Chipping away at the statue that is our story

You know when you are watching a movie and the camera stays a heartbeat too long on the kitchen knife and you just know that something pivotal is going to happen with that knife? In most cases, this sort of cinematic emphasis to a prop means that the prop is going to be used later on in the film – the knife will be used to cut the ropes for escape, used to stab the bad guy, etc.

And likewise, I’m sure that you’ve seen films where you’ve noticed the knife and only after, you frustratingly realize that the knife was meaningless to the story. In that case, it was a poorly directed movie, where no one paid attention to that major rule of storytelling.

If you emphasis a prop, then you need to use that prop later on.

You’ve probably heard the advice for carving a statue – take a block of marble and cut away everything that does not look like the final statue. Easy enough huh?

The same advice goes for writing.

When you write a scene, you are obligated to incorporate detail. Think of the five senses, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Obviously, you don’t need to use them all but you need to strive to “paint” a textual picture of where your characters are. Everything in your scene must exist to propel your story’s action or plot.

The problem is that many writers rely on their own interpretations of the scene. You might recall a fancy restaurant where you had a memorable dinner once as the scene for your characters to have a heated argument over a pending divorce.

Even though you remember the forks as being incredibly study (and trust me, I appreciate a heavy fork as much as the next person) it’s not necessary to mention the forks in your scene, no matter how impressive they are.

If, however, one of your characters is going to steal a knife and then stab the other and then frame someone else, you might want to mention the sharpness of the steak knife, the way the lighting glints off of the blade. Even if they use another knife, attention to this knife might be warranted in the guise of foreshadowing.

As writers we must use our personal filters for all of our writing. It’s a given and that’s what makes our work individual and unique. However, as crafters of stories, we need to recognize that even though we see our stories through our own eyes, we need to be vigilant about chipping away all of our words that don’t leave behind the finished statue.

***

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens). (www.simplethrift.wordpress.com)

For the record, I’ve even “borrowed” a heavy fork that had impressed me.

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Manuscript Matters

For the second year in a row, I’ve served as a judge for a local writing contest, and for the second year in a row, I’ve been humbled by the variety and sincerity of the work submitted – and a bit horrified at the way the submissions have been formatted. So I thought I’d lay out the guide lines for a proper submission.

First, some terms: technically, a manuscript is a hand-written document, dating back to the days when that’s how authors submitted their work to be edited, typeset, and published. In the early twentieth-century, typewriters came into vogue, and an author was  expected to submit a typescript, a typewritten document. By the late twentieth century, the typewriter was replaced by the personal computer. At the beginning of this technological change, computers were used to generate letter-quality typescripts, which were then typeset for printing. With the advent of the internet, those typescripts turned into eFiles; and with the advances in photo-offset technology, those eFiles are now transformed digitally into books.

Despite all these technological changes, the parameters for a professional submission still hark back to the typewriter days. What this means is that your eFile submissions should be formatted to look as if it were typewritten. If your submission is accepted, it will then be formatted according to the publisher’s design, whether in a periodical, as web content, or as a book.

So what does a typescript look like? Here are a few simple rules:

• Use a twelve-point, serif, font; your document should look typewritten, even on-screen.
• Use black ink.
• Use 1” margins top, left, bottom and right.
• Justify the left margin only.
• Double space.
• Use a running header in the top right corner with your last name (unless contest rules require anonymous submissions), the title of your work, and the page number.

While it may appear that these are fossilized rules, they’re not. They are the gold standard for ease of reading and will be much appreciated by all the contest judges, agents, editors, publishers and any others who read your submissions. These are people who read a lot; you want to make it easy for them to do so.

More on Typeface

No question, all those fonts on the computer are inviting. Save them for your holiday greeting cards.  For most of the era of the typewriter, 12-point elite type was standard, although a few machines offered 10-point pica. Until the behemoth IBM Selectric came along, you were stuck with whatever typeface that came with your machine; the Selectric introduced script fonts. Generally, elite was chosen for being easy to read.

Typewriters all had serif fonts. Serifs are the little lines at the top and the bottom of individual letters, vestiges of the typesetting days, when printers used them to align typeface. They have a current use: serif fonts are easier to read, and you want to go gentle on your readers’ eyes. The most widely used and accepted serif font for typescripts is Times New Roman.

The san serif fonts have their uses, mainly in advertising. They take formatting well: bold, outline, filled in, shadowed, etc. These are hugely useful fonts – for graphic designers, not for prose submissions.

More on Font Formatting

Generally, it is best to write in sentence case: Initial capital followed by lower case words (except for proper nouns), with terminal punctuation at the end. A skilled prose writer will be able to create emphasis through diction and word choice rather than bold, italics, or change of font.

There are times when bold and italics are called for. Back in the typewriter days, words meant to be bold were typed in ALL CAPS, and titles of books were underlined, because italics weren’t possible. If you are writing for a specific market, it’s best to follow its specific style sheet, especially for citations. In absence of solid guidelines, what matters most is that you be consistent (i.e. treat all book titles the same throughout a typescript).

If all this sounds dry as toast, it’s meant to. It’s the language and story that matter, not blue ink or Gothic initial caps. Those are matters for the designer who will format your work for publication. Submitting professionally formatted files is the best way to cross that threshold.

Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of the award-winning novel, Into The Wilderness, and a regular commentator on Vermont Public Radio. Learn more at www.deborahleeluskin.com

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Dissection Of A White House Press Release – This Blog Will Self-Destruct In 60 Seconds

This is actually a blog post I wrote for Savvy B2b Marketing. I included it here because not only is it about writing, but the day will come when you will have to write your own press releases about your own projects (please, do you think the publishing house is going to do it for you? Maybe if you’re Stephen King.) So take note and learn a few tips from those writers at the top of the food chain. 

***

I’m going to show you something after which I’m probably going to have to be shot. (Please, I’m kidding — maybe). Actually the Obama administration keeps talking about transparency, so let just call this an exercise in being transparent.

What follows is a Press Release written by the best of the best. It originates from the White House, yup, that White House. I covered politics in New Hampshire during the last Presidential campaign and am on the White House press release list from which I receive several releases a week.

To a journalist, these documents are simply things of beauty.

I am continually amazed at how well written these releases are. They get to the point, they’re organized in their delivery, and they provide all the information you need to write the story. Most are written in concise article format, ready to run – making any journalist’s life just that much easier.

Compare this style and the organization of information to the press releases you may be sending out.

Note: the bolded statements are my annotations and do not reflect the views of the White House.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 12, 2009

FACT SHEET

(Look, they identified what sort of a Press Release this is up front, how helpful for the receiving journalist)

INNOVATIVE WORKPLACE PRACTICES: A DISCUSSION WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA

(No drama in this title – most articles have headlines written in-house so don’t spend too much time constructing one, here they kept to the facts for the headline)

All over the country, innovative ideas are being implemented in the workplace to improve the health of workers and reduce the rising rate of health care spending.  Skyrocketing health care costs are crushing families and companies, impeding businesses’ ability to expand and compete, and stunting the country’s economic growth.  Some employers and unions – spanning industries, firm size, and workforce demographics – are using creative approaches to reverse that trend in their workplaces.

(This is the story lead. Any reporter could cut this lead and drop it into the beginning of an article. In this first paragraph, you have a stated problem along with the suggestion of a solution.)

Examples of innovative health care programs in the workplace are everywhere.  As a result of many successful programs at businesses across the country, workers have become more engaged in their own health care, productivity is increasing, absenteeism is dropping, and employers are passing some of their health care savings to their workers.  Employers are discovering that improving quality of care can reduce health care costs.  Small actions in the workplace can generate large benefits.

(This next paragraph concentrates on specific examples that support the initial premise of “help is on the way”.)

Today, the President will meet with some employers and unions whose innovations have produced promising results.  He will hear firsthand about the best practices that are spreading in workplaces around America.  Many in this group have reduced disease risk factors; several have onsite clinics; and all have programs to reduce obesity and improve activity levels.  And the President will direct the Office of Personnel Management to work with the Office of Health Reform, the National Economic Council, the Department of Labor, and the Office of Management and Budget to examine successful employer wellness and prevention practices that lower health care costs and improve employees’ health and to explore the feasibility of developing such a plan for federal employees and their workplaces.

(Here’s the action item, it includes the who, what, when, where and how)

The President hopes that by encouraging more employers to adopt similar programs, we can improve the productivity of our workforce, delay or avoid many of the complications of chronic diseases, and slow medical cost growth.

(This paragraph outlines the desired results from the action item. This Press Release is written as a drop-in story. You could break the article here and simply use the above as is. This is important because with the quick turn-around times on many of these releases, the White House writers want to make sure you can get the information out quickly.)

Below is a list of the workforce innovators who will meet with the President to discuss their best practices today.

(This list not only identifies the participants but leads credibility to the action. It also serves as a way for reporters to locate a person who is in their geographic area should they want a quote. (Again, they make it as easy as possible for the journalist – there is great desire to have this story run.) You’ll also note that the following list contains 7 items. Convention tells us that a perfect bulleted list never contains more than 7-9 items.)

·         H.E.R.E.I.U. Welfare Fund (Dr. Jerry Reeves, Chief Medical Officer):  The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (H.E.R.E.I.U.) Welfare Fund offers multi-employer health insurance coverage for 90,000 eligible employees and their family members.  It redesigned its health benefits and health plan administration and implemented wellness and chronic disease management programs to generate millions of dollars in overall savings.  The H.E.R.E.I.U. Welfare Fund has also aligned incentives with desired behaviors by informing patients which physicians were high-performing, providing performance bonuses to high-performing doctors, and giving pregnant patients incentives to receive prenatal care.  These initiatives have effectively engaged workers to improve their health through widespread use of employee risk assessments, risk-based interventions, and behavior change programs.  The H.E.RE.I.U. Welfare Fund also has worksite pharmacies that give out free generic drugs for chronic conditions and provide special care centers for workers and family members who have high cost and complex chronic conditions.

·         Johnson & Johnson (Bill Weldon, Chairman of the Board and CEO):  Johnson & Johnson has one of the longest-running workplace health programs in the United States.  The company has a sophisticated set of disease management and prevention interventions, risk-based incentives, pedometers/exercise goals, treadmills available for offices, and other health related programs.  According to its recent employee health scorecard for United States employees, at the end of 2007, Johnson & Johnson continued to make health improvement progress and its health initiatives avoided an estimated $15.9 million in health care costs in 2007.  As well, from the late 1990s to 2006 in the United States, smoking declined from 12 percent of its workforce to four percent, high blood pressure dropped from 14 percent to six percent, and high cholesterol went from 19 percent to six percent.  A 2002 Rand study found that Johnson & Johnson’s initiatives had improved employee health and employees had saved an average of $225 per year because of a reduced need for doctor visits.

·         Microsoft (Cecily Hall, Director of US Benefits):  Microsoft creates personalized health goals and has a staff of doctors that makes house calls to avoid emergency room visits.  Its obesity program assigns employees to a primary care doctor, behavior health specialist, and nutritionist, and Microsoft provides free meals consistent with diet recommendations to eat on site or to take home.  The result of its initiatives has been very low premium growth and a healthier workforce than other companies with workers of similar age.  Microsoft has been continually recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work.

·         Ohio Department of Health (Dr. Alvin Jackson, Director of Ohio Department of Health): The State of Ohio created a “Take Charge! Live Well!” program to reduce health risk factors for state workers, with more than 50 percent of eligible workers participating.  Until 2005, health care programs for state employees in Ohio focused on disease management and improving the health of high-risk groups.  After reviewing data, the state discovered that while 27 percent of total health care costs were related to high-risk employees, 44 percent of costs were associated with preventable conditions.  Ohio’s “Take Charge! Live Well!” comprehensive health management program includes online and telephone health assessments, health coaching, online health improvement program, on-site employee health screenings (offered at about 40 locations), preventive care, chronic condition management, and monetary incentives of up to $100 in incentive payments, or $200 when spouses are enrolled, if employees complete a health assessment and participate in a health improvement program.

·         Pitney Bowes (Murray Martin, Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO):  Pitney Bowes offers onsite comprehensive health clinics and fitness centers, redesigned food merchandizing and prices in their cafeterias, incentives management for the health of their employees, and low cost drugs for chronic diseases.  The company has also adopted infection control practices and offers low-cost or no-cost preventive screenings and immunizations on-site and off-site.  The company’s initiatives and its commitment to increase employee participation in managing their own health have resulted in $40 million in savings over the last nine years.

·         REI (Sally Jewell, President and CEO):  REI offers health benefits to all of its full and part-time workers and has been continually recognized as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work.  The company offers employees support for outdoor activities ranging from outdoor gear and apparel discounts, free rentals, and outdoor challenge grants.  REI employees can earn extra healthy lifestyle dollars to put toward the cost of coverage by engaging in specific “good behaviors,” such as getting regular aerobic exercise.  REI also supports personal health goals and provides equipment support, discounts, and time off so employees can achieve their goals.

·         Safeway (Steve Burd, President and CEO):  Safeway has innovated in benefit design to reward employees’ healthy behaviors and improve adherence to recommended treatments for chronic diseases.  Over 74 percent of Safeway’s 30,000 nonunion workers have signed up for its “Healthy Measures” program.  Under this program, participants undergo screening tests (including cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight control), and employees who score well pay lower health premiums.  Safeway has saved millions by making employees accountable for their weight, smoking, cholesterol, and blood pressure.  The company also has a free fitness center at its headquarters, offers gym membership discounts, and provides a 24-hour nurse health hotline.  In 2006, Safeway’s efforts reduced their total health care spending by 13 percent, and employees who signed up have saved more than 20 percent on their premiums.

(This little symbol down here at the bottom indicates a writer with journalistic background wrote this release. It is a universal sign indicating that no more text follows which is very helpful when you reach the bottom of the second page and don’t know if the story has ended or if you lost the third page somewhere in your travels. Once again, it’s all about making the journalist’s life easy thereby increasing the chances your story will run.)

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

And you better believe, I still pull up one of these press releases to use as a guideline when I have to write my own material. 

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Hooking your reader with your first line

“I hold them gently and whisper a soft apology before I slit their throats.”

Photo credit: L. Marie

When I put that on my facebook page, one follow-up response said that it would make a great first line to a murder mystery. In reality, my comment wasn’t that exciting, I was actually talking about our roosters and it described the routine I perform before we harvest them. With background knowledge, the line turns from being macabre to well, one that is sort of sad. It loses all of its power.

But the fact is, it would have made a GREAT first line to a book because without that background knowledge, it allows one’s imagination to create all kinds of scenarios (of which harvesting a rooster probably doesn’t even make it into the top ten.)

It got me thinking about how incredibly important that first line of a book is.

In my role as a reporter, I am trained to put who, what, when, where, and how right up front. Just the facts mam. People are in a hurry and they want to know what it’s all about. Now.

More Granite Staters continued to find jobs last month, according to the most recent figures released by the state on Monday.

No surprises here, the reader knows exactly what to expect. Trouble is, if you start a book off that way, people will close the cover sooner than you can say – Edward R Murrow award. There’s no magic, no suspense, no slitting of the throat, and certainly no reason to make anyone turn the page.

When I’m writing features, I’m given a little more leeway. I’m allowed to start with a lede or a hook, something that will pique my audience’s interest, as long as I don’t break the rule that all the missing information bits will come later (but not too much later) in the story.

Enjoy having things that go bump in the night with your dinner? If so, then you might want to check out the Common Man Restaurant in Merrimack long known for its stories of haunted and unexplainable happenings.

Although there is still information in that beginning (the understanding is that you will read something about ghosts and a restaurant) the article hints at a longer story that will be told. Feature articles are the bridge between reported articles and full fledged book stories.

When you begin writing a book, you have the absolute freedom to not supply any background information. Instead, you need to dramatically hook your reader in whatever way you can in order to make them turn that all important first page. Do this by using all your tools – you can be vague, you can shock, heck, you can even give human emotions to the brush that is sitting on the counter. You just need to catch someone’s eye.

That is the only goal of a story’s hook. It is not to introduce a character, or to plant a clue to the murder, its sole reason, like the tantrum of a 3 year old in the grocery store is simply to get someone’s attention. It is only after the hook is introduced that you can then, sentence by sentence, begin to let your story unfold.

Most people begin their memoirs with a life changing event, a traffic accident, a debilitating disease, or an obstacle that needed to be overcome. Mine begins with a warning from my husband before I left the house that Saturday morning.

“Don’t bring home any more chickens.”

With the beginning of a book, unlike an article, there is no promise that you’ll know everything right away (indeed the best books are the ones where on the final page, you end up smacking yourself on the forehead and saying “NOW, it all makes sense!”) Memorable books begin with a vague promise that although you might not understand everything immediately, if you stick with the author, eventually all will be made clear.

You just need to give your readers enough reason at the beginning to make them stay until the end.

So go ahead, give it a shot, go all out and create your best first opening sentence for a story in the comments below and let’s just see how many would be able to hook us into the literary nets of your story with just that one line.

 ***

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

“This is my favorite book in the world, though I have never read it.”

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When a Publisher Asks for Nonexclusive Rights to One of Your Articles …

We recently had a bit of excitement behind the scenes at New Hampshire Writers’ Network. The publisher of a new textbook asked Jamie if they could reprint one of her L2W-W2L posts. Her very popular 10 Ways Journaling Makes You a Better Writer to be exact.

This was no small self-publishing effort. The publishers were planning a first print run of 150,000. More good news, they were not looking for exclusive rights and were willing to pay. Without suggesting a figure, Jamie was asked to submit an invoice. Maybe they forgot or maybe they were being coy but the company never specified a figure. The word token was bandied about in describing said payment.

As we often do, the Writers quickly held a virtual discussion via email to exchange a few ideas. After a few woot-woots! for Jamie, her good work and good fortune, we all agreed that token could mean anything. So first and foremost, we agree if anyone offers $$$ but asks for an invoice without agreeing a figure, go back and ask for a figure first and send the invoice later. Jamie was glad she asked and was well satisfied with their answer.

During our email discussion we shared some of our experiences with nonexclusive contracts to help Jamie evaluate their answer and proposed payment. In case you are wondering what we came up with … here goes:

Syndication is the ultimate in non-exclusivity. You sell your work to many, if you are lucky thousands, of publications. Maybe you have a gardening or technology column that you’ve been selling to your local newspaper for peanuts. If that’s the case, you may be thinking of syndicating or selling the column to every newspaper within a 1,000 mile (or more) radius and websites from here to infinity and beyond.

When you syndicate your work you retain the rights and the individual payments are small. If you self-syndicate you can expect payments of $10-15 per article. If you work with an agency, they will take a percentage but don’t begrudge them their cut. If they are any good, they have considerably more marketing, sales and admin muscle than you have on your own. You may make less per insert but you should more than make it up in the volume.

But what about what about Jamie’s situation … non-exclusive rights to an article? A non-exclusive contract saves a publisher money so many don’t mind if you re-sell it. Of course there is a catch. (There’s always a catch.) While a text book may pluck articles from blogs and magazines, most magazines want first dibs to your work.

They don’t mind if you re-sell but their contracts usually stipulate exclusive first North American Serial Rights. The period of exclusivity will be stated in the contract, usually three, six or twelve months. At the end of the exclusivity period you are free to re-sell the material to another client.

However, it can be difficult to re-sell a piece without a significant rewrite or new hook. As much as the next editor loves your idea, chances are her contract will also insist on exclusive first North American Serial Rights. Her ardor for your story will quickly cool when she learns that another magazine ran it verbatim six months ago.

But don’t despair, you’ve done some research and put a story together. You can always rework and reuse parts of the original story. Plus quotes and information that didn’t make it into the final version might come in handy in a new story. While it’s not instant money, it’s better than starting from scratch.

For this short-term exclusivity, regional magazines are apt to pay 25-50 cents per word. However as little as 10 cents per word (and unfortunately sometimes even lower) is not unheard of. On the plus side, national publications will usually pay more (and sometimes much more).

What’s your experience with non-exclusive contracts? We’d love to hear from you?

Susan Nye is a corporate dropout turned writer. Her favorite topics include food, family, marketing, small business and green living. Feel free to visit her food blog Susan Nye – Around the Table or Susan Nye 365 her day in a life photoblog.
© Susan Nye, 2012

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The beauty of a bulleted list

When I was a tech writer for DEC, I was taught the importance of a bulleted list. The best lists have 7 – 9 (no more) items in them. All of the list items must have agreement (parallel phrasing) Lists must have a lead sentence that introduces the items, you use numbers for a process or something that is sequential, and bullets for a group of like objects.

Yup got that. 

I saw the beauty of a bulleted list. It made it easy to see what belonged, it got rid of the fluff. A list got right to the point. People wanted me to use bulleted lists in my tech writing.

And so I did. My editors liked it, my writing got published and everyone was happy.

I fully embraced the use of these literary tools. In fact, I got so good at bulleted lists that during my days as a tech writer, I would send letters home that read:

Dear mom,

These are the things I want to tell you about:

• Bullet item 1
• Bullet item 2
• …

Tech writing had pretty much killed my feature and creative writing skills, but it made me be able to get right to the point.

When I started writing for newspapers, they broke me of the bullet habit pretty quickly. News writing is not tech writing I was told over and over (and over.) Drop the bulleted lists and drop them now.

I did as my audience wanted. I wrote long sentences that contained all the list items separated by commas and the very important “and” right before the last item. My editors liked it, my writing got published, everyone was happy.

But a funny thing has happened to writing over the years. Now that so many people read information on the net (and when I say read, I really mean scan) they don’t have time to plow through those long sentences. They want me to do the work for them by putting those important facts and pieces of information up front and center.

In short, they want me to write bulleted lists for them.

There is beauty in a bulleted list. It makes it easy to see what belongs, it gets rid of the fluff. A list goes right to the point. People want me to use bulleted lists in my online writing.

And so I do. My editors like it, my writing gets published and everyone is happy once again.

***

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

Okay, these are the reasons I like being a writer, the job gives me: 

• freedom
• creativity
• a way to express myself
• sanity in my own insane way
• a chance to leave something behind should I ever get lost

Bullet photo credit: Longhorndave

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Is it a category or a tag?

This is one subject that comes up a lot regarding blog posts: the difference between a category and a tag.

It can not only be challenging to figure out which to use, but also which word(s) to use in the chosen area.

After writing a blog post, but before posting it, you want to label the post for search engines. The title and content may have good keywords for an engine search, but there is extra ‘power’ in also using the category and tag functions.

A category is a broad label for your post. A category for this post is “blog posts.”

A tag is more specific and used to describe the post in detail. A tag for this post is “blog post definitions.”

You can have many categories for a post, but it’s best not to get carried away. Overpopulating the category field can cause search engine robots to ignore the post all together.

You can be a little more generous with tags, but try to limit yourself to 10 or less so that you don’t miss out on getting picked up by search engines.

Categories can be compared to school subjects such as: science, math, music, history.

The tags are then specific fields of study or classes, such as: biology, algebra, Beethoven, World War II.

I already hear some of you saying “biology” could be a category, as could “algebra”, “Beethoven,” and “World War II.” Yes, you’re right – it’s a matter of perspective for your particular post.

How about comparing categories to the broad “fiction” and “non-fiction” labels? Then tags would be a specific genre. Or if that’s too broad, your category could be a particular genre and the tags are detailed related words relevant to that genre post.

This blog is about writing, so every post can have the “writing” category label, and then a myriad of tags depending on the post’s subject.

Note: Capitalization is not relevant for a category or tag. Whether you type “Writing,” or “writing”, it’s all the same to the search engines.

Note: WordPress has fields for Categories and Tags. Google Blogger calls categories ‘labels’ and doesn’t have tags.

I hope this clarified the terms for you. A category is a ‘big name’ and a tag is a detail. If you only have one field to fill in, it’s a category and you want to use broad terms.

Do you use categories and tags for your blog posts?

Lisa Jackson is an independent editor, writer, journalist, and chocolate lover. She writes fiction as Lisa Haselton, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is on the staff of The Writer’s Chatroom where she gets to chat with best-selling authors, non-fiction writers, publishers, and other writing professionals on a weekly basis. © Lisa J. Jackson, 2011

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6 tips for characters that seduce your readers

There are many elements that must come together to produce a great story, but the most critical is strong character development. Your readers must care enough about your characters to want to find out what happens next. You characters must inspire not only attention, but devotion. They need to seduce the reader into turning the page.

But, how do you create the kind of character that captures a reader’s heart like that?

I’m sure there are dozens if not hundreds of books, e-books, lecture series, and workshops on the topic. I personally own an e-book by Larry Brooks called The Three Dimensions of Character, which I’m sure is quite good, but which I have not yet read. So, until I find make the time to sit dutifully at the feet of writers with more experience, I’m going to take my cues from the fabulous authors whose characters have already enthralled me into an amorous stupor so deep and powerful, that I’ve been known to binge read three, four, or five of their books in a row just to stay close to my literary loves. (Sidenote: By “loves,” I mean characters who interest me deeply. It’s completely platonic. Except, perhaps, for the gentleman whose picture accompanies this post.)

With that completely un-academic approach in mind, here are my 6 tips for creating characters that will seduce your readers:

1. First impressions: We’ve all been told not to judge a book – literal or metaphorical – by it’s cover, but we all do it. The first step in creating your character is physical description – what she looks like, sounds like, even how she smells. What kinds of clothes and accessories does she wear? How does she move? What’s her body language like? What kind of music does she listen to? What’s her favorite drink? Each of these pieces is an important part of the whole that is a well-imagined character image. Before your character even speaks her first line of dialog, the reader should know (or guess) something about her from all your visual clues.
2. Captivating conversations: Each time she opens her mouth, you have an opportunity to strengthen your character’s persona. How she says what she says – terse delivery, twenty-five cent words, repetitive patterns, self-deprecating phrases – can convey as much about her personality as what she says. If you can “hear” your character’s inner dialog as well as her spoken dialog, you have the chance to show multiple layers of her personality, which may be in conflict with each other.
3. Solid backstory: Whether it ever makes the printed page or not, you – as the author – must have a strong sense of where your character comes from. You have to know about the experiences that have shaped her life – her family, friends, education, career, romantic history, successes, failures. You should create a few pivotal stories from her past that act as mile markers in her life. Again, these may never make the manuscript, but you will know them and that will help you make effective choices about what the reader does get to see.
4. Believable motives: The bits of backstory that you do divulge to the reader help you validate your character’s motives. You may need to do a little reverse engineering here, but try to keep the process more organic than technical. Your character’s motivations are what drive her forward through the story. They have to be not only compelling, but also plausible. Reading biographies can help you get a working sense of what motivates real people.
5. Balanced strengths and weaknesses: Nobody is perfect – not even perfectly awful. Give your “good” characters flaws and give your “bad” characters redeeming qualities. Without the proper balance of positive and negative personality traits, even the most beautifully described and credibly motivated character will come off as a two-dimensional caricature.
6. Purpose: Each character in a story serves a purpose. Know your character’s purpose and it will be that much easier to nail all the other elements we’ve talked about. The respective purposes of your protagonist and antagonist are usually pretty clear, but what about all the other players in your story? Are they meant to distract your hero? Are they there as comic relief, to provide a foil for your villain’s devious nature, give voice to reason, represent an alternative opinion? Naming each character’s purpose – both within the story and as part of the story’s structure – will ensure that you don’t let your character get off track.

And how do you know if you’ve gotten it right? My rule of thumb for central characters is that you want to write more stories about them. My rule of thumb for supporting characters is that you want to write stories where they get the starring role. In my opinion, there are few authors who accomplish this feat. Books that have introduced me to main characters worthy of additional novels and sidekicks who could carry their own books if they had a chance include Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Charles deLint’s Onion Girl, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, and anything by J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert A. Heinlein.

Who are some of your favorite characters? Can you see what went into making them as strong as they are? Have you used some of those same techniques when creating your own characters? 

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who, among other things, works as a marketing strategist and copywriter. She helps creative entrepreneurs (artists, writers, idea people, and creative consultants) discover their “natural” marketing groove so they can build their business with passion, story, and connection. She also blogs. A lot. She is a mom, a singer, and a dreamer who believes in small kindnesses, daily chocolate, and happy endings. Look her up on facebook or follow her on twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Image Credit: Viggo Mortenson as the character Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s beautiful New Line Cinema adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy

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A time to write

A few weekends ago I went with two of my writer friends to a cabin in the Maine woods (near a lake no less) to spend the weekend writing. All of us are writers and all of us are also torn with other time commitments. You know, those little things that keep coming up all the time, keeping you away from what it is you need to write. There are kids, and jobs, and even a move to a new home that have pulled us away from our writing time. 

So we decided to get away by ourselves and do nothing else but write.

Before we left we decided on a schedule. This may come as some surprise to you but I tend to be a bit chatty. The good thing is that I can also respect boundaries so when we made the schedule, I knew I was going to be able to follow it.

We woke and met for breakfast. Then wrote from 9:00 until 12:00. Then we met for lunch and had a swim in the lake. Writing resumed from 1:30 until around 5 at which time we met and started in on making dinner. (yes, food was an important part of this writer’s retreat.) In the evening we chatted or wrote or read. It was a writer’s retreat but we also wanted to have fun.

We were only at the cabin from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon but it was amazing just how much we all were able to get done when we had a chance to focus with absolutely no interruptions. (I was true to my word and didn’t engage anyone in conversation during the writing hours.)

My goal had been to work on my book. Only on my book, there has been so many times over this summer that I’ve sat down to write only to find that someone wanted to know what dinner would be (now where was I?), or someone had gotten stung by a bee (let’s see, was I at this part of the story), or a chicken was loose (I give up).

I was able to get a solid 50 pages of my book done during the weekend. Enough of a sample that I can start shopping it around to literary agents.

Look, I love my kids and I know that interruptions are a part of life, I get it. But I also love being able to write with full focus to get what I need to get done, done.

And if it means I go off with my friends just to write every now and then, so be it.

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

And while I wrote this, I was only interrupted by my kids twice. 

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Structure First, Story Second Debate

If you read this blog, you’ve probably seen the name Larry Brooks mentioned a few times. Larry is a writer who takes one of the most sane approaches to writing I’ve ever seen. He believes that all marketable writing should fit into a formula, a predetermined map where predictable events (such as plot points) happen at predictable places in the novel. If you follow the formula, he contends, you have a better chance of being published then if you did not.

Mr. Bad Self - Larry Brooks

As an ex-tech writer, I absolutely love this approach. I can see how it makes a writer’s life so much easier. If you know that you need to have a plot point at roughly one-quarter of the way into your book, then that’s where you plan to put it.

I can’t tell you, however, how many discussions I’ve had with other writers about how this is a “fake” way to write. “A good writer emotes, she tells her story her own way.” And while that might be true, I’m guessing that that creative writer is probably not published. You can be the best emoter in the world but if no one buys your stuff that leaves you being nothing more than a starving-emoter who writes well.

Not what I want to be when I grow up.

I have signed up for Larry’s email list (if you haven’t you should, it’s free and he sends out terrific information) which is how I found out that Larry is running a special on his website this month. If you buy an electronic copy of one of his books he’ll send you free (FREE!!) a .pdf copy of his book “Get Your Bad Self Published.”

Here’s the offer:

Hi — thanks for being a Storyfix.com reader.  Which means you’re a writer… which in turn means you might like the little free ebook promo I’m running in August.  Go to www.storyfix.com for more.  I’ll make this short here:

I’ve just launched three of my previously published novels (including my USA Today bestseller and my PW “Best Books of 2004″ honoree) via Kindle, Smashwords and Nook. To help this get going, I’m offering a free copy of my ebook, “Get Your Bad Self Published” when someone buys one of those novels (for $2.99; the free ebook sells for $14.95, so it’s a pretty good deal).

The freebie offer also applies to my most current novel (“Whisper…”), AND to my new writing book, “Story Engineering” (new purchases only, please).

The books and deal are described HERE, hope you’ll check it out.

If you’d like to learn more about the FREE eBook itself, click HERE.  Just don’t click “Buy” on that page, you can get it free by opting in to the buy-a-novel-get-the-ebook-free offer.

Larry
www.storyfix.com

Well how could I refuse right? I ordered the e-copy of his book, sent him my electronic receipt and in the return mail Larry sent me the .pdf file. In my email I also happened to mention that some of my writer friends continue to have heated debates with me on his material, that they claim that if you plan a book out the way he suggests then it’s not “real” writing.

This is Larry’s response, worthy of inclusion in a post on this blog:

Interesting. I always wonder what those writers are thinking… because… the books of successful authors who don’t understand or accept these structural principles — including those of your group members who happen to author a successful story — end up with a story that looks ALMOST EXACTLY, in terms of structure, layering, and the demonstration of all six core competencies, as writers who BEGIN with these goals in mind.

It’s really a debate (or issue) about process, never about outcome. Because the outcomes — which are the SAME as the goals of the six core competencies and the principles of solid story architecture — is always the same basic model. You can’t, nor can they, come up with meaning exceptions or contrary examples without resorting to ancient literature or experimental fiction. This is about commercially-viable, professional (as in, commerce) writing, not journaling.

Hope you’ll share this answer… I always wonder, when put under the gun on this stuff, who these writers think they are (are they published and successful?) to say what is “real writing” and what isn’t. Process is personal, outcome is defined outside of that, and is not negotiable. Even by “real writers,” which in this case are writers who aren’t for some reason, able to process or proceed according to a proven pathway, but rather, think they must carve their own path toward the goal… which is in the exact same place.

And by the way, I’m a “real” writer, I can assure you and your group. I have the scars, and the published track record, to prove it. (BIG SMILE HERE, Wendy.)

The debate is unwinnable. The outcome of it, however, it inevitable.

I’m happily married with 6 children, but man, I LOVE this guy.

How about you? On which side do you fall in the structure debate? Structure is how it sells or structure is a sell out?

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

And someday you’ll be reading a book about our chicken adventures that was written using  Larry’s “Story Structure” guidelines. 

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