Writing Tight

Tracy Dunham

Writing tight - it's a subject I've been thinking about for a while. I love to wander down the emotional highway of my characters, but there comes that moment when all that lovely introspection has to bite the dust if it's sticking the story to the road like illegal glue on Reed Sorenson's tires. I like storie's to race along - pages flipping as fast as you can read them - and sometimes, the pretty character flowers I plant around the borders (don't you love all these mixed metaphors?) just don't work. What's the right balance between character and story? I'm still juggling, although I confess I'm pretty much a character-driven story gal. For example, I remember Dick Francis heroes like I do the weight and length of my children when they were born. The exact hours, minutes, and seconds of labor. Dick Francis writes heroes like no one else. I may remember the barest details about the plot, but Kit Fielding? He's in my head forever.

Right now, I'm pretty much in the character-rules corner. Still and all, the plot has to be there, and the characters had better be part of the plot, or all I'd have is pages filled with people with nowhere to go, no story to live.

Living stories. I like that idea. If I can write a story that lives, I'll be happy.

Tracy Dunham

Tracy Dunham
Hi, I'm finally here - and eternally grateful to Leigh Wyndfield for getting me going with this blogging gig. I feel as if I'm starting a new novel, and the right opening sentence hasn't come to me just yet. It hasn't stopped me from jumping into a book with both feet yet - I always figure it takes me forty pages to get warmed up anyway, and the pages will end up trashed when the book goes through rewrites.

I'm thinking of starting a different book than the sort I'm known for. An idea has been rattling around in my head as I get my daughter packed up to return to college for her sophomore year. It's wild - (the story, not the daughter) and I'm not sure if the story will work, but I'll try plotting it out just for fun. As much as I love my children, I look forward to the quiet and calm that descend with the first days of school in the fall.

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