D. Hart St. Martin

I make female heroes badass AND believable

writing process

Writing Tools Part I

by

DISCLAIMER: Nobody has paid me to talk about the program/app I cover in this post. I am not necessarily endorsing it; I am simply explaining why it works for me and hope that my experience may help another writer out there.

I don’t know about other writers, but I need a convenient writing platform and the appropriate tools to keep everything moving swiftly. For many, many, many years (maybe 20+) I have used Word to capture my text. And for a good deal of those years, Word was sufficient to my needs. Even when I started self-publishing, I could format a book—both print and digital—with some ease within its confines. But a little over a year ago, I discovered that my current version of Word (2016) had become cumbersome and twitchy when it came to formatting for print in particular. Then, a few weeks ago, Microsoft did an update to the app which turned things topsy-turvy, and I said, “Enough!”

I have known about Scrivener for a couple of years now. It’s a powerful program for writers of books. I tried it out a few years back but returned to Word because, well, change is hard, right? I wanted to keep doing what I was doing because it was working. If it ain’t broke… But then Word kinda broke, and I decided it was time to give Scrivener another try.

The first great thing about Scrivener is you get a 30-day trial. And it’s not just 30 days from the day you download it; it’s 30 days of use. So if you don’t open it for a day or two or a week or even a year, the remaining days are there when you do use it again. I think that’s damn straight of them. The second great thing is it’s a single purchase program. If they create a new version, you do have to pay for that, but I suppose you can always stick with what you have and not update. Updates within the version are free, however. And a plus for those purchasing it for Windows right now is they’re including the upcoming version 3 in the package.

But there’s more. Because it is specifically geared to long, broken-into-chapters-or-parts projects, you can open a “project” and put all your chapters (or whatever) in that project. They remain separate, but should you decide to print the entire project for a beta reader or to prep it for publication, all you have to do is “compile” the individual chapters in the order you’ve placed them in the “binder,” and you have a complete document.

Now, let me say one thing about this. The selling point for me came after I had compiled a beta copy of my WIP in Word, one chapter at a time, for my betas and partway through realized I had left out intervening material (I call them “interludes”). I looked at Scrivener after that and realized how much easier the process would have been from there. Purchased and done. I am now writing book projects exclusively in Scrivener.

And in case you’re thinking well, that’s nice, but what’s the learning curve. Not long, actually. It has a multitude of bells and whistles, a great many of which your particular process will never require. But what could be useful is more than likely there. I’m not going to give you the link to their site because that just feels like selling my soul. Just run a search—you’ll find it.

Next time I plan on discussing text expanders and how important they are to writers. If you’re not using a text expander (Autocorrect in Word is one example), you’re wasting a lot of time on fixing typos and typing other stuff. But that’s for my next post.

Dancing with the Denouement

by

(Originally published November 12, 2015)

This article is a favorite of mine, so I decided to repost it. I hope you enjoy it.

The best piece of writing I’ve ever experienced was not a book or a short story. It was a movie—The Terminator. I found myself thinking about this movie and its brilliant screenplay by James Cameron last night as I was considering how to approach an explanation to a writing friend of what I call the punch-line denouement. (According to Writers Digest, “the denouement is the final outcome of the story, generally occurring after the climax of the plot. Often it’s where all the secrets (if there are any) are revealed and loose ends are tied up.”)

For those who’ve never seen it, The Terminator tells the story of Sarah Connor, a 1980s college student working as a waitress. Sarah’s life is irreparably changed when two travelers arrive from the future. One—a cyborg—has come to kill her to keep her from conceiving the savior of humankind. The other—Kyle Reese—intends to stop the cyborg and keep Sarah alive.

Warning: There be spoilers ahead.

From a feminist standpoint, this movie is perhaps the first I ever saw with a female hero at the helm of an action film. Yes, Sarah is the hero. It is she who must change in order to make the future possible. She begins as a fun-loving young woman who by the end has gathered together all the strength she possesses in order to face that future straight on.

Back to my point. Storytelling. The amazing screenplay by James Cameron blows me away every time I watch the movie or even think about it. I recommend it to anyone who wants to taste the joy of how to tell a very complicated story in a couple of hours. Cameron hands us each piece of information required at the very moment we require it.

Two men are after Sarah. Who are they? Are they both bad guys? Or, if one of them is good, which one is it? Boom. It’s Kyle Reese, the young man who looks totally out-gunned by Arnold and who came back in time because he’d fallen in love with Sarah from a Polaroid picture. Why is Arnold after her? What does he intend to do with or to her? Boom. She’s the future mother of the man who sent Kyle back in time to save her. How can you tell these cyborgs from humans? Dogs can sniff them out. And it goes on.

If you haven’t seen The Terminator and you’re a writer of any kind of fiction, I highly recommend it as the next movie you stream. Don’t accept watching it on commercial television; they cut out the stupidest stuff, including any time a blow from Arnold connects, even when he punches through a windshield. Brilliantly concocted and shot on a budget that apparently precluded getting permits from the city of Los Angeles for all those street racing night scenes (they filmed them on the sly then slipped away into the night without getting caught), it is, in many ways, an indie film.

But, the most important aspect of this film is the way Cameron sets up his final scene. The movie reaches its climactic ending right after Sarah and Kyle have consummated their blooming love for one another. The terminator kills Kyle and then Sarah terminates the terminator. Glorious.

Cut to the final scene. Sarah in a Jeep driving through the desert, dictating into a tape recorder saying, “Do I tell you about your father?” Then, she rubs her very pregnant belly and continues on briefly about Kyle. A dog sits with her in the Jeep.

She pulls up to a little gas station out in the middle of nowhere. A boy runs up to the Jeep and exchanges a couple of lines with Sarah. He has a Spanish accent. He takes her picture with his Polaroid and then asks for payment which she gives him. It’s the picture Kyle had fallen in love with. The boy’s grandfather says something in Spanish, and Sarah asks the boy what he said. “A storm is coming.” Sarah looks off in the direction she’s headed and agrees when she sees the cloud. Then she drives off, and the credits begin with the Jeep heading away from the camera. Fade to black.

Now that all took far more time to describe than it takes on the screen. It’s a simple little scene, and every single aspect of it requires no explanation to the viewer because Cameron set it all up earlier in the movie. And that, my friends, is how to deliver the punch line to a story. Set-up is everything. You shouldn’t have to rely on explanations in the denouement. It should stand on its own.

Writing’s Hard

by

Photo by Oleksii Hlembotskyi on Unsplash

Life is messy, and just when you think you’ve got the clutter picked up, an earthquake shakes everything up again and leaves you crying why.

The last few weeks have thrown me up against a wall and left my head spinning. It began when I took chapter 21 of my current WIP into my writing group. I read, they told me it was great, then they calmly, somewhat kindly told me what was wrong with it. I was grateful for the critique as I’d been tossing and turning in my head over the movement of the story, how it wasn’t moving. Or maybe it was. I’ve been so caught up in the thing—what with the protagonist being closer to me than any character I’ve ever placed into fiction before—that I knew my perspective was off.

I went home that week determined to resolve the issues they’d brought up. And I thought I had when I took chapter 22 in the next week. The ending of that chapter introduced a creature into the mix that had only been hinted at up until then. I thought for sure the ending was great. So I read, sure the BAND-AIDS® I’d placed on the open plot hole wounds would cover all the problems up. I was wrong. The group eviscerated it. Okay, a bit of hyperbole, but I walked out of the class during the break and didn’t go back. I was devastated. Now, I’ve been devastated before by critique. I’ve even cried about it. But this time, I’d been hit twice in two sessions, and it took me a couple of days to pull myself out of the hole and look at the plotting honestly.

And they were right. I was right. I’d known the story wasn’t working for me, but I’d pushed on through. Which is fine in first draft. After first draft, though, I should have done all I could to find the flaws and clear them up, and I hadn’t. I’d shifted the point of view and the verb tense, both changes that strengthened the storytelling, but the story itself was lacking, and I didn’t know what to do.

The advice most writers with even the slightest amount of experience will give you is to set the manuscript aside for a bit. Let t sit. Work on something else. Go for walks. Watch movies. Binge-watch TV shows. Whatever. I, on the other hand, tend to be fairly quick about coming around. Or I don’t come around for a year or two. I’m an all-or-nothing type of gal. Lucky for me, in this case, it was the former.

Here’s what I had to do: I deleted a character which left a great hole in the entire piece, but she was more baggage than necessity. I moved the revelation of the creature mentioned above to chapter 2. Yeah, twenty chapters ahead of its previous first appearance. I added a secondary character and gave her narration rights in tiny increments. All of which have brought me to a place where finishing this thing is going to take a whole lot longer than I’d planned, but it will be better for the work, and I know it.

So if anyone tries to tell you writing’s easy, they’re either liars or they’ve never glued their butt to a chair and made themselves do it for longer than a sneeze. Writing is work. It’s work that gives me a great deal of satisfaction and keeps me sane, especially on the crazier days. I wouldn’t exchange it for any other vocation. But the last few weeks have been messy. Is the earthquake done? Maybe. But the aftershocks will live on until I put this baby to bed and call it done.

Interview – DeVonna R. Allison

by

DeVonna R. Allison

DeVonna Allison is a freelance writer/speaker and a Marine Corps veteran who grew up in Los Angeles, moved to rural southern Michigan in 1983 where she currently lives, but will soon be heading to Florida to reap the benefits of warmer climes. Her husband, Earl, is also a Marine veteran, and they are the proud parents of four children and four grandchildren. Her website and samples of her work can be found here.

Hart: What genre or genres do you write in? What attracted you to that genre?

DeVonna: I write essays, or Creative Non-Fiction, because it allows me to record my real-life events into articles that encourage, educate or inspire my readers. The first book I ever read that incorporated this style of writing was Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. That, of course, is the memoir/diary of a young girl during the days of the Holocaust. I was gripped by the realization that reading one person’s life struggles could affect millions of readers.

H: Do you schedule time for your writing? Or do you just grab the odd minute or hour when it makes itself available to you?

D: I’ve made it a habit to write daily at the beginning of my day. I am a devout Christian, and I have a morning ritual that incorporates devotional and scriptural reading with prayer/meditation. After I’ve spent time renewing my mind and spirit in this way, I find it easier to spend time writing, either on assignment or extemporaneously.

H: What research do you find absolutely necessary to your work?

D: I read memoirs and essays by writers in my genre as well as other literary works. I enjoy reading for pleasure; it just works out that it also helps me to hone my craft.

H: How do you see the role of women in literature, fiction or nonfiction these days? How do you promote women in your work?

D: I think as a woman author it is important for me to represent well, and therefore I always try to submit my best work. To that end, I am always seeking to sharpen my skills through reading and attending writers conferences.

H: You were involved in the creation and editing of Grit and Grace: A Women Writing Anthology as well as contributing to The Upper Room Disciplines: A Book of Daily Devotions 2019. Tell us about your experiences working on these two books.

D: Grit & Grace is the work of my all-women writer’s group and is a project I’m quite proud of. We decided to keep the book an all-female endeavor because women have a unique voice in our society, and we wanted to highlight that voice with this book. Grit & Grace became available in February 2019 and can be purchased here at our website.

The story of how I came to be involved in the 2019 The Upper Room Disciplines is an interesting one of self-promotion. I have been writing for the Upper Room’s daily devotional since 2009, but I wanted to do more for them. I know they publish books and one in particular sparked my interest. I emailed my editor at the Upper Room, expressing my interest in writing for the book but was told the contributors were chosen by specific invitation only. I was not deterred. I wrote back, thanking her for letting me know how the process worked and including an example of what I would submit if I were chosen to write for them. It worked! My next email was from the editors of Disciplines, formally inviting me to write for them! Never give up.

H: That is excellent advice, DeVonna. And an excellent note to close on. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today.

Extending the Proper Invitation to the Story

by

Beginnings are delicate things. First line, first paragraph, first chapter all require meticulous attention on the writer’s part. They serve as layers of an invitation to the reader to join the writer on a journey, and if the invitation fails to ignite the reader’s passion, they will get up and walk away, leaving the writer behind. No matter how amazing that journey may be, if an author can’t draw a reader in, they’re gone. So where middles and even endings can survive the sin of losing their bearings now and then, beginnings must be perfect.

I am about to slash my first chapter to shreds. I generally don’t go back and read something from earlier in a book while I’m in the process of writing or editing—I am, by nature, a linear writer—but in this case I took a look at chapters 1 and 2 last night because I’ve sent those chapters to a friend. I finished up chapter 1 with “meh” and “it’s too long,” while chapter 2 garnered my thumbs up. Why? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?

I didn’t want to dwell too heavily on it, not while I’m neck deep in a complicated rewrite of changing both the point of view (from limited 3rd to 1st) and the verb tense (from past to present). (I wrote about this a few weeks ago.) I am immersed in this and pushing to get it done, so I didn’t want to get myself hung up in perfecting chapter 1, not now, not while I’m making good progress.

But I couldn’t help it. I went to bed, sat on the mattress edge and thought about it. It was then it occurred to me. I may (or may not—the jury’s out) safely eliminate reference to a particular entity throughout that first chapter and give it its due in chapter 2. Will I be able to make it work? I don’t know. And I won’t know until I return to chapter 1 on my next rewrite. I’ve placed a large Post-it® on the cover page with some brief notes of what I want to do, and that’s going to have to be it before I get back to it.

Sometimes we have to kill our children. It’s a writer’s adage. Editing sucks, and what sucks more than anything is when amazing phrases or metaphors must be sacrificed for the sake of better storytelling and better prose. But we do it. And I’ll do it when the time comes to rip that chapter apart, throw away chunks, saving them for use in chapter 2 but knowing I’ll likely use very few of them, if any at all.

Why do we put ourselves through this torture? It ain’t the money, that’s for sure.

Interview – Wendy Steele

by

Wendy Steele

Wendy Steele is a writer, dancer, healer and advocate of love and kindness to all living things on this magical planet, including the earth herself. I met her years ago via Facebook during one of those mad rushes for author page follows, and we haven’t looked back. She’s a friend and confidante as well as a great beta reader. She has her own blog which includes posts about her books, her dancing, her life journey and her whole-food, plant-based diet. You can find it on her web site here. (And have I mentioned she lives in Wales? I am so jealous.)

Hart: Your work falls predominantly in the Witch Lit genre. What attracted you to that genre? Do you read more books in that genre, or do you indulge in genres outside your specialty?

Wendy: I read both inside and outside my speciality. After devouring Moon Magic and The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune, I wanted more books about real people and real magic, but I couldn’t find any, so I decided to write them myself.

I’d already penned over 100k words of another novel I knew needed work, but I had a new idea and two years later, I published Destiny of Angels (the first book in The Lilith Trilogy), the story of Angel Parsons, a successful woman despite a difficult past, who returns to the scene of her childhood trauma to face the perpetrators and offer them the chance of redemption.

I enjoy historical fiction, mysteries and fantasy, but shy away from crime and violence.

H: With Witch Lit being a genre based more in the feminine, how do you see the role of women in fiction these days?

W: Female characters in fiction are sometimes the heroes we know they can be, but like the film industry, there are fewer “juicy” parts for women. Often a woman still needs a man to save the day.” I write about women who have confidence and belief in their own lives and don’t need a man to define them.

H: Do you schedule time for your writing? Or do you just grab the odd minute or hour when it makes itself available to you?

W: If you’d asked me last year I would have said “yes, writing time is scheduled,” but I’ve started 2019 in a different mindset.

Book four of my six part Lizzie Martin Series is written, leaving me two more to write, but I want them to be right and I’ve a lot of loose ends to carefully tie up. With plans needing to be put in place for work on our property, a new dance class and expansion of our dance performance wise, I’m writing short stories, articles and blog posts while I get plans underway and get through the paperwork.

I’ve attempted novel writing before under pressure and I get exhausted and run down, so I’m being kind to myself. I’ve handed in my latest story, “The Butterfly Door,” for the Witch Lit anthology, and finishing another for Zimbell House at the moment.

H: What research do you find absolutely necessary to keeping your story authentic?

W: I love research! At my twenty minute careers interview when I was sixteen, I grasped the card marked ‘BBC Researcher’ and thrust it before the teacher, but she suggested I become a secretary and got married instead!

Research is a big part of my writing process. I may not have visited every place I write about, but most of them, and when my MC (main character) needs to instigate a spell, prayer or ritual, if I haven’t personal experience, I’ll scour books for ideas, often performing the spell or prayer myself first to see how it feels.

While researching The Lilith Trilogy, I walked the kabbalah paths before writing about them.

H: Do you have a current release you’d like to promote? Tell us about it.

First 3 books of the Lizzie Martin series

W: My latest book is book three of the Lizzie Martin Series, The Flowerpot Witch, but why not start at the beginning? The Naked Witch is available as an ebook for less than the price of a skinny vanilla spice latte. Enjoy.

The Naked Witch Amazon UK

The Naked Witch Amazon.com

H: Thanks, Wendy. It’s been great talking with you.