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I had a dear friend who had a gift for telling stories about her day. She’d launch into one, and suddenly everyone around her would hush up and lean in, knowing that whatever followed would be pure entertainment. A story of encountering a deer on the highway would involve interludes from the deer’s point of view. Strangers who factored into her tales would get nicknames and imagined backstories of their own. She could make even the most mundane parts of her day—and everyone else’s—seem interesting. She didn’t aspire to be a writer, but she was a born storyteller.

Why All Nonfiction Should Be Creative Nonfiction

The term creative nonfiction often brings to mind essays that read like poems, memoirs that read like novels, a lyrical way of interpreting the world around us. But the truth is that writing nonfiction—from blog posts to routine news reports to business guides—can (and should) be creative work. And the more creativity you bring to any piece, the better it’s likely to be received, whether your target reader is a friend, a website visitor, an editor or agent, or the public at large.

The March/April 2015 Writer’s Digest goes on sale today—and this issue delves into the creative sides of many types of nonfiction.

• Learn seven ways to take a creative approach to any nonfiction book—whether you wish to write a self-help title, a historical retelling, a how-to guide, or something else entirely.

• Get tips for finding the right voice for your essays, memoirs and other true-to-life works—and see how it’s that voice above all else that can make or break your writing.

• Delve into our introduction to the nonfiction children’s market—where writers can earn a steady income by opening kids’ eyes to the world around them.

• And find out what today’s literary agents and publishers are looking for in the increasingly popular narrative nonfiction genre—where books ranging from Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist to Susan Cain’s Quiet have been reinvigorating the bestseller lists.

Why Readers Love True Stories

“Narrative nonfiction has become more in-demand because it provides additional value; it’s entertaining and educational,” explains agent Laurie Abkemeier in our narrative nonfiction roundtable. “There are many forms of entertainment vying for our attention, and the ones that give us the highest return for our time and money investment are the ones that we gravitate toward.”

So give your readers that amazing return. The articles packed into this informative, diverse and boundary-pushing issue will show you how. Download the complete issue right now, order a print copy, or find it on your favorite newsstand through mid-April.

Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter @jessicastrawser

The following is a guest post from one of WD’s bloggers from our NaNoWriMo project, EJ Runyon. In this post, EJ describes the importance of moving past using writing exercises and learning how to turn the exercises into usable content for your work-in-progress. Using an exercise should only be the first of several steps in beginning your writing process, particularly as a beginner.

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Novice writers spend a lot of time reading blogs and other websites that offer exercises, story starters and prompts to try out writing skills.

Write a list your antagonist will use shopping.
What would an apple say if it could plead for its life?

And we all dig in and write out small drabbles. It’s a start. Especially for new writers wanting to flex writing muscles.

But if you exercise, then nothing more, will you ever discover where those exercises might take you?

Let’s take the steps of expanding those exercises by questioning them. The goal is reviewing with an eye for “exercises into scenes”:  looking at your work and taking the next step; reworking exercises into actual storytelling.

Let’s say you were given a word or two for starting the beginning of a sentence,

“First thing in the morning…”

Your task is to write anything for 5 minutes. So you look at your paper, or the keyboard and you begin writing:

First thing in the morning all I have to do is get up and write my page. I tell myself this every morning yet I can’t seem to follow through. I reassure myself I will tomorrow. Am I lacking the will or am I unable to do it at all? Instead of doing what I need to do, want to do, I end up wandering into the kitchen, getting coffee; then I’m off through my day.

Cool.

After a while you have disk files or notebooks full of these exercises. But you don’t have many finished stories or novels written. How much time do you think the average beginner spends working with writing exercises? How much time creating short stories or novels?  Where is the disconnect? What does it take to move to the next step? To begin looking at your own work? It takes questioning. Not much else.

Ask yourself questions like these:

• Does the exercise paragraph mean anything?
• Can you use this for a character study?
• Can you use this as a piece of dialogue? 
• Can it be expanded into a scene or a hunk of narrative? 

Your answer might be, “I’d say, the way it reads now, a lot more work’s needed.”

Unhappily, if you work the way some novices do, the way I started out working, you’re constantly exercising, but anxious about the rest. You’re glad for the immediate gratification, and attention, in feedback of the polite, “That’s good work.” But you’re afraid to try writing something really whole that begins, has a middle, and ends.

You’re afraid of something that requires a quantity of re-writing, editing and revising. That is, you, functioning as a writer by looking, questioning and working with those drabbles.

Let’s take a look at that sample paragraph. And ask it some questions.

After you’ve exercised, start by asking the questions above. Take notes. Call these notes of yours pre-work, if you want. You can then turn questioned exercises into a new start of a scene or story.

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Looking for some exercises to practice EJ’s techniques?
Try James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers, which
features strategies, tactics and exercises for fiction writers!

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Not every exercise will blossom into a viable story, but then, if you’re given an exercise you can always make sure it will: Focusing on what you want the exercise to become.  Make the exercise work for your writing, not the other way around.

Let’s use the sample paragraph to work though what we have on our page. After the sample you can move on to your own exercises. Getting them to work for you. Here’s what to ask:

Does the paragraph mean anything?
No, not much now, at least not the way I left it. Nothing I can see.

Can you use this for a character study?
I can probably write a girl who is bored with her job, but can’t let herself take up writing for a living.  Or a guy who got a new journal from his girlfriend for his birthday—maybe she’s a real artsy type—he’s trying to score some points with her.

Can you mold it into a piece of dialogue?
It might work for internal dialogue, how she talks, putting herself down. To her mom? Or hey—about what she says to a shrink, or a best friend? Yeah.

Can it be expanded into a scene or a hunk of narrative?
The wandering into the kitchen, getting coffee is a good part. Maybe more with descriptions? How the kitchen looks, things like that. 

Maybe the guy can be talking to his girl over coffee on the weekend, when they’re together and she gets on his case ‘cause the journal she gave him is still empty.

Do you see where looking at your work can take you? Exercising is only the first step.

Posing these types of questions and answering them is step two.

And acting on those answers is step three—that’s the getting down to writing that counts the most.

About EJ Runyon: I’m a lucky soul. I’m living my dream. I began my transformation in 1992. Started writing NaNoWriMo in 2001, and in 2006 I sold my house to go back to school, for degrees in English/Creative Writing and Online Teaching & Learning.

Now it’s writing and coaching daily. It’s my new life and I love it.

NaNoWriMo sent me on the path to reach writer’s nirvana. In 2012, six short stories pulled from various NaNo novels became part of “Claiming One,” a story collection from Inspired Quill (UK). Then, in 2013, my 2008 NaNo became Tell Me (How to Write) A Story, a writer’s guide. This year, 2003 NaNo’s became my debut Literary/LGBTQ novel, A House of Light & Stone.

I’m a Scrivener pantser all the way, and even created a jumpstart template for coaching clients. It’s been everything wonderful I’d possibly dream. 2016 & 2017 will see another how-to and a second novel. I alternate literary fiction with how-to guides.

The following is a guest post from one of WD’s bloggers from our NaNoWriMo project, EJ Runyon. In this post, EJ talks about the important steps that need to be taken between first draft and revision, and the difficulty of working with a piece or a story that you can become too close to. Sometimes it’s better to step outside of your writing and world, and spend some time with the story in your mind rather than on a Microsoft Word page.

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The first short story I wrote, that I hoped might be published, got worked on quite a bit.

I edited it many times. Well, what I thought was editing at the time: small tweaks of lines, and wording. Shifting bits around from one section to another.

Then, it dawned on me that I’d written too much. I think I must have cut at least 500, maybe 700 words from the whole story then. Not a full scene or two, but bits out of nearly every scene. It was then that I really felt I might get to be a real author. When I re-read and found myself cutting bits for each paragraph.

That culling was followed by reading the story out loud at my Saturday workshop.

As a writing coach I sometimes wonder how many beginner writers are in workshops. It’s a totally different dynamic than posting your work to your blog and waiting for some comments to pop up about it. Especially if what you say is, “Hey, come see what I’ve posted.” But that’s not quite the same as having folks help make a piece stronger.

At those workshops, folks mostly told me, “Good writing, but that ending…”

So, back I went and thought a lot. What was wrong with it was, as one guy put it, “You’ve got the first two scenes of a three scene piece of work.” And once that was pointed out, I knew there was more to do. But what?

But I didn’t sit right down and begin at working a re-write, scribbled pencil notes in my notebook, fingers on keys. Coming up with more to tack on to the end of my piece.

All I did was think on things. I ran “What if?” scenarios in my mind. Over and over again. Mind work. Away from any writing implements. I wanted this to be me, steeped into the solution, before I tried writing it out.

So I read. It was like I was searching for an answer, and knew I didn’t have it yet, in me, or I would have seen, myself, that the piece needed that third scene.

So I went looking elsewhere, beyond my pages for the solution. And then it hit me.

I remembered a device from a short story I’d read in some English class, a way of framing the story. Reading that story I’d thought it was unique. That I’d not seen it coming at all. At the end of reading that story, I’d thought—”Wow. This guy is good.”

So I tried something like it myself. I wrote my third scene. And re-wrote the opening.

I followed that with editing it all many more times. More small tweaks of lines, and wording. Shifting bits around from one section to another.

Asking myself, “Had I’d written too much?”

And culling. Again.

That, of course, was followed by reading it at workshop the following Saturday.

The two leaders of the group were nodding, and they smiled when I got to the end. One leaned forward, one sat back. One said, “Good. Good work. It’s Raymond Carver-like.”

And I beamed.

The other added a deadpanned, “I hate Raymond Carver.” And we all laughed.

That was the first short story I ever submitted. And it got accepted for publication at the first place it was sent. Was it because I was a writer who read? Or because I was a writer who worked the story until it was worth publishing? Or because of those workshops?

Or maybe I got published on my first try because I thought about why and how to do something better with my story?

Because of all of that.

About EJ Runyon: I’m a lucky soul. I’m living my dream. I began my transformation in 1992. Started writing NaNoWriMo in 2001, and in 2006 I sold my house to go back to school, for degrees in English/Creative Writing and Online Teaching & Learning.

Now it’s writing and coaching daily. It’s my new life and I love it.

NaNoWriMo sent me on the path to reach writer’s nirvana. In 2012, six short stories pulled from various NaNo novels became part of “Claiming One,” a story collection from Inspired Quill (UK). Then, in 2013, my 2008 NaNo became Tell Me (How to Write) A Story, a writer’s guide. This year, 2003 NaNo’s became my debut Literary/LGBTQ novel, A House of Light & Stone.

I’m a Scrivener pantser all the way, and even created a jumpstart template for coaching clients. It’s been everything wonderful I’d possibly dream. 2016 & 2017 will see another how-to and a second novel. I alternate literary fiction with how-to guides.

Two Cups of Tea by peppermint quartz on DeviantArt, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, http://fav.me/d4ahdt1

Happy New Year!

Happy … and yet.

Everywhere you look, it’s all about pushing ourselves, isn’t it? First came November’s NaNoWriMo, with all the tips for writing more, more, more, writing faster, faster, faster. Then came the holidays, with 12 days left to shop/plan/wrap/bake/revise that manuscript from last month, 11, 10, 9 … And now it’s on to who can make the biggest commitment to his or her writing in the coming year.

I should start by saying that I am a huge believer in having a writing discipline. When I’m in the midst of a writing project, I feel I have to work on it most days—often at odd hours, and for longer than I’d intended (much to the frustration of the non-writers around me)—to keep the momentum going.

And yet, it’s not always human to expect ourselves to maintain that intensity and speed and productivity indefinitely. So with all that said, I’ll also say this:

If it starts to become a drag, you’re doing it wrong.

Best in Class Writing Advice

For a long time, I’ve been wanting to start a series of blog posts here celebrating the best-in-class writing advice that we at Writer’s Digest have collected over the years. I’ve had the privilege of discussing the craft of writing with so many authors who I deeply admire for our WD Interview cover stories. You’d think all those conversations might run together in my mind after a while, but in fact the opposite happens: The best advice rises to the top.

I’d like to kick off 2015—and this Best in Class writing advice series—by spotlighting wise words from two famed writers who offer unique twists on the age-old writer’s advice that we must Write Every Day. Both of these interviews were “click” moments for my own writing discipline, and they just might be for yours, too.

You Don’t Have to Write Every Day, but You Should Do This

• The first is from my October 2010 WD Interview with literary legend (perhaps best known for The Color Purple) and activist Alice Walker:

 “… Part of writing is not so much that you’re going to actually write something every day, but what you should have, or need to have, is the possibility, which means the space and the time set aside—as if you were going to have someone come to tea. If you are expecting someone to come to tea but you’re not going to be there, they may not come, and if I were them, I wouldn’t come. So, it’s about receptivity and being home when your guest is expected, or even when you hope that they will come.”

• The second is from my October 2012 WD Interview with Patricia Cornwell, a very different sort of writer, who almost single-handedly launched the forensic thriller genre with her iconic series character Dr. Kay Scarpetta:

“Treat your writing like a relationship and not a job. Because if it’s a relationship, even if you only have one hour in a day, you might just sit down and open up your last chapter because it’s like visiting your friend. What do you do when you miss somebody? You pick up the phone. You keep that connection established. If you do that with your writing, then you tend to stay in that moment, and you don’t forget what you’re doing. Usually the last thing I do before I go to bed is sit at my computer and just take a look at the last thing I was writing. It’s almost like I tuck my characters in at night. I may not do much, but I’m reminding myself: This is the world I’m living in right now, and I’ll go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.”

What they’re both saying, and what I myself believe to be true, is this: You don’t always have to force yourself to write every day, but you do need to make the time and space to spend with your writing as regularly as you can. If you do, it will come when it’s ready.

To my mind, that’s a lot less intimidating than writing every day. It’s a lot more zen, organic, intuitive, enjoyable—and effective, too.

How to Really Start the New Year Right

One of my favorite articles in our January 2015 Writer’s Digest—a comprehensive novel writing guide boldly proclaiming on its cover that “This Is the Year You Write That Novel!”—is an in-depth look from therapist-turned-writer Tracey Barnes Priestley on the real reasons so many writers give up on their writing resolutions, and how we can get out of our own ways and make real progress in the weeks and months ahead. That article, “Why So Many Writers Give Up Mid-Novel—and How Not to Be One of Them,” and the January issue as a whole, is a warm, encouraging companion for the writing year ahead. It’s on newsstands for only one more week, so I encourage you to get your copy while you can! Of course, it will also remain available for instant download in The Writer’s Digest Shop.

What’s your philosophy on your writing routine in this new year? What’s your own preferred approach to writing (or making room for writing) every day? Let’s continue the discussion in the comments thread below!

Wishing you and your writing a great year ahead.

Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter @jessicastrawser.

Do you ever write something and immediately find yourself wanting to edit it (or worse—delete it)? Or are you struggling to really develop an idea? It’s tough not to immediately begin the rewriting process or automatically start second guessing yourself. Sometimes, as writers, we can get lost in continually improving a piece, trying to give it that little extra bit of pizzazz.

In the following excerpt of Elizabeth Sims’ “How to Develop Any Idea Into a Great Story,” originally in the November/December 2012 issue of Writer’s Digest, you’ll learn four solid techniques for heightening the tension in your story and taking it to the next step. Whether it’s increasing the drama through detailed and well-developed secondary and tertiary characters or adding extra emotion, you’re sure to find a tip that will add a new layer to your story.

Are you writing or putting the finishing touches on a short story? Consider entering it into Writer’s Digest’s Short Short Story Competition, where the winner will receive $3,000 in cash and a trip to the Writer’s Digest Conference! This year, all entrants will also receive a special pass to attend a live webinar conducted by award-winning author Jacob Appel. Hurry, though: The deadline is December 15!

Brief Encounter is a British film adapted from Nöel Coward’s play Still Life. It’s the story of two quiet people who meet and fall in love in spite of being married to others, but then, conscience-stricken, break off the relationship before it really gets going. The small, exquisite tragedy resonated with the genteel, romantic codes of conduct valued in prewar England.

But then along comes Tennessee Williams with his play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a love story that has similar themes at its core but rips us away from any semblance of civilization. Williams sure could amp drama! For one thing, he knew that a story about noble ideas wouldn’t cut it anymore. Setting his play in the emotionally brutal mélange of the postwar American South, he slashed into the secret marrow of his protagonists and antagonists alike, exposing the weaknesses and delusions that bind people together on the surface while tearing them apart below decks.

Take the essence of your story, and amp it:

• Add characters and pile on the emotion. Playwrights used to limit the number of characters in their stories, not wanting to overcrowd the stage. But when Williams crams six or eight people into the scene at once and sets them all at one another’s throats, we get a chance to feel their emotional claustrophobia and unwanted interdependence. Amp up your action by adding cunning, vindictiveness, jealousy, fear of exposure, stupidity, even death.
• Make even minor characters fierce and elemental. Consider Mae and Gooper’s five children in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, who lesser authors would describe (boringly) as “brats” and leave offstage. Before you even see them, you witness their havoc (ruining Maggie’s dress) and listen to Maggie call them “no-neck monsters.” You don’t even have to meet them to fear them. Then Williams gives them stage time, every second of which makes you squirm with discomfort.
• Expose internal bleeding. The deepest, most painful wounds are the invisible ones humans inflict on one another and ourselves in a hundred ways: betrayal, selfishness, abandoment. Strive to write characters who feel vulnerable to pain, whose secrets are so close to the surface that they can’t afford to be polite. Put in a truth teller and watch the inner flesh rip and sizzle.
• Create blood ties. Kinship is story gold. Take your pick of, and take your time with, its darker aspects: scapegoating, favoritism, jealousy. A blood link can instantly heighten any conflict. Why? Because kinship is the one thing in life you can’t change or walk away from. Make your characters learn this the hard way.

Interested in learning more about short stories, or where to submit them to? Check out the 2015 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, which offers hundreds of listings for book publishers, literary agents, fiction publications, contests, and more. Plus, you’ll find dozens of informative articles on how award-winning authors published their first work, how to market your work, build a loyal fan base, and more. Take the guessing work out of the business side of writing and find out exactly where you need to send your manuscript!

Cris Freese is the associate editor of Writer’s Digest Books.

Light-bulb moments. Aha moments. Flashes of recognition. Revelations. Call them whatever you like. I like to think of them as clicks.

In the writing life, the best kind of click is that moment something makes you realize exactly what’s been missing from the not-quite-right scene you’ve been working on. Or the instant you put two plot points together and suddenly have a clear view of what’s really beneath your character’s behavior. Or the random tip on plot structure that magically conjures for you a map of how everything in your messy draft might fit together after all.

Clicks. They’re satisfying, exciting, inspiring, invigorating. And they’re the stuff writers live for.

The January 2015 Writer’s Digest—devoted to all things novel writing—releases today, and I’m so excited to finally be able to offer you a preview of what’s inside. We’ve done our best to fill this issue with the types of craft advice and writing techniques that help things click into place. Because whether your own moments of realization are quiet head nods or loud exclamations of triumph, as subtle as the click of a key in a lock or dramatic as a stack of papers launched into the air, we know it’s the bits of advice that resonate that can make all the difference for your novel-in-progress.

First, award-winning novelist David Corbett shares what made his own characters finally click on the page—and how you can paint more effective pictures of the players in your own stories, too. Then, longtime contributor Elizabeth Sims details techniques for mastering one of the most notoriously difficult elements of fiction: dialogue. Bestselling novelist Steven James shows you precisely how to manage the flow of tension and conflict in your story—through multiple plot points, climaxes, subplots and more. Therapist-turned-writer Tracey Barnes Priestley delves into the real reasons “Why So Many Writers Give Up Mid-Novel—and How Not to Be One of Them.” And four bestselling series writers take you behind the scenes with their iconic characters to show you what it is that gives a novel that special something that makes readers want another installment, and another, and another.

We all know that writing a novel isn’t easy. But in those moments that something clicks, suddenly anything seems possible. Here’s to many ahas on the pages—and in the new year—ahead.

Get your copy of our “This Is the Year You Write That Novel!” issue on your favorite newsstand starting today, or download the January 2015 Writer’s Digest and start reading right now.

Happy Writing,
Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter @jessicastrawser.

Have you ever been curious about what it takes to get your novel or series turned into a movie or film franchise? In today’s guest post, Robert Blake Whitehill, author of the Ben Blackshaw series, sheds some light on his experiences in getting his novels optioned.

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As an award-winning screenwriter, I always hoped my Ben Blackshaw series of novels, including DEADRISE, NITRO EXPRESS, and TAP RACK BANG, might be considered for adaptation into feature films. You might have similar ambitions for your own novel or series. Ambition is the seed of accomplishment, but getting ahead of yourself, imagining the smell of the popcorn at the premiere—or worse, memorizing witty remarks and the list of all the Little People you’d like to thank after due homage is paid to the Academy—is only fun for a minute. There are other matters to attend to first.

One’s core responsibility, duty, and calling as a novelist are to offer great writing to your audience. Readers, at home or in Hollywood, must really enjoy the work. They invest seven to twelve hours of their lives in a book of average length. Thirty to fifty thousand of every reader’s heartbeats become yours. You had best not waste their time with offal.

That means writing and rewriting, and includes working with the best editors you can find. I had the privilege of working with Richard Marek, who discovered and shaped Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series into the blockbuster franchise we all know today.

Once your book is proven to resonate loud, hard, and strong with readers, with solid sales and resounding reviews, it is possible that Hollywood might call, but perhaps not right away.

Case in point: The Princess Bride novel was published thirteen years before production of the film began. Studios balked during that period even though The Princess Bride’s author was also an Academy Award-winning screenwriter with a terrific adapted script under his arm. For a while, Hollywood thought The Princess Bride simply could not be made. Rob Reiner and Norman Lear thought differently and never wavered.

Basics of the Business

For those with dreams of seeing their books up on the silver screen, a call from Hollywood out of the blue is rare. It is far more likely that an author and his or her team will need to help studio development executives or independent film makers discover the property.

I must first admit that all the films I personally picked up at Centerseat when I was Vice President of Independent Film Acquisitions were finished works, and absolutely none had been adapted from any kind of narrative prose or poetry. We know this is not always the case. Yet, from Gone with the Wind to Moby-Dick to The Guns of Navarone to The Princess Bride, books are adapted into film with unvaried frequency, though with varied success.

Agents can help with this strange form of business-to-business marketing. Many agencies represent screenwriters as well as authors, and packaging a book from its stable of authors with their credited screenwriters nets the agency more in commissions.

You can also zero-in on film makers with a track record of crafting movies that are like your book. The Hollywood Creative Directory lists more than 11,000 potential partners, and it only takes one to start the gears of the film industry grinding for you.

My hard-working public relations team at Shelton Interactive has really helped The Ben Blackshaw Series find its audience among readers. They introduced me to some notable film makers, who were willing to read DEADRISE when it first came out. I got some great advice from these Hollywood moguls about possible ideas for the scope of the series. Though an option did not result at this point, you will soon see I was wiser and better armed when I took the series, with its additional titles and awards, out again later. Quick piece of advice: Never look at money paid to great partners as a fee. It’s always tuition.

Rob Reiner and Norman Lear are household names and perhaps seem daunting to approach. Must you reach that deeply into the A-List to get an option on your book’s film rights? Perhaps not. Do not dismiss less-experienced producers who are passionate about your work. Passion, and even zeal, in combination with canny movie-making chops will carry a project through to a premiere despite the great odds arrayed against the novelist. Remember, the sad truth is that saying no is always the safest tack for a film maker. Saying yes involves the risk of one’s industry reputation, not to mention the potential loss of vast resources. A film needs thousands of yeses along the way. Great work paired with a passionate champion will keep the yeses coming. This approach certainly worked for me, as you will see here.

Larger studios have economies of scale working in their favor, and also in your favor as a writer. They can amortize the risk of one poorly performing movie across a broader slate including other films which might become moderate or breakout successes. If you write a series, you can offer (and a studio can afford) multiple titles at an attractive discount, which could be viewed by studios and savvy independents as a smaller slate-within-a-slate, also known as a franchise. With book adaptations, you must help any potential partner envision a film before there is even a screenplay.

From Book Series to Film Franchise

As my dear friend, creative consultant, and networking guru Joanne Zippel asserts, writers can mine interested readers with film-making connections from among their own contacts. The way she puts it, “Most people have better networks than they realize.  You start by looking beyond the obvious—doing the right research to connect the dots between your work and the people most likely to share your creative aesthetic.”

On Joanne’s advice, I began reaching out to every film industry professional I knew. If they agreed to read something, I hit them right away with copies of The Ben Blackshaw Series books. I was extremely fortunate—the process did not take long. Through LinkedIn, I quickly reconnected with a classmate from Haverford College named Stephanie Bell. Like me, she had graduated with plans of acting. Today, she is a producing partner at HatLine Productions.

Thank goodness Stephanie Bell runs a lean shop. She and her producing partners, Michael Lipoma, and Tamra Teig, tend to check out their carefully vetted list of submissions to HatLine personally, without first getting recommendations through coverage from a development staff of readers.

Stephanie writes, “I’ve always been an avid reader (hence my BA in English Lit) and when I had the opportunity to read Robert’s first novel, DEADRISE, he was fortunate to have caught me at a place when I had time to read it (which these days is not a lot!). I was happy to do so, not only because he is a fellow Haverfordian, but because I knew his background and skills, and because he was generous to me when I reached out for help; I wanted to reciprocate.”

So encouraging of novelists, Stephanie goes on to say, “There is an incredible wealth of both fiction and nonfiction literature available today by both publishing houses and independently published authors, which makes the job for a producer much easier but also harder! I am always looking for fascinating stories, and the ability to connect to authors so quickly is fantastic. What is exciting to me is that there are so many amazing stories waiting to be discovered and brought to life on the big screen.”

Stephanie’s response to DEADRISE could not have made me happier. She writes, “I couldn’t put DEADRISE down, and the minute I finished, I called Robert and said, ‘I want to make this movie with you.’”

On Stephanie’s immediate recommendation, fellow HatLine producer Michael Lipoma said he would read the second title in The Ben Blackshaw Series, NITRO EXPRESS.  Thank goodness, he agreed with Stephanie’s assessment of the works, saying, “NITRO EXPRESS is visceral and visual, and we at HatLine Productions couldn’t be more delighted to help Ben Blackshaw assume his rightful place alongside Jason Bourne and James Bond!”

Bond? Bourne? Wow! You can imagine this was incredibly exciting for me to hear. The crucial yeses were starting to become real for Ben Blackshaw.

That is when Stephanie asked to see the third book in The Ben Blackshaw Series, TAP RACK BANG. I was a moron. I hesitated. At the time, TAP RACK BANG was still in manuscript form. It was as yet unpublished, so no one else had read this book, meaning there were still no rave reviews to bolster the decision-making process at HatLine Productions. Taking a leap of faith, I sent the manuscript and found that Stephanie did not need reviews. As I said, she makes her own decisions based on her personal assessments.

She has written, “In TAP RACK BANG, Whitehill weaves together intricate story lines that will leave you reeling; another brilliant Ben Blackshaw adventure!”

Right after reading TAP RACK BANG, she picked up the phone again, and said, “I want to make the entire series with you—will you have me?!” As she puts it, “The friendship and partnership were born!”

After that call, negotiations began, and yes, today we are in business together.  My friends at HatLine share my vision for The Ben Blackshaw Series. In our business and creative meetings I relish how we always speak with one another from a position of utmost respect.

One of the many happy terms of my agreement with HatLine includes that I will adapt the novels into screenplays myself. That prospect is wonderful! The road ahead will be long, but all the principals involved are marathon runners, not sprinters, and we will see it through. Then, you bet we will make decisions about popcorn at the premiere. We will have earned that much.

For anyone with further questions about this process, or anything else to do with writing, you’re welcome to email me at [email protected]. I will respond.

You can learn more about Ben Blackshaw, the Chesapeake Bay region, and me at www.robertblakewhitehill.com.

Do good work. Market it hard. Mine your contacts. Manage your expectations. Keep writing.

When I compiled the roundup of reader-submitted tips, stories and advice for our “Plan Your Own Write-a-Thon” feature in the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest, one of my favorites was from a mother who was inspired to try NaNoWriMo because her daughter was doing it. Here’s a part of what Angela C. Lebovic, of North Barrington, Ill., wrote:

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. One day, I’d actually do it—write a complete story. I just hadn’t done it yet. I had plenty of ideas, and many starts, but no completion. Then one day my 10-year-old daughter was given an assignment to write a 15,000-word novel for NaNoWriMo. I was encouraging her, letting her know that she could accomplish anything if she set her mind to it, when I thought I should put my word count where my mouth is and join her. If she could write a book in one month, then why couldn’t I, a grown woman who has aspired to be a published author my whole life?

When you read that story, what’s your takeaway? Here’s mine:

1. In encouraging someone else to write—or read—you might just find that you encourage yourself.

One of our forthcoming issues of the magazine (stay tuned!) features an author by the name of Jeff Gunhus. In encouraging his 11-year-old reluctant reader son to read, he made up a story about a hero named Jack Templar Monster Hunter—and ended up launching an Amazon bestselling series for young readers in the process. (You can read more about his story—plus his 10 Tips for Reading Your Reluctant Reader—here.)

2. By encouraging someone else’s love of words and stories, you are cultivating an audience of more readers.

Neither of my parents are writers, but both of them always supported my love of books—and words. When I had to stay home sick from school, my mom would play Boggle with me for hours on end. When we went to the store and my brother begged for baseball cards, I was allowed to pick out a Nancy Drew. When I was on summer vacation, they signed me up for a writing day camp (I still have the “I Heart Writing” button that used to adorn my jean jacket). And when I was old enough to volunteer at the library but not yet old enough to drive, they took me to and from my shifts manning the public library’s Summer Reading Program table.

Today, I’m not just the writer in the family. Guess who also buys—and shares—the most books and magazines? Guess who everyone else buys the most books and magazines for on birthdays and holidays?

As a writer, you need an audience. As an aspiring writer, you’ll need future readers. People tell us everyday that the reading public is shrinking. Why not do your part to combat that? As bestseller Brad Meltzer is fond of saying: Ordinary people change the world.

3. Good stories connect people.

There’s a reason book clubs are so popular, and it’s not just that people want to have motivation to actually read the stuff on their wish lists. It’s that people want to have an excuse to get together, socialize for a few hours and talk about a common interest.

We moved to a new neighborhood over the summer. I was eager to meet our neighbors, hoping my kids would find playmates on our street. Of all the families we’ve met, one family of four has become our fastest friends—and it’s not because our kids are the same age (they’re not) or our backyards meet (they don’t). It’s because the mom is a school librarian and I’m an editor and when her e-reader hold on Gone Girl expired before she was done reading it, I had a copy on my shelf. It’s because the dad reads presidential biographies like they’re going out of style and my husband is addicted to history-themed podcasts. We have since discovered that none of us ever feel like cooking on Fridays. A win-win for everyone, including the pizza man.

4. Sharing makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

My 3-year-old is a ball of energy who almost never sits still—unless we’re reading a story. Every night, he gets to pick two. We snuggle up with his stuffed animals, and most nights, my baby girl listens in, too. It’s my favorite part of the day, and I think it’s theirs, too.

The other night, he asked me whose photo was on the back flap of a picture book we’d just read. I explained that that was the man who had written the book.

“I want to have my picture in a book one day,” my son said, sleepily.

Music to my ears.

5. Whatever has influenced your own love of words, it’s important to pay that forward.

How have others shared their love of reading or writing with you in memorable ways? How do you share it with the people in your life? How could you do more of that?

Share your story in the comments below to keep the conversation going. Who knows—you might inspire someone else right here!

And for those in the midst of NaNoWriMo, to learn more about how the support of the writing community can do wonders for your word count, don’t miss the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest, all about Writing a Book in a Month, available online and on a newsstand near you.

Happy Writing,
Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter: @jessicastrawser

Photo by Jason Dunn, courtesy of a Creative Commons 2.5 License (http://photos.jasondunn.com/Logan/Logans-First-Halloween/10187418_RKHXSx#!i=701471756&k=ZMKnkbp)

This is the first year my 3-year-old has really gotten Halloween, so we’ve spent October seeking out any excuse for him to wear his costume and spend the day yelling “Boo!” As a result, at an array of fall festivals, we’ve collected a countertop full of pumpkins of assorted shapes and sizes; a small glow-in-the-dark bucket of unhealthy snacks; and, for the writer in the household (that would be me), one great reminder about developing characters.

The lesson came at a children’s Halloween parade at a local park. Costumed kids and their parents congregated by the gazebo waiting for the festivities to start. An announcement was made that the kids were to march behind a giant basketball character named “Hoopster” (how or why Hoopster became the recipient of this honor remains unclear) into the center of town, where storefronts were offering trick or treating.

We were surrounded by princesses and Power Rangers, scarecrows and jungle animals. Many of the costumes were homemade, some looking a little haggard or missing accessories, but the kids wearing them were playing their parts. The ballerinas twirled and curtseyed. The transformers stomped and zoomed. The superheroes posed, karate chopped and kicked. My little guy beamed at all of them, his fire chief’s hat on his head and bullhorn in his hand, ready to come to the rescue at the first sign of smoke or a cat stuck in a tree.

And then, at last, the moment we’d been waiting for: Hoopster appeared.

The parade couldn’t start yet, though. The ball portion of his costume was still deflated, and he stood off to the side fiddling with the thing while the kids milled around restlessly. Hoopster couldn’t get his inflating tool to work, and began tapping parents on their shoulders asking if anyone had a coin to help get the thing going. Apparently Hoopster had not done a practice run before game time.

Finally, the giant basketball took its place at the front of the pack, and the children fell into line, excited for the parade. Then, my son looked up at me, frowning for the first time all day. He seemed skeptical.

“Basketballs don’t have legs,” he said.

“True,” I said slowly, looking around. What else was there to say? It hadn’t bothered him that transformers don’t wear sneakers or lions don’t carry blankies or scarecrows don’t lick lollypops. So what had changed?

 The best instruction from Writer’s Digest on character development
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Developing Character So Readers Can Suspend Disbelief

Hoopster wasn’t really selling his costume, was he? He’d spent a pretty penny on an outfit that was actually a lot more over-the-top than anyone else’s. He’d probably felt like that was enough. But it wasn’t.

The problem wasn’t so much that Hoopster was having issues—most costumes have issues at some point, right? If he’d made a wisecrack about being left in the garage too long or even half-heartedly called out, “Oh no, how will I bounce now?” he probably could have saved face. But by letting the kids see that he was just a guy who couldn’t figure out how to direct the airflow into a big nylon sphere, he was inhibiting their ability to suspend their disbelief. His legs didn’t kill the authenticity; his lack of commitment to his character did.

What does this teach us about how to develop character? Well, a lot. Your character needs to be comfortable in his outfit from the very first scene. He needs to know how it fits, how it works, and who it makes him look like to everyone around him. And in order for him to pull that off, we as our characters’ creators need to know who they are, inside and out, from Page 1. We can’t let our own voices show through where we’re supposed to be writing as our characters. We need to commit to them, fully. We need them to commit to the story, fully. And only then can our readers commit fully, too.

Whether you’re writing a first draft or revising a complete story, as you work through scene by scene, make sure that your superhero has her mask tied tightly into place. Chapter 1 can’t show her off-kilter to the point that she hasn’t yet figured out that trick to keeping her cape from coming untied. And Chapter 10 can’t catch your cowboy without his hat or spurs because he got tired of messing with them and tossed them aside somewhere along the way.

You don’t want to let readers arrive for the parade to find that you haven’t yet fully inflated your lead characters. Make your characters sell the reality behind those costumes, however flawed they may be. If your characters truly believe that they are princesses, and behave as such, then your readers will be a lot less likely to notice—or care—that they’re wearing the wrong shoes or have lost the rhinestones out of their tiaras.

Happy Halloween!

Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter: @jessicastrawser

No matter what the genre, a good writer needs to set the mood for readers. Whether it’s a creaky old house or the tense moments leading up to a final confrontation, atmosphere can make or break the experience in any piece of writing. It makes the story believable.

In the following excerpt from The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction, author Jeff Gerke walks us through (withexamples) using specific word choice and description to paint the kind of picture that keeps readers turning the page or glancing over their shoulder. Moreover, he shows us how we can use the same setting for three different places, but, by adding and changing detail, create drastically different moods. In this sense, the settings become different because the mood and atmosphere have changed.

*     *     *     *     *

Here’s an example in setting mood through word choice. I’m going to describe the same place three times but set three different moods. The place: a house in the suburbs. 

Example 1

A shadow lay over the yard like a grave cloth. The grass was long and unkempt. Against the bole of a withered oak lay a child’s ball shrouded by the creeping Bermuda. The features of the house shimmered in the blaze of the afternoon, blurred beyond recognition to the unwary stranger.

Okay, a bit cheesy, maybe, but you get the point. Not a fun place to go.

Example 2

Zinnias blossomed against the cherry tree beside the front porch, their sun-kissed inner circles wreathed in bashful pink. At the base of the grand oak, a mother rabbit led her furry litter out from the shade of a rhododendron’s lacy leaves. She sniffed the breeze with delicate nostrils, brushed her eye with a paw, and bounded into the sun.

Ah, a more pleasant place, yes? A Disney moment.

Example 3

The dirt showed through the grass in brown scars. The grass that remained was brittle and sharp, like a smoker’s eyebrows. Signs remained of the home’s luxuriant past—the garden path, the children’s toys, the “Home of the Week” sign out front—but they lay wasted. An American flag still fluttered on its pole, but the sun had washed it out to a milky translucence, and its trailing edge was shredded. It hung from only one tether, twisting in the wind like a castaway’s last cry for rescue.

Depressed yet?

I was describing the same place in all three passages: A yard, grass, some trees, and stuff on the lawn. But I created vastly different feelings for the scene that could then take place there.

I did this by means of three tricks. First, I selected different details to point out each time. All the things I mentioned could be there in the yard each time—the flag, the bunny, the child’s ball—but by plucking out specific details that supported the mood I was after, I was able to construct different images in your mind.

Second, I made heavy use of word pictures and comparisons. You’ll notice I never resorted to personification, in which I could’ve brought inanimate objects to life (“the weeds tried to choke the joy from the yard,” that sort of thing). The similes were sufficient.

Third, I chose my vocabulary carefully. In the first one, I used words like grave cloth, bole, shrouded, withered, and creeping. In the second, I used blossomed, furry, bashful, and bounded. (Plus a bunny—you can never go wrong with a furry bunny if you want to paint a happy mood.) In the third, I used wasted, brittle, and cry, plus images of regret and loneliness.

Actually, I did a fourth thing to create the mood I was after. This one’s so subtle I didn’t realize I was doing it until I stepped back and took a look. I used words that “sounded to the eye” like other words that helped paint the picture I was going for. For instance, I used shimmered when I was thinking shivered. I used cherry to sound close to cheery. And I used lacy to sound like lazy, as in relaxed.

Pretty cool, huh? I’ve gone a bit overboard to illustrate, but you can achieve the same effect with a less heavy hand simply by being mindful of the mood you’re trying to create.

You can do this to convey the narrator’s mood, too. Indeed, you could combine both advanced techniques in this book into one. You’ve got a viewpoint character who is the narrator, and now you want to illustrate his mood, so you do so by having him describe things in ways that reveal his inner state. Now we’re really at heady altitude.

The same house and yard might look all three of these ways at different points in the story depending on how the viewpoint character is feeling at the moment. We all see things we want to see—or fear—and your characters are no different.

So try it. Do you have a scene you want your reader to perceive as happy, frightening, or sad? Do you want the reader to arrive at the scene feeling wary, disarmed, or flush with young love? Then take out your paint kit (your thesaurus) and begin selecting your palette.

It should work the other way around, too. If you’re about to write a scene that is supposed to be scary, be mindful of the images and vocabulary you use to describe the setting. You should probably remove the happy family of bunnies, in other words.

Your words are setting a mood for your scenes, whether you think about them or not. I’m just asking you to think about them. You want your descriptions to help set the mood you’re after, not work against you.

Descriptions are like paintings. An artist will choose her tools carefully. The brushes, the canvas, the paints, the colors, and more. All of these help her convey the image and feeling she wants to create in the painting.

So it is in your fiction. It’s the words and images you choose in your description that convey the mood you want to create for your scenes. Be mindful of your tools, and paint away!

Cris Freese is the associate editor of Writer’s Digest Books.

Image by Beliroz, deviantART, courtesy of a Creative Commons License: http://beliroz.deviantart.com/art/Keyboard-in-the-night-183881657

While I’ll be cheering on NaNoWriMo participants from the sidelines this year rather than joining the race, I am forever looking for ways to expand my own daily word count—not just in November, but all 12 months of the year. My goals may be more modest (while they fluctuate depending on my work-in-progress and what stage it’s in, I currently aim for an average of 1,000 words a day, six days a week), but with a full-time job and a family, they’re not easy to meet.

When people find out I’ve got a novel in progress, they inevitably stop to take in my energetic 3-year-old boy, already-almost-walking 9-month-old girl, and full-time job overseeing Writer’s Digest magazine and say the same thing: Wow, you have your hands full.

I do. Literally. If I’m not in the office, you can often find me with a giggling, hair-pulling baby in my arms, a pot on the stove (or, um, the pizza guy on the phone), and a little boy dressed as a superhero tugging on my pant leg.

So for me, pushing my daily word count is about finding ways to write in between the times when I can actually sit uninterrupted at my laptop. Here are three methods that work for me—and may just work for you, too.

1. Ms. Phone, please take a letter …

On TV commercials, people talk to their phones to find out where the nearest Chinese restaurant is or to remind themselves to buy flowers for their anniversary. I talk to my phone to record ideas for fictional scenes that pop into my head at random moments of the day. Snippets of dialogue, emotional descriptions and plot notes all get recorded to be sure they don’t evaporate before I can get to my keyboard.

On my drive home from work, I have about 15 minutes of quiet time alone in the car until I pull into the daycare. Sure, sometimes I listen to music, or NPR news. But especially if I don’t yet know what scene I’m going to tackle after the kids are in bed that night, I like to use this time to brainstorm. Hands-free, I’ll dictate what comes to me into my phone. I once “wrote” 650 words between quitting time at work and pickup time at daycare. Sure, there were lots of misunderstood words and typos to correct—no voice command app is perfect—but when I do get to the computer, cleaning up the copy is far easier than starting from scratch.

2. Go go Gadget keyboard …

There are other times—say, if a baby is napping on my shoulder—that I can get my hands free but not balance a full-sized laptop on my lap. And we’ve all had those moments when we don’t have our computers in reach when inspiration strikes—but we do happen to have a tablet or smartphone with us, so we try to peck out the words on our touch screens as fast as we can, all the while grumbling that our fingers can’t catch up to our brains.

That’s where my Bluetooth keyboard comes in. I got one for my birthday back in August, and my husband is still pretty proud of himself for how much I rave about it. For only about $30, it came with a slim case and slips easily into my purse. No matter where you are, simply pair it with whatever device you have on hand, and voila! You can actually type out a scene or notes at full speed. When I have my Bluetooth keyboard along, I no longer mind if a friend is late to meet me for lunch, or if my dentist leaves me in the waiting room. In fact, sometimes I’m secretly glad.

3. Note to self …

It is one of the stranger side effects of the writing life that I email myself perhaps more than I send messages to anyone else. But every day, no matter how busy I am, whether I’m using one of the methods above or another, I try to at the very least send myself the briefest of notes regarding what my next scene will be.

At worst, when I sit down at my keyboard later, I’ll have some kind of starting point, rather than a blank screen (and a blank brain). At best, if I’ve gotten a little carried away with my note taking, my scene might already be half-written.

What I’ve found is this: Whether you’re a “pantser” or a plotter (or, in my case, a little of both), when you sit down to write with SOME kind of notes in front of you, you’ll spend less time getting in the groove and more time churning out words.

The November/December Writer’s Digest magazine is filled with Tips and Inspiration to Write a Book in a Month, including advice for developing a write-a-thon strategy and keeping the words coming. If you’re looking to increase your productivity or planning for NaNoWriMo, check out a preview in the Writer’s Digest Shop, download it instantly, or find it on a newsstand near you.

What about you? How do you increase your daily word count? From one hands-full writer to another, I invite you to leave your own tips in a comment below—we can all use all the help we can get!

Happy Writing,
Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter: @jessicastrawser

One of the things I love about working at Writer’s Digest is the excitement each time a new issue hits newsstands. And it’s especially true with the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest–because this special guide to Writing a Book in a Month arrives just in time for November’s National Novel Writing Month challenge. Regardless of whether you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, counting down 30 Days to Your Novel on your own schedule, or simply looking to write your next draft faster, this is an issue you won’t want to miss.

Find Writing Inspiration and Confidence

As a parent of both a baby and a toddler, I am surrounded by constant reminders that a lot can happen in a month. Still, it never fails to astonish me. A reliance on wriggling as a means of transportation turns into a full-speed crawl on all fours. A tearful transition to a new preschool becomes an over-the-shoulder wave in a rush to join new friends around the train table. Skills grow or are replaced by new ones, routines change, habits are formed or dropped.

As I compiled the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest, filled with stories of big triumphs over short periods of time, it occurred to me that as adults, we don’t lose that ability to transform ourselves or our work—but we do tend to forget that we have it. And what a shame that is. Know this: Deep down, we are capable of taking more than baby steps. If we set our minds to it, we can cross major milestones in leaps and bounds. And that goes for our writing, too.

Writing a book in a month might sound a little crazy. In a way, I think that’s part of its allure—because write-a-thon challenges are steadily gaining in popularity. Every November 1, National Novel Writing Month’s online hub at NaNoWriMo.org draws nearly half a million writers worldwide in an attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. As NaNoWriMo director Grant Faulkner shares in this issue’s article “What Makes NaNoWriMo Work,” that solidarity is a big part of what keeps the challenge growing every year. Because no matter how hard you have (or haven’t) trained to prepare for this marathon, once the starting pistol fires everyone is pretty much in the same pack, throwing caution to the wind and cheering one another in one big, messy sprint to the far-away finish.

Of course, you don’t need a worldwide event to take a book-in-a-month challenge. And you don’t need to be writing a novel. Solo writers, partners and groups of all stripes do word count marathons year-round. We reached out to these writers and asked them to share their most profound lessons learned, and you’ll find the best of their firsthand advice in “Plan Your Own Write-a-Thon.” (In fact, we got more great advice than we had space to print! Read more tips and tales from the writing community in our online-exclusive outtakes, Write a Book in a Month: More Writers Share Their Experience & Advice.)

Once all that inspiration has you writing up a frenzy, we wanted to make sure you have some roadside assistance ready to help when you start to run out of gas—and that’s where Elizabeth Sims’ “21 Fast Hacks to Fuel Your Story With Suspense” comes in.

Your book idea might be in its infancy now, but take it from me—with some extra attention on your part, soon it can be surprising and delighting you with its strength, determination and newfound ability to stand on its own two feet, grinning from ear to ear.

Conquer Your Word Count Goals

Are you planning to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo? Looking to up your daily word counts just a bit in solidarity with those who are? We’d love to hear about your writing goals–leave a comment below to keep the conversation going!

Get your copy of the Write a Book in a Month! issue on your favorite newsstand, or download the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest right now.

Happy Writing,
Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter @jessicastrawser.

One of the things I love about working at Writer’s Digest is the excitement each time a new issue hits newsstands. And it’s especially true with the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest–because this special guide to Writing a Book in a Month arrives just in time for November’s National Novel Writing Month challenge. Regardless of whether you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, counting down 30 Days to Your Novel on your own schedule, or simply looking to write your next draft faster, this is an issue you won’t want to miss.

Find Writing Inspiration and Confidence

As a parent of both a baby and a toddler, I am surrounded by constant reminders that a lot can happen in a month. Still, it never fails to astonish me. A reliance on wriggling as a means of transportation turns into a full-speed crawl on all fours. A tearful transition to a new preschool becomes an over-the-shoulder wave in a rush to join new friends around the train table. Skills grow or are replaced by new ones, routines change, habits are formed or dropped.

As I compiled the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest, filled with stories of big triumphs over short periods of time, it occurred to me that as adults, we don’t lose that ability to transform ourselves or our work—but we do tend to forget that we have it. And what a shame that is. Know this: Deep down, we are capable of taking more than baby steps. If we set our minds to it, we can cross major milestones in leaps and bounds. And that goes for our writing, too.

Writing a book in a month might sound a little crazy. In a way, I think that’s part of its allure—because write-a-thon challenges are steadily gaining in popularity. Every November 1, National Novel Writing Month’s online hub at NaNoWriMo.org draws nearly half a million writers worldwide in an attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. As NaNoWriMo director Grant Faulkner shares in this issue’s article “What Makes NaNoWriMo Work,” that solidarity is a big part of what keeps the challenge growing every year. Because no matter how hard you have (or haven’t) trained to prepare for this marathon, once the starting pistol fires everyone is pretty much in the same pack, throwing caution to the wind and cheering one another in one big, messy sprint to the far-away finish.

Of course, you don’t need a worldwide event to take a book-in-a-month challenge. And you don’t need to be writing a novel. Solo writers, partners and groups of all stripes do word count marathons year-round. We reached out to these writers and asked them to share their most profound lessons learned, and you’ll find the best of their firsthand advice in “Plan Your Own Write-a-Thon.” (In fact, we got more great advice than we had space to print! Read more tips and tales from the writing community in our online-exclusive outtakes, Write a Book in a Month: More Writers Share Their Experience & Advice.)

Once all that inspiration has you writing up a frenzy, we wanted to make sure you have some roadside assistance ready to help when you start to run out of gas—and that’s where Elizabeth Sims’ “21 Fast Hacks to Fuel Your Story With Suspense” comes in.

Your book idea might be in its infancy now, but take it from me—with some extra attention on your part, soon it can be surprising and delighting you with its strength, determination and newfound ability to stand on its own two feet, grinning from ear to ear.

Conquer Your Word Count Goals

Are you planning to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo? Looking to up your daily word counts just a bit in solidarity with those who are? We’d love to hear about your writing goals–leave a comment below to keep the conversation going!

Get your copy of the Write a Book in a Month! issue on your favorite newsstand, or download the November/December 2014 Writer’s Digest right now.

Happy Writing,
Jessica Strawser
Editor, Writer’s Digest Magazine
Follow me on Twitter @jessicastrawser.

From Sylvia Day’s Bared to You to Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster, new adult fiction has arrived—and it’s hotter than ever. But there’s more to this category than its 18- to 26-year-old characters: The success of your story depends on authentically depicting the transition of your young protagonists from teenhood into adulthood.

With Deborah Halverson’s Writing New Adult Fiction, you’ll learn how to capture the spirit of freedom, self-discovery, and romance that defines the new adult experience. To celebrate the book’s release, Deborah has organized a blog tour that runs through the end of the month—complete with book giveaways and prizes! If you’re curious about writing a novel for the new adult category, you’ll want to join in on the fun and learn more about crafting a story that’s fresh, unique, and wholly new adult!

Here’s what authors and reviewers are saying:

“This book is more than a marketing guide, more than a writing manual, more than a compilation of stories about successful authors. For the writer who wants to become a new adult author, or the new adult author who seeks to enrich her craftsmanship and stand out from the herd, this book has an abundance of information.” —Tammara Webber, New York Times best-selling author of Easy and Breakable

“With her conversational, engaging style, Halverson demystifies the process of plotting, writing, and marketing a NA novel…. If you’re serious about writing a NA novel you can be proud of, one that is also marketable, you’ll add this indispensable title to your permanent reference shelf.” —Blogcritics

Deborah is offering a FREE FULL MANUSCRIPT EDIT to one lucky blog tour participant. The more stops you make on the tour, the more chances to win! 

October 6: Christy Herself!

October 7: Country Gals Sexy Reads

October 8: Writing Belle

October 9: Book Bumblings

October 10: Prone to Crushes on Boys in Books

October 13: My Book Fairy

October 14: A One-click Addict’s Book Blog

October 15: A Book Addict’s Delight

October 16: The Phantom Paragrapher

October 17: deal sharing aunt

October 20: Hot Guys in Books

October 21: Julie Hedlund

October 22: Short and Sassy Book Blurbs

October 23: NA Alley

October 24: akiiKOMORI reading

October 27: KIDLIT411

October 28: eBook Addict

October 29: Pretty Girls Read Books

October 30: Coffee and characters

October 31: Quirk And Quill

October 31: Book Worms and Couch Potatoes

Rachel Randall is the managing editor for Writer’s Digest Books.

Writing a novel from one unique perspective can be challenging enough for many writers, but writing a character’s story through multiple perspectives will multiply the challenges, but also the rewards. Adi Alsaid’s new novel, Let’s Get Lost (Harlequin Teen, 2014), is an excellent example of using multiple perspectives to effectively tell the story of one character’s road trip while also keeping the reader enticed and invested for the entire ride. Here, Alsaid offers five quick tips for authors who hope to do the same in their stories.

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I’ve always been drawn to multiple perspectives, both as a reader and as a writer. And as a person! I like getting into people’s heads. That’s what I love about fiction, the ease with which we can slip into someone else’s thoughts. So when I write, I like telling a story from as many perspectives as the narrative will allow. With Let’s Get Lost, I thought it would be really interesting to tell a road-trip tale through the eyes of characters who are stationary, who are going through their own issues, their own lives, when a mysterious girl comes crashing in. Here are my tips for writing in multiple perspectives.

• Differentiate the voices. The easiest way to fail at multiple perspective is to not actually have any. Don’t give characters the same sense of humor, the same vocabulary, the same sense of right and wrong. When in doubt, read the different perspectives aloud.
• Start small. Instead of trying to encompass an entire character’s persona, zoom in on a detail. A simple desire, one thought, a bite of pasta, even. It’s a lot less intimidating to start with a bite of pasta than with an entire backstory in mind. The rest will build from there, and will probably feel more authentic for it.
• Explore. If you’re writing from different perspectives, at least one of them is probably wholly different to your own. That’s not a challenge, it’s a chance to explore what it means to be someone else. A parking lot, for example, looks different to a woman walking alone in her twenties than to a woman trying to keep two toddlers from running out into traffic before she reaches the target. What would it be like to be a teenager living in a war-torn region? You probably don’t know for sure, but you have a chance to find out if you start with a small detail and then explore from there.
• Keep it personal. Just because the characters are not like you doesn’t mean they can’t have pieces of you in them. In some way, they should care about what you care about. Or maybe they have the exact opposite beliefs, or they have courage that you don’t. Whatever it is, consider the personal connection the character has with you as you move forward. If you don’t connect with the characters on a personal level, your readers probably won’t either.
• Connection. This one may not be for everybody. What I love most about books—reading or writing them—is the chance to connect to others, the idea that people have similar thoughts and experiences, even though they may not know it. Do this in your stories too. Make connections, subtle or otherwise. Make them pass by each other a minute or two apart. Have someone in common in their backstory without them being aware of it. It’s the beauty of multiple perspectives, you can explore human connection in ways that we may miss in real life.

–

Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City. He attended college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it’s no surprise that after graduating he packed up his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He’s now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he has lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him that more places will eventually be added to the list. For more, visit www.somewhereoverthesun.com.

As poet and Pulitzer nominee Clifford Brooks states below, “…just as it is crucial that a writer creates his or her own voice, the way we edit is also a matter of self-discovery.” I couldn’t agree more. I’m a true believer in the idea that no two poets create or edit the same way, nor should they, but here Clifford Brooks explains why the process of editing is as vital as getting the words down in the first place.

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The process of editing poetry is a bare-knuckle brawl between good grammar and bad habits. Ham-fisting through my first book of verse (two volumes in one) The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics was a hard introduction into the relentless expectations of a poetic Fight Club. It was necessarily brutal, but like any art that requires intense, singular, obsessive attention to detail—be it heart surgery, classical guitar, a gun fight set dead-bang, or architecture—this is a process that gets into your DNA. The only other result is failure.

As I write my new book of poetry, Athena Departs, the process is less maddening. It’s still work—hard work—but where there were open wounds the first go-‘round, now it’s iron, intellectual musculature. I flex my whole self tense and then use my previous experience to write more deliberate, self-aware poetry.

I will not quote other writers, artists, or musicians concerning their editing wisdom. If you take this science of poetry seriously, you know all the famous quotes. I got into this turf war late in my 30’s and went without reading other Creators to make sure what I penned was mine without a shred of cross-contamination. In the event that you feel Art breathe through you as a force of spiritual frenzy as well as a financial means to an end, you are well aware the source of that blessing is beyond an academic map. Therefore, editing isn’t going to be found in a book or locked in some wordsmith with more mileage than you. No, just as it is crucial that a writer creates his or her own voice, the way we edit is also a matter of self-discovery.

Editing is essential for the obvious reasons: Yes, you need to get the spelling right. You need to ensure the verbs and nouns make nice. Are your references to historical events/people 100% accurate? If you use a foreign language in your poetry, is it essential, and more importantly, is it you? Be meticulous in your search to ensure that that you are in no conceivable way mimicking a hero. As Nietzsche said, go ahead and kill those bad boys. Heroes are only helpful in comic books. This is your time.

Yet, because we all know what we mean as we read our own work, getting another pair of eyes to give our verse a once-through to verify what we wrote is what we meant is brilliant. Pick someone who is not afraid to get down-and-dirty with us on content, but not be a jackass about it. Finding more than one of these scholars-and-gentlemen is an excellent move. Homonyms have snuck in on me, and punctuation goofs have slipped by me after obsessively compulsively combing over every line of my work. Writers are well known for being OCD about their paper-encased children; it’s worth the extra steps to make sure your infant puts its best foot forward.

After you get the mathematics in place, the next step may convince neighbors that you’re losing a few marbles: This is where I suggest you read and reread every syllable aloud to hear how the sounds marry symphony and the intended place-strong story. I have a neurosis about perfection, but it’s because I absolutely adore this art. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the sounds I’m able to wring out of words if I get them in just the right order. It’s a game of perfect-pitch angels and sickeningly-flat devils to make sure lines are engineered to create a tangible cadence.

When I walked myself through this process and tore apart my book of poetry, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics, it was the first time I’d ever gone so deep to delve out the truth in words that illuminated the most for a reader, and cut the deepest in me. This process seemed to skin my nerves from the inside out. I promised myself that I would tell the whole truth—all of it—without hiding behind murky imagery and/or cryptic metaphor. Because once we commit ourselves to paper, it’s the poet’s job to tell the truth whether we feel particularly jazzy about it or not. In my opinion, to squirm out of the responsibility of putting on your big boy britches when composing poetry is tantamount to cheating. Verse and song are cathartic. To deliver anything less is like selling snake oils to the suffering. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy job.

You see, I have peers who are more talented with poetry than I, and they were incredible help when I thought I’d pushed the harmonic threshold. When I tried to mask the shame or grief over some event to save face, they shoved me towards absolute disclosure. One editor of mine repeated the phrase, “Say it or don’t say it. If you’re not going to say it, pull the whole poem.” I live by that rule to this day and it has never failed me.

My first professional editor was Larry Fagin. He was a hardnosed mentor that set fire to the course of my career. He taught me that every word counts. Being too verbose, obvious, and long-winded are the earmarks of prose. Personally, I try not to repeat words more than absolutely necessary in one poem. I think it’s a novice mistake of being redundant, and proving a lack of an adequate vocabulary. Exploring vocabulary has brought me to a crystal clear final product that’s able to speak on several levels. For me it’s all about challenging yourself at every turn. Because of Fagin’s tutelage, I now experience more moments of euphoric creativity. I don’t try to stem the flow for few words, but spray the page with every mirage that crosses my mind.

Then, when the poems are on the page and the new process of chopping and slicing begins, I start by plucking out disjointed words, or whole lines, that may not fit the piece at hand. I extracted the melodrama aimed at myself for acts that didn’t need a soap opera to give the full picture. More important, perhaps, is when reading over the poetry I wrote years ago, I began to tear into emotional wounds I thought long dead. Personally, to write an honest poem about something that happened in the past, I mentally/emotionally needed to live there again. Through the process of editing I learned to build a tougher exterior to make sure the memories and events in my book Whirling Metaphysics were as equally accurate today as they were 15 years ago. Still editing this material was far more emotionally vicious that I expected. But I grew more as a poet and as a man in this time than any other before it, or since.

* * * * *

Clifford spoke at great length about the emotional and technical process and pitfalls, but what I included here is pretty spot-on for poets who are about to begin their own editing process. Aim for euphoria, strip away the needless words, and, most of all, “Say it or don’t say it,” because if your work doesn’t say it…what’s the point of writing it, right?

Feel free to post your own thoughts on editing poetry below!

–

Clifford Brooks is a native of Athens, Georgia. Being a “Huck Finn” kind of boy in his early years, and not a fan of public school (or being indoors for that matter), he began to write as an escape. His passion for letters grew into short stories and the humorous non-fiction he became known for in smaller literary circles. Before turning teaching and creative writing into a means of financial survival, Clifford worked as a bookseller, juvenile probation officer, and social worker. His book, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics, has been nominated for a Pulitzer in Poetry, two Pushcart Awards, and garnered him a nomination for Georgia Author of the Year. For more, visit www.cliffbrooks.com.

The following is the second in a two part, guest blog post from Eleanore D. Trupkiewicz, whose short story, “Poetry by Keats,” took home the grand prize in WD’s 14th Annual Short Short Story Competition. You can read more about Trupkiewicz in the July/August 2014 issue of Writer’s Digest and in an exclusive extended interview with her online. In this post, Trupkiewicz follows up on her discussion of dialogue with an impassioned plea: stick to said. 

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Welcome back! Part I of this two-part post talked about two key aspects of writing dialogue. First, dialogue isn’t usually the place to use complete sentences because most people in everyday conversations speak in phrases and single words. Second, effective dialogue takes correct punctuation so the reader doesn’t get yanked out of the story by a poorly punctuated exchange.

Remember, the goal in writing fiction is to keep the reader engaged in the story. But don’t give up on writing to spend the rest of your life doing something easier, like finding the Holy Grail, just yet. There’s one more key aspect that makes dialogue effective for fiction writers.

Problem: The Great He Said/She Opined Debate

In Part I, I mentioned learning from my grade school English teacher about complete sentences. Another subject she covered in that class was the importance of using synonyms and avoiding repetition.

To this day, that discussion drives me absolutely crazy.

Thousands of budding writers all over the world heard those words and deduced that they would be penalized if they repeated the word said in any work of fiction they ever wrote. So they dutifully found thesauruses and started looking up other words to use.

I’d like to submit that thousands of budding writers have been misled. Here’s my take:

Stop!

Do not touch your thesaurus to find another word that means said.

The attribution said is fine. In fact, when readers are skimming along through a novel at warp speed, the word said is just like a punctuation mark—it doesn’t even register in readers’ minds (unless used incorrectly, and it would be hard to do that).

But if you draw attention to the mechanics of your story with dialogue like this, you’re guaranteed to lose your reader in total frustration:

“Luke,” she opined, “I need you.”

“Raina,” he implored, “I know you think you do, but—”

“No!” she wailed. “Please!”

Luke shouted, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You’re being so mean to me,” Raina wept.

With an exchange like that one, you might as well run screaming out of the book straight at the reader, waving a neon sign that says: HEY, DON’T FORGET THAT THIS IS ONLY A WORK OF FICTION AND THESE CHARACTERS AREN’T REAL!!!

Why would you nail yourself into your own proverbial coffin like that?

Here’s my advice. Don’t reach for the thesaurus this time. Leave it right where it is on your shelf. You might never need it again.

Instead, if you need an attribution, use said. If you must use something different for the occasional question, you could throw in “asked” for variety, but not too often.

An even better way to use attributions in dialogue is to use a beat of action instead, like this:

“I just don’t know anymore.” Mary folded her arms. “I think I’m afraid of you.”

Harry sighed. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m not very good at this.”

That way, you know who’s talking, and you’ve even worked action and character traits into the conversation. It makes for a seamless read.

Two final thoughts:

First, dialogue cannot be smiled, laughed, giggled, or sighed. Therefore, this example is incorrect:

“Don’t tickle me!” she giggled.

You can’t giggle spoken words. You can’t laugh them or sigh them or smile them, either. (I dare you to try it. If it works for you, write me and let me know. We could be on to something.)

Of course, if you’re using said exclusively, then that won’t be a problem.

Second, let’s talk adverbs. If a writer can be convinced to use said instead of other synonyms, then he or she becomes really tempted to reach for an adverb to tell how the character said something, like this:

“I don’t want to see you again,” Lily said tonelessly.

“You don’t mean that,” Jack said desperately.

“You’re an idiot,” Lily said angrily.

The problem with using adverbs is that they’re always telling to your reader. (Remember that old maxim, “Show, don’t tell”?)

An occasional adverb won’t kill your work, but adverbs all over the place mean weak writing, or that you don’t trust your dialogue to stand without a qualifier. It’s like you’re stopping the movie (the story playing through the reader’s mind) for a second to say, “Oh, but wait, you need to know that Lily said that last phrase angrily. That’s important. Okay, roll tape.”

Why rely on a telling adverb when you could find a better way to show the reader what’s going on in the scene or inside the characters? Try something like this:

Lily turned away and crossed her arms. “I don’t want to see you again.”

“You don’t mean that.” Jack pushed to his feet in a rush.

She glared at him. “You’re an idiot.”

Beats of action reveal character emotions and set the stage far more effectively than an overdose of adverbs ever will.

Conclusion

While a challenge to write, dialogue doesn’t have to be something you dread every time you sit down to your work-in-progress (or WIP). The most effective dialogue is the conversations that readers can imagine your characters speaking, without all the clutter and distractions of synonymous attributions, overused adverbs, and incorrect punctuation.

When in doubt, cut and paste only the dialogue out of your WIP and create one script for each character. Then invite some friends (ones who don’t already think you’re crazy because you walk around mumbling to yourself about your WIP, if you still have any of those) over for dessert or appetizers sometime. Hand out the scripts, assign each person a part, and then sit back and listen. Was a line of dialogue so complicated it made the reader stumble? Do you hear places where the conversation sounds stilted and too formal, or where it sounds too informal for the scene? Does an exchange sound sappy when spoken aloud? Are there words you can cut out to tighten the flow?

And don’t give up your writing to search for the Holy Grail. While the search would be less frustrating sometimes, writing dialogue no longer has to look demonic to you. You know what to do!

Questions

In your current WIP, what sticking points and challenges do you find about writing dialogue? Is a character’s voice giving you trouble? Do you worry you’re overusing an attribution? Do you have a totally opposite opinion about adverbs? The rule about writing fiction is that there really aren’t many hard-and-fast rules, so don’t hesitate to share!

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Eleanore D. Trupkiewicz is an author, poet, blogger, book reviewer, and freelance editor and proofreader. She writes full-length thrillers as well as short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Her blogs are Engraved: All About Writing (http://eleanoretrupkiewicz.blogspot.com) and Daily Poetry Prompts (http://dailypoetryprompts.blogspot.com) and you can find her on one of her websites at www.eleanoretrupkiewicz.com or Refiner’s Fire Editing (www.refinersfireediting.com). Follow her on Twitter: @ETrupkiewicz. She lives and writes in Colorado with cats, chocolate, and assorted houseplants in various stages of demise.

The following is a guest blog post from Eleanore D. Trupkiewicz, whose short story, “Poetry by Keats,” took home the grand prize in WD’s 14th Annual Short Short Story Competition. You can read more about Trupkiewicz in the July/August 2014 issue of Writer’s Digest and in an exclusive extended interview with her online. In this post, Trupkiewicz details the importance of creating realistic dialogue and punctuating dialogue properly in order to keep the reader invested. Even the slightest of errors can draw the reader out of the story.

To read the second part of this post, check back at the beginning of next week, where she’ll tackle “said” and other attributions.

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If the devil’s in the details, that makes dialogue for fiction writers one of the most demonic elements of a story or novel. Just thinking about it makes me want to shut down my laptop and take up another career. Something less taxing, like dedicating the rest of my life to finding the Holy Grail.

Think about it. It couldn’t possibly be any more frustrating a career choice.

On the other hand, without dialogue to break up the monotony, stories get wordy and dull. Paragraph after paragraph of description or action eventually bores a reader into throwing the book against the wall and declaring a moratorium on any future reading.

Which is a death sentence for authors.

The goal, instead, is to engage the reader so he/she never even entertains the possibility of tossing aside the book.

Here’s a quick-reference guide to writing effective dialogue in fiction.

Problem: What About Complete Sentences?

When I close my eyes, I can see my middle school English teacher, in a black broomstick skirt and print blouse, as she stressed the importance of “always writing in complete sentences.”

Any student hoping for a glowing report card would’ve taken the edict to heart. I started writing short stories in which the dialogue between characters read something like this:

                  “Good morning, James. It’s nice to see you again.”

                  “Thank you, Lisa, you as well. How have you been?”

                  “I’ve been very well lately, thank you, and you?”

Yawn.

Who talks like that?

Unless you’re writing dialogue in complete sentences for one character in your work of fiction, perhaps to emphasize a cultural difference or a high-class upbringing, few people really talk that way. What worked for Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice isn’t going to fly with today’s readers.

Now what?

I’ll let you in on a secret. You’re going to have to disappoint your grade school English teacher.

Try an experiment. Go to a public place and eavesdrop. It helps maintain your cover if you’re not obvious about it, but just listen to the flow of conversation around you. You’re likely to hear snippets:

                  “Hey, man.”

                  “No.”

                  “Shut up.”

                  “Get lost, will you?”

                  “Pregnant? Julie?”

                  “I can’t— no, I don’t feel—”

Not many of these are complete sentences, by grammatical standards. Where are the subjects and the predicates? Could you diagram these examples?

Sure—they’re called words and phrases, and they’re what people generally use in conversation.

It’s not a crime to use a complete sentence—“Get away from me, Jim, before I call the police”—but opportunities don’t come up very often. Dialogue will flow and read more naturally on the page if you train yourself to write the way you hear people around you speaking.

Problem: Punctuating Dialogue

Periods, commas, ellipses, quotation marks, tigers, bears … you get the idea.

Don’t panic. Punctuating dialogue doesn’t have to be complicated, and your editor and proofreader will thank you for putting in the extra effort.

Here’s what you need to know about the most common punctuation in dialogue:

• When dialogue ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark, put the punctuation inside the quotation mark:

                  “Sam came by to see you.”

                  “Come home with me?”

                  “I hate you!”

• When punctuating dialogue with commas and an attribution before the dialogue, the comma goes after the attribution, and the appropriate punctuation mark goes inside the quotation mark at the end of the dialogue:

                  Mom said, “Sam came by to see you.”

• When punctuating dialogue with commas and adding an attribution after the dialogue, the comma goes inside the quotation mark:

                  “She came home with me,” Will said.

• When you’re punctuating dialogue with commas and adding a pronoun attribution, the comma goes inside the quotation mark, and the pronoun is not capitalized:

                  “I hate you,” she said.

• With dialogue that trails away, as though the speaker has gotten distracted, use an ellipsis inside the quotation mark:

                  “I just don’t know …” Jenny said.

• When dialogue is abruptly interrupted or cut off, use an em-dash inside the quotation mark:

                  “Well, I don’t think—”

                  “Because you never think!”

• For a non-dialogue beat to break up a line of dialogue, use either commas or em-dashes:

                  “And then I realized,” Jane said with a sigh, “that he lied to me.”

                  “Without the antidote”—Matt shook his head—“I don’t think we can save him.”

• When the speaker has started to say one thing, and changed his or her mind to say something else, use the em-dash:

                  “I don’t want to—I mean, I won’t hurt her.”

Note that semicolons and colons are rarely used in most contemporary fiction. They tend to appear too academic on the page, and if you use one or the other, or both, you run the risk of reminding the reader that they’re reading a story. Try not to do anything that breaks that fourth wall and calls attention to the mechanics of the story itself.

Look for the discussion about the great debate between “said” and other attributions in Part II of this post.

Questions

What “rules” about dialogue do you remember from grade school, writing conferences, classes, workshops, or books? Which rules drive you crazy? Which ones do you find yourself struggling to solve? How have you tackled those frustrations? Share your wisdom so others can benefit—writing takes a community to succeed!

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Eleanore D. Trupkiewicz is an author, poet, blogger, book reviewer, and freelance editor and proofreader. She writes full-length thrillers as well as short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Her blogs are Engraved: All About Writing (http://eleanoretrupkiewicz.blogspot.com) and Daily Poetry Prompts (http://dailypoetryprompts.blogspot.com) and you can find her on one of her websites at www.eleanoretrupkiewicz.com or Refiner’s Fire Editing (www.refinersfireediting.com). Follow her on Twitter: @ETrupkiewicz. She lives and writes in Colorado with cats, chocolate, and assorted houseplants in various stages of demise.

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My neighbor John loves to work on his hot rod. He’s an automotive whiz and tells me he can hear when something is not quite right with the engine. He doesn’t hesitate to pop the hood, grab his bag of tools and start to tinker. He’ll keep at it until the engine sounds just the way he wants it to.

That’s not a bad way to think about dialogue. We can usually sense when it needs work. What fiction writers often lack, however, is a defined set of tools they can put to use on problem areas.

So here’s a set—my seven favorite dialogue tools. Stick them in your writer’s toolbox for those times you need to pop the hood and tinker with your characters’ words.

#1 LET IT FLOW.
When you write the first draft of a scene, let the dialogue flow. Pour it out like cheap champagne. You’ll make it sparkle later, but first you must get it down on paper. This technique will allow you to come up with lines you never would have thought of if you tried to get it right the first time.

In fact, you can often come up with a dynamic scene by writing the dialogue first. Record what your characters are arguing about, stewing over, revealing. Write it all as fast as you can. As you do, pay no attention to attributions (who said what). Just write the lines.

Once you get these on the page, you will have a good idea of what the scene is all about. And it may be something different than you anticipated, which is good. Now you can go back and write the narrative that goes with the scene, and the normal speaker attributions and tags.

I have found this technique to be a wonderful cure for writer’s fatigue. I do my best writing in the morning, but if I haven’t done my quota by the evening (when I’m usually tired), I’ll just write some dialogue. Fast and furious. It flows and gets me into a scene.

With the juices pumping, I find I’ll often write more than my quota. And even if I don’t use all the dialogue I write, at least I got in some practice.

[Learn the 5 Essential Story Ingredients You Need to Write a Better Novel]

#2 ACT IT OUT.
Before going into writing, I spent some time in New York, pounding the pavement as an actor. While there, I took an acting class that included improvisation. Another member of the class was a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright. When I asked him what he was doing there, he said improvisational work was a tremendous exercise for learning to write dialogue.

I found this to be true. But you don’t have to join a class. You can improvise just as easily by doing a Woody Allen.

Remember the courtroom scene in Allen’s movie Bananas? Allen is representing himself at the trial. He takes the witness stand and begins to cross-examine by asking a question, running into the witness box to answer, then jumping out again to ask another question.

I am suggesting you do the same thing (in the privacy of your own home, of course). Make up a scene between two characters in conflict. Then start an argument. Go back and forth, changing your actual physical location. Allow a slight pause as you switch, giving yourself time to come up with a response in each character’s voice.

Another twist on this technique: Do a scene between two well-known actors. Use the entire history of movies and television. Pit Lucille Ball against Bela Lugosi, or have Oprah Winfrey argue with Bette Davis. Only you play all the parts. Let yourself go.

And if your local community college offers an improvisation course, give it a try. You might just meet a Pulitzer Prize winner.

#3 SIDESTEP THE OBVIOUS.
One of the most common mistakes aspiring writers make with dialogue is creating a simple back-and-forth exchange. Each line responds directly to the previous line, often repeating a word or phrase (an “echo”). It looks something like this:

This sort of dialogue is “on the nose.” There are no surprises, and the reader drifts along with little interest. While some direct response is fine, your dialogue will be stronger if you sidestep the obvious:

I don’t really know what is going on in this scene (incidentally, I’ve written only these four lines of dialogue). But I think you’ll agree this exchange is immediately more interesting and suggestive of currents beneath the surface than the first example. I might even find the seeds of an entire story here.

You can also sidestep with a question:

Hmm. Who is “he”? And why should Sylvia know? The point is there are innumerable directions in which the sidestep technique can go. Experiment to find a path that works best for you. Look at a section of your dialogue and change some direct responses into off-center retorts. Like the old magic trick ads used to say, “You’ll be pleased and amazed.”

[Understanding Book Contracts: Learn what’s negotiable and what’s not.]

#4 CULTIVATE SILENCE.
A powerful variation on the sidestep is silence. It is often the best choice, no matter what words you might come up with. Hemingway was a master at this. Consider this excerpt from his short story “Hills Like White Elephants.” A man and a woman are having a drink at a train station in Spain. The man speaks:

In this story, the man is trying to convince the girl to have an abortion (a word that does not appear anywhere in the text). Her silence is reaction enough.

By using a combination of sidestep, silence and action, Hemingway gets the point across through a brief, compelling exchange. He uses the same technique in this well-known scene between mother and son in the story “Soldier’s Home”:

Silence and bacon fat hardening. We don’t need anything else to catch the mood of the scene. What are your characters feeling while exchanging dialogue? Try expressing it with the sound of silence.

#5 POLISH A GEM.
We’ve all had those moments when we wake up and have the perfect response for a conversation that took place the night before. Wouldn’t we all like to have those bon mots at a moment’s notice?

Your characters can. That’s part of the fun of being a fiction writer. I have a somewhat arbitrary rule—one gem per quarter. Divide your novel into fourths. When you polish your dialogue, find those opportunities in each quarter to polish a gem.

And how do you do that? Like a diamond cutter, you take what is rough and tap at it until it is perfect. In the movie The Godfather, Moe Greene is angry that a young Michael Corleone is telling him what to do. He might have said, “I made my bones when you were in high school!” Instead, screenwriter Mario Puzo penned, “I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!” (In his novel, Puzo wrote something a little racier). The point is you can take almost any line and find a more sparkling alternative.

Just remember to use these gems sparingly. The perfect comeback grows tiresome if it happens all the time.

#6 EMPLOY CONFRONTATION.
Many writers struggle with exposition in their novels. Often they heap it on in large chunks of straight narrative. Backstory—what happens before the novel opens—is especially troublesome. How can we give the essentials and avoid a mere information drop?

Use dialogue. First, create a tension-filled scene, usually between two characters. Get them arguing, confronting each other. Then have the information appear in the natural course of things. Here is the clunky way to do it:

Instead, place this backstory in a scene in which John is confronted by a patient who is aware of the doctor’s past:

And so forth. This is a much underused method, but it not only gives weight to your dialogue, it increases the pace of your story.

[Here's how to turn traumatic experiences into fuel for your writing.]

#7 DROP WORDS.
This is a favorite technique of dialogue master Elmore Leonard. By excising a single word here and there, he creates a feeling of verisimilitude in his dialogue. It sounds like real speech, though it is really nothing of the sort. All of Leonard’s dialogue contributes to characterization and story.
Here is a standard exchange:

This is the way Leonard did it in Out of Sight:

It sounds so natural, yet is lean and meaningful. Notice it’s all a matter of a few words dropped, leaving the feeling of real speech.

As with any technique, there’s always a danger of overdoing it. Pick your spots and your characters with careful precision and focus, and your dialogue will thank you for it later.

Using tools is fun when you know what to do with them. I guess that’s why John, my neighbor, is always whistling when he works on his car. You’ll see results in your fiction—and have fun, too—by using these tools to make your dialogue sound just right.

Start tinkering.

Thanks for visiting The Writer’s Dig blog. For more great writing advice, click here.

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Brian A. Klems is the online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.

Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Sign up for Brian’s free Writer’s Digest eNewsletter: WD Newsletter

Suit up!

2. Reward Your Readers
HIMYM constantly rewarded its audience for sticking around from the very beginning. This is similar to the previous point. When you drop bread crumbs early in a story, make sure you come back around to them. It keeps things interesting to have a recurring element, particularly in a long series.

In the show, Robin hides the fact that she used to be a teen pop star in Canada. Barney, however, eventually discovers the fact and shares this embarrassment with the rest of the gang. Over the course of the series, they find a couple of her music videos and an educational television program she starred in. The audience never knew when one of these moments was going to pop up in an episode, which made it funnier when it happened. But if we hadn’t known early on that Robin had a secret, or if we missed the episode with the first music video, it would seem pretty random.

Or, in the third season, Ted goes on a date with a girl whose name he can’t remember. So, since he’s telling this story to his children, he replaces the girl’s name with Blah Blah every time. Whenever she’s referred to throughout the rest of the series, she’s called Blah Blah. Finally, in the last season, Ted remembers her name is Carol. This is something I had completely forgotten about over the course of the series, but it was rewarding to finally know this random woman’s name. (And another neat way the frame narrative works for this show!)

So it’s okay to reuse moments or quirky character points from earlier in a novel or a series. In fact, it shows a little humanity in the characters. And it will reward those loyal readers for sticking with a series or paying sharp attention throughout the novel. Remember, all of these little details add up when you use them correctly!

3. Never Write Yourself Into a Corner
One of the glaring mistakes left out of the series finale of HIMYM was a resolution to the pineapple incident. Everything else was neatly wrapped up (though, perhaps not necessarily the way fans would have liked), except this moment. In one of the most watched episodes of the series, Ted is criticized by his friends for over-thinking everything and not just acting on a whim. One thing leads to another and Ted ends up blackout drunk. He wakes up the next morning with a phone number written on his arm, a partially burned jacket, a sprained ankle, a woman he doesn’t know with him in bed, and a pineapple on his nightstand.

Unable to remember anything, Ted is filled in about the night from the perspectives of each of his friends. Together, they’re able to piece together what happened over the course of the night. Except for the pineapple. Thus, the pineapple incident (which is actually the name of this episode from the first season). Ted tells his kids that they never figured out where the pineapple came from. HIMYM writer Carter Bays would later admit that he wrote himself into a corner with that line, and learned to never do it again.

Follow that same advice. Whatever you’re writing (especially if it’s the beginning novel of a series, or a novel you think could have a sequel), don’t kill off story lines, plot points, or characters unless you’re absolutely sure they’re resolved or you’re done with them. Leave yourself some wiggle room if you decide to change something later. Novels and series are always developing and changing as the author writes. So it’s okay to change how you’re attacking something as you write a sequel, or work deeper into a work. Stories take on a life of their own and change. Just don’t leave something unresolved or inaccessible later.

No one wants an unexplained pineapple sitting around, no matter how delicious they are.

4. Use Smaller, Compelling Story Arcs

Part of the beauty of writing is weaving multiple story arcs together. You usually have the one, overarching goal/theme/question/story, but there’s so many other tiny ones, too. And these smaller story arcs can be just as compelling as the others. In a seemingly off subject digression that is actually appropriate because Star Wars is Ted and Marshall’s favorite movie, Luke Skywalker didn’t set out to find his father; he wanted to defeat the Empire alongside the Rebel Alliance. But throwing in the twist that Darth Vader is his father added a little extra oomph to the story.

Take advantage of the numerous details you’ve added throughout your writing to create other compelling plot points. Give your main character secondary goals, or expand on a secondary character’s story. Having these extra arcs can create good tension and keep the reader on his toes at the same time.

Acknowledge your readers and reward them with the highest of fives.

In HIMYM, there are tons of these little story arcs. One of my personal favorites is Barney and Marshall’s slap bet. When the gang discovers Robin doesn’t like going to malls (actually, this ties back into her time as a pop star in Canada—see how cool details are?), Barney and Marshall make a slap bet over why. When Marshall wins, Barney is given the option to take ten consecutive slaps immediately, or have five be delivered at any time Marshall decides. He chooses the second option, which leads to random moments where Marshall will slap Barney, as well as hilarious episodes like “Slapsgiving.” The slaps often come without warning, but the audience is always waiting for the next one. Compelling and rewarding!

5. Tragedy is Compelling

It’s easy to see that Ted is a tragic character. He’s a hopeless romantic searching for true love that doesn’t seem to exist. He’s left at the alter. He falls in love with his best friend, who doesn’t really return the same feelings. He spends years and years searching for the one, only to find her, have two kids with her, and watch her fall ill and pass. Almost nothing ever goes right for him.

And as sappy (and sometimes annoying) as Ted can get, he’s compelling. We want to see him find the one. We want to see him finally find happiness. In many ways, he (and some of the other characters) becomes a caricature of himself by the end of the series. But his character kept the audience going. Even as the show started to decline, fans still watched.

Not all of your characters need to be tragic, but they should all be relatable, in some way. Sprinkling in some tragedy here and there for the important ones only makes it better. You need to make your readers care about these characters. One of the best ways to do that is to tug at those emotional chords. And once you have your readers hooked, you’ve got them.

6. Endings Are Hard

Coming up with a perfect ending is nearly impossible. You will always have readers and fans that disagree with your decisions and criticize you for how you wrap something up. And as hard as it is to wrap up a single story, imagine an entire series. You need to make sure everything is finished. No more open doors (unless you’re planning more books, but then it’s not really finished, is it?).

But the hardest thing is getting the ending right. Mainly because you just don’t want to get it wrong. I’m not saying HIMYM got its series ender wrong. Yes, finding out the mother had passed away was heartbreaking, especially since the audience had grown to know her in the final season. And Ted ending up with Robin, when it seemed like for nine years he was meant to not be with Robin, was frustrating. But in many ways, it made sense, for the show. Ted had his true love. He learned life and love isn’t always perfect. And he decides to give it one more shot with someone he does care about. The episode wrapped up almost everything in the series (damn you pineapple!) and circled around to so many of the inside jokes and even the very first episode. But it just felt unsatisfying, in some way. The door still felt open. It just felt off.

I think the easiest solution to an ending is just to go with the logical choice. Don’t go for a big, “in your face” ending. But you also don’t want it to be weak. There’s a natural balance. And, I think, deep down writers always know what the ending to their story is. Go with that first instinct. And don’t change it. Just make sure you wrap everything up first.

Bring the reader back to something familiar, a constant.

7. Circularity

A lot of these points all tie together. But I think that’s because HIMYM was tied together in such a unique way.  At the end of your story, you might want to consider bringing everything back around in a nice circle. In most novels, that means wrapping it up by ending that overarching story arc. There’s closure. I think you can also take it a step further with a scene that recalls back to the beginning of the story, or some sort of grounding point.

Most episodes of HIMYM used places like Ted and Marshall/Marshall and Lily’s apartment, or MacLaren’s Pub as a grounding point. Episodes would often start and end there. It felt familiar and provided circularity for each episode. Plus, that’s how it works in real life, too. Groups of friends have hangout spots. There’s a little extra realness sprinkled in there.

And the series ends with a nearly identical scene from the pilot episode. Ted steals the same blue french horn that he stole after their first date, which Robin had admired. In the pilot, he presented the horn to her and confessed his love for her (after one date!!). She rejects him. In the finale, he’s just seen holding it, below Robin’s apartment as she looks on in awe from her window as the screen cuts to black. While this is far from a perfect (or ideal) ending, it does tie everything together. Ted is still the hopeless romantic. Robin still finds Ted’s romance attractive. Nothing has changed from the first episode, but everything has changed. They’ve both grown for years, even if the audience only had minutes to digest it (an obvious flaw within the construct of a television show).

It does, unfortunately, leave the proverbial door open.

Just remember not to do that. But don’t stress the endings. Remember to be careful with the details, they’ll make or break your story. And, for God’s sake, don’t mess up the pineapple!

No matter what genre of fiction you write, be it horror like King or Lovecraft, crime like Patterson or Spillane, or more literary fare like Sontag, Roth, or Updike, there’s one very basic thing all fiction writers have in common—we love coming up with perfect place and character names, and we all (assuming you’re a fellow fiction writer) pull them from various sources.

I know some writers who seem to pull names of people, towns, rivers, roads, and ranches out of thin air, as if these fictional locales have always existed in the recesses of their minds. I can’t do that, and maybe you can’t either, so here are some ways I go about gathering names for the characters and places in my own books and stories.

The Book of Names

First of all, I suggest all writers get a fancy schmancy leather-bound notebook with a golden “The Book of Names” title written on the cover or spine. Something to make people who walk into your office and see it think it’s some sort of magical tome that predicts the fate of each and every creature who walks the earth, because in a sense, it is. Mine isn’t as fancy, just a beat-up spiral pad with the above title written in sharpie on the cover. Awe inspiring it is not, yet powerful it remains.

Road Trippin’

When I go on road trips, I take a pad and pen along, just like every other writer who has ever existed. I love the names of small towns, of valleys, and historical regions, and they all go into my Book of Names. The first time I did this as a young teenager, I felt as if I had stumbled upon a mine filled with diamonds. Just look at the place names I picked up on a drive from San Antonio to Corpus Christie, Texas: Castle Hills, Braunig Park, Poteet, Jim Brite Road, Whitsett, Choke Canyon, Three Rivers, Mathis, Beeville, Nueces Bay, and Mustang Island. To my ears, that’s a novel waiting to happen. It’s landscape poetry.

Spin the Globe!

Maybe not literally, as a globe doesn’t get too specific, but I am a map lover, and I love to open an oversized atlas to a random page and start scouring the landscape. There are always interesting little towns, rivers, lakes, and roads that no one outside of the 26 residents of page 65, grid section G-2 have ever heard of. For example, a little slice of the British Columbia, Canada reveals: Tom Thumb Mountain, Paddy Peak, Jack Peak, Klondike Highway, and Maude Lake. Not bad for the “middle of nowhere.”

Rest Your Name In Peace

Some may find this a little creepy, but I know for a personal fact that I’m not the only writer who does this. Visiting old cemeteries—especially those from the era and in the region of the story you are writing—can deliver perfect names for your pre-Revolutionary settlers, Depression-era farmers, or turn-of-the-century robber barons. I still recall the first time I saw the name Otis Havermayer on a tombstone. Now that guy sounds interesting. You can do the same thing without leaving home by reading the obituary pages in local newspapers. Or if you prefer to let the honorable departed take their names with them to the other side, old phone books in your local library are another trove of names, and they’re already in alphabetical order. How convenient!

Places as People/People as Places

Just as many people are named after months, seasons, holidays, and various flora and fauna, places are often named after people. So if you find a name that you like, you can use it for either. For example, I published a short story called “The Cards We Keep” about hobos traveling along the California coast in the 1940s, but I named the characters directly or partially after place names from where I grew up—the Hudson Valley region in New York, places such as Ghent, Wilbur Flat, Oriole Mills, Claverack, Chatham, and Whitlock. Not all of those characters made it into the final version, but as character names, don’t they give those hobos a delightful vagabond quality? I think so, and you can use the same trick with your own people and places.

And of course, you can always look up popular baby names online, but putting yourself to work to find the right name for the right character is often half the fun. The next time your plotting a novel chock full of characters and places, instead of firing up Google, hop in your car and drive down an unknown road, or head to the library with pen and notepad in hand, or take your red marker to a newspaper and start circling names. You never know where you’re going to find your own personal Otis Havermeyer!

Do you have a unique tip for finding the perfect character and place names? Share your thoughts below!

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James Duncan is a content editor for Writer’s Digest. He is also the founding editor of Hobo Camp Review, poetry & prose from the road

Finding a writing voice can be a struggle, whether you’re writing a novel, short story, flash fiction or a blog post. Some may even wonder, what is voice in writing? A writer’s voice is something uniquely their own. It makes their work pop, plus readers recognize the familiarity. You would be able to identify the difference between Tolkien and Hemingway, wouldn’t you? It’s the way they write; their voice, in writing, is as natural as everyone’s speaking voice. Your voice should be authentic, even if you borrow a sense of style from your favorite author. But remember, voice and style are two entirely different thingsWriting the Breakout Novel*  *  *