How We Fall By Kate Brauning

You’re Invited to #YAlaunch! 10 authors+100 books=Giant Book Party

OCTOBER 27, 2014KATEBRAUNING

All book lovers are invited to attend the launch party for How We Fall by Kate Brauning and The Hit List by Nikki Urang on Monday, November 10th, from 6-9pm central time. It’s being broadcast live over video, so you’ll be able to see, hear, and interact with us. 10 YA and adult authors, including Nikki and myself, will be discussing everything from writing a series to movie adaptations. We’ll also be playing games with the audience, taking questions, and giving away 100 books, swag, and even t-shirts! It will be a fun and interactive evening for anyone who loves books and wants to spend some time with great authors.

What: #YAlaunch is a giant book party, with author  panel discussions, games, & book  giveaways

Why: To celebrate the launch of two new YA novels, and to promote reading, literacy, and other great authors

When: Monday November 10, 6-9pm

Who: Anyone who enjoys books. The party is family-friendly.

Where: Online, live-streamed over video.  Click here for the link to the live-stream. To receive updates and to be entered for door prizes, please RSVP here at the Facebook event. Chat on Twitter about the party on the hashtag #YAlaunch.

Authors You’ll Hear Speaking:

Kate Brauning,  Entangled Publishing editor and YA author of How We Fall

Nikki Urang, YA author of The Hit List

Nicole Baart, New York Times bestselling author of The Beautiful Daughters (Atria 2015), Sleeping in Eden, & more

Blair Thornburgh, Quirk Books editor and author

Kiersi Burkhart, MG and YA author of the Second Chance Ranch series

Alex Yuschik, YA author multipublished in poetry/literary journals

Kelly Youngblood, faith writer and blogger

Delia Moran, YA author

Bethany Robison, YA author, Month9Books editor, and sports writer

Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Legend of Sheba, theBooks of Mortals series with Ted Dekker, and more).

We would love to see you at #YAlaunch! We want this to be as much a giant book party as a launch party, so come meet awesome authors, win amazing books, and see behind the scenes of writing and publishing. We’d love to celebrate with you!

Please do tell your friends, share this post, and invite others to come! The event is open to the public and we’d love your help supporting awesome authors, fantastic books, and the writing community.

See you soon!

Much love,

Kate Brauning and Nikki Urang

Click to tweet: Are you coming to #YAlaunch? It’s a giant book party!

Click to tweet: Attend @KateBrauning & @NikkiUrang’s live-streamed launch party! #YAlaunch 

Pixar Challenge: Rule #22

Pixar’s Rule #22

What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Essence:  the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience.

                 the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work.

What is your central theme?  What are you writing about?  What is telling about it?

You have to know the answers to the vital question.  You have to know what make your story unique.  You need to know the market.  You need to know who you are writing for. 

You need to be able to answer these essential questions before your story can come alive.  If you can’t find a theme, we cannot find a theme.  You know the story you are trying to tell or you should.  Without that knowledge, it isn’t really a story and no one else can follow the story. 

Ask yourself the hard questions.  Answer the questions honestly.  Only then can you move forward with your final draft.

Have you answered all the questions?  Have you followed all the rules?

Also, all of you should check out the posts from my blogging friends who are doing this challenge with me! The first posts go up today. Links to Kate Brauning, Talynn Lynn, Mary Pat, and Alex Yuschik’s blogs are located on the side bar. 

We’d love to see comments on our post and share anything you enjoy.  Thank you for reading!

Pixar Challenge: Rule #21

Pixar’s Rule #21

You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

It all in the WHY...

WHY is the Dos Equis man interesting?  They tell you all the reasons he is identified as the Most Interesting Man in the World.  He is the only man to every ace a Rorschach Test.  Everytime he goes for a swim, dolphins appear.  If he were to mail a letter without postage, it would still get there.  When it’s raining, it is because he is sad.  At the end they announce, he is the Most Interesting Man in the World.  With all the lovely words, there is no need for the last announcement.  You already know he is interesting.

WHY is your male main character cool?  He is the guy with smooth fluid motions.  Everyone watches as he speaks.  The girls blush when he says, ‘hello.’ (That one could be because he is so darn cute.  Or? He had brown eyes that search deep inside you for answers.)  He breaks into the school computer to change everyone’s grades.  He scores the winning touchdown.  He picks up your books, when the goofy guy knocks them across the hall.  He drives a 1965 red Mustang.

This is one of ‘show me’ don’t tell me situations.  You know he is cool and you have a million reasons in your head.  Put them on paper and allow us to come to that realization without being spoon fed with adjectives.

Why is your MC cool?  Why is your MC strong?  Show me.

Also, all of you should check out the posts from my blogging friends who are doing this challenge with me! The first posts go up today. Links to Kate Brauning, Talynn Lynn, Mary Pat, and Alex Yuschik’s blogs are located on the side bar. 

We’d love to see comments on our post and share anything you enjoy.  Thank you for reading!

Pixar Challenge: Rule #20

Pixar’s Rule #20

Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

Practice makes perfect.  First you break the story down.  Map out all of the sections of the story.  Then find and choose the parts that just do not work for you.  Every story has great parts, thing you just love, pick those out.  Keep them.  Then rework the bad scenes or plots that don’t work.  Or a movie you just don’t see that it has a plot. 

Now comes the fun part.  You get to put your own spin on this bad story.  Give the story a new voice.  Make sure it is going someplace and make that an awesome place.  Then go to the next scene that ‘just wasn’t workin’ for ya.’  Rewrite it.  Make it better.  Then move on.

In the end, take all those ‘blocks’ and use them to build a story you would want to see at the movies.  Then, work on them just a bit more.  Make this the story you would watch over and over again.  And then you have a great final project.

Exercise builds a good body (or body of work). The final product has taken you through a process.  You were able to be objective, since it was not your own work.  It is tons easier to ‘fix’ someone else’s work because you don’t love it.  You can see the flaws.  I think this is why every writer needs to have a good critique group or beta reader.  You possibly need to go through a professional editor.  You get to hear the opinions of someone who isn’t so invested in the project.  Make sure you surround yourself with honest, not too brutally honest, people who will really let you know what they think.  You need an outside eye to help you build the perfect story.

Does writing take practice?  Should you join a critique group?

Also, all of you should check out the posts from my blogging friends who are doing this challenge with me! The first posts go up today. Links to Kate Brauning, Talynn Lynn, Mary Pat, and Alex Yuschik’s blogs are located on the side bar. 

We’d love to see comments on our post and share anything you enjoy.  Thank you for reading!

Pixar Challenge: Rule #19

Pixar’s Rule #19

Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

Coincidences. Things happen.  It isn’t always a long road to the trouble your character gets into and it can just be ‘coincidences’ that put them into this horrible or terrifying situation.  If they just coincidentally get out of the situation, you lose too much.  You don’t develop your character.  The character doesn’t evolve or change or learn.  Thing just happen to them and they don’t make anything happen.  Where is the fun in that?  It is cheating. 

Keep it simple.  Not words to live by as a writer.  Don’t get me wrong it can’t be so complex that the reader throws it down, never to look at it again.  You need them invested.  Don’t drag them along, slowly tug them by the heart.  Make them love the character as much as you do.  They need to pull for the characters and yearn to see them succeed.  They have to need more and flip pages like they can’t get enough.  If things just happen to the character that page flipping frenzy will never happen.  The book will be a lump on a coffee table that they just turn their nose up at as they walk past.  Writers want people to run to that book ever free moment, sometimes stealing a moment under onn their lap under the table during dinner, that is what we live for. 

In a world where, “We want more. We want more…” We need people to want more of our writing, more from our characters, and more of our books.  That is the best.  That is the thing I am striving for, and I hope it happens soon.

Are you cheating as a writer?  Are you cheating your readers?

Also, all of you should check out the posts from my blogging friends who are doing this challenge with me! The first posts go up today. Links to Kate Brauning, Talynn Lynn, Mary Pat, and Alex Yuschik’s blogs are located on the side bar. 

We’d love to see comments on our post and share anything you enjoy.  Thank you for reading!

Pixar Challenge: Rule #18

Pixar’s Rule #18

You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

I think this rule is for the obsessive compulsive perfectionist in all of us.  We write and rewrite.  Of course we need to edit and revise, but we don’t need to pick a story apart until we are left with bare bones.  The juice is in the meat—leave some.  You have to know yourself and your personality so that you recognize when you’re being obsessive.  You need to know yourself enough to say, “Okay, I need to back off.  This is really good.” You have to pull out some confidence.  You have to know YOU. So don’t go back and cut and cut and pick until you don’t have any of the good stuff.  Just set it down and walk away.  There has to be that point that you don’t change anything.  It great, so don’t go it back to good.

Testing Not Refining.  I think you should test to see if the work is stands true.  But you don’t have to cut until there are absolutely no flaws.  Flaws can be enduring.

Do you know yourself?

Also, all of you should check out the posts from my blogging friends who are doing this challenge with me! The first posts go up today. Links to Kate Brauning, Talynn Lynn, Mary Pat, and Alex Yuschik’s blogs are located on the side bar. 

We’d love to see comments on our post and share anything you enjoy.  Thank you for reading!

Pixar Challenge: Rule #17

Pixar’s Rule #17

No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

• Some people believe if you can’t get through a story shelve it and come back to his much later.
• Some people believe you can just push through the wall.
• Some people say scrap it and move on.

What is best?  Only you can truly decide what is best for you.  If you start a story, you must have a heart for the story, so I don’t feel scrapping a story is ever the answer.  The other two, I can say ‘yes’ to both.

Sometimes you need a break from a story.  A new story may be filling your thoughts, so shelving the work would be the best thing for you at that particular point.  But at some point go back to the work and tweak it make it better and finish the story you want to be heard.

Sometimes you need to just push through that particular point and go to the next scene, and then you can come back and rework the problem at a later time.  You will be able to make it better—the best.  That is where your intense edits will come into play and help you make the story perfect.  So, you come back around to the problem area and make it better and the writing you originally put to paper will be useful.   It will be useful in helping you know where you want to go or possibly where you do not want to go.

So all work is useful, even if it is completely reworked.  It was useful.

Do you feel you have ever wasted time on work?

Also, all of you should check out the posts from my blogging friends who are doing this challenge with me! The first posts go up today. Links to Kate Brauning, Talynn Lynn, Mary Pat, and Alex Yuschik’s blogs are located on the side bar. 

We’d love to see comments on our post and share anything you enjoy.  Thank you for reading!