The Writer and Her Handsome Prince

Storytelling, ,

The Writer and Her Handsome Prince. Once upon a time – 50 years ago this coming Friday –  I was too harried to be nervous. The next many hours would be my wedding gift to almost-husband Jonathan. He had no idea what I had planned.

A hundred details were yet to be addressed. As always I had made many lists. Thank heaven for that because soon our little house on Burnup Road would be overrun by my womenfriends impatient to launch the day’s events.

This was a homemade wedding from the start. Everything my previous marriage that crashed and burned had never been. No silver embossed matchbooks here. Only the golden-hearted efforts of our community of friends.

The cake baked by someone’s roommate. Turkeys and hams from the ovens of our mothers in law. Hors d’oeuvres and salads concocted in our own kitchen by my sister social workers as the sink filled up with veggie peelings.

They forced me out of there eventually. Off with a self-appointed gaggle of girlfriends to be gowned in hippie homespun still waiting for a hem. My long hair was straight as usual until they advanced on me with curling irons. The brocade slippers on my feet were supposed to keep me from stumbling down the aisle.

I honestly cannot remember getting to the church. Jonathan and I walked to the altar together. Nobody owned me so I did not need to be given away. Neither did he.

I had designed the ceremony to reflect the depth of our love. Still, what happened that late afternoon astonished even me because of the passion of the players. A profound reading from a beloved literary friend. A soulful song composed and performed by my brother. An inspired blessing by a former priest in flowing robes. Jonathan reveled in everything as I had hoped he would.

There were surprises also that I had not planned. Gorgeous baskets for my bridesmaids created by my young son from wildflowers and roses. A vintage Cadillac at the church door to whisk us away with wild applause as a sendoff. A bathtub filled with ice and champagne bottles by our work place friends for our Black River house reception.

All day long enough anecdotes were born to feed a lifetime of memories. Moments that caught in our hearts. Moments to split your seams with laughter. Moments bathed by tears. Moments as sunlit as the bouquet of yellow roses I never tossed to anyone because I could not bear to let it go.

I have written thousands plus thousands of words since then. But this is the first time I have written about that day when we were so very brand new. When I was yet to write anything much at all and Jonathan was yet to become my great encourager of every page that followed.

Meanwhile 50 years of real-life stories have been lived. Adventure. Struggle. Triumph. Disappointment. Joy. Astonishment. Regret. Celebration. Tragedy too because our long time together has been reality not fairy tales after all. Yet to this day we blessedly remain – The Writer and Her Handsome Prince.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

ASK ALICE Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask that question in the Comments section following this post. Share your writer’s journey and inspire future posts.

Alice has published 16 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her  novel – A Wrong Way Home – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – is another free gift for you HERE.

A Wrong Way Home

Praise for A Wrong Way Home: “The story twists and turns masterfully into danger and romance.” “I highly recommend this page-turner which is romance and suspense at its best.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet?

Writer Motivation, ,

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet? I last posted here two months ago. You might say I took a summer vacation. Now autumn approaches and I anticipate the invigoration of bracing evenings and new promise in the air. It’s time to get moving again. Time to check out where to begin.

An animal prepares to burrow in – out of the flow – at autumn time. Not so with humans. We are ready to reenter the flow. To shake off the humid torpor and plunge into the vitality of life. Writers are ready to plunge also. To re-engage our psyches and set loose our imaginations.

In his wonderful book On Writing, Stephen King offers good advice about that. Sit down every morning and do the work. Two-thousand words minimum. Or thousands more, if you can manage it. He is a taskmaster for sure. His career is evidence of the wisdom of the task.

Keep on writing whatever may occur. I’ve signed my own books with those words for many years. I cherish the phrase and the sentiment. I pass them on with every good wish in my heart, especially to beginners on this path. But what will you keep on writing as a new season begins?

A writer writes – whatever that may entail. Maybe not always a host of novel pages to start with. A writer may scribble ideas on notecards. A writer may fill journal pages when the morning gifts her with inspiration. A writer may stare at the wall and just imagine. It all counts.

For me the way back in led to a peek inside my writer’s closet. A writer’s closet is the place where we store the stories we gave up on. The stories we dropped in their tracks. The stories we abandoned when a shinier new idea came along. We all have a writer’s closet.

What I found in my writer’s closet was a story that hit a snag. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Supposedly. The boulder in this particular writing road was a scene that didn’t work. It didn’t fit with what came before. I could have pressed on. Instead, I walked away.

Autumn inspires us to see old roads with new eyes. The spark of potential rekindles. Maybe not a full blaze at first. Maybe only a flash of light. We see it and feel it all the same. We rediscover a path we can dance again, possibly to an altered tune. I saw. I felt. I am dancing.

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet? Take a peek. Look for a story you might dance to again. Look for a story you already tingle to tackle each morning. A spark of potential recognized anew. You see it. You feel it. Your heart jumps. Your imagination stirs. You begin to dance.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

ASK ALICE Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask that question in the Comments section following this post. Share your writer’s journey and inspire future posts.

Alice has published 16 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community. Her latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Vanquish the Cartoonish Story Villain

Storytelling, , ,

Vanquish the Cartoonish Story Villain. A strong villain character is crucial to a strong story. He gives your reader someone to hate which involves her emotionally in your story. She cares what happens to this character. She wants him to fail and that keeps the pages turning.

A Strong Villain Character Gives Your Story Hero Someone to Struggle Against. Their struggle sends the beating heart of your story into turmoil. Your villain, and the trouble he causes for your hero, make your story intense and dramatic. Their conflict has the power to electrify your narrative.

With so Much Story Weight to Carry, Your Villain Must be Formidable. Otherwise, your intelligent, active, resourceful hero will defeat him easily. Your story will be over too soon. When your hero-villain struggle is resolved, reader interest fades, and your narrative is finished.

Kickstart Your Hero-Villain Struggle – then Make that Struggle More Perilous. Introduce your hero’s trouble early, preferably on page one. Before too long, heighten the suspense by revealing your villain’s identity – but only to your readers. Show us how dangerous he is.

An Evil Force is on a Collision Course with Your Hero. You have made us care about your hero. We identify with her. She does not share our knowledge about her adversary. She knows she’s in serious trouble, perhaps mortal danger. But she does not know the source of that danger.

Your Hero may be Acquainted with her Adversary. She may even trust him. We long to scream out a warning as she unwittingly exposes herself to peril. The story hook digs deeper into us with every page. Meanwhile, we must be equally and realistically terrified by the villain’s motivations.

A Wise Storyteller Avoids The-Devil-Made-Him-Do-It Villains. This character type is a psychopath or sociopath. His sick psyche forces him to do wrong and create chaos. Like a rabid dog, he has no choice but to run a destructive path. As a storyteller, you have no choice but to Vanquish the Cartoonish Story Villain.

He is Scary but his Motivation Lacks Complexity. His predictable character provides no fascinating depths for your writerly imagination to explore. Plus, we have seen him too often. There are far too many like him in the real world, and in the world of novels too.

The Number of Human Monsters in Real Life Encourages Writers to Portray Them. But this villain is fictionally boring. We’ve read his story so often it has become hackneyed and repetitious. Any twist on his twistedness must be truly sensational to stand out among such a huge crowd. Very few do.

He Has No True Choice but to Behave as He Does. No thrilling investigation nor confession of his nuanced motives can credibly occur. He is mentally ill. He does evil because he is insane. That is the essence of him, which renders him two-dimensional and diminishes his story to cartoonishness.

What distinguishes a Truly Intriguing Villain from a Two-Dimensional Cartoon? The difference is that we understand, on a mentally engaging level, the reasons for this  person’s twisted behavior. We do not have to sympathize with him. We only need to comprehend him, and we do.

As Storyteller you must Conjure the Origin of this Character’s Twistedness. What concrete experiences led him to his evil actions? You must make these experiences believable. The more credible his motivations are, the more credible your villain character will be. And the more terrifying he is as well.

You Must Present this Character Objectively. Your storyteller role is not to judge or condemn your villain character. Your role is to give him resonant, three-dimensional life on the page. You must allow your reader to know him from the inside out. Which means you must tell your villain character’s story as he would tell it.

Here is the Secret to Imagining Yourself into a Twisted Character’s Soul. Every villain is the hero of his own story. He is convinced his actions are justified. In the world as he perceives it, he is doing what needs to be done. His motivations are clear, strong and believable. His motivations are also warped.

The Specifics of that Warp are Yours to Discover. Think as your villain thinks. Go deep into his darkness until he is illuminated to you. The result is the opposite of cartoonish. He lives on your pages with chilling authenticity. Your reader longs to turn away but cannot. What could be a more riveting story hook than that? Vanquish the Cartoonish Story Villain.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

ASK ALICE Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Email aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Or add a comment question to this post.

Alice has published 16 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community. Her latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/