Unexpected Fireworks by Shannon Moore Redmon

Like many Americans, over the fourth of July my family vacationed at our favorite lake spot for some fun, relaxation and fireworks. We enjoyed a calm couple of days on the water.

But our second night there, something unexpected happened. A neighbor’s boat dock, across the cove, caught fire.

At three-thirty in the morning, we awoke as trucks sped up and down the street. This was unusual for our quiet neighborhood. No one causes a commotion that late at night or the sheriff gets a call.

We thought perhaps a party had run late and people were leaving. Then my mother spotted orange flames glowing against the blackness of the water. We all ran outside for a closer look.

The men of my family wanted to help. They hopped in the boat to make sure everyone was okay. My mother and I stayed behind, watching from a distance.

Thankfully, no human life was injured or lost. Only the owner’s pontoon and his brand-new, just-purchased a few days ago boat, went up in flames. Nothing was left of the double decker dock except the metal frame.

The culprit? An overturned firework that wreaked havoc on the floating objects in its path.

No one expected the purchased sparklers to cause so much damage. The group wanted to celebrate Independence Day, see a good show and enjoy the fun. But instead chaos ensued.

We need to give our readers the same kind of unexpected fireworks on the page. Create chaos in our stories. Pull them from their relaxed lives into the tension and conflict of our characters.

How do we do this?

1) Unexpected Hook/Twist – Give them an unpredictable opening, clutching them into the story the same way our neighbor’s flames pulled my family out of bed at three-thirty AM. Even my college age son got up with interest. I haven’t seen that boy so alert since he finished high school.

2) Explode on the first page - Give the reader action and adventure, suspense and mystery or love and tension, depending on the genre. Something to grab them on the opening page and keep them turning until the end. No one wants to read about the color of the trees or flowers when an all-out fire is taking place across the bay.

3) Spread the fire - Each chapter needs fuel to keep the story burning. A bit of information or action to keep the adventure in motion all the way until the climax at the end.

4) Satisfying ending - Our neighbor plans to rebuild his dock and had insurance money to cover the boats. He will be fine. And so will your readers when a rewarding resolution ends the story.

Time to gather up those bottle rockets and Roman candles to create one completely satisfying pyrotechnic display of writing!

Give readers fuel in every chapter to keep the story burning @shannon_redmon @MaryAFelkins #amwriting #SeriouslyWrite

Shannon Redmon remembers the first grown up book she checked out from the neighborhood book mobile. A Victoria Holt novel with romance, intrigue, dashing gentlemen and ballroom parties captivated her attention. For her mother, the silence must have been a pleasant break from non-stop teenage chatter, but for Shannon, those stories whipped up a desire and passion for writing.
There's nothing better than the power of a captivating novel, a moving song or zeal for a performance that punches souls with awe. A rainbow displayed after a horrific storm or expansive views on a mountaintop bring nuggets of joy into our lives. Shannon hopes stories immerse readers into that same kind of amazement, encouraging faith, hope and love, guiding our hearts to the One who created us all.

Shannon’s writing has been published in Spark magazine, Splickety magazine, the Lightning Blog, The Horse of My Dreams compilation book, Romantic Moments compilation book, Seriously Write blog and Jordyn Redwood’s Medical Edge blog. Her current fiction novel was selected as a top three finalist of the 2018 ACFW Genesis Contest and she is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

Connect with Shannon:
www.shannonredmon.com
The StoryMoore Blog, named in memory of her father, Donald Eugene Moore.
FB: https://www.facebook.com/shannon.redmon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shannon_redmon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonredmon/

Rock the Boat by Rachel Allord

Rachel Allord

Please join me in welcoming Rachel Allord as she reveals how to ramp up the conflict in your story. Rock the Boat! Welcome, Rachel. 
~Dora

I recently had a reader tell me he felt his pulse rate increase while reading a relationally intense scene I’d written. Highest compliment ever. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something like, “Oh I’m sorry to put you through that” but what flew out of mouth was, “Awesome!” If I can turn a reader into a hyperventilating, finger twitching, nervous Nellie, I’ve done my job.

Our task, writers, is to make it worse. Not better, worse. Yes, we’ll need to come to some resolution at the end, cause our readers to breathe a deep, satisfied sigh of relief when they close our book, but until then, make it bad. Really, really bad.

Stories thrive on tension. Tension—the thing we try to avoid in reality—is what keeps us turning the pages late at night. We want to smooth things over in real life, keep the boat floating calmly, but in fiction you must rock the boat. I’m certainly not the first to say this but you must ask yourself, what could be the worst thing that could happen to this character at this moment?

There is a catch: The Badness has to be plausible. It has to fit the context of the story and jive with the spirit of your characters. For instance, you can’t suddenly have a plane crash through the roof of your main characters house just to add some sparks, unless of course you’ve somehow set it up where that it makes sense. (And if you’ve managed to do that, good grief, hats off to you.) Your protagonist can’t contract a rare virus halfway through the book simply to avoid a literary sagging middle… unless, of course, you’ve written way back in chapter three that he or she happened to get stung by some creepy-crawly in the Brazilian rainforest. If The Badness isn’t credible your reader will see right through your shenanigans and throw your book across the room. For the reader, The Badness has to be unanticipated but believable. If we don’t believe a character, we don’t give a hoot as to what happens to them, rare disease ridden or not.

So make it bad and plausible.

One more thing: The Badness has to be tempered with periods of calm, increased character development, and maybe even doses of humor. If the story is just one horrible thing after another—car crash, coma, divorce papers, murder—it feels contrived and, ironically, gets a little tedious and brings us back to the whole plausibility factor. No one can have that bad of luck. Unless your character is trapped in a daytime soap.

To summarize, make it bad and plausible and balanced.

So rock the boat. Ruin that imaginary friend’s life. Don’t worry; you’ll get to make it all better in the end. 

Purchase Link

College student Amber Swansen gives birth alone. In desperation, she abandons the newborn, buries her secret, and attempts to get on with her life. No matter how far she runs, she can’t escape the guilt. Years later and still haunted by her past, Amber meets Beth Dilinger. Friendship blossoms between the two women, but Beth’s son is a constant, painful reminder to Amber of the child she abandoned. 

When heartache hits, causing Amber to grapple with the answers to life’s deeper questions, Beth stands by her side. Yet just when peace seems to be within Amber’s grasp, the truth of her past and the parentage of Beth’s son comes to light and threatens to shatter not only their worlds, but the life of the teenager they both love.

Rachel Allord’s debut novel, Mother of My Son, released in May of 2013. Both an adoptive and biological mother, Rachel grew up as a pastor’s kid, vowed never to marry a pastor, and has been happily married to her pastor husband for eighteen years. She resides in Wisconsin where she avidly consumes novels, coffee, and sushi— preferably at the same time.

Tension Robbers!

Annette M. Irby

Happy Monday, friends. Annette here. I’m working on rewrites on one of my own projects and finding some tension robbers. Are you familiar with them? A good book will keep you hooked throughout the entire story. If the tension and/or conflict dies out, so does the story. Below are some tension robbers and the means to battle them:

Homeostasis

In life, both our minds and bodies prefer the security of remaining in a comfortable place—not too hot or too cold, not too stressed or too dull, not too hungry or too full. And we don’t like to be in pain. If we get out of those comfort zones, we aim for the nearest means of getting right back in. We like to keep things even. That’s homeostasis. It’s also deadly to your story's plot.

TIP: Don’t let things go calm and remain there for long. Always have another layer of conflict brewing when one is tied up. Let there be conflict! Let there be tension! For then, there is story.

Hook-outs

The most satisfying song endings are those that resolve. They come “down” and don’t leave you feeling as if the conclusion of the song hasn’t happened. Resolution is great in music and in arguments, for that matter, but not in story.

TIP: Keep the reader hooked by avoiding resolution at scene and chapter endings. Bring up new questions for the reader at these key spots. Let there be another layer of conflict building beneath the surface.

No Early Rescues

Let your characters suffer and let them face conflicts and trials without rescuing them too early. Challenge yourself as a writer to come up with a solution to situations you’ve never faced. Don’t take the easy way out, or necessarily the first solution. Be careful of letting angels or God rescue your characters all (or, some would say, any of) the time. Be careful of writing contrived rescues. Let them happen naturally. Use foreshadowing. For example, perhaps your hero and heroine are out rock climbing and he has no idea what he’s doing. But earlier in the story you mentioned that your heroine used to teach rock climbing or that she’s spent ten years perfecting her rescue techniques. Then, have her rescue him, after a harrowing scene. This will feel believable. When he’s rescued, though, let tension arise over something else. Now, she’ll have to share her secret, or now he’ll have to give her a job—whatever works for your story.

TIP: Let your characters use their own ingenuity to get out jams, but let them suffer first.

Rationalization

My heroine just talked herself right out of the scene’s inherent tension. Snore! As writers, we want to:

1) Find the inherent conflict or tension of a scene. If none exists, invent something fitting.

2) Milk that tension or conflict.

3) Draw out the scene to a fitting length without going too long, as that will feel contrived.

Just because we prefer homeostasis in life, or we rationalize our worries away, or God does rescue us, doesn’t mean our stories will benefit from this. And feel free to throw some twists in here. Perhaps your character doesn’t know all the things the reader does, so she rationalizes away her fears, then the sociopath attacks. That’s great tension!

Recognize and Neutralize

The overall key is to recognize when we, as writers, are attempting to bring the plot back under control so we’re comfortable. Maybe the story’s gotten too emotional, so we’d rather avoid the pain, or maybe we’d rather not be in that dark house during a thunderstorm. But good story isn’t about comfort. It’s about tension and conflict. 

Seek out the tension robbers and eliminate them before they take away the story’s value. Your readers will love you for it!

Your turn: What are some other tension robbers you’ve noticed? As a writer, how do you ensure you have enough tension?

~~~~~

Annette M. Irby is a published author who runs her own editing business, AMI Editing. She is also an acquisitions editor for Pelican Book Group. See her page here on Seriously Write for more information.

Random Thoughts & Ideas to Spark Your Fiction Writing By Creston Mapes

A friend sent me six pages of his new novel. He wanted to get my feedback. I don’t have time to do this much anymore, but I owed him. I read the first six pages of his first attempt at fiction without taking any notes. Then I stuffed it in a book and am still letting it simmer.

Here’s what I need to tell him, and I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and share some of these insights with you, too.

• The story needs to begin right in the middle of an intriguing, tension-filled moment. Pick right up smack dab in the middle of the situation. Back story can come later, if at all. Who the characters are can come later. What they look like can come later. You must quarantine the reader in the first few pages of the book or you’ve lost him.
  
  On about page four of my friend’s manuscript, there was finally some dialogue and some conflict. “That is where his book needs to start!” I said aloud. The details can come later! His first four pages were all back story. Granted, those pages included a bunch of good ideas and it will all make for a good book. But all of that back story needs to be shown, not told, as the story unfolds. That brings me to my next point.
  
• Please, please, show and do not tell, because if you tell, no serious fiction editors are going to want to publish your book. This might take you awhile to learn, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes habit.
  
  Which gives the reader a better, more vivid and emotional picture of what the character is doing and feeling:
  
  He was nervous and thought about just leaving.
  
  Or…
  
  He drummed his fingers on the table, checked his watch and scanned the room to see if anyone would notice if he disappeared.
  
  The later shows. The former tells.
  
  The whole book needs to show. Just work a sentence at a time, showing. Soon you’ll have the hang of it. And keep adding new things. Don’t just keep rehashing the same old plot. Keep the story alive with new twists and turns that put readers on the edge of their seats.
  
  As for the back story you wanted to include right up front…much of that can be woven in later, throughout the manuscript, as you are showing the reader what happens, like a mesmerizing movie on the big screen.
  
• Write from one point of view (POV) at a time.
  
  I need to tell my friend that he needs to choose one character and to write from that character’s POV for the entire scene or chapter, then switch to another character’s POV. It’s as if you are that character and you are standing behind a video camera. You can see and hear what’s going on around you, but you cannot read other peoples’ minds. You can only write about what you see and hear and what you taste and smell.
  
  There will be more than one POV character. In the novel I’m writing now, I’m writing different scenes and chapters from the POV of 5-7 different characters. It’s a whole lot of fun getting into the mind of a bossy female antagonist, or in the head of an unsuspecting villain, or in the POV of a modern day hero. Again, get POV down and you’ll have mastered one of the top requirements in writing publishable fiction.
  
• Avoid clichés.
  
  Create unique names. Some of the favorites in my novels have included Everett Lester, Twila Yonder, Zane Bender, Gray Harris, Chester Holte, Hudson Ambrose, and Granger Meade. This is important. It sets your book and characters apart.
  
  Create unique storylines. If it’s been done too often and we can predict what’s going to happen, as they say in the Bronx, forgetaboutit! When you’re at a turning point in the book, think up five to seven options of what could happen, and choose the most flabbergasting one! Remember, tension on every page is what you want to keep pulling the reader along with you!
  
• Don’t write too much.
  
  I’ve passed my 500 word limit!

I hope you’ll read my thrillers and connect with me via my website, Twitter or Facebook.

About the Author

Creston Mapes is the author of Fear Has a Name, Nobody, Dark Star, and Full Tilt. A journalist, copywriter, and editor, he works from his home-office in Atlanta for some of the nation’s top media companies, Christian ministries, and nationally-recognized corporations. His early years as a reporter inspire many of his novels. Creston studied journalism at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and began his writing career 30 years ago. 

How Far Would He Go To Keep Them Safe?

It was more than a break-in. More than a stalking. It was personal. When a stalker targets his family, journalist Jack Crittendon must uncover who the person is and what his motives are—if he is to protect the ones he loves. It will lead Crittendon into a world of behind-closed-door secrets and faith gone awry, as does his investigation of a missing pastor, whose apparent suicide is more than it appears. Each move Crittendon makes weaves him tighter and tighter into a web of lies, greed, hypocrisy, sin, and danger. He believed he’d never give in to feareHAnd it leads to. But that was before. And holding on to his faith won’t be easy. Nor will keeping his family safe, and ending the terror. Because that might require him to step over lines he never dared to cross.

www.CrestonMapes.com

www.Twitter.com/CrestonMapes

www.Facebook.com/Creston.Mapes

Do Violence to Your Reader, Part III: The Trough and the Wave by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

Happy Monday, dear readers. Annette here. We writers always hear about tension and conflict, but what about letting up on that tension? Jill Elizabeth Nelson is back with part three of her series on keeping those readers hooked. Read on! 

 Do Violence to Your Reader, Part III: 

The Trough and the Wave

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

The most effective storytellers have a highly developed sense of rhythm and balance. Every wave on the ocean is followed by a trough, and every trough is followed by a wave. The variety is found in the depth of the trough and the height of the wave. This sense of rhythm and balance requires both instinct and planned design. Developing the knack takes practice, but is well worth the bother.

In writing circles, we talk often about heightening the tension and escalating the conflict, but a subtle and necessary aspect of tightening the screws on your characters, and thereby, on your readers is to know when to back off. Let your characters—and your readers—take a deep breath before plunging them once more beneath the stormy waves of tension and emotion.

These short-lived lulls serve not toward dullness in the story, but actually emphasize and highlight the tension, just as the trough of a wave emphasizes the crest of the next wave sweeping in. Our object as writers is not to wear our readers out with perpetual motion, but to draw them ever onward, eager to experience the next emotionally resonant moment.

For instance, in a romance the hero and heroine might savor a sweet and gentle idyll together, but then something occurs to throw them once again into emotional turmoil or physical danger or both. The rapport between the characters is rendered the more poignant and precious by its loss, thus raising the stakes in the reader’s mind for the characters to regain both their safety and intimacy.

In a suspense novel, the heroine might enjoy a brief respite from danger in a return to ordinary daily activities. However, safety proves to be an illusion as the next and more horrific moment of danger overtakes her. Briefly experiencing the false security of the ordinary raises the terror bar on the next eruption of evil both for the character and for the reader.

Perhaps you have never consciously noticed these rhythms in your reading, but you may be using them at some level by instinct in your writing. Becoming aware of the rhythms will enable you to consciously and strategically employ them in your stories.

Here’s your assignment:

Pick up a novel that made a profound impact on you, and evaluate it for the trough and wave rhythms that gripped and fascinated you. How might you apply those rhythms to your current WIP (work in progress)?

~~~~~

Award-winning author and writing teacher, Jill Elizabeth Nelson, writes what she likes to read—tales of adventure seasoned with romance, humor, and faith. Jill is a popular speaker for conferences, writers groups, library associations, and civic and church groups. She delights to bring the “Ah-ah! Moment” to her students as they make new skills their own. Her handbook for writers, Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View, is now available at Amazon (see links below).

Connect with Jill:

Website: www.jillelizabethnelson.com  

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/JillElizabethNelson.Author 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/JillElizNelson.

(print version)      (e-book version)

Tension: The Author's Friend

Hey everyone, Annette here for another This-N-That Thursday. Thought I'd mix things up and focus on writing craft today.

In life we work to avoid tension. From family gatherings to relational stress, we fix underlying problems to reduce tension. Not so in story. You pull the plug on tension in your novel and your reader starts to yawn.

That said, there should be a balance. If you keep things tight as a length of taut floss, you’ll lose readers too. Suspense writers know this. There’s a balance of tension, escalation, release, repeat. Same’s true for other genres.

To the fiction author, tension is a valuable commodity. It’s tangible and vital. Handle with care. Here are some tips to keep in mind in regards to tension:

~ Don’t avoid it.

~ Don’t ease it too often or write scenes without it.

~ Don’t fix things for your hero/heroine.

~ Let your characters worry.

~ Let your characters suffer.

~ Rarely (if ever) should you release all the tension between your characters or from the plot (except at the end of the story when you tie up the loose ends. Of course, you don’t have to tie them into a perfect little bow.).

~ If you solve one problem have another lined up or already in place as a hook to retain readers’ attention. As the earlier problem resolves, escalate the second/secondary problem. Make things tense. Keep ‘em reading.

~ Leave arguments unresolved, at least for a while.

~ Embrace unforgiveness. At least for a while. ;) If your characters are forever letting each other off the hook, tension fizzles. Not only will readers not finish your book, they’ll likely not read your work again, and not recommend you to their friends.

As an author, tension is your friend. Dance with it. Embrace it. Use it. Your readers will love you for it.