The Moment I Became a Writer....

The moment I decided to be a writer…

I don’t believe there ever was just one moment!

I’ve been creating stories since I was the oldest kid in the neighborhood, entertaining the younger ones with dancing ‘Swan Lake’ skits, even though I’d never seen the ballet. Tea parties, where everyone had to wear their mother’s dress, shoes, and hats, unless they were boys. They had to wear their Sunday suits.

Talent shows, puppet shows, plays, safaris through a water-soaked field with puddles and hanging ferns…digging up an old buried porcelain sink in the field behind my house, that of course, was the marble floor of a buried castle….and leading fossil hunts up the dusty shale dumps, where the old coal from the mines was dumped years before (plenty of fossils pressed into the shale).

And then on to writing plays for Junior Girl Scouts so my younger sister could earn her “World Heritage Badge,” which eventually lead to writing plays for the children in my Pre-School to perform for Holiday parties and Graduations. 

And so it still continues. I see a sign and get a new title. I’m sitting in the dentist office getting my teeth cleaned and think….how would she clean my teeth if I was a dinosaur?

And so, I guess there was never “a dull moment,” but each creative one built upon the previous one, until I had years of writing stories. 

TWICE BETRAYED

And some of them just happened to become published books. J

RATGIRL: SONG OF THE VIPER

DADDY, CAN YOU SEE THE MOON?

ROCK STAR SANTA

#Challenge20 #Spork #ClearforkPublishing #DaddyCanYouSeetheMoon?

Recipe For a Book

Recipe for a Book

By Gayle C. Krause

You want to write a tasty book?

You’ll need one scoop of tempting hook.

1 teaspoon of a set-up scene

2 characters – one good, one mean

1 heaping problem to be solved

1 block of tension, soon evolved

1 tablespoon of woe and strife

1 ounce of love for MC’s life

1 heaping cup of voice and pace

Descriptions and a sense of place

Stir story batter. Add a dash

of hero’s rights and villain’s clash.

Sprinkle humor. Fold in facts.

Add one full quart of strong climax.

Whip it up until well-blended.

Let sit for weeks. The story’s ended.

Read once more with new, fresh eyes.

And if required, you must revise.

The Most Important Sentence!

Sentences—the most essential element of a story— but which sentence is THE most important?

The query hook?

The first sentence of your story?

Or the elevator pitch?

Let’s start with the Hook.

I’ll use my books as examples:

TWICE BETRAYED by Gayle C. Krause

The thread of friendship is stretched to the breaking point, when Betsy Ross’ thirteen –year-old apprentice, Perdy Rogers, is accused of treason and with one friend dead and deserted by another, she risks more than her freedom as a new nation struggles to be born.

RATGIRL: SONG OF THE VIPER by Gayle C. Krause

A retelling of The Pied Piper set in a dystopian future with global warming where sixteen-year-old streetwise orphan, Jax Stone, discovers her singing has a hypnotic effect on rats and children, she uses her gift to outwit the tyrannical mayor of Metro City and save the children of a dying city.

SCHEHERAZADE'S SECRET by Gayle C. Krause

Herazade, a seventeen-year-old beggar girl, discovers the Prince is returning and she wishes to be his wife, but her wish gets twisted, and she must save her sister and herself from a deadly fate, with the help of a special genie.

Your hook takes your complex plotlines and high-concept ideas and shrinks them into a simple, easily understood sentence.

Your hook line is your first pitch in getting someone interested in your book.

When an agent or editor at a conference asks you what your book is about, you answer with your one-sentence pitch.

They’re short.

They convey the major conflict of the story.

Writing a one-sentence pitch.

1.   mention your main character and what’s unique about them.

2.   tell what he/she wants

3.   mention the villain/obstacle

4.   discuss what makes your story unique (identify the twist)

5.   setting, time period

6.   must show excitement, action, or danger.