Welcome

Julie Rowe,

author of

Icebound

A double Golden Heart finalist in 2006, Julie Rowe has been writing medically inclined romances for over ten years. She's also a published freelancer with articles appearing in The Romance Writer's Report, Canadian Living, Today's Parent, Reader's Digest (Canada) and other magazines.

Julie is an active member of RWA and its subchapters, Heartbeat RWA, Calgary RWA, The Golden Network, Hearts Through History and RWA Online. She coordinates Book In A Week, and online workshops for Heartbeat and Calgary RWA.

Julie is now teaching for Keyano College in her home city of Fort McMurray, AB, Canada. She teaches a variety of workshops for the Workforce Development department at Keyano College.

Deep Editing Q & A: Julie Rowe

1. What’s your writing process? Panster or plotter?

I’m a bit of both. I need solid, well-thought out characters and an inciting incident. Once I’ve got those figured out, I ask myself what’s the worse thing that could happen to these people? I keep asking myself this question until I have the major plot points laid out. There’s lots in between the plot points that I don’t know until I get there in the story though.

Do you strive to complete a first draft in a certain time frame?

When I’m writing a first draft I try not to edit as I go, but write as fast as I can. Now having said that, my version of fast is about 10 pages a day.

How long do you allow to deep edit a complete manuscript?

I need to edit in layers. So, I’ll edit the ms 6 to 10 times…usually 10. That can take a while as I like to let the ms sit while I work on something else so I can see it with fresher eyes in between edits. A month or two at least.

2. I love these examples of fresh writing:

1. His voice, a rough rumble, triggered a response in the pit of her belly. A response she thought long dead. “Who are you?”

Great lines! You used a Dialogue Cue as a stimulus for a visceral response. And you amplified it with a Power Internalization. And the whole piece is cadence-driven. Well done!

2. He laughed, a full-hearted bellow that transformed him into a teddy bear.

I love that laugh! It’s tough to write laughs well, which is why most authors write basic laughs, or zero laughs. I love that you wrote a strong laugh and amplified it with your POV character’s interpretation of his laugh turning him into a teddy bear. She felt safe with him. Very cool.

3.This scene was so well written, it gave me a visceral response. :-))

“You open, Doctor?”

Emilie turned to see Mark swaying a little on his feet.

“Always.”

He wobbled again and she frowned, walking toward him. “How long have you been sick?”

“I ain’t sick exactly.” He smiled like a shark—all teeth.

His expression made her pause, but she reached out and felt his forehead anyway, expecting it, from his untidy speech and uncertain balance, to be hot. “You don’t have a fever.”

His grin slid into a sleazy suggestion. “You’re the only cure to what’s bothering me.

I could see this drunk guy hitting on the female doc. Loved the way you wrote his smile devolving into a sleazy grin.

His grin slid into a sleazy suggestion.

Creepy!

That’s strong writing!

Writing fresh made it work. I like the alliteration too.

Margie Asked Julie: Did you have fun writing this scene? Did the scene used to be longer? Did it start with basic smiles?

I did have fun writing this! I’m a smile-a-holic. I write them into my stories all the time. Because I use them so much, I try to make them unique. This situation, with a drunk, is one that worked really well because an inebriated person doesn’t try to hide their emotions. Those emotions slide across their face as they feel them and I wanted the reader to really experience how uncomfortable it could be to deal with an uncooperative drunk.

2. Here’s an example of one of my favorite rhetorical devices, anaphora. Notice the power backload.

Something had happened. Something that left Tom helpless and unable to act. Something that left someone he cared about dead.

Margie Asked Julie:  Did your first draft include this example of anaphora?

The first draft of this only had the first two lines. I added the third line after taking your class on rhetorical devices. I also made sure I backloaded the last line with the word “dead” after that class. I LOVE backloading sentences. It’s a technique that really resonated with me.

Do you backload as you write, or is it something you layer in later?

Sometimes the backloading happens as I write, sometimes in edits later. I do look for places where I can backload in later drafts.

3. Enjoy this viscerally-powered excerpt:

Emilie blinked at the sudden agony shooting through her chest. It sat directly over her diaphragm like a thousand-pound weight, forcing the air out, making it impossible to take in another breath. She closed her eyes and knew it would take years, maybe a lifetime, before that burden would lift enough to allow her to truly breathe without pain again.

Margie Asked Julie: Was that visceral response tough to write?

Yes, it was tough in that I dug down into my own experiences with grief to write a physical description for what Emilie was feeling. It can be hard to let that much of yourself out on the page, but you shortchange your reader if you don’t.

What recommendations do you have for writing fresh visceral responses and power internalizations?

We all experience extreme emotions like sadness, panic, or anger differently. The key to writing fresh visceral responses is to write what you know, what you’ve experienced yourself. Use your senses. Make it real. Thrill your reader!

4. Margie Chats With Julie: You did a good job writing heavy-duty emotions in ICEBOUND. Kudos to you!

I was also impressed that you provided the reader with something I recommend authors do, that many authors neglect. You wrote THE RECOVERY. Here are two examples:

1. The tightness in her gut unwound.

2. A calm seemed to well up from the bottom of her belly, loosening clenched muscles and knotted emotions.

Margie Asked Julie: What prompted you to write these recovery lines? They’re beautifully written. Did they fall on the page like this in your first draft?

Thank you! Both these came out in later drafts. One of the things I layer in later is emotional cues and I like to do that with visceral responses. Recovery is just as important an emotional event for a character as stress. It can signal acceptance, change, growth and understanding.

5. What are some deep editing tools you learned from me, and how did they make a difference in your writing?

I LOVE the EDITS system. Everyone, repeat after me: Highlighters are your friends!

My voice is very fast-paced, so I make a conscious effort to add description, detail and emotional cues. The EDITS shows me where I need to do that. I also pay attention to backloading, power words and writing fresh. I use one edit pass just to hunt down clichés and turn them into something new.

Julie -- Sounds like you make the EDITS System work for you. I knew you were smart.  :-)

BLOG GUESTS:  It's your turn!

Post your questions for Julie. No holding back.

Ask Julie tough questions. She can handle tough questions. She'll tell you what you need to know.

I'll draw a winner tronight--at 9PM Mountain Time.

See you on the blog!