Category Archives: Author’s Craft

Let Your Passion Fly Free

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

“Don’t die with your music still inside. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul.” Wayne Dyer

You’ve always wanted to write the “next best seller,” yet you haven’t completed one manuscript. I know, I know. You’ve been busy with school, work, and family which has left little time to pursue what your family considers your “hobby.” If you still want to write the story that keeps disturbing your sleep, then it’s your passion, not your hobby. But when you sit at your computer, you freeze. Is it writer’s block or are you suffering from a fear of failure? Are you afraid of criticism or do you lack the self-confidence it takes to become a published writer?

Try getting past your fear of putting your words on paper with some of the following techniques that worked for me.

Talk to an older relative or neighbor about her childhood memories. Don’t concern yourself about what you’ll do with the information during the conversation. Just ask prepared questions, but listen carefully to the responses and to the way that person answers. This may lead to more questions. Take notes and ask permission to utilize a recorder prior to the interview. If at first the person is reluctant to talk, get her to relax by talking about the present. Maybe a conversational trigger will lead her to reveal more about her entry into this country, her life on a farm, or what it was like during the war. A memoir, mystery, or love story could be enhanced by some of the details you hear.

While caring for my elderly, sick father, I heard him talk about his mother’s compassion toward others during the depression. Delighted to hear his coherent voice, I coaxed him into telling me more. The stories he told me became a short memoir I wrote for his benefit. He enjoyed the story and encouraged me to write more. “My Grandmother, Little Mama” was published in On the Shores of Detroit: History through Prose and Poetry which became a component of the 2002 Midwest Poets & Writers Conference.

Enter writing contests. WritersWeekly.com has a quarterly 24-Hour Short Story Contest with an entry fee of only $5. At noon on a predetermined Saturday, contestants are given a few sentences that must be used in their story and told the maximum word count allowed. The sentences and word count vary from contest to contest. The story must be completed by noon the following day. On a whim, I entered the contest several times. I didn’t win the WritersWeekly contests. However, I tweaked one of the stories and entered it in other contests. That story won a first place cash prize in one contest and was published as an honorable mention in another one.

The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenges writers to write 50,000 words during the thirty days of November. That’s a minimum of 1,667 words a day which should help you get into the habit of writing regularly. I’ve tried this twice, once successfully. I’m now working on the results of my second NaNoWriMo manuscript.

The Writer’s Digest has numerous contests several times a year as well as mini contests in their magazine. Writing prompts or story starters may help you write on a regular basis. Keep a notebook handy to jot down any ideas that come to mind. Starting small may work for you. When you’re ready for a bigger project, write one chapter at a time until you’ve finally written the story that has haunted you for some time. Now put away your fears and let your passion fly free. We’re waiting to read your story.

Vacation Suspense – Part 2

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Television producers try to get you to come back for more by showing scenes from “the next exciting episode” of whatever program you’ve just watched. Writers have to do the same thing sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and chapter to chapter. Suspense is one of the tools of the author’s craft that helps pull the reader along.

For me, suspense is the essence of a story that makes me skim a few pages more because I have to know what comes next before I put the book down for the night. Though most easily seen in cliffhanger thriller and action pieces, suspense is also present in more subtle ways when a story has engaging characters or a compelling storyline. Will the young lovers stay together in the face of pressure from their parents? Will the social activist win against the sea of opposition? Stay tuned for the next sentence, paragraph, or chapter to find out. That’s suspense.

A few days prior to my vacation in October, John McCarthy challenged the members of the Deadwood Writers Book Study Group to write a paragraph containing suspense. I took the idea on the trip with me not knowing if I’d do anything with it. While sitting on the beach I wondered how I might describe the scene around me in such a way to make it interesting. What started as an exercise in scene setting became one for developing suspense:

A warm breeze passed over Sarah as she scanned the overcast sky. The clouds kept the sun from making it scorching hot, yet enough blue shown through to make it a pleasant day at the beach. Sunbathers spread out across the sand with no one closer than a hundred feet between. The more cautious among them sat beneath the colorful umbrellas that peppered the landscape. When screams rang out from the ocean, Sarah’s heart raced and her eyes scanned the surf left, right, left, right for the source. It took her several eternal seconds to find the sounds came from a young surf boarder having a good time. “Calm down, Sarah,” she told herself, as she wiped sweat off her face that had nothing to do with the midday heat. “No one’s caught in a riptide like before.”

There are questions this passage provokes that I hope would cause a reader to want to know more and keep reading:

Who is this character named Sarah? A lifeguard, tourist, or maybe a resident on the beach?
Who got caught in the riptide? Was it someone close to Sarah?
Did the person drown or get saved?
Why did the incident affect Sarah so much?
What role did she play?

As writers, we must always be aware of what will keep a reader tuned in for more. Thinking about the questions our passages inspire is a good check on the suspense we are trying to create. As we begin to answer those questions, we need new ones to continue the process until we reach a conclusion. Does that mean you have to answer all the questions by the end of your piece? Not necessarily. Sometimes you want to leave a person on a thought provoking note. If you’re writing a series, you might leave the reader with something that nudges them to read the next book or blog post.

Consider these memorable ways that writers/authors have tempted their audiences:

Same bat time, same bat station.

Luke, I am your father.

Happiness is…

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Even if somewhat misquoted, people were so taken with the lures that the lines have become part of the modern lexicon. How can you reach that level of popularity? It all starts when you figure out how to entice your readers to ‘stay tuned.’

Writing: Promises or Priorities?

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They say timing is everything. I agree.

So is letting go. That’s why I say to whomever “they” are that I’m extending my 10-hour book publishing challenge to December 18.

Why? First of all, it’s my blog challenge and I set the rules. (And my blog editors said it was okay.)

Second, I felt overwhelmed by things crashing into each other. Fundraising to dance in THON clashed with my seeking financial support for my Indiegogo campaign. The extra shifts for my part-time job slammed into prep work time for my Zentangle classes.

The last and most important time-suck of the month was me. I watched my Major Crimes DVDs over and over, obsessing because the new season starts next week. I wandered aimlessly through the playgrounds of Instagram. I tell myself that writing haiku through Ku and Notegraphy phone apps was a productive use of my time, but, really, that was another distraction.

I sound just like that person I wrote about last month.

Now, I did catch a cold. I was not so sick that wiggling my toes hurt, but I sniffled enough where leaning over my keyboard caused my nose to drip and drool on the keyboard. Any precious time I could snort the mucus back, I spent that time on my memoir.

Outside of that, I chose to be careless with my time, and now I’m here apologizing and making excuses. Why did I not value my time and talent?

I thought about it. I figured I’d have more success collecting donations for THON when I wasn’t asking people to buy my book. Rather than compete with holiday parties and family events, it made more sense to me to plan a marketing strategy for my Zentangle classes in the New Year when I wasn’t marketing my memoir and my Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. At some point, the money from working extra hours at my job was not worth the time that could have been spent writing my memoir.

Are you seeing the theme here? Believe it or not, I didn’t at first. When you think about your responsibilities–I mean, really think about them–listing your life out like chapter outlines will identify the events that really matter to you. Here I’ve moved on to the next step, the follow-through that freezes many would-be writers: I’m letting go of extraneous tasks and planning. Not everyone does that. They usually give up.

I didn’t give up; I refocused. That’s not an excuse, although we may see it as such. If we do, then we fail, fizzle and flop. I didn’t think I needed to prioritize, but I couldn’t identify what really mattered until then. Of all the items on my list, my memoir was most important to me. Knowing that, I could push everything else aside.

All of this brings us back to the postponed eBook challenge. Yes, some readers who were expecting Part Two this month may be disappointed, but remember, I’m rescheduling it, not giving up. Think of it as…increased anticipation.

How has this shift in priorities helped my memoir time? With the extra time, I was open to rearrange and commit to the Chapter order. After doing that, the process flowed better. Both self-editing and finding an editor takes longer than I thought. Re-launching the Indiegogo campaign was frustrating and disappointing, but the descriptions and perks are now more enticing. I’ve explored marketing ideas and am planning specific actions of specific dates. For other ideas, I’m letting those all percolate.

Did you make a writing promise to yourself and were unsuccessful? No one can change what happened yesterday. It’s been done, but that doesn’t mean you’re a failure. How do we start fresh without feeling guilty?

First, forgive yourself. We’re all human, but we can do simple, little things. What should you consider when planning your writing time, or anything else, really? I can offer some advice.

1. Don’t rely on To-Do lists. From my experience, they appear organized but are often overwhelming, and thus counterproductive.

2. Don’t say yes to things just because that time isn’t blocked off on your calendar.

3. Break up your lunch hour by standing up and physically moving away from your desk. If that’s the time you squeeze in exercise, give yourself permission to write during one or two of those times. Take your laptop into an empty conference room or even your car to write away from distractions. No laptop? Use paper and a pen, as we dinosaurs did in the pre-digital age.

4. Family and relationship time is important so look for ways to balance the two. I can write in the living room on the couch next to my husband as we watch episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

No matter what you do, the key is making the time.

Did I say any of this would be easy? If it was, we’d be doing it all and there would be no need for me to write this post. We’d all be published authors with worldwide readership.

We know self publishing is possible. I can’t promise readers will love your stories, but if you don’t publish, how will people be able to read them? If you have already completed the 10-Hour Challenge and published a book, leave the link information below in the comments. If not, then you have another 30 days. Timing is everything.

Ready? Set. Go!

It Couldn’t Be More Personal

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During my childhood, my grandmother taught me little lessons. I learned how to fold and crease a sheet of paper over and over until it resembled the expanding membrane of an accordion but wasn’t constrained by the edges of a musical instrument. My creation could be waved in the air to blow away summer heat. Gramma also showed me a more advanced origami technique, although she never called it that, of creating a miniature upright piano. I’ve long forgotten those more complicated steps; however, I can still make a pretty good fan.

These memories came to me while editing an article for Deadwood Writers Voices. All I needed was to know whether to italicize or put quotation marks around a TV program’s title. Hoping to confirm my suspicion on the correct usage, I looked in The Chicago Manual of Style and was distracted by something else I came across first. The reference guide said, “The name of a living person should, wherever possible, correspond to that person’s own usage.” (CMOS, section 8.3)

How silly was that statement? It reminded me of those caution labels that are printed on coffee cups: “Careful! Contents may be hot!” When buying a cup of coffee, I certainly expect it to be, and hope it will be, hot. Regarding my own name, as a living person, shouldn’t I know better than anyone else what it is and how to spell it? Of course!

So why would CMOS bother to point out the obvious? I think the book’s editors and advisory board meant to impress upon writers the importance of spelling names correctly. But it’s not as cut and dry as it appears. For example, my grandmother ended her surname in an “i.” Her brother ended his in an “o.” Gramma’s sisters threw an extra “e” in the middle somewhere. I grew up never knowing how to correctly spell my ancestors’ last name. I’m sure they each had a convincing reason for why they did things the way they did, but I can only speculate. Maybe the ending depended upon gender: an “i” for females and “o” for males?

I’ve even thought that the difference in spellings could have had something to do with a mistake in documentation. Perhaps an official incorrectly recorded my great-grandfather’s name when Grandpa immigrated to the US from Italy. That mishap could have resulted in multiple versions of the family name surviving and competing with one another. I wish I could ask one of my living relatives but none know why there was confusion in the first place.

A lesson comes to mind for us conscientious writers: we should be watching for the unique or unconventional preferences of our subjects. For instance, friends of mine are named “Lesley” and “Sheri.” Not Leslie and not Sherry. To them, anything other than the way they spell their own names is just not correct. I’d feel the same if they addressed letters to me with “Kelli” or “Kellie.” It doesn’t look right, and to me, it doesn’t feel right.

During verbal conversations, accidents happen for sure, like when my husband calls me Kathy, his sister’s name, or when I yell to one of my sons and out stumbles his brother’s name instead. There’s also forgetting someone’s name altogether. Faulty utterances like these are common and easily forgivable. In fact, it’s rare for anyone I know to point out spoken errors at all. They seem to understand and just let them go.

There’s a higher expectation placed upon writers, however. When we commit thoughts to paper, we are responsible to verify the facts being presented, to pay attention to details. Very often, the records being created are permanent, and they’re always subject to public scrutiny. A simple mistake could jeopardize credibility with an audience. Misspellings, particularly of names, make it appear that we don’t know, care about, or respect our subjects well enough. At the very least, a person’s name, like Grandpa’s, should be documented precisely as he wishes (“to correspond to that person’s own usage”). It’s important to at least that one person.

More Than Black and White

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“If you see the world in black and white, you’re missing important grey matter.” –Jack Fyock

The most compelling stories involve characters who are flawed morally, physically, socially, or even mentally. For example in the novel, Deserves to Die by Lisa Jackson, a twice divorced, single pregnant detective must solve the murder of a woman whose ring finger was severed.

In Kimberly White’s Acquisitions, a pharmaceutical rep files a sexual harassment suit against her boss but falls in love and has sex with the company attorney investigating her claim.

Susan Kay’s Phantom is a powerful retelling of the story of the well-known main character Erik, in Phantom of the Opera, who was born horribly disfigured to a vain, spoiled Catholic widow. This gripping novel begins with her point of view then continues with the point of view of each significant person in the phantom’s life. When finally Erik’s point of view is told, the reader feels sympathy for the man who survived a life of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.

With Every Drop of Blood, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, is a novel of the civil war. When Johnny, a white southern teenager, is talked into delivering supplies to Rebel troops, he agrees in order to support his widowed mother and siblings. Johnny is captured by Cush, a Yankee runaway slave about Johnny’s age. Each has been taught to hate the enemy, but the interaction between the two young men is compelling.

In Karen Slaughter’s Fallen, police officer Faith Mitchell arrives at her mother’s house to find the door open, a dead man on the floor, another man she kills, her young daughter hidden away, and her mother missing. To prove her innocence in the killing, Mitchell must slip away to find her mother and solve this bizarre case.

To Have and to Kill is part of Mary Jane Clark’s wedding cake series. Piper Donovan, recovering from a broken engagement, returns home to help with her mom’s wedding cake business. Her mom’s macular degeneration, a friend’s murder, and a new love interest all impact Piper.

Lisa Genova’s Still Alice tells the story of Alice, a professor who develops Alzheimer’s. The story became the movie, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Now, look at your stories. Are all your characters in perfect physical shape? They’re boring unless they have a limp, a stutter, a facial scar, or some other imperfection. Are they polite at all times without a show of temperament? Are your antagonists all bad, or do they stop to open a door for the handicapped? Do they drop coins in the hat of the beggar on the street? Does your antagonist kill indiscriminately or does she only select victims who deserve to die? Do your characters have names that reveal a little about their personality or are you using the easy Dick and Jane names? Are your characters always living a life of luxury or is the middle class or the poor a part of some of your stories.

Mix it up! Add some flavor to your stories by including good and bad in protagonists, antagonists, and some of your minor characters. Your stories will be more compelling and interesting.