Last Saturday and Sunday, I participated in a workshop given by Michael Hauge. He’s a script consultant for Hollywood movies. He’s also endorsed by actor Will Smith. The workshop was AWESOME! Michael went over different aspects that needed to be present in movies in order for them to be engaging and successful. These same elements can also be applied to novels. I felt the heart of the workshop was when he was talking about characters. In order for your story to be engaging, your character has to have a wound. A wound is a terrible emotional experience that affects the character. In movies, SOMETIMES, the wound is symbolized by something physical, like, you might have scars from being abused as a child. But this wound, well, it makes the characters suffer emotionally.

Characters don’t want the world to see them as they really are, their essence. Every character has to have an identity, the identity is the way they appear to others – their essence is their hidden side, the side that REALLY shows who they are. The world seldom sees the essence of the character, except, perhaps, in bits and pieces. The whole point is to have the character living in their essence, their true self, by the end of the story.

I’m paraphrasing and leaving a lot of stuff out, but, for me, the essence/identity was the most important point made during the workshop. He also used movies as examples of good story telling. We watched clips of different movies and we were told to watch the following movies before the workshop: Titanic, Shrek, Good Will Hunting, Sleepless In Seattle and The King’s Speech. I’ll be posting reviews for some of these for my Saturday Matinees in the near future.

So, if you need a guest speaker for your writers’ group, I highly recommend Michael Hauge. Oh, I also purchased his book, Writing Screenplays That Sell. I think some of his advice may help me with my writing.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Timothy wrote to me with the following questions:
When did you know that you are/were a writer?

I guess I knew that I wanted to be a writer when I was about 27 or 28. I’ve always been an avid reader and one day, during my lunch break, I’d forgotten to bring a book with me to read. So, I took out my pen and paper and started writing a book. I’ve been writing ever since.

What made you choose Christian Fiction?

When I first started writing, back in 1994, I wasn’t aware of the Christian fiction genre. Actually, the genre wasn’t very prominent back then. I still consider Christian fiction and Christian romance novels to be a fairly “new” genre, meaning, I haven’t really started seeing them until the past fifteen years. When I was growing up, Christian fiction did not exist and I read a lot of secular fiction.

Regarding your question – when I first started writing, I sent my writings to an editor whom I’d paid to edit my work. One of the comments she made was: Is this a Christian romance? I was not familiar with that term at the time. To help with my writing career, I joined Romance Writers of America and I joined the RWA chapter entitled Faith, Hope, And Love (RWA’s Christian Inspirational Chapter). Being a part of Faith, Hope, and Love opened the door for me regarding Christian fiction. I became familiar with the genre and I started reading those novels. I’d been mentioning God, faith and church in my books before I even knew about the Christian market. So, by my “discovering” this genre, it just made me aware that this is the type of fiction that I needed to be writing.

~Cecelia Dowdy~

I received the following questions from Tiara:
I have not actually written a book, but I have a wonderful idea in mind for a book. I love the Lord and Christian Fiction is definitely the way I would like to go. What must I do to get published. An associate of mine, recently sent her book to several different publishing companies. My only problem with that is, how do I know that a publishing company won’t steal my book and publish it as their own.

This question is somewhat open-ended. I’m not sure what types of companies where your friends are sending their work? I can only speak from my own experience. If you want to publish traditionally (meaning, submit your work to the large NY-type publishers) you’ll more than likely need a literary agent. Most traditional publishers won’t look at your work without having an agent. As far as length and content, you should be able to research the various Christian publishers online – go to their websites and look at their submission guidelines. This way, you’ll know about how long to make your stories via wordcount that’s given in the guidelines.

If you’re self-publishing (meaning you’re PAYING to have your work published) then I can’t advise about that because I’ve never done that before.

Your best bet would be to join ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers). It’s a wonderful group with a wonderful writers’ loop. You can ask questions of other writers and you’ll be around like-minded individuals (both published and unpublished). ACFW is only good if you’re going the traditional route in publishing. Also, if going the traditional route, you’d need to decide whom would be the best publisher for your work. Who do you like to read? Which publisher out there, now, publishes the type of fiction that you’re writing? That’ll help you determine where your book will fit.

If you want to self-publish, then, I’m not sure which organization would work best on that front? If you do want to self-publish, I’d advise by starting out by doing an e-book first, because, from what I can gather from other authors, the e-book route doesn’t require a whole lot of money.

As far as stealing your work, that’s not something you should worry about. Your work is automatically copyrighted when you create it on your computer. If you should decide to self-publish and hire a company to print your books for you, then you’d need to register the copyright with the Library of Congress (I think. Again, this is not something that I normally do on my own.)

Also, you said you had a book idea but have not written it yet? You need to write the book! You should be working on this regularly. The above-mentioned advice is all moot unless you have your book written! So, start writing your book everyday and see how it goes from there. Hope you find my advice helpful!

Sincerely,
~Cecelia Dowdy~

Photo courtesy of Suat Eman

I recently received the following question:

I am an African American woman and I feel, like I’m sure that you do, that I have a gift for writing. I have currently completed a work of African American Christian fiction and I don’t know what to do next. Can you give me pointers as to how I can get my work published? There is so much information on the internet that it is difficult to decipher it all.
Thank you,
Rochelle

First things first…where do you see your book on a bookstore shelf? Who do you envision publishing your novel? Have you researched publishers, looked up submission guidelines, etc.?

I realize there is much information on the internet, but there is a quick way to decipher a lot of it if you read a lot of books. Since you’re a writer, and have recently finished a novel, then I’m assuming you read a lot of novels, too?

I’ve always been a fan of romance novels, so I knew I wanted to write one. When I saw the genre of Christian fiction taking off, and then I noticed a few publishers started Christian romance lines, I knew that’s what I wanted to target. I looked up the guidelines for those publishers to see how I could properly submit my manuscript to them. Also, it helps to be around like-minded individuals. As I’ve said in previous blog posts, you’ll need to join a professional writers organization if you’re seeking commercial publication. You’ll find more information about this subject here. Also, if you can find a local group of writers who share your focus, then that could help you, too. I’ve had mixed experiences with local groups, though. Sometimes, you might have a group of Christian writers, but their experiences and goals may vary. I used to be in a local group and I was the only one who was trying to commercially publish my novel. The others were doing poetry, articles, devotionals, and one member was writing a novel, but she gave up pursuing commercial publication after receiving only two rejections. I didn’t glean much help in this group because they didn’t know much about the fiction market – however, I enjoyed socializing with them.

Also, if most people in the group want to self-publish their work, and you want to commercially publish, then you might not find the group very helpful. That’s one reason why I gleaned most of my help from RWA and ACFW – both groups focus on commercial publication and I knew that was the route I wanted to take with my writing.

I hope I gave you some pointers that you’ve found helpful. Look for a community of others either online or locally and see what you find from there. It might take you awhile to find the right group though…

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Well, after selling five books on my own, I’ve finally done it…I’ve taken a leap of faith and signed with a literary agent for the first time in my writing career. I’m now a client of Hartline Literary Agency. I recently signed on with Tamela Hancock Murray. This will be a new experience for me. It’s exciting, and it’ll be interesting to see how this will affect my career!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

John asked the following question:

I’m interested in themes and plots and directions. I have great characters, settings, dialogs, etc. I’m not so sure how to move it along at a clip a modern reader (and publisher) would like.

I have the same problem. Seriously. All I can suggest is, make something HAPPEN!! Create drama in your characters’ lives and have the other characters to react to it. Death, serious illness, pregnancy, etc. Also, you can have one of your characters to receive a mysterious letter…what’s in that letter is my guess, but the news will rock the world of your main character, and other characters will be shocked to hear about this happening in their friend(s) life. Your story is one large drama and each chapter is a segment containing a mini-drama. Another good thing to do is to study other writers, see what they do and see if you can learn from their examples.

Give your characters a serious flaw. I’ve noticed that it’s easier for me when I write about the themes of financial dishonesty and alcoholism. What issues are you passionate about? What issues are your characters passionate about? If you know your characters well enough, you’ll know what kinds of things could happen to them that would bring them to their knees, seeking God, wanting answers for the traumatic events happening in their lives! I blogged about this subject over at Writers’ Rest Blog awhile ago.

I hope that little bit of information helped. Without knowing more about your characters or your storyline, that’s about all I can suggest to get you started!

~Cecelia Dowdy~