Category: Writing

Six Sentence Sunday

On By Stephanie IngramIn Six Sentence Sunday, Writing4 Comments

How could I not participate in a fun activity like Six Sentence Sunday? Third week and I’m back for more. My first two weeks I focused on my current WIP titled Ghosts Don’t Wear Silk Stockings and I’ve decided to go with another six from that same manuscript today.

Brianna is caught in quite the dilemma. The man of her dreams has asked her to marry him and she would give anything just to say yes and embrace her happily ever after. Greer, her ghost friend, on the other hand has warned her that Dan is evil and she needs to break up with him NOW. What to do?

This part is one of my favorites and I hope you like it as much as I do…

***

She didn’t want to admit it but Greer had a point. Something about Dan’s reluctance to invite her to his house rubbed her the wrong way. The hotel was a sweet gesture but it couldn’t go on forever. Then what? If she married him, would she gain entry into the forbidden zone or would she still be kept at arm’s reach? There were a lot of questions that begged answers before she could commit to a guy like Dan, even a drop-dead gorgeous, melt in your mouth guy like Dan.

***

 

 

I Am Not That Writer

On By Stephanie IngramIn Writing1 Comment

This is the last post that I will share from my older blog. Originally posted in February but just as true today, this is probably one of my favorites. Happy Friday!

***

 I would love to be the type of writer that meticulously plots and creates outlines before sitting down to write a single chapter. I would love to be the type of writer that fleshes out interesting characters with the aid of character sheets or questionnaires, knowing even the smallest detail like what my MC’s favorite food is. I know there are people in this world that don’t feel comfortable writing a single word until they know everything – beginning, middle, and end.

I am not that writer.

I would love to be the type of writer that can sit down and craft a compelling story without the aid of an outline or character sheets, the type of writer that pulls ideas seemingly from mid-air. I would love to be the type of writer that can start with a basic idea when I sit down to write chapter one and never finish typing until I get to ‘the end’.

I am not that writer.

I would love to be the type of writer that follows a specific writing schedule, adding a set 2,000 words to my work-in-process every morning until finally it is complete or typing away furiously for an hour or two per day until I tear myself away and attend to other tasks.

But guess what? I’m not that writer either.

So this probably the point of the blog post in which you’re asking, “Okay, Steph, are you sure that you’re even a writer?”

I wonder the same thing from time to time but since the voices in my head always bring me back to tell their stories whether I want to or not, I guess the answer is yes. Like it or not, I’m in this thing.

So, what kind of writer am I? I don’t plan and yet I can’t seem to get from start to finish without a plan. It makes you wonder how I ever manage to do anything at all, doesn’t it? Which came first – the chicken or the egg? The story or the plot? I guess when it comes to my own writing style, I am a strange hybrid of both.

First, I sit down and I write. I don’t know my characters and I have little to no idea of the plot. Basically, I have a scene in my head and by some strange compulsion, I won’t rest until I get it on paper. Sometimes I get so excited by my idea that I can’t stop writing and before I know it, I’ve racked up as many as 10,000 words over the course of a few days.

And then all of a sudden, I screech to a grinding halt…. My characters fall flat, DOA. The plot? It no longer makes sense. I could keep going but what’s the point? I forgot where I’m going and I know that I’ll have to go back and scratch probably 90% of what I’m writing. Nevertheless, like the fool that I am, I persevere and I’m rewarded by moments in the story that surprise even me but getting those moments is slow and arduous and I have to sift through a lot of doo doo to get them.

Then it’s time to take a huge step backward. I close the document and pick up pen and paper and yep, you guessed it. I start outlining! I do rough character sketches. I brainstorm possibilities and figure out a proper beginning, middle, and end. I make decisions about what I’ve written that I can use and what I can’t use. I fill out index cards for scenes. I take meticulous notes.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just start with the brainstorming and outline you ask me? Yes! It most certainly would but remember, I’m not that writer. As much as I would love to save myself all the time and effort by planning before I write, I can’t get a real feel for my story until I actually sit down and start writing it. But then, if I sit down and write, I can’t just keep going until I reach the end either. I get as far as I can until no more words come out.

Crazy and bizarre? Absolutely. But that’s just my style.

What’s your style?

Six Sentence Sunday

On By Stephanie IngramIn Six Sentence Sunday, Writing5 Comments

Happy Six Sentence Sunday! I enjoyed participating so much my first week that I’m back for more. I decided to stick with the same WIP from last week (Ghosts Don’t Wear Silk Stockings) and fast forwarded a bit into the story. Here I leave you with a brief interaction between Brianna and her ghost-friend, Greer. She’s just had a run-in with something rather unpleasant and seems to think that Greer should have been there a tad sooner…

***

“This is the thanks I get for saving your life?”

“Took you long enough.”

“I was busy.”

“Busy? You’re a ghost. What on earth could you possibly have to do that’s more important than haunting me?”

***

Thank you for indulging me for a few sentences. I look forward to sharing more next week. 🙂

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads!

The Beginning of Between World

On By Stephanie IngramIn WritingLeave a comment

If you aren’t already aware, my first novel The Between World was published in September 2011. To celebrate this exciting milestone, I wrote a blog post introducing readers to the story behind the story. This is another of my favorite posts that I’m dragging across from my old blog and sharing anew. I hope you enjoy the glimpse into what started it all.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Six Sentence Sunday when I will share another snippet of the current WIP, Ghosts Don’t Wear Silk Stockings.

Enjoy!

***

I’m looking forward to September with its promise of rainy days and colorful leaves. Kids go back to school, pools across Pennsylvania will close, and we welcome days with lower humidity and cooler temps. I have another, more personal, reason to embrace the unofficial doorway into fall. September is the month I am scheduled to release my first novel titled “The Between World”.

It’s a project over a year in the making that started innocently as a short story I wrote for a contest. The contest challenged us to “write a story about an organization that rescues people. The catch is their organization is a secret and must stay a secret. The leader of the organization starts to care for a bystander. Will this put their organization in danger?”

I brainstormed about the possibilities starting with all the ordinary rescue organizations I could think of … police, firefighters, EMS, etc… but all of those didn’t exactly fit the criteria of being secret. Then one evening as I went to sleep thinking about anything other than the contest an image popped into my mind. His name was Yalen and he worked for a very special organization called The Guardian Angel Rescue Group. Apparently, even Guardian Angels need a little help every now and then.

When I woke the next morning, Yalen was still on my mind and so was his damsel in distress, the beautiful human girl named Nina who wandered aimlessly through her life not knowing that love lurked in the most unlikely of places. It took a near fatal car accident to put the two together and voila, we had sparks. Yalen had no place intervening in Nina’s rescue but he couldn’t pull himself away from her. This ruffled quite a few feathers in Between World by those who believed that Yalen’s actions put their organization at risk. All worlds exist in a fragile balance and one tip of the scales could have dire consequences for us all.

An unusual idea? Perhaps. I won the contest and maybe I should have been content enough with that and moved on to other writing projects. Not so easy. Yalen and Nina wouldn’t let me go. I played around with ideas to expand the short story into a novel and used November’s Nanowrimo as a springboard to develop the story.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2011. I scratched my Nanowrimo attempt and went back to square one by plotting and outlining on twenty-eight index cards until I finally had a proper beginning, middle, and end. Then I started all over again with chapter one.

Now after a lot of writing and rewriting, it is my hope that you will enjoy reading Nina and Yalen’s journey just as much as I have enjoyed creating it.

***

If you are interested in purchasing The Between World, please visit “My Books” to learn more…

Music and Happily Ever After

On By Stephanie IngramIn Writing2 Comments

Please note: This post originally appeared on my former blog in March 2012. Now that I’ve moved over to WordPress, I will be bringing a few of my favorite posts with me.

When it comes to writing, I’m no different to most other writers I know – I am more productive with music. As a matter of fact, 99% of my inspiration comes through music and if I’m stumped for getting into the right mood to write a particular scene, I won’t do the scene justice without first putting on a song that sets the stage. Sometimes entire stories have evolved without warning just by an unexpected chord struck by a song, usually at a moment that I wasn’t even thinking about writing at all.

I have three kids that will happily tell you that certain songs become “car songs” that we carry with us and play over and over. They have yet to complain about my obsessive repetition, which is good, because for some unexplained reason I need this in order to feed whatever story demons inside me demand the fuel to create my stories. Sometimes the songs that choose me aren’t even songs that I would otherwise like but I listen and listen again simply because they have tickled something inside me that is important to cultivate. Even more bizarre, often you could take my story and listen to the song that inspired it and wonder how the two ever could exist in my mind simultaneously.

I can’t explain the process but I certainly won’t complain about it. It works. It helps push me from the first chapter onward until I reach the end. It helps me connect with my characters on some deeper, more meaningful level than simply knowing names and a string of facts about that character’s motivations or past history. It compels me to learn more about the people and the worlds I’m creating. It begs me to live in their shoes long enough to weave the magic that is inherent in storytelling.

In my earlier blog post, I touched upon my wonderful obsession with Muse. (The irony of their band name is not lost on me.) I listen to a lot of Muse while writing. A lot. As a matter of fact, I can’t put on their CD Black Holes and Revelations without replaying in my mind my first novel. It almost serves as the soundtrack even if no one else ever has the benefit of seeing or understanding the connection. It makes me smile. It brings back those characters like memories of old friends I used to spend a lot of time with and think of fondly. It makes me reconsider going back to spend more time with those characters. After all, their story is not yet complete. There is so much left to say about The Between World.

But first things first. I’m knee-deep in my second novel and lost in the music that inspires its creation. This time most of that centers around yet another Muse CD titled Absolution. I can’t get enough.

Is there music that is special to your creative process? Is it a specific song, band, CD, or is it a collection of songs that you put together specifically for the purposes of your novel? I’m always interested in the ways others approach writing, or any creative endeavor. Is there a song or band that you would recommend to help put me in the mood to write paranormal? (Suggestions are always welcome!)