Saturday Edition – What We’re Writing and Reading

Welcome to this Saturday Edition of What We’re Writing and Reading.

We’re taking a little detour on the weekends now to share some of what we’re up to with our writing (when we’re not here) and what we’re into with our reading (around the web). We’ll also pull back the curtain a little to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what went into a piece.

We hope you enjoy this little diversion and encourage you to share your own posts and picks in the comments.

Happy writing! Happy reading! 

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Diane MacKinnon: This past week or two I haven’t been able to do much writing, except keeping up with my blog posts and my journal. I have some time blocked out tomorrow to work on my novel as I need to submit to my critique group by Friday afternoon, and I am really looking forward to getting back to that work. As far as reading, I’m now reading a book about how play shapes baby’s minds. It’s called Einstein Never Used Flash Cards. It’s one of a number of books about play that I downloaded samples of to my Kindle. I’ve been thinking about play a lot lately so now I’m in research mode. I started with this book because I have a 3 year old and I thought it would be fun to learn about how he learns as he plays. So far the book is fascinating and it is also very reassuring to me as a parent. There are a lot of products out there that claim to improve babies brains and this book, at least, says that my son’s not missing out by not being exposed to Baby Einstein or LeapFrog.

Jamie Wallace: Hello! Happy weekend, writers! 🙂 This has been a crazy and short week for me. I spent a lovely and long weekend with my daughter and beau at Acadia National Park in Maine, came home to an intensive discovery session with a new client on Tuesday, and have been playing catch-up and plan-ahead for the rest of the week. “Whirlwind” and “breathless” are two words that come to mind as I try to sum up my work week. (Not to mention that this is my daughter’s first week of summer vacation and our first time experimenting with having her home vs. at camp. It went quite well, but definitely added some chaos to the mix.)

What I’m writing: I did manage to write a post over on my marketing blog about how to create the best customer experience – online and off. Though the post is geared towards business readers, it does have some relevance for writers as well since today’s writer needs to think like a business in order to succeed in this competitive and ever-evolving publishing landscape. The post is called Are you accidentally turning your customers off? I included some real life experiences with different businesses to illustrate my points. It’s amazing just how bad some service can be!

Amazon links = not-to-sneaky affiliate links 😉

What I’m reading: While up in Bar Harbor, I visited one of my favorite bookstores – Sherman’s. I bought a “big kids’ picture book” about Darwin for my daughter, a book on drawing zentangles for her (and for me), and two fiction titles (which I won’t reveal … yet). I have all those treasures stashed in my To Be Read pile, but at the moment I’m enjoying a wonderful little gem of a book by David Almond, author of Skellig (Printz Honor)(one of my favorites). The book I’m reading is a prequel to that title and is called My Name Is Mina. I am really enjoying the stream-of-consciousness format and flights of fancy combined with quiet and deep thoughts. The fact that a book can be written in this way is especially interesting to me since it’s a journal-like format that I haven’t seen before.

Well – I have to dash, but happy writing & reading!

PS: There is still a little time to take our Live to Write – Write to Live Writers’ & Readers’ Survey. You can get the details in this post. Love to have your two cents! 

Friday Fun – Favorite board game

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: Sure a lot of games are now digital, but board games still exist. What was your favorite when you were younger? Did you have a family game night? Do you have a current board game favorite?

Lisa J. Jackson: My family never had game night, but I was always attracted to games like Life and Clue and Monopoly. And I remember that my hometown came out with its own board game at one point – really wish I still had that! – you rolled the dice and moved around the board to different stores and locations – sort of like Monopoly. And although never a gambler, I loved rolling the dice and seeing what I could get with Yahtzee (and I realize it’s not a board game!). Summertime seemed the time for various games, especially with my grandmother or at the beach.

Diane MacKinnon: I loved all the games Lisa mentioned above. I am one of 5 children and there are only 3 1/2 years between the oldest and the youngest, so there were usually at least three people around to play a board game. I got a Lord of the Rings board game for Christmas one year (I’m still a big fan of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and it came with a bunch of plastic “gold” rings. I loved collecting those rings. The game is still under the couch at my parent’s house. I’ll have to drag it out when my son gets a little older! I also love backgammon and I used to play chess, but I haven’t in years. Sometime I’d like to pick it up again.

 

 

photo: M. Shafer

Deborah Lee Luskin: My current favorite board game is Co-opoly, The Game of Co-operatives, developed by The Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA). Co-opoly doesn’t just teach about social and economic justice – it’s fun! Players have to cooperate to succeed. Very cool, and a great alternative to that game of competition and greed. [Full disclosure: I know the people who invented it, but have no economic stake in its success – beyond benefiting from living in a more economically just world.]

Playing With The Muse

Here’s a guest post written by my friend and colleague, Sylvie Kurtz. Enjoy!

Writers often rue the fickleness of the muse. I think of her like a child with ADD. I picture her a bit like Tinkerbell, bright and bouncy, flitting here and there, her attention diverted by anything that catches her attention.

My critic, on the other hand, looks like a pasty white blob poured into a throne-like chair. He wears a purple robe adorned with silver stars and, given half a chance, will expound on (and on, and on) any topic with enviable certainty.

Both the muse and the critic have their function when it comes to writing a story. But they tend not to play well together. If the muse shows up first and spills her vast reserves of glittery energy, that gives the critic something to work with. The trick is giving the muse a chance to do her thing before the critic tries to create order out of her chaos.

So how do you invite the muse out to play? Show up, open up, listen up, and follow up.

1. Show Up. Like an ADD child, the muse thrives on structure. If you make a play date at a specific time and place, she’s more likely to show up. And if you keep that date regular, it becomes habit, and she might already be waiting for you when you sit down.

You may want to create a ritual that allows you to quiet down and get into the present. The muse doesn’t think about yesterday or tomorrow. She’s all about the now. I have a salt lamp I turn on to let my muse know I’m here and I’m ready.

2. Open Up. The muse wants to play. Play is what she’s all about. But to engage her to play with you, you have to let her know that you want to play, too. So start writing. Doesn’t matter what you write; just write. Keep the pen (or fingers on the keyboard) moving.

When I first started writing, my confidence level bordered on the non-existent. I set a timer for fifteen minutes and forced myself to write. For the longest time, all I could do was write things like, “This is stupid. I can’t write. Who do I think I am?” But eventually, the critic got bored and took a nap. That’s when the muse started whispering, “If you were to write a real story . . .”

3. Listen Up. Like any kid, the muse wants to know someone’s listening to her. My son used to come home from school, flop into the rocking chair in my office and spill his day. This was a time I loved, but sometimes, especially when I was on deadline, I tried to multi-task—one ear on the conversation, the other on the work. And even though I could repeat what he’d told me, he’d sigh and say, “Mom, you’re not listening.” He needed eye contact to feel heard.

Transcribe what the muse gifts you, even if it doesn’t make sense. Write fast. The muse loves speed. Forget the “rules” of good writing. Forget proper punctuation. Feel the emotions she brings up. Ask her questions and let her answer. Feeling listened to will thrill her and make her want to play more often.

4. Follow Up. To make the muse feel as if you appreciate her, she wants you to do something with her gift. She doesn’t like to see her pearls lying unused. In the mess of words on the page, you’ll unearth gems.

And this is where she won’t mind the critic stepping in. Because patience and organization skill are the critic’s strong points, he can string those pearls into a satisfying whole.

The muse wants to play. All she’s waiting for is an invitation.

How do you invite your muse to play?

Sylvie Kurtz writes adventures that explore the complexity of the human mind and the thrill of suspense. She likes dark chocolate, soft wool, and sappy movies. For more information, check out sylviekurtz.com. You can follow her @sylviekurtz on Twitter.

Diane MacKinnon is a part-time writer who is grateful to learn from more experienced writers like Sylvie!

Imagine the Unlikely – Tip for writing when you get stuck

So what happens when you hit that proverbial wall, you know the one where you are so out of ideas you sit in idle gear amazed at the ineffectiveness of your own imagination.  How do you work yourself out of that one?

Imagine the unlikely.
Photo credit: Koshyk

Here’s a trick for you to try when you find yourself in this situation – start listing the most unlikely scenarios for your characters.

You know, like your character crosses the street and gets hit by a truck carrying poultry to a market (had to work in chickens somehow.)

Or looks down at her feet and find a flash drive dropped by an ex-Russian spy. (Hey who cares that your novel is based in the Victorian era?)

This is a case where something is better than nothing.

My point is that sometimes if you imagine something that is so outlandish and completely unlikely to happen, your mind might just step in to “correct” your thoughts. It’s kind of like asking for an answer to a problem before you go to sleep. You’ll sleep but your mind will continue working on the problem. Often with the morning sun will come the perfect solution. You just needed to step aside and let it emerge.  

If you think about an event for your character that doesn’t seem logical to your mind, I’m pretty sure that your talented brain is going to have a go at coming up with a better solution. It’s what humans do, we solve things.

I used to prove this to my writing students by giving them the homework assignment of going up to others and simply say “my stomach hurts.” My students had to report the findings to the class the next week.

Without exception, every student said that the responses were along the lines of:

• Did you eat?
• I’ll bet you ate the chicken salad?
• Do you need to use the bathroom?
• Do you want some Motrin?
• …

Every single person they had said this to tried to come up with a solution to a problem. Without even knowing what the problem actually was (seriously, what if your stomach hurt because you had a cancerous tumor in it?) It doesn’t matter, this is human nature in action, we are a species of fixers and we just love to offer our solutions to make things right.

So knowing this, why not go ahead and use this wonderful skill to your writing advantage?

Perhaps your character won’t get hit by a truck filled with chickens, but maybe a little kid on a tricycle (wearing a chicken shaped protective helmet) accidentally drives into him which then sets up a meeting with the child’s very attractive (and recently divorced) mother.

Not going to find a flash drive in Victorian England? Okay but perhaps your main character sees a card from a stereoscope lying on the ground instead and when she picks it up, she realizes that not only is it her in the photo but also a twin sister that she never knew about (but how could that be if the photo of them is taken when they are both adults?) Hmmmm.

See? If you introduce unlikely events to your character, your mind (which, let’s face it, already knows where your story is going) will pretty quickly get to the task of getting your story back on track.

***

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)

I don’t know, I think I might have also been able to work chickens into that Victorian story if I had really tried. 🙂

Live to Write – Write to Live Writers’ and Readers’ Survey

Random bookcase/typewriter porn. You’re welcome. 🙂

Editor’s Update: The survey is now closed. Thank you to everyone who participated. We really appreciate you sharing your time and your thoughts! 

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Hello, fellow writers and readers!

Thanks for being here. You are the reason we write this blog, and we’re always so glad to see you.

Today, we’re especially glad to see you because we’re hoping we might get the chance  to know you a little better.

We love hearing from you in the comments, but we thought it was high time to turn the spotlight on you a bit more.
SO … we’ve put together a quick, little survey (just 15 multiple choice questions + 1 tell-us-anything-else box).

If you’re willing and have a few minutes, we’d really appreciate any feedback you can provide.

It’s super easy – just click here to take survey.

We’re hoping to learn about the types of writing you do and hope to do, where you are on your writing journey, what types of blog topics you like, what other writing resources you subscribe to, and so forth. It’s very simple, there are no wrong answers, and this is your chance to help us shape the blog to best meet your needs. It’s almost like having a fairy godmother!

To sweeten the deal (because we know that even a few minutes of your time is time you could be working on your masterpiece), we’ll be giving away a few goodies to randomly selected participants. Since we aren’t collecting any personal contact information, we’ll do the drawing on the honor system. If you take the survey, please leave a comment below (including a link or email where we can reach you in case you win). We will choose random winners from all those who have completed the survey by midnight EST on Saturday, June 29th.

Here are the prizes:

• For everyone: After we’ve compiled all the responses, we will publish the survey results so you can get a sense of the overall community here at Live to Write – Write to Live (and have the opportunity to continue the conversation in the comments of that results post).
• For one lucky winner, from Jamie Wallace: A one-hour, “free form” branding & marketing consultation (a $147 value). This is your chance to ask your questions about branding, blogging, content marketing, community development, or social media and get personal attention during this 1:1 call. The consultation will take place via phone or Skype (your choice) at a time that is agreeable to both parties.

So, what d’ya say? Are you willing to play along? Will you give us the chance to learn more about what you’d like to see?

It will only take a few minutes. We promise.

Go ahead, click here to take survey right now.

We’ll be glad you did …

… and you will be, too!

😉

THANK YOU!!!!

Image Credit: Nana B Agyei

The Writer’s Chatroom – a free resource for writers

I’ve been involved as a chat moderator with a fabulous online place called The Writer’s Chatroom (TWC) for the past 5+ years and I wanted to tell you more about it. It’s usually mentioned in my bio, but we have a fabulous line up of guests through September and it’s a good time to share.

Most Sunday evenings we have a ‘celebrity’ chat from 7-9PM. And I say ‘most’ because once a quarter we take a Sunday for a live critique chat, and occasionally we have a live prompt chat, and every now and then we have an open chat.

Celebrity chats are akin to bookstore events – you know, where you go to a bookstore to see an author and ask him or her questions. TWC Sunday night chats are moderated and chatters get in a queue to ask questions of the author, publisher, editor, freelance writer, short story writer, publicist, whatever-type-of-writing-professional we have in the hot seat —  from the comfort of their own homes.

Last night, I moderated mystery writer Hy Conrad – most known for being one of the original writers for the TV show Monk, and now for writing the novel series based on the same character. But he has other works too, including a fun book he co-wrote with Jeff Johnson called Things Your Dog Doesn’t Want You to Know.

We have international chatters who sign in each Sunday to meet new authors as well as chatters covering all the US time zones. It’s always a good time, and there’s usually a giveaway from the guest at half-time.

Every Wednesday evening is an Open Chat from 8-10 PM EST. There is usually a topic of conversation for the first hour and then free conversation for the second hour. What’s more fun for a writer than to talk shop with other writers, right?

The chatroom also has a discussion board forum for connecting with other writers when the chatroom is closed. There are conversations you can participate in and if you’re looking, for example, to find a critique partner, this is the place to go.

The Writer’s Chatroom has been listed in Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers 5 times. Our reach continually expands, and we get multipublished authors, as well as NYT best sellers, too. Here’s a list of our past guests. I bet you’ll recognize a name or two.

Here’s a look at our July line up. You can see the full schedule here.

• June 30: C. Hope Clark – mystery author and founder of FundsForWriters.com
• July 7: Edith Maxwell / Tace Baker – cozy mystery author
• July 14: Steve Ulfelder – mystery author
• July 21: Dawn Ireland – historical romance author
• July 28: J.M. Kelley – paranormal romance author

The Chatroom is a fun place for writers of all genres and of all levels along their writing journey. On Sunday nights, I’m there under my pseudonym Lisa Haselton, just so you know.

If you stop in, make sure to say ‘hi’ and tell me you read this blog. I’d love to show you around and introduce you to people.

Lisa J. Jackson is an independent writer, editor, journalist, and chocolate lover. She loves working with words and helps businesses with theirs. 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 network with writing professionals on a weekly basis. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, Biznik, Facebook, and Twitter. 

Saturday Edition – What We’re Writing and Reading

Welcome to this Saturday Edition of What We’re Writing and Reading.

We’re taking a little detour on the weekends now to share some of what we’re up to with our writing (when we’re not here) and what we’re into with our reading (around the web). We’ll also pull back the curtain a little to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what went into a piece.

We hope you enjoy this little diversion and encourage you to share your own posts and picks in the comments.

Happy writing! Happy reading! 

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Jamie Wallace: Hello, fellow writers! Happy weekend! This week has been another crazy one – kicking off work with a couple new clients, my daughter’s last day of third grade (what?!?), and gearing up for a little getaway. There’s always such a price to pay (before and after) for a freelancer trying to take a few days off … but, it’s always worth it!

Yes, this is THE baby bunny I rescued from the local tom cat.

What I’m Writing: It’s been another slow week for non-client writing, but I did republish my latest weekly column. The topic was local wildlife of the suburban kind. It’s pretty amazing how well our animal friends adapt to living in such close quarters with humans. In my own small town, I’ve had many close encounters of the furry kind without even having to venture into the woods.

The funny thing is that since I wrote that piece, I’ve had a couple more adventures with four-footed neighbors including chasing a chipmunk out of my kitchen and rescuing a baby bunny from a rather voracious (or at least vicious) neighborhood tom cat. Maybe the local, non-human population heard about how I sang their praises in my column and came by for a visit. Sadly, they obviously missed my previous column waxing poetic about my cats. (That chipmunk was surprised, I can tell you!)

What I’m Reading: The week’s chaotic schedule left little time for pleasure reading, but I did manage to squeak in a few blog posts. Here are my favorites from the week:

• Are You Meeting Your Writing Goals? Try These Productivity Tips For Writers by @thecreativepenn featuring the latest book from @MarkMcGuinness
• What’s “Real” Writing – & Does Yours Count? by @Aliventures – This is a question I’ve often asked myself.
• How to Connect With More Readers in Just 5 Min by @duolit via @JaneFriedman
• One True Sentence by @jasonkonopinski
• Top 10 Worst Creativity Tips of All Time by @demianfarnworth (Though I take issue with the one about no drinking, overall – a good list of things to AVOID!)

Lisa J. Jackson: We made it to summer! I’m so excited! I spent all day last Sunday volunteering at a fun local event called Ribfest. The weather held out for the 3-day event and thousands of people had fun and tasty food.

The weather this weekend is even better to ring in summer. And Sunday I’m hoping to finish a sprint triathlon before the humidity (one drawback to summer) gets overbearing.

What I’m writing:  I had a couple of people ask me to review their blogs, so I wrote up my impressions. Quite a bit of business writing and a little more rewriting on my YA novel. The novel is definitely a work in progress that keeps morphing and changing every time I go to sleep. I try to go to bed thinking of other projects, but my main character, a young girl named Nikki, keeps popping into my dreams.

What I’m reading: Does a script count? I was involved behind-the-scenes and

Presenting an award

during an awards event on Thursday and had to present an award. Luckily I was given a script and didn’t sweat about prepping. (That’s me at the lectern.) I can’t remember the last time I used a microphone. It was a fun event recognizing volunteers for the hours and years they have given to New Hampshire Granite State Ambassadors. I received my 5-year and 100-hour awards. I presented the Rookie award in my capacity as the Communications Director for the organization. Wearing many hats keeps a person very busy!

Other reading included local newspapers (uncommon for me, but for some reason they got in front of me so I read through them.)

 

Friday Fun – Summer Reading List

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: Happy first day of summer! What’s on your reading list? Does your summer reading change?

Lisa J. Jackson: Is summer *really* here? Honest? Seemed like a long time coming! My reading does change over the summer for some reason. I give myself more freedom to  read whatever catches my eye. This year I plan to clean up a bit of my TBR pile and catch up on a couple of series I enjoy.

I have a couple of the novels in these series to read: J.D. Robb’s “In Death”; J.R. Ward’s “Black Dagger Brotherhood”;  Brett Battles’s “Jonathan Quinn”; Steve Ulfelder’s “Conway Sax,” I’d love to read a few more Walter Mosley books, and to mix things up I might add a few historical romance beach reads to my stacks.

I think it’s the longer days that inspire more ‘free’ reading for me.

Jamie Wallace: Happy Solstice! Today is the longest day of the year. I love it for that reason, and yet it also makes me a little sad because from here the days begin to wane as we head towards another season of harvest and hibernation. Don’t get me wrong, I love those seasons even more than summer, but I feel the same was as Lisa – like summer just got here and it’s already half over!

My reading doesn’t really change that much over the summer. I still have to make a concerted effort to fit leisure reading into my life. No school for my daughter does not, unfortunately, mean no work for me; so I’m still in full-on hustle mode. I will, however, probably get to spend at least a few days at the beach with my girl, and will get to spend at least part of those days camped out in a beach chair with a good book. We just had the annual beach picnic for the school kids in town, and I managed to finish Alice Hoffman’s book, The River King. That felt good, even if the ending was a little anti-climatic.

Next in my reading queue I’ve got Neil Gaiman’s latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I listened to the audio recording of the first chapter or so compliments of Audible. I’m already hooked. I have a whole bunch of samples downloaded to my Kindle and hope to find another worthy candidate among them. We’ll see.

If anyone has any good magical surrealism titles to recommend, I’d love to hear them! 

photo: M. Shafer

Deborah Lee Luskin: I’m still not reading fiction – it creates too much static as I continue working on my new novel – but I’m rediscovering the joy of picking books off the “New Non-Fiction” shelf at the three libraries I hold cards to, and I expect that’s what I’ll continue to do over the summer. In order to find time to read, however, I’m finding I need to have serious limits to my time on-line. I’m trying to check email and Facebook only three times a day. Ideally, I’d cut it back to two. . .

.

Diane MacKinnon: My reading habits don’t really change over the summer. I’ve always got a couple of nonfiction books going, but the only fiction I’m reading these days are books I listen to in the car. Like Deborah, I usually just grab an (audio)book from the “New” section in my library. I often have a difficult time choosing fiction books because I usually want a guarantee that it’s going to be good before I put the time into the story, but I’ve found a way around that by grabbing whatever book catches my eye at the library (I’ve even let my son pick them randomly off the shelf)–if I don’t like it, I just stop reading it, return it, and try another one. The best book I have read so far using this random, no expectation, system is Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. I loved it and can’t wait for her next book!

Julie Hennrikus: Summer is my reading season. I balance between non-fiction (prep for teaching) and catching up with the downloads on my Kindle. I am also going to be moderating a panel at the New England Crime Bake on YA mystery fiction, so I will be delving into that genre. (I have a reading addicted niece who is pretty happy about that.) I really think I need to start listening to books–I walk a lot, and would love to “read” at the same time.

 

Wendy Thomas – Summer is a time of reading for me. Lot of pool time and lots of time waiting for kids to be done with activities. On my list are:

• A revisit to A Year in Provence – an inexpensive way to visit France
• You Can’t Make This Stuff Up – nonfiction writing book
• Inferno – hated the last one but liked D’Vinci Code so much I’m willing to give it a try
• 50 Week of Green – a farmer, CSA love story with recipes, what’s not to like
• Behind the Cloud – thoughts on running an organization in the cloud (don’t get too excited, it’s for a client)
• The Spark – a mother’s journey saving her Autistic child
• The Giant’s House – an up-north indie bookstore recommendation – good enough for me.

Word Play

At Toastmasters meetings, we usually have a “Word of the Day.” The word is introduced at the beginning of the meeting and everyone at the meeting is challenged to use the word whenever they get up to speak.

Recently, the word was “swivet.” I like to think I have a good vocabulary, but I’d never heard this word before. We were given the definition of the word and it was used in a sentence so we all knew how to use the word correctly. At the end of the meeting, the person who’d given us the word of the day said that we’d used the word “swivet” 15 times during the two hour meeting.

I was impressed. People who had prepared speeches ahead of time figured out a way to incorporate this new word into their speeches, but many others also used the word as they were fulfilling their roles during the meeting.

It got me thinking about playing with words, which I love to do, and also about the fun of playing with words with other people.

Once, when my stepchildren were still in high school, we had a conversation at the breakfast table about our favorite words. Mine’s “balaclava.” I told them I was going to use the word “balaclava” three times that day. They didn’t believe I could do it because it was May and I was seeing patients all day. But you can bet they asked me about it when I saw them that evening! And, no, I didn’t use it three times—but I did use it twice (once in a conversation with a patient about hiking in the White Mountains and once when I mentioned to the women I shared my office with that  the air conditioning was on so high I was going to need a balaclava to get warm!)

Playing with words is a fun way to pass the time or boost our moods, but it also enhances our creativity. If play is essential to creativity, it makes sense that playing with words would be good for a writer’s creativity.

Dr. Stuart Brown, the author of the book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, has been studying play for years. He says that play is, by definition, purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. Purposeless in the moment, but purposeful as far as our long-term health and well-being. Dr. Brown believes that play is a biological drive as important to our health as sleep or nutrition.

He also states that “we are designed by nature to flourish through play.”

So next time you think you are wasting time playing word games, think again.

How do you like to play with words?

Diane MacKinnon: I’m a mother, life coach, and writer. I’m working on rediscovering what kind of play I love best, aside from playing with my son, who is teaching me a lot about play. I had so many examples of playing with words when I thought about this blog post, but we each have our own favorites. I’d love to hear yours!

The Drama of Structure

As a reminder, dear readers, I work in theater and I write mysteries. And dramatic structure rules my worlds.

What, some of you are asking, is dramatic structure? Basically, it is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement/resolution. In theater, dramatic structure keeps the audience coming back for the second act. I found this diagram, which lays it out very well.

Mysteries are structured in much the same way, though the inciting incident (the event that launches the story) doesn’t have to come at the beginning. Remember, plays are stories told aloud, with no voice overs or flashbacks (usually). Novels and fiction can shake it up a bit.

In mysteries,  dramatic structure includes plot point one, plot point two, climax, denouement. Plot points are where the stories take a hard pivot. Crudely put, it is where you drop the body. Or you arrest someone. Or the prime suspect gets killed. The climax is where it all comes together. And the denouement is a short bit at the end, where the reader (or audience) catches her breath. Or the sleuth explains what just happened.

I am a plotter, and I use Scrivener. What that means is as I am outlining the book, I am trying to keep the balance in check, and can visually see what is happening by having the scenes on separate cards, and the plot points tagged. Spacing (pacing) between the plot point one, plot point two, and the climax need to be fairly equal. Which makes sense–you don’t want to build up tension, change it up on the reader, and then take forever to drop the other shoe. And you also don’t want to rush the end. The tension/action is constantly moving upward, with brief respites between scenes.

I write this post because I am working on a new book, and realized that my pacing was WAY off. Unless I was writing a novella. And while I am a plotter, I do have to adjust as the muse strikes. Every scene serves the structure in some way, so I need to add some, move others, and maybe rethink the plot a bit. Never mind the sub-plot (which has its own arc). If it gets lopsided, I need to adjust. I’ve been doing a lot of adjusting, and also been rethinking what my pivot points are. I haven’t always used dramatic structure so literally in my writing, but it has turned out to be a really helpful tool.

How do you plot your stories? Do you plot your stories? Any other structure thoughts/hints?

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J.A. (Julie) Hennrikus writes short stories that have appeared in the award winning Level Best Books and is the current president of Sisters in Crime New England. As Executive Director for StageSource her vast knowledge of the theater brings a unique perspective to her writing.