Tag: April Henry

October 7 fiction-writing workshop with Kathleen Alcalá

Author Kathleen Alcalá is teaching an Oct. 7 Clarion West workshop for writers.

 

news headline

Where do writers get their ideas?

My friend April Henry was inspired to write her novel Learning to Fly by news stories about panic and confusion in the aftermath of a chain-reaction car accident on an Oregon freeway. Her recent Girl, Stolen had its roots in the true story of a blind girl kidnapped while sleeping in her parents’ car.

On October 7, I’ll be taking a one-day workshop taught by author Kathleen Alcalá (The Flowers in the Skull, Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist) on how to transform thought-provoking headlines into stories — and how to go a step beyond to create your own headlines (a.k.a. story titles).

The workshop will be in Seattle’s University District. You can find more information on the Clarion West website. There are still spaces open.

 

Fiction writing: first or third person?

If you’re writing fiction, and have ever been tripped up by point of view, April Henry has some spot-on observations about the advantages of each.


When it comes to writing fiction, I’ve discovered that my weak point is point of view. Every novel-length project I’ve attempted (and one that I’ve completed) has at some point been rewritten to change the viewpoint from third person to first (or back the other way).

Much of the contemporary crime fiction I admire (by authors such as Michael Connelly, Reginald Hill, and Ian Rankin) is written in third person. Hill uses an omniscient narrator to shift back and forth between multiple characters — very tricky to pull off without leaving the reader feeling cheated. The best known of the female private eye stories (written by Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich), use traditional private-eye first person. It’s colorful, immediate, and credible but runs the risk, particularly in Grafton’s alphabet series (B is for Burglar, etc.), of sounding whiney.

It was a relief to read this post from mystery writer April Henry in which she describes making the switch — one way for one of her books, and the other way for another. Both times she changed the point of view at the request of her editor, and both time she was glad she did.

If you’re writing fiction, and have ever been tripped up by point of view, April has some spot-on observations about the advantages of each.

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