Lyra Selene

AUTHOR

writing

The Perfect First Page

by | May 4, 2015 |

This post originally appeared at Spellbound Scribes.

No pictures???

As I once more begin the arduous process of drafting a new manuscript, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the mechanics and architecture of story-telling. Of course there’s no right way to tell a story, but there are certain elements that must be in place for a story to be effective. And–if we’re starting at the beginning–the first thing we have to think about is, well, the beginning.

It’s no secret in the publishing industry that the beginning of a manuscript is of the utmost importance. To agents, to editors, and to potential readers alike. The first 250 words…the first page…the first chapter. The opening of a book is what introduces your work to your reader, and, if all goes well, draws them in and makes them keep reading. But what exactly is supposed to be going on in this crucial stage, and how do we as writers make that happen? While there’s no perfect way to do it, here are some of the things I think are absolutely necessary to nailing the perfect first page. read more…

Ten Things About My Writing

by | Apr 27, 2015 | ,

Inspired by the super cool Tara Sim, who posted ten quirky things about her writing process. As a creative who usually works totally isolated from the real world, it’s easy to forget that my weird processes are, well, weird. I can’t explain it, but each of these bizarre habits makes it possible for me to create the way I do!

1. I am a notebook hoarder. At any given time, I have anywhere from three to seven notebooks in general rotation, filled with notes and snippets and half-baked ideas and sketches and names. And while they vary significantly in size, the notebooks are almost all black.

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Monthly Post at Spellbound Scribes

by | Oct 9, 2014 |

Hello, my lovelies! Because it’s Halloween month, when the leaves start to change and everything is pumpkin flavored and things go bump in the night, I thought I’d try my hand at a piece of horror flash-fiction, called “Lost at Dusk”! Check it out here!

What’s your favorite thing about autumn? Let me know in the comment section below!

#PitchWars Mentee Blog Hop!

by | Aug 18, 2014 | , ,

Oh! Hello there! I am delighted to be participating in Brenda Drake’s fantastic Pitch Wars contest this year, and figured I ought to throw my bio out there as part of the Mentee blog hop! If you have no interest in learning more about me, or for some reason really hate obnoxious amounts of GIFs, well, you might want to move along.

First off, I’m Lyra! (Yes, it’s my real name, and yes, the Golden Compass books were based entirely on my life.) I’m 26, and live in the Best City in America, aka Boston.

I’ve been writing since a very young age. My mom recently unearthed a short story, written and illustrated by eight-year-old moi, about a farmer tying chickens to pigs in order to prove the old adage “when pigs fly.” In 5th grade, I wrote a novel about a warrior princess named Jade and her trusty unicorn steed. My stories have since become slightly more sophisticated.

I’m pretty bad at Twitter. Like, I still don’t really get it?

I read. A lot. My worst nightmare is people asking me what my favorite book/author is–that question has no answer. I love fantasy first and foremost, but I’ll read just about anything. The last book I cried over: Leigh Bardugo’s Ruin and Rising. The last literary book I read: Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Book I’m itching to get my paws on: Sarah Rees Brennan’s Unmade.

I graduated from the University of Florida. With a major in Political Science and a minor in English. I once took a class called “Victorian Vampires” from a Romanian professor named Dragan who wore only black. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

I play the piano, sing, paint, and do calligraphy. My husband says I belong in an Austen novel since I’m such an “accomplished young lady.”

I am a fangirl. Full stop. I belong to more fandoms than I care to name. Supernatural, Doctor Who, BtVS, Battlestar Galactica, GoT…the list goes on. And on. I have no shame. What can I say, I love to squeeeee!

When I’ve had a few glasses of wine, I start to sound reeeaalll Southern. But that’s okay–there’s something to be said for growing up in the South.

And that’s me in a nutshell!

Be sure to head over to Dannie Morin’s blog to check out the other Mentee bios!

On Persistence

by | Jan 23, 2014 |

Yeah, this was totally me.

Yeah, this was totally me.

Writing always came easy for me. When most kids my age were still struggling with mastering proper spelling, I was already scribbling away at elaborate fantasies inspired by the chapter books I checked out from the library. I wrote in my diary nearly every day, recounting adventures at school and cataloguing my dreams and aspirations (I wanted to be a vet and/or jockey, in case you were wondering). In high school, English was inarguably my best subject; I glowed with pride whenever my teacher read my essays aloud in class and jumped at the chance to complete creative writing assignments for extra credit.

But it wasn’t until I took an elective creative writing class in college that the idea of “being a writer” really took hold. The other students in the workshop were impressed with my writing; one girl said my style was “Fitzgeraldian” (considering F. Scott Fitzgerald was my favorite author at the time, this rated as high praise) and the professor said “the rhythm and pacing” of my prose was “exquisite.” (Other comments hinted that my prose tended to be purple and my plot lines were derivative. I chose to ignore those comments.)

"That which we call a…nope, I got nothin'. This poet shirt must be defective."

“That which we call a…nope, I got nothin’.
This poet shirt must be defective.”

And somewhere between one short story by Tobias Wolff and another by David Foster Wallace, an idea took hold: I could be a writer. I could put my innate talents to use and craft genius, wonderful, lucrative stories for a living. And so it began. I gleefully penned my first few short stories, and incubated the idea for my first novel. And then I wrote my first novel. My first novel! I had arrived!

I won’t lie: visions of sugarplums (or more accurately, six-figure book deals) danced in my head. But it wasn’t long before I realized the truth: that vision couldn’t have been more naive.

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To the Dump

by | Jan 20, 2014 |

Here's some necessary information!

Here’s some necessary information for ya!

Mention the words “info dump” to any self-respecting writer and they’re bound to go a bit green around the gills. The two dreaded words refer to exposition in a story or novel that, rather than being doled out sparingly throughout the manuscript, happens all at once. The action is moving along, the characters are doing their thing, and then all of a sudden–BAM! The author drops a big dump-truck full of information on the unsuspecting reader.

As you have probably inferred from my description, info-dumping is not a good thing. Even if the information is crucial to the reader’s understanding of what’s happening in the book, exposition done poorly is usually bad news for a story. The most rip-roaringest of adventures will screech to a grinding halt when faced with an info-dump. The swooniest romance will suddenly feel dry and boring. Mysteries heave a last gasp and then die.

But the problem is, exposition is hard. An author, who is intimately familiar with her setting, her plot, and her characters (having, um, created the whole thing), must find a way to give her readers enough information to understand the story without smothering them under a pile of history, backstory, and unnecessary detail. She must avoid info-dumping at all costs. But, to make her job even harder, she must also avoid the opposite problem–not providing enough exposition in crucial points, leaving her readers confused and frustrated because they don’t know what’s going on.

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Inspiration

by | Nov 18, 2013 |

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”  –Pablo Picasso

I’ll tell you a secret: inspiration is a fickle, fickle mistress.

The enchanted well is full of absinthe (according to Hemingway.)

The enchanted well is full of absinthe
(according to Hemingway.)

One of the questions people ask me most frequently about my writing process is, “Where do you get your inspiration?” Despite the frequency of its asking, the question usually catches me off guard, leaving me struggling to answer with half-sentences and mixed metaphors. Why is the question so difficult? Not because I am never inspired, nor because inspiration doesn’t exist, but because at any given time I have no idea where my next jolt of inspiration will come from. There is no enchanted well that I drink from, no mystical invocation to a Muse, no Zeus’ fire bolt from Olympus. Gee, I wish.

Nope. There’s just me, and my weird little brain, and the world around me.

Inspiration comes from all sorts of places, and sometimes nowhere at all. Confused yet? Let me try to explain. An dream, an image, a phrase, a name, or even a single word; sometimes the simplest, most banal occurrence can set off a veritable waterfall of ideas that lead to plot outlines, interesting characters, entire made-up worlds. One of the major world-building elements in my most recent novel was based almost entirely on a recurring dream I had years ago. I wrote a short story inspired by nothing more than a short phrase that popped into my head one random afternoon. Reading, living, watching, listening, being. Daydreaming. A lot of daydreaming. And sometimes that’s all it takes.

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To NaNo, or Not To NaNo?

by | Oct 21, 2013 |

Sharpen those pencils, it's nearly November!

Sharpen those pencils, it’s nearly November!

Every November, something wild and wonderful happens: hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world commit to writing at least 50,000 words on a draft of a novel. Any novel, any genre–anything you want! This phenomenon is called National Novel Writing Month, shortened rather snappily to NaNoWriMo. The idea of NaNo is this: many people talk or fantasize about writing a novel, but never actually get the ball rolling because they’re afraid their writing will be crap. The goal of NaNo, therefore, is to push people past that initial phase of fear and paralysis and challenge writers of all walks of life to just write–quality is largely immaterial. The goal is simply to spend one month cranking out a large quantity of words, through the end of a first draft.

I really love the spirit of NaNoWriMo. I think it’s a great motivational kick in the pants for anyone who has always thought about writing a novel but never gotten around to it. Or anyone who started a novel (“It was a dark and stormy night….”) and never gotten around to finishing it. More than just being an amorphous challenge, NaNoWriMo offers a whole slew of tools and support for WriMos–a website where you can post synopses, log word-counts, and chat with other participants. There are organized NaNoWriMo mixer events and write-ins, where you can discuss your progress with other participants or sit in the corner with your laptop and a gallon of coffee and type furiously until your fingernails come off. There are nearly as many ways to meaningfully participate in NaNo as there are days in November.

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The Query Conundrum

by | Oct 16, 2013 |

All done! What's next?

All done! What’s next?

For those of you who aren’t super familiar with the publishing industry, here’s the way one goes about getting a novel traditionally published: One, write a book. Two, find yourself a talented literary agent with connections to plenty of editors and publishers. Three, cry yourself to sleep every night until your agent lands you a book deal. Voila! New York Times bestseller list, here we come!

Now, if you aren’t particularly good at picking up on internet sarcasm, I’ll let you in on a little secret: that process isn’t as easy as it sounds. And even if you’ve written a book (or two…or three) and polished it until it prances and tosses its clever little head like a well-groomed show pony, you still have to find yourself a literary agent. That’s where the dreaded query letter comes in.

A query letter is basically a single page letter from a completely unknown author to a very busy literary agent who receives approximately one bajillion query letters every day. The letter must hook the agent’s attention, then quickly sum up the main characters in the novel, what they want, how they intend to get it, who or what is standing in their way, and what will happen if they don’t succeed. The query must deftly encapsulate not only the central conflict of the novel, but also display world-building, character development, and reflect the tone and voice of the book. Finally, it must be personable, professional, and interesting. All in just about 250 words. Sound like fun?

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