Dear readers,

It’s been such a busy month! My new book, It Happened On Night, came out on November 1, and the reviews have been fantastic!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of my writing at a café not far from my apartment. There’s no free WiFi (it’s a per hour service) but not being attached to the internet while I’m writing keeps me from getting distracted by things like Twitter and email. PLUS I’ve been doing a lot of research for a third book, which is set in a coffee shop. It’s win-win-win all the way around.

People often want to know how I incorporate my research into my writing without making it seem clunky or distracting. While writing It Happened One Night, I was fascinated with wildflowers—the folklore about them, how they got their names, the special characteristics that each flower has. I knew I wanted to write a book set at a wildflower farm, so I spent a lot of time reading about flowers.

As a result, each chapter of the book begins with a little bit of trivia about a different flower—and the trivia is actually a symbol for the action. For example, the book’s “dark moment” takes place in December. At first I thought—“Oh no. What wildflower am I going to be able to use for the winter months?”

But as it turns out, the flowers made it easy for me. There’s a summertime roadside plant, called common mullein, that looks a lot like a thick, tall rod or pipe. The ancient Romans used to dry out the plant, then soak it in fat and store it. During the dark nights of the year, they could use mullein as a torch to light the way. My hero and heroine, in their dark moment, find their own bit of light to keep them going.

Anyway, it was a blast researching wildflowers and now I’m having just as much fun learning about the history of coffee—which is wildly over the top and fascinating.

SO TELL ME: What do you like learning about: food, history, science, culture? One random winner will receive a free copy of my first book Simple Wishes.

Best,

Lisa Dale

www.LisaDaleBooks.com

A lifelong bookworm, Lisa Dale is a firm believer that there are few things in life better than curling up with a novel and a cup of tea. Lisa Dale grew up in rural Northwestern New Jersey before attending McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. She worked briefly in publishing before going back to school to get an MFA in fiction at Fairleigh Dickinson University. A nominee for Best New American Voices and the Pushcart Prize, her writing appears in many literary magazines, such as Fourth Genre, Flyway, Fugue, Sou’wester, The Southeast Review, The MacGuffin, Many Mountains Moving, and more.

Bookmark This

Every person who is familiar with stories whether they are movies, comics, or books know of the antagonist.  The antagonist is usually the “bad guy” in the story, and without the antagonist there is no story.

As a writer, it is important to never forget this important line about antagonists, “They are people too”.  This is probably the most important maxim that a writer must live by other than “show don’t tell”.

I put together a list of things to keep in mind while creating the most crucial character in your book.

1) Who is the antagonist?
Like building any other character, one must create a detailed history of the antagonist.  The financial background, family life, favorite food, etc.

2) Why is the antagonist antagonizing the protagonist?
What is the ulterior motive?  Did the “good guy” in the novel make fun of the “bad guy” in high school?  People don’t just do things, there is a logic behind everything that is done, whether it is sound or not.

3) Give the antagonist a weakness.
No one wants to read a book that the antagonist completely overwhelms the protagonist, making no hope or point in the plot.

4)  Make sure that the antagonist has a soft-spot
Does the antagonist have a thing for fluffy bunnies?  Make sure to keep in mind that the antagonist is a person.

5) Is there a chance at redemption for the antagonist?
As a writer, it is imperative to be clear of the antagonist’s strengths, failings, and heart.  Does the antagonist deserve redemption?  Remember that this will not be in the eyes of you as a writer, but in the eyes of the protagonist.  The protagonist has the power to offer the “bad guy” a second chance if the “good guy” is really good.  Of course, the ball will then be in the “bad guy’s” court, whether he or she will accept the offer.

6) Don’t be afraid to let the tables turn
Let the story run its course when writing without cramping the style of the characters.  They may shock you with what they have done in their past and will do with their new experiences.  Be open to having a role reversal or having the reader understand the antagonist.

I think the most important thing in creating an effective antagonist is remembering that they are not just objects that make life more difficult for the protagonist, the antagonist is a real person.

Ariel Ceylan

http://ceylanthewriter.wordpress.com/

Ariel is a seventeen-year-old girl, a senior in high school, that has published her first book on September 24^th, 2009 through Xlibris, a self-publishing company.

Along with writing, Ariel Ceylan hopes to become a psychiatrist or a neurosurgeon.

Ariel Ceylan is a Girl Scout, a Gold Awardee, a People to People Student Ambassador, and a member of Girls’ State.  In her spare time, she loves to write, draw, sew, and create computer programs.

Her book is entitled The Tales of Whithith: The Assignment.  This book is about Zephyr, a Sorcerer-in-Training who is given an assignment about the mythology of the world he lives in.  Zili is a Warrior who is on a mission to build a watcher-group to monitor the worlds in case anything should happen to them…

Her book is available on Barnes and Noble, online as well as on Xlibris’ website.

Bookmark This

Let’s talk about inevitability.  Okay, let’s talk about it in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a funeral director.  Inevitability:  When it comes to writing, it’s a good thing.  You want it.  But it’s not always as easy to get as the name implies.

When the events and actions in your story are inevitable, they are exactly what should happen – what would happen – given your setting and characters.  They are consistent with all previous events and all character motivations.  They flow naturally from what has come before.  They are the opposite of contrived.  This enables readers to stay immersed in the story.

The funny thing about inevitability is that, when done well, it’s nearly invisible.  When it’s done poorly, people notice.  (It’s a bit like spelling in that way.)  Readers pull back from the story, beginning to think in words like unrealistic and illogical.  They wonder how likely it is for a person to recover from a twenty-story fall but for remaining blind in one eye.  They ask themselves how a mage with the power of flight could be stranded on an island.

The above are over-the-top examples, but this is the basic breakdown of events:  A leads to B.  If someone asks why A leads to B, there is usually a “plot” answer, which tends to be either, “Because B needs to happen,” or, “Because B would be really dramatic/funny/thematically relevant.”  But there had better be an in-story answer, too.  Otherwise, you may have one of the following problems.

Reality Check
Here, A is an event that causes B, another event, such that B is independent of character motivation.  This eliminates one potentially tricky element, but sometimes your plot (or super-cool action sequence, or what-have-you) falls prey to that dastardly scourge, realism.

Let me point out right now that I write fantasy.  Obviously, when I say realism, I don’t mean that readers will drop your story because werewolves “don’t make sense” or “wouldn’t really happen.”  A better term in this case might be consistency, but that’s because consistency defines realism within your fictional world.

Whether you’re talking about something that happens in real life or something fantastical, it needs to obey the rules of your world.  If you’re writing realistic fiction, those are the rules of the real world, making it that much easier to research.

On to the example.  Our A is a twenty-story fall; our B is the loss of vision in one eye.  Likely?  Not especially.  While it is a writer’s prerogative to have fun with unusual cases, you do have to make sure that you’re not talking impossible cases.  Luckily, the fix is pretty straightforward.  Either change A or change B.  Figure out which is more important to the plot.  Either Ed has got to take the plunge, even if that means more serious consequences (like, um, death), or Ed needs to be blind in one eye, in which case you might start thinking more along the lines of “tragic running-with-scissors accident.”

Note:  Screenwriters get some leeway on reality because it’s easier to make people suspend their disbelief when the thing that shouldn’t be happening is happening, visibly, right in front of them.  That, and, when you’ve got a killer special-effects budget, “It would be awesome!” tends to trump, “But it breaks all the laws of physics!”

Once More, with Motivation!
Here, A is a situation, and B is a character’s reaction.  Sometimes, your plot begs for a reaction that simply makes no sense – it’s out of character, or sometimes just plain dumb.  There’s little more frustrating to a reader than seeing a character do something obviously meant to move the plot.  I myself have a special angry face for characters who are unnecessarily helpless, not doing everything in their power to prevent or fix things that they really want prevented or fixed.

Motivation is often more complicated than regular reality.  To know whether an action is in character, you have to keep in mind backstory, as well as what the character knows and is feeling when s/he takes the action.  Remember that your reader, too, should know about whatever is justifying the action.  Since A here is a whole situation, it encompasses both an event that affects a character and the internal world of that character.

Example time!  Let’s call our mage Milly.  Milly Mage*.  Milly is bad news.  She once tried to conquer the world, but was stopped and marooned on an island.  After ten years, she escapes by stowing away on an unlucky ship whose captain didn’t know enough to avoid the dot on the map labeled, Island of Milly, Who Will Totally Kill You.  She then goes on a rampage, destroying cities, wreaking dire vengeance, etc.  Our protagonist finds her, initiating an epic battle in which Milly takes to the air using her magic before Patty Protagonist delivers the final smackdown.

Here, A is a situation in which Milly is stranded on an island, given that we also know that Milly is a vengeful mage with the power of flight.   B is Milly’s reaction – not leaving the island until ten years later, when she has the opportunity to stow away on a ship.

Dealing with motivations puts a twist on the change-A-or-change-B solution.  The choice is now, “change the character or change the plot.”  Some people would rather let their characters run free and see what happens, even if the result is not the B they expected – maybe Milly escapes the island right away, or else decides to build an evil base there.  Others will adjust A by tinkering with Milly’s backstory or abilities – maybe she can’t fly long without a rest, or maybe she actually likes living on the island until the ship arrives with sailors who cut down her favorite palm tree.   A and B do not perfectly parallel character and plot – for example, you can change the initial situation by tweaking plot.  If you made it clear that Milly acquired her ability to fly after her escape, then that changes A as we’ve determined it above.

In my examples here, the flaws are obvious.  You know that you don’t want to mangle the laws of nature (whatever they are in your world), or make your characters act in ways that don’t make sense.  Sometimes, though, these things are subtle.  You want every little occurrence in your story to follow smoothly, to have readers saying, “Of course!”

“Inevitability” is a term I got from my parents, who are both visual artists.  They use the word to describe a look that they hope to achieve in their work – a look that makes people accept the work as a whole, that says, “This is the way it is.”  For writers, it’s a quality that means readers don’t have to worry about what should happen or what could happen, and are free to trust your story as what does happen.

*Or Annie Antagonist, if you like that better.  Ed, from the first example, is properly named Edward Expendable.

Anica Lewis
Anica writes YA fantasy, though occasionally straying as far as nonfiction.  She has published several short stories, mostly humorous fantasy.  Her shingle hangs http://www.anicalewis.com and you can read one of them http://www.spindlejournal.org/artists/alewis.html

Bookmark This

It doesn’t matter if you have the most unique and interesting story on the planet if your readers can’t connect with your characters. Think of the books you love most; the ones you gently stroke as you walk past your bookshelf. As I write this, one book in particular comes to mind – I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. When I finished reading this rather lengthy novel I felt as though I had lost a good friend. I lied awake missing him like he had just gone off to war and I might never see him again.

The character I’m referring to is a middle-aged man with anger issues and I’m… well, none of those things. It was the realness of this character; the raw truth of his story and the often brutally honest, sometimes vulgar soaked thoughts that brought his story to life and into my world, permanently etched into my memory. This effect is a major goal, but not one that’s always achieved so easily.

When I’m having trouble getting into the minds of my characters or struggling to picture them in my story, I go people watching. This is one of the most fun and enlightening writing exercises you can do. If you’re just starting out go anywhere, a coffee shop, a park or just take a ride on the bus. If you already have a character outline think of the places your character would go and the type of people they would associate with and go to those places, watch those people.

Wherever I go I notice little things about people that can lift characters off the page. I used to take the subway to work and somehow always ended up a few seats behind this guy with a buzzed haircut who always kept a short pencil behind his ear. He never carried anything with him except a black lunchbox and once or twice a trip he would take the pencil from behind his ear and twirl it between his fingers then put it right back. Every day I would try to figure out what this guy did for a living – I was intrigued. What an odd character I would think.

There are people who dance as they walk; the ones you always assume to be listening to music, but guess what – lots of them aren’t! Some people wear spandex when it’s obvious they’ve never worked out a day in their life; some feel that it’s perfectly acceptable to let a pregnant woman stand while they sit comfortably in handicapped seating. Some shake their foot out of nervousness while others read books with covers on them so no one can see what they’re reading (and yes this drives me crazy because I always want to know what people are reading!).

Sometimes a simple hand gesture or tattoo on someone’s shoulder can spark a whole new story idea or create a character that your story is missing.

I just read an interview with Jennifer Aniston in the newest issue of Elle and she says when she thinks about a character she thinks about the shoes. “What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I’m going to put on a dress for a role – I don’t care if it’s the hardest dress to put on – I have to put the shoes on first”, she said.

This can be a great place to start with people watching. Find your character’s shoes and then look up to find your character.

Everywhere you go there will be interesting people in varying shapes, sizes and personalities, and by simply sitting back and watching sometimes, you can give your characters those true human elements that make people feel like they know them, relate to them and miss them once they’re gone.

Shelby Rachel

Shelby graduated with a degree in Media Studies and a diploma in Journalism from University of Guelph-Humber. She was trained in broadcast, radio and print media, and completed her internship as an Editorial Assistant at Outpost Magazine in Toronto.

As an Editorial Assistant she was responsible for copyediting, fact-checking, rewriting and writing small articles. Shelby had a number of articles published in Outpost and once her internship was finished she stayed on as a freelancer for a few issues.

She has taken on freelancing as a fulltime career and loves what she does more than she ever thought possible. The majority of her work has been ghostwriting blogs and articles for companies both small and large for the purpose of driving traffic to their business websites and expanding their clientele.

http://shelbyrachel.com/

Bookmark This

By Tamesha S. Hawkins

Writing is breath…

Catharsis wrapped in self-reliance and possibility

Write because it doesn’t make since not to

It is adjuvant in the development in personhood

Without the written word

The body lies on a bed of discontentment

Rigor mortis in thoughts

Blood siphoned

The ink that kept everything flowing

Without the lingual quill

Nothing moves forward

Writing is breath…

Because when you give a girl a pen

You make an honest woman out of her

Breathing honesty with every page

Creating the mogul, maverick, the majestic

Many solutions

Many powers

Many things needed to keep consciousness spinning on its axis

Writing is breath…

The pulse for the beating heart

The tissues used to coddle muscles

Swaddle the capillaries not to be vain

Throbbing with creativity

Writing births new ideas

New beginnings

New essences from scratch

Without it

Nothing moves forward!

Tamesha S. Hawkins is an author, actor, vocalist and PBGP Slam Champion for 2009. She has written “Sugar Lumps and Black Eye Blues” (2007), “Confectionately Yours” (2009) and is the creator of “Cipher This” for PMZ Magazine!. A lover of the arts, Tamesha will continue to expand her knowledge by producing her first play “Beginning with Molasses” then she will be traveling to Japan to perform poetry. For more information: www.myspace.com/tameshashawkins or become a FAN on Facebook!

Bookmark This