Building the Character – Reprinted from the WordCraft newsletter on the BackWash site.

One of the keys to building a living, breathing character lies in the details. We are constantly reminded to use all our senses. Sometimes, we need to step back and build the back story for some of the main characters using all those senses. If we look at the stories we like to read, we will also find that all of these details are not revealed to us at one time.

A couple of lessons I used with my students are valuable for all of us to revisit once in a while:

1. Items from a wallet or purse give your character dimension. Personal items in a wallet or purse provide detectives with insights into a person. Besides the standard items of driver’s license and cash, items such as credit cards, business cards, lighters, notes, pictures or the lack of them all provide clues. They can also trigger a memory for your character.

2. Show your character dressing. What rituals are there in the daily robing? If you remember Lee Marvin in the 1965 movie Cat Ballou there is an incredible scene in which we see the transformation of Kid Shelleen from the drunk who cannot hit either side of the barn to the steel-eyed gunfighter. This is all accomplished in a dressing ritual. Have your character dress for a special event. Take time and space to use all senses. You might even end with a scene that you wish to include in your story.

3. Take time to show where and how your character lives. What books, magazines or items are scattered around the apartment or house? Is the room neat and tidy, like that of Adrienne Monk, or cluttered and messed up like the room of a teenager?

Once you have built a back story for your character, you will have a better feel for how and why s/he will act in certain ways in the story you are writing.

Are Workshops Any Good? – Reprinted from the WordCraft newsletter on BackWash.com

If you can find the right Workshop group, it can be invaluable. These are people who care about you. They are people who want you to succeed. They are people who will honestly tell you what you have done well and what needs improvement. They will never attack you personally.

A writer’s group can provide you with the essential feedback that you need. For many years I made the trip from the Outback of Nevada to Carson City to attend Ash Canyon Poets weekly poetry workshop. There were a few rules:
1. Bring a copy of your poem for everyone in the group.
2. Read your poem aloud to the group as they follow along.
3. Comment on the poem.
4. If is your poem, listen to the comments.
5. There are no personal attacks.
6. You have the option to accept or reject the comments given.
7. Everyone has a right to be heard.

There were a few unspoken rules. Everyone is at a different stage of development, and we respect that. The youngest were in their teens and the oldest were in their 80′s. Some were published, and some were just beginning to write.

Ash Canyon Poets is a support group for poets. It is a group who encourages poetry in all venus. It respects all forms of poetry. And it does encourage writers to publish when they are ready. Ash Canyon saw me through the first years of writing. They were there and cheered for me when the first publication came. They are still there encouraging poets in Northern Nevada. That group is one of the few groups of people I sorely miss after having moved to the Midwest.

Today I quit two online groups. One group was supposedly a support group for writers. I never saw one critique but I did see a lot of publishing to the list. The other was a list I had belonged to for a number of years, but recently comments had degenerated to “it sucks” and “the poetry here is monumentally underwhelming.” Neither group was supportive. One was a ego group and the other became a group where, if you posted something that was a “work in progress” you were personally slammed and/or received nothing but negative criticism, if any.

Do I still believe in the value of workshops? Of course I do. The lessons learned at Ash Canyon Poets serve me well even today. And they are a model against which I will judge all other groups.

Will I continue to search for a group? Yes. I value the support and interaction between writers who have a common goal: becoming better writers and helping others do the same.

Reprinted from the WordCraft newsletter on BackWash.

It was late at night. I wandered into a Backwash chat. Had a good time. And I found myself saying “yes.” So, here I am, sending you a newsletter about writing, writers, books, literature, etc. And I have a difficult job to fill the shoes of she who precedes me. I hope I can do that.

What makes me think I can do this? I’ve taught writing for more years than I care to remember. I have published poetry. I read too much. I love words. I live to write.

Writing by nature is a lonely profession. No one sits with you and tells you what to write. You are alone with your thoughts. You sit alone and enter the world you are writing. And nothing frightens an artist (for that’s what you are) more than a blank sheet of paper. Whether you’re a creative writer or a writer of non-fiction, it is your goal to fill that page with words that will move people.

But there comes a time when you have to move out of your own world. You need contacts with other writers, readers who can critically look at your words. For many years not only did I spend time writing but also searched for a group of like-minded people. I was not only isolated by my passion, but by geography. I traveled the 120 miles to Carson City, Nevada, and the members of Ash Canyon Poets nurtured my growing art.

My point? Hie thee to a writers’ group. If you are in an isolated part of the country, search the Internet. There are groups of writers who will welcome you. There are fiction writers, fantasy writers, poets, mystery writers, non-fiction writers out there for you to find.

Also, read. If you are into anthropological fiction, find out what Jean Auel is writing. Who are some of her emulators and what are they writing? If you like lawyer/crime, see what John Grisham is doing now. If you like erotica, check out what is selling at this point in time.

This is enough for now. I do want to extend an invitation to anyone who has questions, suggestions or opinions to contact me. Your ideas are the ideas I build on for my columns and this newsletter.

Until next month, sharpen your pencils, file down your fingernails, and do some writing.

An old post from BackWash, written by a friend, now deceased. Her blog, Anything Under the Sun, is still up on WordPress.com. She was a teacher and a poet, among other things.

It’s the season for making resolutions. And this is no different for those of us in the writing world.

I don’t know about you, but I have not been writing like I should for a few weeks now. Procrastination has set in with a vengeance. So, it’s time for me to make some resolutions:

1. I will write every day. I don’t care if I have anything I think is worth saying. The physical act of writing will eventually spark some writing that will be worth pursuing.

2. I will read every day. It has been too easy lately to come home, sit down in front of the TV and three hours later I realize I have done nothing. I don’t care if it’s a newspaper, a magazine, or a book of poetry. Wide reading gives me fodder for my writing.

3. I will take a writing class, seminar, weekend, whatever. I need the interaction with other writers to grow and develop. I need their feedback.

4. I will attempt to publish more this year. If very little goes out, very little will be published. And I have a lot to share with others through my writing. All I have to do is find the right publication, the right editor, and hope s/he didn’t have a cucumber sandwich for lunch.

5. I will finally apply for that degree I have always wanted.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer – aim for a dozen new people each time.

Connecting: This page will list those who are participating. It also allows for comments if you have an immediate need. This where we can help one another. Check this page whenever you visit – if you can help a fellow writer, hop over to their blog and offer assistance. Be watching for updates!

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

via Alex J. Cavanaugh: The Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

Over ten years ago I wrote a site called HerCorner as part of the HerPlanet network of sites for women.  Included in the site I wrote were writing exercises, short ideas people could pick up, try and move on with their writing day. I kept all of them on the same page. That way, if the first idea didn’t do much for any one reader, the next or the next would eventually work for them.

Here is the list, taken from the Wayback Machine, because HerCorner (my HerCorner) hasn’t been online for more than ten years now.

Try this: Take one intense emotion you’ve experienced (pain, fear, lust, anger) and give it to a fictional character. Make sure the character is not you. Create a scenario and involve another character as an antagonist or co-protagonist.

Try this: Describe an historical event that intrigues you. Use the perspective of someone who was really there but on the sidelines. How do they take part in some small way?

Try this: Write about the path not taken. Start with something you did today but imagine your day if you had made a different choice. Just something as simple as missing your bus, taking the other route, wearing a different shirt, etc.

Try this: Blogs are popular online now (online journals and scrapbooks) try writing your own ‘about me’ page for your blog. How much or how little would you say about yourself? Keep in mind the flavour of a blog:  informal, opinionated and creative.

Try this: In honour of Valentines Day, write a really steamy love letter to someone real or imagined. Be shameless and daring, make it lusty and full of passion. Have fun with it.

Try this: Write about your perfect vacation. Where would you go, who with (or alone), what would you most like to do and how long would you stay away, if you could?

Try this: Try writing a short story without using the letter ‘e’. It’s much harder than it sounds. ‘E’ is the most often used letter. If that’s too frustrating, just pick a different letter to avoid. Work your way up to ‘e’.

Try this: Design a game. If you can draw add those too. But, game design starts with an idea and a story or plot to focus all the characters and play on. What kind of game would yours be: strategy, racing, role playing…?

Try this: Think of something you were really angry about and write a letter to whoever was responsible. Be as bitchy as you can. Don’t send it, just write it. 

Try this: Write about your Christmas traditions. What are you favourite things, things you miss and things you can’t wait for?

Try this: How would your day go if it was a disaster?

Try this: Imagine you’ve just moved. Consider the people or person who lived in the house before you. Write about their life and the home they made there. 

Try this: Take your journal/ diary on a road trip. Write at least 3 pages in some location you have never written before. If you don’t keep a journal just bring along some paper and write!

Try this: Write about silence. Whether it’s a brief pin-prick of time or a long, drawn out moment, write about absolute silence.

Try this: Try to make a list of the best things you like about yourself. List at least 10 things. Don’t cop out either, you’ll know if it’s an honest list or fluff. Don’t cheat yourself or sell yourself short.

Try this: Write a weblog or online journal. Write one entry knowing masses of unknown people will be reading it. Write another as if your daughter or Mother were reading it. Lastly, write an entry no one will ever read but yourself. How much do you feel comfortable writing about yourself, who you are and what you really think? 

Try this:  Write a haiku about writing. Remember, a haiku is a short poem with 3 lines which have 5, 7, and 5 syllables. A haiku captures a specific moment.

Try this: Something really extraordinary has happened (a dragon gave you a treasure hoard, you won the biggest lottery jackpot ever, aliens from space came down to ask you for directions, etc) now… how do you get anyone to believe you? Physical evidence is not enough, you might be crazy enough to make that up yourself. 

Try this: 1001 (or at least a hundred) uses for – last year’s calendar, a worn out toothbrush, roadkill, stale bread, flat pop, dirty laundry, AOL CDs – pick one or come up with your own.

Try this: Write about something you lost. Give it an adventure, what happened to it after you lost it?

Try this: Randomly pick two ads from the personals in your local newspaper. Give them a story, does it all work out or is it a complete disaster right from the start?

Try this: Consider your website (or your computer if you don’t have a site) and put together a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page all about your site. Don’t forget a guide to how to use the site as well as the purpose for it being there. Study a few other FAQs to get ideas.

Try this:  Write a simple poem then change it to show happiness, fear, anger, love, and sadness. What words will you use differently? How will you change the rhythm of the words?

Try this: Write an advertising slogan or jingle for your favourite junk food.

Try this: Write a grocery list for a character in your story.

Try this: Write something for the holidays, a family newsletter, a scary story or a mushy love letter.

Try this: Pick an inanimate object, something ordinary like a light bulb, a coffee mug, or a carpet, and give it life. What does it think, feel? Answer as many who, what, where, when, why and how questions as you can. Then the real challenge, can you edit it down to just a few sentences?

Try this: Write a poem that could be placed on a spacecraft like the voyager, a poem that would explain to someone unfamiliar with the whole human race who we are, where we’ve been, why we act the way we do, and so on.

Try this: Use something you have written recently. Run a spellchecker over it. If any typos or spelling mistakes come up make note of them. Now, if your software has a grammar or style checker run that too. What kind of mistakes does it pick up? Write those down and find out how to fix them. Now, rewrite your original article or story. Run the same checks again and see if anything new comes up. Keep track of your most common errors and learn from them. You don’t have to be a grammar, punctuation or spelling queen but you should know your weak points and focus on them in your work. That way you will be the one in control and your quality of writing and communicating will improve.

Try this: Pretend you’re someone else. Choose someone you admire or someone you think interesting. Now write as if you were that person. What would their writing style be? What would they choose to write about? 

Try this: Set an alarm clock to go off in 5 minutes. Sit with paper and pen (or computer keyboard) in front of you and don’t write anything at all until after the alarm goes off. Once the alarm sounds write as many ideas down as you can. 

Try this: Write backwards. Begin your story from the ending and work your way back to the beginning. This way you’ve already finished writing your story, you just need to add in the details and in betweens.

Try this: Try writing like a theatre script. Show each action you want your characters to make and give stage directions. Now, take all that out and just leave dialogue. How much stage direction do your characters really need and how much is just extra stuff? Could your dialogue be getting lost in your stage directions?

Try this: Write a letter to someone you are angry or upset with. Spew at them, full force. Write all the things left unsaid, or the things you wish you had said at the time. But, don’t send the letter. Keep it as a journal entry, for your eyes only.

Try this: Suddenly you have dropped back in time, no explanations or warning. Do you see dinosaurs, druids, castles or pirates? Write about your first impressions. Don’t forget the who, where, smells, sounds, etc.

Try this: Write a fictional biography for yourself. Have grand adventures, scandalous love affairs, skeletons in your closets, secret criminal activities, and so on. Once you have it done re-work it to 300 words. Not more or less than 300.

Try this: Write an essay for a time capsule to be opened in 30 years. What would you tell yourself or whoever opens your time capsule then? What would you write about, yourself, life in the year 2002 or something else entirely?

Try this: Pretend you are a gossip columnist. Write about a recent personal encounter. Don’t use any names of people, places or things. How does that change your writing? Make you more aware of who, what, why, when and where? 

Try this: Think of a place you feel passionate about, somewhere you have been often, whether its your favourite bookstore, garden or town. Now, write a journal about the trip. Include all the details like how it sounds, smells, your favourite spot or thing, where you found free parking, where’s the best view? Tell someone else all about your place, as if they were going there themselves.

Try this: Create a character with a secret to confess. Write their journal entries over the days, weeks, months they keep the secret. Show how it affects the people in their lives. Why do they continue to keep the secret? How does it affect them?

Try this: Practise paraphrasing. Take a large block of quoted text and pare it down to the bare essentials. This is a great skill to have for interviews or your own writing (if you tend to be wordy).

Try this: Find a newspaper article you feel passionate about and write a letter to the editor. Write as if you are going to send it in to be published, think carefully of each of your points, make sure the style is professional and then actually send it in.

Try this: Write a letter to one of your ancestors, someone you have never met but have heard something about. Or make up an ancestor. Tell them all about yourself, who you are, what makes you the person you are. 

Try this: Write a letter to someone from another planet. Tell them about life on Earth. Describe everything to someone who may not know what air is, who has never heard of the fast food concept, etc. 

Try this: Write out your favourite joke (or fairy tale or poem). Then rewrite that narrative as a tragedy, as a limerick, as a haiku, as a serious academic treatise, as a breaking news story, or as the script for a music video.

Try this: Eavesdrop on a conversation, capture a snippet of it in your mind. Write a story or scene using dialogue only. Since every scene in every story should contain conflict, you’ll want to keep this key concept in mind.

Try this: Watch something happen in public and remember what it was. Try and remember everything and write about it in detail.

Try this: Do a full character analysis. Create a real person: how they walk, the colours they like, who they most admire, where their family came from, their Mother’s maiden name, do they have a zit today and so on. 

Try this: Your character is suddenly blinded and danger still abounds. Focus on those senses you might normally neglect when writing.

Try this: Design three tools, inventions, or customs for your science fiction or fantasy world.

Try this: In five hundred words or less, choose a superstition or old wives’ tale and describe how a character of your design came to learn it and/or who the character first remembers teaching it to him/her.

Try this: Choose a favourite fable, fairy tale or literary story.  Pick a character (not the main characters) and tell the story through his or her eyes in five hundred words or less.

Try this: Write a poem describing the colour red to someone who has been blind from birth. Keep in mind, this person has never seen the typical things like fire, the sun, etc which you could use as a comparison. If poetry isn’t your thing, write in prose but try to be lyrical.

Try this: Pick out your favourite tape or CD and put it on. Sing a long, dance, pretend you are one of the backup singers or the singer herself. Put energy into it and go wild. Dress up like a rock star, grab a make-shift microphone and sing out loud. When you feel charged up write something. 

Try this: Write about a dream, real or imagined. Be vivid. Dreams tend to jump around since they don’t have to make sense or be guided by rules of time and space.

Try this: Get away from your usual writing place. Go outside, get a coffee at the local diner, sit in your car and write. You may find it hard to adapt to the change but it could bring you all new perspectives.

Try this: Verbs make the world go round. With that in mind write a story where the characters are running out of time or involved in an extreme sport. Keep the action sharp and crisp with verbs. 

Try this: Try a short word challenge. Write a short story using only words that have six letters or less. Really great practice at keeping it simple for anyone who tends to use ten dollar words when a 10 cent word would work just as well.

Ben posted his list of WordPress plugins, in 3 parts. In the last post he mentioned a plugin for putting your writer profile/ bio at the end of each post (which I do) or keeping it at the footer of your blog, not in the sidebar. I disagree with this. Yes, there may be other things you would like to give that blog space to, but… what else gives people their first impression of your site and yourself more than a little blurb about you and what your site is about? I really think this is important. Here is what I wrote in the comments on Ben’s blog. It’s in two parts because I made two comments and Ben replied in between. Go read it from his blog to see everything. I only quoted myself.

I don’t agree about the author bio being relegated to the footer or just at the end of the posts. The first thing I look for on a new blog is something about the author and the intent of the blog. I can skim down the list of posts and guess at who wrote them but it’s not the same. If I read the about or a quick bio/ profile I am far more likely to identify with the blogger and become interested in reading the blog. I will also link to another blog just because I liked the bio and felt it was someone worth keeping track of. (Even if none of the current posts really caught my interest).

I come to read your blog because I know you. Over years online you’ve become a familiar face. When I visit a blog for the first time, it’s stepping into a strange land, new territory. Finding something familiar, that I can identify with makes a huge difference in my first impression and it will decide me on whether or not to stay and read. If I don’t find something to identify with I’m very unlikely to return to the blog. The content would have to completely amaze me and almost no blog does that any more. A lot of people won’t see your footer to find you on your site. It can give the first impression of being empty content, written and left out like a brochure. I think people need to see that there is a person behind the site. I think I just gave myself my post for the day.

I have too many books to make a list. I don’t want to spend that kind of time on making a list, it just leaves me feeling guilty for not reading the books yet. However, this year I have actually started reading some of the books. My unread books are mainly non-fiction. I read the fiction then exchange them for more fiction at the secondhand bookstore. It’s the non-fiction that pile up, full of good intentions and rusty dreams for my own might-have-beens.

I started this challenge for me. It’s a dream of mine to look at my bookshelf and say unequivocally and without exception, “I’ve read all those books.” And some of those books have been sitting on my shelf for a LONG time. Hence the name I would love it if you joined me for my challenge! To make it fun, I’m going to have mini-challenges throughout the year (with giveaways!) to keep you motivated to keep reading those books! There’s also a giveaway for everyone who enters this challenge.

via Sign Up for The Dusty Bookshelf Challenge 2012! | Books: A true story.

I’ve been reading websites and blogs online for several years, especially blogs and sites created for writers. I couldn’t even try to look back and count how many I have read, how many I still follow or how many I find new. The numbers don’t really matter. Overall I have noticed one thing divides them all, one thing makes them have or have not. Real experience, really being published (online doing it yourself or being published with an online network just isn’t the same, it doesn’t give the same challenges).

Writers who have been published just know more, have that extra experience with the reality of writing. They have set goals, met them and moved on to new goals. Writers who have only been published online have a softer market, it’s easier to break into online writing when you can even set up your own publication and do it all yourself. Writing online, the main challenge is to find someone to read what you write. Writing in print the main challenge is to actually get written in print. To get the work finished, to get it written well by stricter standards than you will find online and to get it in print/ published. Then, you start to work on getting readers. It’s a longer haul and you don’t have the cushion of being online and being your own boss more or less.

So, this is my goal for 2012. I want to be published in print. Not a zine, I’ve done that. Not a magazine either. Although I have not done that I’m not as interested in magazine writing as a goal. I know I can write that type of content. I’ve been writing it for years online. I want more. I want to push myself, challenge myself to write a book and get it published. I’m not aiming too far over my own head. Just enough that I will be pleased with myself in the end and yet I don’t feel I’m setting myself up for a fall right from the start.

Wish me luck on crossing the great divide.

Take any topic, something written about many times. Turn it upside down, give it a new spin, a fresh slant and look at it in a new and unexpected way. The best way to do this is to combine ideas, two different sides of a coin, two different opinions, two different ideas, etc. Unbalance something but combining it in a new way and turn it upside down.

Religion: Do atheists believe in reincarnation, if so, how do they think it works?

The Death Penalty: Should the death penalty be painful, like a punishment, or should it be impartial, like putting a dog to sleep?

Health Care: Should health care be free if it means hospitals will be run like factories focused on production rather than care?

Can you come up with other ideas which take a topic and turn it upside down?