Writing Help

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Writer’s Website Real Estate

Published October 11, 2010 | By M. Lori Motley

It’s sometimes hard to figure out what to stick on my writer’s site and what to leave off. There are plenty of things I’d love to share with you guys, but I don’t want my website to become cluttered.

Now that I am a full-time fiction writer, I need to focus more on getting the most from my writer’s website real estate. Getting information from the Muse Online Conference helps a bit, though I have such a background in marketing and web development that I’m pretty sure about what I have to do. I just have to tweak my brain away from creating and crafting to the more mundane business side of things.

Things Needed on a Writer’s Website

  1. Books and other publications (if you have them)
  2. General info about you, the author
  3. Information about your genre(s)
  4. A blog, which can include all that other stuff
  5. Ways for your readers to keep in contact with you (RSS, blog, newsletter)

That is my next step: a newsletter. And then I have to figure out where to put the signup on my site.


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Muse Online Conference

Published September 16, 2010 | By M. Lori Motley

I spent about an hour this morning organizing both my calendar and my computer for the upcoming Muse Online Conference (which is closed to registration now). http://themuseonlinewritersconference.com  Though the website is atrocious, the conference itself is bursting with information in the form of chat presentations and forum posting. Plenty of hand-outs as well.

This will be my fourth year attending, and I plan to focus more on networking and forming connections to the small publishing houses and agents that attend as well as other writers. Most of the presentations are the same as the previous years, so I am not expecting a glut of brand new information. As far as fiction writing, platforms and marketing go, I think I’m rather knowledgeable already.

The conference is exciting, however, and meeting up with over a thousand other writers means good conversations critiques and sharing of ideas. That’s always good.

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Being Okay With Trashing It

Published August 20, 2010 | By M. Lori Motley

Now that I’m a professional writer (ahem), I somehow feel better about trashing large chunks of my writing when it doesn’t work.

Yesterday I was working on “Sweetest Poison,” trying to include more clarity about how the two main characters came to be traveling together. After writing about three pages of it, I realized it didn’t work for the story and tossed it. Okay… I didn’t toss it. I put it in a Notepad file and saved in a folder with the story itself. Throwing away writing seems sacrilegious to me. But it didn’t feel wrong. I didn’t feel like I wasted any time writing it.

The story itself is being troublesome. It’s a rather old one and has been critted several times. I spent a while yesterday reading over the crits and looking for common threads. When things get critiqued by multiple, quality people, it is much easier to know what you did wrong and fix it.

“Sweetest Poison” neglects to show readers how the two people came to be traveling together, and did not have enough clarity about the reason for their journey. I think I’ve fixed that last bit, but the first is bugging me.

They are traveling together because that’s what they do. Is it always necessary to have a meaning… a motivation behind doing something? These two characters have traveled together before. They are both adventuresome types, fighters, and friends of the prince. Isn’t that enough?

Troublesome…

It’s 10:22 am. First round of homeschooling is almost over. I have done my marketing for the day, checked emails and forums and now have completed a blog post.

Time to get going on fiction. Today I’m starting a story for the “On the Premises” mini contest due at the end of the month.

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Pride of the Pantser

Published August 14, 2010 | By M. Lori Motley

I’ve always prided myself on being a pantser – writing by the seat of my pants – and still think it is the most magical way to get a first draft down. Writing what the characters tell me to write, as they tell the story of their lives, is energizing and usually not aggravating. It’s the stuff afterward that troubles me: the editing, polishing, rewriting, etc.

A couple of writing classes and reading of some published author’s blogs and sites have given me a new appreciation for the outline. I spent some time today creating a “Novel Template” loosely based on the three act structure. The thought of sticking my  novel into a template was off-putting at first, but, after working at it for an hour or so, I discovered new pathways that made so much more sense than my original story. Since I was on my first draft anyway, I knew I would have rewriting to do. That does not bother me.

Creating an outline or filling out a template not only organizes the story after the first draft is down, it helps with brainstorming before the fact. If I am going to create a true career out of fiction writing, I need to produce quality product quickly. Being organized can help me do that.

Besides working the template for my novel “Shroud Work” today, I brainstormed and jotted notes for a paranormal romance novella and found two markets for short stories I need to check out more.

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Deep POV Tips for Action Scenes

Published June 9, 2010 | By M. Lori Motley

In one of the novels I’m working on, the protagonist and his buddies get into a vicious fight with the bad guy. The fight reveals some important plot points, so I don’t want to gloss over it with a few well-placed “pows” and “whams” and then move on to other things. I want to sink the reader into the pain, power and gore and get their heart beating faster.

The first time I wrote the scene, I screwed up my close 3rd POV and went almost cinematic. In the midst of all the action of the fight, I focused on ONLY the action of the fight, and not what was really important. Let me give you a quick example of what I mean:

Matt pulled his fist back, grabbing at the collar of the man who stood leering in front of him. He swung and connected, feeling his knuckles mash open the man’s lips and crunch against his teeth. The man would have staggered if Matt had not been holding on to him, but instead Matt pulled him back for another sharp blow to the jaw.

This paragraph shows what is happening in the action scene. Any reader can get an image in their mind of what is going on. It’s a scene you’ve seen in action movies a hundred times before. But books aren’t action movies. The reader can’t see what you don’t describe.

Fight scenes, or any action scenes, are not really about what is going on, anyway. They are about what the characters think and feel about what is going on, how they react and what changes them when the action occurs. Action scenes should be told in deep POV for maximum effect. Instead of pointing out every single punch, kick and hair-pull, narrow down the view to a few key things.

Have you ever been in a fight, car accident or other high-action event? Do you see the guy pulling back his fist then hammering it into your jaw? Or do you just feel the flash of pain and anger as the guy lands a punch? Do you see the shred of tires on the pavement and feel the tip and roll of the car, which makes your groceries in the back spill out and smash open? Or do you register the impact and then the sickening fear that you might actually die at any second?

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Fiction Writing: How to Write Your Character’s Thoughts

Published June 15, 2009 | By M. Lori Motley

Here’s an article by my close friend, Melanie, about writing character’s thoughts in fiction.

In quality fiction writing it is often important to tell what your character is thinking. There are multiple acceptable methods for doing this. The method you choose depends largely on the point of view of your story, and the specific publication you are writing for.

Fiction Writing: How to Write Your Character’s Thoughts – Read More Here

The two main methods of how to write your character’s thoughts in fiction are through the use of Italics or quotation marks and commas. In the first example, your characters thoughts would be written in italics without any quotation marks. You would still put a, between the thought and the thought tag such as “she thought.”

In the second example, your characters thoughts would be witnessed the same way as spoken dialogue. The actual thought would be in quotation marks and you would use a comma before the speech tag.

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Writing Fiction: Adverbs Be Gone

Published March 11, 2009 | By M. Lori Motley

 

When you first learned about adverbs in grade school, you probably practiced writing sentence is such as, “Mary walked slowly while talking loudly to Joe.” While this type of sentence gives information about how Mary walked and talked, it has no place in writing professional-grade fiction. In order to engage the reader and to immerse them in the action and the motion of your fiction writing, you must get rid of your reliance on adverbs.

 

Writing Fiction: Adverbs Be Gone – Read More Here

Adverbs Be Gone – What’s Wrong With Them?


Adverbs are perfectly good parts of speech. They give information about how, when, or where an action takes place. Problem with using adverbs when writing fiction is twofold. First, they tell the reader what is going on instead of showing in a descriptive manner. Second, they are ill easy way to use language.

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Now Available

Elements of Time

Available from Twin Trinity Media.

Elements of Dimension

Elements of Dimension continues the Twin Trinity short story anthology series with more top-quality stories and poems. This book explores the themes of science fiction, fantasy and reality. I have one short story, "Death Obeyed," and one poem, "Tale of the Suburban Dungeon" in this book.

Elements of Time

"Elements of Time" short story anthology is available now. It features winning stories from the Accentuate Services contests plus themed poetry. Two of M. Lori Motley's short stories, "Inescapable" and "No Time Like Now," are included.


Elements of Soul

"Elements of Soul" short story anthology is available now. It features fifteen winning stories from the Accentuate Services contests plus themed poetry. Two of M. Lori Motley's short stories, "Summer Heat" and "Flood of Tears," are included.

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