Writing Categories
- The Craft of Writing
- Characters
- Conflict
- Critiques & Critique Groups
- Dialogue
- Editing
- Emotion, Love & Sex
- Finding Ideas
- Writing The First Draft
- Plots & Plotting
- Research
- Setting & Description
- Showing versus Telling
- Theme/Premise
- Writing Different Genres
- Point of View
- The Business of Writing
- Agents
- Branding/Promotion/Marketing
- Career Planning
- First Sale
- Pitching Your Novel
- Writing for the Market
- Writing Query Letters
- Writing a Synopsis
- The Writer's Soul
- Finding Time
- Staying Motivated
- Surviving Rejection
- The Writer's Life
- Writer's Block
- Writing Retreats
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Melissa James
Melissa is a born and bred Sydney-sider, now living with her husband and three sports-loving children, part-dingo dog, and rabbits (they've also had a cat and the odd tadpole or frog -- if they survive the attentions of her enthusiastic son that long) at a beachside semi-country suburb just over an hour north of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The chickens -- well, they're another story. Especially when they turn out to be competitive silky bantam roosters crowing at 5 a.m.!
A former nurse, waitress, shop assistant, perfume/chocolate demonstrator (yum!) and currently a history student at university, Melissa has an avid desire to find out all things historical and medical. Research is the stuff of life!
Reading, learning and doing field research (such as finding out how to fly a plane in a monsoon storm, or how it feels to be smothered with a pillow or almost fall off a cliff) all comprises part of her day, as does walking at her local beach with her husband or with friends or the kids -- even the dog sometimes! Watching movies, especially suspense or romantic comedy, and shows like Alias or 24 is always terrific for imaginative inspiration.
Falling into writing through her husband, who thought it would be a good way to keep her out of trouble while the kids were little, Melissa was soon hooked. Using inspiration from university readers or journalists' articles and photos for her books is common for her. Vivid, real-life stories or graphic, painful pictures bring a fire and passion to her books -- though writing the occasional loopy comedy is a great way to stretch the imaginative muscles.
Melissa loves to hear from her readers via email at melissaj@bigpond.net.au or through the Silhouette New York or Harlequin Sydney office.
Visit Melissa at MelissaJames.net
Articles by this Author
As writers we all love our characters, and we should -- if we don't adore our characters, who else will? But this can blind us to what others -- namely judges and editors and agents -- can see in them.
Just recently, a writing friend, who, despite being an excellent writer, is having problems with her story's jerky feeling, asked me: "What do you mean by flow (big wail here!!!)?? I know how to recognize it in other people's writing, but I'm not sure what the specifics are. Is it a technique you can learn, or more a feely, intuitive thing?"
Read about how to put pizzazz into a tried and true plot.
The title here is pretty self-explanatory! How do we go about adding emotional depth to scenes without doing two pages of looooong flashbacks (or, as someone from my last workshop put it, "whining and pining") about the past, or what the hero, my mother or so-and-so did to me 5 or 25 years ago?
Yep, I said it: SEX. The hot-and-sweaty, no-holds-barred, tangled-sheets or on-the-floor, down-and-dirty three-letter word that terrifies some of us so bad we write, "put love scene here" on a page and move on in seconds! Yet sex scenes can be so vital to the story (unless you're doing Tender Romance or Inspirational, of course), if they're done right: they can emotionally connect the hero and heroine like nothing else, and raise the emotional stakes so high between them that a reader MUST keep going to finish the story, even if it's 3am!
A skill that leads straight into strong, emotive writing is Deep Point Of View. And I mean deep. This is often a very hard skill to conquer, but it's so effective I felt it needed a whole day's work. Deep POV is an art, because it's putting yourself so totally into the character you basically don't appear (and by this, I mean what is commonly known as "author intrusion"); it's all the character.
Today, we're finding physical stimulants to finding an emotive response. These are triggers, if you will. Some people feel they need to work in silence, but for me, that's impossible. I need triggers! There are many different ways to trigger emotion, but most of these involve using your senses -- touch, sight, sound, smell -- even taste.
Today we're dealing with working at knowing your characters, so the emotional depth comes, not just from you, (though that's vital) but also from within them. And if this sounds nuts, it isn't: if you want your book to live, so must your characters! When you learn your characters, they start to "speak" to you, the emotions and the writing flow.
How many rejection letters have we all had, stating that our writing lacks those two awful words, "emotional punch"? I know I've had more than a few in the past. But it would leave me puzzled for a long, long time. What is emotional punch? People say to write the book of your heart and it will come naturally. But which book, since we love them all, is the book of our hearts?I believe writing from the heart is definitely a plus...but sometimes it takes more. Think of that "book of your heart" -- any book -- as a whole body: and a body needs several parts to really live. Like we do. So, what makes up the "body" of a truly emotional book?
It’s happened again. You’ve had another rejection, one of those awful, generic ‘editorial department’ ones we all dread: ‘Your story is well-written and plotted, but lacks the emotional depth and excitement we’re looking for.’ In this article, Melissa James helps you figure out what to do next.
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