The Art of Dialogue: Building Relationships

A popular post July 2013

By Julie Wright
part four of four

It's time for the fourth tip of writing good dialogue. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things I am going to mention here, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number four:

Alter relationships—either building or tearing down-- You can tell if people are falling in love or getting a divorce by the kind of conversation they’re having. Most of the time anyway.  One of my favorite lines in the movie Life as We Know It is right after the two main characters have a major fight. One of the secondary characters made a comment that, "If my ex-wife and I fought like that . . . we'd still be married." So although they were fighting, it was a fight filled with passion, one that led the viewing audience to believe that the couple was in love in spite of the cruelty they hurled at each other in the form of words.

What are your characters saying to one another? Are they shredding each other verbally? Is the popular girl standing out from the crowd by telling one of the unpopular girls that she looks cute? Is the soldier refusing an order from his commanding officer which will likely result in disciplinary action?

You can tell if your characters are becoming friends or determined enemies by their conversations.  The things we say to each other alters our relationships even when we aren’t meaning them to. An offhanded compliment may save one person's life while a random verbal dig at that same person might be what throws them over the edge and makes them overdose. Conversations are important.

In real life, people kind of shamble through their own sentences. They um and er a lot, they digress, interrupt themselves, and start over again with the ums and ers. It's hard to build a believable relationship in print with all that going on, so refine the dialogue to include only the important things.

Dialogue can do all of these things we've discussed over the month—reveal character, move the plot, set the tone, and alter relationships in one conversation, but it, at least, has to have one, otherwise the dialogue isn’t necessary.

 –It can also do one more thing. Dialogue can provide exposition and backstory…and you want to use this judiciously. Nothing will bore a reader faster than you using dialogue to tell your main character’s entire life story or telling the entire history of the world you’ve built through the character’s conversations. That being said, dialogue is a tool in which you can quickly (quickly being the key word here) give some additional information, such as back story so that you won’t end up with long, tedious passages of exposition.

Building relationships means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. Like I said the last few weeks, if you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is:

• Moving the plot forward.
• Setting the Tone
• Revealing the character
• Building relationships

The Art of Dialogue: Reveal the Character

A popular post from July 2013

By Julie Wright
part three of four

It's time for the third tip of writing good dialogue. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things I am going to mention here, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number three:

Reveal the Character

We don’t learn about characters simply by what they do, or the exposition that is written; we can learn about them through what they say and just as important, how they say it. Some characters are quiet and reserved so every word they actually utter is like a gift. Think Phineas and Ferb. If Ferb ever says anything, you always pay more attention to it, because it hardly ever happens. You expect something profound and awesome to exit that guy's mouth.

Other characters say whatever pops into their heads. They're the non-filtered characters.  These people are annoying to most of the world. These are the people that you sometimes want to push off a cliff because you just need them to stop talking. I am a non-filtered conversationalist. Please don't push me off a cliff. I truly don't mean to be offensive. We are who we are . . .

Some people are opinionated. Some are conservative. Some people turn everything into a joke. Some people don’t even get jokes let alone tell them.

By using dialogue properly, we can SHOW a character who is a submissive kiss-up in the way he offers to do the Starbucks run when the boss mentions he needs a coffee. Or in the way the kiss-up walks in on his co-workers talking in the break room instead of working and insists he's going to tell the boss on all of them.  The author doesn't just tell the reader that Simon was a whiny, sniveling kiss-up. The dialogue shows it.

Revealing the character through dialogue is an ultimate SHOW don't TELL kind of move. Don't tell us she hates her mom. Drop us in the middle of the fight and show her yelling at her mom--saying the sorts of things that prove her feelings. Don't tell us it hurt him to say goodbye. Show his voice cracking as he stumbles over the one word that changes everything for him.

We learn a lot about people during the course of conversation. Use this tool to help your reader better know your characters, and for your characters to better know each other. The more your reader knows your character, the more your reader can empathize and love that character which means they will stay with your character until the very end.

Revealing the character means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. Like I said the last two weeks, if you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is:

• Moving the plot forward.
• Setting the Tone
• Revealing the character

The Art of Dialogue: Set the Tone

A popular post from July 2013

By Julie Wright
part two of four

It's time for the second tip of writing good dialogue. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things I am going to mention here, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number Two:

Set the Tone

If it’s funny, or serious, or scary—you’ll know by the dialogue. Setting sets the tone, too, and is  completely important in writing, but a setting can’t exactly explain the tone of the book because the same setting can have multiple purposes.

So let's say our characters are at a funeral home. It’s just two of them, because no one else has arrived, or maybe no one else is coming. They're standing at the casket looking at the solemn repose of the deceased. That’s the setting.

But what will set the tone is the conversation—or lack of conversation—the two characters will have.

Maybe they’re brothers and it’s their father’s funeral. Maybe they hate each other because Dad loved one over the other. The setting says sad funeral, but the tone might be an angry war between brothers.

Or it could be two teenagers at the funeral of the science teacher who left them a clue to his murder. So they’re there to figure out who the murderer is. Their conversation and tone will be one of tension, intrigue, and anticipation. The tone is a who-dunnit.

Or it could be a couple of friends at the funeral of a roommate who was totally insane, and they’re there joking around about who gets his room and his Fender guitar. The tone would be a dark comedy.

Or maybe the characters are talking about cutting off the dead guy's head. Kind of weird, but hey, it happens. An ounce of preventuion and all that . . . As they cast a casual glance over their shoulders to see if anyone else is watching them cut off the head, the newly deceased's eyes pop open. Seeing that no one else is present, they move to the gruesome task of staking the undead at the same time the undead is working on making a snack of the two of them.  (I hate it when I wake up hungry). That tone of that scene would be horror/action.

The same setting can produce lots of different tones depending on what the characters say when they open their mouths.

Setting the tone means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. Like I said last week, if you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is:

• Moving the plot forward.
• Setting the Tone

The Art of Dialogue: Move the Plot Forward

A popular post from July 2013

By Julie Wright
part one of four

Dialogue is one of the most important parts of effective writing to me. It's one of my strengths in my writing, and so it's disappointing to me when it isn't a strength of other writers. I won't care if your commas are scattered like dandelion seeds on a manicured lawn, but I will sigh mightily if the dialogue doesn't work.

Sigh and likely put your book down.

So here is the first of four tips on what your dialogue should accomplish. The next three tips will come each Tuesday for the next three weeks. Remember that dialogue can do all of the four things, but it has to do at least one of them in order to be of any use to your story.

Tip number one:

Move the Plot Forward

Dialogue is a place where your characters can learn new information that helps them deal with the conflicts they're experiencing.

• This is where they make decisions about where to go from here.
• This is where they argue, fall in love, declare war, ask for divorces, make peace. Basically, this is where we create tension and conflict.
• This is where information is shared between characters that helps them understand if there is impending danger, or if the danger has moved on already. It helps build suspense.
• This is where the reader comes to understand how the character fits into the plot they've been dropped into. It allows the character discovery opportunities.
• This is where things happen because the characters say it’s happening.

Moving the plot forward means the dialogue is necessary. It has earned it's right to be in your story. I believe that writing is like owning an apartment complex. If you rent a few apartments out to people who aren't paying rent--you need to evict them so that you can maintain profitability and stay in business. If you have scenes of dialogue that aren't paying their rent by contributing to the book as a whole, then they need to be evicted. Squatters have no place in a good story. Nowhere is this more true than with dialogue. Make certain your dialogue is paying its rent. Make sure it is moving the plot forward.

Getting Past the First Chapter

A popular post from March 2013

By Julie Wright

We all know that the first line of the book has to be awesome. It has to earn you the right to the second line which has to earn you the right to the first page, which has to earn you the right to the first chapter. The first chapter is the thing that paves the way for the rest of the book. Sometimes it's all anyone will ever see of your book.

But writing a first chapter is HARD. It takes time--which is the number one reason people never get past the first chapter. I tweeted this the other day: My best writing advice to new writers? Time is made not found. If you love it, you will do it. We always *make* time for what we love.

Don't tell me you're too busy. If you loved writing like I love writing, then you will MAKE the time. Heck, even if you only sorta liked writing a tenth of the way I love it, then you'd make the time.

But it's still HARD. After all what if you write it all down and it's lame, lame, lame? Fear is another reason people don't write. In Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, he talks of Hitler's talent as an artist, then made the claim that it was easier for Hitler to start WWII than it was for him to face a blank canvas. That line stayed with me. Am I driving my own artistic life off course in order to avoid the blank page? I'm not saying fear of failure isn't real. I'm not saying that the blank page isn't terrifying. Of course it is. But it's also exciting, filled with possibility and adventure. The blank page can be anything you want. Embrace the page and write. So what if it's lame? I maintain my firm belief that a lame page is easier to fix than a blank page.

So where do you start?
I start with the character.
Then I put the character in a  situation that feels interesting to me. I have them act on that situation and speak to those people populating that situation.
You might be a setting starter.
You might be a plot starter.
You might be a late starter and need to turn the engine over and over and over until it finally engages (which means you'll have to delete the first few pages, but so what? They helped you get the engine going).

There is no right or wrong place to start. The point is to start at a place that is interesting to YOU. In my latest novel, Capes and Curls, the story opens with Red killing a rabbit in front of her sister who hates the killing even though they're starving. I opened showing the differences between the sisters, the sacrifices each were willing to take for the other. I wanted to show that even with all their differences, they stood together  in all things. Did I know I wanted to show all that with my beginning? Absolutely not. I started there because it was interesting to me. Admittedly, I had a couple of other false starts before I got to the scene with the girls and the rabbit, but those were the cranking-the-engine pages and were all deleted.

The first chapter is do vital because it sets the tone and mood of the whole book. Should the reader be afraid? Should they be cautious? Should they want to laugh?  All of that is revealed in the beginning of every book, so you should know ahead of time whet kind of book you're writing. Is it romance? And if it is romance, is it funny, tragic, steamy? You need to know going in so that your tone stays consistent. You don't want to start out with a deep, soulful, naval-gazing talk about the weather when you want the book to be an action-packed, hard core science fiction novel.

So have an idea of what you want to write, forget fear, make the time, and sit your butt in a chair. You might have to rewrite but that's okay. Why? Because it's easier to fix lame than blank.

The Almighty Edit

A popular post from March 2013

by Julie Wright

As an editor, I get to ruin a person's day. As a writer, I get my day ruined by editors.

I know it's important, the job of an editor. I know I'm helping other writers. But as a writer, I don't know what I'd do without a good editor. A good editor is what saves you from yourself. He or she will save you from certain embarrassment if that scene or sentence actually makes it into the final version of your manuscript.

This post might seem a bit like an ode to editors past, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention the editor who changed my life as a writer.

Kirk Shaw was/is (he's at law school, now) a great editor. I owe many thanks to him for saving me from myself. He told me what scenes were lame and needed to be cut. He told me when I was going too easy on my characters and in what ways they could stand to suffer a little more. He taught me several comma rules. I still don't know all the fickle ways of the comma, but that's merely because we didn't have enough time together. The man was a genius at his job.

Some good things to keep in mind when editing your own manuscript

•  Make your characters work for it. If the quest is too easy, it's not worth reading about.
•  If a word is not a contributing member of the sentence, then it needs to be evicted. Make sure your words all have a specific function.
• If a sentence is not a contributing member of your page, then it needs to be evicted.
• If a page is a not a contributing member to the story, then it needs to be evicted. Don't let the dead weight take up residence in your story.
• Cutting hurts. But a tight and tidy package looks nicer and is better received than the one hastily slapped together with a few errant pieces of tape and rumpled wrapping paper.
• There is a difference between the words lightening and lightning. Make sure you used the word you meant to use. Spell check doesn't catch this.
• There is also a difference between a nice dress and a mice dress. Sometimes you hit a wrong key, but the word still fits well enough in the sentence that spell check doesn't see it. Make sure you are reading your story out loud during your final editing stage. You catch so much more when you're reading it out loud and having to say every word as it is written.
• Do your characters have a goal they're working toward or are they just playing around?
• Avoid passive language--especially in a book meant for action and suspense. The active voice makes the scene more immediate and urgent. The passive voice slows everything down.
• Editors never use the phrase "Show, don't tell" because they think the words sound pretty together. When you see that phrase, take it to heart. Showing versus telling makes the difference between meh and amazing. It is the plastic roses bought at a dollar store on clearance versus a fresh bouquet from one of the nicest florist shops in town. Always act on this directive when an editor tells you it is needed.

These are just a few things I've seen needing fixed over and over during my time as a writer and editor. When you get an editorial letter, it isn't a time for weeping and feeling terrible. It's a time to be excited to jump into your work and make it better than it was before. I love that Kirk was such an amazing editor that he inspired me to be better than I was. Thanks, Kirk. I know law school was the right choice for you, but that doesn't mean you aren't sorely missed in my life.

CS Lewis has this quote:

“Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping up the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that these jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and seems not to make sense. What on earth is he up to?

The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought. He is throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace."

Your manuscript is your house. Build a palace.

The Anatomy of an Author

A popular post from January 2010

By Julie Wright

An author is defined as the person who originates or gives existence to anything. It is understood that typically, "anything" refers to a written work. Not always, but typically.

It's hard for people who aren't authors of written work to understand those of us who are. How can that happily married woman write steamy romances? How can that nice young man who is so helpful and thoughtful write about serial killers and sci fi monsters? How could she write about child abuse? How could he write about drug addictions?

And they assume that in some dark part of our lives as authors, we've lived these things personally. And some of us probably have.

I haven't. I make it all up. But I know there are a great many people who secretly believe I have had a baby out of wedlock and have given it up for adoption. They also believe I was abused as a child.

It's not true. My parents were (and are) incredible people. I've been spanked exactly once as a child and I deserved it. And though I threaten to put my kids up for adoption, I've never actually done it. But I was able to write about these things because I believe one of the things that makes artists who they are is their sense of curiosity. To create something from nothing, we must be able to view that something from all angles--to understand it completely. It means we have to be interested in things--all sorts of things--even if we have not experienced those things for ourselves. This is why Annette Lyon and Josi Kilpack have spent time researching books about murders and dead bodies, why Heather has researched the middle east and the different factions of political control there, and why I've researched abortions, adoptions, and sexually transmitted diseases.

We also have a sense of beauty--of the fantastic. We notice it, breathe it in, and let it alter us--if even for a moment.

While on my book tour with Josi Kilpack, we traveled through forests, deserts, rain storms, snow storms, and ocean side communities. It was beautiful. But we were very short on time between signings so there weren't a lot of stop-and-smell-the-roses opportunities offered to us. So I resigned myself to taking pictures out the window as we sped by.

So here we are--artists who are curious and so easily struck speechless by beauty and yet we're also a little egocentric, because we not only believe that people will WANT to read our work, we believe they will PAY for the opportunity. And we find that when we are rejected, or given a poor review, we become almost irreparably depressed.

What other profession out there is so emotionally exhausting?

So why do we do it?

The answer is found in the definition of who we are: An author is defined as the person who originates or gives existence to anything. We are creators and by so being must create.

So when your neighbors start avoiding you because they realize you write books about the inner workings of demons, or your family stops calling because you've been acting moody over a rejection, don't feel too bad. Because there is a group of us out there who understand you're still a nice, normal person.

We know you can be a nice person and still write about murder, or that you can be a loyal spouse and still write romances. We know this about you because you're an author, and all of this is simply the anatomy of an author.

I Love You . . . But You're Boring

A popular post from January 2010

By Julie Wright

It's a song, I Love You But You're Boring by The Beautiful South. Sometimes it's more than a song. Sometimes, it's your manuscript. Worse . . . sometimes it's mine.

So what happens when you wake up and realize you no longer love your manuscript? (well, I mean, you love it, but it's just so boring)

Do you try to figure out how to break up with it? Or do you muddle through and hope the relationship will improve with time?

I usually muddle through. Years ago, my grandma taught me that life is sweetest when you finish what you start. And by the time I get to the end and then go back through the book for edits, I can't seem to ever find that uninteresting, lacking-in-spark place where I'd fallen out of love. I know it was there, but much like a fight in real marriage, I can never seem to remember what it was about, or why it bothered me so much.

Other authors call this moment of disillusionment "The sagging middle." Usually this occurs when you've written out your original idea and come to a road block (or writer's block if it makes you feel more professional about your situation).

How do you get out of it?

-Move the plot forward.
So often we get caught up in writing the story, that we forget to write the story. If the scene you're writing isn't moving the plot forward in some way, or developing that character, you might not need that scene. And you might want to replace it with a scene that DOES move the plot forward and develops your characters.

-Build on conflicts.
Some authors get so panicked about the moment where they look at their manuscript and think, "Dude, that's boring." that they cut out the scene of conflict, assuming that it's the conflict that isn't working. But unless you're SURE the conflict is at fault, rather than cut it out, build on it. Make it stronger, deeper, scarier, richer. Put your characters in greater peril. Maybe put a traitor in their midst--something that will increase tension and conflict.

-Build your character
This ties into the other two but gets its own place on the list because this is important. You know how people are always saying garbage about trials and stress are character building? Well, don't punch them out just yet, because it's true. It's true in fiction too. By building the conflict and moving the plot forward, you force the character to act and react to the new situations. You force them to grow and make hard decisions. You build their character. People, even fictional people, with strong character are certainly NEVER boring.

So take my grandma's advice and finish what you start, even if that means muddling through something far removed from the honeymoon phase. It really is sweet to reach the finish line.

Hooking (And of Course I'm Talking About Books!)

A popular post from April 2012. 

By Julie Wright

I have a manuscript I've been working on that is a zillion shades of totally awesome. The characters are fleshed out. The plot is compelling and fresh. The dialogue is believable. The title makes me grin every time I think about it. Everything sings in this manuscript. But it isn't ready to submit. Not a chance.

Because while the rest of the manuscript might be singing, the opening is doing something closer to croaking. It isn't that the opening isn't interesting. It isn't that the writing is bad. But the opening doesn't hook the reader. It doesn't compel them forward to the rest of the page. It doesn't compel them to turn the page, or the page after that, or the page after that.

A hook in your opening is totally necessary. Think of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. The first paragraph has the curator to the Louvre museum lunging at a masterpiece painting and yanking it off the wall. This is not typical curator behavior--especially at one of the world's most famous museums. The opening paragraph makes the reader wonder, "What is this lunatic guy doing?" It compels them to read more because they want their question answered.

There are lots of different kinds of hooks, but they all have something in common. They all promise something to the reader. And that promise is what carries them to the rest of the book.

My story starts with a girl snapping a rabbit's neck. This isn't exactly a bad opening, but the way I'd written it is filled with exposition, introspection, and a lot of other things that weigh the story down and give it kind of a "meh" sort of feeling. It isn't anything that makes the reader sit up and say, "I have got to find out what happens next!" I can't submit until I find a better opening hook.

An interesting thing about hooks is that you can place them in more than just one spot. My friend, James Dashner, likes to place a hook at the bottom of every page so the reader feels compelled to turn the page. He also puts them at the end of every chapter--a place where a lot of people feel comfortable putting a book down so they can go do something else. James puts that hook there so it's almost impossible for a reader to choose to put the book down. J. Scott Savage does the same thing. So does Dan Wells. Those mini hooks throughout the book carry the reader all the way to the end in one sitting (or two if they just can't help it, but they aren't happy about putting the book down). Hooks used well bring a level of greatness to a novel. It creates its own buzz among readers. Everyone loves talking about the book they simply could not put down.

Opening hooks work best when:

• A change has just occurred or is about to occur in a character's life.

ie: He wasn't coming home.

Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.

• A specific description or identifying statement that feels like it reveals a person or setting, and promises conflict to come.

ie: After twenty three years, four months, and eleven days of being John Phillip's secretary, I stomped my bear-clawed slippered feet into Nesbitt Law offices that morning, my hair curlers bouncing against my forehead with every step. And then, after standing in the pristine office for all of four seconds, I stormed his personal office, ripped open the file cabinet, and sent all of his important documents on the Pratt case through the shredder.
Hap Hazzard didn't believe in ghosts, but he was afraid of them.

• A general abstract statement that isn't necessarily tied to anything, but that sparks interest.

ie: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Scientists say that the brain chemistry of infatuation is akin to mental illness--which gives new meaning to "madly in love."

• A juxtaposition that doesn't fit.

ie: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Clocks don't strike thirteen. That's interesting and doesn't fit. This would also be the curator yanking paintings off a wall. His actions don't fit the persona of a museum curator. Or a newspaper reporter doing an interview with a vampire. Vampire interviews aren't the first thing a rational person thinks of when considering who a reporter could interview.
The point of any book opening hook is to garner enough interest in the reader to make them keep reading. The point of the little hooks placed throughout the book is to keep them reading to the end.
So I am off to write a better opening for my new novel. I wish you well in the hook you'll be using for yours.

More on Emotions

A popular post from May 2010

By Julie Wright

As I promised Curtis last week, I am going to cite a few examples of emotionally potent writing. As Curtis suggested, all opinions are subjective, but some opinions are more universally agreed upon than others.

My first example of good emotional writing is from Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The scene where Katniss is awaiting the results of the reaping is a perfect example for emotions and for showing not telling. Katniss has done everything in her power to keep her sister Prim out of the games. Prim has only one entry, whereas Katniss has a whole bunch. So she experiences a visceral shock when she hears Prim's name called out. The chapter ends with Katniss hearing Prim's name. And the next chapter begins with Katniss's reaction. But it doesn't say anything abstract like shocked, stunned or surprised. It goes into a little backstory of the time Katniss fell ten feet out of a tree and her physical reaction to that fall, where her body went into a state of shock. She described how her body felt, from the muscles to her legs, to her stomach, to her mind. She used many of the five senses to describe that fall.

THEN she likened all that feeling to the feeling she now had with Prim's name and watching her sister step up, confused and frightened to take her place in the games that would surely kill her.

While reading that scene, the reader FEELS the same shock that Katniss feels. We are part of that story in every way. We are watching our little sisters (even those of us who don't have little sisters) walk to their deaths. We want to scream, we want to cry, we want to do exactly as Katniss did and yell out, "Take me instead!"

That is emotionally powerful writing. That is showing not telling. That is making the reader participate in the story, rather than merely observe the story.

Last week, a commenter made the observation that writers (especially new writers) assume that writing from the heart and infusing emotion means to say she was sad, he was angry and other abstract things like that. The commenter is absolutely right. Abstract emotion doesn't make the reader feel anything. There are ways to show emotion without resorting to telling, or worse, getting drippy with sentimentality.

It's hard to put everything there is to know about writing emotions in a blog but real fast a major thing to avoid is:

THE CLICHE:
She sat on pins and needles waiting for the mail to come.

This is an attempt at showing she's nervous or anxious, but it fails. It's a cliche that is as abstract as saying she was nervous. Avoid cliches. Avoid the phrases like she loved him more than life itself or anything that even hints at dripping in sentimentality. That makes readers roll eyes and does not encourage them to keep reading to the next page.

Another example of good emotional writing is from Janette Rallison's How to Take the Ex Out of Ex Boyfriend. She opens the book talking about the social rankings in Cinderella's world and how even though Cinderella was with the prince, it doesn't mean that the courtiers and other ladies are glad to have her there. She isn't like them. She's a commoner and doesn't deserve to be with them. Then it gets brought back to the main character and how her dating this amazing guy and having him accept her doesn't mean his friends and their girlfriends will accept her.

The reason why this is good emotional writing is because everyone at some point or another feels like they don't fit in. The audience can relate to the situation of being out of their element and they immediately sympathize with the main character. You want your readers to feel the main character's emotion. In order to do that you need to:

*Create an experience that is relatable to the human condition.
*Maintain a character's motivation so the reader understands WHY the character makes the choices they make.
*Use the five senses.
*Be concrete; avoid the abstract.
*Include internal thoughts. I personally think this is important in helping readers understand and get inside the main character's head. Consider a time when you were having a conversation. Yes your dialogue reveals a lot of what you're feeling, but it can't reveal all. Because sometimes we don't say what we mean. And sometimes we feel things that we aren't willing to say out loud. How am I supposed to know if your character is furious at her boss, when her entire conversation shows me otherwise?

There is a lot more, but alas, I need to get back to my own writing. I wish you all great success with yours.

Becoming Emotionally Involved

A popular post from April 2010

By Julie Wright

Some people tell me they don’t read fiction because they get nothing out of it, but if they aren’t getting anything out of it, they aren’t reading the right books. I read for the emotional experience and there is lots of emotion to be found in fiction—at least . . . there is lots of emotion to be found in good fiction.

The emotion readers get from a book (and this absolutely goes for non-fiction as well) is what stays with them, and is the most important byproduct of your writing. It is what will keep them looking for your books. If your readers don't feel much of anything, that lack of emotion will make them forget you. They definitely won’t be looking for your next book, and they definitely won’t be recommending your book to anyone else. Ultimately readers have to care.

My good friend and mentor Jeff Savage, teaches that you should always come to the scene late and leave the scene early. So basically he’s saying you should come to the scene when there is some action going on. Action doesn’t necessarily mean a fight scene or a battle, action means your characters are doing something. Your opening scene needs to introduce characters and make us care about them. you do not want your readers thinking, "And why do I care about this?"

It's a good idea for writers to pay attention to the emotion they want the readers to feel. what do you want the reader to feel in the beginning? What do you want them to feel for each specific scene? what do you want them to feel when they shut your book at the very end?

My best advice to authors looking to infuse emotion into their writing is to write from the heart. Write what you are passionate about. If you aren’t passionate about your story, you end up with a manuscript that lacks emotion, or is dissatisfying because of unfulfilled emotion, or the wrong emotion. Write from the heart.

If you are madly in love with your hero, your reader will be too. If you really hate your antagonist, your reader will too. If you have a hard time shutting out the lights to go to bed after a night of writing because you know those monsters in your pages are looking for a way out, your reader will too.

Because the question you must ask yourself, as a writer, is: Why do I care? And if you find you don’t, your reader doesn’t either.

No, Really Officer, It's for Research!

A popular post from May 2010

By Julie Wright

I watched a program on Google searches and what they indicate about the people doing the searches. One woman interviewed said, "People confess their darkest secrets to Google as they run searches for sexually transmitted diseases or porn, or ways to kill their neighbor's cat. They confess thoughts, addictions, and medical conditions that they wouldn't tell a random stranger, yet they are willing to confess it to a computer."

It got me thinking . . . what would my Google searches say about me?

Especially when I've searched for not just one sexually transmitted disease, but have Googled pretty much all of them, or when in my recent searches, I've Googled the words, "What does a meth overdose look like?"

This current book I'm writing has a respectable body count. People are dying in all sorts of diverse ways, but I swear I am not on drugs, an axe murderer, or a sociopath. My Google searches would lead people to believe otherwise.

At a writer's conference I spoke at a few weeks ago, I sat in on one of my friend's classes. She was talking about world building, and how even if you are setting your story in the world that we live in, you still need to world build. You still need to know if the spotted fawn is indigenous to upstate New York if you're planning on using them in your book in that location. She made the point that writing fiction doesn't mean you get to make EVERYTHING up. You do have to know certain things. You do have to do your research and get it right because someone in the world *will* know if the spotted fawn is indigenous to New York, and they will publicly denounce you if you get it wrong. The devil is in the details and as authors it means we must try to get every devilish detail right, even if it means my Google searches make me look like a psychopath.

If the police start thumping on my door, will they believe me when I tell them the search for how quickly various poisons kill a grown man was really just research?

You believe me, don't you?

Enjoy the Journey

A popular post from June 2010

By Julie Wright

Again, I am going to quote Barbara Hambly from the CONduit conference because she said many things over the course of the weekend that resonated with me.

Someone in the audience during her main address asked what she felt her greatest success was. They of course meant her writing. They wanted to know which of the scores of books she'd written had been the jewel in her literary crown.

Her reply?

The relationships in her life that had lasted 30 plus years.

It was at this same conference where I was on a panel and someone asked me how it felt to finally "arrive" as a published author. My reply?

I haven't arrived. There are still goals to achieve, stories to write, things that must be done. Before publication, my only thought was, "If I could just see my name on a book jacket, THEN I will be happy." After my first book came out it was, "If I could just see my name on a best seller's list, THEN I will be happy." After that happened, it was, "If I could just get published with the best and biggest publisher in my market, THEN I will be happy." After that happened, the happiness was dependant on sales numbers, getting an agent, being a finalist for a highly esteemed award, and on and on and on.

And was I happy for all those things?

Sure I was. But those things didn't maintain Eternal-Happiness-Forever. I still have bad days, insecure days, worried days. My journey to publication has been a rough road and I have yet to find ultimate satisfaction with my chosen career as a writer.

In the movie Cool Runnings (yes, I am old and did see this film in the theater) there is a scene where the young man asks about the gold medal in the Olympics. His coach made a comment that has stayed with me, "If you aren't enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

It took me a few years to realize that if I'm not happy without all the trappings of publication, I will never be happy with them.

Realizing that has helped me to move forward, to chase dreams without losing the importance of living in each moment and finding joy for the sake of the moment.

As I said before there are still goals to achieve, stories to write, things that must be done. I haven't arrived. And I will likely never arrive because I'm not interested in being finished with writing. I'm interested in the journey. I'm interested in the story I'm writing, the book that's coming out right now, the friends I am making who really do give me Eternal-Happiness-Forever.

And if someone asks me what my greatest success is, my answer will be very similar to Barbara's. My greatest success is my family and friends. My greatest success is found in the relationships that make it all worth while, the people who laugh and cry with me, and who make every day twenty shades of awesome.

Don't be so quick to your finish lines that you forget to enjoy the race.

Your Author Bio--from laundry list to creating an author brand

A popular post from July 2010

by Heather Moore

Recently Annette Lyon and I attended the ULA Conference where we were guest speakers. I flipped through the syllabus and gasped when I saw my author bio. It told about me--but had nothing about my published books or anything that would qualify me to be a speaker. I thought--well, no one will come to my class.

I asked Annette why she thought they'd put that bio in there when I'd sent over my updated bio. She said, "They probably took it from your website."

She was right. As I looked at the bio, I realized that it was on my website. I guess I thought that someone visiting my website would see the books I've written, then for additional author information they'd read my bio.

When I returned home from the conference, I promptly changed the bio so that if someone needed to lift it from my website, it would go well with any conference syllabus.

Recently I read a post by bestselling thriller writer, Barry Eisler. He basically nails why your author bio should be something that attracts a reader to your book, not a dry laundry list of where you were born, where you live, and the number of children you have. Eisler calls is author branding--check out his great post HERE.

In revamping my author bio, I asked myself what information reflects my personality as well as what will motivate a new reader to buy my book?

Anyone want to share yours?

This is what I came up with:

Heather B. Moore is the award-winning author of several historical novels which are set in Ancient Arabia and Mesoamerica. She is not old and doesn’t remember the time period, so Google has become a great friend. Although she has spent several years living in the Middle East, she prefers to forget the smells. Heather writes under the pen name H.B. Moore so that men will buy her books. She is also the author of one non-fiction book, which took her much too long to research and write, so she is back to novel writing (when she isn’t clipping 2-for-1 coupons).

The Middle of Nowhere

A popular post from September 2011

I live in the literal middle of nowhere. Getting to my house is one of those experiences where you start out thinking about how fun the road trip is going to be. You take off with your snacks, and your drinks, and your awesome music you can sing along with. But once you leave the freeway and enter the highway, things feel less promising than they did when you took off. You're moving slower because the speed limits are so incredibly lamely LOW, and sometimes you get stuck behind semi trucks who make the lame low speed limit look like Nascar, and the scenery doesn't feel like it's changing. It's more of the same thing over and over and over. And sometimes you get stuck out there in the middle--due to cattle or sheep, or rolled semi trucks (it happens). Sometimes you get stuck for a long time and it totally bites because there isn't even any cell service.

People show up at my house and come panting in my living room and plopping down on my couch with great exclamations of how they NEVER thought they would get there.

I get them a drink and lament American highways with them because it's the right thing to do. It really is a long drive--necessary for me, but long.

Writing feels similar sometimes.

You get this great idea--this epic, amazing, you-can't-believe-the-idea-actually-came-to-you idea, and you take off, writing furiously. You've got your snacks, your drinks, your best writing music, and you are so excited about what you're working on, you can barely keep the grin off your face. You know that the ending of this work will be colossal, amazing. You're thrilled with how fantastic the destination of the end of your book will be for readers of all ages. You are going to change the world.

Until you find yourself in what feels like the two-lane-highway-stuck-behind-a-semi-truck part of your book.

Welcome. You've now reached the middle.

And you start to doubt.

Is this really where you wanted to go anyway? What's so great about reaching "the end?" Maybe that beginning was the mistake. Maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere . . .

So instead of writing, you rearrange your pen collection, get up for a different snack--you were sick of chips anyway and realize carrot sticks might be healthier. You punch some buttons on the remote control to see what might be on.You call your friends and see about going to a movie, but they're busy writing--jerks, and then you decide that health is overrated, and you wanted ice cream instead.

There are some things you can do to pass the semi--clear the flock off the road, and get back to the freeway that will take you where you want to go.

Boring:
Are you bored? If you're bored, I promise, your reader is too. If that's the reason the middle's slowing down, then you might want to insert some action, some peril, something that incites your characters and your readers. Put them in danger, make the girl lose the guy, have the murderer strike again while the detective is still scrambling with clues. Make something happen that propels the action and the plot forward again.

Goals:
Does your character not have clearly defined goals so your characters are kind of wandering around in the misty middles of nowhere because they're not sure what to do next? if this is the case, go back and find something your character desperately wants or is desperately passionate about. That is the goal. Keep them moving toward the goal, which will help move them away from the middle and closer to the end. Make sure the goal is big enough that the readers will care if the goal is achieved. If the quest is merely for a pint of ice cream--you might not be able to get the reader to follow the journey to the end. Make it riveting enough to hold your attention.

Make sure your antagonist has a clear goal too. No one is evil just for the sake of evil. They have things they want and are trying desperately to achieve.

I have a tendency to get lost in my manuscripts about page 60, and then again at page 120. But I've always found that it's because I've lost sight of the goal or failed to keep the action and plot moving. Middles don't have to feel like the boring nowheres they sometimes seem to be. Take the scenic route and turn your music up louder. And remember to have fun with it!

I Think the Best and Expect the Best

A popular post from September 2010

By Julie Wright

My father was once the president of the Optimist International Club. Yes, optimists have a club and yes, they’ve really gone international.

At the age of thirteen, I came home with a mountain of homework to do and plowed into it (this is because I was ugly and unpopular and didn’t really have anything else to do in my life EXCEPT homework). Halfway through the mountain, my dad called.

“I need you to write up a speech and be prepared to give that speech out loud in front of a panel of judges and several hundred other people who are part of my club. I’ll be picking you up in a little less than two hours. Oh, and Julie? You have to wear a dress.” (Okay, fine, he didn’t actually mention the hundreds of people. He left that part as a surprise.)

It seems many of my life altering moments involved being rushed into something before I could think it through well enough to protest, and me wearing a dress. So I wrote a five minute speech on this topic: “I think the best; I expect the best.”

I was thirteen (as I’ve already pointed out). Five minutes of positive thinking for any teenager is quite a stretch. It turns out, this little shin-dig Dad had me go to was a public speaking contest. Lots of kids were entered and most of them were tutored by drama and public speaking coaches. The only public speaking I’d ever done was yelling at my brother in the grocery store. Why my father felt compelled to throw me in the mix at the last minute, I couldn’t really say. Standing in front of all those adults scared me to knee-knocking death.

Of course, I didn’t win. And I actually had the gall to feel badly about not winning. I went with two hours preparation and a dress that didn’t fit (because I never wore dresses back then; my parents were hard pressed to get me to wear shoes), and I had the nerve to feel I should have placed higher than the people who went prepared.

And what might this little trip down memory lane mean?

It means that so often we go into something less than prepared and then get ticked off when it doesn’t turn out the way we think it should.

I meet writers who finish their first novels and immediately begin submitting. And while I congratulate them for the fact that they actually finished a novel, and further congratulate them for having the fortitude it takes to submit, I wonder if they aren’t going into a contest less prepared than their competition.

Did those writers send their manuscripts out to critique groups? Did they receive the right coaching? Did they study up on how to make themselves stand out in the slushpile? Do they know the mechanics of writing? Are they passionate about their manuscript? What are their credentials? Did they even run a spell check before sending in the manuscript?

And worse, those writers (me included back before I knew better) whine when they don’t walk home with a contract in hand. The speech I wrote back then still resonates with me.

I think the best; I expect the best. And something more to take away the prize: I gave my best.

I am a Writer

A popular post from September 2010

By Julie Wright

I watched a movie the other day—Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts. It wasn’t a great movie, but aside from the slow pacing and lack of real plot or character growth—there was a line in there that completely bugged me. To be fair, there were a lot of great lines, but this one has overshadowed all the others. It was a scene where Julia’s character was at a dinner table with a bunch of other people and she was asked to share something about herself. She said, “I’m a writer . . .”
And the guy interrupted her and said, “That’s what you do—not who you are.”

Are you kidding me?

What real writer could have written that little nugget of untruth? I cannot agree with that statement—at least not for myself. And I pity the writer for whom this statement is true. I am a writer. Yes, it is what I do, but it is also very much who I am. It defines me in a lot of ways.

And I’m not talking about publishing and book contracts—those things are awesome and life changing, but they are merely a natural result of me being who I am.

I’m talking about being a writer. That is who I am. My life entirely revolves around words. I write in my personal journal, in the secret journals I keep for my children, letters to people I love, rants when I’m angry, poems when I feel sappy, novels when I feel creative, songs when I feel sad. I’m a writer. It is something I can’t NOT do. My life is wrapped up in the little moments that make up stories and I can’t help but see it that way.

In a class I had in high school, one of my writing teachers plopped a boot up onto her desk and said, "There's a poem in there somewhere."

And there was. There is. Every time. There's a poem in everything, a story in a glance, words wound up tight in every step I take in life.

Being a writer, I have a secret fear. I am terrified I’m going to die and have nothing but lame and embarrassing rough drafts on my computer. I’m terrified that someone will actually go looking through this stuff, and read my absurd drivel, and then think that all that garbage they find on my hard drive defines the person I am. I’m afraid they’ll judge me on the actual content instead of realizing that the fact that everything is there--written down is what defines me. It defines me as a writer.

I would like to say that I avoid the problem of what they'll find on my computer by only writing brilliant things. My prose will reduce you to tears, my metaphors are profound, my adverbs are scarce. And if I said all that, I would be lying.

Everyone has train wreck writing on their hard drives. The point is not what's in it, but that it's there.

Do we always succeed as writers? Will we all get the contracts, the big book deals, the New York Times best seller badge? No.

But we do get the relief of expelling all the jumbled messes weighing heavy on our brains onto paper. We give ourselves permission to create something from nothing. We get the joy of expression.

We try for the other stuff--the badges, accolades, and awards, even when the little green jedi master tells us we don’t get the luxury of trying.

In my kitchen there hangs a plaque that I got from Josi Kilpack. It reads: I will not live the life of a normal person. I am a writer.

It's not just what I do. It's who I am.

Vilify Me

A popular post from October 2010

By Julie Wright

In a book I finished several months ago, I had an epiphany about villains. They don't think they're villains.

The evil cheerleader who picks on the ugly girl with glasses? She doesn't think she's evil. Maybe she's picking on the ugly girl because the ugly girl did something that hurt her when they were in grade school, and she's holding a grudge. In that case--according to the cheerleader, the ugly girl is the villain and is only getting what's deserved.

Let's consider Professor Snape in Harry Potter. He's the ultimate complex character. He's the bad guy, a constant thorn in Harry's side. And yet . . . he's also a sympathetic character. We feel sorry for him, we understand his motivations, and sometimes he's helping our protagonists achieve their goals. Sometimes he's doing things that good guys do.

So is he good or bad?

That depends on who you're asking. Harry would say Snape's the villain. Snape would call himself the hero. He made the hard choice, did what had to be done, and he did it all for the love of one woman. Isn't that heroic? Doesn't that deserve our approval? Or if not approval, at the very least, it deserves our understanding, and certainly doesn't deserve our censure.

In fact, all bad guys are the heroes of their own stories. They don't think of themselves as diabolically evil. They usually think of themselves as avengers of wrongs done to them. Or they're egomaniacs who really think the world would be better if they were in charge, and they can't figure out why everyone's trying to stop them.

This is important to remember when writing about bad guys--he usually has some strong motivating factor to act the way he does. A bad guy with the depth of the puddle isn't very interesting. Your hero is only as strong as his nemesis. You write a strong villain, and it will force your hero to step up to the plate and be equal and surpassing of that strength--because the hero has to win and he can't if the villain is stronger. But if you have a weak, two-dimensional bad guy, your hero will also be weak.

The best way to give characters complexity and therefore make them interesting is to avoid the "absolute" personality. No one is absolutely evil. No one is absolutely good. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

I truly believe that the very best humans are capable of horrible acts if given the right circumstances, and the very worst humans are capable of great kindness if given the right circumstances.

Keeping in mind that everyone has their reasons for the things they do will enrich your story and make sure that the characters stay in character. So now you know Snape is my favorite villain and why, who is yours?

Advice from a Pro

A popular post from February 2011.

By Julie Wright

I went to Life The Universe and Everything as a panelist at BYU this last week and got some great information. I thought I would highlight a few of the key things I took away from this conference.

*Fiction isn't fact, but it is truth. Fiction allows us each to see the truth based on our own experiences and frame of reference.

*All fiction is lies. Our jobs as authors is to make the lie plausible. This seems a direct contradiction to the first comment, but it's not--not really. It connects in pretty well.

*You cannot break the rules of writing until you know them, until you've practiced them, until you've earned the right to break them intelligently. -- Tracy Hickman I could not agree more. Don't get clever with tense if you don't understand tense. If you want to write, then learn the rules. Work on your craft. Breaking rules you don't understand isn't artistic, it's ignorant. Learn them.

*Where there is no story, humans create it. We think and exist in story format. --Tracy Hickman I considered all the times I've gone to tell someone anything, about an event, or a situation. I always speak in a story format. I set it up as a story. And it isn't just because I'm a writer. I've paid attention. Everyone does this. Story is undeniably linked to the human condition.

*It doesn't matter if you're published. Being published is nothing. It is everything to be read. --Tracy Hickman This is absolute truth. My first book was published by a very small press. I was published. It was exciting! But was a I read? no. No, not really. And looking back, I am glad I wasn't read. it was a first book. I was a very green author. I had no idea what the rules were. I had no idea about craft. I had a long way to go. Being published isn't really the goal of a writer. What we want is to be read. We want to enter that dialogue with the reader. We want the intimacy of pulling readers into worlds we created--even if we'll never meet those readers, even if we're separated from those readers by continents, or even centuries. What a writer really longs for its to be read. The best way to achieve that is to learn the craft and write well.

Poisoned Apples

A popular post from December 2011

By Julie Wright

I've recently discovered the TV series Once Upon a Time. For someone like me, who is an avid junkie of all things fairytale, this is a delightful series. I only wish I'd discovered it when it had moved into its second or third season so I could buy the DVDs and watch at my own leisure.

While I was at ABC's website streaming the first few episodes (available for a short time only), I found the comments list. It was during the second episode. I was waiting for the show to buffer so scrolled down to see what else there was to do, because I am a chronic multi-tasker and really hate even a few seconds of idle time. One of the comments was,

"Inconsistency with the apples...she says honeycrisp tree then hands Emma a red delicious. I know, I know, it's small, but details like that are important to me."

There were several comments about the honeycrisp. Apparently a lot of people know their apples. I didn't actually catch the error, because I don't know apples, but I found the comments interesting--comments like, "I know it's small, but details like that are important to me."

There is power in getting the details right.

Don't get me wrong. I totally understand the frustration that research brings. I know what it's like to get to a place where I simply don't know how it really works. That's one of the reasons I set aside a book I'd felt very strongly about. I was lost in the research and realized that until I could commit to the research, I had no business writing the book. It's easy to let little details go while thinking, "How many people really know what a honeycrisp apple looks like anyway?"

The answer is: A lot of people.

And them knowing the right answer when the writer got it wrong yanks them out of the story. Some readers will roll their eyes and dive back into the story. Others will roll their eyes and TRY to dive back in, but they'll keep surfacing so they can do another eye roll, and the book loses some of its original excitement. And others will roll their eyes and walk away because they can't get past the fact that the writer got it wrong.

For them, a wrong apple turned into something toxic--poisonous to their ability to suspend disbelief.

It takes time to get the details right, but it takes even more time to try to win back readers who feel like you've failed them. Don't set a volcano in Sweden if you aren't sure about whether or not such a thing could exist. Don't trust to just Google or Wiki for your sources (though they are great resources). Take a moment and call the hospital to talk to their night shift nurse to find out a detail about how his/her shift works or what protocol is for seeing a patient. Call the post office to find out how much it would cost to mail a pot of gold back to Ireland. Call an STD hotline to find out actual statistics (though they might ask you what your symptoms are and think the "writing a book" is just a cover story). Go ride a horse, go rockclimbing, go  . . . DO whatever it is you have your character doing (within reason--if your character is jumping off the Empire State Building, you definitely should not do that).

I had a teenager who wanted to be a writer ask me for the most important bit of advice I felt I could give. I told him to: Go. Live. Life.

See, taste, smell, hear, touch life. Your own experiences are your best research.

Bite into a honeycrisp.
But make sure not to pick one from the tree where the queen used to live. Better to not take chances.