Timely tip #1

I actually have the talented Naomi Horton to thank for this timely tip. It seems that I always bog down around three-quarters of the way through the book. As if, after having slogged my way through the sagging middle, I'm too weighed down for the home stretch. Naomi told when this happens don't  worry about the end, just write toward the Black Moment. Her brilliant advice works. Inevitably I find my Black Moment wasn't black enough, defined enough or traumatic enough. Once I give it a rethink
or take it another step deeper, the way home becomes clear and easy to reach.

TIMELY TIP #2

Cat got your characters' tongue? Anytime my characters are being particularly stubborn, either close-mouthed, or unwilling to shut up and let someone else have a say, I allow them the opportunity for free expression, journal-style. Write long-hand, no typing, first person; maybe their pet peeves, favourite color, worst thing that ever happened. You get the idea. Let them spill. I promise you'll learn the most amazing things about your characters.

Timely Tip #3

So you're clipping along, writing your heart out, and BOG, the scene waffles, won't gel, the pacing stalls, and you screech to an unwilling halt......Don't get frustrated. Take a breath, step back, and re-write the scene from the viewpoint of an entirely different character. Maybe even a minor or off-stage character. Be as outrageous as you want, this is not going to wind up in the final draft, it's just going to pull you out of the mire. Guaranteed, this fresh set of eyes looking at things will help your story.

Timely tip #4

This Month's Timely Tip is about plotting, and the fact that there is no right or wrong way to plot a story. Some writers plot so heavily their outline reads like a first draft. Others start with little more than an idea. Like most of us, my plotting strategy falls some place in the middle, but the one thing that keeps me focused is to hone in on my story's turning points. I can't start the book without them and, borrowing freely from the screenwriter's three-act structure, plot point one happens 1/4-1/3 of the way in. PP1 swings the action clearly and deliberately from the beginning to the direction of your Mid-Point. As the name implies, mid-point occurs in the middle of the book. It helps eliminate sag, at the same time it forces the action in a very specific direction. (hint: a different mid-point would give you a totally different ending, happy, naturally, as we write romance, but still a different resolution would occur with a different mid-point) Plot point three is set 3/4 of the way through the story and acts as the catalyst as your characters move toward the black moment and resolution. Next time your plot has only the basic beginning, middle and end, zero in and define your plot points and you'll discover a complete story. Or at least enough of a story that you're itching to start that first draft.

Timely Tip #5

Writing is largely about rhythm. How the words first resonate as you read them to yourself. Writing is more than a matter of choosing the exact right word, it entails stringing those words together so they sound the way you want them to sound, both to you and to the reader. As I do a final edit, I give a lot of attention to word placement, both in dialogue and in narrative (which helps keep true to your v.p. character's voice) Often I'll move a single word, thus giving the phrase my characters' speech/thought rhythm, as opposed to my own.

Examples: From my WIP:
"...cause quite a stir, she is, with it."
"...cause quite a stir, with it, she is."
"I wish to view it, together with you."
"I wish to view it, together, you and I."
-the end of the evening.
-the evening's end.
It occurs to me that people who can't write must be the literary equivalent of tone deaf, the same way I love music but can't sing a note.
 

TIMELY TIP #6

"Start with the day that is different." I'm not sure who is responsible for this epiphany originally. I have a hunch it might be Naomi Horton's wise words to myself and Bonnie Spidle, back in those days when both of us were awaiting 'the call'. It was great advice then, and is just as timely today. Don't start with the same-old in your heroine's routine. Start where things all begin to shift. Little whitecaps on an otherwise calm body of water. Subtle twinges of disquiet. After all, she is about to meet (or re-meet) the hero. Her comfort zone is about to be rudely rumpled and her life will never be the same.