Tag Archives: Flathead River Writers Conference

Finishing

Posted on by under Authors of the Flathead, Betty Kuffel, Fiction Writing, First Drafts, Kathy Dunnehoff, Writing Skills

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Do you have a few unfinished projects lying around? I don’t mean an unfinished sweater you started knitting years ago or clothes to wash. I mean writing projects. For a writer, life is complex. Traveling and going off on a hike with friends are important. Experience is the basis of good writing, but writers must take the time to write. Prioritizing is part of getting things done.

Last year, I set a goal to finish four novels I had written over the past two decades. While writing the novels, I felt compelled to complete three nonfiction books first and published them on Amazon. I edited the novels numerous times and received helpful edits from my critique partners. Then, hired a professional editor. Once she returned them, it meant more editing. So, for the past year I focused on finalizing the novels.

Writing The End of a first draft was a great achievement but then the real work began. If you consider a novel in the 80,000-word range, writing 350 words a day for 228 days would bring you to The End of the first draft. If you are aiming for 100,000 for your genre, you’d finish in a year. That is less than one page of single-spaced manuscript per day.

Some days are more productive than others. I am often up before dawn writing because mornings are my most productive time of day. Find your best time. Most writers can’t write every day, but on days they don’t put words on paper, the stories evolve and solidify in their thoughts.

Rewriting and editing are tedious but must be done to perfection before you query an agent or indie-publish on Amazon or one of many other platforms. After all your personal focus and hours, you may be blinded to serious problems in the storyline or unclear word choices. It is still essential to enlist beta-readers who are voracious readers in the genre and not family members. The hope is to identify problem areas you have not recognized before you proceed to publication.

Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, your job is to never bore the reader. Information in a nonfiction work or the story in your novel must be engaging and keep the reader reading. Attending writer conferences, taking classes and participating in online writing skills webinars can be valuable. Many are free, but usually, in the end, will try to sell you something.

Each year, November is National Novel Writing Month; NaNoWriMo for short. If you need a push to finish a project or start a new one, this may be for you. Locally, at Flathead Valley Community College, Kathy Dunnehoff is presenting Novel Challenge. Beginning October 30 for five sessions. She will discuss the craft of writing and how to keep words flowing for the month of November. With concentrated effort you can finish a first draft during the class.

Dennis Foley is teaching Writing the First Novel during fall semester. Check out the online brochure at FVCC, Creative Writing. Authors

The annual Flathead River Writers Conference is September 22 and 23 at FVCC where you can learn from both Kathy and Dennis along with other publishing industry professionals. The brochure and online registration are available: https://www.authorsoftheflathead.org.

Happy writing and reading. Hope to see you at the conference.

Betty Kuffel

Rewriting at Sunrise

Posted on by under Authors of the Flathead, Betty Kuffel, Fiction Writing, Montana Women Writers, Writing Skills

The End

Completing the first draft of a novel and writing The End is really the beginning. Most writers feel relief when they write those final words. It’s a joyous time, so open that bottle of champagne. Savor the moment but compare the achievement to graduating from high school on your way to a doctorate.

Fiction and nonfiction both require the framework of storytelling, a beginning, middle and end. You might conceptualize an ending before you ever formulate a story line to reach that unique end. Once you sprout an idea, the next step is to decide the premise for the book.  What is the big picture? Why are you telling this story?

The plot is a construct of details and creation of characters to effectively tell your story. They will take the reader through twists and turns in a cohesive framework to reach the ending you’ve designed. Whether it be a short story, novel, memoir or a technical manual, your goal is to grab the reader and compel them to read on.

Along the way, your process includes reassessment of the plot and subplots to tell the story without extraneous words. Avoid excessive descriptors and adverbs. Make every word count; concise, clear, and compelling.

Best-selling authors use four plotting steps:

  • Identify the protagonist. Who will tell your story?
  • Show the incident that drives the protagonist to act.
  • Reveal the overarching story goal and universal stakes that appeal to reader emotions. What are the rewards for the protagonist’s success and the cost of failure?
  • Build a complex antagonist who isn’t all bad, whose motivation to oppose the protagonist’s efforts is clear and believable. What is the antagonist’s reward for success and the cost of failure?

I attended a recent online thriller workshop that included a lecture by Gary Provost, a master storyteller.  The above four points are compressed by Gary into two sentences: Once upon a time, something happened to someone and he decided he would pursue a goal. So he devised a plan of action and even though there were forces trying to stop him, he moved forward because there was a lot at stake. It sounds funny but includes the basics.

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks provides the architecture of beats, plot points and pivot points that drive a story forward. His award-winning blog www.storyfix.com contains many writing tips. He also deconstructs best sellers and movies by analyzing their story lines to identify how they all follow the plot format.

As writers, our focus is putting words on a page. We all have quirks, different processes and variable efficiency depending on the time of day. I have friends who write best in the bustling atmosphere of a coffee shop. Others write late at night. When the day is done for most people, they are wide awake and creative. For me, early morning is perfect, before sunrise when the world is quiet but for chirping birds. By noon, I’ve put in a full day’s work. But that doesn’t mean I stop writing. When life doesn’t get in the way, writers write.

When I began writing a medical thriller about two decades ago, I had a good ending and began writing without a developed story line. I just wrote. After completing that book and many rewrites, I went on to different projects, all of them using an outline. In 2013, I finally published a book, the true crime, Eyes of a Pedophile, followed by two more nonfiction books. Then, I returned to the early novel. It was awful.

I divided the original manuscript into two books and then wrote a romance. This year, I set out to finish all three. After excruciating months of editing, I accomplished my goal and published them on Amazon. I have two more in the final editing stages, so I’m ahead of schedule.

Learning new skills sped up my progress. We live in a world of technological advances that make writing easier and more efficient. Scrivener is a software writing and organizational product writers around the world are using. This powerful tool has a free trial available for both Mac and Windows from www.literatureandlatte.com. Tools in the program include a research library, name generator, easy portability of product out of the program along with formatting processes for fiction, nonfiction and script writing. There is a high learning curve, but those who have learned the process use it for all their writing. Classes are available at Flathead Valley Community College.

Many writing classes are available at the community college and online. If you are stumbling toward completion because you lack computer skills, consider checking out local classes, and those from www.Lynda.com where you will find tutorials and training. The first month on Lynda is free.

YouTube can be helpful for trouble-shooting computer issues. I love YouTube for home repairs, too. Skilled repair and construction guys helped me repair my dishwasher and tile my laundry room last year. But, beware of watching TED talk writer presentations, it will sidetrack you from writing for hours.

Dennis Foley, local writing guru and former television series writer, provides creative writing lectures the first Thursday of each month for Authors of the Flathead at FVCC. Check out www.authorsoftheflathead.org for times and room locations. Consider attending their annual Flathead River Writers Conference September 22 and 23. You can register and pay online at the link.

If you are a serious writer, Dennis tells us, read a lot, write a lot, and hang out with writers. I add, take classes and join a critique group.

Here is a very helpful editing blog posted on TKZ by local writer Deb Burke. https://killzoneblog.com/2015/10/whats-your-self-editing-score.html

Thanks for stopping by

Montana Sunrise Books

Author Betty Kuffel

 

 

READING AND WRITING

Posted on by under Betty Kuffel

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Summer in Montana provides little time for the popular “beach read” novels. Instead, during our action-packed summers, I find myself re-reading Night of the Grizzlies, Christine Carbo’s The Wild Inside, and various touristy hiking books. With recent cold mornings and the “termination dust” of snow on mountain tops signaling the end of summer, Montanans know the cold days of winter are ahead. Maybe a good blizzard can help us hibernate and accomplish goals with a surge of writing, and reading those novels on the “to read” list.

The annual Flathead River Writers’ Conference during the last week of September is one way to energize creative urges. Among ten speakers at the 25th Silver Anniversary conference, Lavonne Mueller, playwright and the recipient of many writing awards and grants, (including National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright and Guggenheim), will present a workshop for attendees. If you like to travel, develop your writer’s biography with her help, and apply for grants in the coming year that could take you around the world to write in exotic locations.

If you are considering a fast track to completing your next novel, or your first, consider taking the Novel Challenge course at FVCC with award winning author and MMW member, Kathy Dunnehoff. She’ll guide you through completing your first draft in one month. Her course is a take-off on Nanowrimo – the annual National Novel Writing Month each November.

writers' block .3Whatever your plans, each day provides the opportunity to begin a new book, a new chapter, a new scene in your life. People speak of “writers’ block,” being stymied and unable to proceed. This is something I’ve never experienced, but recently I found an interesting and tasty red wine you could sip while reading a book next to a roaring fire while dreaming up your next storyline.

Betty Kuffel

Your Heart Book Cover- Final 1pedophilecover

YourHeartBook.com, http://tinyurl.com/Heart-Paperback

BettyKuffel.com, http://tinyurl.com/TrueCrimeChildPredators

More on Reseach

Posted on by under Marie F Martin, Uncategorized

By Marie F Martin

Last month I blogged about how research is a must tool in a writer’s bag.  For my new story, I discover I need a couple of my plus-seventy ladies to go to a shooting range.  The plot has one of the widows keeping her husband’s gun collection, hidden in a garment bag.

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The plot thickens and my ladies must defend themselves so they unload the bag.  One of the gals needs to learn how to shoot .  Rifle locked and loaded they drive to a shooting range.rifle

That is the short explanation to set up my trip with faithful canine friend, Katy Lou.  The rifle range is north of town, out in the boonies.  Katy and I drive into the bowl of our valley on a country road named Farm to Market.  Ahead are alpine mountains cut with ski runs.  To the west are the lower mountains covered with the Flathead National Forest and to the east are the snowy peaks of Glacier Park touching the clear sky in a reverent way.  We can’t see to the south, but on such a bright sunny day the waters of Flathead Lake must be crystal blue.

I turned right onto Church Drive and follow it to Prairie View Road and turn north on the dirt road, working up into a forested foot hill.  My dog and I keep an eye out for signs directing the way to what I consider a newfangled shooting range.  The narrow road widens at the top of a hill.  A sign reads Clay target and 4-H shooting range.  I turn onto the muddy roadway leading down to the building and park in a wide spot where the gravel looks thicker.  I set and ponder the plot of my story.  I do not need to investigate the range closer.  I have now unlocked a new twist to my plot.  Research is the key.

Back to School — for writers

Posted on by under Authors of the Flathead, Kathy Dunnehoff, Leslie Budewitz

By Leslie Budewitz

So the kids are back in school. You bought their pens and pencils, their crayons and computers, their notebooks and Netbooks. And every evening you talk about what they did that day and what they learned.

What about you? What are you doing for your own writerly education?

Well, I have an idea. Take yourself the 24th Annual Flathead River Writers Conference, sponsored by the Authors of the Flathead, on Sat-Sun, Sept. 27th-28 at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell. Registration for both days is $160; for one day, it’s $90. (Lunch included)

Authors logoWe’ve got a terrific lineup. Romance writer Margie Lawson uses her background as a psychologist to help writers dig deeper and take their characters, plots, and language further than they thought possible. Classes at “Margie U” are legendary. Thriller writer James W. Hall taught writing at Florida International University for decades — and knows how to tell stories that will scare the bejeebers out of you. Outdoor writer, magazine editor, and mystery writer Keith McCafferty will focus on story in fiction and nonfiction. Film maker Adam Pitman will talk screenwriting and horror. Agents Bree Ogden and Jim McCarthy will be on hand, sharing wisdom about the marketplace. And AofF alumnae Kathy Dunnehoff and I—both Montana Women Writers members and bestselling authors—will teach Sunday afternoon. Kathy will teach her course “Start Your Screenplay Today!” And in my workshop, “Building Character,” we’ll focus on discovering what matters most to your characters and using that to build compelling fiction.

Pack your pencil bag and join the fun.

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Leslie Budewitz is the author of the national bestselling Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries. Death al Dente won the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel, followed by Crime Rib (July 2014). She is the only author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction.