Tips for Crafting High Action Scenes

with guest Sandra Orchard
 
By definition high action scenes have lots of action, right? So they should be easy to infuse with tension and conflict, right? 

Well… no, it’s not so easy.

Play-by-plays of fight scenes and car chases can get boring real quick. But these tips will help ramp up your readers’ interest:

1)    Economize. Keep words, sentences and paragraphs short, simple and strong. Direct, easy to understand sentences and words make us feel as if things are moving faster. Instead of: “He planted his hands on the bar and swung his legs over the gleaming marble countertop.” Write: “He vaulted over the bar.”

2)    Get the details right. Despite what you see on TV shows, a cop doesn’t chamber a bullet as he approaches a suspect’s house. Gun smoke doesn’t smell like cordite—hasn’t for years. Know your weapons. Know your equipment. Know what happens when you take a kick to the head. For fun, check out how many times John McClane should’ve died in Die Hard 2-5 in this YouTube montage. 

3)    Keep action in the order it happens. You don’t write: Before he peeked around the door frame, he drew his gun. If you want to build the suspense, you might write: As he edged toward the door, he drew his gun. But in the middle of a high action scene, write: He drew his gun and stormed the room.

4)    Don’t tell how fast things are happening, such as: Faster than he could set down his glass, the guy took a swing. Show it, using short, crisp actions: The guy punched his jaw, glass and all.

5)    Tell the what, not the why…with a caveat. In the heat of a fight, we react. Our actions
are reflexive. We punch the brakes the instant we see a cop. It doesn’t matter whether we’re speeding or not. It’s a reflex. We don’t think first. Visceral, subconscious reactions, and reflexes happen before rational thought, action or speech. So… keep the action realistic. In the middle of a storm of bullets, is not the place for witty dialogue or the place to spend a paragraph contemplating inner conflicts. Yet, it’s the inner reaction that makes it interesting. So give the reader glimpses of that tension through brief, brief, brief thoughts and snippets of dialogue.

6)    Give the scene purpose. A scene should advance the plot and/or characterize. It shouldn’t be included just because it’s cool. Does your protagonist fight dirty? Does he anticipate his opponent’s next move? Would he shoot an unarmed man? In the midst of the action, his choices tell a lot about him, as his opponent’s does him. Maximize that.

 My favorite example of a high action or at least high intensity scene is from my Daphne DuMaurier Award winning entry that hasn’t been published. This excerpt occurs as their plane is crashing:

Oh, no, they were going to … cra— No. Not crash. Not CRASH!
Angie gripped Gabe’s hand and tried to breathe. Just breathe.
The plane slammed to a halt and Angie shot forward. The seatbelt dug into her stomach, squelching her outcry. But she’d made it to the ground. Alive.
A hiss filled the gaping silence. Fumes. She smelled fumes. And … smoke.
A heavy hand clamped her shoulder, jerked her upright. She stared at the front of the plane. Unable to move. Unable to think.
“Angie, snap out of it. We’ve got to get out.” Gabe charged to the front of the plane.
She sucked in a breath. Had to get out.
The cockpit burst into flames.
Get out! She ripped off her oxygen mask. “The girl. Save the girl.”
The plane groaned. Pitched sideways.
Angie’s pulse thundered in her ears. She fumbled with her seatbelt buckle. “Release! Release! Why won’t—?”
Flames lapped up the walls outside the cockpit. Black smoke spewed from its door.

I seem to like high action scenes against the elements. This excerpt is from a scene in Perilous Waters. Jen, the heroine, has been pushed into glacial water and rescuers in the boat have failed to reach her. There’s a lot more action prior to this and after it, but this offers a good snapshot.

Sam grabbed the life ring from Jake. “Hang onto that rope,” he shouted and dove into the river. His muscles seized instantly. Arm through the ring, he clawed to the surface with a roar, the fire in his blood overpowering the paralyzing pain. Where was she?
He twisted every which way. Water blurred his vision. He would not let her die the way he let— He swallowed the boulder-sized lump that caught in his throat and dug into the water.
“To your right,” Jake shouted from shore.
With a powerful kick, Sam surged toward her. For a fleeting second, he caught strands of hair. But they slipped through his fingers. The life ring was slowing him down. He started to pull out his arm.
“Don’t you dare let go,” Jake ordered.
Sam kicked harder. She’d been under too long. “Jen!”

This is from Deadly Devotion, book 1 in the Port Aster Secrets Series. (Blind Trust being book 2) And this shows the action leading up to the confrontation.

A cut-short scream broke the calm.
Tom’s heart climbed to his throat. He grabbed his radio. “This is Adam 64 requesting backup. I have an 11-24 at the corner of Turret Road and Turnbull, and a 10-67 in the woods. I’m checking it out.”
He sprinted toward the sound of the scream—certain it had been Kate’s. He prayed that she’d merely been frightened by a wild animal.
Tree branches slapped his face. He hurtled a log, laser focused on the direction of the scream. Why hadn’t she just trusted him to look into this?
A small shed came into view thirty yards ahead of him.
He shoved away the image of what he’d found the last time he came across an abandoned shed in the woods. Slowing his pace, he strained to hear over the roar of his pulse thrumming in his ears.
A thud. A grunt. A whimper. Then the scrape of something—or someone—being dragged across the ground.
Or this one from Fatal Inheritance. I don’t have fight scenes that I can show without being spoilers. So they’re more high urgency scenes. Pick what you think demonstrates it the best.

At the sound of dead air swallowing Bec’s whispered “Hurry,” Josh floored the gas pedal. What kind of car thief shot at a house?
Josh tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Was he reading the situation all wrong? Were the note, the incident in the barn, and these shots really about scaring Bec off her grandparents’ property?
He banked the corner too fast. His wheels bit into the graveled shoulder. He cranked the wheel hard to the left then right, pulling the car straight, wishing he could get a grip as easily on what was going on.

 

 Your Turn: Share a sentence or two from a high action scene (or any scene that would benefit from more immediacy) in your WIP and let’s see what we can do with it. 

Today I'll be giving away an E-version of Blind Trust to one commenter. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition. 

The E-version of Blind Trust is on sale for the special promotional price of $6.99 until July 14th.

Blind Trust

Caught inadvertently passing counterfeit money while buying groceries for her neighbor, Kate Adams lands in the middle of another one of Detective Tom Parker’s investigations. Determined to prove her sweet neighbor’s innocence, Kate stumbles into a pit of intrigue that is far deeper than a two-bit counterfeit operation–and strikes too close to home for comfort. As family secrets come to light, her world–and her budding romance with Tom–begin to crumble. To Kate, it’s clear that she won’t be safe until she uncovers all of Port Aster’s secrets. But is it too late for her and Tom?

Bio: Award-winning author Sandra Orchard writes inspirational romantic suspense/mysteries for Love Inspired Suspense and Revell Publishing. A mother of three grown children, she lives in Niagara, Canada with her real-life-hero husband and writes full time…when not doting on her young grandchildren.  You can learn more about Sandra’s books and bonus features at www.SandraOrchard.com or she’d love you to connect at www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchard

How To Write A Romantic Suspense

with guest Sandra Orchard

Hey, everyone, it’s great to be back to visit here at Seekerville. I hope you are all writing like crazy for Speedbo month. Today’s post will be of particular interest to the romantic suspense writers in the group and especially timely for those participating in the Killer Voice Love Inspired Suspense pitch.

I was invited to write about how to weave the suspense thread in an inspirational romance. But my kneejerk response to that concept is…

“You don’t!”

A romantic suspense is NOT a romance with a suspense thread. If you aspire to write romantic suspense, make it your goal to write a novel that is 100% suspense AND 100% romance.

Not 50-50 and definitely not 70-30 or 30-70.

In a true romantic suspense, the suspense and the romance start together and end together and are inseparably intertwined throughout. You can’t wrap up the romance, then spend 100 pages solving the mystery. That’s fine in a “suspense novel with romantic elements”, but not in a romantic suspense.

Likewise, you cannot delay starting the suspense.

My editors want the danger to be evident, ideally from the first line, or paragraph, definitely before the end of the first page. For Love Inspired Suspense, both the hero and heroine need to be introduced and connected to the suspense within the first chapter. In single title romantic suspense, depending on chapter lengths, you might introduce the heroine and suspense plot in the first chapter, the hero and his connection in the second, each with clear goals, and bring them together in the third, perhaps clashing over opposing goals or opposing means of reaching the same goal.

I personally prefer to see both the hero and heroine introduced, and if possible to meet, in the first chapter. But either way, jumping right into the suspense is key, you can’t spend the beginning writing set-up* or only writing about the romance or you will lose your reader before the suspense starts.

Romantic suspense readers want both. And they BOTH have to matter.

To succeed, you need to be skilled at writing both a satisfying romance, and at devising a suspense plot that is complicated enough that the reader won’t easily figure it out or, worse, become annoyed with your characters when they don’t.

Although not essential, I also personally like to keep the bad guy a mystery to both my reader and my hero and heroine. That means, I tend not to include scenes in the villain’s pov (point of view)  unless they are anonymous or ambiguous and invite more questions than they answer. To me, keeping the villain a mystery adds more interest and tension to the plot, since the reader will only see things unfold from the hero and heroine’s viewpoint, and therefore share their emotional reactions to what’s happening on the page. Moreover, it keeps the romantic tension center stage, instead of detouring to a few pages where the hero and heroine might not even be on the page.

What is essential, however, is that the heroine be in jeopardy throughout the novel, and that both the hero and heroine have a stake in the outcome.

Let me repeat that another way.

The suspense plot shouldn’t simply be something the hero and heroine stumble into, which thereby puts them in danger, until they find a way out. It shouldn’t be a situation with which they have no personal connection other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Not that that can’t make a compelling story. My Daphne DuMaurier Award winning manuscript was a compelling read to the readers, agents and editors who gave it high scores. However, publishers turned it down precisely because the hero and heroine had no personal stake in the outcome of the jeopardy they’d happened into…well, besides getting out alive. :)

There was tons of romance. There was lots of suspense of the “oh, no, what’s going to happen next?” variety, and the two were tightly intertwined. But aside from survival, the outcome of the suspense plot had no personal consequences to either of them.
 
Do you understand the difference?

Another important thing to keep in mind as you devise your suspense plot is to play fair with your reader. You can’t pull a convenient explanation or twist out of the blue; you have to set it up first.

Details are the key to setting up suspense and having fun with the reader. As a writer you leave all kinds of toys on the floor in a scene, use them. (If you missed my previous post about toys, you can check it out here.)

Lastly, don’t wrap up your suspense too early and leave the reader with only the romance to support the end of the book. You need to meet readers’ expectations, and romantic suspense readers want both romance and suspense all the way through. And… inspy readers want to also see a satisfying spiritual growth or realization in the characters.

Being forced together in the crucible of the suspense plot forges and colors the hero and heroine’s character growth, growth that must take place before the romance can culminate in a happy ending.

Read that last paragraph again.

It is the bare bones blueprint of how the essential elements of a romantic suspense are inextricably connected.

But keep in mind that you can’t slow down for many home and apple pie romance scenes or deep spiritual introspection or discussions in the middle of a fast-paced suspense. They’re fine in a straight romance. But need to be utilized sparingly in romantic suspense.

I hope this brief overview has provided a better grasp of areas of your story that might need some attention. Feel free to ask questions. I’m out of town so my responses may be delayed, but I’ll be happy to try to answer your questions.

One last thing, to avoid potential confusion, to those familiar with my trade-length book, Deadly Devotion, it is not a romantic suspense novel. It is categorized as a mystery. The three books in the Port Aster Secrets series, taken as a whole, would more closely approximate a romantic suspense with its requisite HEA…if I don’t kill the heroine first. (just kidding…sort of ;)  )

* For an illustration of what I mean by not starting with too much setup, check out the draft of the opening scene I deleted from my April release, Perilous Waters, then compare it to the excerpt of the opening in the final draft.

Any questions?

Sandra’s upcoming release, Perilous Waters (April, Love Inspired Suspense) is already available at Harlequin.com and will be on store shelves in a couple of weeks. 


 
UNDER SUSPICION

For FBI agent Sam Steele, there’s no room for error or emotions on his latest undercover assignment. Getting close to gallery owner Jennifer Robbins while on an Alaskan cruise is the only way to catch her dealing stolen art. Out on the icy seas, Jen suddenly goes from suspect to victim when she’s targeted by a deadly enemy. And Sam’s mission goes from investigating an art crime to protecting the woman who’s begun to melt his heart. As danger looms closer, he’ll do anything to save her life—even if it costs him his own.


  
Bio

Sandra Orchard is a multi-award-winning Canadian author of inspirational romantic suspense/mysteries with Love Inspired Suspense and Revell. An active member in American Christian Fiction Writers, The Word Guild, and Romance Writers of America, she enjoys helping writers hone their skills. To find out more about her novels, and to read interesting bonus features, please visit www.sandraorchard.com or connect at www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchard 

Today there are TWO chances to win Sandra Orchard's April 1 release, Perilous Waters.  One Seekerville commenter will win a Kindle copy when available -winner announced in the Weekend Edition.

Now head on over to Sandra's blog (and then come back) and enter her giveaway for a chance to win Perilous Waters in print: http://www.SandraOrchard.com/blog

 You can also check out Sandra's Alaskan Cruise photos. Inspiration for Perilous Waters!

 

Day 18 of Speedbo!

Welcome Guest Sandra Orchard!

A Tip for Choosing the Strengths and Weaknesses in Your Characters

By Sandra Orchard

While out for a walk with my husband, I made an offhanded comment about one of his character traits—a comment that apparently came out sounding a tad negative—to which he responded, “You know, some people would find that a strength not a weakness!”

And therein lies the key to choosing your character’s primary strength and weakness.

Let me start with an example from my current release, Deadly Devotion, in which the heroine’s greatest strength is that she chooses to believe the best about people, which manifests as fierce loyalty. The hero, a detective, who has learned from experience that people are rarely what they seem, sees the trait as a weakness, a potentially dangerous weakness.

Yet, he begrudgingly admires it, too. It’s been a long time since he’s felt as certain about anyone as Kate Adams is about her friend.

Even so, if asked what his greatest strength is, he’d say it’s the opposite of Kate’s. He’s realistic—he sees people and situations for what they really are. How can that be a weakness?

Well… Kate would call his realism cynicism. Does that sound more like a weakness to you?

Any trait taken to either extreme can be viewed as a weakness or strength. That’s the technical sweetness of choosing a fatal flaw that lies somewhere between.

In a story, the role of the character’s flaw is to rush him headlong into the black moment, while the role of his greatest strength is to enable him to save the day.

So… will the hero’s cynicism, and resulting distrust, drive him toward disaster? Or will his realistic perspective of the situation save the day? 

Will the heroine’s faith in people lead her to gullibly trust the wrong person and put her life at risk, or will her loyalty save the day?

Could go either way couldn’t it?

Photo credit: Crestock/donskarpo

The heroine could learn that it’s better to look at the world realistically, instead of through rose-colored glasses. Or she might convince the hero that sometimes he just has to believe in people and have faith in who they are, because when everything is at stake, faith may be all he has left—faith in God and faith in his friends?

The beauty of choosing strengths and weaknesses that are essentially a matter of perspective or extremes of the same trait is that it makes the character’s growth very organic. What he or she becomes is rooted in his or her personality as depicted from page one. But… along the way she’ll be forced to change what she believes about the trait. And in the process will learn something.

Let’s consider a few other examples. I’m a highly task-oriented person. I esteem that trait in others. I get things done. It’s a positive trait—a strength—right?

Not always. Not if I routinely choose accomplishing tasks over spending time with my family or friends. I’m sure we can all imagine plenty of ways the seemingly valuable trait could cause trouble.

What about a confident person? If their flaw is that they need to succeed, their confidence could soon look more like being domineering.

The possibilities are boundless. Persuasiveness can be perceived as manipulation. Self-assurance as arrogance.  Courage as recklessness.

A self-reliant person might not be able to rely on others. A determined person might not give up even when it’s prudent to do so.

Of course, make sure the traits and fatal flaw you choose for your characters are rooted in their wound. For example, a determined person’s flaw might be that he “fears failure”. Perhaps in his past he failed to stick to a task and the result was tragic, and he’s vowed never to let that happen again. Or a determined person’s flaw might be that he “needs results”, because of a completely different type of event in his past that deeply affected him.

In my heroine’s case, her father was arrested when she was a child and died in police custody. She was told and believes he did nothing wrong. People who thought otherwise were cruel to her, and those experiences caused her to become fiercely loyal to family and friends, to believe in them no matter how things looked.

Your turn: What are some other examples of positive and negative extremes of the same trait and a character flaw that might lead to them?

Deadly Devotion

Kate knows the truth is out there—but if she’s right, that means a killer is out there too.

Research scientists Kate Adams and Daisy Leacock were on the brink of a breakthrough for treating depression with herbal medicine when Daisy was suddenly found dead. Kate knows that her mentor’s death wasn’t suicide or a careless accident—and she’s determined to do whatever it takes to unearth the truth about what happened to the woman who changed her life.

Former FBI agent Tom Parker is finding it hard to adjust to life back in his hometown of Port Aster. Though an old buddy gave him a job as a detective on the local police force, not everyone approves. Tom’s just trying to keep a low profile, so when Kate Adams demands he reopen the investigation into her friend’s death, he knows his job is at stake. But despite his attraction to her, Tom thinks Kate herself may have something to hide.
As evidence mounts, a web of intrigue is woven around the sleepy town of Port Aster. Can Kate uncover the truth? Or will Tom stand in her way?

Sandra Orchard is an award-winning Canadian author of inspirational romantic suspense with Love Inspired Suspense and Revell. She is an active member in American Christian Fiction Writers, The Word Guild, and Romance Writers of America. To find out more about her novels, and to read interesting bonus features, please visit www.sandraorchard.com or connect at www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchard

Guest Blogger Sandra Orchard on Layering

A Suspense Writer’s Technique for Adding New Layers to your Story by Sandra Orchard

While reading a straight romance recently, I noted many incidental details that, in the end, served no other purpose than to convey a picture of the setting or a visual of the character. Yet as a suspense writer reading about the “blue satin throw pillow” on the sofa, for example, my mind immediately concluded this has got to be significant.

Someone is going to get smothered by that pillow!

Okay, this is romance, I reminded myself. No one dies.

But as I read further, I realized that non-suspense writers miss out on a playground full of opportunities to layer more depth into their stories.

For me, one of the most fun parts of writing a mystery/suspense is dreaming up ways to plant clues that will divert my readers’ suspicions in multiple directions.

But way more cool than that is finding the tidbits that my subconscious planted, and playing with them.  

Your subconscious is doing this, too, whether you realize it or not.

A mystery reader—because she’s attuned to looking for clues and spying out red herrings—will stumble over many toys the non-suspense writer unwittingly leaves lying around her story. Toys that, if she noticed them, and played with them, could add interesting new layers to the plot, or give added depth to a character, or perhaps even give the story an intriguing twist.

Let me give a simple example from the movie The Pacifier, in which a disgraced Navy Seal must babysit a family of undisciplined children to protect them from bad guys hunting for the secret their father took to his grave. This story had a lot of fun details. Things like the young girl crossing her eyes to make the baby cry and annoy Mr. Navy Seal. Or Mr. Navy Seal having to do a silly panda dance that the dad had made up to get the young boy to sleep. The kind of things that might randomly pop into your head as you’re writing. But what makes them even better is that, in the end, the screenwriter drew them, and many other, apparently incidental details together to defeat the bad guys and recover the secret.  

Just about every writer has had that serendipitous experience at some point in a story when they come up with an ingenious element and realize that they’d unconsciously laid the groundwork for it all along.

Today I want to help you recreate that experience every time you sit down to write.

Here’s what you do: First read what you wrote yesterday and note every specific detail you included for which you don’t already have a plan.

Ask yourself questions about this detail, the most important being how could I use this in the story. What hooks readers is a specific detail that doesn’t quite fit. It suggests possibilities or raises questions that can help you layer greater depth into your characters or plot.

Then play with ways to include the ideas that seem the most promising.

Clear as mud?

Let’s go back to the blue satin pillow. It must have some significance to the pov character, since she took note of it as she walked into the room. Right?

Why? Why blue? Why satin? Is this an heirloom pillow passed down from her grandmother? Does it hold special memories for her? Was it a gift from her first love?

Did she have a parent or spouse or child who was critically ill and used to lie on the sofa with his or her head on the pillow? Did someone sew it for her? Did she sew it? Was it a shower gift for a wedding that never happened, but she could never bear to part with it?

Is it the only “rich” item in a room full of shabby belongings? A remnant of a life she left behind? A life she was pushed from? Is this the only throw pillow in the room, or one of many? Is it a pillow that wasn’t there the last time she was in the room and doesn’t know how it got there? Did she have pillow fights with a beloved sibling as a kid? A sibling who has since died?

Hopefully you can see how any one of these questions could spawn some interesting depth to the character or a twist in the plot that the author hadn’t considered. It’s a great technique to use when you’re feeling blocked or feel like your story is slowing.

I like to write the ideas that come to me in a cluster map. Circling each one as it pops into my head, exploring the answers with lines and more circles, noting how a new idea might connect with other things going on in the story. The exercise is the writer’s equivalent of tipping over the toy box and playing. Have fun with it and see where it leads.

What techniques do you use to add additional dimensions to your story?

I'll be giving away a book to each of two winners- your choice of one of the three books in my Undercover Cops series, or an ARC of my Revell release to be mailed in spring 2013. Please say you'd like to be entered in the comments section. Winners will be announced in the Weekend Edition!

Sandra Orchard is the award winning author of several romantic suspense novels, including the RT’s Reviewer’s Choice award nominee, Critical Condition. She writes for Harlequin's Love Inspired Suspense line, and has a new mystery/rs series debuting with Revell in June 2013. A member of ACFW, RWA and The Word Guild (Canada), Sandra loves to encourage other writers in their journey. She graduated from McMaster University and taught high school math for several semesters before starting her own family, which she homeschooled. She now writes full time…when not doting on her first grandchild. She lives in Niagara, Canada with her husband and the two children that are still at home. You can learn more about Sandra’s books and fun extras at www.SandraOrchard.com or connect at www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchard

Critical Condition (from Love Inspired Suspense)

There's a murderer in the hospital, and nurse Tara Peterson is determined to prove it. With mysterious deaths in the cancer ward, anyone could be next. But no one wants to believe her…except undercover agent Zach Davis. The murderer wants Tara's suspicions silenced, permanently. To protect Tara, Zach lets her in on his secret, and unwittingly into his heart. Tara and her three-year-old daughter are like the family he lost years before. Zach will risk everything to keep them safe, no matter the cost.

Recently nominated by Romantic Times Magazine for a Reviewer’s Choice award, Critical Condition is the third book in Sandra’s series, Undercover Cops: Fighting for justice puts their lives—and hearts—on the line. 

Welcome Guest Blogger Sandra Orchard!

Missy, here. And I'm so happy to welcome my friend and fellow Love Inspired author, Sandra Orchard, who writes for Love Inspired Suspense. Today, I'd love to give away a copy of her debut release, Deep Cover, in e-book for Kindle. Just leave a comment letting me know to enter you in the drawing. And now...Sandra!

Do you remember those first days, weeks, years of writing fiction when the stories flowed unhindered from your pen, or keyboard?

Then…you learned about character arcs and pacing and rules, and voila, suddenly, you’ve got Writer’s Block. You realize the story isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, but you don’t know how to fix it.

Let’s stop here for a second and celebrate how far you’ve come in your writing. That is, you now recognize that meandering plot or episodic scenes or cardboard characters. Progress, yeah!

But what now?

I face writer’s block halfway through almost every book I write. I usually have the story well outlined before I start, but somewhere along the way, the characters lead me astray, and I blithely follow…only to find I’ve written myself into a corner.

Today, I’ll share three methods I’ve found helpful in breaking through writer’s block when stomping around the house, ranting about unruly characters and devouring chocolate—God’s most story-inspiring food group—doesn’t work.

1)   Get together with a couple of writing buddies and talk out your story, what’s working, what’s not. More often than not, one of my writing buddies will spot the problem and we’re able to brainstorm fixes. Admittedly, the fixes are never as easy to write as they make it sound, because first I have to divorce myself from what I’ve already written. But it is precisely because my friends aren’t married to my writing that they gave a clearer perspective.

2)   Since most of us aren’t fortunate enough to have writing buddies at our beck and call, here’s a trick I picked up from Story Weaver to kick start your creativity. Jot down three nonsense words. Don’t think about it. Just write the first words that come to mind. Then imagine that all three words are part of the same phrase and come up with as many different ideas as you can to explain the phrase. Now try to integrate those ideas into a single story concept. Don’t worry if you can’t, the purpose of the exercise is to break free of Writer’s Block by shifting out of a forced creative mode into analysis mode. Ironically, I found the opposite was what worked for me (i.e. the creative mode of coming up with ideas that made sense of the nonsense words).

Here’s what I did: I chose dog, black, and gun as my nonsense words. I came up with a half dozen creative explanations, not expecting to use them in my story, but by the end I’d created an entire opening scene for my next book. Someone in a black car pulls up to where the heroine is walking her sister’s dog and shoots at her. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the kernel of the inciting incident came from doing the silly exercise, so now I’m sold on this exercise. If it doesn’t work for you, try…

3)   Skip ahead to a scene you know how to write and write it. Oftentimes the bridging scenes to get there will reveal themselves as you write this later scene.

When all else fails, do something else. The solutions to story problems often come when you give your mind time to work on them subconsciously. But don’t stay away from your novel too long or you’ll never finish it.

How about you? What tricks have you found helpful in overcoming writer’s block?

Other stuff you might want to know:

Bio:

Sandra Orchard lives in rural Ontario, Canada where inspiration abounds for her romantic suspense novels set in the fictional Niagara town she's created as their backdrop. Married with three grown children, when not writing, she enjoys hanging out with family, brainstorming new stories with fellow writers, and hiking or kayaking in God's beautiful creation. Her debut Love Inspired Suspense Deep Cover is now in stores. Or buy at http://bit.ly/DeepCover

Book Blurb:

IDENTITY: GUARDED

Maintaining his cover cost undercover cop Rick Gray the woman he loved. Sweet Ginny Bryson never really knew Rick. He never gave her the chance. Not then, and not now, when he's back with a new alias to gather evidence against Ginny's uncle. The man's crimes led to Rick's partner's death, and Rick wants justice to be served. But his investigation is stirring up trouble, and Ginny is smack-dab in the middle. Someone wants Ginny to pay the price for what her uncle has done. But how can Rick protect her without blowing his cover, jeopardizing his assignment...and risking both their lives?

Deep Cover is the first book in the series, Undercover Cops: Fighting for justice puts their lives—and hearts—on the line.

Book 2 ~ Shades of Truth ~ March 2012

A compassionate youth worker fighting to preserve her dying father’s legacy battles the justice-driven detective who threatens her mission and her heart.     

Book 3 ~ Dose of Deception ~ TBA (title tentative)

A nurse. An undercover cop. A killer who’ll stop at nothing to avoid being caught.

Connect with Sandra Online:

Visit her website ~ www.SandraOrchard.com

Visit her personal blog ~ http://www.SandraOrchard.blogspot.com

Like her Facebook Page ~ www.Facebook.com/SandraOrchard

Subscribe to her newsletter ~ http://bit.ly/OrchardNews