Writers in the Storm

A frequent piece of advice writers get is to put ground under the feet of their characters. Yet, advice on how to do that is limited or confusing. Often taking the advice literally, writers attempt to make certain the reader knows where the character is physically. However, the phrase means more than what city or building they are in. It also means where this character is in relation to the objects in the room and other characters in the scene. It reveals who this person is.

Characters fit into a story, into a scene, like puzzle pieces. The right pieces make a complete picture. The wrong pieces can be confusing. Creating a character that involves your reader in the story takes many unique pieces or layers. This article offers some examples of the different things you can do to put ground beneath your characters’ feet. 

Focus

Making characters’ voices, or dialogue, as unique as the instruments in a symphony, helps the reader to identify with your characters. But the reader needs more. Every word in your story (or scene) comes from a specific point of view. Strengthen your story and put ground under your characters’ feet by choosing words that reflect what your character sees, senses, his values, judgments, and opinions.

Example

George, a 36-year-old prematurely gray business manager, walked down the street.

That helps the reader see him, but it doesn’t put ground under George’s feet. 

Be careful

Keep it natural sounding. You don’t think: I, a 36-year-old, struggling writer with her deep brown hair tied in a messy bun, walked down the mud-streaked asphalt street, do you? Of course not.

I’m not saying don’t refer to your character by name. There are certain things you have to do, so your reader isn’t confused, especially at the beginning of a story. However, the larger percentage of your descriptions should be as your viewpoint character thinks of it. So instead of the staying outside of George, try to focus on the inner George:

Example

George, a 36-year-old prematurely gray business manager, walked past his favorite coffee shop on his morning walk.

That’s an improvement, but you can do better.

Use the Five Senses

Your senses inform you about your surroundings. They ground you every day. You don’t have to think about what you smell, or hear, or see, or taste, or feel. You just do. Make certain your characters do the same. 

Example

George sniffed the fragrant aroma of coffee wafting out of his favorite coffee and pastry shop. But he followed his doctor’s orders and walked on.

            Better, but sight and smell are easy to include in your writing. For a deeper dive into your character, try to include all five senses on each page.

Example

George sniffed the fragrant aroma of coffee wafting out of his favorite coffee and pastry shop. He paused at the green and white logo painted window and stared at the coffee drinkers within. A silvery bell rang when a woman bearing a steaming paper cup hustled out of the shop. His mouth watered. He longed for a mouthful of the bitter-sweet smoky taste of his usual cuppa. He rubbed his rough lips, chapped by the cold.

Now the reader sees where George is. We can smell and taste the coffee and hear the bell and feel the chill in the air. You still can do better. 

Go Deeper

When you go about your daily life, your mind sifts through all of your puzzle pieces of your memories and experiences. Remember to include those in your characters’ lives. 

Example

The aroma of fresh coffee wafted out of George’s favorite coffee and pastry shop. He paused at the green and white logo painted window and stared at the coffee drinkers within. A silvery bell startled him. A woman bearing a steaming paper cup hustled out of the shop.

His mouth watered. He longed for a mouthful of the bitter-sweet smoky taste of his usual cuppa. He rubbed his rough lips, chapped by the cold. But his doctor’s orders hovered in the back of his mind like the Ghost of Christmas Past, or was it the Ghost of Christmas Future that he feared? He turned away from the store and continued his walk.

Now we’re getting somewhere. But…

Go Even Deeper 

It’s not only our past that colors everything we sense and do. Our education and our experiences form our attitudes, our opinions, and our voice. 

Example

The aroma of fresh coffee wafted out of George’s favorite coffee and pastry shop. He paused at the green and white logo painted window and stared at the coffee drinkers within. Today’s just-got-outta-bed casual dress code made it hard to tell which ones were good business contacts.

The jangle of a bell startled him. A woman bearing a steaming paper cup hustled out of the shop and down the street. His mouth watered. He licked his dry lips, chapped by the cold. How he longed for a mouthful of the bitter-sweet smoky taste of his usual cuppa. But his doctor’s orders hovered in the back of his mind like the Ghost of Christmas Past, or was it the Ghost of Christmas Future?

He turned away from the store and continued his walk. Only nine thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine steps to go. He snorted. Thirty-six and I’m already old, broken body, gray hair, and all. 

Choose Their Words (and Actions)

The region where we were born, the region where we live, affects our behaviors, our habits, and our word choices. Even the season and the weather affect what we say and do.

If George were less inclined to believe medical science, he might go inside the shop, anyway. A character struggling to make ends meet might look inside the shop and scoff at the posh people who overpay for burnt beans. Those attitudes will shape everything he sees and does and says. If he were born in an eastern country, he might have gone to a tea shop.

The most important piece to remember is that one’s spoken language isn’t the only way a character communicates. Often their behavior, their micro expressions, and what they don’t say reflects more truth than the words they say.

Balance Your Story

Don’t go deep for every single paragraph. If you do, you will slow your story’s pace to glacial. You might choose to use a lot of pieces revealing details about your character in the beginning. Or you might choose to sprinkle those pieces throughout your book. Use your judgment to decide which details need to be included. How do you learn to do that? Read your genre. Read and analyze how the authors you love do it. 

Look at a scene you admired. What details did the author use? Why do you think the author chose those details for that scene in that book? Does it advance the plot or set up a situation in the future? What does the reader learn by the use of those details? How much of the scene is description, action, and transition? 

Most of all, consider the story you are telling. Choose the pieces of your character that help convey your story’s pace, tone, and theme. 

Put it all Together

Don’t let your characters hang suspended in the air. Choose the pieces you need to put ground under your characters’ feet. Create a character whose observations, behavior, and speech make them unique from other characters in your story. A character that your readers will come to know and love or… hate. 

Inquiring minds want to know: what have I missed?

Please share your favorite techniques for putting ground under your characters’ feet.

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows is an author, a blogger, a creativity advocate, and a Yorkie Wrangler. She writes thrilling science fiction about women who choose to become heroes.

Her Fellowship Dystopia series, Fellowship, My Soul to Keep and, If I Should Die, takes place in an alternate 1961. The first Prophet saved America from the Great Depression and the war overseas. But the characters in these stories learn the rules aren’t optional. Their must choose to obey or fight back. Readers say the stories are unputdownable. Find your copy at Amazon or your favorite online book seller.

Lynette lives in the land of Oz. When she’s not procrastinating by avoiding housework and playing with her dogs, she’s blogging or writing or researching her next book. You can find Lynette online on her website, Facebook, or on Twitter @LynetteMBurrows. 

Image Credits

Top image by Barbara from Pixabay

Middle image  by Hans from Pixabay 

Bottom image by Tumisu from Pixabay 

by Lisa Norman

The first two parts of this series helped us set up a basic understanding of the changes in the world of art and writing.

If you missed them, here they are: Part 1 and Part 2.

In this final article of the series, I want to share suggestions and encouragement as we move forward into a changing world.

The Future is Bright for Writers

Story is core to the human experience and is a fundamental part of how we communicate.

People who are unhappy in their day-to-day existence like to escape into a world of story, and that trend has not gone away.

While sales trends show a decline in print, the digital reading trends show readers want to be even more immersed in a story than ever before. Readers love it when their favorite authors allow the story to grow and bring them into it.

How we Interact with Story is Changing

Have you noticed "dark mode" on your devices? I read a fascinating article about holographic technology. In some ways, dark mode is a gateway to preparing our technology for holographic displays.

Important Geek note: Wordpress and other websites are using "blocks" in their design so they can control the way different types of words — think headings, paragraphs, pull quotes — display, preparing for this transition. You want to be using the latest technology in your website designs and in your writing. You want your writing to be stored in such a way that readers can use it in this future technology.

If you want a vision of where this is going, watch The Expanse. Their use of holographic technology is brilliant. And for fun, pause and zoom in on some displays. They put fun Easter eggs in there!

Holograms and dark mode use less energy than the displays we use now. If you're thinking about a greener future, this will be a part of it.

This future may seem unrealistic or distant until you think about how much money Google has put into developing holographic technology.

What About Virtual Reality?

If you haven't played with a VR headset yet, you may want to. ("Beat Saber" is a delightful way to get some exercise.)

You can add virtual monitors to your computer by using a VR headset at your desk.

Facebook/Meta has invested its reputation and a ton of money into making virtual reality a viable reality. The bones of the technology are in place. We're just waiting for it to become common.

But these are images! We work with words!

And words are NOT going away. Books and stories aren't going away.

Fans want to interact with your words and your worlds in new and creative ways.

The fastest-growing genre right now is graphic novels.

We work with words. Those words can now generate images. There is a learning curve to using this technology, and there's a big difference between generating a blog post cover image and creating a graphic novel. But it can be done, and done well. As the tools develop, new artists are coming into the writing space eager to partner with us, making the visual aspect of story even more accessible.

How people read is changing.

I know this point is contentious. But here at WITS, a high-performance blog, we all know the value of skimmable content. This doesn't mean dumbing down our content, but presenting it in a way that modern readers can come, get what they need, and leave quickly.

Images, headings, sentence and paragraph lengths: these work together to help modern readers get what they need from a post, and sometimes even from a story.

I remember when Pixabay was created. What a gift that is to authors who want to create beautiful blog posts! If you're going to share your blogs on social media, you need to have a good cover image. People scan social media feeds looking for interesting images. Midjourney and other AI artists are now available to help us create these unique images. (Check the usage rights!)

Again: Novels aren't going away. But digital readers want bonus content they can engage with, sometimes even before they buy the book.

Popular forms of content

For those who are wondering what sorts of content they can provide to their readers to take advantage of the digital reading trends, take a moment and look at your story worlds. Fans want:

• short stories that take place in the same world
• what happened next
• stories related to minor characters
• research tidbits
• insights into your process
• choose-your-own-adventure stories
• serial stories they can read in quick segments (like Vellum)
• stories they can influence (pick a character, surveys, etc.)

Think of ways to use your email list, your blog, and your social media to deliver this type of bonus content. If you look back at the marketing basics I've covered before, you will see that you can use social media to find new readers (discovery), then bring them back to your blog (consideration and conversion), then get them on your email list (relationship and retention).

Don't fear the future

The future is bright for authors.

We need to up our game. Just like we've switched from putting two spaces after a period to using only one, we need to make sure we're writing and storing our words in modern formats. (Example: a heading is a unique style or type of block, NOT just a bunch of larger text.) Like retraining our fingers to not add that extra space, or learning to repair our text later, this is a change in process, but it isn't impossible, and in the end, it is less work than doing a bunch of intricate formatting!

Now is the time to practice and play with these new technologies. This is your chance to ride the wave of this technology shift into the bright future of story. Let AI tools save you time so that you can focus on the more creative aspects of storytelling.

Addendum: message from an AI

Since completing this series, I've started playing with chat.openai.com (ChatGPT). You can experiment with it for free. This is a huge improvement on the previous ones I've tested, and I recommend that you go and play with it if you are curious how it can help writers to be more productive.

On a whim, I asked it to introduce itself to you.

As a large language model trained by OpenAI, I am capable of generating human-like text on a wide range of topics. This can be a useful tool for writers, as it allows them to quickly generate ideas and test out different scenarios in their writing. By using me, writers can experiment with different approaches and styles, helping them to find their voice and develop their craft. Additionally, because I am a machine learning model, I can help writers to overcome writer's block and generate new ideas that they may not have thought of on their own. Overall, using me as a writing tool can help writers to be more creative and productive in their work.

-ChatGPT

Welcome to the future!

Has this series given you ideas of how you can interact with your readers and bring them into the story with you?

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that she wrote her first novel on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, you can find her wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm. She teaches for Lawson Writer's Academy.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter to see upcoming classes!

Top Image by Deleyna via Midjourney

by Stefan Emunds

This is the third article of the article series The Yin and Yang Relationship Between Psychology and Storytelling. The first article covers reader investment and reader engagement. The second article explains how to create story experiences that feel real to life. This article takes a deep look at readers' subconscious responses to stories and details how to engage them with the eight writing crafts.

Why Do Writers Need to Know Psychology?

Writers need to know psychology for four main reasons:

1. Know how readers think and feel and use that knowledge to engage them.
2. Understand the psychology of experiencing so they can create story experiences that have a real-to-life feel.
3. Design characters with plausible traits, flaws, talents, motivations, etc.
4. Know themselves — why they write, what they really want to write about, and how to get out of their own way.

The Eight Crafts of Writing

This article is written with eightcrafts.com in mind. The eight writing crafts are:

• Big Idea (aka theme)
• Genre
• Narrative
• Story Outline (aka plotting)
• Characterization
• World Building
• Scene Structure
• Prose (aka line-by-line writing)

Note: To avoid confusing readers, the author of these articles avoided the alternation of she and her and he and him. Instead, he uses the nonexclusive she and her to mean writer and reader.

The Two Neural Perception Networks

Our body has two neural perception networks:  voluntary and involuntary.

The voluntary perception network presents sense impressions to our self, which reacts consciously and voluntarily to experiences. An involuntary perception network produces visceral responses and emotions.

These two perception networks act independently and simultaneously.

The involuntary perception network is good news for writers because readers can’t help responding to stories if the writer knows how to trigger emotional responses.

The Four Parts of the Brain

Simplified, the brain has four parts or faculties:

• The self
• Intelligence
• Creativity and feelings
• The lower part of the brain that manages subconscious activities and produces emotions

Hormones and Tension

The brain continuously tracks discrepancies between motivations and reality, for example, the motivation for finding food and its availability. Discrepancies produce tension.

Tension is a major story engager. The inciting incident throws the protagonist’s life out of order. The protagonist responds by formulating the story goal. She believes that if she reaches the story goal, her life will return to normal.

Discrepancy between the story goal and the story reality produces the main story tension. The main story tension waxes and wanes as the protagonist fights adversity and moves closer to and away from the story goal. The climax resolves the main story tension.

On scene level, the POV character reacts to the scene stimulus by formulating a scene goal. The pursuit of the scene goal produces tension. Tension waxes and wanes as the POV character struggles with adversity until the climactic action resolves the scene tension.  

Hormones produce tension in three basic scenarios:

1. In case the discrepancy between want and reality is small and not life-threatening, the brain releases endorphins. Endorphins motivate the self and off it goes, excited to find food. Readers get excited when the heroine formulates her story goal and embarks on her heroic journey. Excitement is an engager.
2. In case the discrepancy between want and reality is great or life-threatening, the brain releases adrenaline, norepinephrine, and/or cortisol. Action, thriller, and horror scenes give readers adrenaline boosts.
3. When the protagonist meets the story goal, readers will experience the release of serotonin, which gives them a sense of satisfaction. That’s what the happy ending and poetic justice are good for. Satisfaction is an engager. Serotonin is not the only satisfaction hormone. In case the protagonist mates, it’s oxytocin, which gives readers a sense of satisfying affection and intimacy.

Writers are alchemists. They concoct endorphins, adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol, oxytocin, and serotonin in their readers’ brains.

Emotional/Visceral Responses

Our body has evolved its capability to emote over millions of years. Most emotional-visceral responses serve survival. Big and fast-approaching objects trigger fear. So does standing at the edge of a precipice. Without emotions, we would look at an approaching lion and we would be like, “Wow! Awesome! Interesting!” And we would be dead.

Emotions can be pleasant and unpleasant. Examples of unpleasant emotions are disgust, fear, and anger. Examples of pleasant (and tempting) emotions are infatuation, excitement, and satisfaction. Together, they produce the dualism of good and bad times.

The border between pleasant and unpleasant emotions is fuzzy.

Some people take pleasure in pain. Many like to flirt with fear by going parachuting or by reading a thriller. People like to experience unpleasant emotions because it makes them feel more alive. Stories allow people to enjoy unpleasant emotions in a safe environment.

Genres promise readers emotional experiences. Action stories promise adrenaline kicks. Horror stories allow readers to experience fear and disgust. Romances promise love and infatuation.

Animals react emotionally only to experiences. No experience, no emotions.  Humans can react emotionally also to memories, thoughts, and imaginations. That's why humans react emotionally to stories.

Voluntary Cognitive Responses

Of course, our self also responds consciously and intelligently to experiences. Our self analyzes experiences, assesses their importance, comes up with solutions to adversity, and anticipates the future.

By nature, people are curious. Curiosity is a major story engager and tempts readers to engage with stories intellectually.

Writers design curiosity by raising and answering story questions, as well as weaving twists and clues and red herrings into the story. Crime stories make amply use of curiosity.

Curiosity and tension are the main story engagers. Together, they move stories forward.

Voluntary Feely Responses

Feelings and emotions are two different affairs. Emotions are involuntary reactions to experiences, like fear, anger, and disgust. On the other hand, feelings come from the heart or soul, for example, love, gratitude, and happiness.

Emotions only stir if external events, memories, or ideas trigger them. Feelings need to be cultivated. Love is a muscle. And we can love people and dislike them at the same time.

When feelings conquer emotions, heroes happen. Do you want to see that in action? Watch Better Call Saul on Netflix, Season 1, Episode 2 (Mijo), timestamp 34:30.

Backstory:

Saul, an ex-con man who pursues a career as a lawyer, persuades two guys to hustle a potential client. They end up hustling the wrong woman, who turns out the mother of a Mexican gangster.

The scene:

The gangster takes the three into the desert and interrogates Saul. After explaining himself and the mix-up, Saul gets to walk. The other two face their demise because they insulted the gangster’s mother. Saul has all the reasons to walk away and save his life, but his compassion overrides his fear. He turns around and risks his fresh-won life by trying to talk the gangster out of killing the other two.

The Emotional and Cognitive Responses of Story Characters

The most important products you sell to readers are tension, curiosity, and emotions.

When you write scenes, you need to keep in mind that your story characters are exposed to the action and should respond accordingly. At least the responses of your POV characters need to be on the page. Mind that story characters may respond differently than readers.

Reader Reactions vs Real Life Reactions

When a grizzly attacks, most readers will react with fear. A seasoned hunter story character may not. Stay in character.

In real life, responses follow the following sequence: reflex → emotional & visceral reaction → instinctive response → habitual response → thought → action → dialogue → feeling.

Reflex, emotional & visceral reaction, instinctive response, and habitual response are involuntary, the rest are voluntary responses.

You can let a story character respond with one, a few, or all response types. You just need to get the sequence right.

The Eight Crafts of Writing and Reader Engagement

You have nine engagers at your disposal to pull readers into your story:

• Empathy
• Curiosity
• Tension
• Inspiration and motivation
• Sense of wonder and beauty
• Emotional thrill
• Excitement
• Satisfaction
• Feelings

Big Idea engages the reader’s intellect. The reader's response to a big idea is curiosity. Example: What if an AI enslaves humans and uses their bodies as batteries?

Narrative engages readers by pulling them into a character’s POV. Narrative can also engage readers through mystery and suspense, which engages readers with tension and curiosity.

Genre engages readers with curiosity. Readers are always looking forward to fresh stories in their favorite genre.

Genres also create curiosity through their baked-in story goals:

• Crime: How will the detective catch the culprit?
• Romance: Will the girl get the guy?
• Horror: Will the monster upend the world?

Story Outline milestones engage in unique ways. For example, crossing into adventure induces excitement, and the poetic justice scene at the end of the story induces satisfaction.

Characterization produces empathy, which is the major story engager. Characterization can also weave a sense of wonder and beauty, for example, the beautiful description of a wonderful character:

From Hard Times by Charles Dickens:

"He was a rich man, banker, merchant, manufacturer, and whatnot. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the bully of humility."

World Building conjures a sense of wonder and beauty. Part of World Building is world conflict design. World conflict produces tension and curiosity.

Scenes are little stories within your story. You could rig your scenes with all nine engagers, but that would likely stress out your readers. You may want to reserve that for key scenes like the inciting incident, the all-is-lost moment, and the climax.

Prose produces emotional thrill through action beats and dialogue and summons feelings through internalization.

Readers enjoy a full-brain engagement.

Oversimplified, Hollywood productions bank on Big Idea and Story Outline, but they struggle with deep Characterization and putting feelings on the screen. Exceptions to the latter are movies like The Titanic.

Literary fiction excels in drama and Characterization, but at times lacks Story Outline, in particular, satisfying story climaxes. Some productions are great at putting the heart on fire but tend to lack proper Story Outline.

Long-form TV shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Alienist, and Umbrella Academy come with complex Story Outline, deep Characterization, and well-designed character conflict, and that's why they are so successful.

Which engagers do you use the most and which ones do you neglect? Which writing crafts are you good at and which ones do you need to improve? Do you tend to neglect voluntary or involuntary responses?

* * * * * *

About Stefan

Stefan Emunds is the author of The Eight Crafts of Writing. He writes inspirational non-fiction and visionary fiction stories and runs an online inspiration and enlightenment workshop. Stefan was born in Germany and enjoyed two years backpacking in Australia, New Zealand, and South-East Asia in his early twenties. Prior to becoming a writer, he has worked as a business development manager in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. At the moment, he lives with his son in the Philippines.

You can buy the book The Eight Crafts of Writing here or take the course on the Lawson Writer’s Academy here.

Top Image by Dr StClaire from Pixabay