Writers are told to ‘show not tell’ almost as frequently as they’re told to ‘write every day.’ In today’s article, Gila Green explains how to go further than just our basic senses.
The most useful way to show what you want to say is to tap into the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing and get into the ‘why’ behind each sense.
In other words, you must ask yourself why does that particular character notice the hot waiter in the restaurant, while the other only smells the overuse of bleach in the room, while still, a third can’t drown out the exacerbating pop music in the background?
Once you can answer that question, you can show your readers what they need to know about each character. You simply choose the correct sense you need to get that information across to your readers.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people are going to disagree with this sentiment. The path of the pantser if fairly common. Not the way I do things, but I’ve run into many who simply fly into a story to see where it goes. There could be an ending in mind or it could just be a beginning or middle that they have. One thing I can be sure of is that it differs from person to person. Then again, I’m a severe plotter, so I shouldn’t speak as if I understand the other side of the pasture.
While I don’t come up with my endings first, I do like to have them in mind before I start writing. This helps me keep things on track and avoid running the story into a brick wall or minefield. Some would say that the downside is that your writing becomes too linear and dull because you remove the chaos of creation. I can see how you can come to that conclusion, but deciding on the ending doesn’t mean you know how you’re going to get there. Most of my books had the finale planned out, but I only had a general idea of how to get there. That goes for chapter and book endings. Probably why I had the outlines and still had that excitement of not really knowing what will happen.
Sometimes, I like to think of writing like driving. Biggest difference is that I really enjoy writing and driving is just something I do to get around. Anyway, you know where you’re supposed to go, but there are different routes to get there. Of course, you have the most common one that you know the best and is kind of obvious. Yet, there could be an accident or broken street light that forces you to take a detour. Maybe you forgot about a parade that closes off a bunch of streets. Either way, you need to get to your intended ending by a different route. I’m reminded of how people say it’s the journey and not the destination that’s important when it comes to traveling. Well, the same can be said for writing for both the author and reader. As long as you get to where you’re going, it should all work out.
Again, this is personal taste. I like dealing with as many known entities as I can because the unknown can drive me up the wall. Some of it is a good thing because you can’t know everything. It’s when I don’t have a plan or the plan I do have is too flimsy to give me comfort that I have issues. So, knowing my ending gives me a target and faith that I can finish the project. Maybe it goes against my more roving and rambling nature, which I had in high school too. After all, I had a bad habit of turning a short story into a novel because I kept building on things. That ending means I can’t go over the top and risk destroying everything because I keep thinking up ‘cool twists’. So, it’s a personal restraint on my creativity that I psychologically require.
That’s all just me though. I’m sure many opinions are waiting to appear in the comments if they haven’t already. So, what do you think about knowing your ending?
Hello SErs. Harmony here. Being a writer, I’d like to tell you a story …
Once upon a time, Amazon charged me for selling a book. Yes, that’s right. I ended up paying them $1.99 for selling one copy of an ebook. Um, that’s not right. Once I got over my indignant anger, I looked into it.
It came down to delivery charges.
Which I’d not realised Amazon did.
And if your book is oversized (see below), they will levy a hefty charge to deliver that book to your customer, leaving you out of pocket and owing them, rather than the other way around.
This happened after I reformatted a book. On my computer, the file size was fine. Only after using Amazon’s converter did the file become huge. Sadly, I didn’t notice anything amiss until I saw that negative sale charge on my sales dashboard. And by then it…
This post is focused on a very important, if not the most important, aspect of your writers, your characters. Readers become invested in characters. They learn to love and/or hate characters. They sympathize and/or empathize with their flaws, quirks and events that shape them. Character development is both essential and difficult.
In this post, I hope to pull together some useful tips that I have tried to follow in my own writing or have learned from those that are respected and successful in the craft.
Be consistent with what you call your characters – If you’re character’s name is John Doe, stick with calling him John or Mr. Doe or Johnny. But don’t alternate or you will confuse your readers. I actually broke this rule in my first book, Frankly Speaking, and in it’s subsequent related books, I have a character named Clifford Jones, III. He is an attorney…
Always fun to share the Clyde/Gregorio scenes. That old gnome doesn’t get enough page time due to his reclusive nature, so it’s a rare treat. Here’s one from War of Nytefall: Lost.
Reedsy recently published some great tips for fantasy authors–tips which can be easily applied to any fiction writing. Here is my summary of a selection of these tips.
Image: Pixabay
1. Identify your Market
If you think it’s enough to say, “oh, I write fantasy,” think again. With so many fantasy genres, readers tend to cluster around specific subgenres which can range from Harry Potter to steampunk and Young Adult.
2. Use Short Stories
This was a great tip, reminding us of the value of short stories to flesh out our world and characters. When you write these with the specific aim of excluding them from your novels, you will find that you have more creative freedom and can discover surprising things about your universe.
3. Tie your World-building into your Plot
The best example to describe this is Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The whole fantasy premise flows…
I’m trying really hard to remain positive and find the patience to get through various events in my life. Of course, this had me thinking about patience. At least, I assume so because I only had the word written down as a post topic for today. Not sure if I planned a poem, humor, or something specific. It’s written with confidence, which means I really wanted to use it as a topic. So . . . where to go with this? Well, what things do we tend to get impatient with?
Characters
These voices in our heads can really poke at our buttons. One moment they’re on task and doing what we want them to do. A few minutes later they’re throwing the plot into a wood chipper while whistling show tunes. Many authors decide to force these characters to do what they are ‘supposed’ to do while others just toss the whole thing out. It wouldn’t end this way if we had a little patience. These obstacles appear for a reason and relaxing to take the time to think can reveal the source. Maybe you were focusing on the wrong character or having them do something that goes a little against their nature. Maybe the scene was boring and you needed to spice it up. The answer is somewhere in your head and patience is needed to find it.
The Audience
Okay, I’m kind of staying in the author realm here. We need to be patient with the audience because not everyone reads at the same pace. Not to mention, everyone has different tastes in books. You will commonly find a person who will grab a book that is out of their wheelhouse because they liked the cover. Let them ease into the book at their own pace instead of pouncing. Of course, this is entirely if you can interact with the audience, which many authors try to do through blogging. Getting an audience is another thing, which requires patience. Keep working hard and you’ll get attention some day.
Children
This really goes without saying Be patient with kids because they’re still learning how the world works. Oh, I guess I did say it.
Parents
They mean well.
Grandparents
Just help them with whatever technology they’re having trouble with.
Authors
Back to the topic at hand . . . Wow, this is becoming a train wreck. Anyway, people need to be more patient with authors. We work hard and have so many hoops to jump through before a book is done. Demanding that we finish by a certain time can only cause us more stress. There are also times when we wear down and need to rest, which isn’t the time to start talking about income and progress. Authors are humans and they require just as much patience as anyone else. We put the most amount of pressure on ourselves, so we don’t really need other people jumping into the fray. Not to mention, imagination can be fairly delicate, so constant pounding on the confidence can cause an author to give up completely. Patience is key when interacting with us and doubly so if you want to support our path. Few things hurt more than a person we depended on for support decides to give up on us.
Well, I’m not sure what else to write here. Share what you think about patience and how/why it’s important. Maybe I’ll remember the original way I was going to write this too. I doubt it though.
I wasn’t sure if I should put this up as #1, but it really shows the entire theme of 2018 for me. There are no tags or categories because this was a spontaneous and crushing announcement. Some things improved while others went even further south, but I guess part of me wants to revisit this. Guess I’m also curious as to how this one got the top spot since it was kind of a downer. Going to add a few notes here as well.
This post went live on August 11, 2018. (A month that will live in pain and infamy for me.)
*****
So, this is (was) a sticky because I want to make sure people see this. Everything else is still below and I’m writing this with a heavy heart. (Not gotten any lighter!)
Due to financial issues and personal developments (UNDERSTATEMENT!), this looks like it’s my last year of publishing. (Might have been a little too dramatic here, but it felt that way.) I have to put my time and energy into something that brings in money with the hope that I can return. Maybe I can release a book or two throughout the year, but I can’t guarantee it. At best, I can do War of Nytefall: Lost in September and pray that I can get War of Nytefall: Rivalry out in December. (I didn’t pull off the second part of this.) After that, I can’t make any promises.
My blogging is scheduled until end of October and I might not add much onto it. (This was just before WordPress told me I was on a massive posting streak. I’m determined to hit 1,000.) I’ll do a Saturday update, try to keep up with a few friends, and make a post or two throughout the week once November hits. Other social media sites will be even more difficult to keep up with in the future. That’s really only Twitter, so we’ll see what happens there.
I’m not happy about this and I’m crying. I wish I could have gone the distance and find that lucky break, but my time ran out. (It still feels this way.) Thanks to everyone who supported me. The published books will always be available, so I hope they will not be forgotten. (Sales say otherwise.) Maybe things will turn around and I can return. (If even as a personal project.) To everyone else who is still in the fray, good luck and feel free to send me a guest post that I can share. (Offer still open!) I’ll try to lend a hand to others when I can.
Seriously, I’m sure the furry bastards are going to lie. That or make absolutely no sense, but they get all this attention. I say we ignore them until the temperatures get above freezing. Actually, anybody ever think that disturbing a groundhog’s hibernation is a really mean thing to do? Eh, I’ll move on to the real post since I got my yearly mini-rant out of the way.
This week as a productive . . . decent . . . semi-productive . . . biking was . . . Hey, I woke up and got to work on time every day. I know I’m on Long Island and people have it worse in terms of temperature. Yet, the -15 we got after wind chill one day drained what little energy I had. Best part of this weather was the 15-20 minute white squall or whatever it’s called that hit. Horrible visibility, so you don’t want to be on the roads. Of course, I was out just before it hit to take my son to a doctor appointment. Thankfully, it was over by the time we got out and the roads hadn’t frozen over. Home safe and only somewhat tired from the ordeal because I hate driving in those conditions.
The work week was flanked by early wake-ups (2:45 am on Monday and 3 am on Friday) by my son. The first one was because his music wasn’t on and the other is because his blankets fell off the bed. This on top of the cold weather just drained me, so I was a zombie for most of the week. I had energy at work to avoid falling asleep when I entered a warm room and kept myself going. Have to admit that the midday conversations with my student actually gave me an odd charge. Overall, it was a really good week at the day job if I say so myself. This is in the face of that life upheaval situation gaining a few twists and turns.
All of this meant that I was physically and mentally done by the evening, so writing didn’t happen. I’m still only 1.5 chapters into War of Nytefall: Eradication. I have today to get further into it, but I’ll probably only get half a chapter done since it’s also the Super Bowl. My family always throws a party, so today is cleaning between sections and tomorrow is the actual day. A downside here is that the TV from my room gets brought down to the main room for everyone to watch. So, I can’t go to bed early and have to wait for the game to be over in order to move it back upstairs. Otherwise, I can’t put it on for the traffic and weather while I get dressed. The things we do when we have jobs outside of the house.
There really isn’t much else to talk about beyond a comical incident. My car is terrible when it comes to moisture. The condensation ends up on the inside of the window at times, which is frustrating. One morning, the doors and the locks were frozen shut, so I had to fight them. Used some WD-40 on the inside of the lock, but the door was still fused to the side of the car. I finally got the passenger side door open and got in to push the driver side door open. Since my car spent most of its life in Florida, it has some issues that include the inner plastic of the doors being very brittle. So, I couldn’t push it open without causing some more damage. Still, I got in and the car was able to drive. End of the adventure? Not quite.
Apparently, on my way to work, the driver’s side door frozen to the car again. Not sure if any of my coworkers saw me sitting in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to get the door open. There was the usual pushing, shoving, banging, odd facial expressions, scratching of the head, and finally getting the dang thing open. Now, my car can still drive, but I need a new one. Since the winters here can be pretty mean to cars, I’m holding out until the spring. This also means I don’t have to learn the ins and outs of a new car (mine is a 2001) while driving in snow or on ice. Yeah, Long Island isn’t like other places, but it isn’t pretty when winter really strikes.
Don’t really have any real plans for the week beyond the usual. I believe tomorrow is the last of the Top 5 Posts of 2018, which means I need to think of something for next Sunday. Maybe a call for volunteers for War of Nytefall: Rivalry? I have a week to figure things out and I might be busy next weekend too. Anybody want to promote something next weekend?
Goals for next week:
Stay warm!
Go to work and continue having fruit for lunch.
Book fair at school!
Maybe write a little War of Nytefall: Eradication
Do some outlining of the Sin Stories.
Pat the Ichabod Brooks notebook on the cover. Some day.
Hello SErs. Harmony here. Being a writer, I’d like to tell you a story …
