Saturday, November 26, GLVWG welcomed Katheryn Craft as a guest speaker to help members understand how to develop a confident voice, and a self-editing process called Macro Editing. Dawn Sooy, GLVWG Secretary, summarized what we learned.
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The morning topic “Developing a Confident Voice, Ten Provocative Questions” began with Kathryn asking ten questions, then asking participants to write their interpretation of the question as it relates to a story.
For example:
1. In what ways can you trust the reader to bring her/his life
experience to the reading of your book?
a. Need to have a tone of confidence for your audience.
The readers can sense this while reading and will keep
them reading.
2. Which setting and character detail will evoke the
emotional world of your character?
a. Only put in details that are essential to the character
Sometimes writers tend to add words that take away
from the character.
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The afternoons topic “I Wrote it, Now What.”, Kathryn provided an extensive list for Self-Editing called Macro editing. Some examples.
1. Scene-by-scene, ask: If I deleted this scene, would the
reader still be able to understand the story? If yes,
revise or delete.
2. The character (or protagonist) of the book should have a
a goal in mind. and this goal increases until the end of
the story. There may be a part in the book that deters
the character from reaching his goal.
The educational piece of the afternoon session included a list for Structural Edit: Inciting Incident, Major Emotional Turning Points, Dark Moment, and Climactic Fight. Kathryn would speak on one of these topics, then ask the group to write where in our book this could happen.
A dynamic speaker, Kathryn sparked ideas that provided thoughts participants could use on their novel.
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Kathryn Craft
BIO:
Kathryn served for more than a decade in a variety of positions on the boards of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference, and volunteers as time allow with the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
She has published two books, “The Art of Falling” and “The Far End of Happy” (which received a 2016 IPPY Bronze Medal.)
Favorite things: walking in the snow to hear it crunching beneath her boots, pumpkin pancakes with real maple syrup, and swimming in a northern spring-fed lake when my nose is right down near the water–that’s my favorite scent in the world. The next is baking bread, which reminds me of my grandmother (I’ve spent every summer of my life at the same lakeside cottage, where I can still conjure her spirit).
You can find Kathryn at her official website: KathrynCraft.com, her Facebook Page, Twitter, and Instagram.
Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group 