Guest
Post by Alexis A. Goring
Hi
everyone! My friend and fellow journalist, Alexis A. Goring, is visiting our
blog today as my guest and sharing some really great lessons she’s learned in writing
fiction. Thanks for joining us, Alexis! – Morgan Tarpley Smith
I’m
a new author whose first book was self-published by Crossbooks in September
2013. Four years later, my second book was traditionally published by Forget Me
Not Romances and in that four-year gap, I learned a lot of lessons in fiction
writing. As a result, I’ve grown as a writer.
This
guest post is for aspiring authors who would like to take a page from my
lessons learned so that they too can grow as a writer.
So here are a few of the
main points from my lessons learned after working with my God-sent editor Liz
Tolsma:
#1: When writing romance
for the CBA market, your hero and heroine should meet in the first chapter. It took me a few times
to get this one right because I struggled with what I thought was ruining the
flow of my story because with the original draft of my most recent story, the
hero and heroine did not meet until Chapter 3. I held fast to the thought that
everything that happened before Chapter 3 was important and needed to be there.
But I was wrong and after I followed this rule, my story (to my surprise)
flowed better.
#2: Before you start
writing a story, take time to determine the emotional/physical/spiritual GMC
(Goal/Motivation/Conflict) of your main characters. I used to simply create
a few “character sketches” for each my story’s main characters and then dive
into writing the story. The character sketches included a brief overview of
details like my characters’ age, role in the story, background, strengths, weaknesses
and ethnicity. Each sketch only spanned one page. But my editor sent a GMC
chart to me and informed me that after I filled out the chart for each
character, I would have a better handle on who they are and how to use them in
my story. She also told me that their goal cannot “only be to fall in love.”
She challenged me to delve deeper into their psyche and discover their
innermost motivations and desires. She said that my story would be more solid
as a result of this. She was right!
#3: Don’t make your
characters too perfect. They need to have at least one character flaw. This is actually the
challenge I faced after filling out the GMC chart and character profiles for my
third book that I’m working on now. My editor reminded me that imperfect people
make a more interesting story. You’ll have to wait until my next book is
published to see the result of that advice!
#4: Know what makes your
character tick and use it. Conflict makes the story. Don’t allow your characters to
have smooth sailing in every scene. I applied this concept in A Second Chance in the scene where the
hero gets mad at the heroine because she broke his trust by keeping a secret
that affected him, from him. He had issues with honesty in his relationships so
this discovery of her secret really threw him for a loop and created a rift in
their romance.
#5: Every scene should
build the tension. I
had to learn how to “write tight” in a whole new way. As a trained print
journalist, I already knew how to write news and feature stories that were
“precise and concise.” But I learned that when writing fiction, I needed to
really tap into the emotions of my characters and draw out their desires in a
way that makes the plot thicken.
#6: Always end every
scene in a way that makes the reader want to know what happens next. Use
“cliffhangers.” My
editor told me that I don’t want my readers to stop reading halfway through the
story because the way that I ended the previous chapter led the reader to infer
that everything would work out perfectly and have a happy ending. So she taught
me how to write in a way that left the reader at the edge of metaphorical cliff
when they reached the end of each chapter, leaving them with no choice but to
continue to the next chapter to satisfy their curiosity.
#7: Invest in an
emotional thesaurus. So
I bought this book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide To Character Expression, and it was worth my investment! This book provided in-depth guides
covering how to write deep emotions in a creative way. So instead of just
saying, “She was astonished”, I can say “her eyes widened” (physical
expression), “her heart seemed to freeze, then pound” (internal sensation),
“Her mind momentarily forgot everything else” (mental response). After reading
that, your mind can paint a picture of her being astonished, right?
I could go on for a while, but those seven points
were some of my most important lessons to learn that once applied, helped me to
grow as a fiction writer. So my closing
message to aspiring authors is this: Be encouraged in your writing journey!
Never give up. Keep learning, growing, and writing books. God bless your dear hearts!
Alexis A. Goring is a passionate writer with a degree in Print
Journalism and an MFA in Creative Writing. She loves the art of storytelling
and hopes that her stories will connect readers with the enduring, forever love
of Jesus Christ. For more information, visit her website at www.screenwriteralexis.com and her
“God is Love” blog, http://capturingtheidea.blogspot.com
or through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Goodreads. Her novella, A Second Chance,
can be found here.
Marc Roberts is a political reporter who is known as Mr. Nice Guy, the one who always finishes last. However, Marc’s compassion and kindness are of invaluable help to his newly widowed sister Gina Braxton who is trying to raise her two kids in the wake of her firefighter husband’s death.
Traci and Marc may be the perfect match, but they don’t know it yet. With God’s guidance and the help of Gina’s matchmaking skills honed by her career as a bestselling romance novelist, there is hope for a happily ever after for these two broken hearts.
