Best selling author to host writing class at Rockwall County Library

Best-selling author, Parris Afton Bonds, will present a writing class, “Creating Engaging Plots” at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 7 at the Rockwall County Library. She has written over 50 historical and contemporary novels. She has set books in Australia, Scotland, England, France, colonial America, and Texas.

Bonds’ latest work, The Brigands, brings the Texas Revolution to life. The Brigands is the first of a five-part series involving the Paladin family, a founding family of Texas.

Bonds has created a course, “Plotting Made Easy,” that helps writers learn how to create the “twists and turns” that keep readers interested. Though she mainly writes for the historical romance genre, she has also written murder mysteries, westerns, paranormal, and thrillers. According to Bonds, plotting is exactly the same process, no matter what the period or genre.

For her historical novels, Bonds excavates as much as she can about a subject. She researches the topic and takes many more notes than she will actually use. She frequently travels to the location she is writing about to get a feel for the place.

Remember the adage, “Write what you know?” Bonds cautions against this. Writers, she suggests, should write about what piques their curiosity. Sometimes that means writing about ancestors. The Captive and The Calling of the Clan follow the Afton Clan from Scotland to Colonial North Carolina.

No matter what a writer chooses to write about, good storytelling is key. Bonds believes good storytelling follows the pattern outlined in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey and The Power of Myth. She will discuss this further in her upcoming writing class.

She also advises writes to “trust in the process” and “stay with it, draft after draft.”

To learn more about Parris Afton Bonds’s writing class that will take place on March 7, 2020 at Rockwall County Library, call 972-204-7700. Registration recommended.

Submitted by Chantal Walvoord, Adult Services Librarian, Rockwall County Library, edited for publication in Blue Ribbon News.

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