Burroway Book Winner

Congratulations to Gabriela Lessa, a Brazilian writer and journalist; chick-lit /women's fiction fan and writer; avid reader and literature lover who blogs at http://aspiringwriterworld.blogspot.com/.

She has won the Janet Burroway book, "Imaginative Writing" during my Follower contest for being the eighth Follower, the number selected at random by my husband who doesn't even know this blog exists.

Thanks to all those new followers who joined Scrivengale this week, and I look forward to your posts. And of course, Blogger has that nifty Blog List gadget that allows you to keep up with your Followers newest posts.

Do stop in on "Aspiring Writer." Gabriela has a great post up now about keeping in writing shape during the holidays.

While you are enjoying her blog, I on the other hand will have to learn how to ship something to Brazil.

Book Pick Contest: Win Burroway's 'Imaginative Writing--The Elements of Craft'

One of the many things I appreciated about being in Wilkes University's Creative Writing Program was the texts and instructional materials. Really first rate stuff. I've already featuring Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer on Scrivengale, which we read for the program.

Now, I'd like to introduce (or reintroduce) you to a craft book by bestselling author Janet Burroway that is in a word mind-blowing (no one said it couldn't be a hyphenated word) with a mind-numbing title called Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft.

If the title makes it sound like a textbook, that's because it is a textbook. But it's hardly dry. It offers accessible, practical lessons and examples (including excerpts from published works) on all the craft elements--image, voice, character, setting, and story--across multiple genres.

And the ideas? It's a 400-page book including the glossary and index filled with ideas to launch and revise and refine and polish your writing. More tools and ideas and information then you can use in a lifetime of writing--as least if you're middle-aged to begin with. I really appreciated this book because I never considered myself a rank beginner. Remember, before I started the program, I had read a bookshelf full of handouts and books on writing--the craft and the business of it--and had finished writing two novels.

In case you're not convinced, let me say without equivocation, that I LOVE this book. I love it so much I loaned it to a very good friend because I wanted to share the secrets of the writing universe with someone whose writing career I cared about. When she told me she misplaced it, I must have made a face like nothing she'd ever seen before because she went out and bought me a new one. Then, a month later, she found my copy with all its highlighting and tiny post-it tabs throughout. So, I gave her the new one, happy to welcome my trusty old Burroway back into my home library.

It's laced with reminders like, "Metaphors are comparisons that convey abstractions or judgments" (p. 13) or "Everything we know about people we know through our five senses" (p.79). Perhaps many of you intuited as much in your writing, but it's nice to be reminded how readers must fundamentally learn about our characters.

She shares some of her own missteps, too, which reminds me that she's human. I'll warn you, however, that if you read even one-third of this book, you'll soon be thinking Burroway is a writing deity. That's one of the reasons I became so incensed with a Narrative Magazine fiction contest. I entered a contest--no, I paid to enter a short fiction contest--that was won by Burroway, which seemed like an unconscionable money-grab that Narrative would allow someone with her stature to come in and win the top prize.

I mention this (because I'm still disappointed in Narrative) and because I still adore this book despite that experience. Yes, this post is simultaneously a rant and a rave. I used one of Burroway's exercises to start a story that won first prize in a fiction contest. The judge commented that the first line of my story grabbed her, which is why I won.

Be a follower. I need more followers.

Since this blog is newer rather than older, I do the happy dance every time a new follower appears in the sidebar. I'd like to build my follower base by offering two followers a chance to win this book (a $40 value). Anyone who's officially following "Scrivengale" either in my Blogger Followers gadget or using Networked blogs as of Friday, December 10, will be eligible to win a copy of this book. How new do you have to be? This blog is only two months old; you're all new followers the way I see it.

I'll be giving away one new copy for every 20 new followers (up to 40). All colorful highlighting and post-it tabbing is up to each winner. Winners announced on Friday, effective immediately of course, which I mention twice since I'm the kind of person who likes to know when things start and end.

If I haven't made this book sound splendiferous enough, here's an excerpt from one of the Amazon reviewers, "indypoet":

...it offers dozens and dozens of recent examples to illustrate its points. As an anthology alone, this book would be a good read. But Burroway's comments aptly help a reader to understand what is working well in each of her excerpts.

And it's really important to note that Burroway's book is great for writers working on their own--you need not be in a formal program to benefit from using this. It was also mentioned in this wonderful roundup of books every writer should read published by online universities.com.

So, tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell people you feel lukewarm about. I don't care. Anyone can win just as long as he or she becomes my follower.

Family of origin issues ideal for story starters

If you're reading this post, then you have a family of origin. You may have disowned them or may spend time with them several times a year--like me. Regardless of how you feel about your family of origin, they can be a rich source for storytelling, no matter the genre you write.

A year ago, I submitted a story I wrote to a fall fiction contest sponsored by Scratch. I used a prompt from Janet Burroway's book, Imaginative Writing, that went something like, "Begin a story with something your parents used to say..."

Some of my mother's expressions cut so deeply into my psyche, despite not having heard them in years, I'm able to retrieve them from the memory center in my brain, as if I went searching for them daily rather than every ten years.

My  mother use to say things like, "You can fall in love a rich boy as easily as a poor one." Who knows? Maybe her mother said it to her. What is clear is that no women in my family have followed the previous generation's advice about who to fall in love with. None of us married Rockefellers. I guess example also speaks louder than words.

Though I have friends who swear they hate writing prompts and won't use them, I have a strong track record with prompts. I like the discipline of meditating on something--a saying, a word, a visual prompt like a painting or an image in real life, and then forcing myself to write about it.

After I typed my mother's saying, "You can fall in love with a rich boy...," the story poured out of me. As it turned out, my opening sentence caught the judge's attention, and she awarded me first place. (Maybe she had unresolved family of origin issues, too.)

Why was this prompt so successful? For one thing, the viewpoint character and point of view were established in an instant, stemming from a very organic place. Without thinking much about it, I realized the storyteller was an adult who'd be relaying an anecdote that occurred during her teenage years.

If you met my sweet little 83-year-old mother today, you might not believe we once had a tempestuous relationship, or, alternately, you would ascribe all the blame to me. Though I can't say I am grateful for the one-time animosity between us, I now realize it's a rich vein to mine for fiction writing.

How about you? Do you use prompts? Are there any prompts that you've used successfully and can share with Scrivengale readers? To what extent have you used family of origin issues in your writing?