Just Peachy!

Wow!  I made a Peach Pecan Praline pie for friends a few days ago, and it was awesome!  I would’ve taken a picture so you could see what it looked like, but to tell you the truth, the four of us inhaled it so quickly, the thought never crossed my mind until it was too late! ha 

I’ve never made one of these before—it was an experiment and a slight departure from my normal recipe for Apple Pecan Praline pie, but we actually liked it even more!

If you’d care to create this fantastic dessert, here’s what you do.  However, I must warn you—don’t tackle this recipe if you want something easy and fast! 

First of all, I made my normal top and bottom crust with the recipe that follows:

           

2 cups flour

            1 teaspoon salt

            3/4 cup Crisco

            4 tablespoons water

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl.  Add Crisco and cut in with a pastry blender until well mixed.  Add water and knead.  Roll out about 1/8 in. thick on wax paper, wrap crust around rolling pin, lift dough, and place in pie plate.  Press dough around top with thumbs against index fingers to form a finished look.

Then peel and cut up about 8 to 10 peaches.  Taste them first and be sure they’re sweet peaches, or the outcome might not be what you want.  Next add one tablespoon lemon juice and mix well.  Then add 3/4 cup white granulated sugar, a pinch of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.  I cook this mixture about 3 to 4 minutes in the microwave before pouring it into the piecrust to make sure the peaches get done. 

Next cut strips of crust about one inch wide and lay them across the top of the pie in a crisscross pattern.  Bake the pie at 375º for about 35 minutes or until the top crust is lightly browned and the peaches are bubbling.  Before removing pie from the oven, melt half of a stick of butter in a small saucepan, then add 3/4 cup brown sugar and cook together until sugar dissolves.  Next add two tablespoons of milk and one cup of pecans (I use halves and break a few to make them smaller) and bring to a boil, cooking a few minutes until it begins to slightly thicken.  Take the pie from the oven and pour mixture over the top of it, spreading the nuts evenly, then return pie to oven.  Bake for 5 to 7 minutes at 350° or until bubbly.  Remove and cool before serving.  Tell everyone you’re actually from Georgia and enjoy the praise!

           

Keep Up the Pace!

Now I want to talk to you about pacing in writing a story.  It means two things: smooth, even writing without long boring stretches of narrative and scenes that build to a satisfying climax.  But remember . . . you can’t hold the reader’s attention at a high level constantly.  There has to be down time in between exciting scenes for the action or suspense to stand out.  When I do a painting, I detail certain things and fade out others, so the viewer will look where I want him to look.  His eyes can rest on the softer areas then come back to the main subject.  But if I were to paint details equally into every square inch of the canvas, then total detail means no detail at all.  When everything is equal, nothing stands out.  It’s the same with writing.  We have to build then rest then build then rest, and the building should continually grow until we reach the climax of the story.

           

If we tell too many exciting things at the beginning, readers expectations are raised unnaturally high, and the rest of the book might seem dull.

If we concentrate things in the middle, then what comes at the end might seem a sad anticlimax.

If we concentrate things at the end, the change of pace might be so overwhelming as to seem contrived like the writer is trying to fix the story in the last few pages.

            Here are some keys to pacing:

1.      Don’t pick up the story threads too quickly.

2.      Let uncertainty fester in the reader.

3.      Stretch out rescues and solutions.

4.      Don’t give things away too quickly—a hint here, a hint there, but no clear cute solutions—nothing so specific that the reader can figure it out.

Leave Your Readers Hanging

Last time I wrote about creating a great opener to your story.  Now I’m going to talk about writing the body of your novel. 

One way to entertain readers is to excite them, and one way to excite them is to leave them in the middle of a conflict at the end of a chapter.  We call it a hook or a cliffhanger.  The way we do that is to move the story forward to an exciting point . . . or something they’ll be curious about . . . and stopping. Think conflict, dilemma, surprise.  We can even end the chapter and not get back to what happened for a number of pages

. . . maybe not even until a chapter or two later.  We’ve left them hanging by not showing what happens next.  They wonder.  They may even guess, but they don’t know!  And that’s why they’ll read on.  Curiosity is a strong force.  The other side of that coin is that we can only leave them hanging for a limited time; otherwise the dilemma ceases to have impact, and they lose faith is us, the writers.

My girls took tennis lessons when they were young, when they were young, and I remember one thing the instructor taught them to encourage them to stay with the game and convince them it was not hard.  She said, “You only have to get the ball over the net ONE more time than your opponent does.”  I LOVE THAT!!!  I’ve since applied that to my writing.  I only have to get the reader to turn ONE more page . . . just one more, and I’ve succeeded in taking them to the end of the book.

We can also leave our readers hanging in the middle of a scene, as well as at the end of a scene or chapter.  We can even do it in the middle of a paragraph.  What about this?

We settled comfortably on the sofa, and Alex took a final puff on his pipe before tapping its contents into a coffee table ashtray.  Outside, the snow continued to fall heavily, thickly, and we knew no one would be leaving before morning.  Alex furrowed his brow and looked up.  “Here’s the way it was done,” he begins.  “I’ve figured it out . .”              

Suddenly, an eerie screech came from upstairs, followed by a crash and a thump.

“Oh, no.”  Alex stopped.  “We’ve got to help.” He jumped up and ran to the stairs.

Our readers are left hanging.  We’ve interrupted our suspense with some action.   If we insert too much action, we shatter the delicate mood of anxiety we have tried to cultivate.  Action is direct and forceful while suspense if whispy and vague.  For the most part we keep them separate except when we want to leave the reader hanging.

Here’s a good technique:

1.      Begin with something dramatic to establish conflict.

2.      Stop at a point the reader doesn’t expect.

3.      Know that the reader is intrigued but don’t give away the answer.

4.      Shift gears.  If you were doing suspense, switch to action; if action, change to suspense.

5.      Follow the shift to its conclusion.  And remember, it must ADD to the story.  If it doesn’t, then forget about it.

You Can’t Eat Soup Without a Can Opener

I love to write novels, and I’d like to share with you some tips I’ve learned about how to start your story.

With fiction and a great deal of nonfiction, the opening is the most important segment of the work because if we lose our readers here, we may never get them back.  At least in tennis we get a second serve, but in most types of writing we don’t.  If the reader isn’t intrigued by the 3^rd page (some even say the 2^nd page) we’ve lost the game. Here’s another way to think of it. It doesn’t matter how good the contents of a can of soup are, if I don’t have an OPENER that works, I’ll never know what those contents tasted like.  It’s the same way with our stories.  Maybe pages 50-125 are outstanding, but without a good opener, it won’t matter.  If the reader closes the book on page 3, he will never know how great my novel would’ve tasted. 

So, how do I make a terrific opening?  I should start at a place where something is happening, and I have to make it interesting.  I don’t think this was always true, but today we live in a “microwave” society, and everyone wants everything QUICK!  We have to compete with riveting movies and TV shows.  If my story starts too slowly, the reader will put it down and reach for the remote.

By the end of page 2, I should be developing the strands of the story and building conflict.  We as authors have to start close to the hub of the story.  We need to make our readers feel the anticipation of what’s to come.  And to do this we use Leads and Hooks.

1. One type of lead is a Shocker lead, which explodes into the reader’s consciousness.  No subtlety, just quick dramatic impact.  We use action verbs and develop immediate conflict, like a man about to fall off a high-rise building.
2. Or we can use words that aren’t frantic but give the reader a sense of immediate suspense because of the setting of the story—like a courtroom or perhaps a hospital operating room.  Then the built-in conflict draws the reader in.
3. Or we can begin with mystery:

Ray patted himself down again .  He’d put the wallet in his back pocket—he remembered doing it, but it was gone! And so was the girl’s address.  Without it, he’d never find the key to the storage locker.

4. Or danger:

            Gregory held his breath.  The large fin circled closer and closer.  There

was no way he could outswim it.  The spear in his hand was a matchstick

compared to the huge fish’s body.

5. Or something to be curious about:

It was a cemetery . . . and it wasn’t.  No stones or markers, yet rounded earth humps spread across the field in some predetermined design.

I hope this helps.  Get that opener going and serve up a great story!

Do Something New This New Year

I think we can agree that we all have a tendency to get comfortable in our ruts.  Years ago I heard a speaker define a rut as a “grave with both ends kicked out.”  How true!

It has been proven that thinking and acting in new ways cause different synapses in the brain to connect, making our minds stronger.  So in order to make life more interesting and ourselves healthier, tackle something different in the New Year!

For example, go to a bookstore and buy a book unlike anything you’ve ever read before—explore new territory.  If you are left-brained (an analytical person) then take piano or violin lessons for the next six months.  If you’re right-brained (creative) then buy a book of mathematical word problems, and do a few every day. 

Another thing that will stretch you is to tune into a different radio station or listen to a style of music you wouldn’t normally choose or perhaps even settle into an AM talk show you’ve never heard before.  One evening a week select a TV program you’ve never watched and stick with it from beginning to end.

Or here’s something that might entice you: the next time you eat at your favorite restaurant, choose an entrée or a salad you’ve never tried before.  Treat your taste buds to a surprise!

If you’re a jogger, then go for a bicycle ride.  Or if you walk for exercise, go jogging.  Crawl into the tent your kids have set up in the middle of the living room floor and play with them for thirty minutes or so.

Break out of your normal schedule and do the uncommon things you never do.  You’ll find life a lot more exciting, and you might even live longer too!