Six Sentence Sunday #18

We're back with more from one of the scenes I wrote because I was in a dry spell for the novel itself. It's not intended to be included in the novel, at least not at this point. This excerpt is part of the scene here on my blog entitled Sandy and Neal before the wedding (Sandy's wedding to Sophie).

This scene started with Six Sentence Sunday #14. It takes place several years before Neal proposes to April.

In the scene, Sandy and Neal have traveled to Crescent City, California--Sandy's hometown. Sandy gets up early the morning of the ceremony and asks Neal to come with him to the beach so he can "settle his head." Neal brings his guitar, which he's planning to use at the ceremony (unbeknownst to Sandy). He's just started guitar lessons so he's not very good yet.

At this point, the two guys have been friends for 10 or 11 years. They're in a rock band together. They spend a short while at the beach then go to Frank's Diner, the local gathering spot. Donna's the waitress. The excerpt is in Neal's POV.
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“Practice what?” Sandy asked on the way to the door.

“In general, you know how I am about practicing. And damn it, I wouldn’t have guessed this dinky town would be hiding so many mamacitas.”

Donna blew a kiss toward him from the table, where she clutched the napkin he’d written on to her heart.

Sandy said, “I’ll bet you wrote a song, but don’t worry, I’ll forget about it until the moment comes.”

“You’re gonna feel pretty stupid when nothing happens.”
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Join in the fun of new and compelling excerpts every week at Six Sentence Sunday. If you're writing something, sign up Tuesday through Saturday and make sure your snippet is posted by Sunday morning. It's a blast to see so many different writing styles.

Thanks, as always, to everybody who comes by my blog :)

update

They say the devil finds work for idle hands and there's enough trouble in the world, so I'm keeping busy. Since deciding to write out my novel up to "the end" before trying to cut stuff, I've had no lack of people to run chapters past. This is a very good thing!

(photo by Roni Loren/
Flickr WANA Commons)

My local writers' group meets weekly so I try to have a chapter ready for every Wednesday. My private queue at Critique Circle (CC) has chapters up for critiquing until I delete them, so there's less of a rush to get stuff posted there but keeping that up is ongoing as well. And I have one beta reader who I work with through email (quality over quantity: Teresa is really helpful!).

The nice (albeit sometimes confusing) thing about this is that editing for my local group and editing for my queue at CC overlaps, so that (for example) I get comments on Chapter 3 from my CC critters and I can tweak that before submitting it to my local group. My beta reader tends to get stuff last which means she gets things after I've gotten comments from two groups and have tweaked accordingly.

I'm also revamping my ponderous outline, begun when I was well into draft 1, as I tweak the chapters in draft 3.

And of course I post here every week, as well as posting here for Six Sentence Sunday. I have to say, I've found the format for Six Sunday really, really helpful. If you can only have six sentences in your story excerpt, they better be interesting ones! I love looking at a bunch of dialogue or a couple paragraphs and trying to figure out what it is I want to get across, and fit it into that restriction.

I'm going to bring it up to my local group and suggest that everybody take part of a scene from their own work and reduce it to a meaningful six sentences. With a bit of adjusting I think the technique could result in a great way to produce writing stripped of non-essentials. The adjusting comes in because you need to have a plot as well as a story, and those are not the same thing.

How about you? How are you keeping busy as another change of the season approaches?

Six Sentence Sunday #17

We're back with more from one of the scenes I wrote because I was in a dry spell for the novel itself. It's not intended to be included in the novel, at least not at this point. This excerpt is part of the scene here on my blog entitled Sandy and Neal before the wedding (Sandy's wedding to Sophie).

This scene started with SSS #14. It takes place several years before Neal proposes to April.

In the scene, Sandy and Neal have traveled to Crescent City, California--Sandy's hometown. Sandy gets up early the morning of the ceremony and asks Neal to come with him to the beach so he can "settle his head." Neal brings his guitar, which he's planning to use at the ceremony (unbeknownst to Sandy). He's just started guitar lessons so he's not very good yet.

At this point, the two guys have been friends for 10 or 11 years. They're in a rock band together. They spend a short while at the beach then go to Frank's Diner, the local gathering spot. Donna's the waitress. The excerpt is in Neal's POV.
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Donna was tempting but after all, April had come on the trip. Dissing the woman who’d stuck by him would be shitty. She claimed she was over Sandy but she’d need extra attention today, and that was not a bad thing. Neal slid out of the booth. “Time to get back, I gotta practice before the service.” Damn, he shouldn’t have said that.

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To get in on the fun yourself, go to Six Sentence Sunday anytime between Tuesday and Saturday to sign up. Then, by Sunday morning, post six sentences from one of your works in progress. Come Sunday, blog hop all around the world reading cool excerpts about all kinds of characters! There are some really imaginative writers out there.

Thanks for hopping by my blog today. I'll be putting tea on, have a seat :)

That's a hot potato!

Sheesh, I just don't believe in coincidence. Someone in my local writers' group commented that in one of my chapters, it would add some realism and spice to a scene if I had a character not just mention that Gloria Estefan was on the radio, but use a specific lyric.

Yeah, I thought, that's a good point. Readers could see that and instantly connect with that moment by hearing the song in their heads. But I'd already read contradictory information about whether writers (especially unknown ones) could do that. The next day, one of the members emailed me a link to a wikipedia article on "fair use."

Ha ha. It's not that simple anymore, folks. The subject came up almost on the same day at Critique Circle where someone posted a link to a British article describing how the writer had to pay big out-of-pocket money to use lyrics in his story, or get slapped with a lawsuit.

There were more links to more articles. Critique Circle's blog talked about it and provided the link to the Public Domain Information Project. Now, I trust what that website says. The music industry, from what I've read in a variety of places, is very, very sensitive about the slightest possibility of theft, and its lawyers are willing and eager to sue. The lawsuit doesn't have to have merit to damage a writer's reputation.

Someone in my local writers' group suggested that if I use an intentionally misquoted lyric, I can't be sued because I'm not using the actual lyric. I love that these guys are trying to help me out, but that just isn't a chance I want to take.

Have you seen Roni Loren's blog post on how she got sued over using images she thought were free? People do get sued over things they had no idea were illegal.

So the only lyrics you'll see in my WIP are the ones I write myself. Anyway, I'm thinking that the absence of other people's lyrics near mine will make mine stand out in a great way :)

Happy writing, peeps. Stay safe: legally as well as physically.

Contest winner!

Big congrats to Kelly W. who won the Catch That Typo contest! Winging its way to her right now is Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips For Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty.

Watch this space for more Catch That Typo editions!

The selection was

From now till the end of the month, take advantage of our free shipping offer, valid on any products side-wide. There's no minimum purchase and our usual restrictions apply.

The typo is side-wide, which should be site-wide.

Thanks to everybody who entered, best of luck with whatever you're writing, and keep your eyes peeled for typos :)

Six Sentence Sunday #16

Hi everybody, nice to have you back :) This particular scene was started with SSS #14. It picks up from a scene that I included as one of my blog pages, entitled Sandy and Neal before the wedding. This refers to Sandy's wedding to Sophie. It takes place several years before Neal proposes to April.

In the scene, Sandy and Neal have traveled to Crescent City, California--Sandy's hometown. Sandy gets up early the morning of the ceremony and asks Neal to come with him to the beach so he can "settle his head." Neal brings his guitar, which he's planning to use at the ceremony (unbeknownst to Sandy). He's just started guitar lessons so he's not very good yet.

At this point, the two guys have been friends for 10 or 11 years. They're in a rock band together. They spend a short while at the beach then go to Frank's Diner, the local gathering spot. Donna's the waitress.
-------------------
They polished off some danishes and muffins along with the coffee; Donna seemed to be watching, at least sometimes. When another waitress went past, Neal asked her for a pen. He wrote on a napkin, making sure Sandy couldn’t see.

La Donna who works in the diner
One look from her sends me higher

He signed it and added some flourishes, then folded it and stuck it under the coffee mug.
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Go here for more excerpts from a lot of talented writers. I'll be doing my usual round of SSS reading too, so don't sit idle!

Thanks for visiting, it's good to see you.

Grammar contest! With a prize! Woot!



Image courtesy of Kittisak /
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Starting a contest! "Catch That Typo" will test not just your eyes but your knowledge of grammar. You're a writer, you say? Then these should be easy! Find the typo in the selection and mention it in a comment. [Contest change: send your guess in an email through the link in my profile. Other comments on this post are welcome, though!] Everybody who answers correctly will be entered in a drawing to WIN one of these books (you get to choose):

* Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

* Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips For Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty

I'll collect comments for three days, starting today. On Wednesday August 15 I'll post the answer and the winner's name. [Contest change: send your guess in an email through the link in my profile. Other comments on this post are welcome, though!]

For my contest typos are defined as

• transposed letters ("foru" instead of "four"),
• use of the wrong letter ("richshaw" instead of "rickshaw"),
• apostrophes dropped, or added unnecessarily,
• malapropisms ("He had to use a fire distinguisher to put the fire out.")
• homophones (to, too, and two; you're, your, and yore)
• incorrect tense ("It's a shame his ice sculpture melted because he work hard at it"--should be worked)

I'm including all of those because a decent editing pass (not just relying on spellcheck) should catch them. If one of those mistakes makes it into print, somebody didn't do their job because it's avoidable in most instances.

Today's selection:

From now till the end of the month, take advantage of our free shipping offer, valid on any products side-wide. There's no minimum purchase and our usual restrictions apply.

You have until Tuesday night, August 14 to say what you think the typo is, in a comment [EMAIL]  to this post.  Good luck!

Six Sentence Sunday #15

Continuing the new scene with Neal and his best friend, Sandy. It picks up from a scene that I included as one of my blog pages, entitled Sandy and Neal before the wedding. This refers to Sandy's wedding to Sophie. It takes places several years before Neal proposes to April.

In the scene, Sandy and Neal have traveled to Crescent City, California--Sandy's hometown. Sandy gets up early the morning of the ceremony and asks Neal to come with him to the beach so he can "settle his head." Neal brings his guitar, which he's planning to use at the ceremony (unbeknownst to Sandy). He's just started guitar lessons so he's not very good yet.

At this point, the two guys have been friends for 10 or 11 years. They're in a rock band together.

They spend a short while at the beach then go to Frank's Diner, the local gathering spot. Incidentally, the diner is where Neal met April. Frank directs the guys to a booth and says he'll have Donna bring some coffee.
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Donna filled both mugs, told Neal to meet her back at the diner as soon as the ceremony ended, winked at him then sashayed away.

Sandy shrugged. “Might as well get married because whenever I’m out with you, women don’t even see me.”

“I can’t help it if I’m a babe magnet. Anyway, you’re old enough to settle down now.”

Sandy kicked him under the table.
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Six Sentence Sunday brings together a bunch of creative writers who share excerpts from various works in progress or published stuff. I'm always impressed by how imaginative they are! Stop by some of the sites, laugh, maybe shed a tear, feel the heat of a romantic moment.

Everyone who visited my site today, thank you  :)

I have a 'was' demon, now an 'outline' demon

This is going to be a short post because I'm frying in the heat this week. I'm struggling through the third draft of my WIP. Some days I work on cleaning up early chapters to post on Critique Circle and other days I work on continuing chapter 23. I'm no closer to figuring out what parts of the story can be tossed so I'm going to research outlining.

I've got this outline that I did when I was most of the way through draft 1, but by draft 3, I realized I had more plot points in the outline than were really needed to tell the story. (Unless this becomes two books, and I know I said once that I was going to consider the project as two books, but now I'm not convinced that's a smart move.)

One book or two, the story still has to make sense and not confuse readers with too much plot. "not every idea needs to be included, not even every good one" (Building Better Plots by Robert Kernen)

If anybody's found a great website or book that explains what to include and what to leave out of outlines, do share! I know I should hit the major plot points but I also know if I stop there, that's a synopsis rather than an outline.

Too bad I wasn't born a plotter; I'd already have this part down! Those of you who've mastered the outline, how do you do it? My rebellious muse says she creates not destroys, so she's no help with this ;)