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Monthly Archives: January 2018

Getting you and your new book on TV

25 Jan

Being interviewed on a TV show is a good way to get the word out about your book and, if you have a good interviewer, get out some information about you, the author. One sign of interest in your book, is interest in you, the author. How do you write? Why do you write? Or in my case – who wrote the book, Beyond Faith – PI Dana Bowman, the main character who insists she wrote it, or me, Sharon A. Crawford, whose name is on the cover?

All that and more (including non-fiction books versus fiction books) got covered last week when I appeared on the Liquid Lunch where I was interviewed by host Hugh Reilly and a newbie co-host. This is on the Internet channel thatchannel.com – the channel has been going since 2004. Not bigtime ( or small time) TV but TV is no longer just regular channels. Think Crave TV. Think Netflix. And think thatchannel.com

This was my third appearance in six years (one for each Beyond book) on Liquid Lunch. This time I have mixed feelings about the way it went. There wasn’t time for me to read a couple of pages from Beyond Faith because we chatted too much. “We” is mostly Hugh and meas the newbie didn’t say too much and she put her foot in her mouth about one thing she said. But I handled it graciously.  Also it was a different studio room and setup from the previous two appearances.

But my biggest gripe was my bangs had been cut too short the day before. Clearly I’m reading too many celebrity stories online. I was able to carry on an intelligent conversation and even steer it back to Beyond Faith when it got a bit off track.

You can check it out for yourself here. Or you can click on the Beyond Faith book cover above and that will take you directly to the interview.

And something extra is coming out of all of this.

I am getting my own TV show on thatchannel.com. It will be about crime – true and fiction and  PI Dana Bowman will be a part of it – if she has her way. Show will get going this spring

More info closer to the date. Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted. Meantime, watch the video (it’s about 27 minutes) and please spread the link to it on your social media. Thanks.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 

Sharon holding up Beyond Faith

 

 

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Posted by on January 25, 2018 in Beyond Faith, Book Promotion, Characters and plot in fiction, Fiction Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, TV and Radio Interviews, Uncategorized, Writing

 

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Plotting Your Way Through Your Story

19 Jan

I wrote the original version of the below a few years back when I was Writer in Residence for the Toronto Branch of the Canadian Authors’ Association. With a few updates, which I have now made, it is still relevant for us authors. So here goes. 

 

Plotting Your Way Through Your Story

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. — Kurt Vonnegut, science fiction writer

Vonnegut describes the fiction writer perched at the computer. The writer is ready to roll with the plot. Sometimes he soars, but sometimes his wings get clipped.

Let’s look at some baddies in fiction plotting.

A literary magazine editor once scrawled on one of my short stories, “This is not a short story. This is an incident.”

A novel that I evaluated contained quirky characters. However, they solved everything too easily and their relationships, including the love relationship, had no problems.

In another novel, the author tried to carry most of the plot with dialogue. Dialogue is good for showing the reader rather than overdoing the narration. But you can overkill with dialogue too.

In another novel, the author had created a certain atmosphere from the setting and characters. Unfortunately, the plot resembled those 500-piece jigsaw puzzles that you finally toss out in a garage sale.

Kurt Vonneget describes plot as

I don’t praise plots as accurate representations of life, but as ways to keep readers reading. When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away — even if it’s only a glass of water. … When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone’s wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do. You can also exclude the reader by not telling him immediately where the story is taking place, and who the people are. … And you can put him to sleep by never having characters confront each other.

The characteristics of a good plot are:

  1. A protagonist or main character with a conflict to resolve. The characters drive the plot. Let them struggle to get there. Life may be a bowl of cherries, but the characters need to experience the pits.

  2. The plot moves forward, usually chronologically, although some flashbacks can work. If you get lost, use Doug Lawson’s rule, i.e., figuring out where the characters would rather not go.

  3. Events must be connected, not random and they must link from one event to another with some purpose.

  4. The plot must be believable, whether commercial or literary fiction. Your story line may seem unbelievable, but you make it believable by suspending the reader’s disbelief. Think “X Files.”

  5. Their must be a climax, whether it’s a moral one in the protagonist’s mind or the opposite extreme, such as a sword fight. Think protagonist and antagonist together at the edge of a cliff – for an analogy.

  6. The plot must have some resolution in the end. With series mystery novels, something, perhaps in the main characters’ personal lives, is often left hanging for the next novel. But the main plot must be resolved or you cheat the reader.

 

And the usual, if you click on the Beyond Faith book cover at the beginning, you go to a link with more info including a bit about its twisted plot.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 

 

 

 

 
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Posted by on January 19, 2018 in Beyond Faith, Novel writing, Sharon A. Crawford, Writing

 

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Catching story ideas on the fly

11 Jan

 

I’m a writer as rarely as possible, when forced by an idea too lovely to let die unwritten.

– Richard Bach

Our story ideas may not be as esoteric as Richard Bach’s – he wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  Where can we get story ideas and when we get them, what do we do with them?

Story ideas often pop into our heads when we are busy doing something else or more likely when our mind hits a lull. Or we are reading an article in the daily newspaper or the classifieds (online or in print) and our right brain, the creative side, suddenly wakes up. A conversation overheard on a bus, especially those cell-phone monologues, conversations overheard in restaurants can suggest several story ideas, often of the criminal intent. Brochures on community groups, art shows, and even the supermarket flyers can inspire. Take the old (former) Dominion supermarket slogan, “We’re fresh obsessed,” and try to look at a story angle that is fresh. Taking a shower or bath is also guaranteed to fill you with more than water. The Internet is full of potential story ideas. Don’t underestimate the power of dreams. Drugs and alcohol are not recommended as you will see from the following example.

Late one night a photographer friend once thought he had a brilliant idea. He scribbled it down on a piece of paper before he crashed for the night. When he woke the next morning, he looked at the paper. On it he had written, “I am very drunk.”

Another moral from this story is look at photographs. A picture is worth a thousand words, but before the words come the ideas.

What do you do when an idea hits? Grab it before it disappears into the nether area of your mind. Write it down. Keep a notebook (electronic or paper) handy. If you think faster than you type or scrawl, use a recorder for dictating your ideas. If the source is the Internet, bookmark it under the heading “Story ideas.”

Then let the idea rest for at least a few days. The idea will simmer in your subconscious and when you sit down at your computer, the act of starting to write will draw out these ideas. On rare occasions, a simmering story suddenly bubbles and you are compelled to write it right now. Do so – if you don’t you might not only lose the momentum, but the idea as well. Nothing, except maybe a blank screen, is worse than an idea gone stale because it was left in storage beyond its best date.

Follow the advice of Martin Woods, who said,

“Write great ideas down as soon…”

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

Author of the Beyond mystery novels – whose ideas came from all of the above.

And if you click on the Beyond Faith cover icon at the top, it will take you to the one of the online places the novel is available – as well as more details about the novel itself.

 

 

 

 
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Posted by on January 11, 2018 in Beyond Blood, Beyond Faith, Beyond mystery series, Beyond the Tripping Point, Finding story ideas in fiction, Novel writing

 

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Sneaking in writing when you have no time

04 Jan

Gearing up to write

I’m back after a two-week break, some of it ostensibly to do some writing. But I had to spend a lot of it dealing with house and property issues related to all the snow and cold weather. But – yes, another but… I did start my next Beyond mystery novel. Just had to get something down with all the ideas swirling around in my mind. And i am glad the ideas were coming.

Which gave me an idea to spread around to those of having difficulty finding time to sit down and just write.

First of all, who says you have to be sitting down at your laptop? You write from your soul, from your whole being. And as I just proved, from what swirls around in your head. So why not write while you are busy doing other things? Things like vacuuming, standing in line at the grocery store (unless you have all your groceries delivered), waiting for that bus or subway or actually travelling on that busy or subway, waiting in line to gas up the car, and yes, even shovelling snow. Basically doing tasks that don’t involve major calculations and the like from your brain.

Let your mind go (no, not crazy), Don’t even try to think about what you could write. But it does help to give your brain a quick nudge that you want a story idea and voila, as you push that snow or go for that walk, ideas will start to come into your mind. Think I’m nuts. Earlier this morning  an idea for a new short story started going through my mind. I told myself that was all very well, but I needed an idea for this blog post one right away popped into my brain. And so here it is.

While I am making time to write this – it is my day of the week for this- you might not be in a position to do so. Well, keep the idea alive in your head although you will probably find you don’t have to push it. The story idea will stay there to develop – even if you have to concentrate on something else, like pay for your groceries. The idea will return and may keep haunting you until you do something about it. That is how my new Beyond novel got started.

So, you will have to find time eventually to sit down and get writing. But in the meantime, let the story evolve and run around in your brain. It is certainly more pleasant than shovelling snow  and complaing about it.

Cheers

Sharon A, Crawford

Below is the cover of my latest Beyond book – Beyond Faith. Click on it and it should take you to Amazon and a book review.

 

 

 

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2018 in Beyond Faith, Sharon A. Crawford, Writing, Writing Time

 

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