Writing Prod Contest

    

            Since this is Memorial Day, I would like to start out by expressing my thanks to the brave men and women who have made sacrifices so that we might be free. Thank you one and all.

            Today I am going to give away a copy of City of the Gods: Mythic Tales, Volume One. Okay, I’m not actually giving it away today, but I’m going to tell you about the contest that will allow you to win it. This will be my first attempt at a give-away.

            Mythic Tales includes my short story A Coyote’s Tale in the collection. The book is beautifully illustrated and, so far, the reaction to it has been good. A quick run-down on the premise of City of the Gods is that all of the gods left the earth and now live together in and around the Eternal City. Mortals and immortals alike walk the city’s streets and represent every mythos from Earth.

            For the contest, I am going to offer up my usual Monday Writing Prod and then ask anyone who wants to compete to submit a short story, poem, or synopsis based on the prompt. Please, keep it under 300 words. Post a comment below and include a link to the entry. Or you can just post the entry in the comments section. The deadline is next Monday. I will review all of the entries (at least, I hope there will be some entries) and announce a winner on my Wednesday post.

            Tell your friends about the contest. The more the merrier. And I am requesting that the winner review the book and either post it on their blog or allow me to post it on mine.

            Now for the prod. I call this one the Extreme Holiday. The idea here is to take a holiday and push the celebrations surrounding it to the extreme. Once you have the holiday-gone-wild worked out think of how it got that way and challenge your hero to change it.

            Here is my example:

            The Family Bowl

One day a year determined a family’s fate until the next Thanksgiving. Life was great if you family won the annual Family Bowl. The rest of the people on your block were at your beck and call until next year. But Josh was twelve and had only Mom and his sister Stacy with which to put together a grid-iron monster that would beat the other families. He needed a “Hail Mary” plan or his family would be on the bottom of the loser’s column . . . again.

This Week In The Blogverse

            The blog I'm covering today just recently hit my radar. And by recent I mean within the last month or so. Hopefully, that points out that I do try to keep my eye out for quality blogs that have something to offer aspiring authors.

            Let me introduce everyone to Sher A Hart who runs a fabulous blog. So far, my weekly spotlights have focused on a feature that the blog of the week offers. That isn’t always the case. Some blogs have an enormous amount of valuable posts that just don’t fall into the weekly column format. Sher happens to run a blog that falls into that category. The link above will take you to the landing page of Sher’s blog, but I am going to cover a couple of the specific posts she has put out there that has made this a must read for me every week. I’ll include links to those specific posts as well.

            On Social Media: Marketing Your Writing Sher had a veritable cornucopia of links to sites that can help you market yourself better on the internet. I spent several hours checking them out and found them to be pretty useful. This is the post that originally caught my attention. (Among the links is one for Nathan Bransford that I highly recommend.)

            My eyes really perked up when I read Turn Your Book Into a Script and Get $200,000. Kevin J. Anderson may be fortunate enough to be getting calls left and right to work on writing project, but I’m not. At this stage of the publishing game I have to make opportunities happen. This post brought an opportunity to my attention. I took second place in this year’s First Chapter contest at LDStoryMakers12 and plan to finish that as a script and submit it for consideration. Kudos to Sher for posting this opportunity.

            Dan Wells Free Video Seminar is another example of how the blog shares information helpful to writers. Dan covered a lot of this material in the class he taught at LDStoryMakers12. It’s good stuff. If you couldn’t attend the conference here is your chance to experience it yourself. (Alright, you won’t be experiencing the actual conference yourself, but you will get to see what it was like to sit in a class taught by Dan Wells and learn about the seven point plotting system he advocates.)

            I’ll stop at three examples, but Sher provides a constant stream of writing links, helpful advice, and notices about contests and giveaways. How great is all of that?

            Trust me, it’s awesome.

     

Conference Report - Part 2

            Alright, here is the second half of my report on LDStoryMakers12.

 

Creating An Awesome Author Website

with Marion Jensen and Able Keogh

            Marion use Josi Kilpack’s blog as an example of what a good web page should include. If you want ideas of what you can do with yours just visit Josi’s site.

-         Suggested that the landing page (the main page that people are directed to when they visit your website) should have the author’s name prominently displayed, a good picture of the author, a picture or description of what the web page is about (which should be your books), and a brief bio.

-         Include items on the webpage that will be of interest to your fans. For example, Josi includes recopies on her site that play off the unique nature of her culinary mysteries. Whatever your stories are about there will be something you can include that your fans will find interesting.

Creating White-knuckle Chills and Bone-chilling Suspense

with Gregg Luke

 

            Gregg went into detailed explanation of the six elements of suspense.

            - The six elements that create suspense are: 3-Dimensioanl characterization, good pacing, anticipation, detailing each scene, resolution of conflict, and trimming all the fat.

Creating Page-Turners with the Elements of Suspense

with Rachelle Christensen

            Rachelle described the methods of creating suspense in your writing.

-         “There is no terror in a bang – only in the anticipation of it.” Alfred Hitchcock.

-         Give each character something to worry about and something to hope for.

-         Use setting and description to evoke suspense. (A scene that takes place in a dark, abandoned house is much more suspenseful than one that takes place in bright, cheery outdoor café.)

-         Villains need to evoke a sense of suspense and fear.

-         Keep the stakes high for the protagonist.

-         Create questions in the reader’s mind that they will need to continue reading to get the answer.

Creating a Podcast from Scratch

with Jeff Savage, Howard Tayler, and Robin Weeks

            In addition to the technical aspects of the class they discussed the fundamentals that need to be established before you start creating the content of the podcast.

            - Is there something I really want to talk about?

            - Who will be on the podcast?

            - What is the theme of the podcast?

            - How often will we post?

           

            Then they went on to discuss the actual technical prep for podcasting.

-         What microphone is right for you? (Based on their comments, unless you need serious production value from it you could use the Logitech Clear Chat Comfort / USB Headset that runs about $30.)

-         What editing software is available? (Audacity is free to be downloaded from the internet and allows you to record audio files and edit them.)

-         You will need web hosting. No recommendations were made since there are so many options out there, but they did mention BlueHost and PodBean.com.

           

(I worked this week on getting ready to podcast. PodBean not only will host the podcasts, but you can do all the recording and editing on their site as well. As for hosting, I took a look at Weebly and it hosts my webpage for free as opposed to the nominal charge that BlueHost requires. Those are just my observations and not part of what Jeff, Howard, and Robin talked about.)

Writing Young Adult Novels that Kids Want to Read 

with Janette Rallison

            It took me a few minutes to realize that I took this class last year. I stuck around anyway because Janette does such a great job with it. The one thing I’d like to point out is that I feel this class applies to writing in general and that makes it a wonderful class for getting your writing tuned-up. However, there were a few points that applied specifically to YA novels.

-         Protagonists should be a year or two older than the target audience.

-         Include issues that teens care about. Like dating.

-         Make it fast moving.

-         Should be 200-300 pages in length.

-         Often written in First Person POV, but can be third.

-         Teens relate to a more conversational voice.

-         Use shorter, easier to read sentences.

How to Blog Like a Pro

with Elana Johnson

            Elana is a master at platform building. And a really nice person too.

-         Build your author franchise with these 5 platforms: Twitter, FaceBook, GoodReads, an author website, and a newsletter.

-         ARCS are good prizes. Books are good prizes. Entice the fans that visit your social medias with contests that offer these prizes.

-         Headers and sidebars are good places to promote your book.

  

The conference humbled me, in a good way, by pointing out my writing flaws. And if you are going to come to that realization then there is no better place to do it than the LDStorymaker conferences. This breakthrough on my part comes from my first chapter contest experience. It taught me that thinking I can coast through the writing process is foolishness. At the point that any of us fail to give the writing process the respect it requires we stop progressing as writers.

Please, don’t let my comments at the end here lead you to think that the conference was anything but an educational and uplifting experience put on by a host of friendly and warm individuals. I love this conference and hope I can continue to make the trip north each year to attend.