Okay. One of the things I struggle with is maintaining focus. To me, I am focusing on  my characters and what they are experiencing. I want to develop each thing happening to its fullest and richest extent. Where’s the problem with this? Genre definitions. Percentages. Etc. If it’s a romance, every single detail must focus on getting the h/h together, right? It’s not a rule and quite a few authors send their focus elsewhere. That’s what urban fantasy is for, right? It lets you focus on the plot as much as the romance without the plot having to be designed to get two people together. Or something like that.

I begin to feel tied down and like my field view is narrowed when I am told to focus. But a story is better for it when it all ties together, right? So, John Truby has his premise and his designing principle and his single story spine and to me they are all three the same thing. One sentence telling what your story is about.

He says there are differences, but I keep getting lost. Now if you thought this would be a blog about me telling you how to do craft, it isn’t. I am a published writer, considered an expert in my field at times. But like all writers everywhere, I am really an eternal student. There is always more to learn. More to research.

So, I am thinking out loud here and would love input.

Using Buffy, because Joss is just that damn good, lets give this a try.

Premise: A superficial young girl is gifted with the supernatural power to fight evil and save the world while growing up.

Now, I’ve heard the growing up part in interviews, extras and what not. The whole series is about Buffy growing up and suffering the pangs of teen to adulthood amidst all the supernatural stuff. So maybe that premise is actually the designing principle?

Premise: A young girl becomes a slayer and is forced to grow up.

Designing Principle = Weakness (phychological and moral) X Basic Action

= a superficial young girl who wants to be normal is gifted with the strength and skill to fight evil and save the world, no matter what it costs her.

Hmm. I kind of like that because it’s all those costs that force her to grow up. Now, in one line, what is the single story spine? The one thing every episode but one really focuses on. (That one being the Xander-centric eppi in Season 3, The Zeppo, which even that focused a bit on Buffy by showing what those around her go through and how they feel being on the edge of her grand drama.)

Now each season had a character arc, and so did each episode, and they each had a single story spine.  Buffy enters a new school and makes new friends but being a slayer follows her even to Sunnydale and she has to balance friends, family, school and evil all over again. That would be Welcome to the Hellmouth and The Harvest.

So would the whole series single spine be: Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggles to balance love, family, life and evil.

Now, how are these three different?

P: A young girl becomes a slayer and is forced to grow up.

DP: a superficial young girl who wants to be normal is gifted with the strength and skill to fight evil and save the world, no matter what it costs her.

SSS: Buffy the Vampire Slayer struggles to balance love, family, life and evil.

What do you think?

Okay, so when I am working on a story and I need time to think and mull over a story without feeling unproductive, I turn to my craft books. I love all the old stand-bys. Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain, Donald Maass and his Writing the Breakout Novel and accompanying workbook. One I discovered last year in my constant search of the bookshelves at Borders was The Anatomy of Story by John Truby.

Storytelling is story telling whether it’s for a novel, a movie or a TV show. Some things just translate across all the barriers. So, though he writes for screenwriters and uses movies as examples, like many writing books, I love his “organic” style of considering a story and all its facets without it seeming so external.

What I really like is how his 22 steps of story telling fall in line with the 12 steps of the hero’s journey, only he puts more  emphasis on that one big section that so many people give one name to and leave it wide open. Step 6, Act II, Tests, Allies and Enemies, The Sagging Middle.

I once tried to get more insight from a poor author who tried her best to explain to me that’s where you apply all you’ve built on your characters and plot and play with it a bit and end up with a building tension to approaching your inmost cave. She tried. Very sincerely, she tried.

I like that TAS has a few more things to consider that works with the hero’s journey but is really more character based and has you considering theme, story world, setting, character webs and all that without it being a what’s next deal so you really work all around the story, considering every angle so when you write it, it comes  out richer.

Of course, I still have questions, but that’s for another day.

Cursed
by Jamie Leigh  Hansen

If you’ve ever had a dream you can’t forget, if you’ve ever fantasized that you did get your high school crush after all, if you’re a romantic at heart, this book is for you.

When Seattle software designer Elizabeth Raines returns to Spokane to care for her dying mother and her ten, count them, ten nieces and nephews, she has no idea that she’s about to meet the man of her dreams. She’s a little busy warding of CPS, coping with broken toilets and sighing over spilled milk by day, but at night she can revel in burgundy satin sheets and strong arms around her-even if it’s only in her imagination. Or so she thinks.

But when Alex Foster-the one she’s been dreaming of for the past twelve years-steps out of her dreams and into a grocery store parking lot, Elizabeth’s life is about to change forever.

Unfortunately Alex, who is still crazy about Elizabeth, has a lot of enemies. Bad ones. Like some fallen angels. And a female demon called Maeve who is bent on revenge. Besides obstacles like these, Elizabeth’s dysfunctional relatives are merely annoying-a sister in rehab who won’t stay there and a self-obsessed brother in jail, to mention a couple.

Fortunately there are some beings in this world who seek merely to do good-and two of these Nephilim are on Elizabeth’s and Alex’s side.

One of the delights of this book is getting to know the complex characters and their inner lives, along with the author’s always-present sense of humor. Readers will be consumed in the magical, threatening but ultimately rewarding world of Cursed, in which you don’t just have to fight for those you love, you have to fight hard. And where sometimes, your worst enemy may just be yourself.

The Spokane Coeur d’ Alene Living Magazine had this beautiful review in the February 2009 issue. Right now they only have December 2008 issue online, but hopefully it will be visible soon. :)  http://www.spokanecda.com/index.php

This weekend the Inland Empire Chapter of Romance Writers of America had an amazing conference! With Keynote speakers like Linda Lael Miller and Stella Cameron, how could it not be? For the first conference put on by this eastern Washington chapter, we were booked completely full in a beautiful, fully accessible Hilton Gardens hotel in Airway Heights. And the booksigning put on by Aunties Books was very fun. For more information and pictures, keep an eye on www.iecrwa.com 

The Murder King’s Woman is a short story written my moi! that will be featured in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2! Here is the gorgeous cover.

Isn’t it purty? I’m still too new for a name on the cover with so many other awesome authors, but this is so beautiful!