cj Sez: First things
first: CONGRATULATIONS to the winner of my Amazon gift card in last week's "Bienvenue to the Chateau" Facebook Hop!
THE WINNER IS
. . . TERRI QUICK. Congratulations, Terri, and THANK YOU to everyone who joined in celebrating the launch of the anthology and letting me
enter their names in my contest.
///
After a busy week of Facebook hopping and family crises, I’m
now back at the keyboard, thinking up another adversity for the protagonist in
my short story work-in-progress. Writing a suspense/mystery is a learning
process for me, and my current WIP also has a paranormal vibe to it—yet another
genre challenge.
What remains the same among the genres in which I write is
that I want my protagonist to be likable with a sassy dialogue, have some
personality quirks, and carry a bit of backstory baggage to be dropped
intermittently into the story (no info dumps, please). There is a unique
setting and a love interest to add a little jazz. Each of the main characters,
including the bad guy, has a secret that I hope will generate some degree of
sympathy.
Where I’m struggling in this project is with the clues and
red herrings. Where and how do I place them so they invite the reader deeper into
the suspense/mystery?
I am a pantser, or more accurately, a
pathfinder. I begin knowing how a story starts, and I kind of know how it will end.
Unlike following a beautifully constructed plot, I like the excitement of
finding my way through the story by building roadblocks for my protagonist then
figuring out how to have her escape and move forward. For this suspense/mystery
WIP, I am going to have to do a bit of {gasp} plotting before I can drop the
clues and weave red herrings into places that best invite the reader to
continue the journey to the end.
Like all manuscripts, my story will change and grow with
each edit cycle. My characters, settings, clues, and red herrings will be
(hopefully) more thoroughly developed.
What I really like about this project is that I’m learning new
things. My personal goal is, and has always been, to learn something new every
day—this story is certainly helping me reach my goal. How about you? Do you have
a personal goal you're working toward?
That’s it for today’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on and washing your hands, and I’ll try to do the same. (That's me going out for groceries.)
Prayers going up for your health and safety.
cj
(The ebook was still 99 cents at the time of this post.) Also available through these fine sites: https://books2read.com/u/bpOMw9?fbclid=IwAR3R2NTI8nH5U8JhXwJynbxkbYQhlK4H-sbTFU5YRhGDB2CocTPkdf8TSEE
TO
ORDER any book of your choice on-line from my favorite indie bookstore, contact
The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop
➜ Follow me .
. .
➜ on Amazon: Amazon Central Author Page = https://amzn.to/2v6SrAj
➜ on Facebook
at: cjpetterson/author/facebook
➜ on
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cj-petterson
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your turn! Got a question or comment? The author would love to hear it. (Comments are moderated to reflect the Lyrical Pens brand, so please keep it clean, else it gets dumped into that little chamber pot in the sky.)