Rhianna and the Magic Horse

My current work on Wattpad is going well now that I have committed to publishing a chapter every Sunday. I am up to 22 chapters and maybe not quite half done. Or maybe a third of the way done. We'll see how much I come up with.

I have a skeleton of a plot now. At first it was all pantsing, but I feel better when I have something to write toward. Of course things come out of the blue all the time. For example, in chapter 22 the whole mask thing came out of nowhere. And it's not like I can just let that lie now. I am going to have to weave it into the story going forward as something really significant. Anyone who says plotting takes all the fun and surprise out of writing is dead wrong.

Also, you may find a lot of cliff hangers...barn door hangers...mid-sentence hangers. But the more you complain about them the more I will write them, as my current number one fan Asha is discovering. She loves it but oh how she hates it!

But I don't just write cliffhangers to mess with Asha. I write them as a kind of anti-writer's block ointment. When I write a cliffhanger, I know exactly how the next scene is going to start (well, usually--sometimes I think of something totally spontaneous...take that pantsers!) And that makes it really easy to writer the next chapter. Because once I start typing my fingers take care of the rest.

So, if you want to check it out, read Rhianna and the Magic Horse on Wattpad. It's fantasy, fairy type stuff and has a magic horse. How can you resist?

PS - The jury is still out on what the horse is...just magic...maybe a unicorn...maybe something else. I take all input from readers and then I probably turn around and do the opposite.

PPS - Don't forget to follow me on Wattpad and vote and comment on all my chapters. I will love and adore you for it.

©2016 Amanda June Hagarty. 

Writing fiction for online readers

There are a lot of articles and researchers out there crying out against the shift in our reading comprehension. They decry the evils of online reading. We are becoming "skimmers" and apparently that is a bad thing.

Or is it?

What if the the reason people comprehend less when reading online than in print because we are still writing for print?

Different font types facilitate different types of reading (serif fonts are easier to read in print and sans serif are easier on a screen), so it would make sense that different writing styles facilitate online reading than print reading. Right?

Bloggers have already figured this out. The recommend all kinds of practices for snaring the "skimmers" and capturing their attention. Bolds, bullet lists, headings and sub headings. Short sentences, short paragraphs. There is a well established style for bloggers now.

So what about fiction? Writing two versions of your book, one for print and one for online reading, might be a little daunting. But I think it is important to keep in mind the changing reader brain and consider where we can adapt our writing to accommodate both kinds of reader as much as possible.

Online readers are a bit ADD. If something doesn't grab them right away they start to get distracted. When creating a sentence with this in mind, choose strong verbs, active voice, and lead with the most interesting part of your sentence. When you are providing two or more pieces of information in one sentence, don't save the best for last. They may not be paying attention anymore by the time they get to the end of a sentence that leads with the less important and exciting stuff.

Here is a list of a few things for you to consider about online readers, as you write.

• Get to the point quickly, strive for clarity, simple sentences rule. 
• When using complex sentences, lead with the good stuff. Use long complex, multiple stop sentences sparingly.
• Always be moving forward. Advance the plot as with each sentence. 
• Focus on action.
• Hook, hook, hook. Give the reader a reason to keep reading forward. Give them a mystery they need to solve. If they are looking for the answer to a question already, they won't miss it when they get to it.
• Play with formatting. What would happen if you started each chapter, or even each scene, with a bolded phrase? Particularly a phrase that predicts or implies what will happen in this section of the story? "I should have known I would never get away with it, after she told me about the ice cream truck." BOOM. Grab their attention and tell them something is coming. 
• It's all about white space. Long dense paragraphs just don't turn an online readers crank. Break it up with shorter paragraphs. Dialogue is superb for this. Nothing will move a reader down your page faster than dialogue.

Those are just a few thoughts. I am sure there are other ways we can adapt our writing to the online reading brain. And many of the suggestions above already apply to print books. Active voice, hooks, action...these are all catchwords that are bandied about when talking about good writing.

More and more readers are taking the bad habits they learn online into their print reading. Two versions of your book aren't necessary. One version adapted to the new way people read is all that you need. It is pointless to resist the changes in the way people read. It's here to stay as long as we keep walking around the world looking at our phones. It's time for writers to consider changing to keep up with the evolving reader.

©2014 Amanda June Hagarty. 

Memories of Light: A post-apocalyptic story of Bellingham 100 years in the future

I held that pose at the Spark Museum
for fifteen minutes!

This is a short serial science fiction which I participated in for the Bellingham Herald.

Chapter one by +Larry Goolsby   

Chapter two by +Tina Shelton

Chapter three by +Andy Brim

Chapter four by +Mary Schleinkofer

Chapter five by +Amanda June Hagarty (ME!)

Chapter six by +Robert Slater

The story:
Bellingham. 100 years in the future. It rains—a lot. The world is a bleak place, where Rocket Donuts is partially submerged and a strict council controls the city. People fear technology and the devastation it brings. Tanner is a boy running the wild streets of Bellingham, pushing the limits of the councils rules, and yet fearing the punishments of the work camps that killed his father. When he catches a glimpse of the past, he realizes there is more to living than just fear.

The experience:
It all started when I noticed that this year's summer serial in the Bellingham Herald was going to be Science Fiction. This is a serial fiction in which six writers are chosen to write six chapters of 800 words each in a specific genre, chosen each year by the Herald's Dean Kahn. I have a friend who did it the previous year when it was Fantasy, which I missed out on because I was still relatively new in town. But since last year I have made a bunch of new friends, who know what genres I like to write, and they all made sure to give me the heads up when the call went out for this year's writers. I sent in my writing sample and story synopsis, and was thrilled to hear I was accepted as one of the lucky six.

National Short Stories Month: No more ugly stepchild!

First, November became National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo; then came National Poetry Writing Month, NaPoWriMo, set naturally in April when the bees start buzzing and dandelions dance on the lawn--and writers start to feel all warm and poem-y inside.  Both of them have been around for years, NaNoWriMo started in 1999 and NaPoWriMo began in 2003, and have a an enormous number of participants.

And so, of course, the next logical step is NaShoStoMo, which has staked its claim on May. But, just like short stories themselves, the month is something of an ugly stepchild of the literary world. It doesn't seem to have to following of the other two writing months--heck it doesn't even have it's own Wikipedia entry yet. I can find references to it on the web as far back as 2010, and in them it's referred to as something that is being done "again," which implies it's been around longer than that. The official NaShoStoMo.org webpage still thinks it's 2011, the Facebook page has 6 followers and the #NaShoStoMo discussion in Twitter has only 2 posts, though we are already 9 days into May 2012.

Nobody seems quite sure of what to do with NaShoStoMo. The website says to write 30 short stories in 30 days. "Wha-huh?!?" says the procrastimaster in me. 

Meet new people, criticize them--yeah sure!

Tell me what you think?

I was looking for writer's groups in my new town and I found a great little critique group, the Bellingham Writers Group.  I went to my first meeting with them and after a few minutes of introduction we all set to reading each others work so that we could offer helpful criticism.

The purposes of going to a group like this are twofold, first you get helpful advice with your writing and second you get to meet other writers, make meaningful connections and perhaps even friendships.  In any other setting the last thing you want to do is start criticizing the people you are hoping to make friends with.  But in this case to not offer up something critical would be the faux pas.

Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place: tell someone their "baby" isn't perfect, or look lame and useless to the people you want to impress.  Being a writer can sure be a strange adventure sometimes.

I won't leave you in suspense.  I muddled my way through, trying to helpfully point out a few things I had trouble with in the pieces I read while also finding a few positive things to say to balance it out.  I don't think I sounded half as clever and witty as I wanted to sound but the important thing is I didn't seem to alienate or disappoint anyone either.

Phew!

Now that my initiation is over maybe all my nerves and angst can be reserved for having my own work critiqued.

A funny thing happened when I got my first rejection letter

I am a down to earth girl. I never expected my short story would get published the first time out. I did dream a little and hope a lot--but I said I was down to earth, not a pessimist. I was fully prepared to be totally cool about it.

I am actually a little relieved that I got any letter at all. Because at least my suspense is over. My story isn't being held hostage anymore. Now I am free to submit it elsewhere, and start the whole thing over. Yay! But in the letter I got a surprise.

What to pack for Time Travel?

I was writing a story and I came to this question: What would a girl want to pack when she was just told that she is about to leave on a journey through time? 

I thought perhaps someone had mused about this question before, so I Googled it. I did not find a single serious effort to answer the question. The closest I came was a website for a gag t-shirt which would supposedly help the wearer become rich if inadvertently traveling back in time, because every white space on the shirt was filled with lists of money making inventions. The rest of the results were just information of what to pack for first time travelers.

No Apologies Dammit! A lesson from the Writers at the Beach: Seaglass2010 conference

The urge to introduce my reading with apologies was so strong!  We had just spent four minutes doing a writing exercise at one of my Seaglass 2010 workshop sessions and now each of us was reading what we had come up with out loud.  The readings were circling the table and getting dangerously close!

In my head I rehearsed my introduction.

"Sorry, I am so bad at reading out loud..."

One person closer.

"Sorry I am not really good at writing on the spot like this...and I am terrible at reading aloud..."

The person immediately to my right!

"Sorry I am not as good as you guys...in fact I am really not a very good writer at all let alone writing on the spot like this...and I am so very terrible at reading out loud!"

Then it was my turn.  I paused a moment.  Had I really just mentally told this room full of my peers that I was not worthy of calling myself a writer? Suddenly I was angry at myself.  No apologies dammit!

And with that thought resonating in my head, I read.

I read like I had never read before, clear and loud.  My voice rose and fell in pitch at just the right places and I found the rhythm of my writing.

When I finished, heads nodded in appreciation and encouraging mumbles went around the table along with a polite applause. The workshop leader said my piece had reminded him of the author whose excerpt he had read to us earlier. I basked in the glory of my victory!

It had been a simple bit of prose.  Nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering.  Nobody would remember it beyond that moment.  But in that moment, I felt a power I had never felt before and I realized my apologies, my lack of confidence, were the only real things that stood in my way.  That is a lesson, from Seaglass 2010, I will never forget.