Story Sensei

I’ve had a couple people ask me about scene goals. Basically, your point of view character should have something they need to accomplish when they walk into that scene. It could have something to do with the character’s External Goal, or it could not. For example, Grissom needs to find Sarah, who’s been kidnapped by the psycho miniature killer (bear with me, I just watched the season premier of CSI). This is his External Goal. But when he goes into the interrogation room to question the suspect, his scene goal is to get the psycho killer to tell him where Sarah is. (For you CSI fans, you know he doesn’t get his information and he fails his scene goal, but he hasn’t failed his Story Goal. Yet.) Here’s an example from Single Sashimi , the third book in my Sushi series (I just turned in the macro edits for this puppy, so it’s fresh in my mind): My heroine Venus is on her way to her cousin’s house to indulge in chocolate truffles. Her determination to have chocolate within the next hour is...

I just got this message from my friend Randy Ingermanson. If you're an auditory learner, this is a fabulous writing series and a great deal: Today, September 27, 2007, I am running a rare event: a 24-Hour Special on my two top-selling products, Fiction 101 and Fiction 201. These are my flagship products. I've taught these courses at writing conferences across the country. Last year, I created them as software products that run in any web browser. They let you SEE my notes and HEAR me lecture. Fiction 101 and Fiction 201 are available on CD or as large electronic downloads. The reason for this 24-Hour Special is to celebrate freedom. Recently, I've outsourced the CD distribution to Kunaki.com. That means FREEDOM for me from the drudgery of packing CDs in envelopes and mailing them off. It saves me MONEY, which I can pass on to my customers in lower prices. I have already cut the price of the CDs by about 20%. To celebrate that FREEDOM, I'm slashing the price of a CD by A...

Hey guys, I'll be traveling and at the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) conference for the next couple weeks. I'll try to blog writing tips I hear at the conference, but no guarantees. I should be back in business on Friday, September 28th for sure. Camy

When I start a novel, I give the author about three chapters for me to like the main character. I’m actually pretty generous—in a bookstore, your average book buyer reads the first page, maybe the second. Usually not more than that. Depending on how fast they read, the first page or two takes approximately twenty seconds. That’s it. You need to hook your reader into the story and give them a character they can like within those first few pages. In Writing for Emotional Impact , Karl Iglesias lists these three “categories of appeal”: * We care about victims—characters we feel sorry for * We care about characters with humanistic values * We like character with desirable qualities Victims—You don’t have to just think stalker victim here. Don’t we love the underdog? The downtrodden? The kid who gets beat up in the schoolyard? The man without enough money to pay for coffee? The woman beat up by her husband? The teenager who can’t read? Humanistic values—Show your character doing something n...

Okay, we talked about brand. Now buzz. Internet marketing is like regular marketing, there's really no way to know if it's doing a whole lot of good. But it's stupid not to do internet marketing because it's so easy and cheap. Website—This is a non-negotiable. All writers must have a website, whether you’re published or not. It’s your business card on the web. Keep it updated once a month. Blog—Only blog if you enjoy blogging. Too many people blog who don't really like it, and I think that a bad blog is worse than none at all. If you don't like blogging, don't let anybody make you feel guilty for not blogging. Only do what you like doing, because life's too short to waste on stuff you don't want to do. Email loops and forum boards—This is something unpublished writers need to start doing early. And I'm not talking just writers loops and boards, but non-writing loops and boards. And if the loop topic touches on your brand, all the better. Particip...

Marketing is two things for an author: brand and buzz. Brand: This is where you decide as an author what to write so that you stand out in the market. Jenny Crusie is the queen of real-life snark. Tom Clancy is spy action. John Grisham is legal thrillers. I am Asian Christian chick lit. Robin Caroll is Cajun/Southern romantic suspense. Cheryl Wyatt is military action romances. Deeanne Gist is slightly edgy historical romances. Brandilyn Collins is small town suspense. Colleen Coble is small town romantic suspense with animals. Donna Fleisher is angsty military women's fiction. This is the hardest part for writers to figure out. You have to actually tweak your writing so that your books will stand out from all the other pitches editors hear. If you have a solid brand, editors are much happier to read your stuff because you're classified in a certain file in their heads. They can sell you easier to the VP of Sales and VP of Marketing because you're branded. An editor may lov...

When you start a book or any new scene, you’re setting your reader down in a completely new place, often in a new time, sometimes with a new character. Make your point of view character, time, and place obvious in the first couple paragraphs. You don’t need long descriptions of the new room the heroine is in, or to tell the reader that we’re now in the hero’s head, or to let the reader know that six months have passed. These things can be conveyed with a well-chosen phrase that immediately triggers a certain picture in the reader’s head. For example, say the previous scene ended at night in the hero’s POV. ### A girl could choke on the cholesterol in the air. She stood in the doorway to the diner, cringing beneath the sticky cloud of bacon grease mingled with the perfume of over-cooked eggs and maple syrup. The reader immediately knows it’s (a) the heroine, (b) a greasy diner, and (c) the next morning. Go through your manuscript and look at scene openings. Can you add a well-chosen sen...

DON’T CREATE SCENE BREAKS JUST SO YOU CAN CHANGE POVS BACK AND FORTH. Yes, I’m yelling. I’ve seen this done often in both contest entries and even in published books—the writer will insert a scene break, continue the scene in the second character’s POV for a page or two, then insert another scene break and continue the scene back in the first character’s POV. Here’s an extreme example: Eat and leave. That’s all she had to do. If Grandma didn’t kill her first for being late. Lex Sakai raced through the open doorway to the Chinese restaurant and was immediately immersed in conversation, babies’ wails, clashing perfumes, and stale sesame oil. She tripped over the threshold and almost turned her ankle. Stupid pumps. Man, she hated wearing heels. Her cousin Chester sat behind a small table next to the open doorway. “Hey Chester.” ### “Oooh, you’re late.” As usual , but Chester wasn’t about to actually say that to his cousin. She might bop him in the nose. “Grandma isn’t going to be happy. ...