Category Archives: Plotting

Links of the week #28

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Hello and happy Saturday. I gave the hubs the week off, because I wanted to share a routine from SYTYCD! :D

Before we dig in, I wanted to congratulate Bonni Sansom on her latest release, The Bank Job, out today! She was a guest this week and her giveaway ends tonight. Please stop by the post, check out her latest offering, and leave some comment love.

MUST READ

Roni Loren: Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog – My Story <–the viral must read post

Grammar

David N. Walker : Dangling Participles

Queries

Lynette Labelle : Why Agents Reject Query Letters Part 2

Synopsis

Casey Herringshaw at The Writers Alley : Five Tips to Make Your Synopsis Stronger

Prose

Jodie Renner at The Other Side of the Story : Guest Author Jodie Renner: Appeal to the Senses—and Emotions

Act I / Chapter 1

Margo Berendsen : Hook with humor and 6 other first chapter hooks

Flashbacks

Tim Kane at San Diego Professional Writer’s Group : How To Write Killer Flashbacks in 3 Steps

Scenes / Plotting / Pacing

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story : When Less is More: Taking Away Elements to Fix a Problem Scene

Roni Loren : Figuring Out Where Your Pacing Went Wrong

Writer’s Life

Rachelle Gardner : Interval Training for Writers and Professionals

SYTYCD

Season 9 continues to be a winner. The show was knocked down to one show a week this season and the format changes really work for me, I’m quite pleased.

If you are only going to watch one performance from this week, this is the one. Sonya Tayeh’s choreography is somehow getting even better. Audrey and Matthew give a spectacular performance with countless moments of awesome. Enjoy.

What you might have missed here:

Flash Fiction #16

Links of the week #27

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Thanks for another fabulous week bloggers. I keep learning from you each week and I appreciate all that you do. Hubs is back this week with his second pick (see his 1st pick in last weeks post) in his snazzy theme: Really great drummers who are also really great singer/songwriter/guitarists.

Mashups

You all know Roni’s and Gene’s weekly mashup, right? Agreed, they rock. Well thanks to Jenny Hansen’s A Plethora of Amazing Links That Rocked My World I found a new mashup to love by Reetta Raitanen : Link Feast For Writers , vol. 15

Plot & Story

Dr. John Yeoman was at The Write Practice : The Secret to Writing Powerful Stories

Angie Dicken at The Writers Alley : The Swell To A Black Moment

Lisa Cron was at The Sharp Angle : How to Grab the Reader’s Brain: The Facts of Fiction <–fabulous

Jami Gold : Blogiversary Winners & a Gift for All <–with a must see downloadable spreadsheet!

Write Fresh

Marcy Kennedy : How to Use Sound to Make Your Novel Stand Out In A Sea of Noise <–includes links to posts on smell, taste, and touch

Backstory

Moody Writing : Give Characters Interesting Anecdotes

World Building – Setting

Cindy R. Wilson at The Writers Alley : Making Your Setting Come to Life

Pitches

Juliana Haygert at the NA Alley : On Pitches <–she filled the post with links & a craft book

From Reeta’s link above I found Elena Johnson : Query Letters <–a full list of posts for all the parts of the query & a free ebook titled From the Query to the Call

Editing

Lisa Hall-Wilson : 8 TIPS FOR SELF-EDITING

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story : You’ll Have to Go Through Me: Eliminating Filter Words

Writer Business

Toni Kelly over at Nights of Passion : Website Revamping <–1st in a series of posts :)

Molly Greene : Amazon Book Tags: What, Where, Why & How To Use Them

Music from Jeff

He’s back this week giving you insight on another drum he admires

“Her Song” by Brian Blade, from the album “Mama Rosa”.

You should also look for the song “After the Revival”  I couldn’t find a video link for that one, but it’s my favorite song on that record.

Brian Blade is one of my favorite drummers.  I first heard of him as a jazz player in the early 90’s.  I’ve seen him play jazz and was absolutely blown away.  He’s such a passionate player – paying tribute to the legacy of music while still having his own voice.  That’s VERY difficult to do in jazz music because the legacy is so rich.

BUT THEN, I heard him playing with Seal.  I didn’t know how versatile. Again, blown away.

AND THEN, I heard him on an Emmylou Harris (folk singer) album.

AND THEN, I heard him with Joni Mitchell.

WHAT?!

This guy can do anything and still sound like himself.  That is incredibly rare and very special when you come across it.

THEN, he decides to make an album as a singer/songwriter.  Of course, I immediately bought it and again, I am blown away. Great songs, great guitar playing, great singing (very cool sounding voice) and, of course, great drumming. I think Brian was blessed with severe talent and a wonderful soul. He is also a part of the Black Dub group I’ve sent previously. Enjoy.

What you might have missed here:

Flash Friday #15
Six Sunday #25

Links of the week #26

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Wow, did that week go fast or what. Hot and fast. The only way to recover from that kind of week: relax with a good book.  So, now that you know what I’m doing today, well, for as long as I can anyways :) below I have as many fabulous blogs as I was able to read this week. And Jeff is finally back this week. His music pick this week even has a follow-up pick for next week.

Act 1

The Writers Alley : Showing C.A.R.E. in Your First Chapter

Margo Berendsen : 17 tips for starting a story

Characters Development

Adrienne de Wolfe was at The Creative Penn : 20 Tips for Writing Lovable Romance Novel Heroes

Plot

At Joan Swan’s : Martina Boone: Using GMC to Add Romantic Tension

Kara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo was at Writers In The Storm blog! : Is Your Conflict Strong Enough?

The Other Side of the Story : Going Both Ways: Outlines for Plot, Pantser for Character

Prose

From @smoulderingsea #editortips on 7/3/12 : Using “S/he could tell that…” to interpret another character’s actions is a cheap way to avoid breaking POV.

Pitch

From @smoulderingsea #editortips on 7/2/12: Challenge yourself to write a query pitch/blurb in only 150 words. It’ll force you to cut out anything extraneous and focus.

Editing

Seeing Creative posted about her experience with SmartEdit!! :) : Edit Smartly

The Other Side of the Story : The Spit Shine: Things to Check Before You Submit

Music from Jeff

My hubs is a drummer, you knew that right? Okay, so his theme this week and next is…

Really great drummers who are also really great singer/songwriter/guitarists.

The first one is obvious:

“Rope” by Foo Fighters, from the album “Wasting Light”

After having seen them live together, we both know just HOW MUCH they rock.

What I really like about Dave Grohl’s approach is that he released the first album under the band name with no attention to himself.  He could have easily used his post Nirvana fame to push the project through, so to speak.  Instead, he decided to let the music do the talking.  I think that’s admirable, but I also think it was a smart move.  It gave people the chance to judge the music purely on…the music.  What a concept!  No preconceived notions or other celebrity crap – just music.

Over the years, the band has been extremely successful at taking Dave’s songs and making them their own.  I think this album is one of the best examples of this.  They all play their roles to a perfection and sound like a BAND.

That freakin’ rocked!

What you might have missed here:

Six Sentence Sunday #24

Flash Fiction #14

Links of the week #25

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Happy weekend folks!! Boom, bang look at all those cool links for writers. Jeff took another week off from picking out great music. Not to worry, SYTYCD had loads of fabulous performance I wanted to share this week, so which one was my favorite?

Mommy Ninja

K.B. Owen via Jenny Hansen’s More Cowbell : A Ninja Mom’s Guide to Limiting Computer Time <–must read for any parent

Pitch Contest

Brenda Drake: Entangle an editor with your pitch!

Dialogue

Lynnette Labelle : The Secrets Behind Buried Dialogue Part 2 take away tip: can can bury narration, but not dialogue…read the post and the tip will make sense :)

Descriptions

Stina Lindenblatt over at Seeing Creative provided a cool idea : All In The Details

Character Development

Kristen Lamb : Making Heroes Heroic–Why Flaws are Important

Prose

Joe Bunting over at The Write Practice : 5 Elements of Storytelling

Plot

Darcy Pattison over at Fiction Notes : End of Act I: 5 Functions Determine Plot

Editing

Tiffany Lawson Inman was at Writers In The Storm yesterday :D : Worse Than a Cliché

Writer Business

Rick Carufel at Angie’s Diary : Disappearing Reviews at Amazon?

Writer’s Life

Suzanne Rock, Romance on a Budget: Budget Creativity: Using Mini-Goals to Motivate

Michael J. Scott at Author Culture : How To Write More…and More Often

I’ve completely fallen for @smoulderingsea and his #editortips, if you miss the daily tweets you can still catch them on his blog. Here is my fav from yesterday: When editing down backstory and inner monologue, keep only what the reader needs–not what you needed to sort your story.

Dance to inspire

So many great performances this week as SYTYCD season 9 revealed their top 20. This performance was by far my fav, enjoy

What you might have missed here:
Six Sentence Sunday #23
Spotlight: The Wager (Touch of the Gods) by D. X. Luc
Flash Fiction #13

Links of the week #23

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Happy Saturday and thanks for stopping by today. I’ve got some of my favorite links of the week for you, but I’ve given the hubs the week of from his music picks. He’s been working hard all week so I guess that’s okay ;) Instead I’ve picked an audition from this years So You Think You Can Dance.

Love learning from folks who have been there and done that

Cassandra Carr : Thursday Thirteen 6/14/12- 13 things I’ve learned about writing

M J Wright gives 5 tips that have worked for him : Conquering that dreaded blank page

Prose

Roz Morris at Nail Your Novel : Repetition – a two-ended hammer

Ollin Morales was at The Bookshelf Muse : 5 Techniques for Adding Subtext to your Story

Social Media

Marcy Kennedy : The 9 Steps to Switching From WordPress.com to WordPress.org: Part 1

Query

Lisa Burstein : PRETTY AMY Original Query Letter AND Query Tips!

Plot & Character

Martina Boone at DIY MFA (great worksheets too) : Plot vs. Character: Leaving Room for Magic – Guest Post by Martina Boone

SYTYCD Season 9

Lots of memorable auditions this year. This one stands out because she’s a mommy who has not given up on her dream. Listen to her story, watch her beautiful moves, and stay till the end, because her daughter dances too.

What you might have missed here:

Six Sentence Sunday #21

Spotlight: Enchanted Spring by Josee Renard Excerpt & Giveaway

Spotlight: Never Say Just by Katie Harper ~ Q&A by the Rat Bastards

Flash Fiction #11

Links of the week #22

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Back to my regular patterns this week. I have writing links for you and a music pick from Jeff. The video is a funny clip from Fred Armisen’s show “Portlandia”

The coolest thing: Kristen Lamb you are awesome! She has created a place for writers to not be alone ;) you can chat with other writers in your genre and it’s a place to learn from WRITERS. Hurry, click away, come back to my list later I Bring You…A Gift–A New Era for the Digital Age Artist

Cassandra Carr : Thursday Thirteen 6/7/12- 13 cool phone apps for authors be sure to check the comments too

Aimee L. Salter at Seeking the Write Life : The Three Things You Need to Make Your Book GREAT

Roni Loren : How To Write Love Scenes That Don’t Suck – A Free Class!

Titles

M J Wright : Worldbuilding: top tips for tantalising titles

Show/Tell

Shannon Donnelly was at Writers In The Storm this week : When to TELL the Story

Motivation

Sharla Rae at Writers In the Storm : Does Your Story Lack A Heartbeat?

Scene Breaks & Transitions

Janice Hardy from The Other Side of the Story : Moving Forward: Writing Smooth Transitions

Plotting

This week via Stina Lindenblatt and her cool links Friday, I found Margo Berendsen : 21 ways to make your plot more compelling

Book Trailers

Lynnette Labelle : Do Book Trailers Sell Books?

Pitch/Query

Jami Gold had a fabulous post this week with a big collection of ideas: The Ultimate Guide to Pitch Writing

Social Media

Kristen Lamb : Can Facebook Hold Your Fan Page Hostage? Fallout from the IPO Debacle & How It Affects YOU

Music from Jeff

“Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood” by St. Vincent, from the album “Actor”

St. Vincent is actually Annie Clark.  I think she got her break playing with the Polyphonic Spree.  She’s a wonderful singer/songwriter/guitarist.

Her music is so interesting to me.  I can hear the influences, but the way in which she stirs them up and spits them out is very unique to her.  I think it starts with her guitar style and musical knowledge.  She’s not the average singer/songwriter nor is she the average guitarist.

I’ve heard that she writes the tunes on the guitar and then deconstructs them in the studio.  I really like that idea and the end result.  Sometimes it can be a little too out there for me but then, after a few listens, I’m back in again.  That’s the point, it seems – draw the listener in right away but also give us something to discover over time.  I think all truly great music does this.

I’ve also seen some clips of her playing her songs stripped down to just voice and acoustic guitar.  It’s clear that all the studio production is merely a means to create interesting layers to already great tunes.

Plus, she has Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley’s drummer) on drums.  Musically, you can’t go wrong with that guy in your band!

What you might have missed here:

Six Sentence Sunday #20

Spotlight: Sara’s Smile by Sandra Bunino ~ Q&A and Giveaway

Flash Fiction #10

Links of the week #21

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My list is  a little short this week, but the links are prime grade A stuff. I’m changing things up this week as well and giving my hubs a break. Please let me know what kind of inspiration the video at the bottom gives you.

There is a theme this week and it’s hitting home with me. How are you sitting in your writing life? Do you need to be reminded of a few of these things too?

Aimee L. Salter at Seeking the Write life: Don’t Compare and Don’t Compete

Jenny Hansen: The Worry of the Artist: Am I Good Enough?

Kristen Lamb: Learning to Drop the Donkey–Is Perfectionism Killing Your Career?

Charlotte Carter was at Writers In The Storm this week: Determination

Ruth Harris at Anne R. Allen’s blog: How Writers Can Learn to Cope: 6 No-Fail Strategies for Achieving Mental Toughness

I’m rounding it out with Jami Gold’s post Are You in This for the Long Haul?

Writer’s Life

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story: Leave Yourself Notes: Ways to be a More Productive Writer, Part 5

Editing

Lynnette Labelle provided a fab list:  The Editor’s Dozen: Common Mistakes Writers Make

Plotting/Pacing

Double link for Janice Hardy this week, is anyone surprised :)  The Joy of Discovery: Keeping Readers Hooked Through Story Revelations

Kara Lennox was back at Writers In The Storm this week Plot Fixer: Part 3 — A Lack of Goals

Story Telling through Movement

Jeff will be back next week with a new music pick. This week I wanted to celebrate the start of So You Think You Can Dance season 9.  It’s going to be another tremendous season, but I wanted to share one of my all time favorites from the show. Chelsie and Mark from season 4 performing NappyTabs “Bleeding Love,” this is their finale performance. Chelsie is now on Dancing with the Stars and Mark is the head dancer for Lady Gaga.

I love many things about dance, but the best part has got to be the story telling. The cross over link for me between my dancing and my writing is the story. NappyTab’s choreography here is superb, but it’s the way Chelsie and Mark feel the story through every cell in their body. The title is Bleeding Love and that’s exactly how I feel by the end.

I hope you enjoy their performance AND I hope it inspires you to write.

What you might have missed here:

Six Sentence Sunday #19

And a double pimp for Stacey Kennedy: Spotlight: Beg For It by Stacey Kennedy & Cover Reveal: Mystically Bound by Stacey Kennedy

Links of the week #20

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Happy Saturday! What? It’s Memorial weekend? OMG, what am I doing inside. I have weeding to do, plants to put in the garden, roses to train, books to read, a MS to edit…and more blogs to read :)  I have a pretty collection for you today and don’t forget to listen to Jeff’s music selection today. You won’t regret this listen, it’s powerful.

Writer Business

Suzanne Rock at Romance on a Budget shares a tip Do you have Business Cards?

Plots

Darcy Pattison at Fiction Notes had some great reminders 5 Plot Fixes for Peace Makers

Alan Chin posted this week Writing Tip #36 Story Starter Questions. Very interesting collection of 12-questions. A quick test to see if your plot is missing something.

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story had a brilliant line at the beginning of her post on plots this week: “The house is story. Decorating is plot.” Loved the rest of the post too Author, We Have a Problem: 4 Tips on Plotting Your Novel

Dialogue

Writers It The Storm had Tiffany Lawson Inman yesterday!! Dialogue is King

Editing

Janice Hardy is talking my kind of talk. She uses some simple math and cut and paste to help her in trimming her MS. Interesting read even if you don’t need to trim Break it Down: Trimming Words From a Too-Long Manuscript

Query & 1st Pages

Roni Loren answered What Will Make An Agent Gong Your Pages, tips from the DFW Writer’s Conference

Grammar

DIY MFA spelled out the different ways to punctuate dialog. It’s easy to see the differences in this post: Demystifying Dialogue: Perfect Your Punctuation and went on to the Nine NO’s of Dialogue

Pitch

Vickie Motter from Navigating the Slush Pile described the points of the pitch and how it’s different from your query: May Conferences: The Verbal Pitch. Don’t miss her next post either for help with the twitter pitch Speaking of pitching…

Social Media

Ashley Barron added another post in a series and this one includes hashtag strategy #helpful :)  Blogging: Twitter & The Hashtag

Roz Morris was over at Author’s Electric this week with some good reminders: How to get on well with Twitter – by Roz Morris

Music from Jeff

This is a tune called “Surely” from the group Black Dub. It’s Daniel Lanois’ passion project.  He’s a super famous producer (U2, Bob Dylan, the list goes on and on) known for his warm and unique sounds.  He’s also a great guitarist, songwriter, and singer.

He formed this group after he heard the singer, Trixie Whitley, during a recording session.  Her father was a famous singer/guitarist/songwriter named Chris Whitley who, sadly, passed away several years ago.  It’s clear that she has music in her blood – an incredible talent.

The drummer is one of my absolute faves, Brian Blade.  He became known as a jazz player but has since played with quite a vast array of artists (Seal, Joni Mitchell, etc…).  He has his own groups – a jazz group where he plays drums and a solo outfit where he sings, writes the tunes and plays guitar.  He’s an unbelievable musician!

So, you can see that with this sort of line up the music is going to be amazing, and it really is! With all of these unique voices they still have such a great group sound.  I think they record live together most of time which is very cool and a bit of a lost art.  I think it really comes through on the record – a live vibe, real musicians reacting and playing together in the moment.

Hope you enjoy it!

What you might have missed here:

Six Sunday #18

Flash Friday #9

Links of the week #19

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It’s Saturday, so again I have collected a bunch of wonderful posts from this past week. Enjoy and don’t forget to see, at the bottom, what Jeff has selected for us to listen to this week.

Write Fresh

Marcy Kennedy made it easy to understand where to put descriptions and where to cut in How to Use Taste to Make Your Readers Hungry for More

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story made me smile with this post title Did I Just Say That? When Characters Say Dumb Things. My characters can say some pretty dumb things and I love it. Do you?

Characters

Susan Bearman at Write it Sideways gave advice to remember Fall Out of Love with Your Main Character

Plot

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story talked plot yesterday and I’ve read these ideas before, but this post looks at things from a new angle The Best Advice on Plotting I’ve Ever Heard: Two Tips That Will Make Plotting Easier

Writer Business

Aimee Salter over at Seeking the Write Life provided some levity: Top 10 Reasons You Need An Editor

Rachel Kent at Books & Such gave a refreshing list Qualities Agents Look for in Clients

Sara Megibow was at Romance University this week laying it all out Sara Megibow Sells Romance – Who is a “good” literary agent?

Music from Jeff

Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars.  Even though they are only a duo, they have a collective group sound.You may remember seeing them on the grammy’s this past year.  I think they won a bunch of ‘em.

They’re a great songwriting duo whose voices blend perfectly.  What’s very cool about this group is that, while they have a great vocal blend, their individual voices are fairly distinct.  With a unique voice it can often be difficult to blend with anyone else, let alone another unique voice.  It’s a rare and special thing when this happens and I think they realized it right away. Plus, they seem to write songs well together…another tricky skill.

The whole album is quite a bit more mellow than this tune but I’ve been enjoying.  They also have a really cool version of ‘I want you back’ by the Jackson 5. They contributed a few tunes, including one with Taylor Swift (that certainly adds to her lacking credibility), for the hunger games movie.  Those tunes (even the one with Taylor Swift) are very good as well.

p.s. they are not a couple.  They are each married to other people.  I think they get that question a lot because of how close they seem to be.

Hope you enjoyed the links this week. Did you miss my Flash Fiction from yesterday? And last, don’t forget to come back tomorrow for my six sentences from my WIP.

Links of the week #17

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Yeah, yeah, it’s May, hooray. Okay, I get it. I’m working on my sourpuss, do you see it? Oh! I know what will help: some good writing links and some music from Jeff. Say no more…

Writing

Thank Janice Hardy for bringing this brilliant idea to my attention Don’t Finish: Ways to be a More Productive Writer, Part 3

Gabrille Bisset was at Niina C’s this week talking about How To Write Hot Sex Scenes

Fae Rowen posted on an interesting topic this week over at Writers in the Storm, captivating: The Vibrational Energy of Crystals ~ for You and Your Characters

Susan Hanniford Crowley posted about What A Writer Needs, Part 13 – Just Breathe at Nights of Passion<– excellent reminder

Plot

Lynette Labelle provided some caution with: The Three-Act Structure – Part 2

Roni Loren offered up some great advice in Before Fingers Touch Keyboard: My 6 Pre-Writing Steps

Kara Lennox was back this week at Writers In The Storm, man I’m loving her posts!! Plot Fixer – Part 2: How To Fix A Weak Opening

Music from Jeff

Did you miss Jeff’s first share last week? He’s back again this week…

“Death of Communication” by Company of Thieves  from the album, “Running From a Gamble”.

Company of Thieves is a band from Chicago.  My sound man is pals with them and we went and saw a bit of their set at the metro last month. I also heard one of their tunes during the credits of “Entourage.”  I immediately searched the net to find out the name of the artist and song and have been hooked ever since.

The creative nucleus of the band seems to be the singer and guitarist. The singer has a fairly clear bjork influence  in terms of her sound.  I think her voice may be one of those, you either love or hate it, scenarios.  Sometimes it sounds a bit “put on” for me but the music overall more than makes up for it.  I like her lyrics as well…sometimes a bit melodramatic but I enjoy a little melodrama every now and again. For instance, the chorus of this tune speaks to me as an artist:

Almost fooled me when you said to
Sell your soul for someone’s gold
Maybe then you’ll have a friend
Go on, sell your soul to be controlled
Maybe then you’ll have a friend

The guitarist makes some interesting choices with the types of chords he uses.  This enables the singer more room for interesting melodic ideas. Their songs don’t really have the typical “hooks” of pop/rock outfit but I think that’s why I like it. It’s not too crazy but not too “easy” at the same time…somewhere in the middle. After having seen them live, it’s clear that they can really play.  Seems silly to even have to mention this but, in this day and age, it’s rare.

This is a band who creates an overall “sound”.  As I think of further artists for this little project of ours, I can already see that “sound” is going to be a somewhat constant factor in my picks.

Hope you like ‘em, Jeff