Woozy

Summers are always crazy for me, but this one...I'm all over the place. Probably trying to do too much; that would fit with my overachiever personality.

And speaking of personality...I'm working on my characters in Art--developing them, motivating them, shifting their backstories, all to develop a tighter fit and, hopefully, more of those "teeth" I mentioned in my last post.

I went to my first SVRWA meeting (heck, my first RWA meeting ever) and they had Janet Wellington presenting Pitch Perfect.

I'm not going to Nationals, and if I can help it, I'll never pitch a book--I suck at it...royally. But her presentation did a lot more than hone my one-line description. It honed my whole book...character, plot, premise, theme.

One of the things she did was illustrate how to use archetypes and personality to zero in on your characters GMC, from which we all know comes plot.

It was grueling work, but well worth it. And I even won a raffle that allowed me 30 minutes of her undivided attention to grapple with Art after the meeting. As a result of that mini-conference, I'm currently researching my hero/heroine in two books and creating their profiles as well as a sharp GMC where everything ties together.

Seriously, this type of deliniation could be developed into a synopsis with very little effort. All the work is done while boiling the story down to bare bones:

Your hero/heroine here...

Wants...Goal here

Because...Motivation here

But...Conflict here

That's for the external conflict. Next comes internal. Then a resolution.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? It's not! I'd rather write a 400 page novel than do this work. At best it's difficutl, at worst it's hell. But it works!

Suffice it to say that Janet's courses are well worth the time and money. If you ever get the opportunity to take one...grab it.