Where Genres Collide Traci Dowe YA Author

A Bit of Insight

Traci Kenworth/Dowe

April 9^th, 2024

I just finished my final guided outline for class for my book Darkness. It is a YA fantasy set in another world. I’ve heard others say that it reminds them of His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman which I love as he’s one of my favorite authors. Basically, at heart, it is fear and control versus love and acceptance. Both my protagonist and the influence character come at the world from opposite angles in their run up against one another. I have learned SO much from my classes on The Triarchy Method from September Fawkes. I thought I knew what story structure was and all the components that go into a story but it’s like my vision’s been cleared.

Of course, I’m not done taking classes at Apex. There are ones I get through my membership each month that I’m not finished with as of yet. And there are others you can purchase as you go along. Still others, that are advertised as future courses to take, which is where I came across September’s class. Believe me, I’m very budget-minded and it was a challenge for me but I’m glad I worked payment arrangements out with Apex to take the class. I understand why classes can be hard to afford but I found, once I took the risk, with my instructor it was just so worth it.

I had naively assumed that I knew about writing but nah, there’s just so much to learn and to take into account. For instance, theme was something I didn’t care about in the specifics of a thematic statement. I didn’t think all stories needed them but really, the theme is the root of the story, your foundation to build upon. Yes, characters are important but if the story doesn’t “say” something, they have no basis to stand on. Some things we covered I did know about but my learning broadened even then.

Did you know, just like music, there are beats to writing? Relationship beats, for instance. This is where the relationship goes from beginning to end. It doesn’t have to be couples either. It can be friends. Enemies. Even mentor/student. She explained beats from different movies out there. I really liked the break-down and behind the scenes explanations. I learned more about Star Wars and Hunger Games then I thought possible to name just a few we went over. Things I had no idea about.

She went over the gray areas that can pop up in everything from a character’s choices to the theme at hand. We learned how to graph out our stories to check they meet our expectations. Such as in my story, for instance, like this.

Loving others (better)

Love (positive)                            Hatred (negative)

                                                   Loathing others (worse)

Self-hatred (negation of negation)

Hope I did that well enough. I had a bit of problems with the graphs but they are still helpful and after all, you can’t get everything all at once! So, I just wanted to talk a bit about my learning and how things turned out. Now, I’m just putting things together and we’ll get ready for send when the time comes. Have a great week, take care, and God bless!

Some posts around the web you may like:

1. Substack Newsletters vs. Blogging (annerallen.com) For the past few years, authors have been urged to give up blogging for newsletters, especially using the trendy Substack. Substack encourages users to put their good content behind a paywall, so only elite readers have the privilege of reading the entire newsletter.

I was going to write a whole post about the Substack fad, but last month Jane Friedman wrote such an excellent post on the subject, all I can do is provide a link. Do read it. I’ll wait 🙂 : Why Substack is Both Great and Terrible for Writers.

• Substack Is Both Great and Terrible for Authors | Jane Friedman I have been trying to convince writers of the value of a consistent email newsletter for more than a decade. Recently I dug up a 2014 presentation I gave at the James River Writers Conference, where the first slide says, “Email is not dead.” After that slide, I quoted novelist Dana Stabenow, who gave an inspirational talk where she couldn’t resist offering a practical tip at the end:

I have been wrestling with newsletters for years. Producing one, that is. I ironically, was going to open a newsletter on Substack later this month. However, I’ve been discouraged about some of the nastiness on there. I don’t want to be associated with anything tainted like that. I do know a lot of YA authors I’ve looked up to are on there and it’s been a blessing to learn from their newsletters. Yes, it is a pay scale thing. Jane mentioned either Ghost or Beehiiv for newsletters, but I’d probably be just shooting in the dark. Maybe I’ll just put the newsletter on the blog? I know one of my teachers recommends a newsletter too but how can you create one when you don’t have emails? I know, I know, wait until you garner some. That’s what I mean. Maybe, the blog will help me connect better with readers. Thoughts?

• Fantasy Cafe (fantasybookcafe.com) Tomorrow marks the start of the second week of the thirteenth annual Women in SF&F Month. Thank you so much to all of last week’s guests for making it an excellent first week!

There will be more guest posts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week, too. Before announcing the schedule, here are last week’s essays in case you missed any of them.

All of the guest posts from April 2024 can be found here, and last week’s guest posts were:

I just love the interviews on here from SFF women authors. I’ve found a lot of favorites here!

• What I’m reading: The Book of Dust from Phillip Pullman.
• What I’m listening to: FFX and FFVII for writing inspiration. They are just magical enough to transport me to my world in thoughts and world-building.
• What I’m watching: What can I say? BH90210. I sometimes get nostalgic for shows I used to watch and didn’t finish due to life moving on, lol.