Characters

by

Judith Lachance-Whitcomb

When I read a book, if it is a good one, I fall in love with the characters. We all do. We even begin to care about the bad guys. When the book ends, I don’t want to leave those folks I’ve gotten to know through the author’s ability to bring them to life.  I’m realizing that I get the same pleasure from my own characters that develop along with the story.

I’ve always felt guilty because I don’t do character studies, at least not in an organized way. I don’t have a card file with descriptions of characters and locales. I don’t have character sheets, and even on my Scrivener I’m not using the character sheet template. As my characters grow, I construct their sketches based on what they’ve revealed of themselves.  I’ve come to realize, however, that there is a file box tucked somewhere in my grey matter. As a great observer of people, risking being arrested as a stalker, I can watch people for hours. In a restaurant, I eagerly try to hear their conversations. Watching people while at the beach, I note the variety of shapes, sizes, etc. of their physique and the bathing gear they use to enhance (or not) those physiques. Looking at two people having a conversation that I can’t hear, I make up stories in my mind of what is going on based on their body language. So, it’s not that I don’t pay attention to character traits, I just don’t do what many how to write sources suggest I do with developing a character study.

I find that my characters develop with the story. When I begin a story, I have a situation or general plot in mind. I know where I want to be at the end of the story. I have a general idea of who the main characters are, but many of the details emerge as they travel through the storyline. Minor characters are even less defined as we begin our adventure together.  

Sometimes my research brings the character to life. One story I wrote  was about an adventurous little Emperor penguin. He gets lost and ends up in the North Pole.   Even though the story is fiction, I wanted it to let youg readers know penguins are only in the southern hemisphere. I had the character penguin, Fidget,  firmly in my mind but I needed another animal to help  him figure out where he was.  I wanted an animal who would be familiar with both poles.  A little research and I found out about the Arctic Tern that travels between them.  The description of the actual bird helped me develop Tipper . You met both characters through their picture at the beginning of this blog.

Currently I’m working on a fiction story about Queen Guinevere (of Camelot) when she was a young girl. In the story an unlikely friendship develops between her and Emma, who is the complete opposite in position, manner, dress, and certainly grace. The story could be called historical fiction but I’m afraid it isn’t quite. To begin with, it’s hard to gather actual facts on the Arthurian period that seems to be mostly fiction as it stands. Also, the time of the story would be before the middle ages. I find very little information of that time, or at least information that would make my story more interesting. For example, castles weren’t what I was lead to believe as I read and watched all those books, plays (I loved “Camelot”), and movies. They were more like earthen and wooden rather than huge and stone structures. So, for the sake of my story, I’ve pushed Guinevere and Emma into the middle/later periods of the Middle Ages.

Anyway, back to my point. I wanted a very minor character to be Guinevere’s teacher. In truth, she probably wouldn’t have had one but my story needed it. There are many choices for a character like that: old, wise, young, handsome, brilliant, snobbish. Other than being a minor male character, he had very little definition in my mind. Needing a name for him, I began by going to my reference sheets (which I can conveniently store on my Scrivener) that contain first and surnames that would be common during the middle ages. I spent a good half an hour or more playing around with various combinations. I finally landed on one that screamed to me, “I am that teacher character.” The name?  It’s Umfrey Urry.  Isn’t that delicious? It was a name that could thoroughly confuse Emma and immediately shaped his looks and manner for me. As I introduced him to the story, he came alive in his snobbish dead-pan way. He makes Guinevere, Emma, and myself laugh – behind his back, of course.  Here is the paragraph when he enters the story:

“Stop this commotion, I say!”   A path appeared through the crowd from the door to the interior of the castle. The path was made by someone or something whose long, upturned nose appeared before the rest of him did. “I, the Royal Teacher, must prepare the lessons for Her Majesty - the Princess!”  The mouse voiced speaker, now clearly in the center of the circle and the center of attention made sure his complaint was accompanied with a snobbish swish of the long, black curls that hung well below his bony shoulders. “Her Majesty will be furious when you have caused her lessons not to be ready for her!”

I will continue to seek out advice about how to write from as many sources as I have time to find. What I’m learning, though, is that there is no cookie cutter “how to write”. Our approach to writing has to be the one that works for us. I can try the suggestions I come across but in the end I have to find the ones that work for me. One of my current mentors is Stephen King through his book, On Writing. I was pleased to read his take on character development and especially resonated with this statement, “For me, what happens to characters as the story progresses depends solely on what I discover about them as I go along…” That works for me.

I’m not a published writer, at least not in the way that some folks I’ve met in writing groups consider “published.” I have a number of educational works that were published and a chapter in a book. I have my fiction work in group publications like Hoosier Horizons and the Edge of the Prairie. That’s it. But I am a committed writer. As I wrote about in a previous blog, I write because I can. I write because I enjoy the adventures my characters and I experience. I write because I love my characters.

Tech Tools for Writers

by

Dr. Anastasia Trekles

Even if you are an author who abhors having too much technology clogging up your writing space – as many people do – we all know that computers, the Internet, and other devices can make our work a lot easier. What you may not know, however, is that there are some cool, specialized apps out there that can really save you time and effort. While there are literally dozens of products out there for writers, authors, and publishers, here are a few of my personal favorites that can address some of those troublesome writerly issues.

1.     Scrivener ($45 with a 30-day trial, Mac/Windows/iOS) is a tremendous app. You can write with it. You can arrange scenes and chapters with it. You can construct outlines, create character and setting profiles, and brainstorm with it. You can organize research with it. You can even work on the same file from multiple devices (like a computer and an iPad). Scrivener might stop short of cutting julienne fries, but it does pretty much anything you’d expect from a full-service writing suite. If you’re willing to spend a little money and are looking for something more than what a typical word processor offers, this is something to check out, particularly if you write novels or other long-form works. Scrivener is designed to help you sort out the chaos of developing things like books and dissertations in a relatively easy-to-use interface.

2.     Google Drive (free) is Google’s free set of office apps that includes Docs for word processing, Sheets for spreadsheets, and Slides for presentations. Now, while none of these apps has quite the same level of sophistication as their equivalents in the Microsoft world, they offer the ability to collaborate with other people very easily, and without cost. With Docs (or any of the other tools), you can share your document to others and allow them to add comments, edit, and assign tasks to one another. You can always track what changes have been made so that you can see how the document developed over time, and you can go back to previous revisions if needed. So, no work is ever lost forever in the digital abyss, even if your partner accidentally deleted those crucial last three paragraphs.

3.     Dragon speech-to-text products (pricing varies from free to $300 depending on product and device) allow you to boldly go where people in Star Trek and other sci-fi venues go when they work with their computers – speech-to-text. It’s a technology that’s been around for a long time and has progressed a lot over the years, yet outside of communities such as persons with disabilities, you still don’t see too many people talking to their computers. Maybe it’s because it’s still less than socially acceptable to have a conversation with your laptop in public. Or, maybe it’s because voice interfaces take a little getting used to. Either way, if you have trouble typing, don’t like to type, or just need to move around more when you have a really good idea brewing, Dragon NaturallySpeaking (PC/Mac, full-featured) or Dragon Dictation (mobile) can be lifesavers.

4.     Calibre (free, Windows/Mac/Linux) isn’t so much a writing tool as a formatting tool, but it can fit a special niche for many authors, especially those who self-publish. Calibre allows you to create e-books from any document in a variety of formats, including MOBI, EPUB, PDF, and Kindle, and gives you full control over all settings. You can set up tables of contents, manage your metadata, and even test everything out to make sure it works, all in a relatively simple user interface. I recently used Calibre for a textbook project I was working on, and it made short work of ensuring that the MOBI and PDF documents – with an extensive table of contents – were accessible to readers. A cool added bonus of Calibre is that it can read any e-book file, so if someone sends you a document in an unusual format, you can open and read it right there, no extra tools required.

5.     Grid Diary (free version or add Pro features like cloud sync for $4.99 – currently iOS only) came into my life recently when I was looking for a tool that would encourage me to write a little about something every day. Sometimes, looking at the expanse of my half-written novel in Scrivener is a bit overwhelming; on days like that, I need some extra motivation. Enter Grid Diary, a cute, innovative app that presents you with a series of blocks that ask you questions each day, such as: What are my goals for today? What would help me have a better day tomorrow? What am I grateful for?  You can customize your grid, or let Grid Diary provide you with a template for your daily diary, but either way, it’s extremely easy to use, and the unique configuration gives you a chance to step out of your normal “zone” for a bit and just write about whatever comes to mind in response to your prompts. Who knows, it might be just the thing to get you out of that pesky writer’s block.

So, there you have it, some neat tech tools that can ease the work of any author out there. Will they take the words out of your head and put them on the page for you? Nope, computers aren’t that smart (yet). But, even if you normally plug along with pen and paper – or a digital equivalent – these tools may help fill a niche. But keep in mind that these are just the top five that I use in my own work, so I can attest to their overall usefulness. There are many more out there that might be even better for your needs, and spending time doing a little research is highly recommended!

Getting Started

You have an idea for that novel or poem or short story or personal experience article, but you can’t seem to get it down on paper. Or you look at what you’ve written and weep because it’s so bad.

So do you give up?

No.

Here is some inspirational advice from experienced writers.

On Writer’s Block

“If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.” Louis L’ Amour

“Don’t think and then write it down. Think on paper.” Harry Kemelman

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Jack London

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write.” Terry Pratchett

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.” Stephen King

“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.” Pearl S. Buck

“Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous ‘inspiration’ will not come, write. If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not – and the odds are against it – go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper – write.” J.B. Priestly

“The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If the artist works only when he feels like it, he’s not apt to build up much of a body of work. Inspiration far more often comes during the work than before it, because the largest part of the job of the artist is to listen to the work, and to go where it tells him to go.” Madeline L’Engle

“When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens. But before he can listen, paradoxically, he must work.” Madeleine L’Engle

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow

 “I think new writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you.” Asha Dornfest

“To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.” Anne Rice

 “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” Margaret Atwood

On Writing the First Draft

“You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.” Les Brown

“If you don’t allow yourself the possibility of writing something very, very bad, it would be hard to write something very good.” Steven Galloway

“It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.” Will Shetterly

 “First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about.” Bernard Malamud

 “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” Shannon Hale

“Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.” Jane Smiley

So start writing.

2017 Steel Pen Creative Writers' Conference: Introducing Keynote Speaker Catherine Lanigan

www.inwriters.org/steel-pen-conference

As we previously announced, the Indiana Writers’ Consortium is please to have Catherine Lanigan as the keynote speaker for the 2017 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference. She is the bestselling author of over forty published fiction and non-fiction titles, including the novelizations of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile.

In addition to giving the keynote speech, Catherine will present a workshop based on her craft book, Writing the Great American Romance Novel. That book and several of her others will be on sale at the conference, and she will sign them during the cocktail hour.

The title says this is an introduction, and that’s all it is. Catherine’s accomplishments are too many and too varied to do justice to in a blog post. What follows is just a sample.

Catherine is the author of the novelizations of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile. But what is a “novelization?” It simply means that the movie came first. Although Catherine didn’t create the original story line, few writers get the chance to novelize an award-winning movie. Just being given the opportunity is a great honor.

Some sources list the author as “Joan Wilder.” For those of you not in the know, Joan Wilder is a fictional romance writer who has the lead female role in the movies and is, of course, the female protagonist in the books. In recent years, however, Joan has shared the credit with Catherine, as she should.

Catherine is known primarily for her contemporary romance novels, which include the Shores of Indian Lake series for Harlequin Heartwarming. She also writes historical fiction such as Web of Deceit and Wings of Destiny and romantic suspense such as Friday Papers.

                          

The Christmas Star, Catherine’s Vietnam war-based novel, won the Gold Medal Award Top Pick from Romantic Times Magazine, the Book of the Year Romance Gold Award from ForeWord Magazine, and the Book of the Year Romance from Reader’s Preference.

But Catherine doesn’t just write novels. Her non-fiction includes true stories in several of the Chicken Soup anthologies, a trilogy of books regarding angelic intervention in human life, and her craft book, Writing the Great American Romance Novel.

Nor is Catherine’s work limited to one medium. She recently completed a screenplay for the Oracle Film Group. Powder Pup Mountain Rescue will be aired on Netflix sometime this year, although the exact date is still to be announced.

There is plenty more, but it won’t fit here. For additional information on Catherine and her books, check out her website at www.catherinelanigan.com. You can also visit her on Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Pinterest, Google+, and Twitter@cathlanigan.

Better yet, come hear Catherine speak at the 2017 Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference on October 28. It will be held at the conference center at Fair Oaks Farms just off I-65 near Rensselaer, Indiana. Registration will open in June.

Additional information on the conference will be posted at www.inwriters.org/steel-pen-conference  as it becomes available.

We hope to see you there.

Writing Success in Three Simple Steps

NOTE: Although IWC Intern Louis Martinez originally wrote this article for college students, it works for writers at all stages of their lives and careers. Even experienced fiction writers can apply it to their short stories or novels. So read it with your work in mind.

College Success in Three Simple Steps

by

Louis Martinez

Do you want to write decent papers but can’t seem to no matter how hard you try? Well, guess what? You’re in luck. It’s actually not that hard if you follow this simple, three-step writing process.

Planning

First things first, the planning phase. Otherwise known as “prewriting.” I don’t recall ever writing a great paper without thinking. It’s important to take some time to consider just what it is you want to say. You can’t put your thoughts into words before your thoughts even exist.

Now, planning doesn’t have to involve some extravagant web of ideas or a spiffy outline. Believe me, I never do that stuff, and I never get anything less than an A on my papers. What’s important is that you stop before you write. Stop, and take a moment to think. Think about what you’re going to write before you try and write.

What I normally do is just that, think. I think about what I want to convey, what I want to craft into an effective piece of written communication. And I think about it a lot.

I usually think about what I want to write for days before I sit down with my computer and start running that keyboard. I form connections with other thoughts and experiences I have throughout the day. I ponder the message when I’m in my bed, staring up at the ceiling while I wait for sleep to come over me.

I’m sure we’ve all heard some broken record of a person tell us to “think before speaking,” or something along those pestering lines. As obnoxious as those people can be, they’re not wrong.

Think before you speak. Think before you act. And, if want your writing to impress, think before you write as well.

Check out The Write at Home Blog for more strategic ways to plan your piece of writing.

Drafting

This is the part where you create your rough draft, and the nexus through which I have seen far too many of my fellow college students convolute the writing process.

Drafting is simple. Just put your thoughts into words. Don’t worry about the finer details. That’s the next stage. Right now, just write down everything you came up with during your planning. Don’t stop and think too much about it or go back and change things before you’re done. Just write.

Do not attempt to edit while you draft. I’ve witnessed many students working on their drafts, then stopping to ponder if what they wrote could be said any better. Yes, it almost certainly can be, but if you stop to edit before you finish drafting, you cut off your train of potentially brilliant ideas before it gets to its destination. And the bad thing about losing this track is you may never get it back. Stay the course. Do not deviate, lest you derail the train.

In speaking with those around me at school and at work (I work at my school), one of the most recurrent topics of conversation is low grades on papers. A few questions later, the problem becomes clear, and all too common. People are submitting their rough drafts as final copies. Then they come to me wondering why they can’t seem to get a decent grade on anything they write, pleading for me to share my wisdom, as if I am some kind of literary guru.

Here’s the thing. Rough drafts are never pretty. Not even mine. They’re “rough drafts.” Reference.com does a great job at spelling it out here.

Editing

If you turn in a paper you wrote the day it was due without a second glance, don’t bother contemplating why you received such a low grade. You submitted a rough draft, and you’re probably going to get a rough grade.

I say “probably” because I’ve gotten A’s on papers I wrote at the last minute. But hey, that’s just Overconfident Louis being overconfident. Don’t be like him. Be like me, Regular Louis.

Now for the last step, and the one many of my peers skip completely. Editing.

I’ve heard the excuses. Over and over, people tell me they write best when they’re under pressure, when they wait until the last minute to put anything down. That’s cute, but no.

You may work faster when you’re under that kind of pressure, but not better. Trust me, I’ve read the stuff some people turn in. It’s not pretty. Like I said in the previous section, it’s called a rough draft for a good reason. It’s rough, and it hurts to look at.

Please, after you finish writing your paper. Go back and rewrite it. Fix all the errors. Spruce up those sentences that just don’t sound right when you read them again and say them out load. Take out all the unnecessary filler that makes you sound like a rambling buffoon.

Give yourself ample time to go through the entire writing process: planning, drafting, and editing. Give each stage your full attention. Do not neglect this linear progression. Take it seriously, and you will find yourself on the way toward good writing.