Friday, July 31, 2009

Reading, critically

Now that I've really been studying the craft of fiction writing, I'm starting to notice "vehicles" that authors used in their writing, not to mention errors and sloppy writing. I hope this doesn't start to ruin my favorite books for me!

I've read two very different books this week: The Physick book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. The first is half historical fantasy-fiction, and half modern day romance/mystery. If you like any of these genres, go and pick up this book. It would make a great beach read, even though I read it on my couch.

Connie Goodwin is a graduate student at Harvard in 1991. In the process of cleaning out her grandmother's antique house in Marblehead, she stumbles upon a discovery that not only changes her life, but how she understands the world. It has romance, witches, and lots of librarians ;).

The second book is more serious. A Young Adult (YA) written in the first person, Thirteen Reasons Why chronicles the life story of a young woman who committed suicide through the cassette tapes she leaves behind. One of the recipients of these tapes, Clay, doesn't know why Hannah blames him as one of the thirteen reasons for her suicide until he hears the part of the tape about himself. I highly recommend this for the original style, as well as the content. Should be required reading for High School students.

Now, on to my book club book...;) Or better yet, my own book! I'll say that I'm trying to read for research...

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Summer Update

Not much writing happening in my house lately.

I've been contemplating how to plot. Today, I started toying with Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method (http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php). So far, it's helping enormously (but I'm only really on step 1). Part of me hates to detour from actual writing time, but I think taking the time to think about the overall story, and individual character story lines, is going to be helpful to me. Considering that I've been avoiding the story altogether this summer, I guess any attention the story gets is positive.

I've also come to the conclusion that I need a more substantial conflict and that it needs to rear it's head earlier in the text of the story.