Teaser Tuesday

It's been so long since I've teased, but I wanted to share something from my WIP, the one with a small town, a dance team, and a krumper.

This tease is from the first chapter, but it's not the very beginning. All that happens before this is that you see Tiffany go the football field where she dances every night. Usually, she's alone, but that's not the case tonight. 

---

And I'm not alone.

I was, I was alone for seventeen years, but tonight there’s someone on the bleachers, watching me.

For the first time in seventeen years, I’m scared and wish Ethan was here.

But I can’t leave, because I need this. It’s the only chance I have to be alone, to be myself.

There’s one minute until tomorrow, so I put my headphones on and press play, letting love and confusion and pain fill me until the beats are so loud, the feelings are so loud, that I need to move, I need to release them.

I fly across the field and I fall but I don’t care, I don’t care, because I’ll get up and stretch, I’ll stretch so far, I’ll prove that I can control my body, this stupid football field, this ridiculous school, I’ll control all of it and everything will be fine.

And I do and everything is ok.

I turn the music off and it’s the first day of school.  I’m Tiffany. I’m a senior who has spent every year of high school on the honour roll. I’m captain of the dance team. I’m Ethan’s girlfriend, and I always have been.

What I feel has now power over me because I'm stronger, better than that.

I put my hood up as I pass the bleachers on my way home, because the boy is still there, still watching me.  And, despite what I’ve done, I’m still scared.

 “Hey!” he calls, and I walk faster. “Relax, I just want to talk.” Faster, faster. “I get it, you know. I don’t have anywhere else to go, either.”

I can always walk faster.

Telling Your Story Through Transitions

The eighth season of So You Think You Can Dance kicked off its tour in Orlando on Saturday night, and as I do every year, I searched youtube, forums, and tumblr for videos on Sunday morning.

Having done this for six seasons, I thought I knew what to expect: The season's best dances, introduced by two of the dancers. I was surprised, then, to find the introductions eliminated from the show, and that the dances transitioned from one to the next as though it was all one story. I've embedded an example below, in which The Circus Sets Up transitions into The Vulture Dance (the transition happens between 2:57 and 3:15.)

There are two stories here: The circus, and in Jesse Tyler Ferguson's words, "the classic vulture stalks boy, boy almost succumbs to vulture, boy kills vulture story that we all know so well." Tadd (hot shirtless man) and  Jordan (vulture) are in the circus, so how do they get from there to their own story? The transition shows that Tadd gives his mask to Jess (ringmaster), and that makes him weak/compels him to remove his shirt (thanks Jess!) That's when Jordan notices him, and their story begins.

You'll notice the transition wasn't that Tadd went home, ate some dinner, and then found Jordan on his porch. The story continues though, and even hinges on, the transition, and it still gets the characters from point A to B. Beyond that, it also develops character--it shows that Jordan's curious and didn't just happen upon Tadd, as the dance by itself suggests--and creates suspense.

All of this translates to writing. We need to get our characters from the fight with their mom to the fight with their boyfriend, and sometimes it's difficult to know what to put in-between. It's tempting to have them take a shower and move to the next exciting incident, but there's no reason that shower can't be exciting, too. Why are they taking the shower? Are they thinking about what happened/what could happen as they do so? What does their shampoo say about their character? Answering those questions and ones like them ensures that your story continues throughout the text.

How do you handle transitions? 

Road Trip Wednesday: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Road Trip Wednesday is hosted by YA Highway.

This Week's Topic:

What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work?

Sibling Relationships

I have a great relationship with my brother, but it's not like the sibling relationships I write about. The ones I write about tend to be ones where at least one sibling is totally dependent on the other. 

Dance

This one's an obvious one, as I love dance as much as I love writing. This was the first dance video in my youtube subscriptions today, and it represents how I like to write dance well. It's a classroom opposed to a stage, it's messy and honest and raw, it hasn't been polished to perfection. 

Small Towns

I love intimate settings, places where a story feels close and quiet. 

Self-Worth

This is huge in all my novels. My characters determine how much they're worth based on their popularity, grades, body, relationships, and so on. Ultimately, the coming-of-age moment for them is realizing how destructive that is, and that they are awesome just as they are. 

What themes reoccur in your novels? 

Switching WIPs and Visual Inspiration

Ok.

Remember that WIP of mine, Duets? Remember how I wrote two posts about it, excited to explore music and the ocean and messy love with three characters I loved, a setting I loved, a story I loved?

...Remember when I wrote 2.5k and couldn't write any more? No?

I was embarrassed that I'd abandoned a novel so early on, one I was so excited about, but it wasn't the right time for me to write it. I knew that when I danced so hard one night that I had to laugh afterwards, because it had made me that happy.

I knew that I wanted to write about dance. Again.

And from there I remembered Tiffany, a dance team captain, her boyfriend Ethan, her best friend Adelle, her rival Tessa, and her town. That was as far as the idea when I first brainstormed, but as I struggled through Duets, I gave Tiffany two sisters and a brother, a krumper to figure out life with,  and a football field where she danced the way I did that night.

My last novel was, in a sense, about dance, and I was worried that I'd be repeating myself with this one. But, Tiffany is not Callie (my MC in Duets was much closer to Callie than Tiffany is, and I think that's partly why I found it so hard to write), dance team is about as far from improv as you can get, and there are no car crashes or wheelchairs or random sex. It's a different story, and it's one that I love to write, which is why I feel comfortable with it as my current project.

So, I thought I'd share some visual inspiration for this WIP, through both pictures and dances. The order of these pictures and videos, while not chronological, is definitely intentional and meaningful. I'd love to hear what you think of these and, in turn, what kind of sense you have of the story!

That picture of the boy and girl starting to slow dance? They look exactly like the couple they're meant to represent, and it freaked me out so much when I first saw the picture! So cool when stuff like that happens. Let me know what you guys are thinking in the comments!