate back to the main plot.
4. Take a break.
Okay, so this suggestion isn’t very literary. Sometimes you have to put the story down. Maybe you need to revise your outline. You might need to cut a character. Get a notebook and brainstorm scenarios. Read books and study how particular authors keep the momentum going in the middle.
One of my favorite references for structuring a novel is Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. He provides way more tips for beefing up the middle than I do in this article.
A lot of writers mention they already know the ending of the novels. It’s just getting there is hard. Next month, I will talk about endings. Even if it is a rough draft, it’s always exhilarating to be able to type “The End.”
A therapist thought: Writing in the midst of a busy life. 
