Writing Tips on Beginnings

While at the WVWriter's Conference last week I went to a workshop on ----- beginnings.

This was a long workshop that came in two parts. Edie Hemingway was the teacher.

Some of the things I gleamed from the workshop were:

The importance of the first page.

Your opening page should be powerful, giving a glimpse of your voice.
If writing for a young audience, try to incorporate the POV character's name, age, something about their physical appearance, and time/place within the first three pages or better yet, the first page.

That's quite a list for you to include in the first or second page of your manuscript.

In the second half of the workshop, we got the chance to read our first page for her. She, and members of the audience, critiqued it. Before reading my first page, I quickly skimmed through it, realizing that I had not incorporated some of those things listed above. I found out (through a little quick editing) that most of these bits of info can be easily incorporated into your manuscript -- and it does make it better.

Very helpful is all I can say about this part of the workshop. I would love to attend other workshops that incorporate this into their presentation.

A few other first line tips are: draw your reader in with emotion, set up conflict, set up a question for the reader, set the mood or tone of the story and jump right into voice. If starting with description, add something extraordinary (no hum-drum, overused or ordinary descriptions)!

Open with a powerful image, dialogue with tension and/or emotion to pull your reader in.

Give your manuscripts a glance and spiffy up those first pages!

Go to the library, or your bookshelves, and check out the first pages of your favorite books, to see how they did it.

Do your first pages make the grade?

Happy Writing!

What's New?

I just attended the West Virginia Writer's Conference. 

Along with lots of writers, there were an abundance of geese, lakes and other wildlife.

I attended work shops on children's writing, writing short stories, beginnings and endings, marketing yourself and your books, etc.

I enjoyed the workshops and learned info that will help me with my writing. Plus, I met old writing friends and made new ones.

At the Saturday Night Banquet, I excitedly accepted awards for three of my children's manuscripts that I had entered in their annual West Virginia Writing Competition.  I received 2nd, 1HM and 3HM in the children's category.

Now, I need to start sending out my MG to publishers. I checked my records and I haven't sent it to anyone this year.

If you write, you must submit or your work will never get published.
Just make sure it is ready to submit.

Let other eyes see it, let other writers critique it and edit it until you are happy as you can be with your finished product.

I have been working on my author's page. It is still under construction, but it is on the web.

You can go here to visit it.
There is also a page above that has a link to it.
Check it out. If you have any ideas for my page or questions, contact me on the contact gadget. I'd love to hear from you.

What have you got planned for this summer? Any conferences? Any submitting?

Happy Writing!

Villains! My Evil Plan is Working

I just attended the annual  WVWriter's Convention over the weekend.

Workshops, meeting writers face to face and learning. That is what I like about writers' conferences. At a lot of the workshops they have you write. They will give you a prompt and then a few minutes to write. They say, "after all this is a writing conference and this is why you came here."

Well, that is not exactly true for me. I write all the time. When I am not writing, I am thinking about what I am going to write. And . . . I am not good at writing on the spur of the moment with only a few minutes to think about what I am going to write.

I like to spend my conference time learning, brainstorming, finding out more about getting published, finding out what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong, etc.

I attended a workshop out of my genre.

My Evil Plan is Working! Creating Believable Villains that Readers Secretly Love and Love to Hate.

I don't usually have villains in my children's stories. But what the heck, there is always a first time.

I learned a few interesting tidbits of information:

Think about what caused your character to become a villain.

Villains think they are right. Villains have a special skill. Villains are sure of themselves.
Villains are intelligent.

Reveal info about your villain early on.

If you have a villain, of course, you must have a hero.

Your hero is always challenged by the villain. The hero also has a special skill to help defeat the villain. Your hero is also intelligent, but usually in a different way and he might not use his intelligence until later on in the story to defeat the villain. The hero is usually full of doubt, but he will overcome this doubt as the story progresses.

Insert a twist into your story.

Start your story with something tragic.

These are just a few ideas my brain absorbed from this workshop.

I think I can use these ideas in my writing for children. My characters can have special skills, be intelligent and have to overcome something in their life (villain) to achieve their goal. My story can start with something tragic (but not too tragic) and a  twist is always good to have in your story.

My mind is whirling with ideas now on how to use this info with some of the stories I am currently working on.

Oh, and by the way, it is always fun and inspiring to win!

I placed in the WVWriter's annual spring writing contest. I got 2nd in the children's category with my nonfiction PB, Grasshoppers! Woo hoo! I did a happy dance. A MG I submitted received 1st Honorable Mention. Maybe I can use some of the above info to bump up my MG a notch (or two)!

What do you like about conventions?

What do you suggest to bump up a manuscript a notch or two.

Posted byJanet Smart on Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch.