Angela Ackerman's Blog: Writers Helping Writers, page 95

Occupation Thesaurus Entry: Paralegal

Jobs are as important for our characters as they are for real people. A character’s career might be their dream job or one they’ve chosen due to necessity. In your story, they might be trying to get that job or are already working in the field. Whatever the situation, as with any defining aspect for your character, you’ll need to do the proper research to be able to write that career knowledgeably.

Enter the Occupation Thesaurus. Here, you’ll find important background information on a variety of career options for your character. In addition to the basics, we’ll also be covering related info that relates to character arc and story planning, such as sources of conflict (internal and external) and how the job might impact basic human needs, thereby affecting the character’s goals. It’s our hope that this thesaurus will share some of your research burden while also giving you ideas about your character’s occupation that you might not have considered before.

Occupation: Paralegal

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Overview: A paralegal is a qualified person retained by a lawyer to perform a variety of research and preparation tasks for legal cases. Duties might include investigating areas of the law that pertain to the case, working directly with the client to understand and catalogue the case’s facts, booking and organizing meetings, researching and helping to interview witnesses, preparing legal document drafts (but not signing them) for the lawyer, organizing witnesses and evidence, taking notes, preparing and filing documents in a timely manner, acting as a liaison with court officials and other parties tied to the case, managing deadlines, and assisting the lawyer in whatever way is needed. Paralegals are prohibited from any tasks that constitute “practicing law” (such as accepting cases, offering legal advice, representing a client, or determining fees).

Necessary Training: Paralegals can take a two-year certificate course, but they may also have a degree. Because of the wide range of duties they perform, most paralegals will have strong computer, writing (and grammar), organization, and communication skills, and have some training in client interactions so they can present a professional face on behalf of the agency. They are incredibly detail-oriented and organized, since even the smallest mistake can be disastrous for a case.

Useful Skills, Talents, or Abilities: A knack for languages, blending in, charm, enhanced hearing, exceptional memory, gaining the trust of others, good listening skills, multitasking, photographic memory, reading people, strategic thinking, writing

Helpful Character Traits:

POSITIVE: Adaptable, alert, analytical, confident, cooperative, decisive, diplomatic, disciplined, discreet, efficient, empathetic, focused, honest, honorable, humble, independent, industrious, intelligent, loyal, meticulous, obedient, organized, persistent, persuasive, proactive, professional, protective, resourceful, responsible

NEGATIVE: obsessive, perfectionist, stubborn, workaholic

Sources of Friction: Having too large of a workload because the firm refuses to hire more help, being underappreciated for one’s work, being mistreated by big personalities and fragile egos when things don’t go well, working with a disorganized lawyer (creating a rush for the paralegal to research, collect any data and experts, and file documents on time), long hours, working weekends, problems at home with one’s family who resent the time the character gives to work, having to work around red tape, being frustrated by the strategy because one has so much knowledge of the case but not being in a position to influence it, moral conflict when working for a lawyer who has flexible ethics, misfiling and errors that happen on the court’s side, resulting on delays and lost time as one must resubmit

People They Might Interact With: lawyers, other paralegals, legal assistants and secretaries, bailiffs, judges, filing clerks, court reporters, criminals, expert witnesses (detectives, psychologists, accountants) as well as anyone else with intimate knowledge of the case, delivery personnel, librarians at the law library, other staff members at the law firm, family members of one’s client

How This Occupation Might Impact One’s Basic Needs:

Self-Actualization: A paralegal is limited in what she may do despite the growing knowledge, experience, and skills he or she gains. This lack of a career path may squash the character’s feeling of self-actualization, even if they love what they do because they are part of the judicial system and are making a difference in people’s livesEsteem and Recognition: It is not uncommon for paralegals to not be recognized properly for the tremendous (and important) work they do, which can lead to feelings of lower self-worthLove and Belonging: Relationships may suffer because a paralegal is very much at the beck and call of the lawyers she or he works for, meaning that things get done on the lawyer’s schedule, not the paralegal’s. Not being around for important life events (anniversaries, a weekend soccer game, etc.) or having little energy when one is around can cause relationship strain

Common Work-Related Settings: airport, big city street, boardroom, elevator, juvenile detention center, library, office cubicle, taxi, therapist’s office

Visit the other Occupations in our collection HERE.

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Saggy Middle? Use Conflict to Nip and Tuck It

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When I get a new story idea, I fly into the start of it with as much gusto as a kid in a candy store. I’m filled with the buzz of ‘newness’ and the anticipation of where the story might take me. But 30 – 40,000 words in, the honeymoon is over. I hate my characters, my characters loathe me, we’re bickering worse than siblings, and my earlier projectile vomiting of words has ground to barely a hiccup.

I’ve hit the saggy middle.

What Is Saggy Middle?

There are lots of ways to recognize that your middle has gotten a little droopy. Some of the common indicators:

A lack of tension or paceYour subplots are more interesting than your main plot (or you’re writing more about them than your main plot)There’s something wrong with a subplotA lack of actionHuge information dumps or explanations

If you recognize one or more of these red flags in a particular scene and you’re beginning to suspect that it might need reworking, ask yourself some these questions: 

Is this scene/chapter essential to the story?Does it push your character towards their goal?Does it add conflict?Does it reveal something important?

If the majority of your answers are no, then it’s time to trim the fat.

Getting Rid of the Saggy Middle

There are dozens of ways to handle this. Here are a few top tips.

Add a Mini-Climax. Your novel doesn’t have to have just one large climax at the end. You can tighten your novel’s middle by having a smaller climax (or climaxes) earlier on.

Conclude a Subplot. Having too many subplots can confuse the reader. If you’ve opened lots of threads in your first act, tie one or two of them up. This gives your reader closure and drives them towards the ending.

Open a Subplot. On the flip side, you could open up a new thread. This helps to create questions your reader wants answered and therefore pushes them through your story. It also helps with foreshadowing if the new threads will continue into your sequels.

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Kill Someone. Pull a George R.R. Martin and kill off a few characters. It adds shock value and sets off a few fireworks in your character’s lives.

Add a New Character. Bringing fresh meat into your story always creates new tension because it puts established character relationships into a state of flux.

Add a Source of Conflict. This is my favorite method of de-sagging. Adding a source of conflict in the middle of your story will up the pace and tension and give your characters new things to focus on. It also creates action, mystery, and questions that your reader will want to have answered.

Types of Conflict

Generally speaking, there are three types of conflict you could add to your story:

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Macro Conflict. This is large-scale conflict—world wars or society-against-the-hero type stuff. Stories with this kind of conflict often have two antagonists – the villainous character and a more intangible ‘societal’ villain. This type of conflict could cross states, history, natural forces, the law, races, and more. This happens in The Hunger Games, with the intangible Capitol being embodied by President Snow. For another example of this kind of conflict, check out The Day of The Triffids by John Wyndham.

Micro Conflict.This is a more interpersonal form of conflict, such as the battles the hero might have with other people and characters. Good examples include tiffs between lovers, friends, family, colleagues, and enemies.

In Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, the whole plot is a micro conflict. Will, the leading male, has a motorcycle accident that paralyzes him and leaves him wanting to end his life. But Lou comes into his life, falls in love with him, and tries to change his mind, and their desires come into direct conflict. 

Inner Conflict. This is the most acute type of conflict as it’s internal to the hero. It happens when the hero battles personal flaws, emotions, and values. Though it’s insular, it creates the most emotional conflict for the reader because they’re viewing the story through the hero’s eyes. If your hero hurts, so does your reader. 

Ned Stark from Game of Thronesis rife with inner conflict. He has to choose between two values—his loyalty or his wisdom—in order to save his life. In the same series, Theon Greyjoy is torn between his blood family and the adopted family that brought him up. 

No novel should have a saggy middle. While most authors naturally grow tired half way through a project (because, let’s face it, writing a novel is a marathon) there’s no reason for your plot to suffer. There’s a plethora of ways you can snip, trim, and tighten that sag. But if I were you, I’d torture your characters and add a little conflict. 

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Sacha Black is the author of the #1 bestseller for writers, 13 Steps To Evil – How To Craft A Superbad Villain. Her blog for writers, www.sachablack.co.uk,
is home to regular writing, marketing and publishing advice sprinkled
with dark humour and the occasional bad word. In addition to craft
books, she writes YA fantasy. The first two books in her Eden East
Novel: Keepers and Victor, are out now.
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram |  Goodreads

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Story Structure in a Flash

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Story structure can sometimes be difficult to wrap our minds around; there are so many different structures, all with different terminology and slightly different meanings. But today I’m going to hopefully simplify things by covering how I view story structure—in under 900 words. So let’s get straight to it. 

The Beginning

(Prologue):Not every story needs a prologue, but some do, and others work either way. I personally believe that prologues are largely misunderstood (and therefore, writers are often misguided on how to do them), but if you look at all successful prologues, their primary function is to make promises to the audience.

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Hook: The opening of the story should have a hook (or really, several). Hooks work by getting the audience to look forward to a later part of the story. Sometimes the later part is the next sentence. Other times it’s chapters away. Often this is done, though, by getting the audience to hope or fear something specific could happen.

Setup: This is the part of the story that grounds the audience in the here and now. Who is this story about? When does it take place? Where does it take place? It usually establishes a sense of normalcy. It may introduce themes and character arcs as well. Often, the protagonist is alone or alienated in some way.

Note: In some stories, these three elements may largely overlap, and that’s fine.

Plot Point One: This is sometimes called the “inciting incident.” At plot point one, something happens in the story that critically changes the protagonist’s direction and disrupts the established normal. Peter Parker gets bit by a spider. Harry finds out he’s a wizard. Alice goes to Wonderland. The protagonist will reactto that change all the way until the midpoint. 

The Middle



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Pinch Point One: Between plot point one and the midpoint, when your character is reacting, there will typically be a pinch point. A pinch point is a moment that shows the antagonist as a truly formidable foe—someone or somethingthat the audience realizes will be very difficult for the protagonist to defeat. Worth noting is that if the antagonist hasn’t yet been introduced, this is the introduction. This moment will escalate the stakes.

Midpoint:At the midpoint, new information enters the story that changes the context. It moves the protagonist from reactionto action. He stops being a wanderer and turns into a warrior, trying to fight back and attack, usually with a clearer goal or a more refined strategy. In other words, he is now more empowered than before.

Pinch Point Two: Between the midpoint and plot point two, there will be another pinch point. This is simply a moment or a scene in the story that shows that the antagonist is even more formidable, and that he, she, or it will be even more difficult to defeat than we’d thought. 

Plot Point Two: Plot point two is typically made up of two parts: The “all is lost” lull and the “final piece to the puzzle” epiphany. There will likely be a moment where it appears to the protagonist that “all is lost” and they can’t defeat the antagonist. But they’ll have an epiphany (often related to character arc and theme) that leads them to the “final chase.” In some stories, this may seem to happen during the climax itself. 

The End



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Climax: In the climax, the protagonist faces the antagonistic forces head-on, ready for the final battle that determines who (or what) wins the established conflicts. This part of the story will test, prove, and resolve conflicts, stakes, arcs, and themes. Anything in the climax should be foreshadowed beforehand at least in some way. Expectations need to be met (or exceeded). Often for maximum impact, the biggest conflicts cross paths with the most personal conflicts.

Denouement: Denouements are also often misunderstood. We tend to think the point is to hurry and end the story. In reality, the denouement is meant to validateall the changes and establish a new normal. Did someone confess her love? We need to see her officially together with her partner. Did anyone die? We may need to attend a funeral. Was the antagonist really defeated? We need to see that their power is gone from this world. If there are any loose ends or unresolved conflicts, they will typically be addressed and handled in the denouement. 

(Epilogue): Like the prologue, your story may or may not need an epilogue. Epilogues function in two different ways: they provide additional closure, or they add more loose ends. If there are no more installments after this story, the epilogue will probably tie up anything that didn’t fit into the denouement. If there is another installment, the epilogue will probably tease the audience by adding loose threads . . . so they have to buy the next installment.

And that is story structure in a flash. Do you have to always adhere to allthese things? Probably not. But, these elements do make a great story. And most successful stories fit this structure in some way.

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Sometimes September scares people with her enthusiasm for writing and reading. She works as an assistant to a New York Times bestselling author while penning her own stories, holds an English degree, and had the pleasure of writing her thesis on Harry Potter. Find out more about September here, hang with her on social media, or visit her website to follow her writing journey and get more writing tips. Find September on
Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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Occupation Thesaurus Entry: Diplomat

Jobs are as important for our characters as they are for real people. A character’s career might be their dream job or one they’ve chosen due to necessity. In your story, they might be trying to get that job or are already working in the field. Whatever the situation, as with any defining aspect for your character, you’ll need to do the proper research to be able to write that career knowledgeably.

Enter the Occupation Thesaurus. Here, you’ll find important background information on a variety of career options for your character. In addition to the basics, we’ll also be covering related info that relates to character arc and story planning, such as sources of conflict (internal and external) and how the job might impact basic human needs, thereby affecting the character’s goals. It’s our hope that this thesaurus will share some of your research burden while also giving you ideas about your character’s occupation that you might not have considered before.

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Occupation: Diplomat

Overview: Diplomats are foreign service officials appointed to represent their home nation to other countries around the world. They have many responsibilities, including negotiating treaties, improving relations, gathering and reporting information, issuing visas, protecting their citizens overseas, and influencing other nations in regard to various issues, such as war and peace, economics, the environment, and human rights. Whatever job they’re doing, the diplomat should always be representing the interests and policies of their home country.

While diplomats may remain in their home nation, they most often are posted to an embassy in another country. Many assignments are short term, lasting two to four years, after which time the diplomat will be reassigned to a new country. Newbies are required to do consular work and can move up to other more desirable postings and assignments with a few years of tenure under their belts.

There are different kinds of diplomats. The names and responsibilities vary between countries and can include any of the following, ranked by seniority: ambassador, minister or envoy, secretary (first, second, third, etc.), and attaché.

Necessary Training: Each country’s requirements are different, but as an example, someone wanting to become a diplomat in the US must be a US citizen between the ages of 20 and 59 years old. They must take a written aptitude test and go through a rigorous interview process to determine their suitability for the job. Following a successful background check, the applicant will enter the Foreign Service Institute for training that can last up to nine months.

Candidates must understand up front that they will be posted where they’re needed rather than where they might want to go. In some of the more dangerous postings, the diplomat’s family may not be allowed to accompany them. So people pursuing a career in this field need to take things like this into consideration before committing.

Useful Skills, Talents, or Abilities: A knack for languages, charm, empathy, exceptional memory, gaining the trust of others, good listening skills, haggling, hospitality, mentalism, promotion, reading people, strategic thinking, writing

Helpful Character Traits:

POSITIVE: Adaptable, adventurous, ambitious, analytical, appreciative, bold, calm, charming, confident, cooperative, courteous, decisive, diplomatic, discreet, empathetic, enthusiastic, extroverted, honorable, hospitable, inspirational, intelligent, meticulous, organized, passionate, patient, patriotic, persistent, persuasive, proactive, protective, socially aware, sophisticated, tolerant, wise

NEGATIVE: Confrontational, evasive, manipulative, nosy, perfectionist, pushy, suspicious

Sources of Friction: Being posted to an undesirable location, an attack on one’s embassy, language barriers that make communication difficult, working with an inept or biased translator, officials from the hosting country who are inflexible and uncooperative, being assigned a dangerous posting that one’s family can’t accompany one to, being reassigned and having to leave a beloved place and close friends, one’s children having difficulty adjusting to frequent moves, one’s family struggling with culture shock, moving to a location where common creature comforts aren’t available, failing in a negotiation, conflicts of interest, being threatened with or targeted for assassination, getting caught in a civil uprising or war, homesickness

People They Might Interact With: ambassadors, envoys, attachés, foreign diplomats, reporters, translators, government officials and heads of state

How This Occupation Might Impact One’s Basic Needs:

Self-Actualization:  Anyone working in politics is subject to the whims of those they report to. A diplomat may work very hard to achieve their given objectives on an assignment only to learn they’ve been used as part of a political scheme. Getting burned too many times in this way could make them doubt their ability to make a difference in the world.Esteem and Recognition: There’s a clear diplomatic ranking in most governments. Someone at the bottom of the ladder who has trouble working their way up may become discouraged by the lack of esteem with their position.Love and Belonging: A diplomat must be flexible, going where he’s sent and changing countries frequently. This can make it difficult to develop romantic relationships and maintain close friendships.Safety and Security: Diplomats are often needed in places defined by unrest and instability. This can make it a dangerous position in some circumstances.Physiological Needs: Should a country’s situation devolve into violence, the residing diplomat’s life could easily be threatened.

Common Work-Related Settings: Airplane, airport, alley, bazaar, big city street, black-tie event, boardroom, elevator, mansion, military base, refugee camp

Twisting the Fictional Stereotype:

Visit the other Occupations in our collection HERE.

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How Should I Publish My Book?

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Do you aspire to write a book and be a published author one day? If so, you are not alone.

According to Joseph Epstein, author, essayist, short-story writer, and editor, “81 percent of Americans feel that they have a book in them.” However, not every single person with the desire to write a book can do so.

Going off those statistics, approximately 265 million Americans aspire to be authors (with 327.2 million Americans as of 2018). But according to William Dietrich, Novelist, Naturalist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist, there are a mere “145,900 American ‘writers and authors’ counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a quarter of them part-time, two-thirds of them self-employed, and with median earnings of $55,420.”

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In short, becoming an author isn’t for the faint of heart. And it shouldn’t be for those seeking fame and fortune. Becoming an author in today’s day and age can be a difficult path, and the options seem to change from year to year.

Which paths are available to the modern writer?

Traditional Publishing

As of early 2019, the big five publishers—whose names you have likely heard of many times before—are Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, and Simon and Schuster.

If you want to be published through the big five or through another traditional publisher, you need to have a literary agent. Many people call literary agents the “gatekeepers” to the traditional publishing industry. Whether or not that’s true, writers have to pitch their unpublished manuscripts to agents via a query letter, which is essentially a professional cover letter all about your book.

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Traditional publishing can take years before your book hits the bookshelves, including the months or years it takes to secure literary representation, go on submission with your agent to editors at publishing houses, and then the average two-year publishing timeline once a book is acquired (if the book is acquired at all).

In addition, authors are often expected to have a platform (even for fiction) and assist in marketing efforts. On the plus side, many traditional publishers offer authors advances as well as royalties (once the advance is met), and authors are not expected to pay anything upfront to publish their book. Traditional publishers also have fantastic distribution and connections within the industry that can help to spread the word about a book.  

Indie Presses

An indie press (or independent press) is a publisher that is independently owned. The majority of small presses are independent publishers and separate from the big five publishers.

Indie presses are not the same as self-publishing (which we will get to). The phrase “indie author” usually refers to a self-published author, while the phrases “indie press” and “indie publisher” typically refer to a small, independently-owned publisher.

Indie presses often only publish a few titles per year and (usually) do not offer their authors advances. Otherwise, they often operate similar to a traditional publisher, utilizing in-house staff to edit, format, and publish a book on behalf of the author. In return, the author signs a contract to give the indie press certain rights to their book.

For authors who elect to publish their books with an indie press, one upside is often the press’ ability to take chances on authors and titles that a larger publisher might not (such as genre-bending manuscripts). Since indie presses aren’t driven by shareholders like the big five, they have the freedom to take more creative risks.

Self-Publishing

Authors can choose to publish their own books through platforms such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), iBooks, IngramSpark, Lulu, Barnes and Noble Press, Kobo, Smashwords, and more. In doing so, authors retain the rights to their books (rather than giving them to a publisher) and have complete creative control of a given manuscript. However, authors are also expected to do all of the tasks a publisher would typically do, such as book formatting, creating a cover, hiring an editorial team (developmental, copyediting, proofreading, etc.), marketing the book, and so on.

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It’s important to note that authors can choose to publish a book without having worked with an editor, which is where the (unfortunate) stigma around self-publishing books being lower quality comes in. Self-publishing has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years, and the stigma surrounding self-publishing has lessened over time due to many professional indie authors publishing high-quality work.

According to an article in Publisher’s Weekly, “[t]he Big Five traditional publishers now account for only 16% of the e-books on Amazon’s bestseller lists.” In addition, “[s]elf-published books now represent 31% of e-book sales on Amazon’s Kindle Store.”

Vanity Publishing

DON’T PUBLISH YOUR BOOK WITH A VANITY PRESS. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about why.

If you aren’t aware of this, writers who want to traditionally publish are not expected to pay anything. One of the benefits of this option is that the publisher invests in you, thereby paying for things like developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading, book layout, book cover design, etc. The same goes for indie presses. They, too, will pay for all expenses. In return, you (as the writer) will give them various rights to your book and story.

For self-publishing, the author has to foot the bill. All of the above to-dos the author is expected to pay for themselves. However, the royalty rate is usually significantly higher for indie authors as a result (meaning, you make more money per book you sell—and hopefully earn back the money you invested into the book at the front).

Vanity publishers, on the other hand, will publish your book for you and they expect you to pay them. Essentially, they often claim to be a publisher and that they are able to do a bunch of wonderful things for your book (which they often cannot fulfill). In short, the vanity publisher expects the author to pay them to publish their book… and they may try to take some of the author’s book’s rights as well in a contract. STEP CAUTIOUSLY, FRIENDS.

Anytime a publisher asks you to pay to publish, consider that a MASSIVE red flag.

*Note: There are companies, such as Book Launchers, that you can pay to assist you in the self-publication process. Other sites, like Draft2Digital and PublishDrive, upload your book files to different distributors in exchange for compensation. However, with these services, you still retain your rights and have access to the behind the scenes of all of the platforms your book is available on.  

Hybrid Publishing

This is what many consider to be “the best of both worlds.”

Typically, when someone says they are a “hybrid author,” they have self-published their own work and also either published traditionally or with an indie press.

No matter which path you choose, carefully consider what success looks like for you. What are your ultimate dreams for this book as well as for your author career? If having complete creative freedom is most important, then self-publishing might be the route for you. Or if you are unable to financially invest in publishing a book, traditional publishing might be best.

There is no one right way to publish a book. So, go forth, write your stories, and do your due diligence in determining which publishing path might be best for you.

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Meg LaTorre likes to think of herself as an avid book nerd with an exceptional taste for mac and cheese. She is a writer, YouTuber, host of the free query critique platform, Query Hack, developmental
book editor, writing coach, and former literary agent with a background
in magazine publishing, medical/technical writing, and journalism. To
learn more about Meg, visit her website or follow her on 
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

The post How Should I Publish My Book? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Occupation Thesaurus Entry: Farmer

Jobs are as important for our characters as they are for real people. A character’s career might be their dream job or one they’ve chosen due to necessity. In your story, they might be trying to get that job or are already working in the field. Whatever the situation, as with any defining aspect for your character, you’ll need to do the proper research to be able to write that career knowledgeably.

Enter the Occupation Thesaurus. Here, you’ll find important background information on a variety of career options for your character. In addition to the basics, we’ll also be covering related info that relates to character arc and story planning, such as sources of conflict (internal and external) and how the job might impact basic human needs, thereby affecting the character’s goals. It’s our hope that this thesaurus will share some of your research burden while also giving you ideas about your character’s occupation that you might not have considered before.

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Occupation: Farmer

Overview: A farmer is a person who plants, grows, and harvests crops or they breed and raise animals, most often for food consumption.

Necessary Training: It isn’t mandatory that a farmer has formal education, but unless they have significant experience (perhaps from working on a farm or growing up on one), it can greatly help them gain the knowledge they need to succeed. Farming is a very complex business requiring adaptability, foresight, and many different skill sets. Farmers who grow crops must become subject matter experts in an exact crop type, be it grains, vegetables, berries, fruit, nuts, or seeds. They will need to understand what each crop needs and where it will grow best, plus ensure optimal conditions (sun, water, nutrients, etc.) are in place while taking certain precautions to protect from pests and disease. Crops will also need to be harvested, stored, transported, and sold. With so many stages in the food production chain, a lot can go wrong if it isn’t handled correctly.

If a farmer raises animals (mammals, avians, fish, etc.), they are responsible for their welfare and must know their needs, provide a healthy environment, proper nutrition and care, understand animal husbandry, follow industry safety and health standards, and be able to pass livestock inspections. Once the livestock is ready for sale, the farmer must arrange for the sale and transport of these animals.

Farming is a business, meaning farmers also manage accounts, pay bills, manage workers, address rotating debts (if applicable), balance books, purchase and maintain equipment and other supplies, maintain the property and all buildings, connect with suppliers, buyers, and arrange for the product to reach markets. Margins are tight, the market fluctuates, and weather, policy, and pricing will always influence a farmer’s bottom line.

Useful Skills, Talents, or Abilities: a knack for making money, a way with animals, basic first aid, carpentry, enhanced hearing, enhanced sense of smell, enhanced taste buds, ESP (clairvoyance), exceptional memory, farming, gardening, haggling, mechanically inclined, multitasking, predicting the weather, repurposing

Helpful Character Traits:

POSITIVE: Adaptable, ambitious, analytical, calm, disciplined, efficient, independent, industrious, meticulous, nature-focused, nurturing, observant, patient, proactive, resourceful, responsible, socially aware, thrifty, wholesome, wise

NEGATIVE: compulsive, know-it-all, workaholic, worrywart

Sources of Friction: An illness that decimates one’s crop or livestock, climate change or extreme weather (early frosts, too much rain or not enough, drought that lasts year after year, lightning strikes that cause forest fires, flooding, etc.), mounting debt, political policies and market shifts that affect one’s ability to get one’s product to consumers, pricing shifts, market saturation, wild animals attacking one’s livestock, an illness or injury that prevents one from performing one’s duties, too much work and not enough time to stay on top of it, pressure to change one’s crops to better fit the market’s needs, a lack of support from the government, feeling one’s industry is being over-taxed and over-regulated, friction within the family if a member desires to trade a country life for a city one, equipment breakdowns happening at the worst time, family conflict if there’s a disagreement over the direction of the business, moral conflict over farming methods vs. profitability

People They Might Interact With: other farmers, neighbors, mechanics, suppliers, customers, inspectors, veterinarians

How This Occupation Might Impact One’s Basic Needs:

Self-Actualization: A character who loves living and working in the country may question their path if staying afloat is a constant, wearying struggleLove and Belonging: If there are differences in opinions in a family-run farm (how it’s being run, decisions that create risk which not everyone is comfortable with, or there is pressure on children to choose the farming life for themselves yet they want something different for themselves) it can cause problems and lead to distanced relationshipsPhysiological Needs: Farming is not an easy livelihood because so many different elements are outside the farmer’s control. Dealing with debt is a huge struggle and should a farmer lose that battle, it can leave them and their loved ones without the necessary things they need to survive

Common Work-Related Settings: barn, chicken coop, country road, county fair, farm, farmer’s market, garage, hunting cabin, meadow, old pick-up truck, orchard, pasture, ranch, tool shed, vegetable patch

Visit the other Occupations in our collection HERE.

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Critiques 4 U

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Welp, Angela’s away on a well-deserved vacation, which means I’m getting all kinds of things done. Which means it’s time for a critique contest!

If you’re working on a first page (in any genre except erotica) and would like some objective feedback, please leave a comment. Any comment :). As long as the email address associated with your WordPress account/comment profile is up-to-date, I’ll be able to contact you if your first page is chosen. Just please know that if I’m unable to get in touch with you through that address, you’ll have to forfeit your win.

Two caveats:

      Please be sure your first page is ready to go so I can critique it before next month’s contest rolls around. If it needs some work and you won’t be able to get it to me right away, let me ask that you plan on entering the next contest, once any necessary tweaking has been taken care of.

      I’d like to be able to use portions of winning submissions as illustrations in an upcoming presentation on first pages. By entering the Critiques 4 U contest, you’ll be granting permission for me to use small writing samples only (no author names or book titles).

I typically pick winners using a random number generator, but I’ve decided to do things differently this time. ‘Cause I’m mixxy like that ;). Just be sure to enter by the time the contest ends tomorrow morning, and we’ll see what happens.

We run this contest on a monthly basis, so if you’d like to be notified when the next opportunity comes around, consider subscribing to our blog (see the left-hand sidebar).

Best of luck!

The post Critiques 4 U appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Picking the Right Setting Details

Settings are very important to me. Most of my love affairs with books and movies tie directly into where the characters lived, laughed, and suffered: Green Gables, Toad Hall, the Nostromo, Braveheart‘s Scotland. So when it comes to choosing or creating a setting for a project, I put a lot of thought into it.

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Why is the setting so important? Because the character is strongly connected to it, whether positively or negatively, and any emotional connection that your character has can also create a connection with readers. Bilbo loved Hobbiton like it was a person instead of a place, and so we loved it and wanted it to endure for his sake. The Nostromo, the spaceship from the original Alien movie, was cluttered, narrow, and claustrophobic, and Ripley and her crew were stuck in there with an acid-bleeding, face-sucking xenomorph that could be hiding in any of a million crevices. Escaping the ship became nearly as important as escaping the monster. The settings in these examples were key to helping the audience connect with the character, proving that choosing the right setting is an important part of the process. Choose a setting that your character connects with, and your reader will be more likely to connect with it, too.

But what then? Settings, by nature, are spacious and consist of a gajillion minute details, all of which you couldn’t possibly and shouldn’t ever include. So how do you decide which ones to highlight in your story? Try including the following:

Details That Are Necessary

This goes without saying, but it’s important to choose only details that are necessary to the scene or purpose you’re trying to achieve. It’s a hard line to walk. Too little description, and your reader is confused. Too much, and they’re skimming ahead, trying to end the pain. To find the right balance, ask yourself these questions: What’s the purpose of this scene? What details need to be shared to accomplish this? Stick to those details and you’ll achieve the goal of choosing what’s necessary.

Details That Do Double Duty

A setting description should tell the reader about the character’s surroundings, but it should also do more. When details are chosen carefully and shown effectively, the setting can reveal the character’s personality, mood, or biggest fear. It can foreshadow dire events to come, hint at backstory, or provide a symbol that will reinforce a theme throughout the story. If you let your descriptions do double duty, you’ll have ample opportunities throughout the story to drop interesting tidbits here and there that will show your reader exactly where in the world the character is while revealing a little something else along with it.

Specific Details

The shelf in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s house didn’t hold vague, nameless knick-knacks; the china shepherdess and brown-and-white dog stood there, items that were especially dear to Laura because of their whimsy. They represented preciousness, and possibly expense, and were among the few impractical items in the house. I remembered those knick-knacks without having to look them up because they were specific and memorable. You don’t want to be overly specific with every detail, or the story becomes an inventory of beautifully-described but pointless items. Pick a few substantial details in the scene and make them memorable.

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To see how all of this can work together to create a multi-dimensional and interesting setting description, look at this excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Somehow, [Maycomb] was hotter back then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

There you have it. Great setting description, symbolism, and foreshadowing, all in a whopping 64 words.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert at writing description; if I was, I’d be a bestselling, Pulitzer-prize winning author along with Harper Lee. But the ideas above are a pretty good jumping-off point. Apply them and see if they don’t give your settings a boost in the right direction.

For more information on settings and how to write them effectively, check out our Rural and Urban Thesauruses, or see them in action at One Stop for Writers.

The post Picking the Right Setting Details appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Occupation Thesaurus Entry: Driver (Car)

Jobs are as important for our characters as they are for real people. A character’s career might be their dream job or one they’ve chosen due to necessity. In your story, they might be trying to get that job or are already working in the field. Whatever the situation, as with any defining aspect for your character, you’ll need to do the proper research to be able to write that career knowledgeably.

Enter the Occupation Thesaurus. Here, you’ll find important background information on a variety of career options for your character. In addition to the basics, we’ll also be covering related info that relates to character arc and story planning, such as sources of conflict (internal and external) and how the job might impact basic human needs, thereby affecting the character’s goals. It’s our hope that this thesaurus will share some of your research burden while also giving you ideas about your character’s occupation that you might not have considered before.

Occupation: Driver (Car)

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Overview: It goes without saying, but drivers get people from one place to another. Typically, they’re employed by a service and are assigned jobs either by a dispatcher or via an app. Some drive their own vehicles while others use those owned by the company or employer. Personal drivers are often hired by corporations or wealthy individuals and are kept on retainer to drive people wherever they need to go.

Necessary Training: Drivers must have a current license, and many services require a certain amount of driving experience before a driver can be hired.

Useful Skills, Talents, or Abilities: A knack for languages, enhanced hearing, exceptional memory, good listening skills, hot-wiring a car, reading people, self-defense

Helpful Character Traits:

POSITIVE: Adaptable, alert, calm, courteous, discreet, extroverted, focused, friendly, observant, proactive, sensible, tolerant

Sources of Friction: Getting traffic tickets that could threaten one’s employment as a driver, getting into an accident, picking up a dangerous customer, inebriated passengers, getting stiffed on a fare, having to drive someone one finds morally reprehensible, driving a passenger who wants to talk about touchy subjects (such as politics or religion), being accused of inappropriateness by a passenger, getting lost, getting caught overcharging a customer, being late for a scheduled pick-up, having to call in sick or take the day off and miss scheduled pick-ups, driving a passenger who is clearly ill, being car-jacked, one’s car breaking down or becoming unreliable, suspecting passengers of being involved in something illegal (such as drug smuggling), recognizing a passenger as someone who is wanted by police, driving a passenger one believes may be a victim (of abuse, trafficking, etc.), a deteriorating physical ailment that makes the job difficult (failing eyesight, a back injury, etc.)

People They Might Interact With: customers, a dispatcher, other drivers employed by the same service, a manager, police officers, mechanics, car-detailing employees

How This Occupation Might Impact One’s Basic Needs:

Self-Actualization: This need may become impacted if the driver has higher aspirations, eventually growing dissatisfied with their current occupation.Esteem and Recognition: If a driver is looked down upon or treated as inferior by his passengers, he may begin to feel badly about himself and his chosen profession.Safety and Security: A driver may be highly skilled, but there are always idiots on the road who could endanger their safety.Physiological Needs: There’s always a risk involved when picking up strangers, and drivers have been known to fall victim to unstable or violent customers.

Common Work-Related Settings: Airport, art gallery, bar, big city street, black-tie event, car accident, casino, limousine, mansion, mechanic’s shop, nightclub, parking garage, parking lot, performing arts theater, pub, taxi, train station, truck stop

Twisting the Fictional Stereotype:

By and large, drivers are male. Consider a kick-butt female who drives like Mario Andretti and can handle herself.Being a professional driver gives one access to people and places denied to others. For what nefarious reasons might your character have chosen this career?Keep in mind that with the influx of options for these kinds of services (Lyft, Uber, etc.), the model has changed. Drivers may be employed full-time or only when it’s convenient for them. They may even only drive to places they’re going themselves, such as when they’re driving in to our out of work in an urban area. So there are many more options now.

Visit the other Occupations in our collection HERE.

The post Occupation Thesaurus Entry: Driver (Car) appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

8 Ways to Inject Humor into Your Writing

Everybody wants to be funny. Humor puts people at ease and makes them more receptive—exactly the place you want your reader to be. But how do we write it without it sounding forced or, as my kids would say, cringey? Luckily, we’ve got Dan Brotzel—a 25-year veteran writer of humorous feature articles and newspaper columns—to give us some tips.

It’s a great feeling to read something so amusing that you can’t help breaking into a broad smile or even laughing out loud. Perhaps the only greater feeling – for a comic writer at least – is the satisfaction of knowing that you made that happen. But how? 

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Many writers would like to be funny writers. But humor is one of those things that can slip away if you look at it too closely. Analyzing funniness is hard brainwork and a notoriously humorless activity, and when a writer is really making an effort to get laughs all the time, the effect is often labored and off-putting – quite the opposite of what was intended. 

Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about how to amuse people through writing. Here are a few practical thoughts about how to get more humor into your work… 

Please Yourself

Humor flows from authenticity, and efforts to fake it will usually founder. If you’re the sort of person who likes confrontational, taboo-busting humor or biting political satire, you may struggle to write a genteel comedy of manners or a whimsical, childlike fantasy. If you find what you’re writing funny, others may well agree, but if you don’t get it, how can you expect anyone else to? 

Listen to Your Words

Reading your work out loud is vital for any writer, but especially so for comic writers, where the slightest hiccup in rhythm or unfortunate repetition can ruin a funny line. You may have noticed that the key word of a joke’s punchline is often never mentioned in the set-up, so as not to ruin the effect. Similarly, in fiction, you sometimes need to rewrite sentences and paras so the really funny part of an incident happens at the very end of the line. Paying attention to these subtle tweaks can massively improve your humor quotient. 

Think Hard about Funny Words and Sounds

Once you start really listening to your words – and to other people’s – you start to notice that some words are inherently funnier than others, perhaps because of how they sound, or their associations, or a mix of both. 

In the world of vegetables, for instance, marrows and aubergines are funnier than potatoes and onions, and a Brussels sprout will always trump a lettuce. In footwear, wedges and mules are funnier than court shoes and slip-ons. An ottoman is a comedy piece of furniture while a settee just isn’t. Ankle is funnier than knee; beard is funnier than fringe.

I could go on. This is only my own personal comic lexicon I’m citing here, and words will go in and out of funny fashion for me over time. But the key thing, if you want to write funny, is get into the habit of thinking at this granular level and developing your own funny vocabulary. (Pro tip: Words that begin with C and O are often funnier than average too.) 

Don’t Try and Be a Stand-Up



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A friend of mine with aspirations to write a comic novel says he aims for a ratio of 2 gags per paragraph. While some of his gags are very good, this is a self-defeating approach, because no one can keep up that level of quality across so many pages, and the reader will quickly start to feel exhausted by someone trying so hard to make them laugh. Speaking of which… 

Aim for Smiles, Not Laughs

When you write a story, you want to create something that delivers a subtle pleasure that lingers in the mind and bears re-reading. Big laughs, on the other hand, tend to derive from shock tactics and crude shortcuts; while you may laugh loudly at the time, the effect is short-lasting and quickly forgotten. To be humorous in fiction, you don’t need your writing to be a series of gags; humor that stems from dialogue and character can often be much more appealing over the long term. 

So when you write, go for smiles, not belly-laughs. The smile is a response to a style of humor that’s more observational and less punchline-driven, and what it lacks in fireworks it can make up for in emotional staying power. As the very funny novelist Muriel Spark said: “I have a great desire to make people smile—not laugh, but smile. Laughter is too aggressive. People bare their teeth.”

Be Open to the World’s Funniness 

The world, as someone said, is an ocean of set-ups waiting for a punchline. Often the best humor doesn’t have to be invented; it just needs to be observed and packaged for the reader. So always be taking note of things that make you laugh as you go through your day: unusual turns of phrase, anecdotes, strange street moments. If it makes you laugh, and you can work it into your story, go for it; don’t try to analyze too much why it’s funny, but be true instead to that initial reaction of amusement.

Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Trying to Be Funny

There’s nothing more unamusing that someone who announces: “Listen to this everyone. It’s really funny!!!” When you do that, you put extra pressure on yourself, and you encourage people to want to prove you wrong. Someone said to me once not to tell anyone that the story’s funny. Let them find out for themselves, like uncovering a secret treasure. If the humor works, they’ll smile or laugh anyway and be pleasantly surprised. And if they don’t laugh, it’s nobody’s funeral! 

Prepare to Fail

Great humor makes us gasp with admiration because the writer has taken risks – the risk of saying something that normally goes unsaid, the risk of exposing a vulnerable part of themselves, above all the risk of not being funny – a sensation so unbearable to us that we actually call it dying.

If you want to be funny, you have to be prepared to take those risks. You won’t get it right every time, but that’s okay. If your attempts at humor come over as authentic and sit well with your story, people will forgive you the odd slip. On the other hand, if you take no risks at all, you’ll never be in any danger of making anyone laugh.

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Dan Brotzel is the author, with Martin Jenkins and Alex Woolf, of Kitten on a Fatberg (Unbound). As a reader of this blog, you can  pre-order Kitten on a Fatberg for a 10% discount. Simply enter promo code KITTEN10. You can also connect with Dan on Twitter.

The post 8 Ways to Inject Humor into Your Writing appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.