BUILDING ANTICIPATION IN YOUR STORY

A story is more than a series of events tied together or slapping a pat ending on the work and calling it a book. There has to be continuity and a reason for events and the reader has to be with you and with your characters to be satisfied. We have to prime and keep them involved enough to continue turning those pages. 

Professional editor, Beth Hill, talks about the importance of building anticipation in our readers so they want to know what happens next. 

Beth's blog, The Editor's blog, is listed as one of the 50 best blogs by and for editors (by Online Universities.com).  

When readers anticipate that something is going to happen to characters they've  come to know, come to like and maybe admire—whether or not they know for sure what that something is—those readers get involved and stay involved in a story. So anticipation is an emotion you want to induce in the reader.

As a writer, you have to be the one to fold in that sense of anticipation.

So how do you set up anticipation for the ending? You build it into every chapter and scene.

Ways To Build Anticipation

~  Set a clock ticking or a calendar’s pages turning—indicate a time or occasion by which the main character must succeed at his tasks in order to save whatever needs saving . . . the world or his child or his marriage. Periodically remind readers of the clicking clock and/or keep the calendar pages turning visibly—keep readers aware of the passage of time. 

~  Hint at possible outcomes and indicate what could happen if certain acts are not completed. 

~  Show negative outcomes for small infractions of the rules (stated or implied) so that character and readers anticipate even worse outcomes for large infractions. 

~  Connect events so that one leads inexorably to the next. Show those connections. Have readers anticipate even more connections because they've seen how events are linked, how events lead to particular outcomes. 

~  Set into motion a chain of events that cannot be stopped or slowed. 

~  Introduce inevitability—one circumstance, if it comes to pass, will inevitably produce the next. 

~  Show characters fighting with everything they have to stop or derail the inevitable. Show the cost characters pay for fighting against a certain happening or event. Show the toll it takes. Make the anticipated outcome have an effect on the story’s current events even as they unfold. 

~  Give characters new resolve as the story marches on—give characters reasons to keep going. Give characters new tools to use in the fight. Show a character’s inner strength coming out as the story heads toward the end. 

~  Don’t let characters go too long without thinking or talking about a future they are trying to head off or the one they are trying to create. Show characters planning for a future after the anticipated big moment. Show them planning celebrations of success as well as future battle campaigns in case they fail. Keep characters aware of the future—through dialogue or actions or thoughts—so that readers are also aware and anticipating. 

~  Show a character’s emotions when his actions bring the unwanted showdown closer. Conversely, show a character’s relief when he does something to delay the feared ending. Keep characters emotionally involved in anticipated outcomes so that readers will likewise be emotionally invested. 

~  Introduce surprises, both positive and negative, to keep characters off balance, to make them have to recalculate possible end scenarios and re-evaluate their commitment. This will keep readers aware of the end the characters anticipate. 

The point is to set up anticipation and maybe even dread in both characters and readers. Keep them pushing toward or pulling away from those outcomes. Make possible consequences drive action and response.

You can always change either the climax or the story events so that the two truly match—you can’t produce a climax or ending that you didn't build toward. Sure, you can tack on the ending that you want, but if you didn't create anticipation for that ending, the reader won’t believe in your story’s conclusion; you've got to have a setup that matches the end.

But endings should come naturally out of the elements that you mixed into the story.

Include anticipation in your writing so that readers have reasons to stay involved and turning pages.

                                                                                                                    

I love the written word, the ability we have to create worlds and emotions with well-chosen phrases. It’s my intention to share tips and insights and encouragement with writers at all levels, to help you craft stories that will entertain and satisfy your readers. That will help satisfy you as writer as well.

I am both writer and editor. My editing focus is on long fiction, primarily novels. I also mentor beginning writers.

Beth has many articles on writing craft on her website A Novel Edit, and she covers craft and other subjects on her blog, The Editor's Blog.

JADE LEE—THE BIGGEST SURPRISE

I'm delighted to have, Jade Lee, visiting with us today Over Coffee. Her stories have brought me quite a few hours enjoyment. 

Jade's topic today is all about surprises our characters present when writing a story. Even those writers who don't plot have certain story points and the ending in mind when they start. Having Jade discussing how her stories surprise her, certainly explains a few things I didn't see coming, but thoroughly enjoyed as I read.   

There's a moment in every story that surprises me. In the previous book (What the Bride Wore), it was when the hero Grant refused to tell his brother why he'd been missing for five years. I'd expected that information to come out early in the book, but he just stuck to his silence until a pivotal moment later.

Like many of my books, Wedded in Scandal had a delightful character as a surprise. For those who have read it, Edward wasn't supposed to be there at all, and yet he was so amazing, he became the hero of Engaged in Wickedness. But this book's surprise was a first for me. In What the Groom Wants, the startling moment was the entire back third of the book. Yeah, the ENDING was surprise.

Seriously, my reaction as I was writing it was WTF? But sometimes (rarely) the words just flow and I was typing something that felt right even if it had nothing to do with my outline.

So here's what I planned: Radley my hero finally faces off with the villain Damon and he defeats the bad guy in a show of manly prowess. We've all seen that before, right? It's a good, classic ending to a romance novel. I wrote it down on my outline and that's what my editor expected.

But what actually appeared on the page had my editor calling me to say, "This is not what we discussed, is it? Nevermind, I don't care. I love this ending, but I never saw it coming."

Neither did I, but the more I looked back at it, the more it made sense. My heroine, Wendy, is a woman who bargains to survive. As in: I'll give you A, if you give me B. And if you don't cheat me, we'll both come out ahead. That's great, but she's a seamstress in love with a duke. (He wasn't a duke when they met. In fact, in his heart, he's still just a seaman). So how does she make herself the equal of our hero?

My plan was that she finally just gets over herself. She says, "hey, if I'm what you want, then I love you too." Again, that's a classic romance moment. But Wendy ended up being too strong for that. She set about systematically making herself the equal of a duke. How does she do that?

SPOILER ALERT: She takes over a financial empire. She just...flat takes it over. With the aid of the constable and his men, a Cardinal in the Church of England, and quite a few of the previous book's people, she organizes a coup that lets her bring a great deal of money and power to the marriage. Suddenly, she becomes a good bargain for a duke.

So the ending became Wendy using all the myriad different characters I'd set up in the previous books and creating the future she wanted. With Radley's help in the end. And a great deal of love.

Honestly, I would like to think I was smart enough to plan this on my own. No such luck. I hadn't even expected the other characters to make an appearance, much less show up in the final scene ready to defend our heroine to the death.

But sometimes, writing just works that way. Divine inspiration or luck, I don't care. I just hope it happens again.

• Writers: Have you ever had a story surprise you by taking a different path than what you had planned?

• Readers: Do you like stories that take you by surprise?

                                                                                                                                                          

BUY:Amazon, B&N, B-a-M, Chapters/Indigo, IndieBound

WHAT THE GROOM WANTS

An honest love...

Radley Lyncott has been in love with Wendy Drew as long as he can remember. When he went to sea, she was too young to court. Now that he’s returned to take up his Welsh title, he is appalled to find that debt has ruined the Drew family, and—even worse—Wendy is being courted by another man.

Or a dangerous attraction?

Family comes first for seamstress Wendy Drew, who is forced to settle her brother’s debt by working nights at a notorious gambling den. But her double-life hasn’t gone unnoticed—she has captivated none other than Demon Damon, a nefarious rake who understands Wendy’s darkest desires and is hell bent on luring her into his arms.

Available in stores February 2014

                                                                                                                                                     

USA Today bestselling author Jade Lee has been scripting love stories since she first picked up a set of paper dolls. Ball gowns and rakish lords caught her attention early (thank you Georgette Heyer), and her fascination with the Regency began. An author of more than 30 romance novels and winner of dozens of industry awards, she finally gets to play in the best girl-heaven place of all: a Bridal Salon! In her new series, four women find love as they dress the most beautiful brides in England. Lee lives in Champaign, Illinois. 

You can find Jade:

WEBSITE, FACEBOOK, GOODREADS, TWITTER.

MONDAY'S MUSINGS—WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

One moment I’m sleeping peacefully and with the next breath I’m jerked awake by a cacophony of sound. The slam of adrenaline hits so hard it’s like fire coursing through my veins. Deep breath, hand to the chest to keep my heart in place. Seconds to identify the sounds and decide the action needed. My existence is reduced to strobe light flashes of action and reaction.

That’s what it’s like to wake up to all hell breaking loose.

One hand hits the light switch the other has already grabbed my pants. I’m aware of Dan ratcheting a round in the chamber before he grabs his clothes. I hear the snarl of my son’s pit bull. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. The Danes are going into attack mode.

I jam my feet into boots while loading the shotgun. Dan’s already out the door, gun loaded and ready, his flashlight spearing the blackness of the cold night. I hear the snick of safety off from my son’s rifle. His pit is going nuts in his bedroom. Outside the Danes are snarling and slamming against the fence engaged in a fight with coyotes and in the background a call to the pack floats on the air. Doctari bugles a challenge with his mares behind him. All faces are pointed toward the confrontation a hundred yards away.

We wade through the ground fog in hunting mode listening to dangerous dogs in protection mode. A high-pitched yelp of a wounded canine. The smell of blood. The echo of gunfire. Howls of the pack calling retreat. The snorting and stomping of alert horses. Eerie eyes where there shouldn't be eyes. 

When hell breaks loose it’s a mêlée of confusion, flashes of movement, and sound.

It’s been a hard winter. Food has been problematic for the packs, although they rarely come into the home pasture and my cats know not to venture into the pastures on winter nights. My first flare of worry was for my horses especially with Doctari’s challenge even though I know that coyotes don’t normally go after something that big, even as a pack, unless it’s badly wounded and looks easy to bring down. The home pasture is Doctari’s territory. He was confronting home invaders of the canine variety. He doesn't tolerate any threat to his mares by canines. I've seen those powerful legs and hooves in action a couple of times when strays have thought it fun to chase the horses. Let’s just say a couple of those strays didn't get back up.

Later investigation showed the clear blood trail from the open pasture to the Dane pen. It was a tale of a fierce fight between the two fleeing Raccoons and what we suspect were a few of the pack’s yearlings with a few of this year’s pups. A fatally wounded Raccoon ran for cover into my Dane pen to escape. The sound of battle through the fence between my Danes defending home ground and the Coyotes determined to get their meal.  The added din of a cornered and terrified Raccoon entering the mêlée and protecting its mate. She escaped, he, unfortunately, did not.

Unforgettable sights, sounds and smells. Things like this are the stuff of movies or books.

Upon reflection, you can imagine all sorts of things out there in the dark. Things that grab at you from the ground, shape shifters, vampires, home invasions, an army on the move, anything your imagination can conjure up could be there hiding in the ground fog of the night.

• So, how do you use these moments of life?

• Do they stir your imagination? Do they find their way into your writing?

                                                                                                                                 

~Upcoming guests~

Wednesday, February 19th: Jade Lee talking about the moment in every story that surprises her.

WHEN DAILY LIFE TURNS INTO FICTION

My guest is romance author, Elizabeth Michels. Her topic today is using bits of life and experiences in our writing.

First of all, thank you for having me here to celebrate the release of Must Love Dukes.  I feel as if I've been wandering aimlessly toward this moment for years and I’m happy to share it with you! Why was I wandering aimlessly?  Let me explain… There are little shards of my life, people I've met, experiences I've encountered sprinkled throughout this book, and really any book I write.  I started writing during nap times just after I had my little boy.  Before that, I was a small business owner sentenced to bed rest during pregnancy and given piles of romance novels for company—not too shabby a sentence, right?  *grins* My point is that I haven’t always been a writer, but I have always been a reader and an observer of life.  And often that surrounding life shows up in the fiction I write.

There is one scene in Must Love Dukes that practically wrote itself after visiting my in-laws for the weekend.  It had been a difficult week for various reasons I won’t get into here and to compensate for the unfortunate turn of events my mother-in-law decided to fuss over my husband and me while we were crawling into bed at night.  It was absurd.  I remember her piling more and more and more blankets on us while we looked at each other, shaking our heads as we wondered what was happening.  She claimed that the guest bedroom was drafty and we were cold—even though we were comfortable.  She would leave the room and then minutes later return with another layer of blankets... 

In Must Love Dukes this turned into Devon’s mother calling for food to be brought in and checking the windows for drafts when she knew her son was in emotional turmoil.  He is protesting while she flits around the room in a frenzy of activity, calling in maids as she attempts to fix things that aren’t broken because she can’t fix what is truly wrong in her son’s life.  Sound familiar?

 

And then sometimes inspiration is more abstract and yet still based in daily life all the same.  At the heart of Must Love Dukes is Lily’s struggle to hold on to her family heirlooms while her brothers seek to auction off everything to the highest bidder—including her.  Disagreements over inheritance seem to plague every family at one time or another, causing rifts between siblings, driving proper ladies into a life of crime.  Alright, so maybe not all ladies at war with their brothers turn to thievery to solve their problems, but Lily does just that.  Only unlike real life inheritance battles, Lily’s journey leads her into peril when she steals from the wrong man—the Mad Duke of Thornwood.

Many of the family dynamics I enjoy writing about in my books occur today just as frequently as they did in Regency England.  Must Love Dukes does have twirling ball gowns and a swoon-worthy mad duke bent on revenge, but it also has people trying to navigate the path to happiness and love in life.  Finding one’s way down this path often requires sacrifice, hard decisions, and occasionally, it requires setting hunting dogs on unwanted suitors in a ballroom…Oh, you’ve never been in that situation?  Well, maybe not everything in my stories is based in the life I see around me, but I think that’s the enchanting part of reading a book—never knowing what adventure will be on the next page. 

• What inspires you in your daily life?

                                                                                                                                                      

BUY: Amazon, B&Noble,Chapters/Indigo, B-a-M, IndieBound

MUST LOVE DUKES

The Mad Duke leaned in closer, his lips gently brushing her ear, and whispered, "I dare you."

She Can't Resist the Dare…

Lillian Phillips could not imagine how her quiet, simple life had come to this. Blackmailed by the Mad Duke of Thornwood into accepting one wild dare after another...all because of a pocket watch. Desperate to recover her beloved father's pawned timepiece, Lily did something reckless and dangerous and delicious—something that led to a night she'd never forget.

He has a Reputation for Scandal…

When Devon Grey, Duke of Thornwood, runs into a mesmerizing, intoxicating, thieving woman who literally stole from his bedchamber—with his new pocket watch—Devon plots his revenge. If the daring wench likes to play games, he's happy to oblige. After all, what's the ruse of being the Mad Duke if you can't have some fun? But the last laugh might just be on him...

                                                                                                        

 

Elizabeth Michels grew up on a Christmas tree farm in rural South Carolina. After tip-toeing her way through school with her focus on ballet steps and her nose in a book, she met a boy and followed him a thousand miles away from home to Kansas City, Missouri, before settling down in North Carolina. She attended Park University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Interior Design. Elizabeth is a lover of happily-ever-afters; she invites you to read her stories, get lost, and enjoy. For more information, please visit http://www.elizabethmichels.com/ and http://www.badgirlzwrite.com/.

MY LIFELONG ROMANCE WITH WRITING

My guest is historical and romance author, Christy English. She's been in love with writing stories since the tender age of 8 when she concluded that writing was a whole lot harder than she first thought. Still, her love affair with words kept her at it until she finally got it right--years later. I, for one, am glad she persevered! 

When I was four years old, I asked for a typewriter for my birthday. And due to the love and devotion of my parents, I got one: a bright, shiny yellow one.

At this point in my life, I knew the alphabet and had begun to learn to read, but writing was a far distant goal...something that at that point had never consciously occurred to me. I did think it odd that the letters were all out of order on the key board. To be honest, I still don't know why the keyboard is like that. I am not even sure why i wanted that typewriter. I just knew that I did.

When I was 8 years old, I finished reading one of my library books and for the first time in my life, I thought: "I can do that." I got about five chapters into my novel, handwritten in poor, painstaking script, one page per "chapter", and then I gave up. It seemed that writing was much harder than it looked.

From the time I was 12, I began to have characters show up with stories to tell, dancing in my head. I know that sounds a little nuts, probably because it is, but those of you who are writers will know what I mean. And when these characters showed up, I started writing their stories down. I never foisted these hideous works of "art" off on other people, except for a couple of devoted friends (LaDonna and Laura, you know who you are.) Those two patiently read and praised stories that were so bad, they would peel paint of the walls. Trust me when I say that telling a good story is a  skill that takes YEARS to learn. Or at least, it took me years to learn how to do it.

So now, when I look at MUCH ADO ABOUT JACK, my fifth novel, and my third romance, I think of all the truly terrible writing I used to do, and I am amazed that I finally got better. Amazed and grateful.

If we focus and work hard, we can produce good writing. Storytelling is a joy, for the teller and, hopefully, for the reader. 

Good luck and many blessings on all of you who are writers, too, published and yet-to-be-published. Hang in there. If I can do it, so can you.

                                                                                                                                                    

BUY: Amazon, B&N, B-a-M,ChpIndigo, IndieBound

MUCH ADO ABOUT JACK 

How to Become London's Most Notorious Widow:

1. Vow to NEVER remarry

2. Own a ship and become fabulously wealthy

3. Wear the latest risqué fashions in your signature color

4. Do NOT have a liaison at the Prince Regent's palace with a naval captain whose broad shoulders and green eyes make you forget Rule #1

Angelique Beauchamp, the widowed Countess of Devonshire, has been twice burned by love, and she is certain that no man will ever touch her heart again. But that doesn't mean she can't indulge a little—and it would be hard to find a more perfect dalliance than one with the dashing Captain James Montgomery.

After a brief torrid affair, James tries to forget Angelique and his undeniable thirst for more. The luscious lady was quite clear that their liaison was temporary. But for the first time, the lure of the sea isn't powerful enough to keep him away...

                                                                                                                         

Christy English is happiest when she is dreaming. Her dreams have taken her to the royal court of Henry II in THE QUEEN’S PAWN, to medieval Paris in TO BE QUEEN, and now to Regency England in MUCH ADO ABOUT JACK, LOVE ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT, and HOW TO TAME A WILFULL WIFE, where she loves to watch her characters find true love, often in spite of themselves. 

Please visit her on her blog, Facebook, or  Twitter 

MONDAY'S MUSINGS: CABIN FEVER AND CREATIVITY

“Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It doesn't show signs of pausing,
And I've bought some corn for popping,
The lights are turned way down low,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”

Lyricist, Sammy Cahn and the composer Jule Styne wrote Let It Snow in 1945. Inspiration being what it is, no doubt Sammy Cahn had some experience with being snowed in and probably cabin fever. It's a song we most hear at Christmas although it's not, technically, a Christmas song.

  

Let it Snow was also used in the Bruce Willis film Die Hard (one of my favorite movies), when the hero, John McClane was traveling to meet his family at Christmas.  We can safely say that John didn't have cabin fever.  The ‘frightful’ weather didn't affect his creativity in the least. Yippee Ki-yay!

However, not all deal with cabin fever quite so creatively as Sammy Cahn or John McClane.

 

• Does Cabin Fever affect your creativity?
• Are you more creative at these times or less?

                                                                                                                          

Upcoming guests this week: 

Wednesday, February 12, Christy English will be talking about her life long romance with writing. Friday, February 14, Elizabeth Michels' topic is When Daily Life Turns Fiction.

                                                                                                                         

Additionally, I will be not be around on the 14th as I'm scheduled for out-patient (we hope) surgery. Not exactly how I envisioned spending Valentine's Day this year. I'll not be visiting blogs on that day but I will try to visit on Saturday--depending upon how I feel. 

IWSG: CONQUERING THE BITS AND PIECES

Rocking the neurotic writing world with Alex Cavanaugh and the Insecure Writing Support Group (you can check out the group and participants here) . First Wednesday of every month.

You know? I like puzzles.  I do.

I like finding the pieces and fitting them in and making a picture. It’s fun. I feel the same about creating a necklace out of a pile of multicolored beads and bits of metal pieces. It’s fun to create a pretty or even a funky design. I do the same with earrings. Bits and pieces can be fun to put into a whole and make it something else, something lovely.

Bits and pieces aren’t so much fun in editing. It’s the same premise. You have various

Victorian necklace and bracelet

pieces and it should be a matter of combining them into a whole picture. Adding bits of this and that to get a harmonious whole. Something with impact. A piece of work to take pride in.

Except…it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes the pieces develop teeth and attack you.

I wrote a trilogy back a few years ago. This was a story that stretched me. It was fun to let her rip and go for it. I challenged my writing chops for sure. Still, I was okay with it all. I knew it had good bones just as I knew it had a lot of stuff that wasn’t needed.

When I went to edit it, after the critiques, I had a path but I was new to this type of editing. It was a bit daunting but I knew I could do it and that it would be better for the hard work. There were parts of it that actually needed rewriting and that would mean changing chunks of the other two stories as well. So I took it apart. The chapters have been unstrung from the whole and even some of the chapters are in unstrung sections. It’s all in it’s own file. It has research files to compliment the design and some sparkly pieces to add impact.

So why is it still in pieces? Good question.

Cutting the extraneous wasn’t that hard. Trying to re-thread those chapters was overwhelming. I couldn’t understand why I was having such problems with clear thinking. I knew what I needed to do and it wasn’t like I was new to editing. But for some reason this project steamrolled me. Pancake flat. I had not a clue how to change that. The harder I tried the worse it became. I couldn’t understand why. It was seriously affecting my confidence and taking away the joy I’ve always felt creating and writing. Of course part of it was I was getting sick and I didn’t realize it. I was losing clarity of thought but didn’t know it at the time. I struggled on and made a mess of it. I looked at all the pieces of what had once been whole and cried over the devastating mess I had left. All those bits and pieces mocking me.

I put it away for a bit and wrote other things some good and some not. I was trying, and perhaps too hard, to recapture that flow and joy of writing. Concentration was becoming harder and my attention span shorter and there were days I swore gnats had a longer attention span. You know the thoughts that go through your mind at times like that. You’re a what? A writer? Queue maniacal derisive laughter. And no one does mocking quite as well as our inner critic.

That was a bit over two years ago. The past few months my creative mind has been sneaky and reworking things in that series again. I’ve even dreamed about it. It’s itching to tackle it. But, I still haven’t opened that file. 

Fear? Sure. A lot of not so great things happened during the initial editing phase of that series and are all tied into that file.

I’m smart enough to know you have to face your fears and that usually those fears are much bigger in our minds than in reality. I’ve fallen off horses, broken bones, and faced stupid and humiliation. There is a certain repulsion in facing that horse and all the possibilities of a repeat performance. But I also knew if I didn’t get back into the saddle I wouldn’t ride again. I can’t live that way. I’m not one to let fear of what if or possibility of pain hold me back. I’m not reckless but it’s a challenge I have to face and conquer even if I’m shaking in my boots. Always been that way.

Well, I’m again shaking in my boots but I know me. I know how my creative mind works. I know it’s giving me warning that resistance is futile because we will be opening that file.

Conquer or be conquered. 

I know which role I prefer.