Guest author Charles Gramlich: Gems

Novel Spaces is in its 10th year! Over the coming months we'll be featuring some of the most popular posts from our archives. This one was first published September 18, 2009 by one of our first guests who went on to become a longstanding member of our blog group. Enjoy!

Charles Gramlich grew up on a farm in Arkansas but moved to the New Orleans area in 1986 to teach psychology at a local University. He’s since sold four novels and numerous short stories, mostly in the genres of Horror and Fantasy. In 2009 Charles’s nonfiction book, Write With Fire, was published. It’s a collection of his articles and essays on the craft of writing. He also produces a regular column on writing for the onlinenewsletter, The Illuminata. All of his books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online sites. Charles lives with his wife in Abita Springs, Louisiana, and has an adult son named Joshua. He blogs at Razored Zen.

Thanks to Novel Spaces for inviting me today. I’ve been enjoying the posts, and getting to look at the variety of featured books. Many talented authors live and visit here. I feel at home.

So, let me tell you about GEMS, which stands for GOAL, EFFORT, MOTIVATION, SKILL. I’m a mild mannered professor by day, and usually by night. And I’m always looking to help my students think about their education. As a writer too, everything ends up adapted for my own struggles with story, as well. That’s how GEMS developed, and here’s how I apply it to writing.

Most writers start with one GOAL, to get published. I did. But after you’ve seen your name in print that first goal is superseded and new goals must be set. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I realized the need to interweave my goals to produce the greatest effect. Specifically, I needed to set both long-term and short-term goals, and had to understand the difference between primary and secondary goals.

A primary goal is the highest level and I believe a writer should have only one. Everything else will be secondary, although that doesn’t mean unimportant. These days, my primary goal is to “advance my writing career.” Any other goals I set should work toward that purpose. Some “secondary” goals will be short-term: setting up a signing, improving a website, or even reading a book on writing. Other secondary goals are long-term. Eventually, I want to write a more ambitious book than I have so far, one appealing to a wider audience.

GOALs cannot be met without EFFORT, and the key is “sustained” rather than “acute” effort. Almost everyone “rises to the occasion” when a deadline is due. Such “acute” effort is often necessary in a literary career, but it won’t get a novel written. Sustained effort means doing the work every day; it means making continual progress toward a goal. Many novelists have a set page number or word count they strive to reach every day. That’s sustained effort. At times, when school overwhelms me, I’ve been reduced to, “just one paragraph a day.” But paragraphs lead to pages, and pages to stories. Push forward, and you’ll get there.

An individual’s effort level is affected by what psychologists call “locus of control.” People with an “internal” locus of control believe their own actions control the events of their lives. People with an “external” locus believe chance or “others” control their fates. Writers with an internal locus hold themselves responsible for their success or lack thereof, while authors with an external locus might say they were merely lucky or unlucky. Certainly, both internal and external factors impact a writer’s career. Research shows, however, that people with an internal locus typically work harder toward their goals. They believe effort is directly related to success or failure. From an “effort” standpoint, writers should try to feel in control of their careers, even if that isn’t always the case.

MOTIVATION is the third facet of GEMS, and it comes from two sources, “intrinsic” and “extrinsic.” Intrinsic motivations come from within. I’m proud of myself when I write hard and make progress. I feel guilty when I don’t. No external force applies these judgments to me. The pride and guilt come from inside. Extrinsic motivations come from outside. Rewards like money and praise are examples.

Most writers have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. I enjoy money myself, and I beam when someone compliments my work. But I also write because it engages my emotions. Intrinsic motivations make careers for writers. Extrinsic motivations actually lose their value over time. Would you have been thrilled to earn a few thousand dollars on your first book? What about on your tenth? When behaviors are controlled solely by extrinsic motivations, the payoff has to grow over time or the behaviors stop.

Extrinsic motivations also diminish intrinsic ones. Many writers write their first novel for love. They write their second for love and money. They write their third for money and love. See where the trend is headed? Love decreases; money increases. When it becomes all about money, many writers quit. To maintain long careers as writers, authors need to keep the love, even if that means changing genres or reinventing themselves.

Finally, we come to SKILL. When I started I had a good vocabulary, good visualization abilities, and had read enough to acquire a sense of story. That was it. I was a dialogue virgin, had no idea what a “scene” was, and used atrocious grammar. I could handle periods, but other than some haphazardly placed commas, I had only a nodding acquaintance with other punctuation. I hadn’t the faintest idea of submission format. These were skills I lacked. Yet, I sold a few stories (in the small press), all of which had vivid descriptions, interesting vocabulary terms, and periods. There were only two lines of dialogue in the first four stories I sold. There wasn’t a dash or semicolon anywhere. Fortunately, I knew what skills I lacked and found books to help me develop them. Unfortunately, they’re all still under construction.

Many of my students, and many writers, constantly play to their strengths. As a result, their strengths become crutches. We shouldn’t ignore our strengths, but improving weaknesses often brings the biggest advances in careers.

One weakness I’ve ignored is developing a business sense. I see others doing the same. I hate the business side of writing. I couldn’t sell slop to a hog. I’m not a good people person. I don’t smooze well. But I need to work on these issues if I really hope to expand my audience.

Now, it’s off to check my goals, increase my effort, and find some love in the story I’m working on. I might even read a book on selling. Anybody know a good one?

Thanks for having me!

—Charles Gramlich

Guest author Anne Louise Bannon: The Hard Part of Historical Research

Anne Louise Bannon

One of the things I love most about writing historical fiction is the research. I love reading old newspapers, poring over old maps, trying to decode old hand-writing, trying to determine if I’m getting an accurate understanding of something.

But the toughest part of any historical research is figuring out the day to day minutae of people’s lives. That’s the stuff that seldom gets written down or kept. Even in these days of tell-all social media, we seldom post about the baloney sandwich we had for lunch, the button we sewed back on our shirt, or even bother to describe how we make a baloney sandwich or sew a button on. Why should we? We all know what baloney is. Most of us get the idea of needle and thread going through the holes of a button.

The problem is, that’s exactly the information I need to bring an era to life. When did doctors start using plaster casts? (Doctors in Europe started using them in the 1840s and ‘50s, American doctors knew about them, but didn’t like using them for a long time – no idea why).

That was one of the biggest problems I had when writing my latest novel, Death of the Zanjero, a mystery set in Los Angeles 1870. The medical stuff was reasonably easy to find (my main character, Maddie Wilcox, has medical training). The politics of the then small town? A snap – there are scads of city council minutes I could draw upon, as well as newspapers from the time on microfilm.

However, there’s a lot about daily life in Los Angeles that was not in any of those sources or many others, as well. The story involves the town’s irrigation system, which was a series of ditches, or zanjas (pronounced zahn-ha), that had been dug off the main ditch, or Zanja Madre, which brought water from the Los Angeles River. The opening of the sluice gate to Maddie’s vineyard zanja is a major scene. Could I find anything referencing how the gates opened or what they were made of? Not in the city council minutes. There were several references to monies given to the Zanjero, or Water Overseer, for materials, but zip on what those materials were. Why would they write that down? They knew what those materials were.

One of the primary crops in the area at the time was wine grapes. Yep. The California wine industry actually started here in sunny SoCal (sorry about that, Napa). So, it made sense that Maddie made her living as a winegrower and winemaker. Yeah, but how did they make the wine? I had plenty of information on crop rates, who was making and selling the wine, stuff like that. But even one of the most prominent experts in the history of wine in the city, Dr. Thomas Pinney, couldn’t tell me what the process was. No one had written it down. They knew how it worked. Why should they?

I did actually find the answers, thanks to the doggedness of a couple librarians, one from the public library and the other from the wine industry archive at California State University of Pomona. And you know where both of them found those answers? In the tourist literature of the time.

Of course! Outsiders will write about what we think of as mundane. It’s new and strange to them. The other fun thing about tourist literature is that it goes back a way long ways, even to ancient times. You won’t always find information on cooking and what went on in kitchens and how houses were cleaned. Tourist literature, like most things in our planet’s history, does tend to be written by men and with their perspective. That which was written by women was usually written by women with the means to travel, which means they weren’t paying attention to what the servants were doing.

Diaries remain an excellent source of information. But don’t forget to check the tourist literature when you’re looking for daily life details. It sometimes has what nothing else does – and that’s a lot of fun.

~Anne Louise Bannon

Guest author Kathleen Kaska: A Study in Physics: Riding the Publishing Roller Coaster

Kathleen Kaska

Kathleen Kaska is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, travel articles and stage plays. Among her works are the award-winning Sydney Lockhart mystery series set in the 1950s, and Murder at the Arlington which won the 2008 Salvo Press Manuscript Contest. Kaska has also published three mystery-trivia books: The Agatha Christie Triviography and Quiz Book, The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Book, and The Sherlock Holmes Triviography and Quiz Book. Find her on Twitter and Facebook.




I’ve often been asked what it’s like being a published author. My answer has always been the same: it’s like hitching a ride on a roller coaster. You win a writing contest, which lands you a book contract. Your spirits soar. Another manuscript is rejected for the umpteenth time. You feel like tossing your laptop in the nearby stock tank. A reader tells you that your book was so entertaining and funny he bought several copies to give friends. You do a happy dance. Then some person, identified only by their initials, reviews your book on Amazon, gives it an average rating of three stars, and calls your writing “insipid.” You look up insipid to make sure it means what you think it means. It does.

You wonder if it’s all worth it. Then you awaken in the middle of the night with an ingenious idea for a story, and you’re glad you didn’t drown your laptop. Or you’re in your favorite coffee shop and can’t help eavesdropping on a shocking conversation. By the end of the day you’re using it in a murder plot for a new story.

Forget the downside of being a published author; it’s the writing that really matters. And in time you’ll realize that riding the roller coaster is part of the process.

By the way, the physics involved in moving a roller coaster cart up and down the track is quite simple: it’s the momentum gained by the force of gravity on the downhill slopes that gives the cart the energy to shoot up the next hill. That’s why the steepest hills are always at the beginning of the ride. Without the downhill slopes, going uphill would be impossible.

If you view writer’s block, rejections, less-than-favorable reviews, and all the other unpleasant surprises that come your way as opportunities that propel you forward, those plummeting descents won’t feel so frightening.

This post is an excerpt from my latest book, Do You Have a Catharsis Handy? Five-Minute Writing Tips, a collection of my blog posts written for and published by Cave Art Press.

I’m giving away three copies of Do You Have a Catharsis Handy? To be eligible, leave a comment. It’s always a delight to hear from readers.

Guest author Marilyn Levinson: 12 Things to Keep in Mind When Writing a Mystery Series

Allison Brook is the pseudonym of Marilyn Levinson, who writes mysteries, romantic suspense and novels for kids. She lives on Long Island and enjoys traveling, reading, watching foreign films, doing Sudoku and dining out. She especially loves to visit with her grandchildren on FaceTime.

12 Things to Keep in Mind When Writing a Mystery Series

by Marilyn Levinson

1. Your sleuth should be likable, interesting and resourceful, with a definite personality that includes quirks and personal issues that have yet to be resolved. Your sleuth needs to have a personal stake in solving the mystery.
2. Consider your setting a major character. Use your setting well--its geography and flavor, its contrasting neighborhoods, businesses, parks and restaurants. Set your scenes in various locales to avoid monotony. Create annual traditions that are celebrated in your locale. Examples: a parade, a dance, a barbeque. 
3. Occasionally change your setting. If most of the books in your series take place in a small town, you might have you sleuth solve a murder in Manhattan.
4. Your sleuth needs a best friend or confidant with whom to brainstorm. Consider creating a nemesis, as well, to up the tension and add red herrings to the mix.
5. A love interest (or interests) spices up your plot and adds another dimension.
6. Choose your victim carefully. Why was he/she murdered? What connects the victim to the suspects? Why was the second victim murdered?
7. Regarding suspects, have many, with various motives, and with varying connections to the victim(s). Don’t telescope the identity of the murderer, but let your murderer appear often enough so that your reader doesn’t feel cheated when all is revealed.
8. Secrets relating to the past are like chunks of dark Belgian chocolate in a chocolate brownie. Every character should have a secret or two. Reveal each secret only when necessary. Use them to your advantage.
9. Every mystery should have a theme. Be it a dispute regarding an inheritance, your sleuth’s relationship to an absentee father who shows up later in her life, each mystery should include a theme that reflects the concerns of your sleuth, the village or the outside world.
10. Decide what role official crime solvers play in your mystery. Even if you’re writing a cozy series, the police must appear in your books. Is your sleuth friendly with the homicide detective? Do they have an adversarial relationship? Don’t have the police come off as idiots because they’re not.
11. Subplots are essential to any novel, including your mystery. They may arise from the theme such as a dispute over land development, from characters in conflict, or from an issue in your sleuth’s personal life.
12. Make sure your personal viewpoint comes through in your writing. You are unique. Your voice and your view of the human condition will help make your series stand out.

Website: http://www.marilynlevinson.com

Marilyn's Amazon page: http://amzn.to/K6Md1O

Allison’s Amazon page: http://tinyurl.com/ksydz3s

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marilyn.levinson.10?ref=ts&fref=ts

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/161602.Marilyn_Levinson

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Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/marilev/

Guest author Edith Maxwell: Keeping A Series Fresh... And A Giveaway!

I write more than one mystery series. Mulch Ado About Murder, my fifth Local Foods Mystery, came out a month ago, and I’ll send a signed hardcover to one commenter here today! Here’s the cover text:

It’s been a hot, dry spring in Westbury, Massachusetts. As organic farmer Cam Flaherty waits for much-needed rain, storm clouds of mystery begin to gather. Once again, it’s time to put away her sun hat and put on her sleuthing cap when a fellow farmer is found dead in a vat of hydroponic slurry—clutching a set of rosary beads. Showers may be scarce this spring, but there’s no shortage of suspects, including the dead woman’s embittered ex-husband, the Other Man whose affair ruined their marriage, and Cam’s own visiting mother. Lucky for Cam, her nerdy academic father turns out to have a knack for sleuthing. Will he and Cam be able to clear Mom’s name before the killer strikes again?

Keeping A Series Fresh

The Local Foods Mysteries are cozy, with a small-town protagonist, a crew of series regulars who pop up again in book after book, and a setting readers grow to know and love. Of course every book includes a new murder victim or two, a new method of killing, new suspects, and a new villain. But one of the core elements of cozies is that familiar small town setting, even if the small town is a village within a big city, and those familiar characters.

So how do I keep my stories from getting boring after five books, or myself—and my readers—from getting bored?

Certainly those new aspects I mentioned help. I love researching unusual ways to knock people off—fictionally, of course. Lucy Zahray, a Texan pharmacologist, gives talks on readily available poisons at mystery conferences, and I’ve picked up several from her, including the method in Mulched. Yes, if the NSA is listening in, I’m definitely on the watch list.

Coming up with a fresh crew of suspects is always fun. Who might have reason to kill a new-to-town hydroponic farmer, for example? All but one will be a red herring, and I hope I keep you strung along until very close to the end.

So far I haven’t taken my protagonist out of town, but that’s another trick authors use in long-running series. She has occasion to go to Maine, California, or Italy for a book, and sure enough, becomes embroiled in a murder case there, too. Nobody wants their town to turn into Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove, because everybody dies there!

Another thing I do is send a supporting character away for a book. We don’t need all of them in every episode. My farmer’s youngest volunteer went off on a spring break service project in Murder Most Fowl, book four, for example.

Most important is to keep my protagonist growing, changing, learning. I especially don’t want her to stagnate and be the same in every book.

Readers: What’s your favorite mystery series, cozy or otherwise? Which authors do long series best, and which have bombed at it?

Edith Maxwell
Agatha-nominated mystery author

2017 double Agatha-nominated and national best-selling author Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mysteries and the Quaker Midwife Mysteries; as Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Her award-winning short crime fiction has appeared in many juried anthologies and journals, and she serves as President of Sisters in Crime New England.

A fourth-generation Californian and former tech writer, farmer, and doula, Maxwell now writes, cooks, gardens (and wastes time as a Facebook addict) north of Boston with her beau and three cats. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, Killer Characters, and with the Midnight Ink authors. Find her on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and at www.edithmaxwell.com.

Guest author Linda Lee Kane: The World Needs Readers

Linda Kane

Linda L. Kane MA in Education, PPS, School Psychologist, and Learning Disability Specialist, is the author of The Black Madonna, Witch Number is Which, Icelandia, Katterina Ballerina, Cowboy Jack and Buddy Save Santa, Chilled to the Bones. Clyde: Lost and Now Found and Bottoms Up, A Daisy Murphy Mystery are 2017 releases. Linda lives with her husband, three dogs, one bird, and six horses in California. 






I’m not a disciplined or systematic reader. I’ll read just about anything that catches my eye. Most of the time the books I read have nothing to do with improving myself. I mean if I’m happy why would I look for a book to make me happier? Sometimes when I’m walking through a bookstore I’ll stumble across a book that may change me in a trivial way but later, when I’ve thought about it in a more significant way.

When I was younger my constant companions were books about strong, inventive women like, Clara Barton, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, women who made a difference in the world. Now I read books that politically affect our lives and compare them with historical books from the past, for example: The White Rose, Kill the Indian, and Save the Man. Those comparisons help me be wary of rhetoric that sounds almost too good to be true.

I’m reminded that reading a book regardless of the grim realities, there is always an affirmation of life. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of the retelling in their own way.

Reading books isn’t just a reset and recharge, it isn’t just how I escape. Books help me further engage with people and life.

Books remain one of the strongest ways we have to prevent tyranny but only as long as free people are allowed to read different kinds of books. A right to read whatever you want, whenever you want is a fundamental right that helps preserve all other rights. But reading isn’t just a strike against intolerance and narrowness, mind control and domination: it’s also one of the world’s greatest joys.

Guest author Sorchia DuBois: In Defense of First Person

Sorchia DuBois

Lately, I’ve heard a number of people express an abiding prejudice against any book written in first person. They say they will toss a book aside as soon as the evil “I” signals a first person narrator.

Since I make use of first person POV, I am naturally concerned that one of my babies might be disqualified straight out of the gate. Tell me—from whence does this hatred spring?

Don’t get me wrong, no POV is generally superior to another, as far as I can tell. Sometimes that story has to be gotten straight from the horse’s mouth—first person. Sometimes the story comes to you by a roundabout way—third person. Sometimes you need to know many things at once to really get the story—omniscient. It all depends.

So let me explain why I sometimes use first person.

First person is a challenge. To those who say first person is easy, I say “Pah!” I have to stay in one person’s head and tell her story as only she sees it. I can’t fall back on an omniscient source to clear up bits of the plot or to find out what’s happening in another part of town. And I have to make the story as interesting to readers as it is to the protagonist.

Let’s not even mention the technical bits like how do you get a physical description of your first person narrator without sounding stupid or without resorting to the old “ I walked past a mirror and . . .?” And how do you avoid starting every sentence with “I” or filling your prose with “me” and “my”? How much reflection is too much? How do you keep the plot moving when things happen off-stage?

First person is more immediate. I can show the action as she experiences the plot twists I gleefully toss at her.  I use present tense sometimes and that increases the immediacy but creates another monkey puzzle of how to avoid the pitfalls of tense along with the pitfalls of first person.

First person is more intimate. My character—like any human—processes the things that happen to her. She reflects and talks to herself. This presents another challenge because the temptation is to constantly tell her thoughts instead of show them. In a deep first person POV, I can let her work through her problems and illustrate her true nature.

First person doesn’t have to be reliable. Oh, the tricksy tales we tell ourselves to rationalize our own actions. As a teacher, I loved teaching about Edgar Alan Poe and his unreliable first person narrators. You know the guy--the narrator who tells us how sane and normal he is while relating his deviant behavior. People often lie to themselves just as they lie to others and I want my characters to do the same. A first person narrator is, after all, a person telling a story to a room full of other people.

Sometimes that story has to be gotten straight from the horse’s mouth—first person. Sometimes the story comes to you by a roundabout way—third person. Sometimes you need to know many things at once to really get the story—omniscient. It all depends.

A great many classic novels make use of first person. To name only a few:

• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Gulliver’s Travels
• Huck Finn
• Catcher in the Rye
• The Invisible Man

More modern uses of a first person narrator achieved best seller status. A few of these:

• The Lovely Bones
• The Stephanie Plum books
• Outlander

I won’t change my first person stripes just yet though I don’t put myself in league with any of these authors. Still, I want to know what I can do to lure first person POV haters to give this kind of narrator another chance.

As a matter of fact, I’m presenting a brand new short story in first person for a blog challenge during the April. If you are up for it, follow me at www.sorchiadubois.com to receive every episode of this witchy little tale. Or grab my latest book, Zoraida Grey and the Family Stones. Tell me what you think of my brand of first person narrator.

Guest author J.D. Lakey: White Space

Eventually, no matter what kind of writer you are or how experienced you become, every writer gets the dreaded WRITER'S BLOCK. Oh, I am not talking about the little sputters, like when you are writing away, full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes, the juices flowing, amazing words are streaming out of your keyboard filling your empty screen with magic, and then all of a sudden, the fire dies, the juices dry up, the song inside your head goes silent and you stare at your fingers and wonder why they have forgotten how to type. All that white space on your screen glares back at you reproachfully.

Experience says that you need to turn off your computer and walk away for a moment. Usually you realize instantly that you have made your character do or say something that is out of character or you have broken the cardinal rule of fiction – show, don't tell, or worse, you have been editorializing - inserting your own personal opinions into a characters thoughts or dialogue, weighing the story down like a two-ton load of bricks.

So you go for a walk or turn on something mindless on the TV or clean your house, all the while clearing your mind so your subconscious can work out the problem. Sleeping on it always helps. The next day, you start fresh by deleting the offending words. Or paragraphs. Or chapters. In this new world of publishing, you have to wear many hats. So you put on your editor's hat and cut. It was good, that stuff you are now deleting. Maybe you save the old stuff. Shove it down to the bottom of the screen, thinking you will use it somewhere else, a couple chapters on. Trust me. You won't. Out of context, it has no meaning and if it was a dead weight now, it will be doubly so somewhere else. Get rid of it. If it needs to be in your story, you will write it again, only better.

True writers block, the kind where no matter what you write just sorta sputters and dies a pitiful death on screen can stop you cold for weeks on end. I got 50,000 words into book five of the Black Bead Chronicles when this happened. I wrote other things. I binge-watched Netflix. I read. I edited.

A couple short stories later - short stories are how I work out dialogue, or relationships, or plot ideas - I figured it out.

Other authors have written about characters taking on a life of their own. I wanted book five to be the last of the series. I wanted a happy ending – well, not happy, exactly, but an ending that put closure to all the threads of all the lives of all my characters. Apparently my characters did not want closure. They wanted a gods-honest, happily-ever-after-ending.

Well, crap.

I had just lit a figurative bomb and dropped it in the middle of the main character's life at the end of book four, Trade Fair. How the hell was this going to end well? I wrote a final scene for book five and then stopped. Here was the puzzle. How was I going to take the prologue and make a story that flowed like a river to that end?

A half dozen short stories later, I started writing Black Bead Chronicles again. I still didn't know how it was all going to work out, but I had forgotten that it did not matter. I don't so much write as tell stories, stories with twists and turns that always surprise me. I, more than any of my readers, want to know how the story ends. There will be a happily-ever-after ending. I promise, but it will be later, after all the adventures are done.

Can I say anymore than that? Nope. Which is why I keep writing.

J.D. Lakey is the author of The Black Bead Chronicles. Find her on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads and YouTube.

Guest author Susan Oleksiw: Opening Lines

Susan Oleksiw

Susan Oleksiw is the author of the Anita Ray series and the Chief of Police Joe Silva/Mellingham series. Her most recent book is When Krishna Calls: An Anita Ray Mystery. The Anita Ray series grew out of Oleksiw's lifelong interest in India, where she lived and studied. Susan is well known for articles on crime fiction. She published A Reader's Guide to the Classic British Mystery (G.K. Hall, 1988), and served as co-editor for The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999). 


There are as many ways to open a story as there are storytellers, but all have the same goal, to pull the reader into the tale. The opening lines establish tone also, dark or light, humorous or not. The general rule is to establish a normal world that is upset, and the results of the “upset” are the story. For example, Dashiell Hammett opens The Maltese Falcon with a description of Sam Spade.

“Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-gray eyes were horizontal. . . . He looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan.”

We get a very clear impression of Sam Spade, and we read on to find out just how much like Satan he really is. But we are warned that the story will have a light hand, a little humor, as we go.

Anthony Trollope gives us a different kind of opening in The Eustace Diamonds, but his own view of his heroine is there also.

“It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies—who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two—that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself.”

We surmise that Lizzie has risen above her station, and not everyone approves of her or how she’s achieved this. Trollope reinforces this view of her throughout the introduction, so we know exactly how he feels, along with everyone else.

By contrast, M.C. Beaton introduces her private detective in Dishing the Dirt this way.

“After a dismal grey winter, spring came to the village of Carsely in the Cotswolds, bringing blossoms, blue skies and warm breezes.
“But somewhere, in the heart of one private detective, Agatha Raisin, storms were brewing.”

This is a gentler lead-in but the promise is there. Into this bucolic world of natural beauty comes darkness, and a woman determined to combat crime. This gentle opening is the opposite of that in Louise Penny’s The Nature of the Beast.

“Running, running, stumbling, running.
“Arm up against the wiry branches whipping his face. He didn’t see the root. He fell, hands splayed into the moss and mud. His assault rifle dropped and bounced and rolled from sight.”

In these short lines, we feel the terror, the sense of desperation and helplessness, and the danger compounded by falling.

All the beginning lines are tight, focused, and revealing of the way the story will be told. This is what every writer hopes to achieve in his or her opening. Sometimes this means rewriting the passage a dozen times.

In my current work-in-progress, I struggled with the opening lines. In the end, as I neared the climax of the plot, I could see better how to link the end with the beginning. And once I had that, the opening also became clearer. The first line I settled on is this:

“On the third night Felicity lifted the shotgun from its place in the cabinet, and this time she loaded it.”

The following lines describe the previous two nights, and why this night she is loading her weapon.

I rarely begin a story or novel with a perfect opening line. Instead, I return to the first sentence again and again, as the story takes shape and the direction becomes clearer. I might rewrite the opening a dozen times, but when I finally get the perfect first line, everything else falls into place.

Guest author Cyndi Pauwels: Writing Workshops

C.L. (Cyndi) Pauwels
Author of  Forty & Out

I’ve been to any number of writing conferences and workshops over the years, and I’ve learned there are certain gatherings that will send me home with a renewed confidence in my work. Others simply drain my enthusiasm, leaving me tired and discouraged. And like any new experience, a conference can be intimidating. What should I look for? How do I choose? Will I fit in? Granted, I’m a confirmed introvert (like many writers I know), so after the initial adrenaline rush, large gatherings exhaust me quickly.

My favorite writing conference in both size and format is the venerable Antioch Writers’ Workshop (31 years and counting!*). I dreamed of it from afar for many years before finally attending in 2009, and the 120-150 person week-long summer session is perfect for me. AWW also offers a fall retreat, a spring one-day craft seminar, and free monthly mini-seminars at the local Books & Co. September through May.

While smaller, more intimate getaways are wonderful, too, they can be fraught with their own peril (I have to share what I’ve written?!). But they can be a good start for novice writers in other respects. I was reminded of that just two weeks when I had the pleasure of staffing the fifth annual AWW fall retreat – an intensive weekend with fifteen writers and two dedicated faculty members. We gathered in a lovely secluded environment with three great meals a day, comfy beds, lots of wine (we are writers!), iffy wifi (which can be a good thing) – and writing time. No interruptions from children, dogs, chores…what bliss!

Several of the participants were new to the world of writing workshops, and their apprehension took a bit of time to ease. But as they realized they were surrounded by like-minded individuals, by people who really understood their struggles with characters and plots and language, who didn’t think they were odd to talk about the voices in their head, their relaxation was visible. They’d found their tribe. It was such a joy for the veterans among us to welcome these enthusiastic newbies to the fold, and after three days of small group discussion, writing prompts, and time to work on our own projects, we all went home energized and motivated.

That’s what a good writing workshop should offer: time together, with fellow writers who understand the journey we’ve chosen; and time alone, to ponder, and imagine, and refill that creative reservoir. We can debate the finer points of class settings versus panels, public readings versus quiet writing time, but ultimately, it’s about community.

Writing is such a solitary endeavor that any time we can find that place to gather with those who understand us, to share thoughts and craft and ideas and encouragement, we need to take advantage of that. A good conference/workshop isn’t about competition and showmanship and sales numbers. It’s about supporting the world of books and writing that we all hold dear, and helping each of us to find our niche, to be successful writers in whatever definition of that term we choose.

After my seven-year relationship with AWW, I continue to be awed and humbled by the camaraderie and warmth offered from the talented and generous faculty as well as from the eager participants. The relationships forged during those sessions carry on into the world beyond AWW, creating ripples in the Dayton, Ohio, literary community and beyond for a long, long time. The “Antioch magic” so many alums speak of is very real.

And at whichever writing event you choose to attend, I hope you find that same magic.

The core of my writing community: the hardworking behind-the-scenes
folks of the 2016 Antioch Writers’ Workshop
(front: Dara Cosby; back, left to right: Matt Garrett, Executive Director
Sharon Short, Jan Irvin, Cyndi Pauwels (that’s me!), and Lori Fetters-Lopez). 

Guides to writing conferences:

• http://www.newpages.com/writers-resources/writing-conferences-events
• http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/writers-conferences
• https://www.awpwriter.org/wcc/directory_conferences_centers
• http://www.pw.org/content/writers_conferences_colonies_and_workshops?cmnt_all=1
• http://writing.shawguides.com/

*Disclosure: after four years as a workfellow, I was appointed Assistant Director of AWW in 2014

http://www.antiochwritersworkshop.com/

Guest Blogger LaShaunda Hoffman - Are Your Social Media Platforms Ready For Promotion?

Greetings! Our guest blogger for today, standing in for me this month, is LaShaunda Hoffman. I've known LaShaunda for many years and while she initially was introduced to me as the owner of the online magazine, Shades of Romance - SOR, she now wears not only the hat of a magazine publisher, but she is also a literary advocate and author, whose mission is to help promote writers by introducing them to readers. And so I introduce to you, LaShaunda Hoffman. Her information on social media promotion is very timely in this day and age. 

Are your social media platforms ready for promotion?

When I stop by some writer social media pages, they don’t look like a writer’s page.  Most don’t showcase their writing or their books.  How will a reader know you are a writer?

Most writers are on social media, but they aren't doing much promotion because they don't want to overwhelm their readers with promotion.  However if you don't promote you aren't selling books.

Below are a few questions to answer to see if your social media platforms are ready for you to promote on them.

• Are you using a book cover or your picture as your profile picture?
• Do you have a FB cover, Twitter Header page that is geared toward your books or writing?
• Can your audience tell what you write from your platform pages?
• Can your audience contact you from your platform pages?
• If you have a website, is the link included on your platform pages?
• Do you have a link to join your mailing list?
• Do you have a call to action on your platform pages?
• Do your social media platforms show you as an expert in your field?
• Are your social media platforms updated daily with fresh content?
• Do you share what your books are about?
• Do you engage with your audience when they leave comments?
• Are you building relationships on your platforms?

If you answered yes to all these questions, your social media platforms are ready for you and your promotion.

If you answered no to a few of them, it is time for you to sit down and update your social media platforms.

You want your social media platforms to showcase the best image of you and your books. You want your audience to know what your books are all about, that you know what you're talking about, how to get in contact with you and where to purchase your books if they're ready to buy.

Social media is a great place to promote your books.  If you're not putting your best effort forward you will sabotage your promotion.

Promotion is all about staying consistent. You can download your copy of the Promotion Kit checklist to see if you are ready to stay consistent with your promotion. Link to Promotion Kit Checklist

Amazon link to purchase Building Online Relationships

Bio: LaShaunda Hoffman is a online promotion strategist.  She teaches writers and business owners how to be consistent with their promotion by helping them create an actionable promotion plan to build online relationships.  She published her first book Building Online Relationships - One Reader At A Time.  You can find her online at -http://lashaundahoffman.com  

Guest author Timothy C. Ward: Strong Women Characters

Guest author Timothy C. Ward

August has been an exciting month participating in the Strong Women giveaway promoting strong women in fiction. We have over $2,500 in prizes, so even if you don’t like women you’d be hard pressed to pass up that prize.

I had a conversation the other day with a studious reader who championed the evolution of promoting strong women in fiction. While I didn’t completely disagree with him, I didn’t exactly enjoy what he had to say.

His general point was that he was sick of reading stories where there is only one woman and her purpose is to sacrifice all else for falling in love. He hates romance, in fact. If a story has women in it, and it should have multiple women to be a good story, they better not give up on their goals to fall in love.

To take a step back, my thoughts on women in fiction is a lot like men in fiction, and children, and old people, and insert race, denomination, whatever: if they only serve one purpose then that’s plain bad writing. To say that a story is sexist against women because you had your main female lead fall in love is a direct contradiction against what the large majority of humans pursue in their lives: someone to love them for who they are and for whom they can give themselves up as sacrificial lovers.

I celebrated my seventh wedding anniversary this year and am preparing for our second child in January. If there is one area in which I’ve struggled and found my greatest success as a husband, it is in the area of sacrificing myself for my wife and son. That is love. Do I want to read a story about a male or female who purports to be strong because they are unwilling to sacrifice themselves for someone else and to experience the best emotional we’ve been created to enjoy? No.

I want stories where women fall in love, where they bear their weaknesses and are lifted up by the person who falls in love with them so that both of them can become stronger people.

I’ll tell you what, the man I was before I met my wife was selfish and hard, broken from a difficult past and completely ignorant about how much more he could love and let love change him.

So, if you’re writing a story and you think, this female character can’t fall in love because they need to show strength, consider how much stronger they could be as a duo.

I wrote a book with three strong women in Godsknife: Revolt. One is a priestess who has figured out how to create a cross species virus that allows her to telepathically control an army of human insect hybrids, and whose goal is to display her powers of Order by overpowering the Chaos she unleashes. Another is an early twenties orphan who didn’t realize the father figure she had been working for is a Chaos doctor and the guy she meets while visiting Iowa State is a recruiter for Order. She goes from the fear of leaving the familiar for the adventure of college to running for her life and into the myths of the supernatural. She will battle the loss of her parents and how easy it will be to turn to vengeance instead of the strength within. Lastly, a middle-aged woman who left the Chaos doctor because of his drinking will also run into her father and face the anger she’s held within about his over protectiveness and subsequent divide that has hurt their relationship for years.

Godsknife: Revolt is available in ebook and paperback from Evolved Publishing. For signed copies and links to online retailers, check out www.spikepub.com.

Timothy C. Ward is a Hugo nominated producer for Adventures in SciFi Publishing, who has been lost, broke and surfed with sharks on the other side of the world. He now dreams of greater adventures from his keyboard in Des Moines, Iowa. This summer he released two novels: his second Sand Divers book, Scavenger: A.I., where two parents use an ancient technology to fight a reproducing A.I. while trying to resurrect their deceased infant, and Godsknife: Revolt, an apocalyptic battle for godhood in the rift between Iowa and the Abyss. 

Preorder Godsknife: Revolt and send him an email at tim@timothycward.com to request two of his Kindle ebooks, free!

Sign up for his newsletter for news, sales, giveaways and more: http://www.timothycward.com/newsletter/.

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Guest author Amanda Heger: Yes, Please: Ten Things Amy Poehler Taught Me About Publishing

Amanda Heger

Amanda Heger is a writer, attorney, and bookworm. She lives in the Midwest with three unruly rescue dogs and a husband who encourages her delusions of grandeur. Her debut romance, Without Borders, is available now from Diversion Books. The story was inspired by the summer Amanda spent in rural Nicaragua, eating gallo pinto, speaking mangled Spanish, and showing high school students how to slide condoms onto over-sized plantains.

Yes, Please: Ten Things Amy Poehler Taught Me About Publishing

Note: If you haven’t read Poehler’s Yes, Please you should. One part memoir, one part self-help, and one part funny pictures, it’s a balm for a creative person’s soul. And being involved in publishing guarantees you’ll need some soul-soothing at some point in the game.

10. Your Phone Does Not Want You to Finish That Manuscript
We’ve all been there. You sit down, cue up your playlist, and open your manuscript. “I’ll just check Twitter,” you murmur to that seductive little bird. “Give me five minutes.” Three hours later, you’ve checked your email ten times, Twitter-stalked every agent on your query list, and looked up your ex-boyfriend’s mug shot. Stop. Turn your phone to airplane mode if you have to, but get off the Internet and write.

9. It’s Easier to Be Brave When You’re Not Alone
You sit down at your computer—with your coffee or your tea or your Sour Patch Kids—and you make some stuff up. Easy, right? But wait. Now you’re supposed to let other people read it. You’re supposed to ask them if your stuff is good or bad or full of passive voice. Holy terrifying, Batman. Find writer friends. Friends who are also waving their stuff around for everyone to see. You’ll be amazed at how much braver you become.

8. You Don’t Always Have to Win to Get the (Contest) Pudding
It seems like every week there’s a new contest. They’re all this weird, amazing mash up of hope and excitement and horror. You might final. You might not. You might get ten requests. You might not. IT DOESN’T MATTER. If it’s a pitch contest, make friends with others who are pitching. If you like them, con them into being your critique partners. If you get feedback on your pages, focus on strengthening your story. That’s real pudding.

7. Nice Manners Are the Not-So-Secret Keys to the Universe
Be polite. Be professional. No one wants to work with a jerk.

6. Listen, (Wait) and Say Yes
You’ve written something. You love it. It’s made of your sweat and blood and all that wine you spilled on your printer. Then you give it to your critique partner/agent/editor, and they tell you all sorts of things about it. Heavy things. Things that make you want to light your laptop on fire and roast marshmallows over its remains.

Listen to what they’re saying. Don’t try to rationalize or explain. Just listen. Wait—a day, a week, a month—however long it takes to dull the pain. Then say yes to the things that stuck with you, even if they’re heavy. Even if they mean a lot more work than you ever intended. Because, let’s face it, writing is always a lot more work than you ever intended.

5. Good for Her, Not for Me
I know people who write entire manuscripts in a weekend. I know people who take years to finish a first draft. I know someone who got an agent after sending out five queries. I know someone who found an agent after a hundred queries. There are as many paths to publishing as there are writers. Find what works for you and embrace it.

4.  Learn to Stomach Other People Not Stomaching You
You’ll work on your story for months, agonizing over every word choice. You’ll get three new gray hairs and do enough research to end up on some kind of Homeland Security watch list. Doesn’t matter. Someone’s going to think it’s dull. Someone else is going to hate it. Your own editor might cut out all of your that’s-what-she-said jokes. (*waves to editor*) It’s okay. Take a deep breath. Go read some one-star reviews for your favorite books and remind yourself that art is subjective.

3. Great People Do Things Before They Are Ready
If you’re like me, you’re never going to feel ready. Not for querying, not for submission, not for seeing your book in other people’s hands. The story will never be perfect enough. It will never be everything you want it to be. At some point, you’ve just got to jump and hope you land on your feet.

2. Learn to Live With Your Demon
Every writer has a demon—that sometimes too loud voice that reminds you of your worst flaws. Maybe your demon sounds like Kathleen Turner. Smooth and edgy and a little bit sexy. Unfortunately, mine sounds like Gilbert Gottfried. “Your writing isn’t commercial enough,” he says. (Every. Single. Day.) “There aren’t any [rock stars/body guards/alpha heroes/take your pick]. You think someone will buy this? Ha. Not even your mother will read this.”

I’m learning to treat him like the drunk uncle at Christmas. I give him enough attention to make sure he’s still breathing, but not much more. “Yeah, yeah.” I keep typing. (Always keep typing.) “I know there aren’t any rock stars, but I’m busy writing this scene set in a nursing home bathroom. I’m having fun, so remind me how no one will want it later. Thanks, bye.”

1. Treat Publishing Like a Bad Boyfriend
Publishing isn’t the same as storytelling. The drive to tell stories—through books or songs or TV—is
what keeps most writers going. It gets us through day jobs and illness and all that crap we call being adults.

Publishing is another beast all together. It’ll whisper sweet nothings in your ear one minute and punch you in the ovaries the next.  When things are good, they’re perfect. But there will always be a younger, prettier author with a movie deal waiting in the wings. (Her book will probably be full of sexy rock stars.) Don’t give publishing all your attention and energy. Don’t forget about the things you love. And remember, if things get too bad, you can always go sleep with somebody else.

Maybe even a rock star.

Without Borders by Amanda Heger
Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Guest author Elaine L. Orr: It’s Easier to be a Writer Today

Elaine L. Orr is the author of
the Jolie Gentil and River’s Edge
cozy mystery series. She also writes
books and blogs about writing and
publishing. Her blog is
Irish RootsAuthor

I didn’t say easier to be a good one. That depends on how hard you are willing to work.

To write his stories, my father sat at a typewriter for hours. He created happy families and strong Western heroes. Unfortunately, they all spoke with perfect diction and the happy endings were syrupy, so he never sold any stories or novels.

He enjoyed it, and his efforts showed that writing was worth my aspiration. He also went through his typewritten text with a pencil in hand and then retyped every word. Sometimes two or three times. On a manual typewriter.

When I began writing (imperfect) plays and screenplays on a Kay Pro 10 computer thirty years ago, I knew it was hard work. Fortunately, I wrote, edited, and made changes without retyping an entire manuscript.

I’m not sure I would have had my father’s persistence if I had to use a typewriter. However, by the time I began self-publishing my mysteries I had taken a number of  writing courses and revised the first two books of the Jolie Gentil series (written largely in tandem) many times. It was a different kind of persistence.

Besides the ease of rewriting, today’s authors don’t need a publisher’s blessing to put work in front of the public. You can start a blog (mine is Irish Roots Author) or submit to an expanding number of online and print short story markets. Sites such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Press make it fairly easy to publish a book.

But should you?

Finishing a piece of fiction or nonfiction is a big accomplishment. Take time to be proud. Also understand that your product is likely the first of many drafts, and don’t take the compliments of family and friends too seriously.

After you make a back-up electronic copy and email it to yourself, here are common next steps good writers take.

1) Put your book/story on the top shelf of a closet or bottom file cabinet drawer and don’t look at it for at least two weeks.
2) Start another project.

You did these two things to put distance between you and the novel. It’s the best way to be your own cold reader when you go back to the draft.

3) During your hiatus, read an article or book on editing your own work. I recommend Self-editing for Fiction Writers (Browne and King) or Stein on Writing (Sol Stein).
4) Reread the draft. Try to pay attention only to the story. If you have to circle a typo or awkward phrase, do it and keep moving. Take notes on things such as whether each scene moves the plot forward, characters behave consistently (or don’t if that’s on purpose), and the point of view is clear and consistent.
5) Develop the list of essential changes. Do not shy away from major revision because you wanted to be done or are not sure exactly what to do.
6) Don’t be discouraged, just start the rewrite.
7) The second draft could be ready for comments from other writers, a book editor you hire, or a local librarian or English teacher who owes you a favor or is simply generous.
8) When you are happy with the content, hire a copyeditor. It’s not good enough to rely on friends.

If you are tempted to say you’d rather put the book ‘out there’ and let readers decide its worth, remember this point. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Strong writing is the result of accepting criticism with an open mind and applying fixes you think are helpful. Note the last phrase. It is your book. Ultimately, it’s the readers and reviewers who give it a thumbs up or down.

Each book is its author’s learning experience. May your lessons be rewarding.

Guest author Lesley A. Diehl: Writing What You Know: Five Pitfalls to Avoid

Lesley A Diehl 
Author of cozy mysteries
featuring sassy country
gals who enjoy snooping

The first piece of advice I was given as a novice mystery writer was to write what I knew. I suppose that’s good literary advice in general regardless of the genre you write. How persuasive can your writing be when constructing a romance about nineteenth century Spain if you don’t know the period, the country or the dress and customs of the people? Similarly, I would never attempt to write other than a cozy mystery or perhaps a traditional mystery. Police procedurals require some knowledge of police work, whether it’s information you’ve gotten through direct experience or through reading extensively, interviewing police authorities or perhaps you were an police officer yourself or are close with someone who is.

However, writing a story based upon your own work background or even a hobby you’re familiar with doesn’t guarantee you a book or short story your reader will find enticing. There are some problems with writing what you know. I’ve identified five of them.

1. There is no distance between you and elements in your story.

I was a retired college professor, so I decided to be safe in my first mystery manuscript. I wrote about a college professor who helped local authorities solve murders, especially those occurring on the college campus. Aside from my very real problem of still writing like an academic rather than a mystery author, I was so close to my subject matter than it sounded as if I had an ax to grind. Well, I did, of course, but all those juicy little details about academe came across not as texture in my story, but as insults I had not yet gotten beyond.  I needed to remind myself I was writing fiction, not true life adventures of a wronged professor.

I recently read a manuscript written by someone with a medical background. It was filled with details that should have given a reader insight into the profession. Instead it read like a diatribe against certain aspects of the profession. The story was lost.

How to get beyond this? Well, it took me almost ten years until I came to understand my story should not be mine, but my protagonist’s story. The juicy details now became embellishments in her life, not mine.

2. You know too much.

You have an extensive background in some profession or hobby or have researched an aspect of your protagonist’s life that you find interesting, and, by golly, you’re going to put all of this into your story. You believe it provides the detail necessary to flesh out the life of your protagonist, or so you say. But your reader yawns halfway through your account of how to make Origami Christmas decorations and decides he/she doesn’t have the time for a protagonist that thinks crafting is as important as her love life or solving her best friend’s murder. You’re just showing off.

There’s a delicate balance between providing enough detail to make a scene feel real and creating nausea in your reader by over burdening her with particulars that lead to boredom. A good critique group or a critique partner may help you establish this balance.

3. You read and read and read.

You know you want to include information about your protagonist’s life that you do not have knowledge about. You do this because you want your reader to understand that your protagonist has a multifaceted life. She likes camping, backpacking to be exact, but you are afraid of bugs, so you use the internet to find out all you can on backpacking. And you hope your reader will not discover how little experience you have. You’ll be found out, if not by gaping holes in the breadth and depth of your camping research, but by the rather tiresome tone you use to describe your heroine’s recent camping trip.

It’s fine to bolster your understanding of some area with research, but, if you limit it to what you read and not what you experience, your writing will suffer for your lack of intimacy with the subject matter. I find that experience in the form of tours, interviews or partaking in some event can be fun for the author and, by extension, that fun finds its way into your writing. I’ve done things like touring numerous microbreweries to find out about the process of brewing, taking an airboat ride, or, my favorite, shopping, shopping, shopping yard sales, consignment shops, secondhand stores and junk yards. The feel of places where your protagonist travels or lives makes your story come to life.

So, use a lot of bug spray or choose another activity for your protagonist.

4. You learn about something no one else is interested in.

When I decided I need to create a protagonist with a career in some field other than the ones often found in cozies, e.g., quilt shops, catering services, crafts, bookshop owners, I thought about occupations that were unusual for a woman. The two that came to mind were taxidermist and microbrewer. The first seemed exotic, to say the least, but I knew I’d have to learn firsthand about the business, and the thought of sinking my arms elbow deep in squirrel entrails did not appeal. I’m sure it wouldn’t have appealed to readers either. I chose microbrewer for my protagonist’s work and spent many happy hours in breweries talking with brew masters, sampling their wares (that was fun) and learning directly about making beer. I couldn’t brew a batch myself, but I have a better appreciation for the art than before I did my research, and I think it shows up in my mysteries set in a brew barn in Upstate New York.

I can’t tell you what topic would send your work off track, but perhaps asking friends and relatives, even strangers if they’d be interested in reading a mystery about a woman who worked in a factory that made peanut butter might give you some insight. If you put her in a mobile home and made someone in the factory responsible for intentionally contaminating the product, you might have a winner, but it’s a stretch. Avoiding this pitfall might be where common sense prevails.

5. You feel trapped by your boring life.

Well, let’s face it. Most of us have pretty mundane lives. If you are a writer, you are a storyteller, and the story you tell will not be about your life, the vocation you chose or even events you have experienced. To make a story sing, you will select feelings, perspectives, attitudes, and judgments about people and events in your life. Then, as a good story teller, you embellish what you know to create a world you never lived in but one you fashioned out of the important aspects (anguish, joy, loss, love, anger) of the one you did experience.

I had a truly crazy family, but I’d never write that story. I mean, I became a psychologist, and that should say enough about my family. Instead, I have chosen to take an aunt I was fond of and make her bigger than life. The love and admiration I had for this woman helped me create a character she would never recognize as herself, but I think I have distilled the essence of her flamboyant nature into a person who dominates the story. You can make a story from the central kernel of people you know.

How does a writer use a boring life and create memorable characters and stories? Your life may be boring, but you are a writer because you have an imagination. Few of us want to write about our own lives. Most of us are interested in writing a story.

The key to avoiding all these pitfalls is your own imagination, fashioned from your own experience, of course, but honed into a writer’s imagination by writing, reading and talking with other writers. And, oh yes, getting out of your own way so you can write.

Have you experienced these difficulties in writing what you know? Are there other pitfalls you’ve run into in your own writing or that of others?

   

Lesley's website

Her blog

Find Murder is Academic on Amazon

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