Gawking Characters

by

Jessica Murphy

A "gawking character" is a narrator who tells the reader what happens in a scene instead of letting the reader experience it directly. This is called narrator intrusion, and it robs the reader of the full experience, thus distancing him from the story. A gawking character looks like this:

Gawking: Adam saw the orange glow and the rolling black smoke in the sky from where he stood on the corner of the block. As he jogged down the sidewalk toward it, he felt a cool breeze and smelled burning wood. He ducked under the branch of a tree and saw the burning house. From where he stood, he felt the intense heat and heard the flames roar and pop. Adam stepped forward toward the open front door but felt the searing heat from the sidewalk that drove him back.

The bold words show you where the narrator steps between the reader and the action and tells the reader what happens. This detracts from the reader’s experience. A scene must allow the reader to experience the action directly in order to grab him. Would you prefer to watch a friend eat a hot fudge sundae and tell you how sweet it tastes, or would you want to eat it yourself?

A gawking character is also redundant. If the scene is told from the character's perspective, we already know that he experiences what we read. We don't need to say the same thing twice. Here is the same sentence without the gawking character:

Direct: Adam glanced up from the corner of Kingwood and Beechurst. The starlit sky glowed orange, and thick smoke rolled across it. He spun on one heel, crunching grit on the sidewalk beneath his shoes, and ran down the street. The cool autumn breeze carried sparks and the smell the burning wood. As Adam brushed the branches of a tree out of his face, the burning house appeared.

A rushing roar filled Adam’s ears, and a wave of heat lifted the hairs on his tan arms. Shading his blue eyes with his right hand, he squinted against the blinding light. Flames engulfed every inch of the house and licked at the cloudless sky. Pops and crackles from inside the house echoed down the empty street. Adam rushed toward the front porch, but the heat seared his face and drove him back.

This time, the narrator does not water down the scene. We see no "Adam felt," "Adam saw," "Adam heard." Instead, the reader is the one standing on the sidewalk, the one who sees the flames, feels their heat, hears their roar. This kind of direct experience captivates the reader and keeps him interested.

Nonphysical Gawking

A gawking character can also filter internal experiences, such as thoughts or emotions. Again, if the scene is being told from the character's perspective, we can assume that any thoughts belong to that character (unless he or she can read thoughts or sense emotions).

Gawking: Blood soaked through the fabric, and Preston realized he had plunged the blade into Jack’s side.
This scene is told from Preston’s point of view, so he must be the one realizing something. We don’t need to state the obvious.

Direct: A red stain spread across Jack's gut, matting the shirt to his skin. The silver blade glinted from where Preston had plunged it in Jack’s side.

The same holds true for emotions:

Gawking: I felt worried, but a breeze made me feel a little better.

This is told in first person point of view, so the narrator must be the one who felt worried. After all, he cannot feel another character’s emotions. So, stating what the narrator felt is redundant.

Direct: My stomach churned, but the crisp air cooled my feverish skin and the nausea settled for the moment.

If you take out the gawking character, the reader can experience every scene directly. Any less cheats him out of the story and, in the end, loses him.

Writing with Newborn Eyes

 

by

Sandy Tritt

I was recently blessed with a new grandson. On his first day home, I took him around my daughter’s townhouse, showing him the sunbathing cats, dinner simmering on the stove, and the view from the patio doors. In doing so, I saw a few things I hadn’t noticed before. Like the way the geese rotated positions while paddling around the lake or the way Sam the Cat tilted his head to take in the spectacle of a tiny, squeaky person.

Cradling a newborn brought memories of my own babies. I remembered how surprised my daughter was when a light rain fell and tickled her nose. We lifted our faces to the sky and allowed the warm drops to trickle over our skin. On another day, she noticed spring buds bursting from the barren branches. We stopped and touched them, smelled them, explored them. I experienced my tired old world through new eyes.

Years ago, before the advent of GPS or cell phones, I was driving back to college. One of my classmates lived along the way, and I had offered her a ride. I followed her directions, yet when I got to where I thought she lived, I didn’t see her house. During my fourth pass, my friend ran out from between trees. I stopped, and it was then I noticed the red door of a house cut into the hillside, hidden by trees. When she was in the car, I asked why she hadn’t mentioned the house was cut into the hillside and hidden by trees. She looked surprised. “Well,” she said, “I guess I’ve lived there all my life and just never paid any attention.”

But that’s exactly what writers must do. We must pay attention to details. We’ve been told to “write what we know,” but sometimes “what we know” is too familiar. We don’t experience the buds and the rain—nor do we see the trees and hills. We take common smells, sights, sounds, tastes, and touches for granted—and we often do the same for the world we’ve created for our characters. To avoid doing this, we must learn to experience our surroundings with all our senses. Touch grass and notice the texture. Smell it. Taste it. Explore food. What type of smell does it have? Does it make any sounds?  How does it taste on first bite? After chewing? How does it feel to our tongues? Train yourself to notice the details of your everyday world so when you sit down to write, you can pull from those experiences and provide more insight into your characters’ worlds.

If you want to improve your writing, write through newborn eyes.

Guilty!

by

Charlotte Firbank-King



As a new or accomplished writer, what are you guilty of?

Are you guilty of being arrogant? Is your reader the enemy you’re writing at because you really need to put your brilliant prose on paper? Of course, ninety-nine point nine percent of readers are about as bright as an amoeba on a bad cell day, so your genius is totally wasted. But this is about you and your obsession to write. Right? —WRONG.

Are you guilty of being clever? You use words, scientific or otherwise, that have readers paging through a dictionary like a chipmunk on crack to understand what the heck you’re talking about. For example: Cavernulous – just say porous already. Otherwise, you’ve killed the flow and probably the reader’s enthusiasm to read your story.

Are you guilty of gimmick writing? You write everything in the present tense because it suits your literary genius. Or you exclude a word you hate from the entire manuscript, like that, said or had. I’m all for cutting down on these words, but sometimes they’re needed. Do you omit punctuation or new paragraphs, or remove dialogue all together and just narrate? It can work, but you have to be inventive to hold the reader’s interest. There are many versions of artifices that only stroke the author’s ego and cause the reader to tear out his hair. All you do is make the experience of reading your story uncomfortable. You put a barrier between the reader and the story until all they see is the author intruding into their pleasure of the story.

At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself if you value your reader. Do you really want your reader scratching his head, paging back to try to understand what you’re saying, or skipping paragraphs that are annoying? Is your aim to make him think about the deep meaning of your story, or to make your reader feel dense?

A reader may not remember all the details of a story, but he will always remember how you made him feel. Readers want to laugh, cry, hold their breaths, or sigh with relief. Are you guilty of not evoking any of these emotions?

Are you guilty of telling the reader a character is being funny or sarcastic? Like, writing, “she teased lightly,” or “his words dripped with sarcasm.” Make your writing speak with actions, emotions, and dialogue.

Are you guilty of swamping the reader with details that don’t add to the story or of repeating information in case he “didn’t get it” the first time round? Giving readers every detail of what characters are doing is tiresome. Readers are smart. They will fill in details like characters needing to put on shoes and a jacket and fetching an umbrella before going into a howling rain storm. It’s okay for them to just shrug into a jacket and go—have them flick open the umbrella as they walk out. In short, don’t make shopping lists of actions and don’t give readers every detail from the socks to the hat to the brushing of his teeth.

Are you guilty of not editing, editing, and editing multiple times before sending the manuscript to an editor or launching it on Amazon? Can you be sure there are no plot flaws, typos, or grammatical errors? Show respect for your reader—and editor, for that matter, and EDIT, over and over before releasing the manuscript.

Are you guilty of creating too many coincidences to make your plot work? Every action and scene that leads to the climax must be believable. If a character says, “I can’t believe that happened!” the reader will probably be thinking me neither. If it’s improbable, set it up ahead of time. She fell off the mountain and a piton caught her jacket, saving her. Show us the piton long before it catches on her jacket—set it up, make it feel probable.

Are you guilty of throwing readers constant curveballs, then leaving then hanging while you move on to another scene? You can get away with this once, but not in every chapter. They want to know if the gun fired at the character killed them or not—and they want to know in this chapter. They don’t want to wait three chapters to find out, while the second character is hanging from a cliff by their jacket in the next chapter. It’s all about seamless flow—making it a great reading experience.

Are you guilty of misleading the reader with a “hook” in the first paragraph of the first chapter that doesn’t fit the plot? Your story is a thriller and the lead characters are making out in a park while their children play on the swings. Sonny Jim disappears and a frantic hunt ensues. If your book is about kidnapping or some other dark plot about kids being snatched, then you have the right hook. But if these characters never again show up in the book and your story is actually about an affair at an office, you’ve got the wrong hook.

Readers are not reading the story to admire your literary genius—they want to be entertained. It’s all about them and what they want and need. After all, they PAID for the book.

Above all, clothe yourself in humility. Realize that as a writer you are nothing more than a servant applying your skill to please your master—the reader.

Picture a world where you’re surrounded by people who can’t read. Would you still write?

Some pearls of wisdom:

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

--Oscar Wilde

It's the rare writer who excels at all aspects of the craft. There are masterful stylists who, at bottom, have remarkably little to say. And there are vigorous thinkers whose sentences plod along like the lumbering steps of a draft horse.

 --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

--William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

 

Prepositional Preponderance

by

Sandy Tritt

As writers and editors, we continually study the language and find ways, both new and old, to write better. One way we can make our writing sharper is to limit the number of prepositions we use. Now, that is not to say prepositions are bad. They are not. We need them. They often give us additional information such as where something takes place or how something happens. But what is bad is when a sentence is so full of prepositions that we need a road map to find our way through it.

First, it’s important to identify prepositions. Somewhere during the middle years of our education, we memorized a huge list of prepositions. To help jar that memory, here’s a short list of the more popular prepositions:

about above   across after around as at before beside between by concerning

down during   except for from in into like near of off on

over since   than through to toward under until up upon with within

For a full list, you can visit one of the many websites devoted to this topic, such as https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/prepositions-list.htm or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_prepositions. Do be aware: just because a word appears on the list does not mean it is always a preposition. Some words (such as “but”) sometimes act like prepositions and sometimes act like a different part of speech, such as a conjunction. So, it’s important not to memorize the list, but to recognize prepositions because of the way they behave. How do they behave, you ask? They add information. They tell us where or when or how.

A prepositional phrase is a phrase that begins with a preposition and includes the added detail that follows it. The detail usually comes in the form of a noun, pronoun, or gerund. Sometimes an adjective or other modifier will modify the noun. So, a prepositional phrase looks like this: at the store; before the storm; until it rains; while the sun is shining.

So, let’s get to how using prepositions—or, more specifically, NOT using prepositions—can make your writing sharper. As an editor, we are trained to keep our eyes open for anything that sucks the power out of prose. If you’ve looked over the tip sheets available on our website, you’ll know we preach against the overuse of a lot of things—adjectives, adverbs, ellipses, em-dashes, exclamation marks, italics, unnecessary words, etc., etc. One thing—at least, as of this date—we haven’t complained about is the preponderance of prepositions. But recently I’ve noticed overuse of prepositions in both fiction and nonfiction. And overusing prepositions creates long, boring sentences. Take this one, for example:

I sat at the pool at Stacy’s house under the umbrella with red stripes with Sherry from Grantsville until the clock beneath the awning of the clubhouse showed dinnertime.

Yuck! Just for fun, how many prepositions can you find in that sentence? Go ahead and count them. Here’s what I found: at, at, under, with, with, from, until, beneath, of. Nine!

So, how can we write this better? First, we look for ownership. How many times did we use a prepositional phrase instead of using a possessive? I’m seeing three times. If the pool is at Stacy’s house, we can probably assume it’s Stacy’s pool. So, we can cut at Stacy’s house and make this Stacy’s pool. If we’re under the umbrella with red stripes, why can’t we just say the red-striped umbrella? Another preposition cut. And then there’s always that pesky of. Of is unnecessary when it’s used to show ownership, such as in this case. So, we can quickly ditch it by changing the awning of the clubhouse to the clubhouse awning. We’ve cut three prepositions and now have:

I sat at Stacy’s pool under the red-striped umbrella with Sherry from Grantsville until the clock beneath the clubhouse awning showed dinnertime.

Second, we look for unnecessary details. Does it matter where the clock is located? Unless this has something to do with the story, it most likely does not. What is important is the time the clock shows, not where the clock resides. So, let’s cut beneath the clubhouse awning (or the original, beneath the awning of the clubhouse). And, really, do we need to involve the clock at all? It’s only the time that matters, not the clock. So, let’s cut the clock. Does it matter where Sherry is from? This one is tough to tell when a sentence is pulled out of context. But, more than likely, we don’t need that information.

Our sentence now looks like this:

I sat at Stacy’s pool under the red-striped umbrella with Sherry until dinnertime.

That brings us down to four prepositions: at, under, with, until.

Can we do better? Of course! If we’re with Sherry, why don’t we say, Sherry and I?

Sherry and I sat at Stacy’s pool under the red-striped umbrella until dinnertime.

Those are about all the easy fixes, and we’re down to three prepositions. According to some style guides and other advisors of good writing, we should never have more than two prepositions in a sentence (count how many prepositions are in this sentence). So, let’s see if we can cut one more. Reading this sentence, the prepositional phrase that still bothers me the most is under the red-striped umbrella. The first thing we can do is consider if this is needed information or not. If not, we can simply cut it. But if we need this information, we’ll need to rearrange the sentence. Note that rearranging can result in sentences with stronger verbs—a side-effect we can celebrate.

The red-striped umbrella shaded the pool where Sherry and I sat until dinnertime.

Wow! We’ve come a long way from our awkward original sentence. I’d still like to play with it and be more creative like saying “until the dinner bell rang” or something, but without knowing the context, it’s difficult to do those things. Still, we have a more precise sentence that’s easier on the eyes, the ears, and the brain.

Our goal in life should not be to rid ourselves of every preposition. Prepositions are essential. They provide the details and specifics we need to make sense of information. However, overusing prepositions is a serious problem and one we need to fix. We need to make it a habit to count the prepositions in our awkward sentences—and then find ways to get rid of as many as we can.

As with anything, practicing is what makes us better at identifying and finding replacements. I challenge you to:

1.      Count the prepositions in the example sentence, and

2.      Reduce the prepositions.

Put your response in a comment below, and we’ll send a set of “Comma Usage” and “Writing Wrongs” tip cards to a random commenter.

Here’s the sentence to stretch your patience—er, I mean, your writing skills:

Susan went to the dentist by the name of “Will Hurt” to have her tooth with decay pulled with forceps for extraction after she had a shot of Novocaine to anesthetize her gums around the tooth with pain.

(Hint: chronological order is a good habit).

SPECIAL LOOK: Out of the Ashes

 by

Sandi Rog

 



 

Last week, Charl revealed some of her early and not-so-great writing. This week, Sandi Rog addresses the flip-side of that post by giving us an excerpt from her recently published book, Out of the Ashes. The following post is taken (with permission) from Sandi’s blog Dare to Dream. You can find the original post and complete first chapter here.

The book opens with a note to my readers:

Dear Readers:

Had it not been for the Lord and the many thousands of people who prayed me through cancer, this book never would have been written. If you’re one of the people who prayed for me, thank you. Mere words aren’t enough to express my gratitude.

Having emerged back onto the writing scene after the two-year battle, and feeling rather beat up after the long fight, I needed something with a happy ending. Like a fairytale. Think Cinderella. That’s what this book is, something bright and cheerful. So, Out of the Ashes is a lighter read than my other books: The Master’s Wall, Yahshua’s Bridge, and even Walks Alone.

What a blessing it has been for me to have the strength to write Nathaniel and Amelia’s story. Thank you, precious readers, for walking with me as I dig my way out of the aftermath of this battle one step at a time. Or shall I say, one page at a time.

Blessings,

Sandi Rog


Book Jacket Description

A stranger. A kiss. A shotgun wedding.

NATHANIEL WARD, wealthy entrepreneur, needs a wife. But he’s not interested in the preening, high-society women who are offered to him on a silver platter. He wants one woman, and one woman alone: the girl who gave him all the money in her reticule years ago when the Great Chicago Fire left him destitute. He sets out to find this woman and discovers she’s unattached. There’s only one problem, a shotgun wedding may be able to bind them, but will he ever be able to win her heart?

AMELIA E. TAYLOR blows a kiss to a street rat. Little did she know, years later that kiss would follow her to Green Pines, Colorado. When a handsome stranger arrives in her hometown, she guards her heart from the stirrings this man ignites. Despite society’s disapproval of spinsterhood, she is determined not to marry, having witnessed first-hand the lack of love and horrors that accompany marriage. But will a shotgun wedding reveal blessings that arise out of the ashes?


Chapter One

Green Pines, Colorado, 1882

Gun smoke burned Amelia’s eyes and her ears still rang. She blinked the tears from her lashes.

“Do you, Nathaniel Ward,” the preacher scowled, “take Amelia Taylor to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Amelia’s father cocked his rifle and aimed it at the reluctant groom.

“I do,” Nathaniel said, his voice firm and unwavering. Despite her father’s threats, Nathaniel’s very presence exuded power, his raised chin, broad shoulders and wide chest unflinching against the barrel of the rifle.

Amelia didn’t dare look up at him. What must he be thinking? How many women had hoped to get him this far, and now, here she stood where most women dreamed of standing—shotgun wedding, or not. If only she could melt into the parlor’s wooden floor like the candle burning in the nearby lamp. Or disappear like the smoke. Disappear into nothingness, with no remnant left of her existence.

“Do you, Amelia Taylor, take Nathaniel Ward to be your lawfully wedded husband?” The preacher’s words rushed over Amelia like a gush of foul air.

She stood paralyzed, unable to speak. She’d vowed never to marry. How would she bear this cross? She’d seen enough loveless marriages in her life to know it wasn’t worth the heartache, despite the shame of spinsterhood. And now, to be forced on a man? What miseries awaited her? Abuse? Neglect? Slavery? Any man in his right mind would despise her for the rest of his days. It would be impossible—unthinkable—to procure his affection … his love.

The minister, still in his nightclothes, cleared his throat. His wife, holding up the lantern, glowered from behind him.

Amelia swallowed, darting a glance at her terrifying father. With a snarl, he narrowed his eyes at Nathaniel and pressed closer with his rifle. Would he put another hole in the preacher’s wall? Or Nathaniel’s chest?

“Amelia, girl.” Her father’s voice sent a shudder down her spine as it echoed through the quiet house. “You know, I always keep my word.” He’d threatened to kill Nathaniel if she refused to be his wife.

“I do,” she said, her voice small and trembling, quite the opposite of the man next to her. The horror, the shame. How did her life come to this?

“I now pronounce you man and wife.” The minister slammed his Bible shut and pointed it at her father. “Now get out!”

Shadows clouded Amelia’s vision, and her legs wobbled like those of a newborn calf. Her knees buckled, but rather than landing on the hard floor, she found herself caught in Nathaniel’s strong arms.

Now her husband.


You can find Out of the Ashes on Amazon and Sandi's other works here.

Believe It or Not, Editors Aren't Born Writers

by

Charlotte Firbank-King

A month ago—in South Africa, just to ground the reader—I had to pack up my house and studio in Port Elizabeth and relocate to Durban. In the process, I came across stuff I’d written when I was about eighteen. All the writing from my early teenage days must have been binned at some point, since, at eighteen, I was clearly past rubbish writing. I do recall being convinced that my romance novel, grandly titled, Inner Flame, was going to be a best seller—no question about that. One look at this title and you realize it doesn’t get much more purple than that. God help the poor soul who dares venture between those pages, but I can laugh at myself and did indeed go there. Let’s say it wasn’t really a venture, but rather a stumble over purple prose, a million adjectives and adverbs, and fat grammatical and spelling errors (no spellcheck back then). The head-hopping alone made my head spin.

Then I got married and nothing much happened because I was too busy breeding. I found more manuscripts, written when I was about thirty. I was clearly done with procreation, and I had a divorce under my belt. This second stab at writing was an improvement, but still no cigar for good writing.

The point of this trip into the past? Editors aren’t born writing with skill.

To be honest, if Inner Flame came across my desk now, I would probably send the writer every tutorial IFW has, including a thousand writing links on Google, and then tell them to go hide in a cave and learn to string at least one coherent sentence together before wasting their money on an editor.

Here are a few pearls from Inner Flame. I left the spelling errors in, even though MS Word kindly changed them for me. I must have been fixated on the size of the room, since I sure didn’t need full stops. This was all handwritten before I finally scored a wondrous typewriter.

Felicity walk down the wide stairs to the room below, it was a vast ball room hung extravigantly with chandeliers, the floor was glossy marble, Victorian furniture was arranged in it a large grand piano of oak stood at the far end of the room like a majestic queen of furniture, heavy curtains of deep red velvet adorned massive windows and french doors.

The chandeliers must have smiled from above to see this pink whisp of a girl almost float accross the huge room, she might have been a thistledown in a field for all she compared in size to the room.

Here is another gem:

Felicity was a long time in falling asleep, she lay between the soft linen sheets staring out of huge windows at the moon, clouds drifted like silver ships across her face, as round as a disc.

I could go on, but I would hate to hear a reader had died from laughing. The head-hopping examples of my eighteen year-old brilliance will take too much space, so I won’t bore you with those pearls of delight. You will just have to trust me that they’re there with oak-leaf clusters.

I now challenge our other editors to expose their badly-written-gems’ bellies to the public.

Surely, if we once wrote this poorly, there’s hope for you. If you need help bringing your writing up to the next level, email us at IFWeditors@gmail.com. Besides simply editing your work, we explain why we’ve made the suggestions we make so you learn as you go. Need even more help? We offer coaching, which is a personalized tutoring service that teaches you the things we’ve learned over the years. One client told us she learned more from one of our edits than an entire MFA program in creative writing. We’re here to help. All you have to do is ask. 

Sharing Homemade Bread

by Rhonda white  

Reprinted with permission from:

 http://rhondabrowningwhite.com/2015/07/29/sharing-homemade-bread/      

SHARING HOMEMADE BREAD

Today is bread day.

A few weeks ago, I succumbed to an urge that had been rising within me for a few months, and that was to make bread. Not just any bread, not bread from a boxed mix, and nothing that could be whipped up in a few minutes’ time, dumped into a bread machine, and popped out in a squarish loaf resembling an Amazon.com cardboard package. I wanted to make homemade sourdough bread; the kind that takes at least a week to prepare, the kind that must be fed and nurtured and allowed to rest, the kind created from—and by—living, breathing beings.

I should tell you that I killed my first starter.

There are certain, unbreakable, scientific laws that come with making homemade sourdough bread, and as ominous as that sounds, they’re actually quite simple to follow. That is, as long as you remember one of the most important rules, that being that you must stir your starter with a wooden spoon. Any contact with metal spoons (nickel, silver, aluminum, etc.) can introduce molecules that will kill the living microorganisms of yeasty sourdough starter. When feeding my sourdough starter the first time, you guessed it; I grabbed a metal spoon. Two days later, instead of the sweetly sour fragrance given off by healthy sourdough starter, mine reeked of rotting garbage, and the bubbles that occasionally rose to the surface had ceased. My starter had stopped breathing and died.

I’ve taken more care since then, and today as I stirred sugar, salt, oil, and flour into my starter and began kneading the dough, I thought of stories and of writing. Why is it that one creative act feeds another? I may never know the answer, but I’m always grateful for the inspirational nourishment. As I worked the dough, I recalled scripture from the King James Version of the Holy Bible: “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). 

I then thought of even older writings, one from the ancient Anglo-Saxon story of Beowulf, in which the bakers charge a share of grain to make and bake bread in communal ovens for the entire community. I was further inspired to look up a couple of quotes that I remembered from other poems and stories, wondering why these snippets have stuck with me for so long, choosing today to bubble to the surface:

“A Book of Verses underneath the Bough
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!” –The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 5^th Ed.

And from more recent works:

“They swallowed the dark bread. It was like daylight under the fluorescent trays of light. They talked on into the early morning, the high, pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not think of leaving.” –Raymond Carver, from “A Small, Good Thing”

“The heat of the bread burned into my skin, but I clutched it tighter, clinging to life.” –Suzanne Collins, from The Hunger Games

You probably recall many other examples of bread used symbolically in literature. Why is it that writers often mention bread in their stories—aside from the obvious, that their characters must eat? Bread does more than simply feed the hungry protagonist; it serves as metaphor for deeper issues and hidden secrets in a story. Bread is sometimes used to represent life and health, or the lack thereof (as in stale bread, or moldy bread); it is used to represent plenty, as in the Biblical story of the loaves and fishes; it’s sometimes symbolic of comfort, family, and unity, as in To Kill a Mockingbird; and, in Hansel and Gretel, breadcrumbs are used to mark the way back home. It’s this last metaphor that I chose to use in my current work in progress, tentatively titled Romie & Jasper’s Big Empty:

“I stand on the back deck of the house, overlooking the acres and acres of grapevines, and I feel small, as if I’ve shrunk. I wonder if it’s true, if I have become smaller each time I’ve moved, if I left behind a broken-off piece of myself, like a trail of breadcrumbs, so I can someday find my way back to whatever place might be home.”

As I kneaded my bread this morning, it occurred to me how much making homemade sourdough bread is akin to writing. We put in the basic ingredients—our nouns and verbs and punctuation—and we let them rest. Days later, we return to the mixture, feed it with fresh words, stir them around, and let them breathe. After more respite, we keep a carefully measured portion, toss out what isn’t needed, and we add something sweet, something salty, and we work out the lumps and bubbles, ensuring that when we are done, it will rise and nourish all who taste it.

My sourdough recipe makes three loaves: one for today, one for later in the week, and one to share with friends. Sharing homemade bread—and memories and stories—with friends is my favorite part of the artistic process: it is the giving of one’s creativity, of one’s effort, of oneself, however noble or humble that gift may be.

“And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19 (KJV)

© 2015. Rhonda Browning White. All Rights Reserved.

This has been reposted with permission from Rhonda’s blog, http://rhondabrowningwhite.com/2015/07/29/sharing-homemade-bread/

Point of View Problems (Blog 1 of Several)

by

Charlotte Firbank-King

If you ever wonder if you're using point of view (POV) correctly, put yourself in the character's head and ask yourself if you can see what you implied the character can see. For example, you can't see colour creep into your cheeks, but you can feel the heat of a blush. You can't see yourself paling, but you can feel blood drain from your face. In short, always go into your character's head. One can use mirrors, windows, or any reflective surface to see the character’s image and explain it.

Example A:

Nathan’s wife coughed and he hastily wiped a spot of blood from her lips, trying to hide the evidence. But she saw it and, for the first time, fear flickered in her eyes. Unable to bear seeing her pain and now fear, he dragged himself from her deathbed and leaned on her dresser, then lifted his head and stared at his image in an ornate mirror. Dark shadows underscored his sunken eyes, and deep lines drew his wide mouth down. He tried to smooth his tousled black hair. He was strong, but was he strong enough to bear losing her? In reality, what use was his immense size and strength in the face of death? 


There you have it all—how he feels, where he is, and how he looks. However, don’t overuse this ploy. Have another character tell you what the reader wants to know, like in this second example.


Example B:

She coughed and tried to wipe her mouth. Nathan leaned over and gently wiped her lips. She caught sight of a crimson stain of blood on the handkerchief that he tried so hard to hide. For the first time, fear rippled through her. So this was the end. She touched his haggard cheeks, hating that dark shadows underscored his sunken eyes, and deep lines drew his wide mouth down—a mouth always so ready to smile. She tried to smooth his tousled black hair. “Be brave, my darling husband.” But in reality, what use was his immense size and strength in the face of death?


With the second way, one has fewer words and you can add a bit more about his character, like the fact that he smiles readily. He would not necessarily see himself like that.

Then there is the other POV problem—head hopping. I know the feeling of wanting to see and feel everything from each characters head, but it makes a reader’s head spin until they are so confused they have no idea who is feeling and saying what.

Stay in one character’s head for at least a page, preferably a chapter or at least until there is a radical day or scene change.

If you really need to go into another character’s head mid-scene, then you need “permission.” Have the character touch some part of their body, preferably the head, like brushing back their hair or rubbing the back of their neck. Then the reader is drawn to that action and their attention is on that character. But this is not ideal. One can always convey how the other character feels with body language.

If you are truly confounded, you can always contact a helpful editor at IFW at IFWeditors@gmail.com for assistance.

Style Guides

"Style Guides"

(Leave a Comment for a Chance to Win a Quick Study Version of Your Favorite Guide)

by

Sandy Tritt 

Oftentimes when I’m asked a question about grammar, punctuation, or citations, I’ll preface my response with the words, “depending on which style guide you are using . . . .” Of course, this response brings up an entirely new discussion. What is a style guide? Where do you find them? And how do you know which one you should be using?

“A style guide,” according to Wikipedia, “is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization, or field. A style guide establishes and enforces style to improve communication.” In other words, our English language is a living language that changes constantly. Some groups embrace these changes and variations at different times. But the most important part of writing style is consistency. Therefore, many publishing houses and many fields have adopted their own standards. So, a style guide is an interpretation of the rules of grammar, punctuation, and citations to create consistency. 

 

Style guides can be found in most libraries and bookstores. According to Wikipedia, in the United States, most non-journalism writing follows The Chicago Manual of Style, while most newspapers base their style on the Associated Press Stylebook. A classic style guide for the general public is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.

 

The more popular style guides are: 

• For general academic papers: A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, by Kate L. Turabian. Often referred to as "Turabian."
• For general academic papers: MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, by Joseph Gibaldi. (Often referred to as "MLA.")
• For social sciences: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, by the American Psychological Association(APA)
• For newspapers: The Associated Press Stylebook, by the Associated Press (AP).
• For electronic publishing: The Columbia Guide to Online Style, by Janice Walker and Todd Taylor.
• For fiction and general nonfiction: The Chicago Manual of Style, by University of Chicago Press staff.

 

For a more comprehensive list of style guides, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_style_guides

 

If writing is your career, you may want to invest in the latest edition of the style guide for your genre. Since our language does change and mutate, it’s important to get the latest edition available. You may also want to subscribe to the online version, which keeps up with changes as they happen. Chicago Manual of Style offers a free trial subscription at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html.

 

A cheaper and faster option is to purchase a “Quick Study” version of the style guide you use most. For example, you can purchase the Chicago Manual of Style Quick Study version for $6.25 at http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Manual-Style-Guidelines-Quick/dp/1423218604/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1435184828&sr=8-2&keywords=chicago+manual+of+style. If you’d like to be the proud owner of your own quick study guide, just tell us in a comment below which one you’d like to have and how having one would be beneficial to you. We’ll randomly choose one winner on July 1, 2015, and send you out a copy. This mini-contest is limited to USA addresses only.

 

The bottom line is this: if you plan to be a professional writer (which means you plan to make money writing), you need to take your profession seriously and invest in the tools you need.

 

And, remember, we’re always here to answer your questions and provide a free sample edit. See more info at http://www.inspirationforwriters.com/editing/sample.html.

10 Things I Learned at the WV Writers Conference

by

Jessica Nelson

I wanted to title this blog “10 Super-Cool-Awesome-Amazing Things I Learned at the WV Writers Conference,” but, alas, all that would not fit into the title bar on Blogger. But I digress.

So this past weekend was the annual West Virginia Writers Conference in Ripley, WV. This was my fifth year in attendance and my second year working it as an intern. As always it was a great time, but the thing I love most about it is that every year I learn something new. There is always an abundance of knowledgeable presenters to lead workshops and panels. Since many of you are non-West Virginia natives and may not ever make it to a WV Writers Conference, I’ve decided to share the top ten things I learned this year.


10. You have to be brutally honest with yourself. In particular, you need to be honest about your style and your work ethic. This came from Sheila Redling’s workshop. One example she gave was if you are the type of writer who only writes five words a day, you will not feasibly be able to put out two books a year. If you know you are easily distracted, take care of anything you know will be a distraction before you sit down to work. Hold yourself accountable for your work.

9. Sometimes when you’re stuck, it’s because you’re out of sync with your characters. Also from Sheila Redling, this advice resonated with me. On a fundamental level, it makes sense. How can you tell your character’s story when you and your character are not on the same page? So sometimes you need to take a step back from the story and focus on the character. When you and your character have reached a new understanding, go back to the story and try again.

8. Monsters are metaphors. Now, I know that not everyone writes fantasy, sci-fi, or horror, but this advice applies to almost any antagonist. Monsters in particular are metaphors, or embodiments, of our worst fears. A couple of classic examples instructor Frank Larnerd gave were Frankenstein’s Monster (fear of science) and Freddie Kruger (fear of being punished for our sins). And your monster metaphor should match your hero’s fear/weakness/past. That is how you “build a better monster.”

7. When making a “monster” (or villain, or antagonist), do a “monster sketch” that addresses the following: what makes him/her/it a monster? Why is he/she/it like this? What is one noble/good thing this monster does? This came from Marie Manilla’s workshop “Monster Theory…” and forces us as authors to create a fully formed, three dimensional, realistic antagonist. Seriously, try to answer these questions with your antagonist in mind. You will have no choice but to explore all the facets of your character.

6. For anyone writing in verse: the first word and last word of a line hold the most power, so choose your line breaks carefully. This can also apply to prose. The first and last phrases are the “power words” in a paragraph. I participated in a workshop by Kate Fox where we took a handful of lines, written out like prose, from famous poems and each re-wrote them into verse the way we thought they should go. Even though we were all using the same words, our choices in line breaks gave each version a different meaning and different effect on the reader. Even the length of the lines impacted the tone and message of the poem. So make sure your line breaks contribute to the intended effect of your verse. 

5. Start with a believable context. This applies mostly to fiction writers, especially those writing fiction with outrageous or paranormal or fantastical elements. This advice came from storyteller and champion liar Bil Lepp, who made us all believe he’d been smashed into the ceiling by a dentist’s chair. You want to know how he did it? He eased us into it. He started out telling us about a toothache he got, the subsequent trip to the dentist’s office, and getting bored sitting in the dentist’s chair while waiting for the dentist himself to come into the room. So he started playing with the pedals that made the chair change position. The story started so normal and familiar that when odd things started happening, we all subconsciously suspended our disbelief. We trusted what was happening in the story, because he made it fit and work within the context. This is great advice to fiction writers, because if you get too crazy, too quick, you lose your reader’s trust. And even if the point is to be fantastical and out-there, the use of real, normal, and familiar details helps to ground the reader and allow them to connect the story to their own lives.

4. Writing without “emotional language” (“I love this” or “she hates that”) allows the details to “show” your feelings without being sappy or overly sentimental. This nugget of wisdom comes from Jon Van Kirk. He discovered the truth of this statement when he did an assignment with his students at a university. He told his classes to describe a lost-to-them but still familiar location. In the first class, he told them not to use “emotional language” and the students produced vivid descriptions that evoked a range a heartfelt emotions—without ever once naming those emotions. The second class did not produce the same results. Because he forgot to tell them not to use emotional language.

3. In the first few pages of a novel, set up the character, conflict, setting, and voice. This advice came from Edie Hemingway’s “Strong Beginnings” workshop. It applies to any genre of writing and can even be adapted for short stories and other styles of writing. Basically, you want to set up everything the reader needs to know in the first couple of pages. Who is the story about? What are his/her age, race, education, and (to a lesser extent) appearance? What is the conflict of the story? You don’t have to spell it out, but you can start to hint at it or get the ball rolling. Where is the story taking place? And—this is very important—you need to establish the voice, which, ideally, is a combination of your voice as a writer and your character’s voice. Most importantly, establishing all that in the first couple of pages not only grabs the reader’s attention, but it will also hopefully grab a publisher’s attention and keep your manuscript off the slush pile.

2. Don’t get stuck on the first page. Chances are your original first page will change or the story will ultimately start somewhere else. This also came from Jon Van Kirk and his workshop “The First Fifty Pages.” Basically, you don’t have to write your draft in chronological order. You can write any scene from any point in the novel at any time you want. Then, when everything is written, you can figure out the order. For someone like me who gets stuck on the first few pages (every single time), this came as quite a relief. It was like I had been granted a stay of execution. Now if only I can get myself to walk away from the chopping block.

1. Writers are amazing people. Technically, I am re-learning this, as I do every year at the conference. And it’s something you learn from the conference as a whole. Writers are big-hearted, friendly, encouraging, and just all-around-awesome people. Not to mention talented. I’m always thankful that there are writers willing to share their talent and knowledge—not just in the form of presenters, but the attendees as well. And writers are just nice. I had nearly half a dozen people or more come up to me at some point over the weekend to tell me I was doing a good job, or thank me for my hard work, or tell me that they liked my writing. I’m not sure there is anything that makes a writer glow more than another writer complimenting her work. I also had one woman call me over in the parking lot on the very last day. She handed me a copy of her poetry book with the handwritten inscription “Thanks for all you do,” which left me a sentimental puddle all over the asphalt. And, of course, every year I make new friends and reacquaint myself with old friends. Let’s be honest, a conference is only as good as the people who are there. And if you are at a conference that’s filled to bursting with writers, it’s guaranteed to be amazing.