A Winner of Two Book  Awards

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Gems from Some of the Great Writers

These quotes have many times saved me from losing hope on myself as a writer. Hope they would do the same for you!

I sit down religiously every morning. I sit down for eight hours every day—and the sitting down is all. In the course of that working day of eight hours I write three sentences which I erase before leaving the table in despair. . . . Sometimes it takes my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall.
~Joseph Conrad

"Don't get discouraged because there's a lot of mechanical work to writing. . . . I rewrote the first part of Farewell to Arms at least 50 times."
~ Ernest Hemingway

"Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else... Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance, the proving ground of, what happened? Who's here? Who's coming?”
~ Eudora Welty

(DESTA would not have been written without the mountains.)

"I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances."
~ John Steinbeck

"If you can imagine it, you can create it. If you dream it, you can become it."
~ William Arthur Ward.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.*
~Anton Chekhov

Words—as innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.**
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

* This line by Chekhov is a beautiful example of the difference between a showing- and telling- writing.

** This quote illustrates what I often refer to as the hidden, magical power of words.

The Anatomy of a Plot - By Getty Ambau

Whether it be a short story or a sprawling, multigenerational novel, the plot refers to the complete picture of the work—from the beginning to the end. By its nature, a plot always has a problem, a conflict or struggle in its making. Remember this: If you have no problem or conflict, you have no story.

Plots typically have 5 parts. See the diagram below.

Exposition—This is the point when you introduce the characters, set the scene, geography or place and time. This is where your character’s life changes from “normal” to something mentally and emotionally challenging. Always start with a crisis or a flashback. Either way, make the reader feel as if they arrived in the middle of a major scene.

Rising Action—this part contains the on-going conflicts, tensions or problems until they ultimately come to a crescendo or climax. The conflicts or tensions will not be linear as above. They will be a series of mini crisis or arcs, creating more like an ebb and flow pattern than a straight line. It’s good storytelling if every attempt the protagonist makes becomes hard to overcome or solve. Besides the main challenge, create unexpected situations that make it even harder for the lead character. That way you will keep your readers on their toes.

Climax: This represents the maximum tension or conflict. This is the most exciting part of the story… All the mystery or the problem that drove the story forward will be revealed… The hero saves his princess or discovers the missing treasure or kills the enemy. At this point the reader should be shocked or thrilled.

Falling Action—the story begins to unravel slowly, the reasons or the causes for the earlier conflict begin to emerge or become apparent to the reader…

Resolution—The plot has unraveled and the story ends. . . And the reader sits back, closes her eyes and sighs in contentment.

Referring to the diagram, the length of each line and the shape of the figure can vary, depending on the nature of the work, the story timeline and how you tell it, i.e., are you long-winded or economical with your words. No matter what, the end or the resolution of the plot is usually short. With DESTA, the resolution is a bit longer than the norm, partly because the story is epic in nature and there were earlier threads I wanted to bring together.

The Art of Storytelling

1. Write from your heart NOT from your head.

2. Show NOT tell. The sun is shining—is telling. A glint of light coming off of a broken glass—is showing

3. Identify with the characters in your story—go with them through the emotional and mental journey you are putting them through.

4. Don’t treat your characters like robots—they should be a living and breathing group, with all the frailties, vanities, attitudes and emotions all humans possess.

5. Choose all the qualities you admire in someone you know for the lead character–you need to make him/her likeable if the readers are going to love him/her and continue reading the story. Chose all the worst attributes or qualities of a person you know and give them to the bad person (antagonist) of your novel.

6. Involve as many of the senses as you can in your storytelling

7. Open your chapters with something that is visual, that which will draw the reader right there in the place you are describing.

8. Write as if you are telling the story to a friend who is sitting next to you.

9. Write simply. Using big words not only is it unnecessary in fiction-writing but could also distract the readers and impede their progress.

10. Don’t use clichés or tautologies. The first is a tired language, and the latter can be redundant.

11. Make sure that your characters are distinguishable from each other but also memorable.

12. Challenge your reader to think, reflect and time-travel.