Making History, the Fictional Kind

If you've never "done" a Highlights Foundation workshop, put this on your Wish List.
An amazing experience, and I don't just mean the food or the people. Your own cabin in the woods. Surrounded by writers. Your complete manuscript critiqued by professionals.

Check out the book I found on the shelf in the Lodge, where the faculty stays.
There are all sorts of old and odd books here!

Yesterday's sunset!

A walk to the end of the road and we discovered an office with all sorts of artifacts.
Including an original Highlights Magazine.

In anticipation of this week, I did a little Historical Fiction reading.

Thanks to Bobbi Miller, my brain is now thinking about what Avi had to say.
(Yes, I totally get the costume drama thing.)

Avi, an award-winning master of the genre, offers that some historical fiction stays close to the known facts, while others are little more than costume drama. “Ultimately, what is most important is the story, and the characters.” Facts, according to Avi, do not make a story. “Believable people do…Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction makes truth less a stranger.”

Check out Bobbi's article, Why is Historical Fiction Important, HERE.

Lots more quotes from authors you'll know and love. And links to other things historical!
Here's one example, re: Teaching with Historical Fiction.

And these writing tips, from Mary Sharratt, via Publisher's Weekly:
"The most innovative historical fiction, to my mind, draws obscure characters from the margins of history and sets them center stage."

And if you're interested, there's this, my previous thoughts on Historical Fiction:
http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-heck-is-historical-about-it-anyway.html 


Stay tuned.  I hope to post a few quotes from our fabulous writers of Historical Fiction here this week at Highlights. Soon!






 

Beginnings

Inspired by the Florida SCBWI event in Miami and my fabulous critique group- Let's write!

There's nothing quite like a blank page/ computer screen.





Dusting off my trusty Scrivener. Putting all my scribbled notes into folders (the Scrivener kind).






I'm reading a few encouraging quotes about beginnings.

Here's a good one

That's how a good story starts. It doesn't spell everything out for you. A good story gives you something to think about. It raises as many questions as it answers.

~ Eric Kimmel
(via Bobbi Miller's website. Lots of good stuff for writers. CHECK IT OUT, HERE. )

How about this from a little notebook I scribbled in frantically during a Maryland SCBWI event. Maybe 2009? (I never throw notebooks away, do you?)

The only way to figure out who a character is is to write. Write a whole draft.
You will never know what you are doing. 
You will discover.
from Coe Booth, though possibly paraphrased, so don't quote me/her.

And another hastily scribbled note, from Roy Clark at the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading, Fall, 2011:
Our writing standards are too high, too quick. Lower them at the beginning of a project. After you have a draft, raise your standards.


Here's to new beginnings, 2013. As we flip our January calendars, how are your beginnings?
Your revisions and your revisits?

Here's what's on my desk this morning. Enough inspiration! And now, to write.