Melanie Skelton

WIFYR Registration Open

2012-02-23T11:58:00.003-08:00

Registration is open for Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers 2012.

They have a great lineup of workshop faculty and other presenters this year.

Carol Lynch Williams is teaching one of the advanced classes this year. Carol is a great mentor and I've learned so much from her at conferences and such. Those who are lucky enough to be in that class will have a great experience.

But they probably all will. Ann Dee Ellis is doing the Writer's Boot Camp and I know that will be amazing, having been in her workshop two years ago.

It seems like they've done great job of covering alot ground. They have morning workshops for middle grade fiction, fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, picture books and more. As always, they have a morning workshop for illustrators.

If you have never attended these morning workshops, attending is one of the most amazing experiences you will ever have as a writer. It's a great way to "Lift Your Craft", the motto listed on the WIFYR website. You can learn more at their website. http://www.wifyr.com

Why I Love WIFYR

2012-02-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

Attending WIFYR (Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers) is an amazing experience. Every writer should have this opportunity at least once. The lineup this year is pretty exciting. But what does a writer get out of this conference? These are some reasons why I love it.

In your morning workshop you meet a group of people that end up becoming a wonderful support network through that week, and sometimes beyond. You laugh and sometimes cry with them, sharing your work with them and opening yourself to growth.
Meeting and working with a published author in the morning workshops always opens new doors in my mind. You realize that they are real people. The feedback on your own work helps you to know what to work on and how to make your work marketable.
Morning worshops help stregnthen your skills as a writer. They help you realize your potential and find ways to further develop your skills.
We always hear from editors and agents. In the morning workshop they visit each group, giving you a chance to ask your really great questions.
This year there are two editors and two agents. Although if you count Kirk Shaw, who is teaching one of the morning workshops, there are really three editors.
Sometimes other agents show up, or you meet local editors in workshops and classes.
There is always more information presented than you can absorb. Choosing specific questions to get answered during the conference helps insure that you go home with what you need.
Going to WIFYR makes you want to work hard and achieve your writing dreams.

Do you have a favorite writing conference? What great things have you learned at conferences? How do they help you?

Developing Interesting Characters

2012-01-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to develop interesting characters. Is it happening in the story I'm working on? I hope so. Because I've been focused on this I checked an entire stack of books out of the library about bringing characters to life and so forth. There has to be something interesting in one of them. Right?

Some of the books talk about dialogue and making it real which I guess helps bring them to life. I can see that. But sometimes I find myself in the middle of too much dialogue and not enough action. Something needs to happen and surely through their actions and reactions I can help them come to life.

I realized something while walking one day.

Years ago I read The Color Code by Hartman Taylor. I've used what I learned in this book for years now to understand my children and their different personalities. We have all the colors in our family. With six children we're bound to have variety. Right? We have quiet peacemakers, to flamboyant performers to children who can't stand it when they are not in control.

I realized that my characters are like my children. They have personalities that fall somewhere into the color code. Once I decide where they fit I can better know how they react to a certain situation. Maybe I don't always need to stop as I'm writing and decide how a blue or a white or a red would react to this situation. But when I get stuck it has made it easier to remember that because my mc is very yellow, he's not going to think real hard about the situation before he jumps in. But his sister who is a combination of blue and white is going to hesitate while worrying about the safety of her brother and begging him not to do it.

I've found other books that try to analyze personalities in great detail, but I like the simplicity of the Color Code. Probably because I already understand it.

What tools or exercises do you use to bring your characters to life? How do you decide how they will react?

What I Learned from NaNoWriMo

2012-01-10T12:38:00.000-08:00

Let me say right up front that I didn't meet the goal of 50,000 words. But I wrote about 20,000 words more than I would have written otherwise.

I learned to push myself to a new level. The greatest thing I discovered was the idea of doing 20 minutes sprints. I can focus really well for about that long. If I know I'm racing the timer I find that I do pretty well at keeping at it. When I got stuck and didn't know what to write, but was still racing the timer I created a box right in the middle of my manuscript and started interviewing one of the characters. I asked them every question I could think of about that particular situation. I eventually found something that triggered in my head and got me back to writing the real story again. I love the boxes, because I can go back to them now as I'm looking through it again and know right away that it is an interview that may help me finish developing that section.

About halfway through the month one of the interviews led me to realize I had put a character in the wrong place from the beginning. Ouch! What a painful realization. But the cool thing is, once I accepted the facts, I just kept writing forward with that character trapped where she needed to be and didn't really have to start over at that moment. As I am rewriting from the beginning and editing all the chapters that changed because of this major factor, I'm pretty excited to see things happening that couldn't happen without this character in the right place.

What about next year? I'm doing it again. This time I'll be really prepared and I'll write all 50,000 words. I was just warming up this year.

Writing to the Middle

2011-09-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

I love it when I have an opportunity to teach writing at the school where my children attend. Last year I had the opportunity to work with the 6th graders and we did a project where they each brainstormed and wrote their own story. It was great to see how they each came up with unique ideas and developed them into stories.

One of the the techniques I taught them was to write to the middle. I've come to believe that the more tools I have in my writer's bag to pull out when I need help writing a story, the better. So this has been fun to play with. Here's what you do.

You are writing a story where you know kind of how it begins and ends but are struggling with those details in the middle. Write your beginning at the top (just an idea of how it is going to begin) and then the ending at the bottom.

Look at the top again. What happens right after the thing you wrote down? Just jot an idea of what you think is going to happen.

Now look at the bottom. What happens right before that very last thing that happens, the thing you wrote on the bottom of the page? Write it in the space before that last thing that happens.

Now go back to the top. What happens after the second idea you wrote there? Write it.

Back to the bottom. What happens right before the last idea you wrote there? Write it.

Get the idea? Basically, it helps you work through all the possibilities and find the story hidden in all those ideas.

I probably ought to go use this particular tool with my story again, I keep trying to figure out what Asher and Mya are up to in their adventures. I haven't tried it with a chapter yet, but that would probably work really well. I'm so excited to see it all come together. It's rewarding when the pieces fall into place and the story takes shape a bit at a time.

Dreams

2011-06-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a daydreamer.

I was the child the teacher always told to stop daydreaming. At every parent-teacher conference.

Daydreaming comes in handy as a writer.

Here's what I love about writing and dreaming about sharing my work with others. It fits with the rest of my life. It meshes with the rest of my dreams. I can live an interesting life and enjoy every moment and then call it research. In fact it makes my writing more interesting.

Last week it was a wedding cake. Three weeks ago it was getting the rest of my garden planted. Hopefully this week it will be more intensive writing to get this book done. But every moment of my life I find something to write about.

I've been thinking about my characters and having conversations with them while I am building cakes or watering the garden. Anyone watching might think I'm crazy. But usually the only ones watching are my family and they know I'm just trying to write a book. They are excited about the book.

A couple weeks ago at bedtime my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to know who her favorite author is.

"Who?" I asked.

"You," she said.

I guess I'd better keep writing.

My first post - WIFYR

2011-06-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about doing this. I've listened to other writers talk about blogging, but it's taken a bit to decide I was ready to start my own. Having gone to WIFYR last week has me pretty motivated. It seemed like a good time to start. So here goes...

The Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference stretched my brain in many directions. I was fortunate enough to be in Kathleen Duey's class in the mornings. She really helped us all to understand what it takes to get inside a character's head and keep their viewpoint consistent.

I've heard of interviewing the characters in your story, but have never been successful at this. I was trusting the generic list of questions you can find in many books and lists. But Kathleen encouraged us to interview our characters as if we were sitting on the bus getting to know them. This really clicked in my head and the questions I am asking are now specific to my characters and their situation. Questions about why they made a certain decision or felt a certain way about something that happened in the story. It's very exciting. My characters are beginning to show real emotion and personality that was lacking before.

So excited to live out this dream and finish this novel.