Teresa Jade LeYung's BLOG

Posts Tagged ‘fiction’

When weaving a story, keep “it” simple.  “It” = story-structure.

One of my favorite stories is E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.  This timeless tale has wonderful hooks, memorable characters, universal themes and a compelling yet simple plotline.   Writers, I recommend your dissecting this book and your favorite books if you want to understand story structure for fiction or narrative non-fiction.

Cheers!

May your writing projects take on new form and new vitality in the new year!

Sincerely,

Writing Coach/Manuscript Consultant Teresa LeYung Ryan

author of Love Made of Heart (recommended by the California School Library Association and the California Reading Association)

http://writingcoachteresa.com

The Jennifer Joseph, Publisher, Manic D Press Books

I met Jennifer Joseph at a writers’ conference many years ago and throughout these years whenever someone asks: “Who should we include on a panel of experts in the publishing industry?” I would reply: “Invite the owner of Manic D Press–Jennifer Joseph.  Great energy.  Savvy.  She cares about her authors’ careers.”

Manic D Press is an award-winning literary press based in San Francisco, California publishing fiction, poetry, pop culture, music, art, narrative-oriented comix, and alternative travel books,  representing a diverse group of unique writers and artists,

When I was president for California Writers Club-SF Peninsula Branch 2005-2006, I wanted to give our members a program of publishing experts at the June 2006 meeting–my last meeting as president.  That day, I learned from Jennifer Joseph why publishers usually don’t print large quantities of any particular book, and, why publishers “remainder” books (sell a book at a low low price) even when they’ve been only recently published.  Here’s the answer:  Books are inventory; inventory gets taxed.  To have unsold books sitting in warehouses cost money to the publishers.

Last week, at the publishing panel sponsored by Women’s National Book Association at San Francisco Public Library-Main Branch, I learned from Jennifer Joseph to take advantage of the facebook phenomenon.  I love writing blog posts to help writers build their names/platforms; Jennifer recommends my using facebook to broadcast new posts.

Also, I learned that she publishes poetry books.  On the Manic D Press postcard are thumbnail-size images of 20 book covers with their titles, authors’ names, genres, ISBNs and cover prices; 5 of them are poetry/essays.

Please visit the online Manic D store  http://manicdpress.com

On her website, Jennifer says: “If there’s a Manic D book that’s not here and you want it, send an email, okay? Thanks for everything (and especially for reading our books).”

Writers who want to see submission guidelines, go to:  http://manicdpress.com and scroll to the bottom of the page  OR click here: http://manicdpress.com/submissions.html

http://www.facebook.com/manicd

http://twitter.com/manicdpress

Awards presented to Manic D Press include 2000 American Library Association Stonewall Award for Literature; 1997 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Art; 2002 and 2000 Firecracker Alternative Book Awards for Fiction; 1998 American Institute of Graphic Arts juried traveling exhibition 50 Books, 50 Covers; Sept/Oct 2003 + March/April 2004 Booksense 76 lists; SF Bay Guardian’s 2004 Best of the Bay: ‘Best Quintessentially San Franciscan Publisher’, Publishing Triangle’s 2007 Thom Gunn Award for Poetry + 2008 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction; SF Weekly’s “Best of San Francisco 2008″; 2009 and 2010 Lambda Literary Transgender Awards.

Thank you, Jennifer Joseph, for being a hard-working publisher who enjoys sharing your insight with the writing-and-reading community!

Sincerely,
Teresa LeYung Ryan, author, writing-career coach, founder of GraceArt Publishing

Build My Writer’s Name and Platform: Attract Agents, Acquisition Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention
is the 22 minutes for 22 days workbook.
“Reach out, not stress out, when building your writer’s name.”

http://lovemadeofheart.com/blog/

New Year’s approaching, new year to give your writing project a new look.

Ask me, Writing Coach Teresa, to edit 22 pages at a time.
Gain tools from my coaching with each installment of your manuscript. Affordable too.

Learn how to use  archetypes, themes/universal messages, metaphors, hooks, foreshadows, pivotal plot points, seamless transitions, and poignancy to make your story a page-turner.
I like to edit fiction and narrative non-fiction with strong and quirky protagonists, memoirs, young adult fiction, and short stories.

Visit http://WritingCoachTeresa.com home page to find out what it means when an agent or editor tells a writer that his/her story is episodic.

Writing Coach & Manuscript Consultant Teresa LeYung Ryan who helps writers 22 pages at a time.

California Writers’ Club–SF Peninsula Branch Presents
“Build Your Name While You Write”
with Writing-Career Coach Teresa LeYung Ryan

January 16, 2010, 10am to noon
Belmont Library, 1110 Alameda De Las Pulgas, Belmont, CA
Cost: $15  CWC members;  $18 non-members

Reservations are advised:
Call 650-615-8331 to leave a message or email Chris Wachlin at <reservations@sfpeninsulawriters.com> with your name and the meeting date.

More info & PayPal available on:  http://cwc-peninsula.org

Can you relate to any one of these statements?

* Agents and acquisition editors say publishers prefer to work with authors who are already celebrities or have established platforms (i.e. means to build fan base).  How do I compete?

* I am published. There aren’t enough hours in a day to write, let alone run around and network.

* I believe in my writing and I’m committed to building my career, but, my budget is limited.

Optional exercises before January 16:  http://cwc-peninsula.org/

On January 16, 2010 Teresa will debut her guide Build Your Name, Beat the Game: Be Happily Published

Teresa LeYung Ryan’s bio:  http://WritingCoachTeresa.com

Talk about writers collaborating and having fun… Barbara Whittaker, GM of The Axe & Palm Café, Stanford University, created a literary series and invited yours truly Teresa LeYung Ryan, author of Love Made of Heart, to kick-off the new program on November 12, 2009. Dear friend Elisa Southard, author of Break Through the Noise: 9 Tools to Propel Your Marketing Message, showed up to take photos and video. What a delightful evening.  My hubby was there to record and cheer.

Teresa LeYung Ryan shows Chinese word for "love" and Barbara Whittaker holds Teresa's novel Love Made of Heart

Stanford students Natalia, Chana Rose, Zach with Teresa LeYung Ryan (middle) and Barbara Whittaker (right)

Lyle Ryan & Teresa LeYung Ryan

Stanford students Natalia Birgisson, Chana Rose Rabinovitz and Zach O’Keeffe read scenes with me. These young people made a deep impression on me.

David, thank you for setting up P/A system; Anthony, thank you for tranforming space; Scott (Barbara’s hubby), thank you for helping with sound-check. Friends who couldn’t attend, thank you for sweet  emails and voicemails.

Stanford students & The Axe & Palm Cafe staff are memorable characters.

The heroes & heroines at The Axe & Palm Cafe with Teresa and Barbara, photo by Elisa

Everyone at Stanford who contributed their time and energy also deserve praise.

QUESTIONS that I answered:

• Is Love Made of Heart autobiographical?
• Where do you get your ideas for stories?
• What other genres do you write?
• What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
• You write about sobering subject matters; what do you do for fun?

A portion of the proceeds from book sales was donated to Save-the-Libraries.

Thank you, Barbara Whittaker, for further promoting literacy and sharing your brainchild with us!

Stanford student Mitchell Holt represented Marketing Dept. with authors Teresa LeYung Ryan & Elisa Southard

Cyberspace Coach Linda Lee reminds us the vitality of blogs.

Plot Coach and Author Martha Alderson asked me to blog about building a platform/promoting novels.

Read blog comment

Martha, thank you for posting this subject. Promoting a novel or memoir is a major challenge because unless you are already a best-selling author or your publisher has committed a six-figure marketing budget for your book, how do you give your book the attention it deserves?

I remember how excited I was when my mother-daughter novel Love Made of Heart was released by New York publisher Kensington. Although I landed readings/signings at bookstores (through friends’ and colleagues’ help), I soon received this response from media folks: “We can’t interview/invite you. Not interested in novels…”

Then, Elisa Southard (non-fiction author and PR coach) came along. She said: “YOU are bigger than your book. What are the ‘issues’ in your novel?”

Then, Anny Cleven (Area Marketing Director at Borders Books) reminded me that I was shedding light on ‘mental illness’ and ‘domestic violence’ in the Asian-American community.

Kim McMillon, friend and colleague, pitched me to be a guest on KPIX “Bay Sunday” when she saw that I was ready to speak out on the issues. I became Teresa LeYung Ryan who advocates compassion for mental illness and the author who helps survivors of family violence find their own voices.

Now that I’m a career coach for writers, I encourage all my clients to build their platforms by articulating the themes in their stories as community/national/global concerns.

So, after you have used the tools from Blockbuster Plots to structure your story and you have the first draft of your project, look for the issues or self-help elements to weave what Martha Alderson calls “thematic significance.”

Writers who have spent years working on their books (fiction or non-fiction) deserve recognition for their dedication. I want to see all diligent writers shed light on “the issues” and thus speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Happy Writing!

Teresa LeYung Ryan

author of Love Made of Heart

www.LoveMadeOfHeart.com

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Nina Amir of Write Non-Fiction in November asked me to blog about “How to Make Your Manuscript Compelling” and so I wrote “How to Look at Your Manuscript with an Editor’s Lens”

How to Look at Your Manuscript with an Editor’s Lens

By Teresa LeYung Ryan

Manuscript Consultant and Career Coach

Author

Since writing a story with the intent to engage the reader is so much like meeting a stranger and wanting him/her to be interested in you, I will focus on how to make the first quarter of your story a compelling read.

I love working with diligent writers who want to transform their manuscripts into page-turners. However, there are things you can do before you give your work to an editor. Let me show you how you can help yourself.

As an editor, the four biggest mistakes I encounter are manuscripts that are weak in these elements:

• Planting hook(s) or story-question(s);
• Grounding the reader with the three Ws (Who? When? Where?);
• Showing (not telling) what the protagonist wants;
• Paying attention to language and rules

Let’s learn from the pros.

Planting Hook or Story-Question:

In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston hooks us with the first line: “You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you…” Then, Ms. Kingston transitions into her story with: “Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one . . .”

Grounding the Reader with the Three Ws:

In Woven of Water, while the story timeline spans from 1957 to 2005, Californian author Luisa Adams brilliantly shows us who she was as a girl (not with a year-by-year narrative, but with a single exquisite chapter). Because she grounded us with “who, when, where,” we eagerly follow as she takes us into her enchanted world of a “cottage in the forest.”

Showing What the Protagonist Wants:

In The Other Mother, young Carol Schaefer wants to ask questions: “Was there any way to keep my baby? Was there anyone who would help me find a way to do that?”

Paying Attention to Language and Rules:

Read the first five pages of Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt and you will see how this wordsmith plays with language and rules. (You can “bend” the rules to create flow, but you must not ignore them.)

Sentences Deserve Your Attention:

Nina Amir’s post on her blog http://writenonfictioninnovember.wordpress.com/2007/11/ is a must-read.

Remember Groucho Marx’s line “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas…”? That sentence got a lot of laughs. But, what if you didn’t want to be funny (ambiguous in this case)?

How would you rewrite these poorly constructed sentences?

• He likes to fish near the Farallon Islands and they jump when they’re hungry at dawn or dusk.
• She insists on knowing when I come home and leave, not to be nosy, but for safety reasons.
• Being cautious as not to step on the dog’s tail, the children tip-toed away from him while sleeping.
• My husband still in bed snoring, I have always enjoyed rising before dawn and I eat my toast and drink my green tea on the terrace.

To improve your sentence structure and other skills, I recommend these books:

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White
• Woe is I: Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner

More Advice:

• In all four stories (The Woman Warrior, Woven of Water, The Other Mother, Angela’s Ashes), the authors present memorable experiences by employing authentic details, unusual story-worlds though real, and poetic language. You want to do the same for your story.
• Also, these stories have another vital component-all four plotlines have what Martha Alderson, author of Blockbuster Plots, Pure and Simple, calls “Cause and Effect” linked scenes. Another must-read blog: Plot Whisperer
• When you’re writing non-fiction and do not have the luxury of rearranging the sequence of events to create a page-turning plotline, you can engage the reader by using concise expositions to leap over blocks of time in order to focus on the core themes and fast-forward the story. A helpful website: http://www.memoriesandmemoirs.com
• You the author must show the reader what the protagonist wants, even if the protagonist doesn’t know at first.
• We don’t have to “like” a protagonist, but, we do need to connect with him/her on an emotional level.

In the fiercely competitive arena of the publishing world, how does one stand out in a crowd? Building relationships is one key to success in this business. Another key is to know how to translate the themes from your life to your writing and articulate those themes as community concerns. I want to see all hardworking writers realize their dreams.

My best wishes to you!

Teresa LeYung Ryan

www.LoveMadeOfHeart.com

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If you’d like a website or blog that speaks your messages, ask Linda Lee to design one for you.

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