Greetings! This is Debra and I'm stepping in today to introduce our guest blogger.
This week is our current blogger Shirley Harkins week, but our critique partner, Stephanie Gallentine will blog in her place today. I've uploaded a picture of us together at Stephanie's recent booksigning. From left to right, Stephanie, myself, Sue, and Shirley (not pictured Janet Brown).
So, without further ado, let me present our guest blogger, Stephanie Gallentine...
Raised in North Texas, Stephanie spent much of her childhood making up stories filled with action, adventure, and angst. From the time she was a young teenager, she started scribbling those adventures down on paper.
Years later, she met and married her husband, Robert. They have two fabulous children, Heather and Andy. Now, by day, Stephanie serves up lunches in her local school cafeteria. By night, she enjoys serving up stories filled with mystery, mayhem, and salted with the often mysterious yet always miraculous hand of God in the lives of teenagers.
Her first story, Refuge, is due out this August from Word Aflame Press.
Stephanie:
Being a plot-first writer, I often find myself struggling with character depth. This week my friend sent me a CD of almost five hours of lessons from the 2009 ACFW conference called Pinpoint, Diagnose, and Heal the Broken Places in Your Novel presented by Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck.
All I can say is wow! I couldn’t take notes fast enough as she went through common diagnoses from critique partners, editors, or agents. Topics dealing with character goals and the lies they tell themselves suddenly became clear, whereas before I struggled to really grasp the concept enough for it to benefit my own writing.
Other topics covered included discovering your characters noble cause, their goals, how to write an imperfect yet believable Christian character, plot problems, the heroes journey, the writer’s voice, and writing dialogue that ‘snaps’.
They also have a website called Mybooktherapy.com where you can look up topics like these in their archives. If you are ready to inject life into your novel, the doctor is in the house and ready to help your novel be the best it can be.
Thank you, Stephanie for your contribution to our blog today.
ReplyDeleteI've sat under Susan's teaching @ ACFW conference. She's a fantastic teacher. I subscribe to her & Rachel's booktherapy site & gain much good insights. Good recommendation, Stephanie, and thanks for blogging on our site this week.
ReplyDeleteYou reminded me that I want to order the tapes. I attended one of Susan's workshops in the past. She is an awesome teacher. Rachel brings wonderful praise music to the conferences. Good job, Stephanie. Thanks for being our guest blogger.
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