The Genesis of a Ghost Story

We all have different prompts that inspire our muses. For me, it's always something visual. An intriguing picture, an atmospheric landscape, a word or word combinations -- any of these can flip the switch on my creative outlet. We also each have very unique processes that nurture and structure those fledgling ideas to full blown stories.

As an example of how my mind works, here's a rundown of my literary gothic romance that will be launching later this year (title, date, book cover, book trailer, excerpts, playlist and pinterest board + giveaways forthcoming!) from conception to ready-to-write plot.

Several years back while I was on vacation in Kansas, my husband and I four-wheeled over to an old graveyard surrounded by a forest—one of those lushly macabre numbers with crumbling tombstones and intricately carved statues dating back to the 17 and 1800’s.

While walking among the debris we stumbled upon a locked fence. An isolated headstone sat inside the enclosure in the far right corner, covered with ivy to the point the epitaph couldn’t be read aside from two words: beloved son.

Seeing something like that … a tomb set off by itself in an enclosure that’s now overrun with weeds and vines … already the questions are stirring my imagination. Who was this person, this beloved son? And why did he merit such isolation?

Then I see something that spurs even deeper introspection. What is the significance of the other gate in back? The overgrown path that opens into the woods … where does it lead? Who once kept a vigil here, and why are they no longer keeping it?

BOOM: my idea was born. A grieving young lady (from the Victorian era, because naturally, the setting lends itself to something gothic), comes upon a wrought iron enclosure in a cemetery and sees not only a tomb, but a lone flower, proud and thriving in the midst of the decomposing wilderness. The young lady can't resist the unusual blossom because ... hmmm ... she has a love for colors and textures since she's a hat maker. So, resourceful and impetuous as all good heroines must be, she breaks off the padlock, digs up the flower, and takes it home, little realizing that it's tied to a man’s spirit—a ghost that happens to have no memory of ever dying. To help solve this dashing ghost’s death, my young heroine must return to the cemetery and follow the trail that leads into the woods to meet the keeper of the grave, her first step in unraveling the mystery.

Voila! From a scene rich with a history that I will never know is born a story that I can mold and shape into something of my very own.

I so love being a writer.

So I had my skeleton plot (no pun intended). I wrote it down, and filed it away to let the idea simmer. Next, I had to motivate and get to know my main characters:

When I first flesh out my characters, I want to have a sense of what they look like. I go online, look at sketches or headshots of people. I look for faces that hold some sort of aura, some expression or aspect that brings to mind characteristics of my character. Then I print them off and tack them to a corkboard in my office to help me visualize these people in the beginning when I’m first getting to know their voice. For me, it makes them come alive. To see my character inspirations, check out the book's official pinterest board here.

Next, I have to give them personality and motivation. First we have a ghost. And he’s already an interesting fellow because:

A. Well … he’s a ghost. *hee*

B. He sings beautiful arias in a foreign language yet speaks in English.

C. He has amnesia; not only is he unaware of his death, but he has no memory at all of his life. So naturally, he’s going to want to remember = his motivation to reach out to this woman.

Next, I give my heroine something unique to her. Something that will be a challenge to her everyday life, but will bond her instantaneously to this spectral stranger. What say we make her deaf? She lost her hearing at age eight and hasn’t heard a sound for eleven years. Suddenly, she can hear this ghostly man. And ONLY him. No doubt, they are going to become fast friends, despite the fact that they can’t touch on any traditional level (sexual tension—it’s a great tool—USE IT). Her affection for him will motivate her to act against her introverted nature and try to find answers to his past.

Now for a twist. How about having another hero in this tale, who may or may not be good?  Any gothic novel worth its salt has a beautiful, dark, sensuous stranger with secrets, who will either be the heroine’s redemption or downfall. Yeah. Let’s give our ghost a rival.

But this fellow needs to be flesh and blood. He needs to have some advantage to put him on equal ground with the man’s spirit who can sing and speak to the deaf heroine. So, the living man can touch her and communicate through romantic gestures. To up the stakes, I give him a link to the ghost’s life … and he’s harboring a secret that ties him to the ghost’s death.

At this point, I'm biting at the bit to get the story penned, so I sit down to the business of research and writing. Looking back on every book I've written so far, the genesis, structuralization, and organization all follow this same pattern.

How about you . . . what sparks that first idea? And afterwards, how do you build on / brainstorm that premise into a full-fledged plot?

I want to be a spark plug...

Note: Despite the title and the picture below, today’s post is not about spark plugs.

But it IS a fitting analogy for an epiphany I had early on in my writer’s journey. And now it's really hitting home, since my debut, Splintered, is being offered to reviewers on netgalley and in hard copy ARC form. I'm starting to get reviews, be they positive or negative, and the spark plug analogy is keeping me sane.

Here’s the definition of a spark plug taken from Wikipedia: A spark plug is an electrical device that fits into the cylinder head of some internal combustion engines and ignites compressed aerosol gasoline by means of an electric spark.

In other words … it magically brings the engine to life. Vroom vroom. But there’s more than one kind of spark plug. So you have to follow the manufacturer’s instructions for choosing the right one to ensure it’s a good fit, or it won’t work. A bad fit means the spark won’t ignite, and there will be no vroom vroom.

A couple of years ago, when I was in the submission trenches with my first agent and my adult literary romance, we received feedback from an editor: I enjoyed the unique storyline and heroine, and I thought the author put a fresh twist on paranormal romance. But as I read, I just didn’t feel a strong emotional connection with the story, so it’s with sincere regret that I’m stepping aside.

I could whittle that entire explanation down into one phrase. No vroom vroom. I wasn’t the right fit for her, and there was no magical spark.

Ouch! That started me second guessing. Where did I go wrong? Why can’t I make everyone connect with my story? Surely, if my characters or storyline can’t capture every single reader’s affections, I have no hope of being a best seller or of winning a loyal fan base. Right?

Well, shortly thereafter I read a best-selling book at the time — one that I’d been chewing on for several weeks — and something clicked into place for me. The book had tons of sales, was well liked according to the majority of the reviews, and the publishers promoted it relentlessly (quite possibly the very reason why it had such great sales).

But upon closing that last page, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Meh”. I mentally gave the book a 2 star rating out of 5. I liked the concept, and enjoyed the author’s writing style. But for some reason … and I could never put my finger on why … I didn’t connect emotionally with the MC. Actually, with any of the characters.

Yet I read that book front to back, just because the premise and writing style drew me in and held my attention. So I guess there’s hope; even without the vroom, sometimes people are willing to shift it into neutral and push on to the end of the road, if only to take in the scenery.

Some readers may not like my fantasy worlds or my plots, or they may not like my characters for their decisions or actions. My characters are flawed and human; sometimes they make mistakes, or don't think things through and act impulsively like real people do. If I write them in such a way to try to fit everyone's ideal, they become nothing more than cardboard cutouts. So, I have to stay true to my characters and my story, although it will mean losing some readers.

But even if someone doesn't like one element of my book, maybe they'll like another enough to read it to the very last line. That's an accomplishment in and of itself.

Maybe the science of writing isn’t quite as precise as the science of automobiles. But it occurred to me that subjectivity can be compared to finding the right spark plug (book) to fit the right engine (reader). Not everyone will love my stories, or my characters, or even my writing style. But all three WILL appeal to some and I will be a perfect fit for them. There’s just too many people with differing opinions and interests for it not to.

So, my hope now that my debut novel is finally getting read? That most readers will like at least one thing about it enough to push through to the end. But even more, I hope to be the spark plug some reader has been looking high and low for, that they'll connect to the story in everyway, and it will ignite their imagination.

And then: Vroom vroom … let the magic begin.

The seven books that made me who I am today...

Or, more to the point: The seven books which most influenced my love of reading and ultimately, writing...

I've been bequeathed the Sweet Blog Award (already posted on my side bar), this time by Jenna Cooper of Finding the Write Way. Thanks Jenna! Make sure to check out her blog. She's new and on the rise!

The rules state I list seven things about me and find 15 people to give said blog award to. And as I'm prone to do, I'm rebelling. ;) Instead of boring stuff about me, I'm listing the seven books which played the biggest roles in my passion for reading and writing, and why.

So off we go: The seven most influential books of my life thus far...


1. The Bible. Okay, stay in your seats. Nobody panic. I'm not going to preach to you. But have you ever really sat down and read it? Here's a tip: turn to Psalms. Read any of them. Poetry: uplifting, passionate, meaningful, romantic, and melancholy. Then there are the stories in the Old Testament: Daniel in the Lion's Den, Noah's Ark, Moses and the 10 plagues of Egypt, etc... C'mon peeps! This is drama at it's best! Suspense, tension, dysfunctional families, romance, spurned lovers, murder, mayhem and death. It's all there. Honest to goodness, want to know where I first developed my love of story telling? In Sunday School class with those little worksheets that used pictures and text to highlight a different bible story each week.

2. The Cat in the Hat. Who wasn't influenced by Dr. Suess at some point as a child? I remember sitting on the couch just looking at the pictures. Suddenly, I was somewhere else. Transported in time and space to hang out with a funky cat and his candy-striped hat. I got to make a HUGE mess of someone else's house, and didn't even have to help clean up. YAY! Then, once my mommy sat down and actually read the words to me, my ears tickled with rhyme and rhythm.

3. The Wind and the Willows. My first grade English teacher introduced me and my entire class to this tale, a few pages each day. I couldn't wait for that small window after lunch when she would read. The pleasures of country life and the dependability of good friends. This book greatly influenced my appreciation for individual characterization and scene setting/building. The Devil-may-care Mole, impetuous Mr. Toad, shy Badger, and discerning Rat, all going on picnics, joy rides in old-timey automobiles, and hanging around in row boats. These animals ... they knew how to party. And in the process, they taught me some valuable life lessons. Subtlety at its finest.

4. Charlotte's Web. I think I first read this in third or fourth grade. I cried. HARD. It was the first book to touch me viscerally. I loved Charlotte. She epitomized beauty, but on a level I wasn't familiar with. Spiders had always been scary and ugly to me. But Charlotte, she was beautiful inside. She cared about Wilbur when no one else did. And she threw herself into making his life better, in spite of how weary or busy she was. E.B. White gave me my first experience with a selfless character. And when Charlotte died, my love for the bittersweet ending was born.

5. Goblin Market. Please, don't disqualify me on a technicality! I know it's only a poem. But I would be remiss if I failed to mention Christina Rossetti's influence on my writing. She ignited my passion for imagery and sensory through the power of her beautiful and seductive prose.

6. To Kill a Mockingbird. One word for what Ms. Lee taught me with this timeless and poignant tale: VOICE.

7. Stephen King's On Writing. Granted, I read this book after the writing bug bit me. But even from a reader's standpoint, it's engrossing, intriguing, and encouraging. One of the most valuable lessons I learned from him (paraphrased, of course): You're a writer, not a liar. As long as something is true to your character, it will be true to your reader. Always seek the truth in your writing, and your readers will follow you anywhere. I think he's proven that with his incredible career, so I'm taking his word.


And there you have my seven books.

As for who I'm passing this on to, I'm leaving it open.

Think of it as a meme ... if any of you haven't received this particular blog award and would like to follow the original rules or my new ones, snag that puppy up, post it on your sidebar, and give us all some insights into what makes you tick. Just make sure you let me know in the comments so I can come by and read your post. I love learning new things about my fellow writers!

Thanks for dropping by! Since today is my official day to blog, I'll be hitting your blogs shortly. Can't wait to see what's new with you. :)

Writing is like a rose...

Happy Wednesday, everyone! First off, I'm very excited to announce that I'm being interviewed today over at Jessica LeSaicherre's fabulous blog: The Closet Writer. Hop over to find out a secret about me that no one knows... ;)

Now, onto my post. Last week, I was tagged by our sparkly Miss Cherie for the meme: "Writing is Not Like a Box of Chocolates," started by the ingenious Greenwoman. The rules state I'm supposed to come up with my own metaphor for what writing is in fact like.

Several of my talented blogger pals have already been tagged with said meme, and put me to shame with their eloquence (Jenny P and Carissa), inspiring irreverence (Marewolf), and creative brilliance (Kalen and Cherie). And I'm sure there's more to come that I have yet to read.

So, I decided to be a little sneaky and make something with music and pictures, because I can never compete word-wise with these amazing posts. ;)

But first, according to Meme Etiquette, I also have to tag three of my blogger friends (and hope no one else has tagged them yet; if you've already been tagged, consider yourself twice blessed).

I choose:

• Sophie Li, the queen of awesomesauce, who I expect will come up with something both charming and profound and might possibly even involve a stuffed animal.
• Ashley Nixon, who will no doubt weave a web of thought-provoking and effervescent insights.
• Mindy, whose sarcasm and wit can put a funny spin on even the most painful of subjects.

Just a reminder that I won't have a QueryTracker interview this Friday. I'm taking a few weeks off of interviewing to hang with family and work on my revisions and home renovations.

Everyone have a wonderful week and I'll see you back here next Wednesday!

Writing Wednesday-meme and award COMBO

I'd been planning to partake in Lori M. Lee's brilliant Writing Wednesday-meme for several weeks now, and since I've been bestowed The Versatile Blogger award again, along with The Irresistably Sweet Blog award, I've decided to incorporate an improvised version of the meme into this post. 

Yes, I'm changing the rules of these particular blog awards, folks! Or, at least giving the recipients the choices between ye ol' rules, and some shiny new ones. I'm a rebel, what can I say? ;)

So, off we go!

Thank you, Caitlin Vincent

Bequeathed to:

Lea Zeqiri

Liesl

Taryn Tyler

Brenda St. John Brown

Marigold Lott

The original rules:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 deserving blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them

OR

My new rules...

Replace #2 above with this improvised meme from Lori's post: List the first and last lines of the first five chapters from one of your manuscripts. Can you see a story taking shape? Does it intrigue and intensify, making you want to read what's between?

I chose chapter snippets taken from my historical literary love story, Forgotten Silences (think Jane Eyre meets A Certain Slant of Light) with a unique love triangle between a deaf woman, the ghost that only she can see and hear, and a dark and mysterious viscount tied to the ghost's death.

Chap 1:

Melancholy ... melody; separate words, separate meanings, united by a memory pressed upon my heart.

Taking a breath of cold air, I opened the door and crossed the threshold, alone.

Chap 2:

In my youth, a spot of hot chocolate savored in tandem with a cranberry crumpet could evaporate the rain from the soggiest afternoon.

Then, using the grosgrain ribbon for protection, I picked up the flower, grabbed my lantern, and scrambled along the path and into my home, locking the door behind me.

Chap 3:

It took me half of the hour to plant the blossom, as I wore thick gloves to avoid getting pricked by its stem or touching the poisonous pollen within the raised cone.

“Either I am having a vivid hallucination, Sir, or you are a ghost.”

Chap 4:

I did not have to be a lip-reader to analyze the skepticism within his expression.

Then, as I clasped the chain around my neck and the locket fell between my breasts beneath the throw, my ghostly companion reappeared … this time to stay.

Chap 5:

Morning broke with a reluctant sunrise.

How could anyone withstand the vision of their own grave, knowing what lay beneath the dirt?


 Next:

Thank you, Cherie and Lisa Ann

Bequeathed to:

Lani Woodland

 Stephanie Alexander

Jamie Handling

 Sylvia Ney

 Rene Nightingale

And along with the strawberry goodness comes these original rules:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated me.
2. Share seven random facts about myself.
3. Pass the award to 15 blogging friends.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

OR

The new rules...

Replace #2 with: List three of your favorite sentences from a WIP or finished MS. 

And, in the interest of time, you can be creative with #3 and pass the award to as few as five friends.


My favorite three lines (from the same MS as above):

1. Winter had settled in her heart, and was freezing her from the inside out.

2. Yet I could not shake the foreboding sense that each page turned would be another ribbon snipped away from Pandora’s box of beautiful misery.

3. Flames of fear have crisped the memory to a nightmare, which snows like ash over my dreams.

 ~~~

Congrats, nominees! By now I've contacted you. I hope you enjoy the award. You earned it!**

On Friday, my QueryTrackers successful author interview will be with Kaylie Austen. Kaylie's story is atypical in that she's found a trade publisher sans an agent. She has several new books coming out in the near future, so be sure to drop by and congratulate her!

**Award winners: Please don't feel obligated to post the award or partake in the rules unless you're so inclined. The gesture on my part is like a thank you card, and I don't expect everyone to save their cards unless they want to. We all have our own decorating tastes and expectations for our "online home." But, if you choose to post it, here are some helpful hints:

Right click on the picture here and "save picture as." From your dashboard go into 'design' and 'add a gadget' and download the picture.

Silencing your infernal ... er, internal ... editor, so you can smell the roses.

As writers, we've all experienced it. Cozied up in an easy chair, we crack open a brand new book, breathe in the fresh pages, and let the words swallow us whole.  Then our eyes stumble. Once, twice, three times. Before we know it, we've slammed our eyes AND the book shut, disgusted such a travesty was ever published.

How can a story with so many glaring mistakes and such weak writing ever have made it past an agent, much less an editor, and onto the printing press?  What a monumental waste of paper and ink! Didn't those publishers see the wooden dialogue?  What about the info-dump in chapter one, or the dream sequence that hopped from one POV to the next?  And there were at least seven commas in sentence # fifteen on page ten.

But is the book really so bad? Would we have noticed the blunders had we not read every book out there on "How to write", had we not taken every creative writing class offered at the local community college and attended each and every workshop / conference accessible?  Would we have cared, were we not inundated every moment with rules, rules, and more rules, that will assure us acceptance by an agent and ultimately publication with some big New York house?

Something happens when an avid reader learns to write.  Books that used to carry us to new and wondrous places, can't carry us past the lumpy cushion on the loveseat.  It's a catch 22. I can't argue that my internal editor has improved my writing by leaps and bounds, but yet it's stifled my enjoyment of the written word somewhat. The innocence is gone. 

And I know I'm not alone.

I've heard more than one frustrated writer ask why there are so many "bad" books that get agented and published (loathe to admit I've been guilty of such thoughts myself). How can "those kinds of books" possibly make it past querying, submitting, and slush piles to be a shiny new title on the shelves when they're lacking quality?

Thing is, do any of us really agree on what constitues a "bad" book?

Is it:

1) adverbs dominating each sentence?
2) too many passives?
3) excessive use of "that"?  (my personal weakness--grrr)
4) comma splices, dangling participles, punctuation faux pas, etc...?
5) head hopping?
6) cookie cutter cardboard characters or wooden dialogue?
7) unsatisfying plot / ending?
8) a flowery or sparse prose?
9) information dumping?

Okay.  So, numbers 1-4 are universal grating points.  Nothing is more frustrating than when we see someone slide into home plate and be counted safe while breaking all of the grammatical rules we've been taught as writers.  The rules we bang our heads against the walls day in and day out to uphold.  I'm so anal myself, that before I finish revisions on a MS, I'll go through with the FIND tool and search for all "was-derivatives", "thats" and LY adverbs in an effort to make those sentences stronger. 

But should we let it ruin what might be a perfectly good story by dwelling on the errors instead of skimming over them and reading on to find the meat?  There had to be something there that made an agent and editor love it enough to accept it despite its faults.  Aren't you curious to discover what that was? Maybe even learn something in the process?

And what about numbers 5-9?  There comes a point when we cross the line from grammatical to personal writing style, and some of the "rules" we've learned as writers can bleed into voice to be counted as style, much as it makes us choke to admit it.   

Read multiple reviews for the same book and you'll see it all boils down to subjectivity.  Where one reader sees wooden dialogue, another will think the dialogue sings.  While one sees the prose as too drippy and purple, another is swept away by the lyrical flow.  Head hopping or info dumping?  That can be argued as the author's personal approach to narrative, as long as they can swing it without jolting the reader from the story. 

It's kind of magical actually, when an author can bend the "rules" we've all been taught, and do it in such a way that the typical reader won't notice ... in such a way that the reader isn't shaken from the story but instead is left floating in a suspension of blind faith until the story's final sentence. 

Maybe, as writers, when we put on our reading caps, we need to borrow that nugget of wisdom from everyone's favorite pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow: "Hang the code and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway."

Personally, I'm going to try it. I'm nostalgic for my innocence.  I miss the pleasure of just reading. 

It's time to smell the roses through someone else's nose, to taste the flavor of rain on their tongue. It's time to get lost in a story again.

*For a related post on this subject, visit Elizabeth Moon's blog entry on  "Why Bad Books Work."

QueryTrackers Making Tracks, #3

Today is the third of a series on successful authors I've met through QueryTracker.

Some of the authors I'll be spotlighting on Fridays have agents, others have found success in less conventional ways. But, one thing they all have in common is their use of the QueryTracker website, whether for information or emotional support. In some way or other, each of my upcoming guest posters have utilized this amazing online tool to help make their tracks in the publishing world.

We're doing things a little different this time. My guest, the lovely Kristine Carlson Asselin (golfergirlkca to us QTers), has recently signed with agent Vickie Motter of Andrea Hurst Literary Management. She's written up a post detailing her unique journey, and how QT played an integral part in finding not just one agent who had a hand in her success, but two.

Welcome, Kristine!


   Thanks Anita for having me on the new blog today! I’m so excited to be able to share my QueryTracker story—it was an invaluable resource for me during my query process. On March 1, 2011, I signed with Vickie Motter of Andrea Hurst Literary Management. QueryTracker kept me organized, sane, and informed.

I first discovered QueryTracker waaayyyy back before it was in its current format—Patrick was just starting out. I hadn’t written my YA novel and was querying picture book manuscripts. How things change! When I rediscovered it, I was thrilled to see what a great tool it had turned into, complete with blog, message boards, and personal tracking tool.

I got serious about querying in the spring of 2010. I had a completed YA novel that I was DYING to query. I entered, and ended up winning, a pitchline contest sponsored by QueryTracker. That rocked!—I knew I had something with my novel. I wasn’t sure what yet exactly. But that contest validated my concept. And the agent was someone who was unfamiliar to me—he ended up helping me immensely in my revision process, though I ended up signing with someone else. If not for QT, I wouldn’t have had an incredible interaction that really helped my book.

As a ridiculously unorganized person, QT was my lifeline to keeping track of my queries. I recorded who was on my wish list, who I queried, who rejected, and who requested. The coolest day was when I recorded my offer—the little icon has sunglasses on—very cool.

It bears saying—and I think QT and Patrick and his team would agree—QUERY WIDELY. You never know what is going to interest any particular agent at what time. I’m not saying query anyone for any project, you have to do your research. But don’t give up after ten queries—I sent 67 before I signed with my agent. Stay positive!

Thanks again to Anita for having me. You can read more about my agent story at http://krisasselin.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-agent-story.html or http://querytracker.net/kristine_carlson_asselin.php or

http://backspacewriters.blogspot.com/2011/03/one-writers-path-to-signing-with.html.

***

Thank you, Kristine, for sharing your story, and congratulations on finding your dream agent. And just in case our readers are curious, here's Kristine's prize winning pitch from the QT contest:

With the family golf course on the verge of bankruptcy, Kate Anderson decides she's going to be the first girl to win the Junior State Championship to draw the crowds back, but her plans are derailed when her best friend and crush is accused of vandalizing the course with a blowtorch.

Sounds fabulous, and I can't wait to read it! Until then, I wish you much luck and happiness on your climb to the shelves.

Now it's your turn. If you have questions for Kristine--or if you'd like to congratulate her and show your support -- please leave a comment below.

And for those of you who participated in the book-give-away contest, I will be announcing the winner on Monday. Until then, have a wonderful weekend, everyone!