Category: Writing A Novel

Book Bites – 2 – The Brooch

The Brooch

Here’s another Book Bite from the novel I’m writing. The working title is ‘Lies and Deception’ about a small town church in rural Canada. In this scene, the protagonist, Maddie, has just been introduced to a new character and is sitting in their living room, admiring her grandmother’s antique brooch. She begins to feel a little uncomfortable.

A green antique brooch on a cashmere shawl
Her grandmother’s antique brooch

“I feel a draft.” Maddie frowned slightly and looked around the room to see if a window was possibly open. She drew her shawl around her shoulders and admired her grandmother’s brooch adorning the cashmere shawl. It was a family heirloom and she seldom wore it but today she felt she should try to make conversation with the young mother and the brooch always brought a compliment and a smile from admirers.”

I hope you’ll stay tuned as I continue my revisions.

If you missed the first Book Bite you can catch up here.

Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

~ Lynne

Book Bites – 1 – The Mansion

The Mansion

I really like previews of an upcoming movie, don’t you? They usually get me excited for the release of it in theatres and I immediately start planning when I’ll go. I’m revising the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo and I thought you might like a few Book Bites before it’s published, like a movie preview but without all the noise. I hope you enjoy them!

new white mansion
photo by skeeze

This one’s near the beginning of the story and introduces two main characters, Maddie and Tom. The working title is ‘Lies and Deception’, set in a small town church in rural Canada.

“Maddie and Tom pulled onto the circular driveway of the large home, barely missing a pink trike, and parked beside what they decided was the side door. The front entrance looked like a door only the prime minister would use with its tall, ornate, double glass doors and huge planter urns. Maddie decided the side door was more appropriate seeing as she hadn’t worn her ballgown.”

If that didn’t quite grab your attention, stay tuned. I’ll be posting more Book Bites as I revise. (Follow along here)

If you follow along I’ll also have a playlist for you before my book’s published too. I love playlists!

Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

~ Lynne

Writing Fantasy || Foreshadowing

How to Write Foreshadowing in a Novel

Your characters have a backstory, a personal history that will shape their life in your novel. They have childhoods, education, loves, conflicts, careers. All of these must be present in your character building for you to see where you need to foreshadow an event. When the event happens, your reader should be able to look back and think, “Oh ya, I kinda saw that coming”, but still be blown away when it happens.

Writing Fantasy, Foreshadowing. photo by Ryan McGuire

Keeping Track of Where Your Characters Have Been

To keep track of the timeline in your novel use a paper calendar with large squares, create one online using excel or an app, or use sticky notes. If you have room, put these on your office wall. If something epic happens to Lucy on Friday, you need to leave ‘Easter Eggs’ (metaphorically) or have Lucy experience something similar before the epic event. Put a few ‘Easter Eggs’ in the days, months or years leading up to the event. This gets the reader anticipating something and committed to turning the page.

Examples of Foreshadowing

It doesn’t matter that your protagonist was a ballerina as a child unless she’s a ballerina when we meet her in the story as an adult, or there was a traumatic dancing accident which will haunt her throughout her life and shape her future. The foreshadow leads to an event or a realization in her life later.

One of my favourite old movies is Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? A nasty crotchety old woman is just plain mean to everyone. You have to know there’s something in her past that made her change from the beautiful little girl she used to be. As the story progresses, we see her relationship with her sister whom she lives with and cares for. It’s in the dialogue and flashbacks that we learn what happened to Baby Jane.

By far one of the best movies of foreshadowing is Sixth Sense written by M. Night Shyamalan. The entire movie is leading the viewer creepily towards a shocking truth. I didn’t see it coming until near the end. I believed everything until then and was blown away by the ending. I had to go back and watch it again to get all the clues that were left like tiny breadcrumbs. Now that’s foreshadowing at its best!

Where do you need to add a breadcrumb of information that will have your reader saying, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming! Wait – yes I did!”

 

Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

Lynne

 

Resources

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?

Sixth Sense

Writing A Novel || The Importance Of Playlists

How Playing Music Can Help You As You Write

I find it helpful to have a playlist as I write my stories and I choose songs that fit with the genre I’m writing in. I learned this from another author and I’m very thankful to him for suggesting this. My playlists are collections of various artists in various music styles, even some instrumental, and follow the course of the story.

For instance, if I’m writing an epic battle scene I’ll usually listen to an instrumental with loud drums and clashing symbols. If my protagonist is departing on an epic adventure and happens to be a halfling, I’ll play all the scores from the entire collection of LOTR, if my protagonist is in the mood for romance — well, you get the idea.

Benjamin T. Collier is the one to thank for this playlists idea. Here, he talks about why he uses playlists to inspire him when writing and as added enjoyment for his reader.

“… Each song referenced in ‘Singularity’ is mentioned by title and musical artist, so readers can find each song online as it comes up in the story. In case some of my readers want to have the songs all lined up already before they start reading, I’ve written out the playlist below, which I played often in the background as I was writing…”  Read Ben’s full blog post about his Singularity Playlist by Benjamin T. Collier

How A Playlist Helps Your Reader

Do you find yourself enjoying a show more when there’s relevant music playing in the background of a scene or as a filler? I faithfully watch reruns of Heartbeat, a British show about the people of a small town close to where I was born. The background music takes me back to that era. I may even sing along. Do you enjoy a movie more when the music actually becomes part of the story as in Guardians Of The Galaxy when Quill plays tunes from the 80’s?

220px-Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_Vol_2_poster from the blog by Lynne Collier

Music can enhance your reader’s experience with your story. Give it a try. Maybe I’ll create one for my readers of The Fellowship Of The King and share it in my next blog.

Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

Lynne

Writing Fantasy || Point of View

Whose Point Of View Matters Most In Your Story?

The answer to this question will play an important role in the tone of your entire novel. We listen to other people probably every day in one form or another, in personal conversations, a lecture at school, a boss or characters on a TV show. Notice how the tone of their voice influences you. What tone do you want to convey in a particular scene or throughout the entire story?

  • Interesting
  • Funny
  • Lively
  • Friendly
  • Romantic
  • Quarrelsome

The characters telling the story have their own unique voice and, depending on that voice, will tell a scene in a specific way.

8 Points to Ponder when Writing Point Of View. Writing tips.

8 Points To Ponder For Point Of View

  • Have you thought about what tense you’ll write in? Will your story read better in past tense or present tense? Past Tense – “Suzie shopped at the mall”.
  • Present Tense – “Suzie is shopping at the mall”.
  • When you sit to write each scene, who do you hear talking in your mind?
  • First Person – “I love doughnuts”.
  • Second Person – “You love doughnuts”.
  • Third Person – “Suzie loves doughnuts”.
  • Omniscient (aka, all-knowing) – “Suzie loves doughnuts but she doesn’t realize they’re laced with a powerful hallucinogenic”. Use this voice sparingly, as when none of the characters knows something but your reader needs to know it.

 

Choose Your Narrators

Just like in a movie audition, test your characters’ voices to see which point of view sounds best for each scene. You may want to do several viewpoints throughout your story, but remember to not switch viewpoints in the middle of a scene or chapter unless you make a specific break in the narrative. It confuses the heck out of the reader. If you’re new to writing fantasy/fiction keep it simple and write one POV for each scene. You may feel like you want to write the entire story from one POV, but test other voices to see if you can spice things up, add some humour or simply add a different perspective to delight the reader.

 

Voice Test for POV

Write a paragraph from the author’s POV. This means you just write out the paragraph as it happens, without emotion or opinion. Then write it out in all the voices of your characters who are in that scene. Let them say what they feel and what they’re thinking.

  • Who sounds good for this particular scene?
  • Who has an emotional investment in what’s happening?
  • Who will it influence later in the story as your plot unfolds?
  • Who sees something no one else does?

 

Example:

  • “Suzie went to the mall again. I hope she’s not spending all her money. She still has two weeks before her next paycheck”.
  • “She went to the mall again. Who does she think she is, buying all those fancy expensive clothes? They look ridiculous on her anyway.”
  • “Suzie went to the mall this morning. She needed to choose a dress for her grandmother’s funeral”.

Do you see how each character changes the tone of the scene? What were they thinking and feeling? Ask them why. Draw the scene out from your chosen character’s point of view.

Til next time, know you are loved by the One who created you in His image.

Lynne

 

Resources to check out

Back To The Future – where the twists are revealed by other people’s POV and by the main character.