4 replies to this topic

[Teresa]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a published romance writer (I write under Teresa Roblin). Just completed my third novel and have sent off my first script for analysis.

I'm a plotter and wish to enter all my lovely info before I get down to the fun stuff of writing.

Since I'm a visual learner, is there anyone living in the toronto area that would meet with me to pow=wow about writing and to walk me through Storyist??

It would be greatly appreciated, Teresa

[Marguerite]

Hi, Teresa:
Welcome to the forums! And congratulations on your books. Please tell us more (within the limits of what you are comfortable sharing, of course). "Romance" is a very big field.

Alas, I live nowhere near Toronto, or I'd be happy to help. But Steve has produced a number of videos that are quite useful—not as useful as hands-on, I know, but better than staring at a manual or a help file. Send him a PM, and he will let you know where to find them.

I write historicals, some romantic, some not—none published so far, but I hope to have one finished by the fall and making the rounds. Storyist has been invaluable: it reminded me just last night of a minor character's child whom I had completely forgotten ever creating!
Best,
Marguerite

[Teresa]

Marguerite, on 14 June 2011 - 05:31 PM, said:

Hi, Teresa:
Welcome to the forums! And congratulations on your books. Please tell us more (within the limits of what you are comfortable sharing, of course). "Romance" is a very big field.

Alas, I live nowhere near Toronto, or I'd be happy to help. But Steve has produced a number of videos that are quite useful—not as useful as hands-on, I know, but better than staring at a manual or a help file. Send him a PM, and he will let you know where to find them.

I write historicals, some romantic, some not—none published so far, but I hope to have one finished by the fall and making the rounds. Storyist has been invaluable: it reminded me just last night of a minor character's child whom I had completely forgotten ever creating!
Best,
Marguerite

[Teresa]

Hi Marguerite,

The first two were romantic comedies with a paranormal twist of magic. The third, (hopefully fourth and fifth) are werewolves.

You said that storyist reminded you about a minor character - how did it do that?

Tree

[Marguerite]

I write descriptions in the character sheets—mostly when I first begin imagining a story but periodically throughout. I recently set up fields in the character sheets for Debra Dixon's Goal/Motivation/Conflict charts (not for this particular character, but for the primaries and secondaries—anyone who affects the plot).

In any case, I was checking through all my character sheets as part of setting up the GMC fields and realized that I had given this character not only several problematic pregnancies (stillbirths, miscarriages, infant deaths: this is the 16th century) but a living daughter, who in her beastly husband's mind didn't count as a "child." And since that's a rather revealing detail about how little regard people in that time and place had for women, I decided to go back and weave a few sentences about it into an earlier scene.

But if I hadn't written it down on the character sheet, I would have forgotten that the "childless" villain in fact had a daughter right there in plain sight.

Storyist has saved my bacon on many more occasions than that, as I'm constantly forgetting things, but this is a particularly recent occurrence.
best,
Marguerite