Rachelle J. Christensen

Romance, Suspense, Mystery Author

Writing Conferences

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For Writers:

I’ve been reminiscing about the times I have been able to attend the LDSStorymakers conferences. In 2011, I was able to attend for my 6th time (it was the 8th annual conference) and I was again blown away by the sheer amount of knowledge and opportunities available.

National agents Becca Stumpf, Sara Crowe, and Sara Megibow were all in attendance as well as Marcia Markland, Senior editor at Thomas Dunne books.

A few highlights:

I won a seat at the VIP table with Becca, Sara, Marcia, and Larry Brooks for the Friday night dinner. It was so fun to talk with them in a more casual setting.

Dave Wolverton/Farland is one of my favorite teachers. He has so much knowledge, I wish I could just plug into his brain and download it!

Larry Brooks taught a great class on Story Structure and I bought his book Story Engineering

I attended Elana Johnson’s “How to Write a Killer Query class” and she knows her stuff!

I also attended Sara Crowe’s class on Query pitches and she gave some awesome advice and examples.

I met a ton of new writing pals and reconnected with some of my favorite buddies.

I felt like I was running the entire time (and sometimes I really was sprinting through those halls) to go back and forth to my room to take care of my baby. Here’s me with a picture of my baby–does he look hungry to you?

My wonderful mom came and stayed with me to take care of my baby–I love you Mom!

She made it possible for me to participate in this conference and I’m so grateful.

Attending these conferences can allow for so many opportunities and networking. As you can see, it was hard for me to go that year with a baby, but it was possible, and I learned and grew so much from my experience.

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Network at LDStorymakers Conference

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For Writers:

I wanted to tell you about the most amazing writer’s conference coming up in May. The LDStorymakers conference is what I credit for getting me on the right track to becoming a successful author. I attended my first writer’s conference with LDStorymakers in 2006 and found the most amazing and professional insight into my writing. Even though I had read writing books and owned a few copies of the coveted, “Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market” I decided I didn’t know beans about writing and soaked up every last tip and detail.

Each year, the conference has improved and I have learned more and more to help me on my writing path. I’ve met some incredible authors and aspiring authors and everyone is so helpful and encouraging.

I love entering the first chapter contest in conjunction with this writer’s conference because it’s a great way to get a detailed critique on my writing and a chance to win some awesome awards! It’s helpful to think about this after opening those special little self-addressed-stamped envelopes with form letter rejections. And on the topic of rejection, it sure helps to have a network of friends to encourage you in the face of rejection. Writing or specifically submitting should be listed as an alternate definition for REJECTION in the dictionary or at least a synonym. If you are serious about writing and publishing a book, then you must be ready to open many notices of rejection—hey at least you get some mail once in a while! But back to what I was saying—attending a writer’s conference is important because you can find a network of support.

I am still learning and honing my writing skills and look forward to many years of successful writing.

I’ve already had some friends ask me about writing and how to write a book and I’ve told them I’m not an expert, but I think you should attend a writer’s conference—specifically LDStorymakers.

I believe that attending writer’s conferences have made all the difference in helping me to achieve my goals. So if you’re in Utah on May 9-11 and you would like to attend a premier writer’s conference, check out www.ldstorymakers.com and register. I think the classes are full, but you can get on a wait list. Be sure to sign up early next year!

It’s a wonderful way to network with other writers, editors, publishers, agents and have an amazing time too!

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Writing Compelling Characters

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For Writers

Years ago, I visited my one of my writerly friend’s blogs and found a fun challenge. Elana Johnson is an amazing writer. She challenged everyone to write on the topic of “Writing Compelling Characters” to show how diverse each and every person is when they are creating something of their own. Here is what I came up with:

Writing a compelling character is as multi-faceted a topic as the character itself can become. There are so many points to concentrate on developing to make your character come to life and compel your reader to continue turning those pages. Here’s a few of my ideas.

When I’m writing and reading, I need to see the character–their movement, general appearance, mannerisms. I also need to hear them. How do they talk? What happens when they enter a room?

To write a compelling character, you first need to create the character by answering some of the above questions plus a few more. When I’m working on a novel, I use a character note document where I write the name of each character, age, hair color, eye color, height, striking factors in their appearance, where they live or where they are from, some of their hobbies, what type of work they do. The list can go on and on, but it’s important for each character to be different, not cut from the same cloth. I need to have identifiable differences between the characters and so I’ll make notes of how I can show that to my readers by certain mannerisms, speech, and specific appearance points.

Each character must sound like himself. This means if I pull out a string of dialogue from a novel, it should be indicative of the character speaking. If all the dialogue sounds the same, then a reader will not be able to differentiate clearly between the characters. You have to know your characters so well when writing, because your reader will know them and will pick up immediately if the character says something that is out of sync. You don’t want your reader thinking, “He wouldn’t say that.” You also don’t want them thinking, “he wouldn’t do that.”

So, writing compelling characters is all about making the characters REAL, making them come to life and step off the pages of the book. One of my favorite tips that I heard several years ago (sorry, can’t remember who said it) was, “You should know your character well enough, that if you passed them on a busy street you would recognize them.”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg on writing compelling characters, but it’s a great starting point.

Think of your favorite books. Are they your favorite because of the plot or the characters? Who are some of your all-time favorite characters?

Some of mine? I love Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. Melinda from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson definitely stays with you. Katniss from The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. All of these characters are so well-written, I feel like they are my friends–especially Anne!

Okay, your turn to share. I’d love to hear some of your favorites.

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Thought on Writing

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For Writers

I had the chance to attend an LDStorymakers writing conference about six years ago and around that time, I read an excellent quote from the League of Utah Writers newsletter. These conferences and newsletters give me so much inspiration and motivation as a writer and I can always find great writing tips.

You must keep sending
work out; you must
never let a manuscript
do nothing but eat its
head off in a drawer.
You send that work out
again and again, while
you’re working on
another one. If you have
talent, you will receive
some measure of
success – but only if you
persist.
— Isaac Asimov

This is excellent advice and something I’ve been thinking about with a few projects that have been waiting for me to come back to them and let them see the light.

What about you? Are you working on your talents?

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Purple Prose Contest

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For Writers

I had so much fun entering a contest about ten years ago over at Query Tracker. It was called the Purple Prose contest and to enter you had to write one sentence of purple prose. Now, purple prose means that the writing has been overdone, overwritten, way too many adjectives and overkill in the descriptive sense, so much that the reader can get lost in the purpleness of the prose.

I had a blast making up my sentence and it was selected as one of 15 finalists out of over 100 entries. Then people voted on their favorite. And guess what? My very purple sentence took first place.

I thought you’d like to see how fun it was for me to be a “bad writer” so here’s the sentence that won, and yes, it’s an incredibly long run-on sentence that would make my high school English teacher cringe and pull out her fully loaded comma splice assault weapon and start firing.

When he heard about the empurpled contest on Query Tracker, the coils of dark, multitudinous hair which made up his eyebrows knit together in fury, like a spry grandmother’s knitting needles, clicking incessantly and rapidly, the sun’s rays illuminating them with a silver gleam, like the gleam of a young child’s brand new bicycle bedecked in all its glory with lemon-colored streamers and chiffon paint with stripes of lavender that shimmered like the violet hue of his eyes which were now thoughtful; the wrinkles around his wide, pupil-inhabited orbs seemed pensive as he considered how he might win Query Tracker’s contest and emerge a champion like a magnificent Olympic sports-star—but not like Greg Louganis because he hit his head—instead his own powerful kind of win—the kind to fill a man’s soul with joy to overflowing like a large bowl of Rocky Road ice cream with ostentatious helpings of steaming hot fudge, but not butterscotch because it would contrast with the rich hues of the chocolate which was so sweet as would be his joy when he won—like a bareback rider in the National Rodeo Finals hanging on for dear life to a fraying strap of yellowed rope—he imagined this with fervor, gripping the gleaming pen in his hand as he began to write.

Too much fun and I won a great prize to boot! A critique of one of my query letters by a real live agent, Jon Tienstra!

Check out Query Tracker, it’s an excellent website/resource for all you publishing people and they have fun contests and info too!

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How to Promote Your Home Business

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For Writers

Today’s thought comes in the form of a review of a great book that has helped me with my writing. E-Book Marketing 101 would be a great resource for aspiring authors.

This book is a must-read for all self-pubbers out there and authors in general who want to learn how to promote their book. I liked it because it is short and filled with detailed information on everywhere you need to look to help promote your books and increase sales. There are some things which are perhaps more obvious, like the importance of search engine optimization (so long as you have a website, of course), although this won’t be something that everyone is accustomed to. You can head to the Victorious website if you want more information on search engine optimization. But it also talks about different avenues which you could go down in terms of your marketing and there were some things that I bet some of you will never have thought of. For example, it mentioned that you can pick up some Super cheap signs and car magnets as a way to promote business. I never even thought about a car magnet! You can put it on and take it off whenever you like, and you only need to pay for it once. I think it’s a pretty nifty and cost-effective way to show off a business. Whilst I liked the unique ideas in the book, the more common and established methods of promoting books were super useful too – which I touched on above. One of these methods is creating social media pages to promote the release of this book. By using social media, it’s likely that you’ll be able to reach thousands of book fans who might be interested in the release of your new book. One of the most popular social media applications is Instagram, as it is very easy to use the platform with features such as instagram scheduler to help businesses to plan out and manage their posts properly from day-to-day. This helps the audience to get a constant stream of content without the business owner having to constantly check on their social media platforms. It’s pretty easy for authors to become popular on that platform, especially if they’re using a hashtag generator to ensure more people find these posts and visit their profile. By using social media, authors should be able to reach more people, allowing them to promote their book socially.

This book isn’t a how-to book necessarily, more of a list of promotion services with very detailed information on the results Heather B. Moore has enjoyed with her own self-published books. You could read this book in less than an hour and then you’ll want to go through and visit several of the sites.

E-book Marketing 101 shows different case studies of books and how they succeeded and what worked and what didn’t work. It also shows the step-by-step process that Heather utilized to become a USA Today Bestselling author. Heather is one of my favorite writers and she is incredibly talented, along with that she is also very business savvy. Definitely someone to listen to when she offers advice, so pick this book up and share with others who are thinking of ways to promote their books.

Here’s more about the book:

E-Book Marketing 101: Promotion Sites for E-Books

Congratulations on writing and publishing your book! Now the nitty-gritty marketing starts. With a lot of excellent marketing tools and books available, why did we write this one? To share a journey of how it is possible to publish a book and hit a bestsellers list. In 2014, Heather Moore hit the USA Today list with a self-published box set. A few months later, she put together the Triple Treat Romance Box Set series, and brought in Tracy Daley to market the series. 12 box sets and 36 authors later, and hitting multiple Top 5 & Top 10 lists consistently, we are ready to pass on our research and recommendations. The promotion sites included in this book are organized in an easy to find manner to target your specific marketing needs.

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