The Great Escape

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

It's every writer's dream: Escaping to a private sanctuary where there are no distractions, perfect conditions, and all the time in the world to write the Great American Novel.  I'm often reminded of a classic Dick Van Dyke episode in which he attempted just that, retreating to a cabin in the woods with his typewriter, only to end up doing everything but write.

Most of us can identify with his failure to communicate.  Even if we create the most ideal of circumstances, it's not a guarantee that inspiration will magically follow. But take heart, because there are many ways to connect with your muse so that wherever you sit down to write you won't be at a loss for words.

RETREATS
Each year there are numerous retreats in idyllic locations designed specifically for writers. Looking at some that will be available this fall, for example, a farmhouse in Tuscany or a hamlet in Denmark could be just the getaway that gets your literary juices flowing. With a price tag of a couple of thousand dollars, however, these retreats are clearly not in everyone's budget.  But there's nothing to keep you from creating your own retreat in a favorite setting closer to home.  Maybe a three-day weekend at a B&B would be just the right change of venue.

For a longer escape, you might consider the recent travel trend known as a silent retreat.  Who wouldn't be able to write in a Waldenesque locale offering nothing but quietude?  Well, besides Dick Van Dyke.

CONFERENCES
There's one coming to a city near you soon, guaranteed.  Whether it's a day-long intensive or a multi-day event, leaving the world behind to focus on the voices of experience is a push toward productivity. Meeting other authors is a confidence-building bonus. Many conferences even include a writers bookstore with discounts for attendees. By the end of the conference you'll be dying to get back to your keyboard to write.

WRITERS GROUPS
Whether they meet once a month or more often, writers groups are an excellent way to stay committed to your craft as well as accountable.  By design, no two groups are the same.  Some focus on instruction and exercises, others resemble a support group or social club. Each has its own personality, which is a good thing, since you can try them all and find the one that makes you the most motivated to write.

STAYING IN TOUCH WITH OTHER WRITERS
The business side of publishing may be highly competitive, but it's always encouraging to see how non-competitive writers are with each other. We celebrate everyone's success and are inspired by each new book release instead of envious. Welcoming each other like family, we readily share tricks of the trade. So it's easy to make friends in the writing community.  Whether we foster those relationships through email, social media, or face to face, there are few things more stimulating than an inspired back-and-forth with another creative mind.

Some of my most invigorating conversations have been over lunch with writer companions.  This past Thursday, four of us enjoyed a spirited repast at McAlister's, and I came away with three really good new story ideas.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the Kale Parmesan soup that triggered them.

HANGING OUT IN AN INSPIRING PLACE
Where do you think best? What setting clears your head and opens your imagination? For some, it will be outdoors in a park. Others relax at a coffee shop.  The library is a favorite hangout of writers, surrounded by all the literary masters. A museum or art gallery offers a similar sense of communion with creative genius. Whether you plant yourself there with a laptop or stroll the halls contemplating something you'll write later, a brush with greatness never fails to inspire.

WANDERLUST
Performing a mindless task inherently causes your mind to wander, lusting for something more interesting to think about.  You can use the thankless time spent mowing the lawn or doing the laundry to ponder a scene or a plot, unimpaired by the dull duty in front of you. Sort through story ideas while you're sorting socks and you could have the first paragraph of your next writing session ready to roll.

THE GREAT ESCAPE
When all is said and done, getting our words written is not a matter of escaping to a place of perfection. The most prolific authors say that where you write is not as important as getting in that chair and simply writing, period. Books get written through sheer will and the tenacity to see it through. So the real escape is sometimes from our own procrastination.

For your entertainment, here's a YouTube link to the classic cabin scene from that Dick Van Dyke episode mentioned earlier. May it serve as a reminder to avoid distractions wherever you choose to write, or if you can't, at least have fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ovj_GhPK0&feature=youtu.be

By the way, you'll be glad to know that in the very last episode of the series, he finally did finish his book, just as you will.

Writing a Trilogy-Hook, Hold and Satisfy

By Steve Bradshaw

When the first book of The Bell Trilogy published in 2012, it launched my journey as a mystery/thriller writer. At that time I did not realize writing a trilogy was tantamount to catching a sixty-foot wave the first day I picked up a surfboard. Writing the next two books of the trilogy proved a daunting task. Now, the trilogy doing well and the release of my forth novel in November—EVIL LIKE ME—and well into writing fifth thriller for a May 2017 release, I have a few lessons learned to share that may help the trilogy writers out there.

The typical novel length ranges from 80,000 to 120,000 words. For most writers, managing a “story arc” over that amount of “word acreage” is enough of a challenge. If you subscribe to Nigel Watts (Writing a Novel) philosophy, there are eight elements of the story arc that must be addressed—stasis, trigger, quest, surprise, choice, climax, reversal, and resolution. Each element must be well crafted to successfully hook, hold, and satisfy the reader. Writing a trilogy significantly amplifies that writing challenge.

By definition a trilogy is three connected works with a combined length between 250,000 and 400,000 words. Not only must the “story arc” be well crafted for each novel, it must also be firmly in place for the trilogy as an entity. Just as each book must have a beginning, middle, and end, the trilogy (as a connected body of work) must too.

When considering the construction of the “trilogy story arc”, the writer must think in broad terms. For example, the first paragraph in the first book must have some relevance to the last paragraph in the last book—if not, why a trilogy? The characters throughout the trilogy must be introduced, develop or fade, or drop out for reasons that support the individual book story arcs and the trilogy arc. There must be good reasons for each character and event or the reader will not invest the extra time and attention to read “three novels”. A trilogy asks a lot of a reader. Therefore the reader asks a lot of the writer. Everything must connect and be relevant to the trilogy experience or it must be eliminated. There is no room for tangents and dead ends.   

Some authors just write. Others have outlines and plans. To write a trilogy, I believe a plan is necessary because there are a lot of details to manage over the course of its creation that can take two to three years. I kept track of each character and story event on a master timeline (on and EXCEL spreadsheet). The Bell Trilogy had roots a century old.

If you decide to write a trilogy, you will benefit by laying out the key elements of your story arc that you believe will hook, hold, and satisfy your readers over the duration of a quarter-million or more words. Be sure the story merits three books? If it does, grab your surfboard and take that sixty-foot wave. 

It is an incredible ride.

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Steve Bradshaw is a forensic mystery/thriller author drawing on life experiences as forensic investigator and biotech entrepreneur. He received a BA from University of Texas and trained at the Institute of Forensic Sciences. Steve investigated 3,000+ unexplained deaths for the Medical Examiner Office. As founder-president/CEO of an innovative biomed company, he led development of an innovative meniscus implant now under FDA clinical review. Today, Steve puts his readers on the front row in fascinating worlds of fringe science, forensic investigation, and the chilling pursuit of real monsters. Visit his website and read the first chapters of second edition of The Bell Trilogy—BLUFF CITY BUTCHER, THE SKIES ROARED, and BLOOD LIONS. His new novel EVIL LIKE ME just released. Social media links are: Website, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

Writing is Fun, Again

By Ken Oder

In 1986, a prison guard ushered me into a maximum-security visitation room divided by a pane of glass with desks on each side and telephones bolted to cinderblock walls. I sat down and waited. The barred door on the other side rolled open. A death row defendant, his hands and legs manacled, stepped into the room. He sat down, stared at me with fierce black eyes, and put the telephone receiver to his ear. Twenty-five years later, those sixty seconds of my life were still seared into my mind. However, when I started to write about them, the images that came to me were of a different prisoner and lawyer in a different place and time. The story that took shape evolved into my first published novel, The Closing.

My stories always begin this way, born out of a vision of a brief scene. Sometimes they’re drawn from memory, as in The Closing. Other times, they’re imagined. Old Wounds to the Heart began with an image that came out of the ether of random thought. I saw an old man lying in bed before dawn contemplating suicide when he hears the sounds of an intruder opening a downstairs window.  

Henry James described these bits of inspiration as germs or seeds. He said The Spoils of Poynton was inspired by “wind-blown floating particles in the stream of talk,” ten words spoken at a dinner table. Dorothy Bryant, in her book Writing a Novel, noted that inspiration can come from news reports. Dreiser’s American Tragedy came from a high-profile murder trial and Madame Bovary was inspired by a real-life suicide. But it more often comes from everyday, seemingly inconsequential experiences: a dream, the mere glimpse of a person or scene, or a casual conversation. Bryant calls these seeds “weak clicks of the mind,” and she warned that you could miss them if you’re not listening.

In my case, the seed is usually a memory or an imagined scene. When it comes to me, I feel a slight jolt, faintly electrifying. Ideas spring to mind almost immediately; characters soon come to life; and a story starts to flow. I can’t write without one of these inspirations, but even with one, success doesn’t often follow. Like seeds, many of my ideas fall on rocks, dry up, and blow away, or worse yet, they grow into weeds I wish I’d never planted. Only a precious few blossom into a good story.   

So I watch and wait, and not too long ago, I felt the faint jolt again. In my mind’s eye, I saw a frenzy of moths slapping against a naked light bulb that hung over the front stoop of a country church. Under its pale glow, a small group of people crowded around a preacher, their voices hoarse and desperate. A story of lost faith and hoped-for redemption is straining to break through and take shape. 

Excitement is building; the drudgery of countless revisions of my last novel is falling away; and writing is fun again.           

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Ken Oder was born in Virginia in the coastal tidewater area near the York and James Rivers, where military installations during World Wars I and II fueled the growth of urban centers like Norfolk, Hampton, and Newport News. His father worked for the Navy Mine Depot in Yorktown and later as a Hudson dealer until he heard his calling and became the minister at Mount Moriah Methodist Church in 1960. The family moved to White Hall, Virginia, a farm town of about fifty people at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountains and the rural culture were a jarring contrast to the busy coastal plains, but once the shock wore off, Ken came to love it there. He found the mountains and hollows spectacularly beautiful and the people thoughtful, friendly, and quietly courageous. White Hall became Ken's home, and his affection and respect for the area and its people have never left him. Ken and his wife moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where he practiced law and served as an executive until he retired. They still live near their children and grandchildren in California, but a piece of Ken's heart never left White Hall. That place and time come out in his stories. Website: www.kenoder.com Goodreads Author page: https://www.goodreads.com/ken_oder Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kenoder/

The Long and the Short of It

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


At a Southern Writers authors event a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking with several novelists about their approaches to writing (you'll read about many of them in upcoming issues of Southern Writers).  When I spoke with one author in particular who writes both novels and short stories, I sought his perspectives on writing for the two different formats.

When I learned that his first step in creating his novels was to create a detailed outline, I asked if he plots out his short stories as well. "No," he replied with instant enthusiasm.  Short stories, he explained, are his opportunity to run free. When he begins a novel, he knows how it will end before the opening scene.  For a short story, he lets his characters take him wherever they want to go.

At first glance, one might think the short story would be the one warranting advance planning, since the novel by its sheer length could afford to let its characters wander off course a bit.  I'm even reminded of Abraham Lincoln's famed reply when asked to give an impromptu speech: 

"If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now."

However, the short story—unlike the novel—isn't required to conform to the traditional three-act format we expect from a novel.  The hero's journey as explained by Aristotle, Joseph Campbell, Christopher Vogler and others will probably always have some influence on long-form stories, but the short story can afford to carve its own path. A simple contemplation of a single theme? A beginning-to-end chronicle? The sky's the limit with a short story.

By the same token, there are authors who outline their short stories while letting their novel characters cast their own fates to the wind.  Indeed, going back and forth between the two approaches (outlining versus not) seems like an excellent way to exercise both sides of a creative brain.

There are many good books to help take the guesswork out of outlining, such as K.M. Weiland's Structuring Your Novel, and even if flying by the seat of your pants is your preferred writing method, it's good to know the rules so you can break them with confidence.

Whatever your chosen approach, we invite you to forge a potentially new path by entering Southern Writers' 4th annual Short Story Fiction contest.  By popular demand, we've doubled the 1200-word limit and you can now let your imagination run wild up to 2500 words. The deadline is August 1st, 2015.

Visit http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/shorts for all the details, and good luck!  With a $500 grand prize, there's never been a better time to get short with us.