Can You Tell a Story and Prolong the Suspense?

January 14, 2011

We’ve all had those friends who were just plain old natural born storytellers, the kind that gather big groups around them at parties and on sprawling front porches, everyone leaning in, straining to catch every word.  Down here in the South, we home-grow lots of them.  In fact, the National Storytelling Festival meets every year just up the road–okay, a good ways up the road–in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and while I’m not claiming that Tennesseans are always better storytellers than the rest of the country, still, you’ll notice I’m hoping you’ll draw that conclusion.

The art of storytelling, with vivid characters, conflict, rising action and sustained suspense have nothing to do with education or fancy degrees. Truth be told, the further away I get from my own graduate school years, the more I’m convinced that I wasn’t really doing myself any favors by reading Samuel Richardson’s 1,000-plus-page (and you think I’m kidding) 18th-century novel Clarissa, a story in which a young woman is seduced, drugged, raped and proceeds to die a slow and painfully melodramatic death–over the course of hundreds, and I do mean hundreds, of pages. It might still serve me well when I’m teaching literature to refer back to it with a self-confident flip of the professorial hand (the one that says I’ve read that–don’t recall much about it–but dang it, I’ve read that). Yet, when what I’m wanting to do these days is construct a story that keeps readers turning pages late into the night, Clarissa is not my friend.

A couple of years ago, a friend led me to bestselling author Ken Follett’s site (Pillars of the Earth, etc.) on which he offers a marvelous four-part lecture, free for the on-line viewing, on “The Art of Suspense.” I’ve since used it in many of the creative writing classes I’ve led, and I’m happy now to pass it along to you. Let me know if you find it useful in your own suspense-making!

Ken Follett speaks on The Art of Suspense

Posted by Joy Jordan-Lake | Filed Under Becoming a Writer: We're all in This Together--By Ourselves, Uncategorized, Writing in the Midst of Real Life | Leave a Comment 

Author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE Talks on Nurturing Creativity, Overcoming Fear

January 14, 2011

Ever found yourself feeling shy or awkward in telling someone about the writing project you’re working on–or wish you were working on–if you could just find the time or the divine inspiration or the super-human strength to say no to a few more things in life?

Whether or not you’ve read the bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love (or seen the movie with Julia Roberts), you’ll find yourself laughing with and learning from the author Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk on fighting the onset of fear as a creative person, dealing with writer’s block, and where artistic genius really comes from. It’s a talk I like to share with my creative writing students, or anyone working in the arts. Click below, enjoy, and let us hear what you think!

Author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE talks on Nurturing Creativity

Posted by Joy Jordan-Lake | Filed Under Becoming a Writer: We're all in This Together--By Ourselves, Writing in the Midst of Real Life | 3 Comments 

TANGLED MERCY-a sequel to Blue Hole Back Home, and the first novel of the Charleston series

January 13, 2011

Before Jami Riggs learns—the day of her mother’s funeral—that she is inheriting a collapsing 19th-century inn at the southernmost tip of Charleston, South Carolina, she’d never intended to live outside the Appalachian mountains or to speak to her long-estranged father ever again. Knowing nothing of inn-keeping or of This Old House renovations and still in the midst of graduate studies in history, Jami sees no point in accepting the gift—which, it quickly appears, comes with all sorts of secrets and strings attached.

But when old family friend Shelby Lenoir Maynard, back briefly on Pisgah Ridge for the funeral, offers to travel down to the Carolina Low Country with her, Jami surprises herself at how quickly she falls for Charleston’s charm and its quirky, colorful people. As she struggles to bring the inn—and her own life—back from rot and neglect, Jami stumbles on a series of disturbing discoveries, including a possible murder. When more “accidents” begin to occur, including the disappearance of an African-American toddler in whom a wealthy white matriarch has taken a peculiar interest, Jami suspects she has at her history-savvy fingertips old stories with new clues to the truth.  If only she can sort out the bad guys from the good.

Posted by Joy Jordan-Lake | Filed Under Becoming a Writer: We're all in This Together--By Ourselves, Writing in the Midst of Real Life | 3 Comments 

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BLUE HOLE BACK HOME Chosen as Common Book, Classroom Text, Book Club Selection and Summer Reading

Blue Hole Back Home is being used in universities, high schools and community settings to spur discussions on American culture, history and diversity. The novel was selected, for example, as the 2009 Common Book for Baylor University's first-year students, who met in small groups to consider issues of courage, reconciliation and social transformation.
Want to know more about how Blue Hole Back Home might function in your academic, book club or community setting? On this site, you can SEE A TV INTERVIEW about how one high school is using the novel, watch a brief TRAILER with audio from the first chapter, and read more information under the Books-Fiction pull down menu above. You'll also find entries related to Blue Hole--including hearing the music behind the book-- on Joy's blog at bottom right of this page.

Colleges, high schools, book clubs and community groups, we welcome you to contact the author about a possible visit--in-person, if possible, or Skype.

And WATCH FOR REGULAR GIVEAWAYS of Blue Hole, as well as Joy's other books, through the blog attached to this site.

TANGLED MERCY-a sequel to BLUE HOLE BACK HOME-and the first novel in the Charleston series

Before Jami Riggs learns—the day of her mother’s funeral—that she is inheriting a collapsing 19th-century inn at the southernmost tip of Charleston, South Carolina, she’d never intended to live outside the Appalachian mountains or to speak to her long-estranged father ever again. Knowing nothing of inn-keeping or of This Old House renovations and still in the midst of graduate studies in history, Jami sees no point in accepting the gift—which, it quickly appears, comes with all sorts of secrets and strings attached. But when old family friend Shelby Lenoir Maynard, back briefly on Pisgah Ridge for the funeral, offers to travel down to the Carolina Low Country with her, Jami surprises herself at how quickly she falls for Charleston’s charm and its quirky, colorful people. As she struggles to bring the inn—and her own life—back from rot and neglect, Jami stumbles on a series of disturbing discoveries, including a possible murder. When more “accidents” begin to occur, including the disappearance of an African-American toddler in whom a wealthy white matriarch has taken a peculiar interest, Jami suspects she has at her history-savvy fingertips old stories with new clues to the truth. If only she can sort out the bad guys from the good.

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