Tour Thanks and Weekend Workout

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a weekend workout. I knew that would happen, though, as I’ve come to the conclusion that writing and blogging do not get done while I’m on tour.

If you wanna just scroll down to get your workout and skip all the “thank you” stuff, there’s a visual marker below that says WEEKEND WORKOUT.

Before I get to the workout, I want to express my appreciation for all the people that made my tour a tour. I want to thank all the teachers, parents, principals, students, and especially the librarians at Regnart, Murdock-Portal, Blackford, Christa McAuliffe, and Gardner Bullis elementary schools, Gale Ranch Middle School, and Wingra School who all hosted me as a guest.

I want to thank to Laurie, Bridget, and Christine at the Weekend With Your Novel Conference, Alison at the Wisconsin Book Festival, and all the citizens of Madison, WI for being fantastic human beings in general.

I want to thank all the people at the indie bookstores who work so hard in their communities, sponsoring readings and launches, selling book at schools and festivals (and who now carry copies of Brigitta of the White Forest and The Ruins of Noe):

Kepler’s Books and Magazines (Menlo Park, CA)
Hicklebees (San Jose, CA)
Read Booksellers (Danville, CA)
Room of One’s Own (Madison, WI)

I want to thank my friends and family who treated me to coffee, lunch, dinner, drinks, and gasoline, let me sleep on their couches and in their guest rooms, and adopted me for Halloween.

And thanks Life in General for the numerous surprises that kept my tour interesting: getting to see/hear Michael Chabon interviewed at Kepler’s Books, getting to hang out with thousands of people at a Bruce Springsteen Barack Obama rally, discovering what a gem Wisconsin Icon Michael Perry is, and getting to drink beer and explore Madison’s Children’s Museum with hundreds of other 21+ children (once a month their Children’s Museum is Adults Only!).

It was a pleasure through and through! (okay, it was a little stressful, but over all a good time was had)

Oh, yeah.

I have friends who are at every stage of writing a novel right now. A few just started something brand spanking new. A few are in the middle of NaNoWriMo. A few are editing and a few doing total manuscript overhauls. And my rewrite is so off course I might as well call it a new book.

Whether I’m writing something new or rewriting, I’m constantly checking and rejigging my sequence and beat sheet (my version of an outline). Stories are organic, sometimes plots twist differently than I intend or characters appear where I had none planned. Like today…

I was trying to figure out a way to increase the stakes and tension in an escape sequence, so I decided to trap Brigitta and Jarlath between two search parties coming for them from either side. How would they escape? There was no way out. Unless there was a secret way that only one person knew about. Which meant, I now needed an ally to appear to show them the way. The ally who appeared was a complete surprise to me, but made perfect sense. And she wasn’t even a blip on my original outline. Adding her changed the direction of the sequence and a new adventure ensued.

I forget, sometimes, that one way of changing the scene’s dymamic is to introduce a 3rd character to that scene. It could be an ally, enemy, or stranger – each would cause the story to go in a different direction.

Your Workout

Pick a scene you’ve been working on or are about to work on that is a 2-person scene. At some point in the scene, have another character enter into the scene and see how it changes the action, the tone, the dynamics, the tension, etc. Try different scenarios! Drop an ally in, then a stranger, then an enemy. Write out the scene each time (or at least outline it) and see if it works BETTER than it did before.

Have a great weekend!