C.D. Hersh's Blog, page 11
January 20, 2025
Tell Again Tuesday Resolutions and Goals
The Mirror and the ArrowBy Donald Maass
Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? Good for you! And good luck! May your resolutions prove easy to enact and the year ahead be a year of fulfillment.
Resolutions and goals are good, but today I have a different New Year’s challenge to bring to you. It’s a list of questions, the point of which is to help you refine your moral inventory as a storyteller. “Moral inventory”? What is that, a step in some writing addiction recovery program?
No, it’s a way to . . .
For the rest of the blog go to:
January 16, 2025
Friday Feature Five Common Plot Problems
There have been volumes written on plot. After all, it is a critical element in every story. While I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, I have picked up a few pointers on my journey in the writing world. Here are five common plot problem I’ve encountered and ways to solve them.
1. Starting in the wrong place:
Begin where the trouble begins. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a prologue, but you’d better be sure it relates to where the trouble started. Take out those 20 pages of back story telling us how Betty Sue wasn’t getting along with her ex and how they finally got that divorce. Instead, do something like Jennifer Cruise did in one of her books where the heroine finds a pair of underwear in her husband’s car—and they aren’t hers! No need to tell us the couple has been having marital problems. The panties say it all.
2. Having a weak conflict:
Conflict doesn’t mean constant bickering between your hero and heroine. Strong conflicts must have consequences and the conflict and consequences must move the story forward. If your characters can work out the problem if they just talk or can walk away from their problems then your conflict is too weak. The conflict must force them to stay together. If you let them walk away at any point you must create a complication that forces them back together.
3. A predictable plot:
A predictable plot has no surprises. We’ve all read and seen predictable plots in books and movies. You know where the story is going. You can guess who committed the murder. While stories like that can be enjoyable, I get the most pleasure out of a story that makes me say, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.” To avoid predictable plots try making a list of 20 things that could happen, then eliminate your first five items. Those are usually the most predictable things. Make sure you leave a subtle hint that foreshadows the unexpected event so the reader won’t feel cheated with the surprise. You want them to be able to go back and say, “Yeah, I see where the author set that up. It was clever.”
4. A plot that moves too slowly:
When your plot moves too slowly you usually have a pacing problem. Try solving the problem by adding subplots. Braid the subplots into the main story so all the plots interact with one another. Each plot line, main and subplots, need three turning points spaced approximately ¼, ½ and ¾ way through the book or through each plot line. Add twists and turns in the story to keep it going. You can also step up the pace of the story with shorter scenes and chapters, breaking up paragraphs to put more white space on the page and making sure there is tension on every page.
5. An ending that doesn’t satisfy:
An ending that satisfies can sell your next book, because if your reader feels cheated by your ending it’s likely they won’t give you another chance. For romance readers this mean a happily-ever-after ending, or at least the promise of one. Be sure to tie up all your plot lines before the end of the book. Generally, the last plot line to be established is the first one to be completed. With romance, you want to solve all the other problems before you solve the romance.
Do you have trouble with plotting?
January 14, 2025
Wednesday Special Spotlight Six Ds of Dialogue
Dialogue is paramount in any story. Dialogue is the backbone of stage plays and screenplays, and is what actors memorize. Dialogue is the hinge pin of novels, especially in today’s fast-paced, want-the-story-to move-forward world. Yet, for many writers dialogue is the hardest thing to write. We can fill pages upon pages with purple prose, narrative, and information dumps, but often avoid dialogue.
Why? Maybe we’re afraid our characters will sound stupid, or their words will be stilted. Perhaps writers fear their characters will sound flat, or they will say too much or too little. Or maybe we think our characters will sound the same, because, after all, it’s only one person creating all those different voices.
Personally, we find ourselves writing dialogue first then going back and filling in the narrative, the senses and other parts of the story. Maybe that’s because of our acting or playwriting background. Sometimes we must scrap the dialogue, having discovered some of the problems mentioned above. At any rate, along our writing journey we’ve picked up a few tips to help with writing dialogue that we’d like to share with you. We hope you find them helpful.
Six Ds of Dialogue:
1. Deliver content. Every word, every scene, every sentence in your book should move the story forward. Dialogue is part of that forward motion. Use dialogue to propel your story forward by revealing new obstacles, introducing pivotal moments in the plot, reminding the character of goal, and deepening emotions. Don’t waste words on unnecessary stuff like greetings, talk about the weather, discussion about the song on the radio (unless it will figure in the story later) or idle chit chat inserted to fill time or make up word counts. Get right to the point.
2. Differentiate voice. No one person sounds like another. The way my sister pronounces the word “picture” is unlike anyone else, and I’d recognize her voice anywhere. Make sure your characters’ voices are just as distinctive. Give them different cadences, different speaking styles, different words, different sentence lengths. Listen to people speak and use those nuances in your characters’ dialogue.
3. Define tone. Dialogue sets the mood for your story just like narrative does. Characters in a humorous book sound unlike those in a horror book. Chick lit dialogue is very different than that of a hard-hitting cop drama, and a magically based book’s characters would certainly not sound like the teenage characters in YA novel. When creating your characters’ dialogue make sure you take the tone of the book into consideration.
4. Drop in description. Normally, writers use blocks of narrative to describe setting and provide background information. By dropping bits of description, background, or historical information into dialogue you can let the reader learn what he needs to know at that moment in the story.
5. Don’t be didactic. Providing information in your story is important. Just make sure you don’t drop so much description and background into the dialogue that you turn what should be quick, informative conversations into dialogue description dumps.
6. Dial up the conflict. Use your conversations to create tension and suspense. Speed up the scenes by eliminating most of the description and explanations. Make sentences short and fast. Make the conflict and risks clear, but hold back some information so suspense remains high.
If you have trouble writing dialogue, try writing the first draft of your scene as a script. No narrative, just dialogue. Then read it out loud to see how it sounds. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Is dialogue hard for you to write?
January 13, 2025
Tell Again Tuesday How Did the Tradition of New Year’s Resolutions Start?
The Interesting History Behind New Year’s ResolutionsBy Catherine Boeckmann
New Year’s resolutions actually go back to ancient times! So, before you pooh-pooh the idea, let’s explore what’s behind this tradition and more practical ways towards self-improvement. Plus, we also compare the top 10 resolutions from the 1940s to those of today! Are you surprised?
Short History of New Year’s Resolutions
From the Babylonians who . . .
For the rest of the blog go to:January 9, 2025
Friday Feature Soup Recipe
Okay, so it’s not the best takeoff on Marie Antoinette’s infamous saying, but that was my little way of announcing that January is National Soup Month. It’s true. You can check it out on Wikipedia. In honor of this auspicious event, my January posts will be dedicated to soup, well, at least the Wednesday posts. So tie on your aprons and let’s get cooking!
Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 lb. fresh mushrooms – use 2 or 3 different types
8 tbsp. butter
2 small shallots or scallions, finely chopped
6 tbsp. flour
1 qt. chicken stock *
¼ cup dry sherry
2 egg yolks
½ cup heavy cream
White pepper**
Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel. Pull the stems and caps apart. Put pieces in a food processor. Run until chopped. The mix will almost look like a paste. Or fine dice the mushrooms by hand.
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a 10-12 inch skillet. Add mushrooms and shallots and sauté for 3 minutes. Set the skillet aside.
In a heavy 6-quart saucepan, melt the remaining butter over medium heat. Remove pan from the heat and stir in the flour. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Do NOT let this brown too much or it will be bitter. The roux should be no darker than a caramel/tan.
Remove the pan from the heat. Allow to cool 10-15 seconds, then pour in the stock while whisking constantly. Return the pan to a medium-high heat and stir until the soup base thickens and is smooth, approximately 12-15 minutes.
Stir in the mushrooms and sherry. Simmer for 15 minutes, but be sure to stir occasionally.
Blend the egg yolks into the cream with a whisk. Whisk in 3 tablespoons of hot soup at a time until you’ve added ¾ cup. Reverse the process and slowly whisk the now-warm mixture into the soup. ***
Bring soup to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the heat. Taste and season with pepper.
Serve from a tureen or in individual bowls.
This recipe makes 6 bowls
*You can substitute up to half the amount with dry white wine
**In this recipe white pepper is used for its slightly sharper taste. There is no need to make a special trip to buy white pepper. Black pepper will work fine, just use a little more.
***This may seem like extra work, but if you don’t do it the yolks and cream will curdle.
Happy slurping!
Sloane Taylor is an Award-Winning romance author with a passion that consumes her day and night. She is an avid cook and posts new recipes on her blog every Wednesday. The recipes are user friendly, meaning easy.
To learn more about Taylor go to her website. Stay in touch on Blogger, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Taylor’s cookbooks, Hot Men Wear Aprons, Date Night Dinners, Date Night Dinners Italian Style, Sizzling Summer, and Recipes to Create Holidays Extraordinaire are released by Toque & Dagger Publishing and available on Amazon.
January 7, 2025
Wednesday Special Spotlight Italian Struffoli
Baked Honey Balls, also known as Italian Struffoli, are a delightful traditional dessert that has been cherished for generations. These golden, bite-sized treats are made by baking small balls of dough and then drenching them in sweet honey syrup. Unlike other recipes, this is a baked Stuffoli (not fried), which dramatically cuts down on the time needed to be in the kitchen.
Often flavoured with hints of citrus or vanilla, Struffoli cookies are adorned with colourful sprinkles, transforming them into festive delicacies, especially during holidays like Christmas and Easter. With their crispy exterior and tender interior soaked in honey, each bite offers a heavenly taste of Italy’s culinary heritage, making them a beloved dessert worldwide.
For the recipe go to:January 6, 2025
Tell Again Tuesday Who discovered that no two snowflakes are alike?
The First Snowflake Photographer, Wilson BentleyBy Alice Cary
Is there any truth to the old saying, “No two snowflakes are alike”? Wilson A. Bentley, a farmer and amateur meteorologist, sought to answer that question, dedicating himself to observing flakes of snow for 50 years. See the first-ever photos of snowflakes!
Bentley was born in 1865 and raised on a farm near Jericho, Vermont, where his mother, a former teacher, homeschooled him and his brother when they weren’t doing farm chores.
On his 15th birthday, Bentley’s mother gave him the use of an old microscope. It was snowing that day, and the boy succeeded in getting a glimpse of a six-sided snowflake with the instrument; this was the beginning of a fascination that lasted the rest of his life. . . .
For the rest of the blog go to:January 2, 2025
Friday Feature Thoughts
At this time of year you are either thinking about what has happened over the past year or about what you want to accomplish in the New Year. Many make resolutions that barely last to the end of the month of January. With the cold storms sweeping across the northern part of America our thoughts turn to the coming of spring.
The first day of spring this year happens on March 20 at 5:01 A.M. EDT. This falls on a Thursday and is the astronomical beginning of the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere and the autumn season in the Southern Hemisphere. Does this seem early?
In fact over the next four years the vernal equinox occurs on March 20th and then in 2028 it occurs on March 19th, a Sunday. If you’ve always thought the first day of spring comes on March 21st you’ve not been following the calendar too closely. Due to time zone differences there hasn’t been a March 21st equinox in mainland United States during the entire 21st century! We won’t see a March 21st equinox again until 2101. Well, some of us might see it.
An interesting piece of folklore that goes along with the equinox is the ability to stand an egg on its end. This egg folklore became popular in 1945 following a LIFE article about the spring practice. “The origins of this myth are attributed to stories that the ancient Chinese would create displays of eggs standing on end during the first day of spring,” according to John Millis, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Anderson University in South Carolina. “The ancient Chinese celebrated the first day of spring about six weeks earlier than the equinox”—not just on the equinox itself.
As with most folklore, it’s only partly true. You should be able to balance an egg on its end on the equinox, but it’s possible to balance an egg on other days, too!
Folklore or not, this egg trick sounds like fun to us. Try this yourself and let us know how you did it in the comments. (Tip: You’ll probably have better luck balancing an egg if you try it on a rough surface—or use an egg that has a bumpy end.)
December 30, 2024
Tell Again Tuesday Happy New Year
Wishing you a safe celebration
Enjoy the parties and evening festivities, but be safe so you are around for next year’s celebrations.
December 24, 2024
Wednesday Special Spotlight Christmas Card
Drawn by Catherine (the C of C.D. Hersh)
original copyrighted art
For permission to reuse, please contact C.D. Hersh
Catherine created this card in a time past when we painted Christmas scenes on windows for various stores in our area. We painted on the inside of the store windows so that the weather would not wash the pictures off prematurely. This also necessitated painting the picture backward.
She created this piece of window art at church to coordinate with a cantata the choir was performing then later turned the drawing into a Christmas card. Fortunately, this window was meant to be viewed from inside and she didn’t have to write the partial verse “For God so loved the world…” backwards on the glass like she did when we decorated store Christmas windows with the holiday greetings Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. While she can write backwards, it’s not as neat as writing the normal way.
A bit of trivia here on our window and card art. We used tempera paint on most of the big windows because of the expense of acrylics for large areas. They are messy to clean up, but lots of fun to create. The card artwork however was done with colored pencils.
We hope you’re enjoying your Christmas day!
