You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Hello, this is Sharon Rene and I’m so excited that Patricia Bradley is visiting with us today at The Storyteller Squad. Patricia is a USA Today Best-selling author, and a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense.

Read on as she shares some great writer’s tips with us.

I started writing many years ago when these people came to live in my head and wouldn’t go away until I wrote their stories. It all started when I couldn’t sleep, and one night as I stared at the ceiling, a man materialized in my mind. He stood at a window and in the background smokestacks belched black smoke.

Then he turned to me and said, “This isn’t the way my life was supposed to turn out.”

For the next few weeks I entertained myself with stories about his life, and then more people came, all clamoring for their stories to be told. I subscribed to Writer’s Digest Magazine and began my writing journey.

Would I have started it if I’d known it would be thirty-two years before my first book released?

Yes.

I knew even then that I was a writer—I couldn’t not write.

However, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t even know what to ask. So, here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:

• Find a writing group to join. I was writing in a vacuum—no writer friends, no critique partners, just Writer’s Digest Magazine and a few Writer’s Digest books. Therefore, I had no one to read my stories and tell me what I was doing wrong, so I kept making the same mistakes—head hopping, telling instead of showing, dumping backstory in the first chapter.
• Read with a purpose. I was a voracious reader, but I read mainly for pleasure and escape. I should have been paying attention to story structure and dialogue.
• Be consistent in writing, and get that first draft finished—you can’t edit what you haven’t written.
• Invest in your writing—learn the craft of writing by attending conferences, retreats, and workshops.
• Buy craft books like Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell and How to Write a Novel from the Inside Out by Susan May Warren. Also, anything by Donald Maass, or…goodness, there are so many, just ask your writer friends.
• Network. Back when I first started writing, ACFW didn’t exist, but RWA (Romance Writers of America) did, and a few conferences like Calvin University’s Festival of Faith Writing. It would be eighteen years before I attended my first writing conference—Florida Christian Writer’s Conference.
• Realize not everyone will like what you write, so develop a thick skin.
• Enjoy the journey, because it may be long. But if you learn the craft, you’ll be ready when God opens a door.

These are tips that would have helped me, if I’d known what to ask.

What tips would you add?

Thanks for the tips, Patricia!

I am happy to say that Patricia is going to visit us again in February and tell us about her next book, Obsession.

Bio- Patricia Bradley

USA Today Best-selling author, Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense. She and her two cats call North Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Standoff, the first book in the Natchez Trace Park Ranger’s series released May 5, 2020, and the second book, Obsession releases February 2. She is hard at work on Crosshairs, the third book in the series. When she’s not writing, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens

Links:

Website https://ptbradley.com/

Blog – https://ptbradley.com/blog/

Facebook – www.facebook.com/patriciabradleyauthor

Twitter – https://twitter.com/PTBradley1

Amazon – https://amzn.to/2S6DKGY

Bookbub- https://www.bookbub.com/profile/patricia-bradley

Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7789445.Patricia_Bradley

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ptbradley1/

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/ptbradley/