Writing Tips and Advice

Three Books Every Writer Should Have

/ kellyfbarr / 3 Comments

WP_20160119_20_02_09_Pro

If you are a writer and you don’t have these three books:  The Emotion Thesaurus:  A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, The Negative Trait Thesaurus:  A Writer’s Guide to  Character Flaws, and The Positive Trait Thesaurus:  A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes all by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, I highly recommend that you get them.

I bought the Emotion Thesaurus almost a year ago and have been using it a lot.  I keep it beside me as I write a novel, and I refer to it often.  I bought The Negative Trait Thesaurus and The Positive Trait Thesaurus with Christmas money and I am so glad I did.  They were my resources for helping to create the three main characters in my new WIP (work in progress).

If you find yourself overusing tags or struggling with how to “show” instead of “tell”, or are having problems creating characters with different personalities and having them express themselves appropriately for their personality, these books can lessen or take away the struggle.

The Negative and Positive Trait Thesaurus give you a personality trait with its definition, similar traits, the possible causes for that trait, behaviors associated with the trait, associated thoughts or emotions, positive and negative aspects, examples from film or literature, how your character can overcome a negative trait, traits in supporting characters that may cause conflict with this character, and challenging scenarios for a specific positive trait.

The Emotion Thesaurus gives you an emotion, its definition, physical signals that show that emotion, internal sensations caused by that emotion, mental responses to that emotion, cues of acute or long-term emotion with other things it could escalate to, as well as cues of suppressed emotion, and a writer’s tip.

I find these books helping me create richer, deeper characters, as well as better written stories that “show, don’t tell” what is going on in the story  — stories that will draw my readers in.

What are some of your favorite writing resources?  Please tell me in the comments, as I am always looking for great writing resources to learn from.  I believe it’s important to never stop learning our craft.

How Do I Know Who to Listen To?

/ kellyfbarr / 2 Comments

Have you ever shared the same piece of your writing with more than one critique group?  If so, what happened?

I shared the first chapter of my last manuscript with three different critique groups, and this was after sharing with a one-on-one consult with a writer/marketing person.  I changed the first chapter three times.

I also became frustrated because I didn’t know if making all those changes was really necessary.  Who were the right people or voices to listen to?  That’s what I asked the head of the local writers’ group that I am a part of, and this is what she told me.  “If the advice sounds like an opinion, ignore it.  This happens when the person reading the piece isn’t a fan of your particular genre or writing style.

If the advice is specific and the advice or changes make sense, and more than one person is offering that same advice, take it into consideration.  Those are probably the people who are really interested in what you are writing and want to help you improve it.”

This has been helpful, valuable advice, and has taken the frustration out of critique groups for me.

Maybe you haven’t shared the same piece of writing with multiple critique groups, but I like to get a lot of input and feedback on my writing because I want a lot of readers to want to read it when it is completed.

What do you think?  How much input and feedback do you seek for your writing?

Where Have the Editors Gone?

/ kellyfbarr / 6 Comments

I am a person with strong opinions, especially about things that I am passionate about.  This is how a conversation I had with a friend from my Thursday writing group became the topic of this post.

We met last night since this week, Thursday is New Year’s Eve, and Susan asked Laura if the story she recently finished will become a series.  That led us to discussing how you can create a series from a story you didn’t mean to be a series, if a publisher/editor ask you to make it a series.

That led to Laura mentioning an author who she enjoys reading, who writes books with good storylines, but she said it is also obvious that the writer isn’t a strong writer and there are often errors such as spelling and grammar even with a traditional publisher, which caused me to ask “Where Have the Editors Gone?”

Everything I have learned is that we have to be strong writers and we need to put out our very best.  We need to do a lot of reading, especially in the genre we want to write, and we should find at least one writers’ group to be a part of, and we should never stop studying the craft of writing.  I’ve heard the stories about hundreds of rejections and the demanding editors.

Yet, so many, even bestselling writers, are getting published and hitting bestseller status, yet they’re writing is lacking.

My question then is “Where have the Editors Gone?”

So, Laura asked an agent about this.  She wanted to know how this is possible.  How are these books not getting edited?

The response she received was that they have already established a following and the books are selling.  It all depends on numbers and as long as you’re making big money, the publishers and editors don’t care whether the writing is good quality.  This agent also mentioned that this is also why you will sometimes read an earlier book by a writer that is better written than later books because often good writers will stop working hard to do their best once they hit big numbers because they don’t have to produce the same quality once they’ve become successful.

To all of this, I say, “WHAT?!  It is ridiculous that today’s readers are accepting poorly written books and then hailing them as “wonderful” in book reviews, blog posts, and on Good Reads.  For goodness sake, can you at least write an honest review and let the author know that you like the story line but think they should improve their writing.  It is possible to do this in a kind way.  I have done it.  Just read this post for an example.  I believe I was honest without being harsh in this post and I even complimented the writer near the end of the post on what I noticed may be her strength.  Just because the many publishing options make it so much easier to publish today, and just because you may build a large following should not be an excuse to not produce your best possible work.

I have always been a bit perfectionistic and would never dream of producing less than my best.  Also, I believe that I am called to strive for excellence.

 

Realistic Ways to Fit Writing in Your Day plus a Brief Update

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment

I was able to attend our last meeting for Lancaster Christian Writers for the year this past Saturday.  Our guest speaker was Lisa Lawmaster Hess and she shared ways that ANYONE can find some time to write most, if not all, days.  She presented the material and a fun way and shared some of her personal experiences.  Basically, the following is the plan and you can use it and tweak it any way you need to:

Ready   —     Set    —    Sprint!

1 hour

1,000 New Words   (These 3 items, above the line are the Gold Standard)

Daily

____________________________

Split Sprints

Set a Timer

Half Sprints

Double Sprints

You may be wondering what all of this means.  Well, so many people tell you that you MUST sit down and write EVERY day.  They say your goal should be 1 hour and/or 1,000 new words a day.  This is a great goal, but it’s not really realistic for most writers who have many other responsibilities in their families and lives or who still have to work a full-time job, outside of writing, in order to pay the bills.

So, look at the ideas below the line:

Split Sprints — This simply means that you do your best to try to get an hour in, but you may not be able to do it all at once,

so you split it up into pieces that work for you, which may be only fifteen minutes four different times

throughout the day.

Set a Timer — This is to help you meet your goal time.  Set your timer for one hour when you sit down to write.  If you get

interrupted and can’t complete the hour all at once, stop the timer, but record the amount of time you did

spend writing.  Then try to get back and finish the hour later, but even if you don’t get the hour finished that

day, you will still see that you have made progress, because you did spend some time writing.

And,  * “Any time you can put into your writing, is better than no time at all.”

Half Sprints — This simply means splitting your hour long sprint of writing time into two half-hour time slots.

Double Sprints — This is a bonus for the times when you sit down for you hour and find that after your hour, you are still

going strong and have had no interruptions, and you manage to put in two hours!

With all of this said, you have to understand that “writing requires intention and planning”.  Therefore, you need to plan some things before you sit down to write:  1) Will you use your entire writing time to work on just one particular project or will you divide it between two or three projects; 2) Will you use your entire writing time to write all new words or will you spend some of your time editing a project; 3) Or will you spend some of your time marketing?

Stopwatch vs. Timer — Use a timer when you have to be done at a specific time; Use a stopwatch when you want open-ended space to just keep track of time spent writing.

I hope you will find all of these wonderful ideas helpful in your writing life as well.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, for the update for anyone who wants to know about me and my health.  I am healing very well from my surgery and feeling quite normal.  I am able to eat anything without getting sick, but still need to be careful with sugar and carb intake because of my diabetes.  I also am trying to be careful because I don’t want to gain back the weight that I have lost, and would like to lose some more.  My doctor still wants me to lose more weight as well.

I am able to live my normal lifestyle again, but must limit the amount of weight I lift to 25 pounds (my surgeon said that needs to be my limit for the next six weeks).  I told my husband I think I’m going to make that a permanent limit for myself because I am getting older and I really don’t want to experience another hernia of any kind.

Thanks to any of you who have been praying for my recovery.  I hope to be posting regularly here again,  now that I am feeling healthy again.

Meet Author, Mike Dellosso

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment
I met Mike a little over a year ago at a one day writers’ conference.  I had the pleasure of having fifteen minutes one-on-one with him to pick his brain about writing.  I found him very kind, helpful and encouraging.  I purchased every book that he had written and for sale in the bookstore that day.  I have to confess that I haven’t read them all, yet, but I love what I have read, and definitely look forward to reading the rest.
Mike has a new book coming out on June 1, 2015 — Centralia.  I suggest that you don’t miss it.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing him for this post, so sit back, relax,  and get to know author, Mike Dellosso.

Me:  What inspired you to become a writer?

Mike:  My brother-in-law’s motorcycle accident. I’d always hated writing. All through school, writing just wasn’t my thing. When Darrell wound up in a coma and near death I turned to the only outlet I could think of: I grabbed a pad of paper and pen and began to write my feelings and emotions, what I was struggling with, fears, doubts, anger. I fell in love with writing then and haven’t stopped since. That was 1998. Darrell is fine now and he and my sister have four kids.

Me:  How did you decide what genre to write?

Mike:  I’ve always enjoyed thrillers, especially with a supernatural twist. Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, X-files . . . fan of it all. So when I started writing it was a natural genre for me to fall into. Also, I kind of cut my Christian fiction teeth on Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker.

Me:  How did you learn to write books?

Mike:  I’m mostly self-taught. I didn’t go to school for writing or anything like that. Once I got into writing I began reading A LOT and reading to learn. I studied the way novelists created characters, wrote dialogue, handled action scenes and pacing and plotting. I read “how-to” books as well, did research online. Anything I could do to learn the craft. And I also wrote A LOT. Practice, practice, practice. I have whole novels that will never see the light of day. They were practice for the real deal.

Me:  How many books have you had published so far?

Mike:  Counting my newest, CENTRALIA, I’ve published eight full-length novels and one novella. I’m working on number nine. My other full-length novels are THE HUNTED, SCREAM, DARLINGTON WOODS, DARKNESS FOLLOWS, FRANTIC, FEARLESS, and A THOUSAND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS (written as Michael King). The novella is REARVIEW, a part of the 7 HOURS series.

Me:  How long does it take you to complete a book?

Mike:  Generally speaking, the first draft takes me about four to five months, then there’s a month or so of subsequent drafts. All in all, it’s a good six to seven months. And when I’m really going I write seven days a week.

Me:  Do you write everyday, and if so, for how many hours or do you set a word quota to reach each day?

Mike:  When I’m working on the first draft and life isn’t all that crazy, yes, I write everyday, usually about an hour a day. If I can get a day where I can get more than an hour I jump at the opportunity.

Me:  Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Mike:  Both, I guess. I begin with a basic plot in my mind and I know where I’m going to start and where I’m going to finish. Then, I work one to two chapters ahead in my mind so I can keep the plotting going that way. I don’t outline,  though, and don’t do extensive plotting. It’s basically whatever I can think about and remember from day to day.

Me:  Have you ever had writer’s block, and if you have, how did you get through it?

Mike:  Yes. Some say there’s no such thing as writer’s block but it is real. I know that beast firsthand. When life is hectic and you have a full-time job and family stuff and church stuff and “other” stuff going on it’s tough sometimes to focus on the book. Distractions work their way in and you lose touch with the story, you lose your groove or inspiration. Usually, I let things rest. I release the pressure of having to write, of having to keep up with my schedule and just separate myself some from the story. That usually does the job.

Me:  Have your ever participated in NaNoWriMo?  Why or why not?  If you have, what did you think of the experience?

Mike:  I haven’t. I don’t need that kind of pressure. I have enough pressure as it is and need to write with as little as possible. I really don’t want to invite more pressure.

Me:  Where did you get the idea to create the Darlington Society where you connect with your readers and allow them to be participants in your work?  Do you find this effective?

Mike:  First, yes, it’s very effective. For them and me. The Society has become an entity in and of itself, so much more than I’d ever envisioned.The folks in it are great, they’re interactive, they care about each other. They’ve blessed me in so many ways I can’t even count them all. I came up with the idea as a way of getting a core group of readers to support my efforts and lift me up in prayer. They’ve done so much more than that. They’re really incredible.

Me:  Have you ever done book signings and, if so, has it been a positive experience?

Mike:  For me, not a very positive experience. I’ve found that multi-author signings work a lot better than solo ones. And I’ve also learned to take my wife and one or more of my daughters. Family relaxes things and my wife is very outgoing and extroverted. She helps draw people in. Solo signings are lessons in humility. I don’t have a household name so people usually steer clear of my table and try their best to avoid eye contact. I spend a lot of time counting passersby.

Me:  What do you consider the most important writing resource?

Mike:  A writer’s mind and the discipline of observation. Seriously. Imagination is lacking these days. We have so much technology at our fingertips that there’s no need for imagination. But imagination is like a muscle, the more you work it the better and stronger it gets. And observation is a discipline every writer needs to hone. We’re so busy, so distracted, so preoccupied we don’t see what’s going on around us. Fiction writers say “tell the truth” and the truth is right there in front of us everyday. We just need to see it.

Me:  Do you continue to study the writing craft?

Mike:  I do by reading and studying how the masters do it, those writers who write what I write and do it well. I also read other genres and study how they do it. Learning from those who do it well is the best way to learn.

Me:  What would you consider the most important advice that you could offer to new writers?

Mike:  Write and don’t give up. Read great writers. Be aware of your surroundings and observe. But mostly, don’t give up. 100% of published authors didn’t give up. That’s a fact.

Me:  Now, changing the focus from writing, to your upcoming new release, Centralia.  Where did you get the idea for Centralia?

Mike:  I read about this town called Centralia in Pennsylvania. It’s about three hours from my home. It was a coal mining town and back in the sixties one of the coal veins ignited. It’s been burning ever since and could continue burning for the next 200 years. The government has spent millions trying to extinguish the fire and finally gave up and evacuated the town. The last holdout residents left just a couple years ago. The ground is cracked in places and spews sulfuric gases. Roads are cracked and split. The town is literally falling apart. Many of the buildings have been razed by a few still stand. The government re-routed the main highway around the town and is pretty much letting nature reclaim it. I thought, what a great setting for a story. I usually begin my story ideas with a character but this one started with a setting.

Me:  Did you have to study a lot of fight scenes with and without weapons in order to accurately portray the fight scenes in Centralia?

Mike:  I love action and military movies and drew  much from them for the choreography of the fight scenes. And research, research, research.

Me:  You included quite a few interesting minor characters in Centralia, some of whom you gave quite a bit of detail about.  One of them was named Ronnie and I was really intrigued by him.  Is there any chance you may include him as a main character in another book?

Mike:  No. My secondary characters are just that, secondary. I like to give them more detail, though, because “a person’s a person no matter how small.” They’re people, too, with lives and stories to tell. In my stories, everyone’s important.

Me:  There’s been a rumor that there may be a sequel?  Would you care to comment on that?

Mike:  Yes, KILL DEVIL, will release in 2016. It’s pretty wild and that’s all I’m saying

9781414390413_p0_v1_s260x420 Centralia

Centralia is available for preorder at Amazon.com.  Order your copy today!

Are You and Outliner or a “Pantser”?

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment

Are you an outliner or a “pantser”?  What is a “pantser”, you may be wondering?  Well, a “pantser” is someone who writes “by the seat of your pants”.  In other words, they sit down and just start the story with very little planning or without developing any kind of written road map to follow.  Which one are you?

I’ve always been a “pantser” myself.  Everything I have written over the years has been done by the seat of my pants.  And, guess where all of those stories are — in a box — most of which are unfinished and all are unpublished.  Being my toughest critic, I didn’t think any of the finished ones were worthy of submission for publication, and the ones that are unfinished, are unfinished because I lost my way and the plot line faltered.  As a very creative person, I do not want to do anything that would stifle my creativity, as that is so important in writing.  Therefore, I refused to do an outline.  I felt it was too businesslike, too structured and too formal and, therefore, it would kill my creativity and the story would fail a-gain.

Then I read Outlining Your Novel by K.M. Weiland, available at Amazon.com both in paperback and Kindle.  I have the Kindle edition and I devoured that book, while taking copious notes.  It was a wonderful tool to help with my writing as it showed me that outlining doesn’t have to be the formal Roman numerals and lower case letters that we learned in high school. You can think outside of the box and create outlines that encourage your creativity!

K.M. Weiland suggested, for visual learners (which I am one), to use colored note cards pinned to a bulletin board instead of putting your outline on your computer, or you may want to use the extensive sketching and planning method. She suggests that we never be afraid to experiment. She discussed “Different Types of Outlines”: The standard “list” outline, Mind maps, Pictorial outlines, the map, and the Perfect Review.

The other great thing about this book is that she does a brief interview of different authors at the end of each chapter, asking them about their outlining process and what they consider the greatest benefit and the biggest pitfall of outlining. She also asks them about “pantsing.

I learned the true value of the tool of outlining and how truly helpful it is to writing a good story with a tight plotline. Through this book, I also learned the importance of spending a lot of time on the planning of your story and the value of lots of pre-writing for your story — things like Character Questionaires for main characters, the importance of knowing your main character(s)’ back story, brainstorming, free writing, etc.

I highly recommend this book, and I can say that, after reading this book, I highly recommend outlining. I am currently working on my outline and character questionaires and I haven’t hit writer’s block or a dead end yet. I believe using some, not necessarily all, of the things K.M. Weiland writes about in this book, will end or, at least seriously decrease, bouts of writer’s block.

Give an outline a try!

Did You Know that Your Characters are Important in Determining Setting?

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

At the last Writers’ Group meeting, the author who writes under the names of “Shelly Bates” and “Shelley Adina” taught: People interact with their settings.  Therefore knowing your characters helps to determine their “world”/setting.   You should ask yourself: “What do I need to support my character’s growth?”  The culture of your location impacts sports, social life, what defines “in” and “out”.   You need to know about your character’s home because home reveals something about him/her as well as a lack in him/her and his/her society.  Otherwise, there’s no reason to leave. You need to determine your “Adventure World”:  Where does the story happen?   Setting can reflect internal qualities of the character.  Setting can reflect change in the character.  Setting can foreshadow change. Setting can create the challenge to change the character. Setting and interactions with it are filtered through the lenses of the character’s senses and knowledge. Your character influences your readers’ perception.  Details are filtered through the character’s senses and experiences.  This gives your readers the same sensations and experiences.  Add details as the character notices them. “The fantastic becomes normal when your character takes it for granted.” Use setting to highlight conflict, secondary characters, dialog.  Setting is one way to establish mood.  You can use weather, objects, light or shadows or darkness, and space. One great idea she mentioned, especially if you want to use a real place or simply model a made up place after a real place, it can be very helpful to have a photo of the place to refer to as you write.

What I Need to Work On

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment

Saturday, I attended my Writers’ Group.  We had another author as a guest speaker.  She writes Amish fiction as well as something called “Steam Punk” fiction.  I had never heard of Steam Punk fiction before but she even came dressed in Steam Punk apparel because upon leaving our Writers’ Group, she had a book signing for her Steam Punk fiction at a nearby historical railroad.

Her Amish fiction books are written under the name of Adina Senft and her Steam Punk books are written under the name of Shelley Adina.  She talked about several of her books and I was quite intrigued by the ones labeled as “Steam Punk” fiction.  I was disappointed that she didn’t have any books to sign and sell to our group due to time constraints, and probably because she needed what she brought for the book signing event.  Therefore, I will have to look for her books online.

She spoke to us about “World Building Through Your Character’s Eyes” (setting).  It was a wonderful workshop, though she went through it quite quickly because she normally takes three hours to teach it, and, for us, she had to squeeze it into one hour and forty minutes.  She had notes on an overhead, so I scribbled furiously in my notebook to be sure to catch the most important points, and, thankfully, she handed out a sheet with some of the more important points on it.  I have come to truly enjoy and value attending this writer’s group.  

I am learning so much, which brings me to the reason for the title of this post.  I stepped out of my comfort zone and shared two scenes of a story I am working on with a critique group, and they were very kind.  One lady blessed me by telling me all of the things she felt were very strong in my writing.  Those who told me my weakness, said, “point of view”.  I have been told this once before but this time it baffled me because I thought I was doing well with the point of view in this story.  In the past, with the story that I had been told had a confusing point of view, the person explaining it pointed it out to me and it was perfectly clear what I had done wrong.  I have been very careful not to do that with this story, and the thing they pointed out as the point of view issue seems strange to me because I am only sharing my main character’s thoughts and feelings.  The example they pointed to had a sentence or two of my main character’s thoughts before my secondary main character told her one of the stories of his life, and all she did was listen.

Do any of you have problems with point of view and how do you resolve it?  I will be researching point of view now to see if I can understand it better.  If you have any tips or advice on point of view, please leave a comment.  I would greatly appreciate it.

Are Writing Exercises Helpful?

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

I used to think that using writing prompts or exercises was like plagiarizing or cheating because you begin with someone else’s idea and just build on it.  But I have recently found that many writers use writing practice as warm-up or as a help to get ideas for a story flowing.  Recently, I have begun to read:

In this book, Josip Novakovich offers many writing exercises and he suggests that you connect them, to take your best shots and connect them in a collage or use them as seeds for fiction.  The exercises vary from very narrow to very broad and they build upon each other.  He explains that these exercises can be used to develop a story, to grow a story or to support a story in progress.  I am finding this book quite interesting and helpful.

Another great source for writing exercises is The Write Practice website.  Not only does this site offer writing practice prompts and ideas, but it also offers a wealth of writing advice.  You can also simply google “writing practice” or “writing prompts”, and their are other books that offer writing practice and prompts as well.

As I am still kind of stuck in a bit of a writing slump, trying to decide what genre to write and building a good story idea, I am finding the writing practices helpful because between them and this blog, at least I am writing.  I may post some of my writing practices here if I feel they are worth sharing.

A Great Resource

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

I have just discovered a Christian author that I have never heard of before.  I was looking on Amazon.com for books on the writing craft and discovered K.M. Weiland.  She has two books out on the writing craft that I will be purchasing as soon as possible.  She also has a blog that she writes to help other writers:  Helping Writers Become Authors.  She has a current opportunity to download a PDF entitled “Crafting Unforgettable Characters” if you sign up to follow her blog and receive her e-newsletter.  I signed up and downloaded and printed the PDF and can’t wait to dig into it.

K.M. Weiland writes historical and speculative fiction.  She has several books published already, including a couple of short stories, and she has two books in the works.  On her blog, she also offers webinars.

Check out her website, her facebook and twitter pages.  You won’t be disappointed.