Writing from the Peak, PPW Blog

Injecting Humor into Your Novel and Characters

By: Georgiana Hall (G.G. Hall)

Let’s face it. After 2 years of Covid-related lockdowns, sadness, restrictions, and whatever else, we all need a good laugh. So, as I was working on that fifth revision of the tenth book in my series about dwarf two-headed red aliens who landed in Nashville to overtake Tastee Freeze, I decided it was time to consider putting a little humor into my work. As writers with endless amounts of talent, we all know this is easy. Of course it is, right? Well sort of. So how can you tickle your readers’ funny bones without going off the deep end?

Back away from your keyboard for a few minutes and ask yourself- who are my characters? Why are they unique? Is there something about one of them that just maybe would make someone laugh? Suppose for a moment that one of your characters is a tall, exceptionally beautiful blonde woman. She has striking pale blue eyes that match the color of the Colorado sky on a clear day. We have a vivid image of this woman in our heads but what happens when she walks?

Giving this character a name just for fun, let “Alice” be the beautiful woman who looks fabulous in an evening gown but cannot walk three feet in high heels. Instead of letting Alice fall and get injured why not describe her “trials and tribulations” of ambulating in 3-inch spike heels in the snow. Will her heels get stuck? Will she curse her way to the door? Or will she kick off her heels, hold up her head and tiptoe barefoot in the freezing cold flakes of powdery snow? Somewhere in describing all of this, we realize that despite Alice’s elegance, she has just enough clumsiness in her gait to make this a funny scene. By focusing on one small physical flaw or mistake we have now captured our readers’ hearts and tickled their funny bones.

Once again, take a step away from your computer screen and look out the window this time. Where does your novel take place? In a house? A forest? A castle? What is one thing in that setting that you could turn into a “humorous moment?” I remember a scene in a movie one time where the staircase had a wobbly banister pole at the top of the stairs. It drove the main character nuts. One day out of the blue, he decided to fix this nagging pole by suddenly firing up a chain saw and cutting the wobbly part off. As he yelled out “Pole is fixed,” the entire audience burst out laughing.

Is there something in your setting that is broken down? Makes noise? Take that stair or door or window and mock its problem. Is it a creak or a crack or a wobble? Sometimes just the slightest noise can be tremendously funny when the author focuses on it and attempts to describe or fix it in an unusual way.

What about an object in your scene that is just absolutely ugly? A chair? A wall? A car? I remember once trying my best to describe a pink kitchen. But “pink” is such a boring word. So I asked myself, “What reminds me of pink?” And the light went on in my head. Pepto-Bismol.

Yes, that’s quite pink and certainly is probably an image that most readers will never forget. And guess what? It probably made you snicker as you read it. So in describing the color of an object (or even a character’s hair!) get creative. Instead of saying “deep forest green” try something like “it was greener than the stinkiest swamp in Louisiana.” I would be willing to bet that it will make your reader giggle and remember the color of that hideous chair in the corner.

I hope this has given you a few ideas and maybe they will invoke a tiny bit of light-hearted laughter from a reader. So, the next time I am sitting in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport waiting for my twice-delayed flight, I look forward to laughing out loud as I read your next novel. And don’t worry about the aliens, all they wanted at Tastee Freeze was frozen custard.

Georgiana Hall (“G.G. Hall”) is the author of the novel Hershey- A Tale of a Curious House Rabbit and the sequel, Trouble in the Attic. A retired physics and astronomy professor, she has written numerous editorials which have appeared in USA Today, the Miami Herald and others. She and her rabbit novels were featured in an article by pet columnist Sharon Peters in a USA Today article in January 2011.

She and husband Oren, also a retired professor, share their Colorado springs home with 2 cats, a rabbit and 3 birds. Currently, G.G. is working on a third Hershey novel as well as several other young adult novels.

Building Believable Characters, Part 4

Determining the Perfect Number of Characters

By: Donna Schlachter

Now that you have your cast of characters, you’ll want to be sure they’re all necessary. And that they won’t overwhelm the reader. Or bog down the plot lines.

There are several other reasons not to have too many characters. Too large a cast, and you won’t have enough words per character to round them out and develop their personal arc, which can leave the reader feeling unfulfilled. Another reason to cut or consolidate characters is because your word count is too high. On average, each character other than the hero and heroine will add another ten thousand words to your manuscript.

Distill the Numbers

So before discussing how to consolidate your cast, let’s look at how the act of distilling the numbers will strengthen your stories.

You can simplify your story by reusing story elements, keeping your story elements closely linked, and maintains familiar tropes and plots so your readers don’t have to learn anything new.
Fewer characters usually means your story is more efficient when it comes to writing your story and staying on track.
Limiting or reducing the number of characters will mean you spend more time on each character.
Oftentimes, cutting the cast will keep the players in the same place, limiting the number of settings a reader has to recall.
Using fewer characters also means reducing the number of points-of-view, so readers feel like they get to know characters better and there’s less hopping from scene to scene. Don’t overwhelm readers by introducing all the characters in the first few pages.
With fewer characters, you can have characters involved in scenes more often, so readers don’t forget who is who.

So how can you know when you have the perfect number of characters? When you can put any two individuals in a situation and still hold the reader’s interest. That’s right. All of the characters should be so connected that it won’t be a huge leap to pick two from a hat and write a scene that makes perfect sense.

Some argue that seven characters is the best number, while others insist on fewer. However, if each of your seven characters fulfills a particular role, then that might be a number to aim for. While they might be labeled differently depending on the genre, here is a list of typical characters to choose from. Please note: you don’t need two of any of these as main or secondary characters, except if there are a hero and a heroine.

The hero/heroine – the character the story is most about and who has the most to lose if they don’t achieve their goal
The lancer – shares goal with hero/heroine, but proceeds in a different way.
The Big One – often physically impressive and doesn’t mind throwing his/her weight around. But they aren’t long term overcomers. Minor victories are theirs; they don’t have the skills to win.
The Smart One – foil to the Big One. Uses brain to overcome, not brawn. Skills are specialties and used only in that sense.
The Old One – wealth of experience, but damaged as a result. Can come close to winning, but not quite by themselves.
The Young One – has a lot to learn; makes everyone else look good. Good reason for another character to explain the jargon a reader might not catch first time around.
The Funny One – manipulates the mood of the reader and other characters. Relieves tension after a scary scene.
The Spiritual One – a peacemaker, sometimes with a unique outlook to diffuse tension or educate the other characters. Often is formed from a conglomeration of The Funny One and the Old One. But sometimes is just plain weird.

One thing to keep in mind is that it doesn’t matter what each character does individually, but how they work together. That process starts with the hero/heroine. When you define them skillfully, contrasting them to other characters, you will see ways to up the ante between the characters. Defining other characters through the hero/heroine also provides areas where they’re in agreement, and highlights places where they disagree. This tension is important to keep the story moving, make sure characters are changing along their story arc, and also to give you opportunities to set up those danger points that will ultimately lead to the Black Moment.

Sometimes authors conjure up a character they absolutely love. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as the character serves a purpose. Giving them a point of view doesn’t give them purpose. Every character must help or hinder the hero/heroine in reaching (or not) their goal. When we love that character, we write them into more scenes. Sometimes, without realizing it, that secondary (non-main) character ends up having more scenes than the main character(s). This leads to a loss of focus, too many plot tangents, and an unfulfilling story.

How Many Characters Do We Need?

That depends on the story. But here’s a check list:

Word count – shorter stories need one or two main characters, and one antagonist. Along with a main plot and perhaps one small subplot, there’s a 30,000-50,000 story. For a sweeping epic drama, of course, you’ll need more secondary characters and subplots.
Genre – mystery readers expect the sleuth, the antagonist/villain, a victim, and several suspects as secondary characters. One or two related subplots along with their own secondary characters will bring the book to 65,00-85,000 words. Historical books often have the hero/heroine, antagonist/villain, perhaps a handful of secondary characters, and a host of walk-on characters with minor roles. Other genres have their own rules. Read books in the genre you want to write in and take notes.
Style – romance and cozy mysteries like to create a sense of intimacy, which requires a smaller-scale cast, while a fantasy or international thriller requires more characters to create that sweeping or far-reaching mood.

How Many Point of View Characters?

Of course, your hero/heroine will always have a point of view in your—their—story. Choosing whether the antagonist/villain has a point of view depends on the genre. In romance, usually not. In mystery and thriller – yes.

Eliminate any viewpoint characters who don’t have anything to do with each other. Make the characters serve multiple purposes.

Make sure each point of view characters has a unique voice so the reader knows who is talking without having to attribute. Having too many might leave you struggling to differentiate between them.

Kill Your Darlings

So you’ve done your best, but you have too many characters. What to do?

Ask yourself:

is this character necessary to the story?
Am I telling the story from the proper point of view?
Is this character more important than the lead?

If the answer to any of these questions is Yes, you need to cut the character. Or you could combine them with another character and serve two purposes. For example, the Lancer could also be the firefighter with the karate skills needed to help the hero escape the locked room.

Conclusion

Sometimes you’ll just know when you have the right number of characters. And sometimes you’ll need to cut or consolidate the secondary characters so each one has the proper amount of time on the page; doesn’t overtake the hero/heroine; and contributes to the hero/heroine’s story arc.

About Donna:

A hybrid author, Donna Schlachter writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 50 times in books; is a member of several writers groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; ghostwrites; edits; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both. She humbly admits she doesn’t always get the number of characters perfect, so she often spends a lot of time re-writing.

Stay connected so you learn about new releases, preorders, and presales, as well as check out featured authors, book reviews, and a little corner of peace. Plus: Receive a free ebook simply for signing up for our free newsletter!

www.DonnaSchlachter.com

www.DonnaSchlachter.com/blog

Resources:

How & Why You Should Consolidate Your Story

This Is The Blueprint For A Perfect Cast Of Characters

How Many Characters Is “Too Many”?

Writers Edit – How Many Characters Is Too Many?

Five Common Story Fragmentations and How to Consolidate Them

Is TikTok for Authors?

By: Jenny Kate

Well, TikTok absolutely exploded in 2021. And it will continue that trajectory into 2022.

Does that mean you should be on it?

If you’ve followed me long enough, you’ll know my answer to that would be “it depends.”

Do you have your books written yet? If not, then write your books.
If you do, then do you have the time to learn a new social media platform? If you don’t, then don’t.
I’m not a fan of chasing the latest social craze. Especially when you’ve probably got another one down already and need to keep producing product to sell (re: books).
But if you have the books, the time and the inclination, then yes. Consider TikTok.

For a 100 million reasons, TikTok is worth considering for book marketing.

TikTok has almost 100 million users in the United States, and 86% of those are between the ages of sixteen and forty-four.

Nielsen did a study in 2021 and asked more than 8,000 TikTok users what they liked about the app.

The top answers included features users appreciated about the authenticity of the app over curated, ultra-unfiltered experiences on other social sites, and the app simply makes them happy.

In a world where the headlines are more often than not awful, TikTok a nice place to escape to.

Even more useful answers to the Nielsen study were:

Nearly 60% agreed TikTok is a place with a sense of community,
84% agreed there is always content they can relate to, and finally,
almost 80% actually read the comments on posts and videos.

All of this is reason enough for you to consider TikTok as your social media platform of choice, or at least dabble with it.

It’s the Wild West right now. It’s about the only place on the internet where organic growth still means something.

Organically you can grow a following simply by posting every day or a couple of times a day or a couple of times a week.

Ultra-marketer Neil Patel gives TikTok until 2023 before TikTok becomes more like other platforms and we’ll start having to pay for growth, so if you’re interested, now is the time to jump in.

A couple of other features to consider about TikTok.

This platform is designed for the Every Person. Content is created by everyday folks, which makes it easier to go viral on TikTok. It’s all about relatability, and TikTok offers it in spades.

And the app isn’t complicated. It is rather easy to use. If you can use any social media outlet out there, then you can use TikTok.

If you’re an author, then following and using #BookTok is a must. Writers and readers both flock to this hashtag.

So, is TikTok for authors? Yes. The answer is an emphatic yes.

The best tips to get started are:

Follow Booktokkers to gather ideas.

Develop your own brand.
Use trends that other Tiktokkers are already using.
Just get started.
It’s a fun place to be.

I’ve seen history professors give history lessons (yes, in less than a minute); writers talk about their books, marketers give tips, and stylists provide how-to vids.

For more information on TikTok, check out these podcasts:

TikTok Storytelling: How to Stand Out from the Crowd

TikTok Strategy: A Proven Growth Plan with Jackson Zaccaria

How to Sell More Books Using TikTok

Jenny Kate is the founder of Writer Nation, an online space dedicated to helping writers market their work. With 19 years communications experience, she regularly writes on social media, internet marketing and face-to-face publicity. You can find her on her Website, Facebook, and Instagram

Fragmentary Thoughts

By: Deborah Brewer

There is quite a bit of debate about the use of sentence fragments, or incomplete sentences, in prose fiction to create a voice that is frank, casual, and immediate. These sentence fragments are missing a subject (noun) or a predicate (verb). Some say fragments should never be used, because they are ungrammatical, communicate poorly, and make their writer look incompetent. Writers mistakenly believe fragments to be more invisible than good grammar when in actuality the fragments draw awkward attention to themselves.

Some counter, however, that genre fiction doesn’t need to adhere to the stuffy grammar of academics. Sentence fragments done well, are well and good, as evidenced by the fact that both genre and literary writers regularly take such poetic license.

What’s a writer to do?

Narrative voice punched up with sentence fragments is something we are seeing more and more in popular fiction. But as these casual, forthright sentences, are in essence, incomplete thoughts, we must ask whether they serve our readers well. When it becomes a question of style over function, I’ve had to ask myself, is “dysfunctional” a style I want to own?

Here’s what we know about George.

George was a tangle of emotions. Anger. Frustration. Shame.

The above sentence and fragments sound powerful on account of their rhythm, but do they communicate better than these complete sentences below?

George banged his fist on the desk. “Blast it all.” Bankruptcy was certain if he lost the Peterson account. He had to win it. To see his wife Margaret’s years of sacrifice come to naught would be unbearable.

One might argue that if the example were written in first person rather than third, the contributions of the fragments to a casual, frank voice would add weight to their inclusion. I contend. Swap George out for I, his for my, and the effectiveness of either set of lines remains unchanged.

I was a tangle of emotions. Anger. Frustration. Shame.

I banged my fist on the desk. “Blast it all.” Bankruptcy was certain if I lost the Peterson account. I had to win it. To see my wife Margaret’s years of sacrifice come to naught would be unbearable.

The Downside to Fragments

The main downside to fragments is that they leave a lot of meaning to be filled in by readers. Readers already must bring a great deal of imagination to a written story in order to manifest a three-dimensional world in their minds. I don’t want to make them struggle to decipher what I mean to say. I don’t want them to put my work down because my meaning is uncommunicative. I want them to relax and engage with my story.

The Upside

Despite the aforementioned negatives, sentence fragments can and do contribute to dialogue and first-person narrative in several positive ways. Many questions and responses require only fragments to effectively communicate. Fragments can be used in those instances in which words might not come readily to a character’s tongue, such as when they are reticent, hurried, confused, desperate, mentally impaired, or under physical stress. Fragments are also commonly used for emphasis.

This fragmented line without a speech tag, below, has an immediacy and a bite. It feels like it comes straight from the heart.

“So, what do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head.

The following example demonstrates a character’s confusion.

They could hear someone breathing on the other side of the partition. “Bob? Joe?”

We don’t need them to say, “Bob, is that you? Joe, is that you?” to understand their meaning; because we all use truncated queries like these in our everyday conversations. The implied verb in this simple sentence construction is understood.

In this good example, a character is dying. You can almost hear him gasping.

He took a last desperate breath and spoke the words that, for her, would change everything. “Gold… Under the staircase.”

The character of a college professor might seem inauthentically stupid with lines like these.

The professor rolled his eyes. “The importance of grammar. A thing, generally. Except when not.”

A sentence fragment can make dialogue more emphatic, as in this example.

“I. Want. Ice. Cream.”

Be wary, however, of emphasizing a relatively meaningless word. This construction puts an undue emphasis on the word A, a relatively meaningless article.

“I want ice cream. A spoon, too.”

These lines, below, might work if they follow a running joke about the absence of spoons. Hopefully, the joke would have a strong enough setup to justify the awkward fragment at the end.

“I want ice cream. And a spoon.”

This next example with an adverb works better, as the word emphasized with a capital letter carries enough meaning to earn its exceptional, fragmented place.

“I want ice cream. Now.”

Don’t be Seduced by Sentence Fragments

Sentence fragments are seductive, so be forewarned, using countless fragments is a bit like using ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! in an email message. Both are great for emphasis, but as all emphasis, all the time, results in no emphasis at all, even using fragments often lessens their emphatic value. It’s best to save them, like exclamation points, for those few words you truly want to make stand out.

I asked a published author about sentence fragments. He said, unequivocally, that publishers are okay with fragments these days.
In every paragraph?
His answer was emphatically no.

For writing that shines with clarity and polish, consider using sentence fragments sparingly.

To eliminate excess fragments—

First, try to make a complete sentence with a strong verb.
Second, try to link the fragment up to the sentence before or after it, or both, with a comma(s), a colon, or a semi-colon.
Third, occasionally link the fragment to the sentence before or after it with an M-dash.
Fourth, on rare occasions, keep the fragment for characterization or emphasis.

Balance Your Marketing and Your Writing

By Jenny Kate

Here’s the deal. There are 250,000 authors signed up as Draft2Digital authors. Writers upload roughly 50,000 books a month to Amazon. If you want to make a living selling books, you must market your work. There’s no way around it.

Ten years ago, I would have told you 10 minutes a day was plenty of time to spend on your marketing.

Not anymore.

In today’s climate, you’ll more than likely spend as much time marketing as you will writing.

It’s where you focus that marketing time that matters.

Return on investment is not just a buzzword. It’s how you figure out what to spend your time on. If you post away on a Facebook Page and don’t pay to boost any of your content, the likelihood you reach anyone is next to none. That makes the return on your time investment next to nothing.

It’s the nature of modern social media. Organic growth has basically gone the way of the dodo bird. Social platforms have figured out how to make money and they aren’t going back.

If you blog but don’t put time into SEO and quality content, your blog won’t go anywhere.

If you have a newsletter but rarely send out email or just include buy links, that won’t help you.

If you create ads and put them out but you haven’t done the market research to know if it will resonate, it’s wasting time.

So, what should you spend your time on?

Things that work. It’s that simple.

Let’s start with social media.

If you spread yourself too thin, nothing will work. That’s why when people ask me if they should be on every social outlet, I give an emphatic “no.” You need to be on a social platform you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, your followers will feel that and it won’t be fun for anyone.

Pick one. One that you like. Then study how to make it work for you.

TikTok is the hottest thing right now and it’s still the wild west. You hear of people making bank using TikTok. Should you be on it?

Do you want to learn a new platform?

Do you have the time?

If you answered no to either of those, then don’t.

If you answered yes, then go for it.

TikTok has about a year or so left for organic, free growth before they figure out a way to monetize it and it will go like all the others.

But remember, there are two great reasons to be on social media and it’s not selling books. It’s reader groups and email lists. You can build a following that can translate into street teams and superfans. Those folks will give you their email addresses and that’s where you make bank.

So be very deliberate about which platform you decide to use because it can be a colossal time suck.

Next up is your newsletter.

The reason you want a newsletter is because you own the audience. If you have every email address of every follower you have from your Facebook Page, then you wouldn’t need Facebook. And no one can take that list away from you. Ever.

Email open rates blow social media view rates out of the water, even with a social ad buy. The only social media outlet that allows you to see everything is Twitter. All the others have algorithms that aggregate content based on certain criteria. That means most people won’t see what you post unless you boost it.

Email, however, is shown to everyone who signed up. They told you they want to see your material. The only algorithm you have to beat is the one that calls your email “spam.” Easily avoidable if you don’t sound like a used-car salesman.

Spend time creating quality content and send it out once a week or every other week. That’s it.

Develop your ads skills.

Whether you focus on Facebook or Instagram ads, Bookbub or Amazon, learn what makes a good ad. Just because you like your book cover, doesn’t mean it will resonate with readers.

Ad copy is not prose. It’s marketing and that’s an entirely different skillset to use.

And audiences? Are you sure, absolutely sure, you understand who your reader is? Because if you don’t and you advertise to the wrong audience, your book will not sell.

What is your ad budget? Is it enough?

Do you know who your comparative authors are? Build that list before you get started.

Think about the platforms. Amazon wants to sell products. That’s its only objective. So if you only have one product (i.e. book) to sell, its algorithms aren’t going to help you out much. Wait until you have at least three or four books before trying to navigate the Amazon behemoth.

Facebook or Bookbub ads work better for authors with fewer books. I like BookBub’s platform because it’s super simple. Facebook is a little harder but not as hard as Amazon.

Final thoughts.

Before you even think about ads or any other marketing, ask yourself if you even have product to sell. Are you books finished?

Do not replace your writing time with marketing time if you have no products to sell. I would have told you differently years ago, but not now.

The market is too much like a three-ring circus for you to make a dent without a product. Concentrate on writing the best book you can. Then take the time to learn the marketing.

And make that marketing a priority part of your day. The more you plan out your content or ads, the less time you’ll have to spend in maintenance. That’s how you balance between writing and marketing.

Jenny Kate is the author of “Social Media for Authors: Marketing for Writers Who’d Rather Write” and “Ads for Authors: Advertising Basics for Writers Who’s Rather Write.” Her most recent book, “Instagram for Authors: A Quick Primer for Busy Writers” published April 8, 2022. Find her at www.thewriternation.com

Metaphorical Thrills

By: Deborah Brewer

What’s not to love about metaphor? Our language would be impoverished without its contribution to our poems, jokes, stories, and rhetoric. Metaphors enlighten us about one thing by relating it to something else. This connection flashes through our brains like an epiphany, one of the best feelings in the world. In his book, I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor, James Geary jests that “metamorphine” is a habit we all get into as children. We love to chase life’s ah-ha moments, those thrills of discovery—the satisfaction of our innate curiosity.

Writing with metaphors is fun, and adds so much to our work, but working with them can be tricky. Before we discuss how to write metaphors well, let’s review their definitions.

What’s in a Metaphor?

In the “The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653,” is found the following reference:

METAPHOR … (1) All figures of speech that achieve their effect through association, comparison, and resemblance. Figures like antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, simile are all species of metaphor.

In case, like me, you’ve half-forgotten, here are some short definitions:

Antithesis is the comparison of opposites.
Hyperbole makes an obvious exaggeration.
Metonymy is name-calling or name substitution.
Similes are explicit (explained) comparisons.
Metaphors are implicit (implied) comparisons.

All of these are useful for adding interest to stories. Try adding hyperbole to humor, and metonymy to romance and fight scenes. You might use similes and metaphors when your characters unite, but antithesis when they go their separate ways.

Characters and Setting

When crafting a metaphor for your fiction work, consider the characters and setting in your story. Use an image consistent with that context, whether the setting is 1920’s America, or the narrative voice is that of a child. Keep in mind, that a good metaphor, like a good joke, requires some commonly understood background or a little setup for success.

It’s good when an effective metaphor aids in understanding, but it can also be destructive when deployed as a negative stereotype, or meaningless when it has degraded into an outworn cliché. Restraint is recommended when weaving a single metaphor throughout a work. Repeat it one too many times and it will lose its impact like a boring old joke. Outdated, overused, mixed, and bad metaphors are all well avoided.

The Old Cliché

These historical metaphors are so outdated they’ve lost their cultural context:

Stan sold goldbricks and well-watered cattle. The other landscapers hated him for it.

Do Stan’s competitors hate him because they are envious of his lucrative business model? No. A goldbrick is a counterfeit gold bar and watered cattle are those that have been watered ahead of an auction to tip the scale, and sales price, higher. Stan’s competitors hate him for being a crooked businessman, but owing to these outdated terms, modern readers might not understand.

A frozen metaphor has completely lost its original meaning and taken on a new one, while a dead metaphor has become so ubiquitous it no longer brings an image to mind. Here are examples of both:

The time before the author’s deadline was running out.

The word “deadline” is a frozen metaphor. It was first used during the American Civil War. A line was drawn around a prison. If prisoners dared to cross it, they were shot dead. Now it means “due date.”

The metaphor of “time running out” is dead. It refers to the sand in an hourglass. Modern readers know what it means for “time to run out”, but the image of an hourglass won’t likely come to mind.

Here is a metaphor first without, and then with, some background to give it clarity:

She was like a daisy with the paparazzi.

She was a daisy, heliotropic, turning her eager face toward the light of the paparazzi sun.

This is a mixed metaphor full of clichés:

When the opposing team closed in on him, Marty lost it. Claws out and teeth bared, he was a cat’s-eye marble short of a bag, playing hard-ball for all he was worth.

When baseball’s the game, the cat’s out of the bag, the marbles are lost, and for all Marty was worth, he was still a few pennies short of nickel, the image of Marty resisting attack is not made any clearer.

Troubleshoot Your Metaphors

If we think of a metaphor as a meaning machine, how do we troubleshoot a broken one? In Geary’s, I Is an Other we find a hint in the example of Carl Jung. When a patient used a phrase such as “a ticking time bomb,” Jung would follow up with questions.

A writer might ask whether there is more to learn about the nature of this bomb. What happened in the moments before the bomb was set? What happens when the bomb explodes? Is there a way to defuse it? There is no need to include every little thing about the bomb in a story, but if the metaphor isn’t first clear in the author’s mind, neither will it be clear in the mind of a reader.

A metaphor comes in two main parts; the target and the source. These are connected by a verb, which is usually “to be.”

A bad, or “broken,” metaphor is, more likely than not, suffering from an identity crisis. The true identity of the metaphor’s target is for the author, still unknown. Thus, the first question to ask would be, who or what is the bomb? Who or what exactly is about to explode?

Consider this example:

She was a ticking time bomb, incessantly nagging until her husband blew up.

Who is the bomb? It can’t be both she and her husband.

The fix:

She was a ticking time bomb, incessantly nagging until she blew up. Her husband was on constant alert for the fallout.

A couple of years ago I read several books on metaphor and set a goal of writing 50 for practice. Here are two that struck literary notes:

She was a fancy font—so ornate and complicated, she was hard to read.

She met him at the library but decided not to take him home. He had a great cover, but his pages were all glued shut.

I encourage you to experiment with metaphors. While the little thrills of epiphany are alone worth the effort, it may also improve your writing skills. You might even discover a silken thread to tie one of your stories together.

Building Believable Characters, Part 3

Craft a Convincing Villain

By: Donna Schlachter

So far we’ve talked about the importance of building believable characters and why that’s so critical to the foundation for any story. Last month, strong secondary characters were discussed, and we learned that not only do these secondary characters support—or oppose—our main characters, they also assist them—or deter them—along their journey of emotional, physical, and spiritual growth.

This month, we’ll talk a little about villains. The bad guys. Sometimes called the antagonist. These are the characters who have the most to lose if the main character accomplishes his/her goal. Or, said another way, they have the most to win if the main character fails.

We’ve all watched movies and read books where we hate the villain, where we cheer for his/her demise and leave feeling very satisfied and smug when they do lose. If they do, that is. Somehow justice seems to have been served, and when that’s the basis of the story, it’s the ending we want.

Then there are those stories and movies where we want to cheer for the character that we know is bad, has bad intentions, and makes bad choices because maybe—just maybe—there’s a little bit of a redeeming hope within them. We don’t really want them to change, but simply knowing perhaps they could is enough.

To craft believable villains, we must keep these things in mind:

Nobody is all bad. Not even the worst villain you can think of. Just as nobody is all good, even bad guys have a mother they love, a dog they’d never kick, and a flicker of empathy occasionally.
Bad guys don’t see that what they do is bad. It’s simply the way they view the world. Most are narcissists who believe they deserve to have whatever they want because they want it. Some are sociopaths, with little to no empathy for others, so they don’t understand that their actions are harming other people. In fact, most villains believe that their choices will make their world a better place.
All villains have a story, a backstory, if you will, that explains their current actions. Figure that out, and you can find all sorts of ways to endear your villain to your reader. For example, if you decide your villain was sexually abused as a child, you can see why he progresses from pulling wings off flies to killing kittens to physical and sexual abuse of other characters. Perhaps your villain was abandoned as a child. Had a domineering woman. Read resource books about mental illness and personality disorders and come up with a unique combination of backstory and how your villain tries to diminish his pain.

As you develop your villain, you must make sure that his/her strengths equal but don’t exceed your main character’s. In this way, overcoming the villain is a difficult struggle for your main character, but it can be accomplished when your main character grows in their story arc, but not before that point.

Just as with your main character, reveal your villain’s backstory a little at a time. Your goal isn’t for your reader to like your villain—but to understand why they are they way they are.

A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 50 times in books; is a member of several writers groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; ghostwrites; edits; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both.

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Waxing Poetic

By: Deborah Brewer

What writer doesn’t want to improve their prose? Let me recommend dabbling in poetry to do just that. Reading, studying, and practicing verse have improved my fiction writing experience in several ways, improving my mood, my vocabulary, and my emotional expression. You might try it too.

Use Poetry to Ease the Blank Page Syndrome

Writers are often intimidated by the emptiness of a blank page. Poetry eases my blank page dread and replaces it with enthusiasm. Writing a very short piece that no one else may ever see removes the pressure from performance. I can revel in my imagination and create something that never existed before without imaginary critics looking over my shoulders. I don’t need to write melancholy verses to enjoy poetry’s benefits either, I can write silly poems that lift my mood. This mindset of joy and confidence stays with me as I write my fiction, helping me overcome procrastination and feelings of inadequacy. If this were the only benefit of writing poetry, it would be reason enough.

Break Out of Your Vocabulary Rut

Writing poetry also breaks me out of vocabulary ruts. Poetry requires rich, concentrated meaning from a very few words. Once I’ve exhausted my memory for poetry words, I call on my second favorite “dinosaur,” the thesaurus, for help. I might also research my poem’s subject online to refresh my memory of descriptive words or enter “Words that rhyme with…” into my online search engine. It’s common for people to comprehend more words than they regularly use in writing and speech. Searching for the perfect word, rhyming, alliterative, or otherwise, is a great way to limber and strengthen working vocabulary.

Find the Emotion in Your Writing

Emotion is at the core of poetry, as it is at the core of fiction. Poetry puts me in touch with my feelings. A poem is more than the mere sum of its words. Word placement, rhythm, and allusions all contribute to the emotion of a poem. While I do want to put more emotion in my fiction, I often don’t because emotions are scary. Writing poems helps me shed this reticence. It provides me with a safe place to play with my feelings and learn how to control their expression.

Now if perhaps, you’re wondering;
In my loneliest girlhood dreams,
Though other creatures joy did bring,
The brontosaurus reigned supreme!

Even writing terrible poems makes for great writing practice. For me, attempting a highly structured poem form, like a sonnet, haiku, or a quatrain, is a more entertaining brain exercise than working sudoku or crossword puzzles. You, too, might enjoy the puzzle aspect of highly structured poems.

Poetic Form – A Closer Look

There are so many variations of poetic form—ancient, classic, and contemporary—that you are sure to find one or two that suit you. Sonnets are grand. Haiku poems are meditative. Limericks are good fun. Odes of praise are usually serious, but can also be silly or satirical. Even highly structured poem forms are often written with irregularities, and you are certainly free to create a form of your own.

To a Button Lost

Oh, button iridescent,
Sweetest pearl of milky white,
Freed from m’ lady’s “precious” sweater

In the middle of the night.
Our dalliance was jolly
As we frisked about the house,
Until you hid between the floorboards
Like a timid little mouse.

Your snub has left me sullen;
My lady is fuming sore.
You have departed, dearest button,
Lost to me forevermore.

To improve my poetic capacity, I did a personal study of haiku poetry in late 2019. I remembered enjoying haiku in grade school and thought I might recapture some of that feeling. I read about the history of the form and its masters. I explored haiku organizations and publications online. I read lots of haiku. Finally, I wrote 50 haiku poems myself.

What is haiku? It’s a very short, poetic form adapted from Japan in the late 1800s, in which two images from nature are juxtaposed to invite feelings of quiet awe and inspiration.

During my studies, I chose some guidelines for my poems that would satisfy most haiku enthusiasts:

A seasonal reference (snow, flowers, fruit, falling leaves)
A focus on nature
Two concrete images with a change to a new image at the 1/3 or 2/3 mark.
A story or feeling is created by the marriage of the two images
Evokes a sense of quiet, awe, and/or the sublime
Uses sentence fragments
No rhymes or alliteration
No titles
A lower-case letter at the beginning of each line
The classic, English language grade-school structure—three lines and 5/7/5 syllables—or not

Below is a selection of winter haiku. The first poem changes images after the first line. The second poem changes images after the second line. The third poem eschews the classic syllable count.

a walk with my love
cottontails luxuriate
in winter’s soft light

owls hoot together
on a snowy moonlit night
dogs whimper and bark

tall pines
snowflakes fall
like petals

Freeform Poetry – Laugh at Yourself

When I can’t come up with haiku or don’t want to, I write whatever poems come to mind. One day, reflecting on an experience at a Pikes Peak Writers Conference, I wrote this short poem to capture a memory.

My smile full spent,
I retreat
to scones and tea

But a year into my poetry practice, I found this new poem to be more emotionally open.

Four hundred voices
Eight million eyes—
Refuge in a toilet stall

Perhaps you too have felt that way at a conference.

I’m not a published poet, nor do I aspire to be, but I enjoy and benefit from writing poems all the same. My own poems are included in this blog so you can see the very amateur level of my work and know that you too can write such mood-enhancing poems. If you need a use for your poems, consider writing them inside greeting cards, on bookmarks, or collecting them in a journal. Write poems about subjects you love.

I heartily recommend both the study and practice of poetry. Read some books, take a class, maybe attend a poetry reading. Then set a goal to write some poems of your own. (I usually write a full draft of a poem on the first day, and fiddle with it a few days more.) The practice may not make you into a poet laureate, but your prose will surely wax poetic.

A writer thought writing appealing,
But mostly, she stared at the ceiling.
To enliven her tomes,
She wrote flirty poems;
And now, writes with passionate feeling.

For further reading:

Write Like Issa: A Haiku How-To by David G. Lanoue (2017). An English professor and former president of the Haiku Society of America gives insight into the creative process of a haiku master.

Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, edited by Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, and Allan Burns (2013). This broad anthology includes poems both ancient and modern, an introduction by poet laureate Billy Collins, and a historical overview by Jim Kacian, the founder of the Haiku Foundation and Red Moon Press.

The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Frances Mayes (2001). Mayes, also the author of Under the Tuscan Sun, writes that “…almost everyone can learn to write good poems.” I hope that means me.

Writers Conferences—What’s The Difference?

By: Margena Holmes

No matter what stage of writing you’re at, going to a writers’ conference can be fun and informative. I have a few conferences under my belt now, and no matter where it’s held, there is always something new presented to the attendees.

The topics presented are as different as the conference itself. Some will focus on just craft, some on marketing, some on building your readership, and everything in between. There are some for Romance writers, Mystery writers, or any writer in general. You don’t have to be a published author to attend a writers’ conference. There are many first-timers who haven’t published anything, to those with multiple books released.

Meals and Hanging Out

How each conference is run varies as much as the conference topics themselves. I know some, like Pikes Peak Writers Conference, budget for meals for all the conferees. That makes it nice as we can sit with people we know or find a whole new group of people. I also love how there is a “host” for each table, usually one of the presenters. Having meals this way makes it easy for us introverts to find a place to sit and get to know other writers more one-on-one. If you get a really fun table host, you’ll laugh your way through lunch or dinner, and get a lot of information not covered in the presentations.

Other conferences* may have lunch and dinner “on your own,” meaning you can go eat anywhere your heart desires. Doing it this way, there were times that I ate alone, as I hadn’t met anyone to hang out with, but another time I found a group of ladies who wrote in the same genre as I did and we went to lunch together and tossed around ideas. We also exchanged emails to contact each other after the conference.

Some conferences will have a formal Mixer, where you can go and mingle with other writers, and there may be a short presentation before dinner is served. Others will have an informal “Bar Con” at the end of the day where you can go if you want and not miss anything if you decline.

Making It Fun

One writer’s conference does very informal Cosplay themes for each day, where you can dress up in costume. There is also a contest to get your picture taken with the organizer’s father.

Another fun game is getting words or phrases from the staff and writing a short story using those words or phrases. The winner is announced at the end of the conference and the story is read aloud. There have been some pretty entertaining stories!

Advantages and Disadvantages

The past couple of years with Covid have made going to conferences a little harder. Last year PPWC was held online via Zoom, and it was easy to pick the classes to attend via Schedule. The advantage of doing a conference this way is that you don’t have to travel, thus saving money, and also no lines for the restrooms between classes!

Another advantage of attending a conference online is that you may get a recording of the presentation after the conference is over. In case you missed something or had to step away from your computer, you can go back and rewatch the segment. This also helps if there are two presentations at the same time you want to see; you can go back and watch the other one later.

A disadvantage of doing the conference online is there may be more distractions at home than at the conference (though having the replay helps with this). Also, you may think, “Oh, I’ll watch it on this day,” but the day comes and other things take precedence and before you know it, two months have gone by and you haven’t watched the recording. One way around that is to put it on your schedule and don’t commit to anything else at that time (this is where having a planner comes in handy). Treat it like any other appointment that you wouldn’t skip. Your writing is worth it!

There are so many different conferences and many different ways to attend, there’s bound to be one you can sign up for. I hope to see you all at the end of April at PPWC2022! Happy writing!

Margena Adams Holmes has been writing ever since she can remember, writing her first poem in 1st grade. At her day job, when she’s not kicking young kids out of R-rated movies, she’s sweeping up spilled popcorn from the hallways and aisles (she’s not your mother, though, so please take your trash out). Her days off consist of writing science fiction, short stories, and more movie theater shenanigans. Reading is a close second to writing, and she normally has her nose buried in a book. Her publications are available through her author page. Contact Margena via email: jedi_anegram@hotmail.com.

*There are many conferences which are held throughout the year. PPWC2022 is only one of many. Below are links to other conferences you might be interested in.

Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers
Quills Conference
Writers’ Workshop Tour (NEW!)
Romance Writers of America
Tucson Festival of Books
Left Coast Crime

Conference Benefits

By: Catherine Dilts

When I began my writing journey, I listened closely to advice. One universal bit of guidance was to attend writers’ conferences. The Pikes Peak Writers Conference didn’t exist when I became serious about writing fiction. I didn’t have a clue about conferences, or their benefits.

Three Bits of Universal Writing Advice:

Attend a writing conference
Join (or create) a critique group
Write

I began #3 with consistency when I took a creative writing course at UCCS. I learned about goals and deadlines in class. The instructor suggested students form critique groups when class ended. A few of us did, and I ticked off #2 from the advice list. One member became a lifelong friend. That group faded, but I learned the value of exchanging writing evaluations with other serious writers.

After that class, I felt adrift. I craved more professional guidance. A local chapter of Romance Writers of America was the only game in town. Many folks who didn’t write romance joined. It was a lively group of serious published and aspiring authors. The learning experience was valuable, even though it wasn’t my genre.

Then the Pikes Peak Writers Conference began in 1993. I’m foggy on precisely which year was my first, but I was definitely there in 1995. I placed second in the writing contest. I was fortunate that one of the best conferences in the nation took place in my backyard. When I attended my first conference, it knocked my socks off. And checked #1 off the advice list.

I had not yet begun my professional career, and money was tight. The scholarship was a blessing. The welcoming atmosphere helped me believe I belonged. I hung out with my critique group. We fancied ourselves up-and-coming authors. We pursued agents and editors with our amazing stories. It was emotionally awesome.

I was certain I was on my way. I eagerly drank from the firehose of information, wisdom, and encouragement. Over twenty-five years ago, my world was small. The PPW Conference kicked in doors and opened windows I hadn’t even known existed.

Three Benefits of Attending a Conference:

Education
Encouragement
Networking with professionals

Seventeen years later, I finally achieved my goal. I became a published author. I now have nine traditionally published novels, and a dozen published short stories. There are many reasons it took me that long to “arrive.” (Among them are the long stories behind my multiple name changes.) But the fact that I arrived at all, even after that length of time, owes a lot to my early dedication to PPWC.

If you have never attended a writers’ conference, I encourage you to consider PPWC. I wish for you the excitement I felt. Believing that all things are possible. Finding acceptance no matter where you are in your writing development. To make connections with people who understand your brand of crazy. To learn more than you ever thought possible.

Best Things I Got from Conferences:

Friends – Julie was standing in the hallway at her first PPWC. My critique partner Joyce suggested we talk to her. So we did. Later Beth and Sharon attended PPWC with us. And we’ve all been friends ever since.
Finding my tribe – realizing I belonged as a writer.
Professionalism – learning to treat writing as a career, not a hobby.

At your first conference, you might feel like you’re drinking from a firehose. Some things may not apply to your journey. Others may not make sense the first time around. But I’m guessing you’ll feel the same exhilaration combined with exhaustion that I did. Conference might be the spark that gets you going, or keeps you going, to eventual publication.

My journey had a lot of detours and dead ends. I finally arrived, and I owe much of my determination to those early conferences. PPWC was a life-changing experience for me.

CATHERINE DILTS prefers writing cozy mysteries and short stories surrounded by flowers on her sunny deck, but any day – and anywhere – spent writing is a good day. Author of the Rock Shop Mystery series, and the stand-alone Survive Or Die with Encircle Publications, Catherine also writes for Annie’s Publishing, contributing three books for the Secrets of the Castleton Manor Library and two for the new Annie’s Museum of Mysteries series. Her short story HazMat Holiday appears in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine January/February 2022 issue. Visit her website here.

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