Australian novelist Poppy Gee, author of Bay of Fires, published by Reagan Arthur, an imprint of Little Brown.
Today I have two Write The Book Prompts to offer, both suggested by my guest, Poppy Gee. The first is to use the sense of smell in your work. If you write fiction, introduce a smell that can make your character think about or notice something specific. Poppy's second suggestion for a fiction writer who is stuck is to write four statements about your character in scene: the first three should be statements of action, and the fourth should be an emotional statement. So for example:
Helen walked the long way to work. She turned her ankle in the second block. Her ankle was really throbbing by the time she arrived. She wondered if she might have sprained it and worried it would be impossible to walk back home later.
Poppy says that, despite their simplicity, writing very basic statements like this will often ground her in scene and help her get started.
Good luck with these exercises and please listen next week for another.
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a former Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School graduates).
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Fiction, Book Selling, Mysteries, Writers' Block, Crime Fiction, Writing Craft, Structure, Writing Coach, Thriller on Feb 18th, 2013 Comments
Vermont writer Lloyd Devereux Richards, author of Stone Maidens, published by Thomas & Mercer (Amazon's mystery imprint).
Once or twice during the interview, Lloyd mentioned a book he'd found particularly helpful in revising Stone Maidens. I'll mention it here, so you have the full title; it's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, by author and literary agent, Donald Maass.
This week's Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Lloyd Devereux Richards. Rewrite a scene you've already worked on, but do so from a different character's perspective.
Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a former Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School graduates)
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Publishing, Fiction, Poetry, Blogs, Book Selling, Mysteries, Novels, Self-publishing, Crime Fiction on Nov 26th, 2012 Comments
Rebroadcast of an interview with author Jim DeFilippi, whose latest book is Limerick Malfeasance, a collection of over two-hundred original limericks.
Lately, I'm interested in revision exercises. So this week's Write The Book Prompt is to flip to the middle of a project you're working on and read one page: any single page. Take notes. Try to divorce yourself from the rest of the content of the project, if it's a long one, and just focus on what you see happening on that one page. Look for mistakes, but perhaps more importantly, look for larger issues. Is your voice evident on the page? Is your narrator's voice in evidence? Are any characters who show up there behaving in a consistent manner with your ideas about how they should behave? Is the project's overarching purpose or vision in evidence on the page? Take notes, think about what you see right there in front of you, and see what ideas that might give you about what is or is not working with the piece as a whole. Maybe it will help. Good luck with this prompt and tune in next week for another.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students, now alums).
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Publishing, Fiction, Playwriting, Book Selling, Mysteries, Novels, Screenwriting, Self-publishing, Writers' Block, Crime Fiction, Writing Craft, Writing Coach on Oct 31st, 2012 Comments
Vermont Writer and Writing Coach, Tamar Cole (tamarcole21@gmail.com).
This week's Write The Book Prompt is inspired by a prompt that Tamar Cole has used in her writing workshops. She offers a word and then has participants write six lines about that word, or influenced by that word. So let's do that. In honor of Hurricane Sandy, the word for this week's prompt is STORM. Think about the word storm, and write six lines. Or more!
Good luck with this prompt and tune in next week for another.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students, now alums).
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Fiction, Blogs, Book Selling, Mysteries, Novels, Short Stories, Crime Fiction, Writing Craft on Aug 8th, 2012 Comments
Two interviews this week:
1) Award-winning Irish author Tana French, whose latest Dublin Murder Squad novel is Broken Harbor, published by Viking/Penguin.
2) Local writer Carrie Mackillop, recent winner of NPR's 3-Minute Fiction Contest and owner of the Old Brick Store in Charlotte, VT.
Today's Write The Book prompt was suggested by my guest, Carrie Mackillop. Write a story of 600 words in which a parent confesses something to a child. Carrie also offered an opening line, "Tess was drowning in inefficiency." You could use that in conjunction with her first prompt, or on its own as a first line, just as NPR's first line inspired Carrie to write Rainy Wedding.
Good luck with this prompt, and tune in next week for another!
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Publishing, Fiction, Blogs, Book Selling, Novels, Self-publishing, Writing Workshops, Crime Fiction, Writing Craft, Structure on May 30th, 2012 Comments
Massachusetts novelist Andrew Goldstein, author of The Bookie's Son, published by 617 Books.
Today's Write The Book Prompt is to write a setting from your childhood. It might be the bedroom you had before your family moved to another town when you were in high school, or it might be the street in front of your house, a scene from your kindergarten classroom, or from the back seat of your parents' car. Try to capture the details that will help readers understand what it was like to be in that place, and in particular, to be you -- your childhood self -- in that place. Consider colors as you write, and odors. The smells from the kitchen as mother cooked, the sound of a vacuum, the sounds of your parents talking from the other side of a closed door. What was it like to be there? Was it air conditioned? Or did the heater go all the time so that the windows had to be left open? What made you feel particularly safe, or comfortable, or frightened to be there? Try to capture it and then see how you might use it, or simply what you learned from writing it, in a larger piece of writing.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another!
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Publishing, Fiction, Blogs, Book Selling, Novels, Short Stories, Addiction, Writing Craft, Structure, Essays, Painting on May 25th, 2012 Comments
Novelist Carol Anshaw, whose new book is Carry The One, published by Simon and Schuster.
Today's Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Carol Anshaw, who uses it in her classes in the MFA in Writing program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The prompt actually started from an exercise in the book What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter, although Carol uses a slightly altered version. Take an event that happened in your life between the ages of 5 and 11. Write a list comprised of everything you can remember about that incident. Then make a second list: everything you don't remember. Write a story using that second list. The exercise is particularly useful for new writers, who, afterward, might better understand the process of creating fiction. Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another!
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
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Vermont short story writer Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise, published by Simon and Schuster.
Today's Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my conversation with Megan Mayhew Bergman. Twice during our conversation, she talked about slowing down the fiction narrative, to its benefit. She mentioned slowing things down poetically as you approach the end of a story. She also talked about slowing down the outcome of a suspenseful moment in a story. This week, think about how you might use this advice in a story or a scene of your own. Slow things down, perhaps when you're most tempted to speed things up, and see what happens.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another!
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Publishing, Blogs, Creative Nonfiction, Nonfiction, Book Selling, Research, Psychology, Science, Essays, Health on Apr 24th, 2012 Comments
Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.
Today's Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my conversation with Susan Cain. The tenth chapter of her book, QUIET, is called "The Communication Gap: How to Talk to Members of the Opposite Type." The chapter begins with this paragraph: "If introverts and extroverts are the north and south of temperament-opposite ends of a single spectrum- then how can they possibly get along? Yet the two types are often drawn to each other-in friendship, business, and especially romance. These pairs can enjoy great excitement and mutual admiration, a sense that each completes the other. One tends to listen, the other to talk; one is sensitive to beauty, but also to slings and arrows, while the other barrels cheerfully through his days; one pays the bills and the other arranges the children's play dates. But it can also cause problems when members of these unions pull in opposite directions." Consider this paragraph, then write a scene or a poem that includes dialogue between an introvert and an extrovert. And many thanks to Susan for permission to reprint that paragraph.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another!
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
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Posted in Writing, Agents, Publishing, Fiction, Poetry, Music, Book Selling, Short Stories, Writing Craft, Structure on Mar 21st, 2012 Comments
Interview from the archives with short story writer and guitar builder, Creston Lea, author of the story collection Wild Punch, published by Turtle Point Press.
The last time I broadcast this interview with Creston Lea, I used his suggestion for a Write The Book Prompt, which was to eavesdrop on a conversation in a public place, and then use what you heard to write a scene with dialogue. This time, I'll recommend something slightly different, but also useful in writing dialogue. Using a digital recorder or a dictaphone, record a conversation between two people. Then transcribe the conversation exactly as it occurred. Keep all of their pauses and stutters and "ums" and repetitions. Now study a page of dialogue in a book. What might differ in the way that conversation actually sounds from the way that would best represent it on the page? What would you take out, what might you change or add? See if you can turn the conversation that you recorded into a scene that would be understandable--effortless for a reader to digest.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another!
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
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