A Conference Panel for Everyone

In past years, attendees at the Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference listened to a brief welcome and then headed for the first breakout session. The 2017 conference will change that pattern and begin (after a brief welcome) with a general session panel titled “That’s Not What My Grandma Said: Preserving Regional Stories.”

People die, memories fade, and cultural history is lost. With them go the color and flavor that make any region unique and the seasonings that add authenticity to our written stories. So how do we keep cultural history alive? Join Jane Ammeson, Heather Augustyn, and Roland Cohen for a panel discussion on preserving regional stories. Kathryn Page Camp will moderate the panel.

The bios of the three distinguished panelists follow.

Jane Simon Ammeson is a freelance writer who specializes in travel, food and personalities. She writes frequently for Northwest Indiana Times, Edible Michiana, AAA Home & Away, Heartland Boating, Lakeland Boating, Cleveland Magazine, Long Weekends Magazine, Travel Indiana and the Herald Palladium. Her Bindu travel apps include Michigan Road Trips and Indiana Journeys. She’s authored ten books including Hauntings of the Underground Railroad: Ghosts of the Midwest, Murders That Made Headlines: Crimes of Indiana, A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana and East Chicago. She is a James Beard Foundation nominating judge for the Great Lakes Region.

Forever a Harbor girl, Jane attended E.C. Washington and worked after school and during the summers at the E.C. Public Library, a job she got through nepotism as her mother was employed there for a half century.

Follow Jane at https://www.facebook.com/janesimonammeson; https://twitter.com/hpammeson; https://twitter.com/travelfoodin and on her blog http://www.nwitimes.com/niche/shore/blogs/will-travel-for-food/

Heather Augustyn is author of Ska: An Oral History, McFarland, 2010; Don Drummond: The Genius and Tragedy of the World’s Greatest Trombonist, McFarland, 2013; Ska: The Rhythm of Liberation, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013; Songbirds: Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music, Half Pint Press, 2014; Alpha Boys School: Cradle of Jamaican Music, Half Pint Press, 2017; Dragon: The Story of Byron Lee, Ambassador of Jamaican Music, Half Pint Press, 2017; and Bob Marley: The Music of Pain and Promise, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. She has been a correspondent for the Times of Northwest Indiana for 12 years and she teaches composition at Purdue University Northwest.

Ronald D. Cohen is an emeritus professor of history, Indiana University Northwest, Gary, Indiana, where he taught for 34 years. He is the author (or co-author) of numerous books, including Children of the Mill: Schooling and Society in Gary, Indiana, 1906-1960; Gary: A Pictorial History; Moonlight in Duneland; Rainbow Quest: Folk Music and American Society, 1940-1970; The Pete Seeger Reader, and numerous others. He lives in Gary, Indiana, and is a member of the Gary Historic Preservation Commission.
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This year's conference will be held on October 28 at the conference center at Fair Oaks Farms, just off I-65 near Renssselaer, Indiana. To learn more about the keynote speaker and the breakout sessions, go to http://www.inwriters.org/steel-pen-conference/. You can find the registration link on the same page. Or, if you have additional questions, contact us at steelpenconference@gmail.com.

We're excited about this year's conference, and we hope to see you there.

How to Break Through Writers' Block

by

Heather Augustyn

www.skabook.com

We’ve all been there. Fingers are poised over the keyboard, coffee at hand, kids occupied and dog sound asleep and the muse just isn’t visiting. Writers’ block can be an evil foe and there really isn’t a surefire way to get the juices flowing, but here are a few ideas to help.

1.     Read

Pick up anything, anything at all—Harry Potter, a copy of The New Yorker, an old journal. You never know when inspiration will come and reading other people’s words seems to help get those synapses firing.

2.     Listen to an audio book or podcast

Again, this is activating the language sectors of the brain, and creativity can strike from anywhere!

3.     Take a walk or a leisurely drive in the country

Our brains are designed to work in the conscious and subconscious, so even when you’re not noodling an idea, you are still noodling an idea, and so a step away is a great way to keep the conscious occupied so the subconscious can strike!

4.     Bake a cake or work in the garden

The idea here is to do something totally different, something that is constructive, brings something to fruition, that doesn’t require the same kind of thinking as writing.

5.     Write about something unrelated to your project

Pick an object in your room—a vase, a television, a plant—and tell the fictional history of how that object came into existence. Any kind of similar prompt can help in a number of ways, either by creating something useful for a future project, creating a solution to the block on your current project, or just writing for the sake of writing.

6.     Phone a friend

If you talk through a story, the friend can offer you their ideas which can either be great, so steal it, can spark a thought that takes you closer to what you need, or can create the opposite of what you’re looking for so you have something to push against and form your own ideas even more strongly.

7.     Sketch

No, not a character sketch or a story sketch—a sketch sketch. A drawing. Draw the scene, draw the setting. Sometimes accessing the information in a different way can open the floodgates of creativity.

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Heather Augustyn is an author, journalist, and writing instructor. You can connect with her at www.skabook.com, www.facebook.com/heather.augustyn, or @HeatherAugustyn.

Plotting the Plot

by

Heather Augustyn

This summer I have been teaching a few classes for teens, and what better way to learn about your own writing than by teaching kids. They make you think of every aspect of writing, deconstructing it piece by piece in order to understand it from all sides. One of the classes I taught was about plotting the post-apocalypse, a tremendously popular genre among teens and, frankly, all readers. From Wall-E, to War of the Worlds, post-apocalypse seems to be pretty relevant these days!

Anyway, it had me thinking a lot about plot. So this week I bring to you two voices on plot—one from a favorite writer of mine, Kurt Vonnegut, native Hoosier, who I had the pleasure of interviewing just weeks before his death. In this video clip, he humorously and sardonically offers his thoughts on plot trajectories. See the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ

Next, I offer a list of possible plots in an article by Ronald B. Tobias called, "20 Master Plots, and How to Build Them," which he wrote for Writer's Digest Books in 1993. They are as follows and hopefully with these two bits of information from Tobias and Vonnegut, you will find inspiration for your own work!

1. Quest

The hero searches for something, someone, or somewhere. In reality, they may be searching for themselves, with the outer journey mirrored internally. They may be joined by a companion, who takes care of minor detail and whose limitations contrast with the hero's greater qualities.

2. Adventure

The protagonist goes on an adventure, much like a quest, but with less of a focus on the end goal or the personal development of the hero. In the adventure, there is more action for action's sake.

3. Pursuit

In this plot, the focus is on chase, with one person chasing another (and perhaps with multiple and alternating chases). The pursued person may be often cornered and somehow escape, so that the pursuit can continue. Depending on the story, the pursued person may be caught or may escape.

4. Rescue

In the rescue, somebody is captured who must be released by the hero or heroic party. A triangle may form between the protagonist, the antagonist and the victim. There may be a grand duel between the protagonist and antagonist, after which the victim is freed.

5. Escape

In a kind of reversal of the rescue, a person must escape, perhaps with little help from others. In this, there may well be elements of capture and unjust imprisonment. There may also be a pursuit after the escape.

6. Revenge

In the revenge plot, a wronged person seeks retribution against the person or organization which has betrayed or otherwise harmed them or loved ones, physically or emotionally. This plot depends on moral outrage for gaining sympathy from the audience.

7. The Riddle

The riddle plot entertains the audience and challenges them to find the solution before the hero, who steadily and carefully uncovers clues and hence the final solution. The story may also be spiced up with terrible consequences if the riddle is not solved in time.

8. Rivalry

In rivalry, two people or groups are set as competitors that may be good hearted or as bitter enemies. Rivals often face a zero-sum game, in which there can only be one winner, for example where they compete for a scarce resource or the heart of a single other person.

9. Underdog

The underdog plot is similar to rivalry, but where one person (usually the hero) has less advantage and might normally be expected to lose. The underdog usually wins through greater tenacity and determination (and perhaps with the help of friendly others).

10. Temptation

In the temptation plot, a person is tempted by something that, if taken, would somehow diminish them, often morally. Their battle is thus internal, fighting against their inner voices which tell them to succumb.

11. Metamorphosis

In this fantastic plot, the protagonist is physically transformed, perhaps into beast or perhaps into some spiritual or alien form. The story may then continue with the changed person struggling to be released or to use their new form for some particular purpose. Eventually, the hero is released, perhaps through some great act of love.

12. Transformation

The transformation plot leads to change of a person in some way, often driven by an unexpected circumstance or event. After setbacks, the person learns and usually becomes something better.

13. Maturation

The maturation plot is a special form of transformation, in which a person grows up. The veils of younger times are lost as they learn and grow. Thus the rudderless youth finds meaning or perhaps an older person re-finds their purpose.

14. Love

The love story is a perennial tale of lovers finding one another, perhaps through a background of danger and woe. Along the way, they become separated in some way, but eventually come together in a final joyous reunion.

15. Forbidden Love

The story of forbidden love happens when lovers are breaking some social rules, such as in an adulterous relationship or worse. The story may thus turn around their inner conflicts and the effects of others discovering their tryst.

16. Sacrifice

In sacrifice, the nobler elements of the human sprit are extolled as someone gives much more than most people would give. The person may not start with the intent of personal sacrifice and may thus be an unintentional hero, thus emphasizing the heroic nature of the choice and the act.

17. Discovery

The discovery plot is strongly focused on the character of the hero who discovers something great or terrible and hence must make a difficult choice. The importance of the discovery might not be known at first and the process of revelation could be important to the story.

18. Wretched Excess

In stories of wretched excess, the protagonist goes beyond normally accepted behavior as the world looks on, horrified, perhaps in realization that “there but for the grace of God go I” and that the veneer of civilization is indeed thin.

19. Ascension

In the ascension plot, the protagonist starts in the virtual gutter, as a sinner of some kind. The plot then shows their ascension to becoming a better person, often in response to stress that would defeat a normal person. Thus they achieve deserved heroic status.

20. Descension

In the opposite to ascension, a person of initially high standing descends to the gutter and moral turpitude, perhaps sympathetically as they are unable to handle stress and perhaps just giving in to baser vices.

Specialized Sources to Spark Your Story

by

Heather Augustyn

As a writer of biographies, I sometimes find myself more of a sleuth than an author. I follow leads down the rabbit hole, searching for a long-dead person or their family members in hopes of discovering their life story. I liken my work to a hydra—I cut off one head, and two grow back—answers provide more questions, research yields more to research. Vacations to tropical locations are spent, not on the beach with a fruity drink in hand, but instead in dusty library archives with bound volumes of crumbling yellowed newspapers. Entire summers are passed, spinning through spools of microfilm. And large phone bills to octogenarians in countries all over the world reveal the spoils of the quest.  But these methods of searching through old newspapers, magazines, interviews, microfilm, and out-of-print books can be useful for anyone who looks to tell a story, true or not, to anchor it firmly in authenticity. Here are a few ideas for how to utilize obscure sources to inform your own writing:

1.     Consider the primary source

Interviews with people who are either similar to the personality of your character, or have similar backgrounds as your character, can provide authentic dialog or inspire your creativity to develop that dialog. Steal their word choice, their thoughts and opinions, their patois or accent or way they stress a certain word. You can also discover their struggles, their hopes and wishes, their loves and desires, their vision for motivation, which can become the same as your character, or help remove a block you may have had in developing some aspect of your character or plot. Watch their mannerisms, their facial expressions. Look at their dress, their accoutrements, their home or their work. See what they reveal, and also what they conceal. This will give your character and story an accuracy that imagination may not be able to yield. It will also give it an authentic voice.

2.     Set the scene

If your story is a period piece, chances are you have read plenty of material from that time period to inform your story. But what about if you are telling a story that is less about a time period and more about something else? Still digging into material, whether historical or contemporary, can help inform that storytelling. Knowing the type of vegetation that grew in the character’s landscape, the style of car that was popular in their carpool line and the afterschool activities common with their children, the kinds of meals they ate, the decorations they used to adorn their homes, the brand of cigarettes they smoked, the way they dried their clothes—on a line or in a front-load dryer, the shoes they wore to the mill—all of these details that make a story real can be found in obscure places. Find magazines or even family photos from the era, either in libraries or purchase from ebay. Recreate that image. Recreate that feeling. Vacation slides can be treasure troves for the imagination and ebay frequently has lots of these (pun intended) for a few bucks.

3.     Look at the big picture

If you are writing a piece that takes place in California in the late 1960s, sure you have the scene and the events to create your character. But what about what else was going on in the world during this time that can turn a seemingly cliché view into a unique story? By knowing that in 1969, ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet, relayed its first communications between UCLA and Stanford, this could possibly provide a unique angle or a direction for your story. Could your character have been aware of this technology or involved in this, rather than a hippie in Haight Ashbury like every other character during this time, as an example. If you are writing about a soul musician in Chicago in the 1970s, they likely would have known of Afro-pop in Nigeria during this same era. This can deepen your character and take them in directions that are more authentic. So look at world events, connect cultures, connect music and art, and connect through conversations with characters or plot.

I once wrote about a character in my book, Don Drummond: The Genius and Tragedy of the World’s Greatest Trombonist, who sat beneath a large Bilbao tree on the campus of his school when he practiced his trombone. While combing through a magazine on Bilbao trees, I found a photograph of that exact tree. Unfortunately, it came after I had written the chapter, but had I discovered it earlier I could have used this photograph to provide detail to make the writing more vivid.

Actual photographs can help to describe more than mere appearance—they spark the writer’s imagination in a way that is rooted in reality. This photo of Jamaican trombonist Don Drummond helped me to describe my character’s mysterious mind.