After waking up all groggy and Houdini-ing myself out of a closet, I found this wonderful guest blog post in my gmail. Wish I knew how it got in there…or where I’ve been for the last couple weeks.

In all seriousness, the Muses have a special treat for you today: Lorin Oberweger from FREE EXPRESSIONS.

Some of you may remember Veronica’s interview with Lorin on being a manuscript consultant. Today, she’s giving us a different (and wonderful) perspective of the STORY MASTERS WORKSHOP from that of the event’s organizer. Lorin is a pro at throwing these intensive seminars  and an awesome writer too.

Enjoy! And afterward, visit FREE EXPRESSIONS to see all their offerings for editorial work and workshops.  Over to you, Lorin…

Do YOU Write?

Even though I had to chloroform Bret, drag his body into a closet, and quadruple-bolt the door, I’m going to begin by thanking the YA MUSES for “inviting” me to contribute this week.  If you read this blog, you already know how talented, dedicated, and awesome these folks are; it’s an honor to mix it up with them.

Here’s a secret: behind every successful writing workshop is a person cursing a printer for mangling its twentieth sheet of nametag paper.  A person who might be hugging a writer one minute and berating hotel staff for vacuuming outside the conference room the next. A person who sometimes spends too much time running around to really soak up the wealth of material coming her way but who, at every event, is treated to a few luminous moments where she feels the tangible energy of inspiration, the bristling, intense excitement in a room and thinks, “I helped create this.”

Invariably, at some point during a workshop, a participant will ask me, “Do YOU write?” I think it’s because I forget to look tortured. And, of course, the answer is that I DO write, that I’ve written for almost as long as I’ve breathed, and that so much of what I know about writing translates directly into putting on great events for writers.

First, EMPATHY.  Just as you can’t create really rich characters if you’re not willing to slip into another person’s shoes, you can’t put on a successful writing event if you’re not willing to consider the needs of your guests, to ask yourself what kind of experience would be of most value to them, and make your choices accordingly.

For example, as a participant of other workshops, I’d watched folks drift around at meal times, looking lonely and unmoored. So at my events, I provide a decent lunch and an opportunity for students to sit down together, make new friends, network, chat and laugh. 

Secondly, and inversely, I’ve learned that YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERY PERSON, EVERY TIME. The key is to shoot for the richest, most satisfying experience for as many folks as you can but not to drive yourself crazy working for everyone’s approval.

At every event, there are those folks whose internal thermostats demand a room warm enough to hatch chicks. There are those with food allergies so idiosyncratic I’d have to fly in chefs from the Mayo Clinic to attend to their needs. I can do my best, but I can’t make every single participant perfectly happy. I CAN offer the best possible event for all, though, and hope that the quality of the experience outweighs the small shortcomings.

And as a writer, I can’t write to the highly specific demands of each individual reader.  All I can do is work to tell a compelling story, with the richest characters and the best prose I can muster and hope that it resonates for MOST readers.

I succeed at both of these things, I like to think, because I also embrace the idea that YOU NEVER STOP LEARNING. 

You know what one of the most awesome parts of Story Masters was for me? Seeing the instructors show up each day to learn from each other, watching them scribble or type notes as enthusiastically as the other students did.

The most successful writers I know are those who still, even years into their careers, attend workshops, read craft books, gobble novels like Skittles. They are constantly engaged in their craft—working to learn all the time, about the general elements of craft but also about their own hearts, about the hearts of their characters, about the themes that strike chords within them. Those folks are my heroes.

And speaking of heroes, today is my father’s birthday. Unfortunately, he passed away a long time ago, but he taught me something that’s served me amazingly well as a writer and as a workshop producer. It boils down to this: IT CAN BE DONE.

Every member of my family, at one time or another, has acted as an entrepreneur. I grew up with the idea that if someone of reasonable intelligence could do something, so could I. (As long as it didn’t require a lot of athletic prowess or math skills.)

This has served me as a writer, independent editor, and as a businessperson. It’s helped me build a facile mind—one that can respond to thorny plot issues in a client’s novel, sluggish pacing in my own work, or a hotel that has forgotten to reserve rooms for, oh, half my staff.

Writers often give up, I find, because they don’t truly embrace the belief that a solution exists for just about any writing problem, that it’s possible to make their novels more palatable to the reader without sacrificing the elements they most cherish. They limit themselves out of fear or obstinacy.

In life, and in writing, a belief in the likelihood of success is key. The workshops I produce, the help I try to offer--all of it boils down to that idea: that given the right tools and insight, a writer can move from good to great, from unpublished to published, from story amateur to, dare I say, story MASTER.

I believe that for myself, and I believe that for YOU. Go get it.

Hello! How are y'all doing? Can you tell I just came back from Texas? 

Continuing with the Muses coverage of the Story Masters Workshop in Houston, here are a few of my own highlights from the weekend:

DONALD MAASS - Reversing Genre/Character Stereotypes

Don suggested making a list of stereotypes for your character type or genre, and then deliberately setting out to reverse or twist them. For me, it was an awakening of sorts into my protagonist, Peregrine. He is, I would say, a classic loner/outcast, as found in much speculative and genre fiction. He prefers being alone, and believes he's above the law, so to speak. He's self-sufficient and often aloof. Starting to sound familiar? I thought so. But the truth is that inside he's also incredibly selfless and socially motivated. He wants to fit it. He wants family and acceptance. Solitude, to him, can feel comfortable some of the time, but it's nowhere near enough.

In listing out his traits and opposite traits, Don's exercise put that duality in his character into clear focus for me. It's been something I've written unconsciously. By now, I'm on around my 600th page with Perry and writing him has largely become a sort of channeling. I just show up at the computer and he takes over. While that's a good place to be in, I'm very excited to have found this point of friction within his psyche. It was another thing Don said: give your protagonist dueling desires, and the push/pull of wanting freedom and wanting belonging will most definitely be percolating in my thoughts next time I'm channeling him.


I recommend this exercise for anyone beginning a book, or even to anyone searching to mine new dimensions from a well-known character.

JAMES SCOTT BELL - Discovering Theme in Your Story

Are you cringing? I think most writers do when we hear that word. Telling someone your theme is akin to revealing your moral code. For me, it's hard not to feel lofty when saying something like, "My story dispels the myth of the existence of free will." In my head, themes come out sounding like voiceover by Morgan Freeman. Weird, I know. Point is: talking theme makes me feel preachy and not a little bit lost. I wonder:

What is my point? What do I believe? Is it important enough? Is that really what my story is about?

Enter James Scott Bell to save the day. In Houston, he gave us the following exercise. Try it, if you're struggling with your story theme.

Imagine you're in a bar twenty years after the events in the story. Your protagonist walks in, sits down beside you. After you get over the shock of seeing a figment of your imagination incarnate, drinking a beer on the next barstool over, you ask the following questions about their journey in the story:

• Why did you have to go through that?
• What did that do to you?
• What did you learn?

Go ahead a free-write for about ten minutes on that, and BOOM. It works. It worked for me. Try it. Set your inner Morgan Freeman free!

CHRISTOPHER VOGLER - Break the Rules

From Vogler, who is one of the great story analysts of the day, I took away something rather unexpected, but important. If you aren't familiar with Vogler's work, I'll say that it's a detailed, point by point analysis of the classic hero's journey. His model of story is incredibly effective, so I was surprised when he spoke, more than once, about the value of skipping a step in the process, or leaving out, for example, a mentor figure, or even an ally. Vogler argued that sometimes a story can get too cluttered. By removing one element, you give more power to those that remain. Wise advice from someone who has evaluated tens of thousands of stories.

For more tips from these great writing teachers, check out their books!

This week we're talking about some of our favorite moments of the Storymasters conference in Houston, TX.  I have to say that my favorite day was the second day, when we were treated to eight hours of James Scott Bell, author of Plot &Structure.  I read Plot & Structure when I first started my writing journey, but plot is something I struggle with, and so I come back to this book often.   James, or "Jim" as the other presenters referred to him, was not only brilliant, but also funny and engaging.

While at the conference, I picked up a copy of Revision and Self-Editing, a book that Bell wrote to help transform a crappy first draft into a great work of fiction. It's a great book, with lots of tips for transforming scenes and livening up characters to make them jump off the page.

 Bell encouraged us to think big, to create unique plots and larger than life characters that would draw a reader in. One thing that stuck with me was his take on minor characters.  According to Bell, every minor character should fall into one of two camps.  They are either allies or irritants to you main character.  Every minor character, even the perfunctory characters that are there to move the story along, the bartender, the cab driver or the grocery store clerk, should help or hinder your character along the way to solving the story's problems.  Thinking of even the most minor characters in this way helps you to keep focused on the primary plot objectives and also opens up a world of possibilities in terms of comedy, conflict and tension.

Bell suggested taking all the characters in your books and putting them in two lists.  Those who are there to help your main character accomplish her goals, and those who oppose her.  By understanding the relationship between the minor characters and the main goals of the protagonist, your scenes will start to write themselves thanks to the conflicts and relationships that naturally arise, while keeping the story on track and the plot trajectory moving forward.

What a simple concept.  Look at every character in your novel, and let the main character ask them- are you with me or against me?  The answer may surprise you.  And open up a world of possibilities to make even the most perfunctory scene or character sparkle.


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Do you ever have one of those writing moments when you have an inspiration to make the story better?  And you know it will work?  And you can picture the scene exactly in your head, as if watching it scroll out before you on film?  And you know it will be a bucketload of work, but it doesn’t matter because it’s exactly what your novel needs?

Have you ever had that happen several times in the course of a day?  And more over the course of a single weekend?  This is what the Story Masters workshop did for me.

I arrived in the conference room the first day of the Story Masters workshop, primed and ready to work.  I had my little red notebook.  I had my laptop.  I had a cup of coffee.  I sat at a table with some of the best writing friends a person can have.  And then Donald Maass began to talk.

Maass is a charismatic speaker.  At first glance, he looks a bit like Simon Cowell, but imagine if Simon got up in front of the Idol contestants and pumped them full of the tools and brain fever they needed to improve their voices, their stage presence and their enthusiasm.  Can’t picture it?  Well, try harder, because that’s Donald Maass.

As Donna pointed out yesterday, what he asked of us wasn’t easy. Imagine answering all of those questions that Donna mentioned yesterday. Picture yourself with your arm around your notebook, trying to hide these horrible, black, internal things from some of the writers you admire most in the world.  Yeah.  That.  All in the first hour.

But after wringing us out emotionally, he had us turn all that over to our characters.  Because, as he so eloquently put it, it’s the emotions that engage us as readers and connect us to the characters.  Why wouldn’t you write from the deepest emotional well you’ve got?

We had a whole day of this.  With a short break for lunch.  Maass fired question after question at us, sparking possibilities and epiphanies with every one.  After a while, I felt like all I could do was write down the questions, because my brain was so mushy I couldn’t even begin to conjure a response.

At some point in the afternoon, Maass suggested the possibility of a scene.  One in which your protagonist is rendered speechless.  I realized quite proudly that I had already done that in Book 2. I sat back, satisfied that I had finally done something right.  But then he asked, “What is the first thing your character says?  And the next?  And the next?” And more possibilities bubbled up.  And then he stopped.

“Imagine your character saying all these things,” he said after a moment. “Now.  Think hard.  Is she saying them to the person she’s supposed to be saying them to?”

No.

“Why not?”

Because he’s not there.

“Is he not there?  Why not?  And if not, can he be there?”

Yes. 

So much for my self-satisfaction.  But when I picture the scene now, it seems more complete.  And makes the subsequent scenes more complete.  I just have to write it.

Donald Maass demands nothing less than the hardest work from the writers he reaches out to.  Yes, a little like Simon Cowell.  But nicer.  And more inspiring.

I have a lot of work ahead of me in my revision of Book 2.  But what I learned from Donald Maass, James Scott Bell and Christopher Vogler will only serve to make it better.  And Book 3.  And, if I am so lucky, all the books that follow. 

I had already read the books.  And some of what I heard in Texas was repetition of what I’d already read.  But that didn’t matter.  I learned it a different way.  I will apply it with a different mindset.  We, as writers, are never finished learning our craft.  There is always something we can do to improve, to change things up a little, to add beauty and strength and that special quality that compels a reader to turn the page.  Finish the chapter.  Reach the end. 

And ask for more.

Last week the Muses attended the StoryMasters workshop in Houston and this week we're going to share a little of what we learned. Of course, there is no way we could ever represent the incredible experience and expertise shared with a short blog post, but each of us will share our own individual highlights.

My favorite day (and by far the most exhausting) was Donald Maass' discussion on emotional intensity. He spent most of the seven hour talk asking questions. He started with this, "What is it that moves readers' hearts? What is it that makes characters more real than we actually know? Emotions. Feelings. That's what connects us to characters. In order to create that effect we need to open an emotional landscape for our characters to walk through."

Then came the questions intended to pry open the door to that emotional landscape. I warn you. This process isn't for the faint of heart. Each of these questions could take days and/or pages of journal writing to fully explore. The questions aren't easy to address, but if you can bring these specific, accurate emotions to your characters they will become genuine and real.

What is the feeling that you are most afraid to put on the page?
What is scary for you to express?
What have you never said to anyone?
What hurts the most?
What is the joy that is so perfect that you are afraid to say it?
What is it that you think people would not understand or reject or turn away from?
What aspect of this feeling is the most fearful and shameful or silly?
Where are you when this feeling overtakes you? Is it the images you have in your mind?
When does this feeling occur?
Is it associated with something specific? Time? Holiday? Event? Is there a person that provokes this feeling or it is directed toward?
What feeling is it that makes you shake? Makes your hand tremble? Brings you up against your weakness? When does it occur? Who provokes it?
What is the strongest emotion your protagonist feels in this scene. When did you feel this?
What was the color, shape, texture?
What would happen if you did that in every scene?
What is your protagonist deepest childhood hurt?
What have they never told anyone? Worst mistake?
What do they least want to accept?
What do they know about themselves?
What do they cling to the hardest?

So what was my biggest Ah-ha of the weekend? The emotional landscape where your characters live should be real, even if your characters are not.

It takes the story to a whole new level.