I'm really excited to be taking part in my first HarperImpulse blog tour and you can read my review of The Girl Who Lied here. For the blog tour I have a special blog post from Sue Fortin with a clever writing tip that she used when writing The Girl Who Lied.
Blog
Post – Upping The Stakes
I’ve
been on some fabulous courses over the years, run by some very
inspiring writers, such as, Sarah Duncan, Sue Moorcroft and Julie
Cohen. I’ve come away with great advice from each of them.
One
particular exercise at Sarah Duncan’s course always comes to mind
when I’m plotting and, indeed, throughout the whole process of
writing a novel and that is to ‘up the stakes.’
The
exercise we went through was to first think of an incident that was
illegal or dangerous.
We said shoplifting.
We
were then asked to up the stakes. Our response was a friend was
shoplifting.
We
then had to again up the stakes
The
friend was caught by the security guard.
Up
the stakes…
The
security guard knew the woman.
Up
the stakes…
The
security guard was the woman’s husband.
So
now, the stakes are so much higher, there’s much more conflict and
tension to be had in the storyline.
As
I say, I find this such a useful piece of advice and when I wrote The
Girl Who Lied, I used this throughout. Without giving away the plot,
I had to push my characters to their limits which I did by upping the
stakes the whole time. It was great fun to see just how far they
would go and to see the story develop into something with so much
more exciting than the initial idea.
About Sue Fortin:
Published
by Harper Collins' imprint Harper Impulse, Sue Fortin writes romance,
mystery and suspense.
Her originally self-published debut
novel was awarded the INDIE Brag Medallion and later when published
by HarperImpulse was short-listed for the Joan Hessayon Award (2014).
Sue was also short-listed for the Festival of Romance, New Talent
Award (2013). Her second novel, Closing In, reached number one in the
Romantic Suspense Kobo chart at the end of 2014. Sue blogs regularly
with the on-line writing group The Romaniacs
(www.theromaniacs.co.uk).
Lover of cake, Dragonflies and
France. Hater of calories, maths and snakes. Sue was born in
Hertfordshire but had a nomadic childhood, moving often with her
family, before eventually settling in West Sussex.
Sue is
married with four children, all of whom patiently give her time to
write but, when not behind the keyboard, she likes to spend her time
with them, enjoying both the coast and the South Downs, between which
they are nestled.
You
can catch up with Sue at
Facebook
Sue
Fortin Author
Twitter
@suefortin1
Website
& Blog www.suefortin.com
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