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Discovering the Story Within

© Roxianne Moore

Review of Alicia Rasley's Series of Fiction Booklets

Alicia Rasley knows how to tell a good story. She has published several Regency Romances with Kensington, Dell and Signet. So far, she's published eight novels, and has just finished another, a single title contemporary that is with her agent but not yet sold.

She says of herself, "I am a writer, first and foremost, but I also love to teach writing and write about the craft. I taught for eight years at two Indiana colleges (which mostly taught me that I prefer leading workshops for fiction writers to teaching freshman comp!), and now teach classes on the Web and workshops around the country."

On her Alicia Rasley's Writing Corner, she adds tidbits like: Top 10 Plotting Mistakes, and Question of the Month.

I bought her series of booklets, Discovering the Story Within in hopes of jump-starting my current book project. I'd spent months researching the time period, plotting, and writing character backgrounds, but was having trouble actually getting started. After reading her booklets, especially "Activate Your Story" and "The Character Interviews," I was able to fill in some of the missing pieces in my plot, enough to get me started on the actual writing. I'm pretty much a plot-as-I go kind of writer; although I do write a rough plot outline before I start, I really plot only about three chapters at a time in any detail. So Rasley's booklets provided me with the raw materials, and I'm sure I'll come back to them when it comes time to fill in details for the next three chapters.

This series of booklets includes six detailed guides on various aspects of the fiction craft. They're not so much how-to-plot or book-in-a-month type guides. Instead, they deal with aspects of the craft that are often glossed over in full-length books, and they're packed with practical exercises. She also has a great approach to character creation. The booklets are:

• Motivate Your Characters: These exercises show how to find the motivations that drive your characters through the story.
• Activate Your Story: Activate your story and revitalize your prose-- without ever losing the voice and tone that make it your story. Action, Rasley says, must change the course of the story, or it's not action.
• Dialogue Dynamics: Develop an ear for dialogue, add "verve and meaning," develop the characters, and advance the plot, all through dialogue.
• The Character Interviews: Who are your characters? The best way to find out is to ask them. Different interviews lead you through the process of giving depth and life to your characters.

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