Tuesdy's Writer's Tip Happy Endings #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Endings #Happy #Writing #Satisfactory

"And they lived Happily ever after." That's the way most fairy tales end. Does it say everything. Writing a happy ending to your story doesn't necessarily mean lived happily ever after. Rather thing that the ending must be satisfying to the reader. Stories can end with all the bodies strewn across the landscape and still be satisfactory.

Now I've read stories that were full of emotions that for me ended badly. I once remember reading a romance that ended with the bride and groom heading in the ssunset. What came to mind was give them six months and they'll be headed to divorce court. This happy ending rang false to me.

A satisfactory ending can be happy or sad but leaves the reader thinking wow I understand. I'm pleased with what is the ending. Here the people in the story will go on in the reader's head as either facing their problems or their happiness.

Finding the path to the ending runs through the story. During my writing days, I've found ending stories can be ahrd and almost as difficult as the opening. There needs to be those words that spell to the reader, I like the way this ended rather than a ho hum or a desire to throw the book agaisnt the wall,

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Tuesday's Inspiration - There Is No Muse, There's You . I wa. #MFRWauthor

When you sit down to write, you need to have a goal. I do remember those days when I began and my writing was sporadic. I sat with pen in hand or in front of the typewriter and stared at the blank page waiting for the inspiration. Needless to say very little words ever reached the page. I was waiting for the Muse, something other writers said they had. Reading books on writing, I searched for ways to find this muse. Never found her or him. What I found was the words were inside myself waiting for me to find a plot, a character, a need to tell a story. What I also learned was to do this I couldn't stare at the blank pages, I had to set goals.

Goals in my book seemed to be the number or words I wrote each day. I set my goal as one I thought I could accomplish. An organization I belong to has set this goal so low it's ridiculous. 18 words a day for 365 days and one has 6667 words at the end of the year. My goal was one I believed I could reach. One page a day. At the end of this time I would have 365 pages of a story. There are books this long but not that many these days. I wasn't writing War and Peace or some other time. I was looking in the 50,000 to 80,000 word book. In those days publishers looked at page count, not word count. Times have changed and so have my writing stints. I'm no longer satisfied with 250 words a day or one page.

My writing goals gradually increased and I learned something else. Those words you first put on paper had to be revised. No one writes the perfect story on the first draft. Maybe you could if you followed the 18 words a day but I know I would be bored with the story before I reached the three year goal of 20,000 words and had a novella. Now I have two goals and they alternate. Being a draft writer, when I begin a story I do a rough work that is little more than a plot outline with characters and all their quirks thrown in and scenes that may have one or ten words. When I reach the end I'll have a kind of outline and the words will be a mess with plot holes beyond plot holes. This is written at 1000 words a day. When I'll be away, I write ahead. I also don't stop when the 1000 words for the day end and I'm still going hot. The other goal is during re-writing that means 2000 words a day and when revising I do 3000 to 4000 words a day.

The real thing here is to set yourself an obtainable goal and write every day or if this can't be done, write ahead. And remember the muse for writing in yourself and your own determination.

Tuesday's Writer's Inspiration - The Writer's Mind

When I read this segment of On Becoming A Novelist by John Gardner, I laughed. I'll put in just a few of the things he said about the elements that make a writer partway between madness and sanity.
I also had a friend who was a psychologist do a test on me and then analyze it. He came to the conclusion that I was both sane and mad at the same time. We laughed a lot about the results of the test.

So here goes, "The writer's intelligence is partly natural and partly trained composed of several qualities, in normal people are signs of immaturity or incivility." There is a long list of qualities that writers often possess. Now you don't have to have them all but you may recognize a few of them. In the next few weeks I'll try to hit most of them. Hope they make you feel amused and realize you have most or all of them.

"Wit - a tendency to make irreverent connections." Perhaps you have this quality and realize that in your head 2 and 2 do not make 4 but make a variety of scenarios that make your reader want to read more. If one were to take four people and put them together, think of the strange possibilities for a story you could find. Another variation is 1 plus 1 plus one. Imagine the many kinds of triangles you can find.

Stubbornness. How many times do you hear that just won't work but by casting words on paper, you find a way. That scene doesn't work, so you tear it apart and try again. To be a writer you have to be stubborn to the max.

There are many more so until next week think about these qualities and see how many you possess or can train yourself to have so you will delight, horrify, mystify and let your readers see all the facets of human nature no matter what way your stories turn.

Tuesday's Inspiration - Think Two #amwriting #MFRW

While reading an essay be Doris Betts, I came across her ideas for starting a story. Multiply by Two. Had me thinking how this would help set a story up. One can go for setting the scene through a long descriptive passage or with just one character stage center. There are stories that have begun in either or both of these fashions. But there can be problems with these openings. The story can be bogged down with description that goes on for a page or two. The story can be involved with the single character ruminating about the past. "Start with the action" we've been told. But if your story doesn't need that big car chase to happen as the story opens or with a revolution this can make the reader wonder what comes next.

Think about putting two characters on stage and running all the scenery, hints to the goal, reasons for wanting that particular aim, the possible problems the character may want, need or desire. Either of the characters can be one of the main people in the story. The other character doesn't have to be. But you can use their interplay to bring the elements of your story into view and capture the reader's attention.

I've just begun plotting a new story. Not sure of the title but I do know since it's one of a series Dreams has to feature in the story. Also something musical needs to be there. By the time I really start the story I'll find the title. But the opening scene takes place between the hero, a composer of music and his housekeeper who tells him she's found just one applicant for her temporary replacement. She must leave to help her daughter. He's become a semi-recluse since his return to town. The interaction between these two will set up many elements of the story.

So, Think Two. Once you've done that surely the other elements needed for a beginning will fall into place.