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Fiction writers who are good at what they do, enjoy what they do. They like creating something from nothing . . . well from an idea. They enjoy the craft and the process.

But, with that said, there are 4 top mistakes these writers make.

1. You make the beginning of your story all roses.

While we’d all love to live in a peaceful, happy land, readers need something to sink their teeth into, especially at the beginning of the story.

The beginning of your story is the hook. It’s where you GRAB the reader and make her have to turn the page and want to know what’s going to happen to the protagonist.

Here are a couple of examples of ‘hooking’ beginnings:

“I have noticed that teachers get exciting confused with boring a lot. But when my teacher said, ‘Class, we have an exciting project to talk about,’ I listened away.”
“The Talented Clementine” by Sara Pennypacker.

“My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.”
“Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo

These two examples of children’s writing give you a good idea of what it takes to ‘hook’ the reader.

2. The dialog is weak, fluffy.

Having weak dialog can kill your story. You need your characters to have passion . . . to have life.

You want dialog that is strong and tight. You want the emotion (the conflict, the tension, the passion) to come through the words. And, you want to say it in as few words and as realistically as possible.

You want the reader to feel what the character is feeling at that moment.

If Bob is angry in the story, show it through his dialog:

“WHAT! Who said you could take that?!”
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
“No! You can’t. Now get lost.”
“Get your hands off of me!”

The tight, strong dialog goes for exchanges also:

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Bob yelled.

Gia spun around. “Oh, ugh, nothing.” Her eyes darted to the door then back to Bob.

3. The story is predictable.

You’ve got to have some surprises in the story. If you don’t, it will make for a rather dull, predictable story.

For this aspect of your story, think questions.

– Why is the character in that situation?
– How did he get there?
– What must she be feeling, seeing?
– How can see get out of it?
– What might happen next?

Try to come up with four or five options as to what might happen next.

In an article at Writer’s Digest, the author advises to “Close your eyes and watch your scene unfold. Let the characters improvise. What are some outlandish things that could result? If something looks interesting, find a way to justify it.” (1)

Let your imagination run wild.

4. Your characters are one-dimensional.

For readers to become engaged in a story, they have to develop a connection with the protagonist and other characters. In order for this to happen, the characters must be multi-dimensional.

Characters need to be believable and unique. You don’t want them to be predictable or a stereotype.

According to “Breathing Life into Your Characters” by Rachel Ballon, Ph.D., “The essential components for creating successful characters with emotional and psychological depth—feelings, passion, desires, psychology, and vision—reside within [the writer].”

So, think about it. What conditions or characteristics does your character have?

– Does he have a personality disorder?
– Does he have phobias?
– Is she dysfunctional?
– Is she a troublemaker or bully?
– Is he anxious?
– Does she have an eating disorder?
– Is she fearful?
– Is she a risk taker, fearless?

And, keep in mind that the more stressful an ‘inciting incident’ or event, the more reaction and/or adjustment there will be.

For example: If a child lost a pet, it wouldn’t be as severe as losing a parent.
If a woman became separated from her husband, it wouldn’t be as severe as having her husband suddenly die.

So, using your experiences and innate characteristics, along with research, you can create multi-faceted characters.

5. You dump information into the story.

This is more of a mistake that new writers may make. I had a client who created the entire first paragraph of her middle-grade story with ‘information dump.’

She had the protagonist talking to a stuffed animal, in a pretend interview. She gave backstory and other details she wanted to convey to the reader through the interview. She didn’t realize that this information needed to be layered or weaved into the story, not dumped in one big truck load.

You might also use a prologue to give backstory.

While there are other things to watch for in fiction writing, these are five of the top no-nos.

Reference:
(1) 5 Biggest Fiction Writing Mistakes and Fixes

MORE ON WRITING FOR CHILDREN

Writing – 6 Essential Steps to Publication
Why Hiring a Ghostwriter for Your Children’s Book is a Good Idea
Submitting Queries – Be Specific and Professional

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The following is an excerpt from Word Painting Revised Edition by Rebecca McClanahan, available now!

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The characters in our stories, songs, poems, and essays embody our writing. They are our words made flesh. Sometimes they even speak for us, carrying much of the burden of plot, theme, mood, idea, and emotion. But they do not exist until we describe them on the page. Until we anchor them with words, they drift, bodiless and ethereal. They weigh nothing; they have no voice. Once we’ve written the first words—“Belinda Beatrice,” perhaps, or “the dark-eyed salesman in the back of the room,” or simply “the girl”—our characters begin to take form. Soon they’ll be more than mere names. They’ll put on jeans or rubber hip boots, light thin cigarettes or thick cigars; they’ll stutter or shout, buy a townhouse on the Upper East Side or a studio in the Village; they’ll marry for life or survive a series of happy affairs; they’ll beat their children or embrace them. What they become, on the page, is up to us.

Here are 11 secrets to keep in mind as you breathe life into your characters through description.

1. Description that relies solely on physical attributes too often turns into what Janet Burroway calls the “all-points bulletin.”

It reads something like this: “My father is a tall, middle-aged man of average build. He has green eyes and brown hair and usually wears khakis and oxford shirts.”

This description is so mundane, it barely qualifies as an “all-points bulletin.” Can you imagine the police searching for this suspect? No identifying marks, no scars or tattoos, nothing to distinguish him. He appears as a cardboard cutout rather than as a living, breathing character. Yes, the details are accurate, but they don’t call forth vivid images. We can barely make out this character’s form; how can we be expected to remember him?

When we describe a character, factual information alone is not sufficient, no matter how accurate it might be. The details must appeal to our senses. Phrases that merely label (like tall, middle-aged, and average) bring no clear image to our minds. Since most people form their first impression of someone through visual clues, it makes sense to describe our characters using visual images. Green eyes is a beginning, but it doesn’t go far enough. Are they pale green or dark green? Even a simple adjective can strengthen a detail. If the adjective also suggests a metaphor—forest green, pea green, or emerald green—the reader not only begins to make associations (positive or negative) but also visualizes in her mind’s eye the vehicle of the metaphor—forest trees, peas, or glittering gems.

2. The problem with intensifying an image only by adjectives is that adjectives encourage cliché.

It’s hard to think of adjective descriptors that haven’t been overused: bulging or ropy muscles, clean-cut good looks, frizzy hair. If you use an adjective to describe a physical attribute, make sure that the phrase is not only accurate and sensory but also fresh. In her short story “Flowering Judas,” Katherine Anne Porter describes Braggioni’s singing voice as a “furry, mournful voice” that takes the high notes “in a prolonged painful squeal.” Often the easiest way to avoid an adjective-based cliché is to free the phrase entirely from its adjective modifier. For example, rather than describing her eyes merely as “hazel,” Emily Dickinson remarked that they were “the color of the sherry the guests leave in the glasses.”

3. Strengthen physical descriptions by making details more specific.

In my earlier “all-points bulletin” example, the description of the father’s hair might be improved with a detail such as “a military buzz-cut, prickly to the touch” or “the aging hippie’s last chance—a long ponytail striated with gray.” Either of these descriptions would paint a stronger picture than the bland phrase brown hair. In the same way, his oxford shirt could become “a white oxford button-down that he’d steam-pleated just minutes before” or “the same style of baby blue oxford he’d worn since prep school, rolled carelessly at the elbows.” These descriptions not only bring forth images, they also suggest the background and the personality of the father.

4. Select physical details carefully, choosing only those that create the strongest, most revealing impression.

One well-chosen physical trait, item of clothing, or idiosyncratic mannerism can reveal character more effectively than a dozen random images. This applies to characters in nonfiction as well as fiction. When I write about my grandmother, I usually focus on her strong, jutting chin—not only because it was her most dominant feature but also because it suggests her stubbornness and determination. When I write about Uncle Leland, I describe the wandering eye that gave him a perpetually distracted look, as if only his body was present. His spirit, it seemed, had already left on some journey he’d glimpsed peripherally, a place the rest of us were unable to see. As you describe real-life characters, zero in on distinguishing characteristics that reveal personality: gnarled, arthritic hands always busy at some task; a habit of covering her mouth each time a giggle rises up; a lopsided swagger as he makes his way to the horse barn; the scent of coconut suntan oil, cigarettes, and leather each time she sashays past your chair.

5. A character’s immediate surroundings can provide the backdrop for the sensory and significant details that shape the description of the character himself.

If your character doesn’t yet have a job, a hobby, a place to live, or a place to wander, you might need to supply these things. Once your character is situated comfortably, he may relax enough to reveal his secrets. On the other hand, you might purposely make your character uncomfortable—that is, put him in an environment where he definitely doesn’t fit, just to see how he’ll respond. Let’s say you’ve written several descriptions of an elderly woman working in the kitchen, yet she hasn’t begun to ripen into the three-dimensional character you know she could become. Try putting her at a gay bar on a Saturday night, or in a tattoo parlor, or (if you’re up for a little time travel) at Appomattox, serving her famous buttermilk biscuits to Grant and Lee.

6. In describing a character’s surroundings, you don’t have to limit yourself to a character’s present life.

Early environments shape fictional characters as well as flesh-and-blood people. In Flaubert’s description of Emma Bovary’s adolescent years in the convent, he foreshadows the woman she will become, a woman who moves through life in a romantic malaise, dreaming of faraway lands and loves. We learn about Madame Bovary through concrete, sensory descriptions of the place that formed her. In addition, Flaubert describes the book that held her attention during mass and the images that she particularly loved—a sick lamb, a pierced heart.

Living among those white-faced women with their rosaries and copper crosses, never getting away from the stuffy schoolroom atmosphere, she gradually succumbed to the mystic languor exhaled by the perfumes of the altar, the coolness of the holy-water fonts and the radiance of the tapers. Instead of following the Mass, she used to gaze at the azure-bordered religious drawings in her book. She loved the sick lamb, the Sacred Heart pierced with sharp arrows, and poor Jesus falling beneath His cross.

7. Characters reveal their inner lives—their preoccupations, values, lifestyles, likes and dislikes, fears and aspirations—by the objects that fill their hands, houses, offices, cars, suitcases, grocery carts, and dreams.

In the opening scenes of the film The Big Chill, we’re introduced to the main characters by watching them unpack the bags they’ve brought for a weekend trip to a mutual friend’s funeral. One character has packed enough pills to stock a drugstore; another has packed a calculator; still another, several packages of condoms. Before a word is spoken—even before we know anyone’s name—we catch glimpses of the characters’ lives through the objects that define them.

What items would your character pack for a weekend away? What would she use for luggage? A leather valise with a gold monogram on the handle? An old accordion case with decals from every theme park she’s visited? A duffel bag? Make a list of everything your character would pack: a “Save the Whales” T-shirt; a white cotton nursing bra, size 36D; a breast pump; a Mickey Mouse alarm clock; a photograph of her husband rocking a child to sleep; a can of Mace; three Hershey bars.

8. Description doesn’t have to be direct to be effective.

Techniques abound for describing a character indirectly, for instance, through the objects that fill her world. Create a grocery list for your character—or two or three, depending on who’s coming for dinner. Show us the character’s credit card bill or the itemized deductions on her income tax forms. Let your character host a garage sale and watch her squirm while neighbors and strangers rifle through her stuff. Which items is she practically giving away? What has she overpriced, secretly hoping no one will buy it? Write your character’s Last Will and Testament. Which niece gets the Steinway? Who gets the lake cottage—the stepson or the daughter? If your main characters are divorcing, how will they divide their assets? Which one will fight hardest to keep the dog?

9. To make characters believable to readers, set them in motion.

The earlier “all-points bulletin” description of the father failed not only because the details were mundane and the prose stilted; it also suffered from lack of movement. To enlarge the description, imagine that same father in a particular setting—not just in the house but also sitting in the brown recliner. Then, because setting implies time as well as place, choose a particular time in which to place him. The time may be bound by the clock (six o’clock, sunrise, early afternoon) or bound only by the father’s personal history (after the divorce, the day he lost his job, two weeks before his sixtieth birthday).

Then set the father in motion. Again, be as specific as possible. “Reading the newspaper” is a start, but it does little more than label a generic activity. In order for readers to enter the fictional dream, the activity must be shown. Often this means breaking a large, generic activity into smaller, more particular parts: “scowling at the Dow Jones averages,” perhaps, or “skimming the used-car ads” or “wiping his ink-stained fingers on the monogrammed handkerchief.” Besides providing visual images for the reader, specific and representative actions also suggest the personality of the character, his habits and desires, and even the emotional life hidden beneath the physical details.

10. Verbs are the foot soldiers of action-based description.

However, we don’t need to confine our use of verbs to the actions a character performs. Well-placed verbs can sharpen almost any physical description of a character. In the following passage from Marilynne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping, verbs enliven the description even when the grandmother isn’t in motion.

… in the last years she continued to settle and began to shrink. Her mouth bowed forward and her brow sloped back, and her skull shone pink and speckled within a mere haze of hair, which hovered about her head like the remembered shape of an altered thing. She looked as if the nimbus of humanity were fading away and she were turning monkey. Tendrils grew from her eyebrows and coarse white hairs sprouted on her lip and chin. When she put on an old dress the bosom hung empty and the hem swept the floor. Old hats fell down over her eyes. Sometimes she put her hand over her mouth and laughed, her eyes closed and her shoulder shaking.

Notice the strong verbs Robinson uses throughout the description. The mouth “bowed” forward; the brow “sloped” back; the hair “hovered,” then “sprouted”; the hem “swept” the floor; hats “fell” down over her eyes. Even when the grandmother’s body is at rest, the description pulses with activity. And when the grandmother finally does move—putting a hand over her mouth, closing her eyes, laughing until her shoulders shake—we visualize her in our mind’s eye because the actions are concrete and specific. They are what the playwright David Mamet calls “actable actions.” Opening a window is an actable action, as is slamming a door. “Coming to terms with himself” or “understanding that he’s been wrong all along” are not actable actions. This distinction between nonactable and actable actions echoes our earlier distinction between showing and telling. For the most part, a character’s movements must be rendered concretely—that is, shown—before the reader can participate in the fictional dream.

Actable actions are important elements in many fiction and nonfiction scenes that include dialogue. In some cases, actions, along with environmental clues, are even more important to character development than the words the characters speak. Writers of effective dialogue include pauses, voice inflections, repetitions, gestures, and other details to suggest the psychological and emotional subtext of a scene. Journalists and other nonfiction writers do the same. Let’s say you’ve just interviewed your cousin about his military service during the Vietnam War. You have a transcript of the interview, based on audio or video recordings, but you also took notes about what else was going on in that room. As you write, include nonverbal clues as well as your cousin’s actual words. When you asked him about his tour of duty, did he look out the window, light another cigarette, and change the subject? Was it a stormy afternoon? What song was playing on the radio? If his ancient dog was asleep on your cousin’s lap, did he stroke the dog as he spoke? When the phone rang, did your cousin ignore it or jump up to answer it, looking relieved for the interruption? Including details such as these will deepen your character description.

11. We don’t always have to use concrete, sensory details to describe our characters, and we aren’t limited to describing actable actions.

The novels of Milan Kundera use little outward description of characters or their actions. Kundera is more concerned with a character’s interior landscape, with what he calls a character’s “existential problem,” than with sensory description of person or action. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tomas’s body is not described at all, since the idea of body does not constitute Tomas’s internal dilemma. Teresa’s body is described in physical, concrete terms (though not with the degree of detail most novelists would employ) only because her body represents one of her existential preoccupations. For Kundera, a novel is more a meditation on ideas and the private world of the mind than a realistic depiction of characters. Reading Kundera, I always feel that I’m living inside the characters rather than watching them move, bodily, through the world.

With writers like Kundera, we learn about characters through the themes and obsessions of their inner lives, their “existential problems” as depicted primarily through dreams, visions, memories, and thoughts. Other writers probe characters’ inner lives through what characters see through their eyes. A writer who describes what a character sees also reveals, in part, a character’s inner drama. In The Madness of a Seduced Woman, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer describes a farm through the eyes of the novel’s main character, Agnes, who has just fallen in love and is anticipating her first sexual encounter, which she simultaneously longs for and fears.

… and I saw how the smooth, white curve of the snow as it lay on the ground was like the curve of a woman’s body, and I saw how the farm was like the body of a woman which lay down under the sun and under the freezing snow and perpetually and relentlessly produced uncountable swarms of living things, all born with mouths open and cries rising from them into the air, long-boned muzzles opening … as if they would swallow the world whole …

Later in the book, when Agnes’s sexual relationship has led to pregnancy, then to a life-threatening abortion, she describes the farm in quite different terms.

It was August, high summer, but there was something definite and curiously insubstantial in the air. … In the fields near me, the cattle were untroubled, their jaws grinding the last of the grass, their large, fat tongues drinking the clear brook water. But there was something in the air, a sad note the weather played upon the instrument of the bone-stretched skin. … In October, the leaves would be off the trees; the fallen leaves would be beaten flat by heavy rains and the first fall of snow. The bony ledges of the earth would begin to show, the earth’s skeleton shedding its unnecessary flesh.

By describing the farm through Agnes’s eyes, Schaeffer not only shows us Agnes’s inner landscape—her ongoing obsession with sex and pregnancy—but also demonstrates a turning point in Agnes’s view of sexuality. In the first passage, which depicts a farm in winter, Agnes sees images of beginnings and births. The earth is curved and full like a woman’s fleshy body. In the second scene, described as occurring in “high summer,” images of death prevail. Agnes’s mind jumps ahead to autumn, to dying leaves and heavy rains, a time when the earth, no longer curved in a womanly shape, is little more than a skeleton, having shed the flesh it no longer needs.

 

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October conjures up images of crackling fires, shivering leaves, the grinning teeth of a jack-o-lantern … and, if you’re a fan of classic horror, that iconic, fanged master of the night, Count Dracula. We feel there’s no better time than October—National Dracula Month—to share some writing tips and techniques that authors can learn from Dracula and apply to their own horror stories.

As you read this excerpt from chapter one of Dracula, try reading Bram Stoker’s text first, and then go back and read it again, this time pausing to digest the annotations from Mort Castle, in red.

Thirsty for more? Writer’s Digest Annotated Classics: Dracula, by Bram Stoker with annotations by Mort Castle, is available now! More than just an annotated version of the novel, this edition presents sharply focused, valuable techniques for writers who want to learn more about the techniques Bram Stoker used—and why he applied them.

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JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

(Kept in shorthand) [1]

[1] That Harker’s diary is kept in “shorthand” immediately reveals something of the man’s personality: With shorthand, he can record his impressions rapidly. Even a modern, ultra-fast-paced, totally plot-driven thriller has to have some characterization by finding small ways to provide “a bit of character” such as this.

3 May. Bistritz.—Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; [2] should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule. [3]  

[2] Stoker, had he been writing in our era, might well have launched Dracula far later into the story at a much more dramatic moment, giving us, perhaps, Harker’s escape from Castle Dracula.

Television and films frequently use a technique called in medias res, starting “in the middle of things” (from the Latin) in order to hook the audience. Then, with the hook set, the writer fills in, usually via flashback, what readers need to know to get back to “the middle of things.” (More about flashbacks later.) Modern fiction writers have latched onto this technique. Beginning writers often begin way before the true beginning of the action. It is a typical flaw. What Stoker gives us here is almost in medias res; while there is no great dramatic action, Harker is placed in a physical location at a specific time. We know he is a traveling man, and we sense that he is a man on a mission. After all, he is concerned about the trains running on time. He has, we sense, places to go, people to see, things to do.

The narrative arc of the story has just about commenced.

[3] Observe, writer, an absolutely masterful transition. Transitions get characters (and readers) from “there” to “here,” from “then” to “now.” It is easy to mess up transitions by thinking it necessary to detail every moment/movement between “there” and “here” and “then” and “now.” That is simply not so.

It will keep the story moving to simply write the equivalent of: He took the bus across town. This is Stoker transitioning a la “took the bus across town,” and it offers something more than a movement between locales: It shows Harker’s journey from the familiar Western European locales to the exotic East.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) [4] I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.

[4] It is with Harker’s little note to self that he begins to really come alive. This little note of domesticity reveals much of just who Husbandly Harker is. We start to like him because we are getting to know him.

A well-developed fictional character is someone who is every bit as alive and just as unique an individual as anyone we know—really well—out here in RealityLand. When a character is well done, we get to know the character so well that we like or dislike, love or hate him.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; [5] it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

[5] Time to bring it out, this Ancient Commandment for All Writers: Write what you know.

You might be thinking: But Bram Stoker never visited Transylvania.

And if a writer doesn’t know it, he or she must conduct research. We must therefore assume Stoker, like Harker, did serious research—research on a deeper level than might be provided even by that respected canon of our time, Wikipedia. It’s credibility that is at stake. (At stake … sorry. Can’t help it!) You never want your reader to think that you, the author, do not know what you are writing about.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition [6] in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)

[6] With the derisive word superstition, Harker reveals himself again as a sober and reasonable man. He’s preparing us for his becoming royally unhinged not so long from now. This is foreshadowing, albeit done in a subtle manner.

Effective foreshadowing can give readers the feeling of “uh-oh” long before a character has any such feeling. It can therefore contribute to the mood of a scene and build suspense.

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. [7] There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga”, and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata”. (Mem., get recipe for this also.) [8] I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?

[7] Queer dreams = Foreshadowing again. These are unusual dreams, somewhat disconcerting dreams, strange dreams … they are not horrible dreams that bring on sweats and shrieks. Were Harker to be in such an elevated emotional state at this early point in the narrative, it would be nearly impossible to build to the sustained claustrophobically smothering terror that falls upon him when he becomes the Count’s guest/prisoner.

[8] A fundamental writing rule: Show, don’t tell. If your words put a picture on the reader’s mental movie screen, you are following the rule. If you evoke a sensory response in the reader, you engage the reader.

Author David Morrell advises in any significant scene—that is, one meant to be memorable and not just “something happens”—that it’s a good idea to come up with three sensory triggers.

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets, and round hats, and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease. [9]

[9] One more splendid transition. There is not a wasted word here, yet Harker and readers travel from 8:30 in the morning until past twilight, from Klausenberg to Bistritz.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress—white undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?” “Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.”

She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirtsleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter—

“My friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

“Your friend,

“Dracula.” [10]  

[10] Here Stoker chooses to use subtle irony. Whatever Dracula is, he is no friend to Harker. As a writer, you can do a lot with irony. For example, how many patients likely heard Hannibal Lecter say he wanted to help them?

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Rachel Randall is the managing editor of Writer’s Digest Books. Her favorite holiday is Halloween.

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The 2015 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, now in its 34th year, is hot off the presses, and today I’m sharing ten pieces of advice from the contributors to this year’s edition. NSSWM features articles on fiction craft, getting published, and marketing and promotion, as well as more than 400 pages of listings for novel and short story writers, including literary agents, book publishers, magazines, and contests that are interested in your work. This year’s edition also features access to an exclusive webinar from best-selling author Cheryl St.John, on exploring emotional high points in fiction.

To celebrate the release of the 2015 NSSWM, I’m giving away two copies to two lucky winners who comment in the post below! I’ll announce the winners on October 22. 

10 FICTION-WRITING TIPS FROM NSSWM

1. On writing an exceptional short story:

“Outline, even if it’s the most rudimentary way. It leads to inspired deviations. … [Don’t] think too hard about ticking off [your] boxes in advance. A good story—long or short—will provide them by virtue of its being good.” —Andrew Pyper, in Jennifer D. Foster’s article “Anatomy of a Successful Short Story”

2. On writing dialogue within a scene: 

“Rich dialogue can animate and drive a scene. But good dialogue doesn’t act in isolation. The point of view of the stakeholders in the matter at hand must be provocative or interesting in some way. There must be conflict—conflict important enough to make the reader care. And then, driven by this conflict, the characters must come alive, revealing their needs, desires, flaws—their basic humanity. The dialogue itself must be distinctive and original. When it’s not working, it tends to sound clunky and artificial.” —Jack Smith, “Writing Strong Scenes”

3. On finding ideas for magic realism: 

“Ever since I began writing, I’ve been a collector. Not of things—shells, stamps, figurines, stuffed monkeys, autographs, etc.—but of possibilities. Odd happenings and images from around the world and in my dreams that could—and often do—make their way into my writing. While many might be considered mundane observances, paired with the right character in the right situation, I know they’ll make terrifically fantastic occurrences. —Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, “Making Magic”

4. On getting through the mid-draft slump: 

“A mid-draft slump is a symptom, which calls for a diagnosis before you can effectively treat it. Believing you can write your way out of this mess, that you can rescue the middle with a strong closing act, is a seductive trap, because your reader may never make it that far. When that reader is an agent or an editor, this assumption becomes a fatal one.” —Larry Brooks, “Stuck in the Middle”

5. On developing a distinct point of view and voice: 

“Practice makes perfect, and the best way to practice is by writing short stories. Flash fiction (telling a full story in 1,000 words or less) is a great training tool.” —J.T. Ellison, in Janice Gable Bashman’s interview “Capturing Readers’ Interest”

6. On Twitter “pitch parties”: 

“As informal as social media can be, Brenda Drake emphasizes that writers need to treat pitch parties as professionally as any other submission. ‘Your manuscript should be completely polished. It has to have been through your beta readers and critique partners, and you should have revised it a few times,’ she says.” —Diane Shipley, “It Started With a Hashtag”

7. On what impresses literary journal editors: 

“I’m impressed by a writer who takes our theme, shakes it around, and throws it back at us in a way we were not expecting. Catching us off guard with good writing is rewarding. We all know what we want, but when we come across something we didn’t expect, something that cuts in a new and exciting way, that is a great way to attract attention.” —Todd Simmons, in James Duncan’s roundtable “What Literary Journals Really Look For”

8. On how to choose a small press to submit to: 

“Evaluate the content. If a small press is consistently putting out quality writing, chances are it has a solid editorial team. The amount of time it’s been in existence and its general reputation are helpful indicators, too.” —Robert Lee Brewer, “Sizing Up Small Presses”

9. On hybrid publishing: 

“Diversity means survival. That’s true in agriculture. It’s true in our stock portfolios. It’s true on our dinner plates. And it’s true in publishing. Survival as a writer means embracing diversity from the beginning. And that means thinking of yourself as a “hybrid” author. … The hybrid author takes a varied approach, utilizing the traditional system of publishing and acting as an author-publisher (a term I prefer to self-publisher because it signals the dual nature of the role you now inhabit).”  —Chuck Wendig, “Best of Both Worlds”

10. On organizing a virtual book tour: 

“You may find it helpful to assemble an ‘online media kit,’ a section of your website where you can provide photos and other relevant information, such as a video trailer and press release, in one location. This way, you can give your hosts a single link instead of inundating them with attachments … .” —Erika Dreifus, “10 Tips for Your Virtual Book Tour”

You can find the articles these tips came from, as well as hundreds of listings for book publishers, literary agents, magazines, contests, and writing conferences, inside the 2015 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market.

To celebrate the release of the 2015 NSSWM, I’m giving away two copies to two lucky winners who comment in the post below! I’ll announce the winners on October 22. 

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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

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

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In Brian Klems' Writer’s Digest Column on Writing, I read a great article titled, "The 5 C’s of Writing a Great Thriller Novel.” While I’m not a thriller writer, the information in this article is applicable to just about all fiction writing. There are fundamentals elements needed in all fiction to make it reader engaging and friendly. In other words, to make it ‘page turning good.’ The

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Versatility is essential to success as a freelance writer. Transitioning from fiction writing to nonfiction freelancing could mean the difference between writing as a hobby and actually earning an income.

There are plenty of benefits to having a background in fiction. In the latest installment of Mediabistro’s Journalism Advice column, one writer claims that after writing fiction, generating fresh ideas for articles was easier than ever:

Having trained myself before to hone my curiosity and keep my eyes and ears open for ideas, it comes naturally now. I’m likely to come up with an article idea, a turn of phrase or an untapped market while I’m driving, playing blocks with my 2-year-old or taking my lunch break. If you can invent a villain or dream up a plotline or a setting, you can develop a pitch for a nonfiction article.

For more, including how a background in fiction can help you deal with deadlines, read: 5 Ways Fiction Writing Prepared Me for Nonfiction Freelancing.

The full version of this article is exclusively available to Mediabistro AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, register now for as little as $55 a year for access to hundreds of articles like this one, discounts on Mediabistro seminars and workshops, and all sorts of other bonuses.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Some of this is Grammar 101, but you’ve got to master the rules in this section for an editor to take you seriously. If these rules are elementary to you, skip them. For everyone else, type them up, print them out, and nail them to your computer monitor.

Rule #1: When a new speaker speaks, start a new paragraph

Right: “Did you hear what happened to Mary last week?” Joseph asked.

“No. Do tell!” cried the little drummer boy.

Wrong: “Did you hear what happened to Mary last week?” Joseph asked.

“No. Do tell!” cried the little drummer boy.

Rule #2: Keep dialogue brief

I’m a devotee of nineteenth-century Russian literature, and one of my favorite chapters is the Grand Inquisitor section of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The success of such a chapter carries with it an assumption that no longer holds true today: One speaker can tell a long story, without interruptions, and his audience will be rapt throughout the telling.

In the age of television, the Internet, e-mail, and even books (remember them?), the art of oral storytelling has gone nearly extinct. Yes, we all still run across the occasional person who can hold a dinner party spellbound with his telling of a story, but there will nonetheless be interruptions, interjections, and asides. In our twenty-first-century world, in fact, no one gets to go on as long as nineteenth-century characters could, so dialogue in which someone speaks without interruption feels awkward and stilted to us.

If it’s necessary to your narrative for someone to give a long speech, there are a number of possible solutions.

1. Make it a real speech.
2. Have him write a letter.
3. Break it up with interjections that further the narrative and/or develop character or relationships at the same time.
4. Consider why it’s necessary for this information to be imparted this way. If it’s important, perhaps it should be done in a scene. (If doing such a scene presents a point-of-view problem, have someone who’s there write a letter.)

Rule #3: Always put terminal punctuation (commas, periods) inside the quotation marks

This one’s simple. Note where the comma and period appear in each example and then commit the above to memory.
Right: “I wonder,” she said, “if he is going to show up.”
Wrong: “I wonder”, she said, “if he is going to show up”.

*This excerpt is from Mind of Your Story by Lisa Lenard-Cook.

Buy it now!

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You need a clear reason for writing an epilogue, and it cannot be used to simply tie up loose ends, which you should do during your falling action. Without a proper purpose for including one, an epilogue might come across as anti-climatic deadweight, inadvertently signaling to your reader that you’re afraid your ending is so weak that he won’t be able extrapolate meaning from it without help. To avoid such potential problems, make sure your epilogue is enhancing your story in one or more of the following ways.

• Wrapping up story events after a traumatic or violent climax. This is an especially important technique when the ending is abrupt or surprising, as when a major character dies, or when the fate of the characters is not clearly depicted. If your ending raises more questions than it answers, you will need to rewrite it or create an epilogue to resolve this problem.

• Highlighting consequences and results of story events. Perhaps you’ve written a comeuppance story, or the ending features a major revelation. The epilogue will serve to assure the reader that justice has been dispensed.

• Providing important information that wasn’t covered in the climax or denouement. If a character was ailing in the story, you might want to explain his fate. Or, if a character becomes pregnant, the epilogue can explain the birth of the child. This can work especially well if the father dies or the child has special significance to the story.

• Suggesting the future for the protagonist and other characters. This is an important consideration in series fiction or if you’re planning a sequel. An epilogue might also be appropriate if a character undergoes severe physical, emotional, or psychological trauma, to assure the readers of his full or partial recovery.

• Making the story seem realistic. For example, if you’ve killed off a character, the epilogue can be written by another character to explain how things went down. Or, if you’re writing a story and the ending was literally explosive, the epilogue assures readers that the protagonist has survived.

• Providing data on your large cast of characters, especially if you’ve written a sweeping historical or epic. Often, with a large cast, it’s difficult to suggest the fate of every character. In Vanity Fair, William Thackeray wrote an epilogue titled “Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths.” While this may seem old-fashioned to some readers, in a highly complex novel you can sometimes justify following the cast into the future.

Buy Between the Lines now & learn more about writing fiction!

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I’m just back from a beach vacation where I learned something new – in my hometown those little sugary doo-dads you sprinkle on your ice cream are called sprinkles but at the beach they’re called jimmies. I took note because I’m playing with the idea of a book that happens at the beach. As a reader, I know that any anomalies (such as sprinkles where there should be jimmies) can ruin the reading experience. And as several authors I know can attest to, anomalies can also ruin the writing experience since readers can and will send you an “oops” letter to inform you that you have the wrong flowers growing in your character’s garden, have them using the wrong curse words, or painted their ’57 Chevy a color that wasn’t available in ’57. And not only did it ruin the whole book for them, but they also told everyone they know about your mistake!

At first, you may believe that fact-checking is less important with fiction writing than with non-fiction. Not true! Unless you are writing science fiction or fantasy (where it’s equally important to follow the rules for the world you’ve created), one inaccuracy can destroy the entire world you’ve created. If your Oregon character is using Arkansas slang it’s tougher for a reader to lose themself in the story, to fall in love with your characters, to want to share that world with other readers.

If it’s something you’re an expert at such as slang in your region, a job you’ve held, a hobby or skill you have you’re all set. Proof, proof, proof. But what if it’s something out of your realm? Tulips, ancient Egyptian culture, the life of a taxi driver? How do you ensure that your book doesn’t include any glaring errors? Find the experts. I’ve found experts in several places:

1. Academia – College professors can be helpful with specific factual questions. It helps if you know or can obtain an introduction from a friend but sometimes an out-of-the-blue email can result in an answer. Emails seem to be the contact of choice for professors. To help narrow down who you should contact, go to a school’s website and learn what the professor has published recently. Just because they’re a history professor doesn’t mean they can answer your questions about World War II, they may be an expert in the French Revolution.

2. Professionals – Find someone doing the job of one of your characters to learn if you’ve got all the facts, lingo, and timelines correct. Many times there are public relations people for specific companies or professional organizations that are happy to make sure you portray their world correctly. When I needed some basic information on the military world, a public relations officer at Dover Air Force Base and a local Army recruiter happily answered my questions and suggested other people that could help me.

3. Groups – There are groups for everything: gardeners, tattoo artists, Polish-Americans, collectors of beer bottles, Edgar Allen Poe enthusiasts, everything! Another great source that usually is happy to send out a mass email (or include a notice in their next newsletter) to their members about your questions.

4. Non-expert Experts – Want to make sure you have city living right? Run your book by an urban resident. Not sure if your Southern slang rings true? Time to consult a Southern belle. They’re not exactly “experts” but it’s the life they lead. If they don’t know, who will?

In my experience, for more “official” experts the more specific you are, the better. Don’t expect a response if you send a 200 page manuscript to a state police officer with a “Did I get everything right?” Instead, give a broad overview of your book and your key questions such as:

1. Who notifies the coroner?
2. How many people would be at a small town murder scene?
3. Do you really wrap everything in yellow crime scene tape?
4. Do you wear blue booties in the crime scene?

When you’re looking for a more general “Does this feel like Alaska/Irish step dancers/a bakery shop?”, especially for things such as regional or special groups’ details and slang, it seem more helpful to include the entire manuscript ( or at least the section that features this group). Things are less overwhelming if you highlight words, actions, or details that could be wrong (or better expressed by group specific lingo). Ask them to focus on the highlighted sections but to read everything, just in case you missed a key error. Often your non-expert experts are family and friends so they are more willing to take the time to read an entire manuscript. The highlighting reminds them that you don’t just want a “I liked/didn’t like the story” but also their expertise on details about Alaska/Irish step dancers/bakery shops.

Never forget that in fiction writing, even the smallest fact is important. Take the time to get it right. Your readers will thank you…by not sending you “oops” letters.

Jodi Webb is a WOW Blog Tour organizer and has taken a bit of time off from her blog Words by Webb to focus on her YA novel that takes place mostly in her regional area (Hooray! She knows lots of experts.) and partially in the military world (Where she's met lots of helpful experts who call her ma'am.)

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Do you wonder want readers want? In today’s writing tip, you’ll discover the 21 key traits of best-selling fiction excerpted from The Writer’s Little Helper by James V. Smith, Jr.

The 21 Key Traits of Best-Selling Fiction

1. Utility (writing about things that people will use in their lives)
2. Information (facts people must have to place your writing in context)
3. Substance (the relative value or weight in any piece of writing)
4. Focus (the power to bring an issue into clear view)
5. Logic (a coherent system for making your points)
6. A sense of connection (the stupid power of personal involvement)
7. A compelling style (writing in a way that engages)
8. A sense of humor (wit or at least irony)
9. Simplicity (clarity and focus on a single idea)
10. Entertainment (the power to get people to enjoy what you write)
11. A fast pace (the ability to make your writing feel like a quick read)
12. Imagery (the power to create pictures with words)
13. Creativity (the ability to invent)
14. Excitement (writing with energy that infects a reader with your own enthusiasm)
15. Comfort (writing that imparts a sense of well-being)
16. Happiness (writing that gives joy)
17. Truth (or at least fairness)
18. Writing that provokes (writing to make people think or act)
19. Active, memorable writing (the poetry in your prose)
20. A sense of Wow! (the wonder your writing imparts on a reader)
21. Transcendence (writing that elevates with its heroism, justice, beauty, honor)

To sell your fiction, you must pay attention to the Key Traits of Best-Selling Fiction. FYI, the twenty-one traits are arranged in a kind of rough order.

• Appeals to the intellect. The first five: utility to logic. To you, the writer, they refer to how you research, organize, and structure your story. These are the large-scale mechanics of a novel.

• Appeals to the emotions. From a sense of connection to excitement. These are the ways you engage a reader to create buzz. Do these things right, and people will talk about your novel, selling it to others.

• Appeals to the soul. Comfort through transcendence. With these traits you examine whether your writing matters, whether it lasts, whether it elevates you to the next level as a novelist.

Where do the 21 key traits come from?

They come from the most prolific, most complete, most accessible, most reliable survey of book readers in the world. They come from my study of the thousands of reader reviews on Amazon.com.

Reliable? Yes. Why? Because most reviewers visit a page to write reviews based on their emotional reactions to books. They either love a book or hate it. They were either swept away by the characters and story and language. Or they felt cheated by the author. Either way, they have to

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In fiction, story matters more than anything else.

Yet too often authors forget this and, in their zeal to impress readers or wow editors, pepper their writing with distracting devices that only end up undermining the story itself.

Never let anything get between your story and your readers. Here are five of the most common ways even the best writers veer off-course—and simple strategies for avoiding them.

1. Overdoing Symbolism/Themes

A few years ago I picked up a literary novel that everyone was talking about. In the first chapter there was a storm; in the second, someone was washing his hands; then a character was crying; then there was a baptism. I remember thinking, OK, I get it. Your image is water and your theme is cleansing—now get on with the story.

Problem was, from that point on, guess what I was doing?

Yup … looking for the next way the writer was going to weave a water image into her story. And she delivered, scene after predictable scene.

As a reader I was no longer emotionally present in the story. I’d become a critic, an observer. And that’s definitely not what a storyteller wants her readers to do.

The more your readers are on the lookout for your images, your themes, your symbolism, and so on, the less they’ll be impacted by the real essence of your story.

Does that mean that themes and images don’t have a place in your work? Not at all. But it does mean that rather than building your story around that theme (love, forgiveness, freedom, etc.), or advice (“Follow your dreams,” “Be true to your heart,” etc.), or a cliché (“Every cloud has a silver lining,” “Time heals all wounds,” etc.), it’s better to drive your narrative forward through tension and moral dilemmas.

So, instead of using the theme “justice,” let the events of the story pose a more engaging question: “What’s more important, telling the truth or protecting the innocent?”

Rather than giving the advice, “You should forgive others,” let your story explore a dilemma: “How do you forgive someone who has done the unthinkable to someone you love?”

Let your story do more than reiterate the cliché, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Instead, challenge that axiom by presenting your characters with situations that raise the question, “When do the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many?”

Respect your readers. Assume that they’re as smart as you are. If you can easily identify your own imagery, symbolism, themes and so on, expect that they will, too. And as soon as they do, they’ll be distracted from the story itself.

2. Trying Too Hard

There’s nothing less impressive than someone trying to be impressive. There’s nothing less funny than someone trying to be funny. Eloquence doesn’t impress anyone except for the person trying so hard to be eloquent.

So look for places in your story where you were trying to be funny, clever or impressive, and change those sections or remove them.

Some writers shoot for humor by writing things like, “she joked,” “he quipped,” “he mentioned in his usual fun-loving way,” and so on. Don’t fall into this trap. If your dialogue is really funny, you don’t need to point that out to your readers. (And if it’s not as funny as you’d intended, you don’t need to draw attention to the fact.)

Some authors resort to using a profusion of speaker attributions. Their characters chortle, grunt, exclaim, reiterate, gasp, howl, hiss and bark. Whenever I read a book like this I find myself skimming through the dialogue just to see what the next synonym for said will be. Readers get it. They know you own a thesaurus. Just tell the story.

In the same way, drop antiquated or obscure words unless they’re necessary for character development or maintaining voice. This isn�

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There are a lot of ways not to do something.

Like the new boat owner a few years ago who was filling up his pleasure craft with fuel for that first time out. Only he mistook the tube meant to hold fishing poles for the gas tank. After completing his work he started up the engine.

The gas fumes ignited and blew the boat owner into the sky. He came down in the drink and was rescued, but the boat was a goner.

You can be just as creative in finding ways not to write your novel. With a little thought and not much effort, you can easily devise methods to prevent yourself from actually finishing a book—or finishing a book that has a chance to sell.

So if not finishing or not selling are your goals, I’m here to help you with the following seven tips:

1. Wait for inspiration.

Go to your favorite writing spot with your laptop or pad. Perhaps your location of choice is a Starbucks. Sit down with a cup of coffee and hold it with both hands. Sip it slowly. Do not put your fingers anywhere near the keyboard. Glance out a window if one is available. Wait for a skein of geese flying in V formation. If no window is available, simply observe the other patrons and make sure they can see your expression of other-worldly concentration.

You are waiting for inspiration. It must come from on high and fill you like fire.

Until then, do not write a word. If you’re tempted to start working without it, open up Spider Solitaire immediately. Tell yourself this will relax your mind so inspiration can pour in.

Of course, those who think it wise to finish their novels do things backwards. They don’t wait for inspiration. They go after it, as Jack London said he did, “with a club.” They follow the advice of Peter De Vries, who said, “I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”

These poor souls think the secret to writing a novel is to write, and work through minor problems quickly, and major ones after the first draft is done.

They do things like this:

• Establish a writing quota. The quota is based not on how much time they spend thinking about writing, but on how many words they get down. Some do a daily quota, others do it by the week. But they figure out what they can comfortably get done and set a quota about 10 percent above that as a goal.
• Review the previous day’s writing and move on. By looking at what they wrote the day before, they get back into the flow of their story. They fix little things, spelling and style mostly, but then get on with the day’s work.

And one day they look up and see a finished manuscript. They have lost sight of how not to write a novel.

2. Look over your shoulder.

The great pitcher Satchel Paige said, “Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.”

It’s good life advice, but in order to not write your novel, you must ignore it.

To not write your novel, constantly worry about how bad your book might turn out to be. Pause every thousand words or so and think, This is about the worst piece of crud known to man. Where did I put the bourbon?

This is sometimes known as the “inner critic,” and he’s your best friend.

If you think about those doubts long enough, you can even develop them into fears. Jack Bickham, a novelist who was even better known for his books on the craft, put it this way:

“All of us are scared: of looking dumb, of running out of ideas, of never selling our copy, of not getting noticed.
We fiction writers make a business of being scared, and not just of looking dumb. Some of these fears may never go away, and we may just have to learn to live with them.”

Of course, some writers learn not only to live with doubt and fear, but to defeat them. How do they do that? I shouldn’t tell you, because

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When I first started out with fiction, I had a bio joke that went like this: “If you’ve ever worked or lived with Cathy, or even said hello to her in the grocery store, you’ll probably end up in her writing. Cleverly disguised, of course.”

You know I wasn’t joking, right? That’s what we fiction writers do. We’re always observing the world around us, collecting little gems of human nature to throw into our stories.

Though honestly, I probably don’t need to bother with cleverly disguising anyone. People rarely see themselves in a story. And when I say people, I’m including myself.

Sometimes, I’ll have no idea that all those lovely (or terrifying or funny or gut-wrenching) paragraphs are about me. I stumble through a plot, trying to work through holes and gaps and goofs, when all the while, I’m trying to work out something deep, deep in the psyche of Cathy. (Okay, fine. My psyche’s not that deep.)

Anyway, most of the time, I know better. I’m writing about me, in some way or another. I’ll pull up a feeling, a memory, a wish or a want, whatever I need to make connections. And that can make the difference between a so-so story that’s flat and boring—or a good story that’s powerful and grabs an audience.

I mean, how often have we heard “write what you know”? What or who do we know better than ourselves? It just makes sense to go to our own emotional well.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my best fiction (also known as the “fiction that I manage to sell”) comes from the writing where I manage to tap into my emotions and experiences. It can be a fun exercise, but it can also be like a day on the therapist’s couch.

Still, it’s worth it. If you want to connect with readers, connect your story to you. That’s what makes it real.

Even if it’s fiction.


Check out Cathy’s blog to find where her latest story sold!

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You know the fiction-writing dictum “Show, don’t tell.” But how does it apply in practical terms when it comes to communicating characterization without exposition?

People in different eras have unique speech and speech patterns, but restrain yourself from indulging in periodization in your historical novel; if your Elizabethan-era characters talk like Shakespeare’s, people 1) won’t understand much of what they say and 2) will be distracted by your forced — and fatally flawed — attempt at authenticity.

Do, however, immerse yourself in that period’s society: What did people know about history and sociology and psychology and spirituality (even if they didn’t use those terms to identify them)? What were prevailing political and social and religious viewpoints? How open were people about expressing themselves? Be careful not to let modern sensibilities intrude on the way your characters speak and think, but do permit them and their speeches and thoughts to be accessible to modern readers.

The extent to which characters will express their ideas and opinions, or ruminate about them, and the language with which they will do so, depends on a few other factors:

People of different generations and different social backgrounds generally speak differently. Geriatric characters should exhibit speech and speech patterns distinct from juvenile ones and consistent with norms unless an exception is a deliberate dramatic point — for instance, if a teenager who has switched bodies with an elderly person is trying to pass vocally as well as visually as a senior citizen.

Likewise, the speech and thoughts of well-educated characters will usually be distinguishable from that of those of others with less formal schooling. Of course, no one should assume that a person with only a high school education is less intelligent than a college graduate, or the reverse, but their vocabulary and the level of sophistication of their thoughts will, unless they are self-educated, likely differ.

Further individualization of characters makes fiction writing more vivid. How does one’s personality affect words and thoughts? A repressed person’s speech patterns will differ significantly from an extrovert’s. A tense, angry character will exhibit different rhythms of speech and thought than a carefree individual.

Length of speeches and thoughts is also a consideration: Children do not soliloquize, and philosophically minded people do not tend to make snap judgments. Match the extent to which people speak and think to their personalities. But keep in mind that various sentence lengths and paragraph lengths have differing dramatic values, too — long passages tend to be soothing (but, when too long, are soporific), while short bursts create or maintain tension (though, in excess, can be just as wearying as extensive paragraphs).

In essence, capitalize on your knowledge of individual characters to establish vocabulary and modes of speech and thought, as well as on familiarity with societal norms for speaking and thinking appropriate to the era in which your characters live.

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Original Post: Showing, Not Telling, Personality Through Speech and Thought
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I was bemused recently to read in the acknowledgments section of a book the author’s expression of gratitude toward someone who had read the manuscript before publication. The writer thanked the other person for “doing great proofreading,” but he followed that comment with “Not copy editing [sic]; we were both cautious about that, as our strongly held opinions don’t often match.”

My first impression was that the book’s author has — or had at the time — a fundamental misunderstanding of copyediting (since the book was published, the closed-compound version of that term has come to prevail), as he implied that such a process would interfere with his expression of his views. (The person who assisted him is an expert in the book’s subject matter.)

That’s absurd, because no editing role — certainly not copyediting — involves revisions of writers’ expressions of their beliefs or judgments. A developmental editor for a book publisher, or an assigning editor of a periodical, might discuss this issue with a writer but generally does not impose on the author’s convictions; presumably, the opportunity for the author to express these ideas is the reason the content is being published in the first place.

But then I considered that perhaps, by “strongly held opinions,” the writer meant his notions of what constitutes good writing. Perhaps he was referring to the fact that his ideas about how to construct prose conflicts with those of the person who reviewed the manuscript for him. This possibility led me to reflect on my long-held opinion, acquired through decades of painful experience, that there’s a strong correlation between good writers and good grace when it comes to responding to grammatical and syntactical revisions, concomitant with the disturbing degree to which many poor writers protest such improvements.

For in this case, the book suffered greatly not only from the fact it, at least before it was submitted to the publisher, was proofread but not copyedited. It also was compromised by the apparent lack of copyediting (or any editing) during the production phase of publication. The writing is verbose, repetitive, poorly organized, and clumsy — (barely) competent, but dull and tiring to read, and in dire need of attention from both a developmental editor and a copy editor. This mediocrity was all the more disappointing because of the anticipation with which I had approached the book, which covers a topic of great interest to me.

I was especially puzzled about the writing quality because the book dates to the early 1980s, the last period in which a reader could count on well-edited books before, for many but fortunately not all publishing companies, the bottom line became more important than the line edit. Ultimately, though, that this book is an exception to the rule is not the writer’s fault; the publisher let him — and me and other readers of this book — down.

But writers aren’t helpless in the face of this trend; if they lack a partner or other close associate qualified and willing to review a manuscript (or even if such an ally is put to work), they can resort to pre-editing. That’s the now-widespread practice of preempting a publishing company’s possible neglect or short-changing of the editing process, and/or improving the chance

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What’s the difference between narrative, plot, and story? Not much, but enough that it matters. Here are the distinctions, explained with aids of analogy, plus some details:

Narrative is the structure of events — the architecture of the story, comparable to the design of a building. Story is the sequence of events, the order in which the narrative occurs — the tour through the building. Plot is the sum of the events, told not necessarily in sequential order, but generally consistent with the story and often considered synonymous with the narrative — the building itself.

But these similar and even overlapping components of composition are further affected by the narrative mode — the techniques the author employs to tell the story. Among these strategies are narrative point of view and narrative voice.

Narrative Point of View

A first-person narrator relates the story by using the pronoun I (or, rarely, if two or more narrators are telling the story simultaneously, we). This device enables the reader to know the narrator’s internal thoughts and feelings as well. This narrative style may indicate that the narrator may or may not consciously be aware of a reading audience. Also, the first-person narrator is not necessarily the main character, or even central to the story.

Second-person narrative, rare in literature, is that in which the narrator refers to a character as “you.” The most frequent mode, third-person narrative, involves reference to characters as “he,” “she,” “they,” or “it.”

Variety is achieved by the author’s decision to narrate subjectively, revealing characters’ thoughts and feelings, or objectively, without internal insight into any of the characters, as well as choice of omniscient or limited point of view: The author either knows all that is occurring in the story or is restricted to sharing only what is known to the focal character. Narrative point of view can vary within the same story, either by section or chapter or even within the same passage.

Narrative Voice

Narrative voice is the style in which the narrative is presented — for example, a character’s recounting of events, or a privileged window into the character’s thoughts and feelings.

A narrator may be a participant, a character in the story who describes events, or a nonparticipant, an objective (but not necessarily accurate) observer who is not integrated into the story. Another technique is to feature an unreliable narrator, one whose narrative is initially or ultimately suspect because it contradicts what the reader learns from nonnarrated exposition or other points of view.

For instance, in the Japanese film Rashomon, based on two short stories, four characters give conflicting accounts of an event. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the title character’s naiveté, a plot device enabling author Mark Twain to demonstrate his gift for social satire, makes him an unreliable narrator.

Note that narrative applies to nonfiction as well as fiction, and even plot and story have a place in nonfiction, as reporters and authors often manipulate an account by constructing a narrative more sophisticated than the who, what, when, where, and why formula of traditional journalism. There’s even a term for this approach: creative nonfiction.

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Original Post: Narrative, Plot, and Story
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There’s a niche for everyone. Deciding what is the right niche is crucial for the writer, because it marks one’s comfort zone and one’s interest. For those who’re shy, who can’t put themselves out for public notice, there are options galore.

One of the greatest confidence boosters for any writer is learning the craft to your very best ability. Take classes, join forums, and join a writer’s group where honest critiques are mandatory for participation. Each of these tactics will add a layer of skin thickener to your ego. The more confidence you can generate, the easier this business will become.

Find a preliminary direction for your writing energies. Experiment with a few genres to see where you feel comfortable working. Some people are born puzzlers. Other writers blossom within the greeting card market and do well developing lines of cards. Still other writers prefer writing magazine articles. More types of non-fiction articles are written each year than a fiction writer can think of in an hour.

If developing stories is your greatest satisfaction, fiction may be your best fit. In many ways, fiction takes in all the abilities of the other types of writing for different aspects of the genre. All fiction, for instance, uses facts about places, or personality types, or history. The reader doesn’t always recognize that fact because of how the story is woven and how much is removed from normal context.

Fiction oozes from a writer’s mind; its job to take a new story flower from a bud to maturity and its seeding, using hundreds of tiny components of reality, weaving fictional weft with non-fiction warp, so tightly, that the reader ultimately wants to live inside the story.

Get over shyness and go for it. For those of us who aren’t comfortable pushing ourselves into the spotlight or don’t like the feeling that we’re standing on a street corner and accosting passing business people, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. As a rule, shy people don’t make for good sales people.

In the writing world, shy gets you nowhere, very fast. I detest having to pitch an idea to an editor. I end up feeling like a used car dealer from the weed lot down the street, whose only claim to fame is that she lived long enough to retire from a real job.

The hardest thing learned in this business may be how to sell your ideas to the one with the checkbook.

Take your best shot. Use your best writing sample for the editor when submitting. Make your approach upbeat and positive. Most of all, believe that you deserve recognition for your work. If you can’t believe in yourself, neither will anyone else.

Know what you can do. Own your abilities. Be proud of them.

If you believe that you have a great idea, submit that idea to the editor in charge. Be specific in your presentation of the idea, and pitch it in such a way that it shows as a benefit to that publication. The worst that could happen is that the editor tells you “NO.”

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Tmesis is a linguistic device in which a word or phrase interrupts another word or phrase. (The word is a Greek term that refers to cutting.) Depending on the type of tmesis, it is either acceptable in formal usage or relegated to humorous and/or emphatic colloquialisms.

Phrasing in which the preposition down is located within the verb phrase “turn down” in “Turn down that music,” as opposed to its placement in “Turn that music down,” is a standard form of tmesis, as are whatsoever and unbeknownst, in which, respectively, so is inserted in whatever and be is placed within an archaic form of unknown. (Interestingly, in some literary usage, a tmetic word is itself cloven, as in the biblical verse “He shall be punished, what man soever offendeth.”) By contrast, seemingly tmetic words such as notwithstanding and nevertheless do not qualify, because the framing syllables do not constitute words or set phrases.

A form of tmesis often heard spoken spontaneously but best reconstructed for writing is a possessive phrase such as “the girl in the back row’s,” referring to something belonging to a girl sitting in a back row; the modifying phrase “in the back row” is artificially inserted between girl and the possessive s. “The book is the girl in the back row’s,” for example, should be recast as “The book belongs to the girl in the back row.”

Informal tmetic usage is ubiquitous but discouraged in formal writing. Examples include “a whole nother” and “any old how” as intensifications of another and anyhow. Recently, however, this form of tmesis has been supplanted in popularity by a form formally known as expletive infixation, in which a profane or otherwise emphatic word is inserted into an adjective to fortify its impact, as in abso-frickin’-lutely and la-dee-frickin’-da. Another colloquial construction is the emphatic insertion of so in such statements as “I am so not going there.”

These contemporary conversational habits have their place in transcriptions of casual dialogue and in light-hearted informal prose, but they’re intrusive in formal writing.

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Original Post: There’s a Time for Tmesis
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Must be something going around... my lazy day is today. Well, not really as I'll be attending a night meeting and writing on that. So until then, I'm cleaning off my kitchen table, reorganizing the office, and daydreaming about a couple projects.

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You have a great concept for a science fiction, fantasy, or horror novel, but when it comes to crafting names of people, places, and things you’ve invented, you stumble. Fortunately, it’s easier than you might think to assign identities:

If you’re a world-building writer — you are creating a fully realized realm with discrete cultures and languages — construct names so that they are clearly distinct from those of other locations and consistent with others found in the same areas. If you want to suggest parallels with cultures and languages here on Earth, choose names that will evoke them without imitating them — think of letter and sound combinations, the preponderance of various vowel pairings and consonant blends, and whether words tend to be curt or complex.

Use names that convey a feeling: Guttural consonants suggest belligerence, cruelty, and evil in people, and harsh, hostile weather and topographical features. Multisyllabic, mellifluous monikers make one think of benevolent people and beautiful places. Let the name of a person or a place suggest personality or ambience, or physique or geography.

Do names in your invented culture consist of one word, two words, or more? Does this number vary according to social class, or are words similar to royal titles built into names to signal social status? Do surnames in the culture identify trades or skills, equivalent, for example, to Taylor and Smith? Do people use different forms of address depending on relative social standing?

Think of how surnames in different languages, especially those stemming from Indo-European, have elements known as particles: Latinate languages, for example, have Le, La, De, Du, and the like, while German and Dutch have Von and Van and Gaelic has M’, Mc, and Mac as well as O’. What particles might your characters’ language have, and why do some names lack them? (A note of caution: Apostrophes are overused in fantasy fiction, sometimes to an absurd extent. Use them judiciously or not at all.)

What does the name mean? When reusing a particular syllable, take care that it is appropriate. For example, if twell means “river,” the syllable shouldn’t appear in the name of a valley unless the valley’s name means “valley of the river.” And if names are similarly constructed — sharing a syllable or a pattern of two or more words — those people or places or things should share a common culture or language, but make sure you don’t have too many similar names, or ones that begin with the same letter.

Note that on the planet we come from, people who speak different languages have different versions of names for people (Paul vs. Pablo) places (Germany vs. Deutschland), and things (wine vs. vino). Sometimes, words are adopted into other languages, and sometimes they’re not. There’s no reason the rules for the world you build should be any different. Keep in mind, too, how languages evolve (and sometimes become extinct): The name sprawled across a 1,000-year-old map of a kingdom will likely differ somewhat from the name used in the present time. Spelling changes should be consistent with others in the story: If a topographical name’s vowel shifted over time from e to a, then a character’s ancient near namesake probably spelled their name with an e, not an a.

To create new names, take a name or another word from English or another known language and change one letter or consonant blend, or replace one or more

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Sight is overrated. As writers we often have a "movie" playing in our head of what our novel looks like. So we simply describe it: what the people, places and things look like. Although that does great when we're swiftly moving through a first draft, if we simply leave it at that we're cheating our readers and cheating ourselves.

Because we can do better.

We all learned in our earliest school days that there are five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Too often as writers we rely, almost solely, on sight in our writing. It's time to delve into the other senses. They offer ways to tell readers more without resorting to descriptive cliches.

Smell

According to scientists, we attach an emotion to each scent we identify. As writers we can use "negative" and "positive" scents to reinforce the mood we're trying to create in a scene.

A musty dank smell teased Betty awake in the still dark room.

The fresh smell of sweet peas teased Betty awake in the still dark room.

Betty's waking up in two very different rooms, isn't she? And all because of an odor.

Hearing

What our characters see is often controlled by another character, but we can sneak in information they weren't meant to learn with hearing. Information perfect for someone tracking down a murderer or a foreshadowing of a future event.

As they sipped coffee from fine china in the sitting room, George heard muffled shouts coming from below.

As they sipped coffee from fine china in the sitting room, George could hear the sweet murmur of a lullaby just outside the French doors.

Each sound creates a different question for George. Who is shouting and why? Who in the family has the baby no one has mentioned?

Touch

The sense of touch often gives the reader information they could have just as easily gotten from sight, but isn't it nice to have a bit of variety in how we discover information?

Although his navy suit mirrored the uniform of every one else at the firm, he offered a brown calloused hand for Edward to shake.

Although his navy suit mirrored the uniform of every one else at the firm, when Edward shook his hand it felt like a used Brillo pad in his hand, scratching at his palm.

Using touch can turn a blah, predictable description into something more memorable.

Taste

Taste is a bit tougher to incorporate into your descriptive bag of tricks. How often can your sense of taste tell you something that your eyes can't? But the different tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter can be used to reinforce the mood of a scene.

As the room fell silent after her last remark, Susan sipped from her glass enjoying the sweet refreshment of the fruity punch.

As the room fell silent after her last remark, Susan sipped from her glass grimacing at the burn of the whiskey as it tumbled down her throat.

Did Susan enjoy the snarky remark that silenced the crowd or does she wish it had been left unsaid? Taste can give us a subtle hint.

Next time you're editing a draft use different colored highlighters to determine how much you use each sense. Chances are you're neglecting several and turning to that old favorite: sight. It's time to close your eyes and explore the world using your other senses.

Often it helps to literally close your eyes. How can we introduce hearing, smell, touch and taste to our readers if we aren't fully aware of them ourselves? Try sitting in your favorite spot fo

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Joyce Moyer Hostetter, friend and fellow children’s author, is currently writing a novel taking place in communist-era East Germany. She recently spent time researching on location. I asked her to share with us a little about her process and about how her research shaped her trip.

Thank you, Emily, for inviting me to chat about how research affected my visit to Germany. My goal was to learn as much as I could about the history of the Berlin Wall and about life in eastern Germany during the communist era. As you can imagine, this narrowed my options a bit. I love visiting castles, cathedrals, and museums but, if they weren’t directly related to my work-in-progress, I pretty much ignored those things in favor of museums and historical landmarks that were important to my character.

There is the Brandenburg Door, of course! It definitely figures into my story!

And also the remnants of Anhalter Station which I didn’t even know existed until we passed it on the way to our hotel.  I knew immedediately that this place would have significance for my character.  I can’t wait to find out how it plays into the story.

At museums that tied into my story, I had to keep my focus. I couldn’t soak up every little thing – just those items that related to my subject. Time was of the essence so my camera became my note taker. I snapped pictures of everything! Information signs, artifacts, and primary documents.

I visited specific spots where my characters spent time.

Of course the landscape has changed tremendously in the decades since my story takes place but still it was important to me to walk the cobblestone streets, see certain landscapes at sunset or midday,

 and take in the details of buildings, and the environment in general.

Knowing which trees are native to my setting and seeing them in bloom is important to me. I’m fairly certain my character would take note of such things.

So maybe you, or one of your readers, can tell me what this tree is.

 And is it the same as this one with white blossoms?

I chose not to go to some places (big heartbreak). I wanted to visit the oldest carousel in the world near Frankfurt am Main since it is (or

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At a writer networking event that I organize, I had a brief discussion with an attendee I'll call James. Although I kind of understand what James is requesting, I wanted to get your thoughts, dear reader, about levels of writers.
I arrange for speakers to attend a monthly meeting of regional writers. As you may remember from previous posts, the attendees had initially wanted to become a critique group. But I'm voluntarily arranging these meetings for a writers' organization that wants us to keep them open; a critiquing group would effectively close the meetings off from others in the public to join in and come to the meetings whenever they can.
James wants me to figure out a way to provide a networking "exchange" for writers and paid editors. He wants writers in this group to be able register and to self-rank themselves (beginner, intermediate, advanced OR amateur and professional). The registration enables the writer to get a different level of access to an editor and would serve to "network" various writers with one another. His belief, as an admitted amateur, James told me, is that beginning writers should be in a group with other beginners and amateurs with amateurs.
My gentle argument with James was that while I'm a published writer, I still consider myself an amateur (because I'm still trying to get my fiction published). Where did I fit into his levels idea? And, if we did manage to slot all the regional writers into a level, I would much rather be in a writers' critique group with writers who will challenge me, regardless of their self-reported level. Maybe others feel the same? I don't know.

What do you think about putting yourself into a "level" for your writing? And why? What kind of writers do you like to have in your critique group--ones just like you or a mixture? Why?

Elizabeth King Humphrey is a writer and editor living in Wilmington, N.C., and working towards her University of Chicago editing certification...in all her free time.

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or - THE WRITER’S CHALLENGE


by Robert W. Walker



There are indeed many challenges a writer faces from beating back inertia to becoming redundant on the page to using the wrong tack on approach to opening the story or novel in the wrong place and on and on and on. Building character is a challenge, but we must have in our lead role, our star character fully-realized; we are challenged to live with him or her for a long time, but we take that challenge to make this character special as the more we know him or her, the more easily manipulated along a storyline. We are challenged too by plot, and many of us find this far harder to come to terms with than character, yet a fully realized character can suggest or imply a plot.

I challenge myself with each book I write. I challenge myself by doing a setting that is for me exotic—that is out of my safety zone as I may never have been there.

I challenge myself by creating a character at opposite ends of the spectrum than myself – say a female Medical examiner and FBI agent or an 1893 Inspector in Chicago or a pair of interns on the Titanic.

I challenge myself often with a storyline that is meant to tease the reader into thinking one thing but second guessing himself at the same time.

Most recently, I have challenged myself to set up a novel with two separate storylines running simultaneously in two different time “zones” – one in 1912, the night Titanic went down, and the other one hundred years later with divers capable of working two and a half miles below the surface and swimming into and through Titanic’s interiors in 2012. This was indeed a huge challenge but oddly enough, I based my structure and desire on none other than the film and book Fried Green Tomatoes. It may sound at odds but I wanted to duplicate my own feelings coming away from that story – that I at once wanted to be in the past story and the present story each time I was inside the other story than the one I wanted to be in; in other words, each storyline was compelling. So my challenge to myself was to make each storyline so compelling as to make the reader want to return to BOTH whenever he or she was in past (wanting to get back to present), and in present (wanting to get back to past).

So what sorts of challenges do you set for yourself as a writer? Would love to hear about them here. I know if you write, you face umpteen challenges but at times one might have been particularly prickly and you might be so proud that you met it and overcame it well. So let’s hear about that!

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
http://www.speakwithoutinterruption.com/
http://www.1stturningpoint.com/

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