Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to the August co-hosts: Tara Tyler, Lisa Buie Collard, Loni Townsend, and Lee Lowery! To read other contributors to IWSG click here.
August optional question: When you set out to write a story, do you try to
be more original, or do you try give readers what they want?
Confession? I set out to write a story, all I want to do is get something readable onto the page!
That said, it seems to me anyone who writes in a specific genre is trying to give a reader what they want. I write women’s fiction so in each of my stories the main character is a woman who has encountered some significant life-challenge she needs to overcome. That’s what my readers should want to read. To keep them immersed, though, the details need to be unique and compelling.
Recently, I was reading The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave, and something completely unexpected happened in the action. “Oh. My. God." I said. Apparently my exclamation was on the energetic side because my daughter poked her head in from the other room.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sorry. It's all good. I’m reading and the story surprised me.”
My daughter may have rolled her eyes, but I thought, Holy Moly, that's some writing!
On a non-IWSG-related topic, my neighbors
took down a bunch of dead hemlocks on their side of the property line and I'm tickled beyond belief. Now, rather than scraggily bushes, there's a clear view of summer sunsets. I haven’t included many of pictures here lately, but the other day I took about fifty shots as a storm started to muscle in. Unbeknownst to me, my daughter took a picture of her own.
