backstory

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Michaeline: The Conspiracy We Need NOW

A young girl from the early 1800s carries a big fancy sword over her shoulder.

Girls keep finding these swords. What are they going to do with them? (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

What am I talking about? I’m talking about girls finding swords by lakes. If you’ve been on social media at all in the past 48 hours, you’ve probably heard about the little girl in Sweden (named Saga! Her name is Saga! How perfect is that?) who found a rusty old pre-Viking sword while playing near a lake.

If you haven’t heard about it, you need to check out this article in English from Sweden, or this Bustle article. The Bustle article also reminded me that this isn’t the first time this century we’ve heard about a “lady of the lake”. LAST summer, there was a little girl in Cornwall named Matilda who also found a sword in the pond that, according to local legend, had yielded up Excalibur, the sword King Arthur borrowed from the Lady of the Lake, and which eventually spawned one of the funniest Monty Python skits (3:16) of the 20th century. Matilda’s father said he thought the sword must be a movie prop that isn’t very old, but still, it remains. In September of 2017, a seven-year-old girl finds a sword in the lake. Sometime in the summer of 2018, an eight-year-old girl finds a sword in the lake, and this time, it’s a historical sword.

Do you see the pattern forming? I predict that in the spring of 2019, a nine-year-old girl is going to find a sword, probably somewhere in Germany, and this time, she’s going to save the entire world with it! The Ladies of the Lakes are collectively fed up with all our nonsense, and they are ready to get things fixed. No sense in waking up good ol’ Arthur. He borked it last time with Modred and Guinivere, so it’s time to put someone sensible in charge.

This, my friends, is the conspiracy we need now. The secret society of ladies of the lake could bail us all out! Sure, it’s no basis for a rational system of government, but we’re dealing with an awfully low bar these days.

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Michaeline: Wedding Stories Part 2: When They Don’t Work

1950s wedding scene with a female guest approaching the bride and groom as they cut the cake.

Remember when we were protesting the patriarchy, darling? And now, here you are, married and everything! To my boyfriend! Just imagine!(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Last week, I talked about two of my favorite books in the world, and how they had weddings driving their plots. Then, I read a short story about a wedding industry worker who finds romance, and it didn’t work at all for me. So, I guess that while I love a trope, a trope isn’t going to do all the work of enchanting me into a story.

What exactly went wrong?

Well, first, the heroine was selfish and kind of whiny. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that, because I do like a snarky heroine who knows what she wants. Where is the line? This one was delayed by protestors in delivering a cake, and thinks to them, “Hey! I have a business to run here!”

Intellectually, maybe I can give the author back a couple of points that I deducted. After all, when she wrote this a few years ago, protest and rallies weren’t a major part of the American national dialog. But today, in 2018? I could feel a little sympathy, but combined with Our Girl’s other character faults, it just came across as self-entitled.

Another trope the author used was “he was once my love, but I still resent him for dumping me” which isn’t a trope I have strong feelings about, either way. The author used the “his wife died of cancer” card, and I really didn’t like the sudden self-realization that flooded over Our Girl – that she was being bitchy to a guy who lost his wife to cancer.

“I got a girl preggo, then married her (even though I didn’t want to impregnate and marry you), and then she died.” “Oh, good, now I can feel sorry for you, instead of angry.”

First, I don’t like that he gets a pass because of personal tragedy, and second, I don’t like the way she feels she has to swallow her anger and feelings. But hey, it was a short story. We don’t have enough real estate to spare for a long reconciliation. This did the job, quick and dirty as it was.

We did, however, have plenty of real estate for TWO wedding cake assistants and description of high heels. I feel the pacing could have been sped up a bit.

The biggest problem, though, Continue reading →

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Jeanne: The Least You Need to Know

I‘ve been reworking, for approximately the hundredth time, the opening scene to The Demon’s in the Details, the second book in my Touched by a Demon trilogy. (Look for it on Amazon in October.)

Now that I’ve figured out what the book’s about, I’m rewriting my first scene, yet again, to open that story.

And I’m once again struggling with this question: How much backstory belongs in that first scene?

Do we need to know that Rachel Blackmon, the mother of my protagonist, Keeffe, is dead?

Do we need to know that Keeffe was just fourteen when Rachel died? Or that Rachel died as a result of a malfunction of a da Vinci robot that nicked her iliac artery, causing her to bleed out before the hospital staff noticed, leaving Keeffe with an abiding distrust of technology?

Do we need to know that Rachel was a world-famous artist and that Keeffe has risked losing everything she values to follow in her mother’s footsteps?

Do we need to at least suspect that Keeffe’s step-mother is a she-demon from Hell, on a mission to destroy Rachel’s legacy? Continue reading →

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Michille: Revising Book 1

Boom!I have a new plan of attack for my series that involves blowing up my first story. There are four books in the series with the fourth book serving as a segue into the next series. The first two books are (or were) completed and the second two are partials. But now, the first book is in line for a major overhaul. There is a big age difference between the hero and the heroine and the way it starts now makes that too obvious. There are two main reasons I want to avoid highlighting that. One is that my other stories have a more traditional age ranges for the hero and hero. I usually go with late twenties to early thirties, although the next series has an older heroine. And second but related to the first, is that as my first book, readers might think that is my style and expect that in future stories only to never see it again. Continue reading →

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Michille: Blog Steal – 9 Story Openings to Avoid

keepeducating600And for this week’s blog post steal, I’m borrowing from Kristin Nelson and Angie Hodapp. They started a series in June of 2016 about 9 Story Openings to Avoid. The first one is the traditional sittin’ and thinkin’. As opposed to the opening of Julia Quinn’s Brighter Than the Sun which starts with this: “Eleanor Lyndon was minding her own business when Charles Wycombe, Earl of Billington, fell – quite literally – into her life.” Continue reading →

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Nancy: WU UnConference Lesson 2 Con’t: Backstory as the Backbone of Your Story

This scene from Moonstruck packs a punch because we know these characters' backstories.

This scene from Moonstruck packs a punch because we know these characters’ backstories.

In last week’s post, I nattered on about Lisa Cron’s message that backstory is the decoder ring for any story we write. This week, let’s take the discussion one step further. Let’s talk about putting some of that glorious backstory you’re creating into your current WIP.

Gasp! Egads! Not the Dreaded Backstory!

Before you go running for the exits, hear me (channeling Lisa) out. As the author of Wired for Story and Story Genius as well as a long-time writing coach and teacher, Lisa has researched lots of brain science to back up her theory that not only do we need to create our characters’ backstories for our own authorial edification, but also for reader enlightenment and, ultimately, bonding with our characters. Our brains use story to explore different aspects and possibilities of the wider world so we can learn lessons from those experiences without putting ourselves in harm’s way. (Lisa puts it much more elegantly in her books, and really, you should be reading her books!) And because our brains are incredibly efficient machines, they will use the same techniques to decipher fictional stories as they do real-life events.

Let’s think about that in the context of character for a minute. Think back to meeting someone important in your life, for example, your significant other or your best friend. Continue reading →