Skip to content

Archive for

Mar 29

Three posts to enhance your story’s emotional landscape

Below are three posts from me and Carly about enhancing the emotional landscape of your characters and stories.

In the post “Find your story’s emotional throughline” Carly writes about a babysitting experience she had where she learned about subtext–finding the real meaning beneath an event.

“Enrich your characters’ and readers’ emotional experience with these cues,” is a post about helping readers connect with your character’s emotions.

“Try these techniques to amplify emotion in your writing,” examines the use of anaphora to enhance your story’s emotional impact.

Mar 28

1 Comment

Answer your pesky editing and writing questions with these resources

To capitalize or not. One word or two? These are two of many confounding questions we run into as editors and writers. I’m sure I’ll never have every grammar and usage rule at the top of my mind, so luckily I have resources to consult that keep me on the straight and narrow writing path.

If you’re puzzling over a grammar question, checkout — I mean check out — my go-to source: Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Fogarty also has a book by the same name, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Here are recent word and usage questions I looked up.

Further vs farther – “Farther” is for for physical distance and “further” for metaphorical, or figurative, distance. It’s easy to remember, says Fogarty, because “farther” has the word “far” in it, and “far” obviously relates to physical distance. Read more

Mar 27

2 Comments

One way to free your subconscious writing mind

I had a writing date with a friend today who is a poet and playwright. As we set up our computers and writing space at the local coffee shop, she shared with me that she sometimes plays mahjong on her computer while working out a problem.

I said, “Huh?” I couldn’t imagine have a game open on my computer while trying to write. But she explained that when she has a problem she needs to work out in her mind, the clicking sounds of the mahjong tiles soothe her. I guess they create a kind of white noise.

So I tried it tonight. I download a free majhong game from http://ivorymahjongg.com and played it while thinking about the next scene in my book. What I discovered, besides the fact that mahjong is totally addicting, is that it did free me up to think about my plot. It felt as if I was keeping my conscious mind busy so my subconscious could get to work.

Sometimes, it’s necessary to take a step back from our writing to see where we want to go next. I often take breaks when I need to think about something—I wash the dishes, brush the cats, go for a walk, or even do some gardening.

Now, I’ve found another way to take a short mental break without leaving my chair.

What tricks do you use to access your subconscious writing mind?

Mar 26

1 Comment

Do you need to leap out of your creative comfort zone?

One night I got an unexpected call from a former co-worker. We hadn’t talked in months and he caught me at a time when I was struggling with pushing my writing projects forward. I was stuck.

Something he said gave me a jolt of creative energy, although he probably had no idea it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. It went something like this:

“Sometimes you get a feeling in your stomach that makes you feel a little nervous, and that’s to let you know that you’re close to the edge of something that’s exciting and challenging and you need to push yourself out of your comfort zone.”

Even when we’re doing the things in life that we know we’re meant to do, it can be scary because the stakes are high. The best way to combat fear and resistance it immerse ourselves in our creative pursuit so that it becomes the focus instead of the fear.

Have you ever been scared of taking a leap but knew you just had to do it?

Mar 25

How to stand out from the slush pile

One of the things I love about reading other people’s work is what I learn from it.

So, last year, when I was asked to be one of the judges for a prose competition, I said yes. The competition guidelines listed the areas we were to rank on a scored number system—things like characterization, setting, dialogue, point of view, etc.

Of the twenty or so submissions I read, there were a variety of stories—from a gothic, steampunk, coming-of-age story to a memoir about losing one’s memory in the aging process.

A few submissions stood out above the others like the shiny, bright agates my cousin and I would hunt for on the beaches of our childhood. These submissions wove all aspects of good writing and storytelling together into a whole that hooked my interest from the first line and never let go.

The majority of the submissions fell somewhere in the middle of the pile—not to be rude—but what I might call “mediocre land.” They weren’t poorly written but they didn’t grab ahold of me and say, “Read this, now!” In fact, in many cases, I couldn’t wait for the story to be over because I was bored.

So, what did I learn? Read more

Mar 22

What’s the worst thing you can do to your character and why?

One thing about writing that’s hard for me is being mean to my characters, well at least most of them. I suspect that certain scenes we write are our way of acting out and doing things fictionally that we can’t do in real life. But stories need conflict and so we have to do horrible things to characters at times so they can grow and change and we can advance the story. (Although I draw the line at hurting the dog.)

So what are some guidelines for doing this? Writer K.M. Weiland says the point is to not only up the stakes and create conflict, but to generate character growth and advance the character’s personal arc.

For more details, watch her 2:26-minute video.

For more inspiration from Weiland, follow her @KMWeiland and visit her website.

Mar 21

2 Comments

Developing character emotions to create resonance

In my last post “Writing exercises to help you go deeper” I wrote about developing a writing exercise to help me delve into my story and focus on what my protagonist learned from her experiences and also how she grew from this knowledge or information.

It was pretty easy to come up with what she learned. For example, one of the things she had learned from her life experiences so far was that those who love her, eventually leave her. This is what she comes into the story with and, because she’s afraid of getting hurt, she guards her heart.

Over the course of the story, she learns to trust again. She learns that “leaving” is an illusion and that love is never-ending. Read more

« Older Entries