Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 31

The Missing Link in Memoir Character Development

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Today’s post is by writer and editor Lisa Cooper Ellison. Join her on Wednesday, June 19, for the online class The Psychology of Character Development for Memoirists.

In a previous career, I worked as an inner-city special education teacher. Many of my students were trauma survivors who’d experienced unspeakable violence. Some days books, chairs, and desks were thrown against the wall without warning. Hours later, the same student would smile and laugh as if nothing had happened. Sometimes we’d learn the reason for their outburst, but others remained a mystery—at least to us.

Many readers encounter stories with characters who are equally baffling. They act one way for a hundred pages, then do a 180 that violates what we know about them and their world, then carry on as if nothing strange happened.

When beta readers or critique partners flag this, some writers lean into the “show” side of “show don’t tell,” and add more gestures, facial expressions, and actions, hoping to clear things up. Others rush to insert flashbacks that explain their character’s psychological state. Occasionally a frustrated writer will say, “Don’t we all do strange things without understanding why? What if my art simply emulates life?” or “Maybe it’s the reader’s job to figure it out.”

Odd, confusing, and unexpected behaviors are a staple of real life, but in storytelling, the chain of events must make sense and move your story forward. That doesn’t mean spelling everything out for the reader. But you must know your characters’ motivations, so you can strategically plant clues that help the reader understand them.

Character motivation is an issue writers of all genres struggle with; however, memoirists face a few additional challenges. Unlike fiction writers, they can’t change situations to suit their stories, and the only lives they truly know are their own. They must dig deep into their psyches and observe others keenly to build realistic characters.

In graduate school, I encountered a quote that’s often attributed to the Austrian psychologist and neurologist, Viktor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

In that space, we filter events through our internal landscape, which determines our actions and decisions. I created the C.I.A. formula based on this quote to help you understand how your character’s mindset influences their reactions in every scene.

Complicating Event + Internal Landscape = Action Taken by Your Character

First, a complicating event, or stimulus, occurs. This obstacle prevents your character from achieving their goal. It could be a boss entering with a stack of papers just as you’re leaving for a weekend trip, a traffic jam, or an argument with your spouse.

The action your character chooses in response to this stimulus could include something they say or do, or it could be a decision made by your protagonist that only appears as thought. The complicating event and action are what you see. They make up the plot.

A character’s internal landscape builds a bridge between the event and your character’s reaction. A character’s internal landscape consists of three components: their worldview, carry-in expectations, and carry-over issues between your characters.

Character worldview

Your character’s temperament and life experiences will shape their worldview. These experiences include events that cause core wounds, relationships that serve as protective factors, and deep needs that create blind spots that get them into trouble. A character’s viewpoint will shift as your story unfolds.

To establish your character’s worldview, have them behave as if they have a certain history. For example, let’s say your main character grew up in an alcoholic home and developed some codependent tendencies. You might include a flashback at some point that helps us understand this tendency, but in early chapters, all you need to do is show a character behaving codependently, perhaps by making excuses for a loved one’s bad behavior, trying to appease an angry spouse, or micromanaging their child’s recovery, something Ann Batchelder shows extremely well in her memoir Craving Spring.

Carry-in expectations

Most writers spend countless hours developing their main character’s worldview but often neglect to account for the influence carry-in and carry-over issues have on their behavior.

Carry-in expectations consist of the needs, desires, and emotional state your character brings into a scene. Some carry-in issues will stem from things that happen before your story begins, but it’s more effective to set most of them up inside your story.

For example, in the prologue for The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls hides from her homeless mother as she heads to a party. Afterward, she’s so ashamed, she ruminates on her responsibilities to her parents. When she invites her mother to lunch at a Chinese restaurant a few days later, she carries in the guilt established in the opening scene as well as a sense of duty and history of trying and failing to help, which is developed through a few lines of interiority in scene number two.

Justin Torres masterfully weaves a set of carry-in issues into the second chapter of his semi-autobiographical novel, We the Animals, through a single page of flashback micro-scenes that explain why Justin and his brothers don’t question their mother’s confusion about what time it is.  

Carry-over issues

Carry-over issues are issues between characters developed in earlier scenes and carried over into this one. Justin’s flashbacks are also great examples of carry-over issues, but here are a few more.

In a chapter titled “We Don’t Negotiate” from Laura Cathcart Robbins’s memoir Stash, the narrator and her husband have formally separated, but their divorce isn’t final. In a previous chapter, her lawyer instructed her not to negotiate with her husband.  But that’s exactly what he asks her to do, saying “You know that’s what they want, right? The lawyers? … They want to pit us against each other and run up the bill.” Laura realizes they are living “in a siege state.” Part of her wants to give in, “but there’s too much at stake.” She carries over the escalating tension through some terse dialogue between the narrator and her soon-to-be ex, then reinserts the lawyer’s instructions with two quick lines of interior monologue. Do not negotiate with him outside of my presence. …Give him nothing.

In the chapter titled “Dream House as the River Lethe” from Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir, In the Dream House, the narrator endures a terrifying nighttime drive across several states to appease her volatile partner after she has a meltdown. Two carry-over issues influence her decisions in this scene: The partner’s reckless driving during a prior trip to Savannah and their recent conflicts.

Now you’re ready to insert clues readers can follow

Understanding your character’s worldview, carry-in, and carry-over issues will help you create a strong cause-and-effect chain that propels your story forward.

In your book’s setup, reveal your character’s worldview by having them act as if they have a certain history through actions and internal monologue.For carry-in issues, you can include an occasional flashback, but better yet, show your character forming their beliefs and expectations during a critical scene’s emotional beat.When it comes to carry-over issues, develop conflicts or alliances early on. If the dynamics are obvious, nothing further is needed. Just have your characters continue with the current dynamic. If it’s subtler, or you need to emphasize the stakes, use a line or two of interior monologue, dialogue between your characters, or body language as a reminder.

Tactical decisions like this are how you can create art that truly emulates life. Best of all, inserting these clues and context will ensure no readers are baffled.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on Wednesday, June 19, for the online class The Psychology of Character Development for Memoirists.

What to Ask Your Beta Readers

Photo by Yi Liu on Unsplash

Today’s post is by Andrew Noakes, founder of The Niche Reader.

You’ve assembled your team of excellent beta readers, you’ve convinced them that yes this manuscript is your precious creation, years in the making, but no you will not have a complete meltdown if they don’t enjoy every single aspect, and you’ve hit send.

Job done, right? Wrong!

It’s time to think about what you’re going to ask your beta readers once they’re finished reading. Although asking “what did you think?” is sure to elicit some kind of response, you’re going to have to dig a little deeper to get what you need.

This is a specialty area for me. For the last few years, I’ve been running The Niche Reader’s beta reader service, and in that time I’ve managed hundreds of projects. I’ve learned that asking the right questions is just as important as finding the right readers. This is how to do it.

Structured feedback: why and how

Structured feedback means asking a list of carefully chosen questions. This is good for you and good for your beta readers. They’re not qualified editors (more on that next), so they often don’t know what their feedback should focus on. Giving them structure makes it easier for them. For you, it means nothing will be missed, which can often happen if you don’t ask specific questions. If you’re worried about missing out on more spontaneous answers, no need—you can still invite those by posing broader questions alongside the targeted ones.

We use online forms to capture answers from beta readers, turning each piece of feedback into a handy PDF for our authors. You can achieve something similar using a Word document. Write out your questions and ask your beta readers to respond to each one, then return the document to you. I would recommend asking them to aim for a few sentences for each question, on average, to ensure you get enough detail.

Beta readers versus professional editors

Beta readers are very different from editors. They are typically ordinary readers with little or no expertise on story craft or publishing. They’re not here to tell you whether your plot conforms to a three-act structure, whether your characters have enough internal conflict, or whether your book can succeed in the current commercial market. Save questions like this for your editor.

Beta readers provide a different, but equally useful, perspective. They can tell you which characters they connected with and which they didn’t, where in the story they started to lose interest and where they felt like they couldn’t put it down, whether your ending was satisfying or frustrating. This perspective—a reader’s perspective—is invaluable.

Questions you should always ask

Start by trying to gain a broad understanding of what your beta readers liked and didn’t like. We always ask these three questions to begin with:

What was your overall impression of the story?What did you like about it the most?Was there anything you didn’t like about it? If so, what?

The first question asks for the broadest possible response. It should provide a top line answer to whether your beta readers enjoyed your book and why, or why not. It doesn’t lead them in any particular direction, so you know you’re getting an honest, spontaneous response. The second and third questions are almost as broad but invite your beta readers to provide a bit more detail on what worked for them and what didn’t.

After this, you should narrow in on the specific things you need to know. There are several questions I recommend asking:

Did the story grab you at the beginning?Were there any points where you started to lose interest?Was the story easy to follow? If not, why not?Was there anything particular that you found confusing?Was there anything that you had trouble believing or that seemed illogical?Did you notice any inconsistencies in the plot, with the characters, or with anything else?

The answers to these should tell you if there are any sections, including the beginning, that need to be made more engaging and whether there are any confusing, convoluted, unbelievable, or inconsistent aspects of your story that need to be addressed.

You should always ask your beta readers about the characters. We ask four character questions as standard:

Did you find the main character engaging? If so, what was most engaging about them? If you didn’t find them engaging, why not?Overall, which characters did you find the most engaging, and why?Overall, which characters did you find the least engaging, and why?Were you able to keep track of the characters, i.e. who was who? Were there too many?

These ensure you get a response about your main character (if you have one), as well as your other key characters.

Finally, don’t forget the all-important question:

Did you find the ending satisfying?

To these, you might want to add other questions. For example, we always ask about the general standard of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and formatting, in case this is useful for the author. But the questions above should be your core questions that you always ask.

Genre-focused questions

Every genre has its own conventions and expectations, so it’s often worthwhile including some genre-focused questions as well. For fantasy, you might want to ask about worldbuilding; for historical fiction, the authenticity of your setting; for romance, the level of spice. You get the idea!

Questions specific to your story

There may be specific things about your story you’d like your beta readers to reflect on. Perhaps there’s a scene, plot point, or feature of a character that you feel anxious about. The best place for questions like this is at the end, as you’ll be able to see whether the issue you’re concerned about cropped up earlier in their feedback, spontaneously. If not, that’s often a sign that they didn’t consider it a serious problem or priority, which is helpful to know in itself.

You could also ask other questions, such as whether your beta readers would like to see a sequel, what books they think your story is comparable to (this is helpful for locating your story within its genre and subgenre), and whether they like your title or prefer an alternative you might have in mind.

How to interpret feedback and what to do with it

One huge benefit of using beta readers is that you can establish patterns. If one beta reader doesn’t connect to your main character, but all of the others seem to find them very engaging, then that one beta reader is an outlier, and you probably shouldn’t re-write your protagonist purely on the basis of their opinion. But if several beta readers identify something as being problematic, then you know you probably ought to pay it some attention. Look for common threads.

Expect your beta readers to love some aspects of your story and be less keen on others. Sometimes, the bits they like and don’t like will surprise you. Let yourself be encouraged by the positives, and work on the aspects that need further consideration.

Above all, celebrate the fact that, at last, your story has found its way into the heads and hearts of people other than you and your close circle. You’ve taken that first step towards putting it out into the wider world and seeing how people respond; it will give you more confidence and courage for the next step after that.

How Symbols Can Support Your Writing Life

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

Today’s post is excerpted from Breathe. Write. Breathe.: 18 Energizing Practices to Spark Your Writing and Free Your Voice by Lisa Tener.

When my husband Tom and I began dating, he took me to his mom’s house one weekend and invited a couple he knew. As the four of us walked down the road, I spied an owl, high up on a branch in a distant tree. “Look, an owl!”

“Where?” Carol asked. No one else saw it until we walked much closer.

“That’s not an owl,” Steve said. It clearly looked like an owl to me.

“It’s too exposed to be real. It must be a plastic owl to scare away the birds,” Tom offered.

I decided he must be right, but Steve tested the theory and threw a rock at the leaves near the owl, causing it to stir. Owl, indeed. And alive. (But, come on, Steve. Who throws a rock at an owl? Just no. Don’t do that.)

I have an uncanny sense for seeing animals in nature, animals that normally hide from humans or disappear in the light of day. I believe we all have this ability when we open our awareness to the previously hidden world around us, the world that our harried, productive, modern selves insist we don’t have time to explore. It takes quieting our mind chatter and slowing down to natural rhythms for us to see this world.

On one level, the owl incident immediately showed me that not only did I discount my knowing, but I stifled my voice and didn’t speak up when Steve threw the rock, despite how wrong his actions felt to me.

My interaction with the owl continued to reveal a new understanding about my life. As I recalled the owl while lying in bed that night, I had a kinesthetic experience. I felt myself on one side of the owl, representing divine feminine energy, and Tom on the other, representing divine masculine energy. The owl perched above us in the center, as we wound around each other like ribbons on a maypole. I felt the power of this interweaving of masculine and feminine. It conveyed to me that every romantic relationship has a dimension greater than the experience between two people. In our off-kilter world, each relationship holds a healing power to balance and harmonize feminine and masculine.

This understanding was not so much a linear thought; it came as more of a felt sense, full mind-body-spirit kind of knowing.

Although we’d only been dating for a couple of weeks, through this experience with Owl I knew Tom as my soul mate, our relationship as part of our personal healing and a planetary healing. This may sound grandiose, yet many cultures view the everyday world as full of symbols and guidance.

Life speaks to us through symbols that help us learn, grow, heal, and create, if we slow down and listen. Jesus spoke in the symbolic language of parables as did many prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Hindu stories in the Bhagavad Gita and other spiritual texts are meta-metaphors, full of symbolism.

When I walk a client through my Meet Your Muse exercise, the muse often speaks through symbols, both by how the muse shows up (and in what guise) and by providing symbolic images in answer to our questions.

Paying attention to symbols in your life

Pay attention to what you see and hear today:

Animals that cross your pathA word you hear several times from different sourcesSong lyrics that pop outSensations or pain in your bodyObjects or people that spark something within youNumbers that show up repeatedly

If each experience appeared in a dream, how might you interpret the symbols? First tap into your intuition for answers. After that, you can look up symbols on the internet. Kari Hohne’s dream dictionary at Café au Soul is my favorite resource.

What does the symbol or symbolic event have to teach you about your writing or other areas of your life?

You can also seek out a symbol. You can close your eyes, ask a question, and see if a symbol comes up. Or you can find an inspiring animal totem card deck, like Jamie Sams’ Medicine Cards or the beautiful Spirit of the Animals by Jody Bergsma. Think of what you plan to write about today and ask for an animal spirit guide to support you. Or pick a card without any specific plan, and write about what the card means to you or seems to communicate.

Using symbols to inspire and enrich your writing

While writing is an inner journey, you can add elements of the outer world to make it more concrete. Bring some fresh cut lilacs to your writing space, light a candle, or breathe in the scent of your favorite essential oil. If you have a deck of animal spirit cards or any other divination deck, choose an image that speaks to you and place it in your writing space. These outer prompts serve you in several ways:

Symbols in your writing space underscore the message that this is your special writing time, connecting you to your creative source.These brief rituals connect you with your senses—smell, touch, sight, sound, and taste—the magic talismans for your authentic voice.Such brief rituals become part of your writing habit, making it easier and easier to groove right into writing from a place of wonder.Simple rituals provide an easy way to bypass the inner saboteur.Rituals can add an element of fun and play. And the muse loves to play!Writing rituals have a way of making our writing time feel more magical. Bringing in symbols can open you more fully to the creative magic within you.Creating a writing ritual

Create a writing ritual incorporating the steps below:

Choose a symbolic object and hold it in your hands. Feel its weight, shape, and texture.Close your eyes and imagine carrying your sacred object with you as you open a gate to your creative inner garden.Imagine your object soaking up the good qi of the garden, and being able to bring that good qi back with you in the object, to inspire and support your writing.Imagine bringing back your sacred object as you return through the gate to present time.Open your eyes and imagine placing the object near you to nourish your creativity.Write about the experience and what the sacred object means to you, and use the writing to segue into an ongoing project or new piece of work, such as a short poem, blog post, or story. How does the ritual affect your writing?End the ritual with a feeling or prayer of gratitude.If you want a simpler ritual, you can light a candle or smell a special essential oil or flower and imagine it giving off creative energy to support your writing session.Symbols at work

Is there a character trait that’s holding you back at work or a skill or trait that might help you succeed on a work project (or in your career, in general)? Close your eyes and look for an animal or other symbol that might embody the skills or traits that would help you in this endeavor. Write a dialogue with the animal/symbol. Ask it questions and answer as if you were the animal/symbol. What might you do differently?

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out Breathe. Write. Breathe.: 18 Energizing Practices to Spark Your Writing and Free Your Voice by Lisa Tener.

What Do We Really Mean When We Say “Show, Don’t Tell”?

Today’s post is by author and book coach Janet S Fox.

Let me just start with: I do not condemn “telling.” There’s a place for it in every story, and that’s mainly in the interstices between scenes.

But there’s a reason we must show things when we are in scene and not tell: readers attach to clear actions and emotions. And that’s key to pulling the reader into your story.

Here’s what I see in stories that “tell” too much: two people are having a conversation, but the dialogue is stilted and expositive. Or a character is reacting in a scene, but we don’t understand why because the emotion is not on the page. Or two people are interacting (a fight, a love scene, a heist, a whatever), but we really can’t tell what they want or need.

In an earlier post, I discussed the use of elision to show emotion and to elicit it in the reader. Today’s post comes from the opposite angle: specific in-scene craft techniques.

There are four ways to show in scene: through dialogue, interiority, gesture, and sensory detail.

Showing through dialogue

It’s a common to tell your reader information by having one character convey it to another in dialogue. For example, take teen friends and competitors Harry and Paul.

“Hey, Harry,” Paul said, “I heard you have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Brown so he can take an X-ray of the knee you twisted yesterday when we were playing pickleball.” 

“That’s right, Paul. This knee really hurts. When you pushed me, I couldn’t believe it. Dr. Brown said he’d take the X-ray and he’ll tell me if I’ll ever walk again, much less play pickleball.”

We feel removed from the relationship between the boys, as Paul dispassionately reiterates things that Harry already knows. We can’t feel anything for Harry because he’s telling us it hurts. But if the author showed Harry’s anger about being pushed by Paul and Paul’s disdain by using antagonistic dialogue, we’d feel it:

“You SOB. You meant to do it.”
Paul shrugged. “You’re a jerk on the court. You had it coming.”
“Damn you. Never again.”
“Got us another pickleball date in two weeks.”
“Not happening! Dammit, I can’t even feel my foot.”
“Brown’ll fix you up.” Paul waved his hand. “See you in two weeks.” 

To show in dialogue:

Show the speaker’s emotions by using what he says or leaves out in dialogue. Reflect emotions rather than recite facts.Don’t have anyone “tell” things to other characters, especially things they would already know.Showing through internal monologue

Internal monologue is the stuff that is going on inside the character’s head—also known as interiority. The reader has no idea what your character is thinking and feeling unless you find a way to convey it. But once again, you have to avoid merely “telling” the reader, and this one is a little harder to accomplish.

Understanding character backstory and the emotions driving them are essential to getting their emotions expressed through internal monologue. Most of the time your main character won’t be able to express their deepest emotions, their deepest fears, their internal need or lack because they haven’t sorted them out. But you need to know what they are feeling and wanting, in order to convey emotion through the character’s thoughts.

When your character is thinking about how they feel, try the following:

Use memory as metaphor: “I felt like I did when I walked alone into that classroom and everyone burst out laughing.” (implication: “I’m ashamed, I’m upset, I’m miserable”)Use irony: “I should be happy.” (implication: “But I’m not”)Use self-deception, so the reader becomes a sympathizer or an analyst: “I shoved Harry because he acted like a jerk.” (implication: “What would you do?”)Showing through gesture

The third way to convey emotion through showing is through action or “gesture,” which can range from the smallest tic to the big behaviors.

Let’s go back to Paul and Harry:

Harry lunged for the ball, but Paul, coming from behind, gave Harry a hard shove. Harry stumbled, then fell with a cry.

Harry rolled on the court, clutching his right knee, his face twisted, eyes closed. “What’d you do that for?” Harry said through clenched teeth.

Paul twirled the racket in his hand. “You were acting like a jerk.”

Even without the dialogue you can tell what Paul is feeling. And Harry’s pain and shock are clear from his gestures.

To get to gesture:

Act out scenes as if you are on stage. Get up out of your chair and move around in space, gesturing as if you are the character. Use those gestures in your writing.When you write an emotional scene, sit back and imagine yourself in that scene. What are you feeling? Is your skin prickling? Is your mouth dry? Heart pounding? Breath short? Fists clenched? There are a million ways to physically react to an emotion. Show those in your scenes.Showing through sensory detail

A storm experienced by someone who has just fallen in love is different from the same storm experienced by someone who has just lost a loved one, or by someone who is hiding from a murderer, or by someone who is about to be crowned queen of the underworld.

Consider this passage:

Harry tasted blood and the rank smell of sweat made him nauseous. The slap of balls on racquets was like a nail gun in his brain, and the blinding sun baking the court made everything worse as he clutched his knee in agony. Maybe he had acted like a jerk, but Paul had no business shoving him like that. Harry knew he’d be out of commission for weeks.

To use sensory details to convey emotion, don’t just describe the setting or the scene. Instead:

Describe the emotions inherent in your character’s observation of the setting or scene, through symbolism and through metaphor.Run a check to see how many specific sensory details you’ve mentioned.Check for things seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, and relate them directly to the emotional context.Other concrete ways to show

Words/phrases like “I saw, “I felt,” “I heard,” and so on filter the action and tell the reader what is happening. Replace these filter words with active verbs and strong nouns. For example:

Telling: “I felt scared in the dark room as I heard the wind.”Showing: “Branches scratched the glass as the wind moaned. Shadows crept from the corners, and I shivered in the icy air.”

Using words like “happy,” “sad,” or “excited” can be a weak way to express your character’s inner life. Show your character’s feelings by understanding how the human mind and body react to situations. For example:

Telling: “I was elated.”Showing: “As I danced around the room I burst out in giggles. I thought I would sprout wings. He loved me!” 

Passive voice is distancing and tends to lean toward telling rather than showing. In addition to passive, try to avoid using the helping verb “was” with a past participle (any verb plus “-ing”). For example:

Telling: The dog was chasing the ball.Showing: The dog leapt at the ball.Exercise

Print out 10 to 20 pages of your manuscript and use highlighters or colored markers to outline scenes in one color, summaries in another. Reread your manuscript out loud, looking for the clear images that your mind creates when you enter a scene. If the image is vague, you may be summarizing/telling.

How Naming a Character Is Like Naming a Child

Today’s post is by author Ginny Kubitz Moyer.

Over the course of my life, I have chosen names for two real human beings and approximately 200 fictional ones. The processes are surprisingly similar. Both involve a blend of logic and intuition, and both feel like deeply consequential decisions.

Of course, it’s fair to say the stakes are higher when naming a baby. You’re choosing a moniker that will (in most cases) follow another person throughout their lifetime, forming others’ impressions at school, in the job market, even online. The responsibility feels weighty, and it is.

But choosing a name for a protagonist is also an important task. Apart from any portrait that might be on the book cover, a name is likely your readers’ first encounter with the fictional person who will, one hopes, captivate them for hundreds of pages. How does a writer land on the right one for their main character—and for all the other characters, too?

Below are a few factors to consider. They just might help you select the perfect names for your fictional creations … and, should the occasion arise, for actual flesh-and-blood ones, too.

1. Consider the time period.

If I tell you I went to high school with a few Tiffanys and Chads, can you guess my approximate age? Needless to say, neither name found its way into my novel A Golden Life, which takes place in 1938. Instead, my characters are called Frances, Lawrence, Gene, Celia, Joe, Arthur, and Nancy. Very few of those names are in my high school yearbook (Class of ’91), but they certainly would have been in my grandmother’s.

As a historical fiction writer, I’ve found that my research process organically fills my subconscious with names from whichever era I’m writing about. When drafting, I draw names from that well as needed. If I get stuck, the Social Security Administration’s lists of the most popular baby names by year are an invaluable resource (as well as being great fun to explore).

2. How does it sound?

Charles Dickens excelled at choosing names that fall memorably on the ear while subtly illuminating the characters’ personalities. In David Copperfield, the “ah” sound in “Mr. Micawber” hints at the character’s perennial openness and optimism, while the name “Edward Murdstone” evokes something cold and sinister. Taking a page from Dickens’s book, in A Golden Life, I called one character Celia Ventimiglia. The name’s musical lilt reveals something about the woman herself, a character who (unlike my protagonist) is in harmony with her family. In my first novel, The Seeing Garden, one of my main characters is named William Brandt. I chose the surname for its emphatic, strong finish, which fits a decisive man of business. (The fact that it contains the world “brand” was another plus for a character who cares deeply about his public image.)

3. What’s the meaning?

My sons are named Matthew and Luke. While the meaning of those names wasn’t the primary reason my husband and I selected them, “gift from God” and “light” both capture something of how we felt about their births. Likewise, in writing fiction, a name’s meaning is rarely my primary consideration, but it can subtly highlight some aspect of the character. For the protagonist in an upcoming project, I landed on a name that means “peace” because the novel is set during a time of war. In A Golden Life, the name “Belinda” means “serpent,” which echoes a motif used in connection with the character. Even if I don’t specifically point out the meaning in the story, I find that its presence subtly enhances my writing.

4. What are the associations?

I taught high school for twenty-six years and discovered there’s a little-known occupational hazard to the profession: when I was pregnant, my colleagues warned that every name I was considering for my child would bring up an association, good or bad, with a former student. “Some baby names will be completely off the table,” they said, and they were right. (If you are a former student named Matthew or Luke, rest assured that my memories of you are nothing but positive.)

Of course, names that have certain associations for me may hold different associations for others; a writer can’t possibly anticipate or work around that. But it’s fair to say that if you name your protagonist Elvis, Jesus, Holden, or Hermione, there will be a specific image that flashes into your reader’s eye before they can begin to picture your character. That can either be a deal-breaker for the name or, in some cases, a plus, something you use strategically. (A protagonist named Elvis who can’t carry a tune, for example, might bring exactly the ironic touch that you want.)

5. What is your preference?

There are a handful of female names I have encountered in books over the years and have absolutely loved. Even if I’d had ten daughters, though, these names are unlikely to have been used. My husband and I granted each other veto power in the baby-naming process, and I doubt he’d have embraced some of my favorites, many of which have a decidedly old-fashioned ring.

But when you’re a novelist, you have free rein to use any name you like. This is how I ended up with Lavinia and Vivian in The Seeing Garden and Kitty in A Golden Life. There’s something satisfying about being able to put these names in the pages of a book, possibly winning new fans for them in the process. (Will my efforts help Kitty and Lavinia rank up on the Social Security list? Stranger things have happened.)

One final thought: There’s usually a more flexible timeline to naming fictional people than there is to naming real ones. With no bureaucratic deadlines or family members pressuring you for a decision, you can take ample time getting to know your characters and choosing accordingly. I’m a discovery writer who figures out the story as I write, so my drafts often have characters named “she” or “he” until I’m a good way into the story… at which point I consider the factors above, plug the winning name into the manuscript, and see how it goes from there.

And how has it gone, all this naming? Well, both of my sons, now teenagers, tell me they love their names. And no readers have told me that Catherine, my protagonist in The Seeing Garden, is really more of a Sierra, Mimi, or Blanche.

I’m going to call that a win.

When Writing Gets Hard: 3 Hidden Causes of Writer’s Block

Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas (@manzanitafire), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach. 

One newspaperman, Red Smith, is credited with saying, “Writing is easy. You just sit at your typewriter until little drops of blood appear on your forehead.”

When Dorothy Parker was asked if she enjoyed writing, she replied with characteristic wit by saying, “I enjoy having written.”

All of which is to say, writing is famously hard.

If you occasionally hit a rough spot for what feels like no reason at all, then the solution is often to stop for a moment, take stock, and look a little deeper into what it is you’re attempting to write.

As a writer myself, I’m no stranger to these sorts of points, where it feels like I’ve been cruising along with my writing only to suddenly hit a brick wall. And as a book coach, part of my job is helping people get through these rough spots in their creative work.

In looking at this phenomenon from both the inside and the outside, I’ve come to see that there almost is a reason for it—though these reasons may not be at all obvious to us at the time.

In fact, these are usually points where the wise storyteller inside us is trying to tell us something.

1. You don’t know enough about your story.

You may know how the story starts, and how it ends. You may know who the characters are, exactly what they love and hate about each other. You may even know what it was in the protagonist’s past that led her to have such strong feelings about what the antagonist is doing.

The fact is, you can know a lot about your story and still not know enough. And by enough, I mean the right things—the things essential to telling a compelling story, at the level of the big-picture structure.

Those are the story elements I focus on in my course on big-picture storytelling, and in my one-on-one outline coaching work as well: your protagonist’s emotional journey in the story, and subsequent transformation; the cause-and-effect trajectory of your plot, and how it pushes your protagonist to grow and change; and what your characters want and why they want it.

I’ve seen this over and over again (and experienced it for myself): If you’re not clear as a writer on any one of these things, you will eventually hit the wall with your story—or head off in the wrong direction entirely, with an increasing sense of uncertainty and unease as you do so. Which in turn makes writing hard.

Why? Because your wise inner storyteller is trying to tell you that you don’t know enough about your story to write it.

2. You don’t know enough about your scene or chapter.

You may be clear on how your story fits together in the big picture but still be in the dark as to how a given scene or chapter unfolds—and the more important that scene or chapter is to your story, the harder it will be to write.

These are the days when many of us stare at our computer screens for hours on end, writing and deleting and writing again, and deleting again, in a frustrating loop that can actually lead to thinking in ways that aren’t very kind to ourselves.

What is wrong with me? Why can’t I write this? What is my problem today?

In my experience, this is just another variation on the first issue: Your wise inner storyteller is telling you that you don’t know enough yet to write this scene or chapter.

The solution in this case is to simply to stop trying to write that scene or chapter directly and pre-write instead—in whatever form you find most helpful.

Prewriting might mean taking some time to make some notes about that scene or situation in your process notebook. (You keep one of those, right?) It might mean freewriting in that notebook about what each of the characters in this scene or chapter is feeling at this point in the story, about what their perspective and agenda is.

Or prewriting might mean actually drafting that scene or chapter in a very loose way, by hand, then going back over it and adding possible variations and possible deletions, without making any commitments either way—and then, and only then, going to the computer and formalizing the language.

Try this the next time you feel stuck in this way, and I think you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to write that big scene or chapter when it doesn’t feel like you have to produce it “from scratch.”

3. What you think you know is wrong.

In other cases, you may feel like you know exactly what’s supposed to happen in this section of your story, or exactly what is supposed to happen in this scene or chapter, but … it still feels really hard to write.

Some folks get stuck here—for days, months, and sometimes even years. But writers are nothing if not stubborn, so many of them simply find a way to push on through.

If that’s what you’ve done with a section of your manuscript, this may wind up being a section you feel you can never quite get right. You may go over and over it again in revision, tweaking and nipping and cutting, fiddling with the language, the transitions, the POV, whatever—but no matter what you do, something about it still feels off.

And because we spend so long reworking on those sections, we often wind up getting attached to them. They become those “darlings” Faulkner was talking about—the ones we ultimately have to kill, for the greater good of the story.

Which is to say, sometimes the parts that feel hard to write, or hard to “get right” in revision, are simply wrong for the story, no matter how much you’ve managed to convince yourself otherwise.

Meaning: it’s out of keeping with what you’ve already established, it will not help you land the ending, it leads to a wrong ending, it IS the wrong ending, it will not create a satisfying experience for the reader—or some combination of the above.

In this case, your wise inner storyteller is telling you to step back and reconsider what you think you know about the story and see if there’s something you’re missing—and something different here that needs to happen in this section of your novel instead.

Have you experienced this type of “writer’s block” with one of your stories?

And is there a point in your writing journey where your wise inner storyteller was trying to tell you something you didn’t realize at the time?

Let me know in the comments!

Writing Lessons from Jane Austen: Story Questions and Northanger Abbey

Photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash

Today’s post is by book coach Robin Henry.

In case you missed it, 2025 is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. There will likely be celebrations, adaptations, and fan fiction abounding all year. It’s worth taking a moment to think about what makes Austen one of the true GOATs in literature. 

Great novels ask readers to think about interesting questions. Rather than supply answers, their authors present readers with opportunities to consider two types of story questions:

Big Picture or Thematic QuestionsPlot Questions

For example, in a murder mystery the plot question is usually “Who is the murderer?” The big picture question might be “How could an average person be pushed far enough to commit a murder?” or “Why do people hurt each other?” The big picture question generally has a philosophical bent.

In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen asks story questions through her characters’ goals, motivations, and conflict, as well as the plot. Her characters participate, wittingly or not, in an examination of the big picture question, as well as the plot question.

Austen added a preface to Northanger Abbey while preparing it for publication to explain that because it had originally been finished in 1803, “The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable changes.” Austen knew that to enjoy Northanger Abbey fully as a satire of Gothic novels of that earlier time, it was important to understand the books and opinions about books which were in vogue at the time it was originally written.

Her concern is understandable, because the underlying big picture question of Northanger Abbey is, “How do novels affect readers?”

Austen’s thematic story question is clear from the opening, when she introduces Catherine, “from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.” It is Catherine’s misreading of the Gothic, along with her friend Isabelle’s, that drives the plot, most famously when she suspects that General Tilney has murdered his wife—leading to her crisis confrontation with Henry, and her growth through self reflection.

Catherine uses her reading to learn lessons both good and bad. Though she succumbs to the mistaken idea that the General is a murderer, she is not all wrong about his character. He is somewhat villainous, as is made plain by his banishment of her late at night to a carriage in which she must ride unaccompanied to return to her home. Austen uses this and another carriage episode earlier in the novel to illustrate her characters’ goals, motivations, and conflict.  Though Catherine’s reading had taught her that she ought not to go riding alone with John Thorpe, since it was inappropriate and the heroines in Gothic novels are frequently kidnapped or worse in fast moving carriages, she had been persuaded to set aside caution by her inept, non-reading chaperone, Mrs. Allen. When forced into the carriage by General Tilney, she is able to cope because she has grown as a character. She makes it home without incident.

Characters in Northanger Abbey are revealed through their novel reading, misreading, and lack of reading. Henry Tilney is a rational charmer who waxes on the picaresque, a popular writing style of the time. As a wide reader of good sense, he has read novels and does not disparage them, but warns Catherine to be careful not to think life is like a novel, even teasing her about visiting Northanger Abbey when they first arrive. He has read the Gothic novels of which Catherine is so fond, but he takes them for entertainment rather than a life manual, and encourages Catherine to do the same during their confrontation over her suspicions of General Tilney, “Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. … Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?” (Chapter 24) It is Henry’s disapproval that breaks the spell of misreading for Catherine. She begins to rationally examine the ideas she sees in books.

John Thorpe, in contrast, goes on about novels being nonsense and then explains that the only two he has enjoyed are Tom Jones and The Monk—two books with plenty of sex and seduction, and a deal of it explicit—to Catherine, whom he is supposedly courting for marriage, thus betraying his lack of couth and tact. At this point in their relationship, Catherine is too innocent to catch the references, however Austen’s readers most likely would have done and had fair warning, if they needed it, of Thorpe’s real character.

Notice that the major story question—how do novels affect readers?—is apparent throughout the novel in both plot and character. The characters are different types of readers, and have different reactions to the novels they read: Catherine is naive, Henry rational, Thorpe careless, leaving the reader of Northanger Abbey to conclude that perhaps it isn’t the novels that are the problem.

One cannot write a discussion of novel reading and Northanger Abbey without including that most famous of Austen quotations. After a slightly longish narrator intrusion about how authors themselves denigrate novels by not allowing their heroines to read them, she writes that novels are works “in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”

Thus, it is clear that posing the question of whether people should read novels and how they should read them is the major story question of Northanger Abbey. The question of novel reading is apparent on every page of the book. It was a major debate in Austen’s time, especially with regard to how women read as opposed to how men read and what they read, all of which are part of the examination of reading in Northanger Abbey.

Notice, though, that the reader is never instructed by Austen as to what the answer to this question is. The intrusive narrator has an opinion, but it is the story of Northanger Abbey which poses various answers to the question of how readers are affected by novels. Different readers have different responses to books and different levels of engagement with literature, which leads the reader of Austen’s novel to form their own opinion, rather than be given the answer. We are never told that Henry is a good reader or that Thorpe is a bad reader, we are left to make that judgment for ourselves.

And what about the Plot question? In a Marriage Plot, much like a romance novel, the question is will they or won’t they, and the answer is, yes they will—it is just a matter of how. Just as each character considers the thematic question, each character has a role to play in answering the plot question. The Allens may have been shoddy chaperones, but their agreement to let Catherine visit the Tilneys allowed her to develop her relationship with Eleanor and Henry. John Thorpe was definitely a cad and Isabelle possibly a libertine (because she read too many Gothic novels, or did she just read the racy parts?), but it is in contrast to them that Eleanor and Henry shine as beacons of sense and attachment.

Austen’s work stands out among her peers and has stood the test of time, partly because of the way she handles story questions. The thematic question is clear and apparent—it remains always present in the actions of the characters and the consequences, and importantly, each character deals with the question in their own way, providing the reader with something to think over in response. As one of the early architects of the novel as a form, Austen’s use of a unifying thematic question elevated and advanced the form, contributing to the development of long form narratives.

Austen was careful not to waste pages on non-plot question related events as well. Each event and character action/reaction leads logically to the next, even when Catherine is basing her actions on her Gothic novels. Within the framework of what she perceives to be true at the time, she is following a line of “story logic” that leads her to take action. Austen lets the characters drive the plot, using the thematic and plot questions as her guardrails in telling the story.

Practice using story questions with your own work

What are your big picture and plot story questions? (at least one of each)List four to six characters from your novel and describe how their actions and decisions reveal the story questions. Limit yourself to 100 words for each character.List the major plot events in your novel (inciting incident, complication, crisis, climax, resolution) and explain how the story question informs each event. Try to keep it to 250 words.

Crafting Memoir with a Message: Blending Story with Self-Help

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Today’s post is by Maggie Langrick, publisher at Wonderwell Press.

In my role as founding publisher at Wonderwell Press, I meet many aspiring authors who are stuck on the question of whether to write a how-to book or a memoir.

On one hand, they yearn to share their story but haven’t got the platform or literary cachet required to compete in the narrative nonfiction space. On the other hand, they have helpful insights to share but don’t feel comfortable writing a prescriptive book, especially if their advice stems from personal experience rather than professional expertise.

If you’re grappling with this decision, I have good news for you: You don’t necessarily have to choose one over the other—it is possible to share your story in a way that helps people with a specific issue, rather than simply providing an entertaining read. Enter the “memoir with a message.”

A typical memoir leans heavily on entertainment value through the author’s artistry and storytelling skills. But a memoir with a message goes beyond traditional storytelling and pulls universal lessons out of the author’s personal experience. These memoirs do more than recount the author’s life; they distill insights from those experiences into advice or principles that readers can apply to their own lives.

The best argument for considering this format? Due to their practical value, a memoir with a message can be easier to sell to publishers than a straight narrative memoir, because the publisher will also find it easier to sell this type of memoir to booksellers. Some acquiring editors will ask memoirists to retool their manuscript in this way so that it can be shelved in the self-help section. Some good examples of successful traditionally published books that fall into this category include:

Tough Titties by Laura Belgray (Message: You can be a slacker/late bloomer and still win at life, just like me.)We Are the Luckiest by Laura McKowen (Message: Getting sober is worth it; here’s how I did it.)Unfollow Your Passion by Terri Trespicio (Message: It’s OK to wing it through life; here’s how I did it.)Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies and Glow in the F*cking Dark by Tara Schuster (Message: You can heal your own mental health issues, just as I did.)

I interviewed three of the above authors on my podcast, The Selfish Gift, and in each case, the author told me that she initially pitched a straight memoir in her book proposal before her agent or acquiring editor pressed her to boost the prescriptive elements to make it an easier sell.

Each of these is, in essence, a book of personal narrative that straddles the line between memoir and self-help, though it’s worth noting that each one leans in one or the other direction. The first two are memoir-leaning but clearly speak to specific issues that the author shares with readers, and are positioned as books you would read to help yourself make a shift. The second two lean into self-help but are heavily built around the author’s personal story rather than professional credentials.

Here’s how you can craft a memoir that not only shares your story but also offers the guidance that readers of self-help books are seeking.

Define your core message

Begin by identifying the central message you want to convey through your memoir. What are the lessons you’ve learned from your life experiences that you believe can help others? This message should be a universal truth or insight that extends beyond your own story to connect with a broader audience. Whether it’s overcoming adversity, finding resilience in the face of loss, or mastering the art of happiness, your message will serve as the backbone of your memoir, giving it direction and purpose.

Structure your story strategically

The structure of your memoir is crucial in weaving your personal experiences with self-help elements. Unlike a traditional autobiography, a memoir with a message should be organized around key themes rather than sticking to a chronological sequence. Each chapter should focus on a specific aspect of your experience and relate it back to your central message. Use your personal stories to illustrate these themes, and conclude each chapter with reflections or lessons that elevate the narrative from mere storytelling to insightful guidance.

Incorporate teachable moments

As you recount your experiences, highlight moments that taught you valuable lessons. These moments should serve as stepping stones in the narrative, providing not only a deeper understanding of your journey but also offering readers practical takeaways. For instance, if your memoir focuses on personal transformation, share the challenges and breakthroughs that shaped your path, and distill these into lessons that the reader can apply in their own life.

Engage with honesty and vulnerability

The power of a memoir lies in its authenticity and emotional truth. Be honest and vulnerable in sharing your failures as well as your successes. This authenticity creates a connection with readers, making your advice more credible and relatable. Vulnerability can be a potent tool in self-help memoirs, as it encourages readers to reflect on their own lives and challenges with a new perspective. It also positions you as a peer who has been there, rather than talking down to your reader, or coming across as preachy or professorial.

Use reflective questions and exercises

To enhance the self-help aspect of your memoir, consider including reflective questions, prompts, or exercises at the end of chapters. These tools invite readers to engage actively with the material, apply the lessons to their own lives, and facilitate personal growth. This interactive element can transform your memoir from a passive reading experience into a dynamic tool for personal development.

Maintain a positive, inspirational tone

Your tone should inspire and motivate. Even when delving into difficult subjects, don’t show up to the page with an axe to grind. You’re not writing to unload unresolved trauma or resentment on your reader, but to serve as an illuminating example of growth and healing. Highlighting the positive changes in your life as a result of your experiences can motivate readers to seek similar transformations in their own lives.

Give each element the care it deserves

A caveat: This is not a superficial remedy for an otherwise weak manuscript. Many industry experts (including Jane Friedman) are cautious about recommending this approach and may even steer new writers away from it because it’s easy to view this as a quick fix. Your book—whether it is a straight memoir, a memoir with a message, or a prescriptive nonfiction book—needs to meet a very high bar to be successful, and there is no literary device clever enough to turn a bad book into a bestseller.

One thing all the titles I’ve held up as examples in this article have in common is that they are excellent books: well-written, insightful, entertaining, and instructive to various degrees. Every element in your book needs to be of high quality, so give each one the care it deserves. Conduct thoughtful research if you are taking a journalistic approach to your message. Thoroughly test any advice or instructions you may be providing to ensure your prescriptions are truly effective and relevant to a majority of your readers. And, of course, be sure to tell a great story rich in insight, color, drama, sparkling dialogue, and satisfying character development.

When executed well, a memoir with a message offers a unique opportunity to touch lives through the power of personal narrative combined with practical wisdom. By clearly defining your message, strategically structuring your story, and integrating actionable advice, you can create a compelling memoir that stands as a beacon of hope and guidance on the self-help shelves.

Choosing Story Settings Based on Genre

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Today’s post is by author Jane K. Cleland. Join her on Wednesday, July 10, for the online class Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot.

Different genres come with different reader expectations that pertain to setting. For instance, readers expect cozies to be set in small towns and hard-boiled detective stories to be based in cities. In some genres, such as fantasy, world building is crucial. For instance, if you’re writing a novel about an underwater civilization, you might:

Integrate challenging terrain, such as caverns and mountain ranges to enable your characters to showcase their athleticism, bravery, or wit.Create longing through juxtaposition by featuring a man who yearns to live on dry land and allow him access to a sand bar where he can see grass and forests, his dream so close, and yet so far away.Invent societal systems that are consistent and logical, and develop characters who understand how those systems operate—a kind of pecking order, perhaps, that allows warriors to inhabit the deeper environs, relegating the rest of society to the less desirable surface areas.

In other genres, like historical fiction, readers want to be immersed in the period not only to see what was there and what wasn’t, but to experience how people lived. In Diana Gabaldon’s New York Times bestseller Outlander, the Scottish Highlands come alive with lush descriptions—but these descriptions occur only as characters interact with the environment.

While in the Scottish Highlands in 1945, Claire touches a stone in a circular henge and is mysteriously transported back to 1743. Marrying historical romance to time travel, the events feel contemporary. The fields of heather, the craggy rocks, the dark castles, the mysterious stones, every element evokes a sense of time and place. The book runs to 850 pages, yet because the focus is on incident, not description, the enduringly popular novel is considered a fast read.

Contemporary romance readers also expect settings to transport them to another world. Readers of this genre crave the entire romance package, not simply a love story. They want to vicariously experience a grand romance. They don’t want merely to walk down the Champs-Élysées in Paris—that’s a place they know well (in their imaginations) from the countless books, movies, and television shows that feature it. They want a unique experience. Take them someplace they can’t go on their own, like an appointment at the American Embassy in Paris or a party at the Ambassador’s residence. Don’t merely send them into the National Gallery of Art in London; let them sit in on a curatorial meeting with the King’s archivist. Don’t make them sit passively on the outside patio at Bangkok’s Peninsula Hotel, or if you do, be certain they see something remarkable, like a woman in in a tight black dress and stiletto heels jumping onto a commuter boat traveling along the Chao Phraya River. Readers would rather go on an elephant ride through the jungle outside Bangkok or get a sexy soapy massage in the Huay Kwang section of the city than sit quietly in a hotel room. When writing unusual locations, go big.

This principle isn’t unique to romance readers. All readers want to spend time in settings they don’t know, or settings that, while familiar, are freshly envisioned. Consider John Cheever’s 1964 short story, “The Swimmer,” a retelling of the Greek myth of Narcissus. Narcissus, you’ll recall, died staring at his own reflection shimmering in a pool of water. In “The Swimmer,” which was originally published in The New Yorker, Cheever used his trademark suburban setting to make observations about social status, wealth, and self-aggrandizement. As the story becomes increasingly surreal, readers’ perceptions of suburbia darken.

Judith Guest’s 1976 novel, Ordinary People, also focuses on an affluent suburban family. The nondistinctive environment—the kind of upper-middle-class suburban oasis found in all fifty states—casts the extraordinary events into sharp relief. This idealized family is ripped apart when the eldest son, Buck, is killed in a sailing accident. Conrad, the younger son, survives. Ordinary People follows the three remaining members of the family, Conrad and his parents, as they come to terms with their loss. The book is written in the third-person omniscient voice, in the present tense, with chapters alternating between the surviving son, Conrad, and his father, Calvin. Dealing with themes of life and death, survival and suicide, trust and betrayal, this work of literary fiction uses its affluent location as a counterpoint to the desolate emotions the characters must confront. 

Sensory references bring your setting to life

After you’ve determined what your suspenseful setting looks like, it’s time to write. The more sensory references you integrate, the more heightened the suspense. Whether the suspenseful moment is action-oriented (e.g., a ghoulish creature chasing your protagonist through the deserted streets of an urban wasteland, drawing ever closer) or psychological (e.g., a country kitchen where an apparently kind woman’s barbed criticisms grow ever darker), your readers will feel more present if they can experience the situation as if they’re in the scene themselves. Getting your thoughts in order before you put pen to paper ensures your description will enliven the scene, not slow it down.

Whatever settings you choose, they need to align with your theme, support the plot, and help define your characters. This idea of people interacting with places provides rich opportunities for subtle and deep engagement.

Opposites attract

Sometimes you want to choose a setting that contrasts with your character’s longing or your story’s conflict. For instance, consider how intriguing these paradoxical pairings might be.

A romance between a convicted killer and a lonely woman. Their searing love affair develops in a dingy prison visiting room under a guard’s watchful eye. A memoir focusing on a woman’s dramatic rise from poverty and homelessness to the corporate boardroom. The first time she goes home after reaching this pinnacle of success, she visits an old school chum who now lives in a desolate trailer park.

Choosing settings that contrast with your characters’ situations adds spice to your stories, highlighting your thematic underpinnings by encouraging readers to think about the deep issues in your stories.

People interacting with places

One of the themes in my Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries is finding community. Josie, after losing her job, her friends, her boyfriend, and her dad, all within a few months, decides to move to Rocky Point, New Hampshire, to start a new life. New Hampshire’s rugged coastline and long, hard winters contrast sharply with the theme, allowing me to write about places that bridge the gap between theme and place. Consider this excerpt from 2016’s Glow of Death:

Frills of white caps and sun-sparked opalescent sequins dotted the dark blue ocean. Rocky Point, New Hampshire, was beautiful in all seasons, from the fiery colors of autumn to the pristine whites of winter to the red buds and unfurled green leaves of spring, but it was summer I liked the most. The wild grasses on the sandy dunes. The buttercups and honeysuckle. The easy breezes. I was a sucker for a breeze.

Rather than simply describing Rocky Point, I let my readers see it through Josie’s eyes. 

In Isak Dinesen’s 1938 novel, Out of Africa, the narrator starts with a description of the farm where the protagonist lives. The exposition goes on for more than 3,500 words (more than ten pages) before we come to some dialogue. The narration is written in the first person, so while it might be cumbersome for today’s readers, you are able to see what the protagonist sees, such as trees that are different from those found in Europe.

That reflection occurs in the second paragraph of the novel, and from that singular comment, we garner important information about the character. This technique—slipping backstory into descriptions of setting by letting your readers experience the place alongside your character—is one of the best ways to let your readers in on your character’s secrets, opinions, heritage, longings, and intentions.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on Wednesday, July 10, for the online class Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot.

The Compounding Value of Small Group Writing Retreats and Intensives

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Today’s post is by retired doctor turned writer Sandra Eliason.

When I hung up my stethoscope in 2017, I started writing, believing that my 30-plus years of chart notes, limited as they were, had kept me somewhat in practice. My first degree was in English, and most of my years as a doctor were before computers, when the chart wasn’t automated fill-in-the-blank, and I had an opportunity to tell a patient’s story. Winning the 2016 Minnesota Medicine magazine writing contest encouraged me to go for it.

I soon learned, however, that chart writing and creative writing were two entirely separate endeavors. My career had required me to practice “just the facts, ma’am.” Now, descriptive details of sight and sound, taste and smell were not only important, but necessary to set a scene. To learn how, I took two creative writing classes at the University of Minnesota, signed up for online courses, went to writing conferences, took a year-long memoir-writing course, and attended workshops. I added several writing intensives. All were helpful, and my writing grew. Publication in Best American Essays 2023 encouraged me again. Then, rejections began piling up, convincing me my writing wasn’t “there” yet: I must need more help.

Where to turn next? I found multiple intensives advertised in wonderful and even exotic locations, with excellent teachers. Low-res MFAs beckoned. Residencies advertised. How to choose from the offerings of excellent instructors in enticing venues that would meet my specific needs?

Then I saw Rebirth Your Writing with Allison K Williams aboard the Queen Mary 2, with three additional fabulous teachers—Dinty W. Moore, Amy Goldmacher, and, finally, Jane Friedman. The format intrigued me: multiple teachers, multiple days, one location. A whole week to learn from four people with different perspectives and areas of expertise, and nowhere to go except aboard the ship.

This course design presented opportunities not usually available. Each morning in a combined session, one or more instructors led us to explore setting priorities for our creative life, choosing and using social media, crafting compelling first pages, querying, or being present in your writing. Each instructor made available added one-on-one time, to review specific pages or stuck points in a writer’s work. During breakout sessions, one could stay with a single instructor over the week, or choose a different one each day, depending on which topic addressed the writer’s needs. We participants sorted ourselves to fit our situation, thus also learning from each other—I heard conversations about sessions I did not attend, and which tidbits someone needed at this point in their writing.

Dinty W. Moore reviewed my lagging essays, Allison K Williams helped focus my query and a weak chapter, and Amy Goldmacher showed me how to refine chapter summaries, leaving my afternoons to learn from Jane.

Because of that unique structure, two things happened:

The individual and collective wisdom of instructors, with their interactions, allowed each day’s topic to not only build on the previous day’s, but reinforce it, adding more depth and meaning. Reviewing my notes, I found similar themes recurring. Each time I jotted an idea down, I had increased understanding of the thing I needed to learn, stated in a new way. I had heard much of it before, but in a “one and done” session, it seemed to go into my ears and get lost in my brain. Seven days in the same space, hearing the same teachers’ wisdom, made it stick.Spending many days with the same instructor adds both complexity and clarity to the knowledge—complexity because as each topic builds, the nuances expand, and clarity, because as a topic is better defined, it becomes clearer. I chose my afternoons with Jane because hers was the information I needed most. And although some of it was repeated information for me, once the retreat was over I felt more ready to use the tools I was given than I had after any single course.

My retreat week began with an individual session with Jane. I had felt lost about where to enter social media. It seemed like a painful chore I had to do only because agents wanted it. I couldn’t force myself to engage, and the effort seemed futile. Half an hour with Jane refocused my understanding. She helped me see that I had a mission—I had just not defined it. Stating that mission, and learning how to focus social media around it, was exciting; my brain lit up with ideas. With that clarity, each day’s class added to my understanding of how multiple tools could advance my writing career: website best practices, social media use focused around mission, newsletter how-to, book launch ideas. A plethora of things built on each other over each day, and planted themselves in my brain, because they came with understanding of how they fit together, and were reinforced daily.

Writing conferences and classes are important opportunities I will continue to attend. But the format of multiple instructors + the same location + time = a multiplier effect of learning that a single event does not provide. Going forward, I will look for courses offering this method of learning, and I recommend it as an effective tool to advance one’s writing.

Want to read more about this specific retreat and the Queen Mary 2?Queen Mary 2: 10 Things to Know by Elinor FlorenceCrossing the Seas and Dotting the I’s by Margo Warren

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