Writers in the Storm

by Diana Stout, MFA, PhD

As writers, we'd like to think that our work will bring us an abundance of wealth, but what if it doesn't?

Is there anything we can do that would make a difference?

Would you be surprised if I said, "Yes, there is"?

Some Universal Laws

The Law of Abundance is a powerful, amazing, and profound Law, as are all of the Universal Laws. Surprisingly, most of these Laws are unknown, misunderstood, scoffed at, or ignored.

The Universal Laws are quite simple, actually. They are in motion always, responding to our actions, our thoughts, our beliefs, and to the things we say regardless if our words, thoughts, and actions are negative or positive. Every day. 24/7.

We attract people, things, events, circumstances, and happenings. Likewise, we are attracted to those who are like us in beliefs, judgments, sense of humor, hobbies, and so forth.

More About the Law of Abundance

The Law of Abundance is also known as The Law of Compensation. This Law embraces the common phrase, You reap what you sow. Would you be surprised to learn that the Law of Karma fits that phrase, too, as does the Law of Cause and Effect?

Abundance comes in many forms, not just monetary, and sometimes it is uneven. For example, while I've been blessed with abundance in many areas of my writing, the monetary element has been scarce.

Actually, I'm here today because of the Law of Abundance. I'm living one of my dreams of being a contributor to this award-winning Writers in the Storm blog.

But, I think I'm really here because of my recent request of wanting to find my audience.

The Beginning of My Journey

I floundered during those early years, as so many of us do, trying to find my life's purpose. I would have loved having a life coach. Instead, I made do with how-to books. Looking back, I can see that I had to take this longer path to find my life's full purpose.

At the beginning of my writing life, I just wanted to see my name in print. And it happened. Quickly.

According to Jenny Hansen's earlier July 15 here at WITS, Are Writers Born, or Are Writers Made? she suggests that "the majority of writers are forged from fear or pain or loss."

While I'd been writing from these three perspectives through my early articles and journals, I believe there's another category of writers, the category that was the impetus for my wanting to write romance books: the dollar-signs-in-the-eyes writer.

At the time, I was reading a romance per day, reading interviews of favorite authors that included their earnings. Analyzing these 200-page fun reads with their happily-ever-after endings, I thought, I could write these.

I could hear the cha-ching.

My purpose became money-focused and despite all the publications and bylines that followed, including the three traditionally published books, and speaking at various groups by invitation, I still wasn't earning a living from my writing. (Indie publishing was more than a decade away.)

My Road to Writers In the Storm

As I mentioned earlier, I'm here today because of the Law of Abundance. I’ve had a long-term dream of contributing to this award-winning Writers in the Storm blog. Let me explain…

A few weeks ago, I had told a writer friend that I wanted—needed actually—to find my audience, and learn where they hung out. When I told her about this blog opportunity, her mouth dropped open in a huge "O" and she said, "Diana, those readers are your audience."

The Law of Abundance had heard my request and put the people in my path who could make this event happen.

How the Law of Abundance Has Worked for Me

The Law of Abundance tends to shower tremendous gifts on those who not only ask, but who show up and do the work.

As many writers know, it's a challenge to balance writing with a day job. I had a particular dream when I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree. I wanted to attend a hard-to-get-into MFA program that was a good 45-minute drive one-way. I didn’t know how I’d pay for the program and my current job didn’t leave me time for it.

I seeded a piece of paper with money owed me into a houseplant with a wish for the means to attend. I also applied for the MFA program’s scholarship with little confidence that I’d get it.

A few weeks later, I was invited to transfer to a new job with hours that allowed me time to travel the distance to attend the afternoon classes for my coveted MFA program. Now, if I could just figure out how to pay for it…

Then I received the miraculous news that I’d been awarded a full scholarship for that MFA degree, which allowed me to teach the craft of writing full time.

Later, when I asked the department's chair how I had managed to win the scholarship over another talented writer, the chair told me that I not only had more previous writing experiences including publications, I also had stellar grades and fantastic recommendations from employers, co-workers, and teachers.

I’d asked for what I wanted, and I showed up and did the work.

How can the Law of Abundance help you, as a writer?

Watch Your Words

• Don't say: I'm not a writer because I'm not published.
• Instead say: I'm a writer because I'm putting words to paper. I'm a writer because I'm creating stories with interesting characters.

Do the Work

• Don't write only when you're in the mood.
• Do create a habit where you write every day, even if only for 10 minutes a day! Write even when you don't know what to write. Just start putting words on paper. You'll be surprised at how quickly the words will start flowing. Sometimes, it just takes priming the pump.

Believe in Yourself

• Don't ever think to yourself that you're wasting your time, that you can't write.
• Do tell yourself repeatedly that you're a good writer, learning your craft.

Over the years, I've studied and restudied the Laws, analyzed and tested them, and have made corrections in my own behavior. I've learned that if I'm not getting what I want, the Law isn't at fault—I am.

The Law of Abundance has always given me exactly that upon which I had focused.

With my writing, the Law of Abundance has provided me with bylines, publications, wins and placements in contests, awards, meeting the right people, putting me in the right place at the right time (with my preparedness) for speaking engagements and writing opportunities, and gifted me my last two degrees monetarily.

Final Thoughts

The Law of Abundance can work for you, just as it has for me. Believe in yourself, do the work by pursuing your craft, and watch your words, especially as to how they pertain to you as a writer.

If you want to learn more, I am teaching a class called Bringing Abundance Into Your Life that starts TODAY. It’s based on my recent publication, Finding Your Fire & Keeping It Hot. You'll receive a free ebook copy of Finding Your Fire if you click the link and sign up. I hope to see you there!

Note: This opportunity, too, is the result of a request I had made to the Universe.

Do you believe in the Universal Laws? How have you seen them at work in your life and your writing? Please share your journey with us down in the comments!

Please join us in welcoming Diana to Writers In the Storm!!!

About Diana

Diana Stout is a screenwriter, author, blogger, writing coach, former English professor, and award-winning writer of multiple genres. Her latest fiction release was Arrested Pleasures: A Laurel Ridge Novella (#3 in the series).

Diana's links:

Website  ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Goodreads ~ Amazon ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest

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Top photo base downloaded from Depositphotos.

By Shirley Jump

You want to know how to make a book that is so incredibly compelling, the reader can’t put it down, and must stay up until two in the morning to see how it ends? It’s simple, if you understand what drives connection between the reader and the character. They want to see your character overcome Deep Emotional Wounds and achieve their greatest dreams.

The problem? Most people (and our characters) don’t want to overcome those Deep Emotional Wounds. They’re quite happy stuck in the status quo, thankyouverymuch. They run into issues when their external goal puts them in opposition with the very thing they don’t want to do. And that’s what gives the character Impossible Choices.

Impossible Choices are fantastic for raising the conflict and tension in your book because the reader is dying to know how it works out. As an author, I write by the seat of my pants a lot of times, and frankly, I’m dying to see how I work it out, too. I’m writing as fast as I can because I can’t wait to get to the end and see if everyone ends up happy.

What’s an example of an impossible choice? Sophie’s Choice—she must choose a child to send to the gas chamber and one to save. It’s a horrible, nightmare choice that drives everything Sophie does when she is working for the Nazis.

However, most of us don’t write Sophie’s Choice books. We don’t have stakes that are that high, but that’s okay. We can have stakes that are perceived to be that high, and that is what will keep the reader reading. To do that, you need to start with one major concept:

Your External Goal, Motivation and Conflict should be in direct opposition to the Internal Goal, Motivation and Conflict.

Wait, what? How does that work? Let’s dissect Edward from Pretty Woman (one of my all-time favorite movies).

Do you see how his External Goal (to have few complications and zero relationships) and his Internal Goal (to be loved as he is) are in direct opposition to each other? (If you don’t, I did some highlighting and a giant arrow 😉) All Edward knows to do is be cold, untouchable, wealthy, and successful. That’s how he has gotten through life and dealt with being “very angry with his father.” He hires a hooker, because she is the epitome of no strings attached.

Then he starts to care about her—and you know what he sees in Vivian? Himself, only in a different form. A woman who has been unloved and rejected. A woman who uses what she has to be successful. A woman who does everything she can to avoid getting close to people (“I do everything. But I don’t kiss on the mouth.”)

She is a kindred soul. She also doesn’t want to get close to him, to believe that this fairy tale could come true. But she sees his vulnerabilities and sees the man he is, literally and figuratively, under his suit. She sees his heart. And she falls in love with him.

Decisions

Over and over again, Edward is forced to decide—go for the jugular or go for love. He blows off work at her insistence, and literally takes off his shoes and tie and sets his briefcase and phone aside (being a normal man). He holds her at night, which opens his heart. He soothes her when she is treated badly. He rushes in as the hero when people are mean to her.

At the critical climax of the movie, Edward has to choose—relationships or money/success. He astounds his team when he chooses to work with the owner of the company he is buying, instead of destroying it. But he lets Vivian go, because he isn’t ready to open his heart yet. What happens then?

He achieves his External Goal. He got through the trip to LA, was successful (in a different way than he thought), and is making money off the deal.

But at what cost?

He has lost the one thing that truly matters to him—a woman who loves him as he is. He realizes what that has cost him, and in a show of love and freedom from his old buttoned-up, straight and narrow persona, he makes a grand, public gesture of love and conquers (sort of) his fear of heights to go get her.

In Pretty Woman, virtually every scene with Edward shows him being forced to choose between his external goal and his deep internal fears and needs. It’s the same with Vivian, but I only dissected Edward here. In your book, try to create a plot that has that same structure of conflicting inner and outer goals.

My advice for learning how to do this? Analyze everything you read and watch. List the external and internal GMC.

Are they in opposition? How did that impact the plot? Your engagement as a reader/viewer? The story overall?

Now go back and do that to your book 😊

About Shirley

Shirley Jump, author of Writing Compelling Fiction, is an award-winning, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today bestselling author who has published more than 80 books in 24 countries. Her most recent books hit #1 in two categories on Amazon, and her Christmas novella hit the USA Today list in November. Her books have received multiple awards and kudos from authors such as Jayne Ann Krentz, who called her books “real romance,” Virginia Kantra, who said, “Shirley Jump packs lots of sweet and plenty of heat in this heartwarming first book of her promising new series,” and Jill Shalvis, who called The Sweetheart Bargain “a fun, heartwarming small town romance that you'll fall in love with."

As the owner of JumpStart Creative Solutions, Shirley also does book building, content editing, ghostwriting, and author coaching. She has spoken all over the world about the power of narrative and how to create compelling books. A former reporter, she has a background in all aspects of writing, from hard news to publicity to fiction. Visit her website at www.ShirleyJump.com or see her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn @ShirleyJump.

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

First Person POV is not automatically deep POV. First person leans heavily on a narrator construct. Once you understand what the narrator voice is, how it’s used, and how to recognize it, you’ll see where first person POV differs from Deep POV.

Learn the rules and then break. Deep POV is not a template or box you need to fit inside, it’s a set of tools for you to use strategically to create effects for the reader.

For many first person POV stories, a few deep POV tools are used to create intimacy and pull readers into the story (remove filter words, remove dialogue tags). But the use of the narrator voice, this assumption of a reader leaning in to listen and watch, adds narrative distance that deep POV aims to remove. Neither is more right or wrong, it’s a stylistic choice.

Let’s look deeper at the main first person POV styles.

First Person Central (Narration)

This is where the I, me, we, or us of the story is both the POV character and the protagonist. The character tells a story as they experience or remember things that happen to them. They “narrate” the story for the reader.

Examples would be: Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood; Moby Dick, Herman Melville; Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte; Water For Elephants, Sara Gruen; The Help, Kathryn Stockett; The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins; Dresden Files, Jim Butcher

First Person Peripheral

This is where the I, me, we, or us of the story (the POV character) is not the protagonist. This POV character is IN the story observing, interacting, etc—but the story is really about the protagonist and the choices, goals, and decisions they make. This construct allows the writer to keep information about the protagonist hidden from the reader, and can also add a built-in voice to summarize, explain, ask questions, etc.

Authors may use a close or limited style with their POV character, but there are examples of omniscient first person peripheral where the POV character is all-knowing.

Close First Person Peripheral examples would be: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee; The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle; Room, Emma Donoghue

Omniscient First Person Peripheral examples would be: The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak; Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold; A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snickets (this also uses third person omniscient)

What Is Deep POV?

Deep POV is where the author/narrator voice is completely missing. Every word on the page (and I mean, every word), comes from or from within the POV character. There’s no external voice to fill in gaps in time, summarize, explain, theorize, look ahead or back. Zip.

The goal is to immerse the reader completely in the POV’s experience of the story, as they live out the story in real time. It’s about how things FEEL, rather than narrating movement, what is seen or heard or wanted.

What Is The Role Of The Narrator Voice?

First Person POV is about who is telling the story, deep POV is about how you tell the story.

Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that’s in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You’ve probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence.

JD Salinger, The Catcher In The Rye

Do you see how the POV character here, teenager Holden Caulfield, is narrating his own story for readers? This is additionally breaking the fourth wall, but this type of narrator voice is allowed in first person POV, it’s a feature.

How This Works in Deep POV

In deep POV, thoughts are written as though the character is alone inside their own head. To deliver this info to the reader, in deep POV, either the character needs a reason to think of it or another character can say it. Maybe the character is in the front passenger seat of a car and they drive past a billboard for Pency Prep. The character thinks about how there’s no escaping this school. Their ads are everywhere. That’s one way deep POV would deliver this information to readers.

We're standing on the deck that's all wooden like the deck of a ship. There's fuzz on it, little bundles. Grandma says it's some kind of pollen from a tree.

"Which one?" I'm staring up at all the differents.

"Can't help you there, I'm afraid."

In Room we knowed what everything was called but in the world there's so much, persons don't even know the names.

― Emma Donoghue, Room

Here, the character is a boy of five years old, narrating his own life. He experiences much of the world for the first time in the novel. There are few filter words, no dialogue tags, which are tools shared with deep POV. But, the character is narrating his life, he assumes a reader is leaning in to listen. Words like ‘knowed’ would tip us off to the narrator voice. Also, the character is telling the reader, summarizing, a conversation he had with another character the reader wasn’t privy to—this is the narrator voice.

In deep POV, time and place setting details, the history/backstory, would need to be delivered without that author voice, and instead through context, subtext, dialogue, etc. This book uses a lot of deep POV techniques really effectively, but there’s also heavy use of this first person narrator construct.

Deep POV Goes Deeper Than You Think It Does

Many will advocate to leave out filter words and dialogue tags (he said/she said) from first person POV to remove narrative distance. Room, Hunger Games, The Help—these all do that really effectively and create an intimate experience for readers. Deep POV aims for the reader to be immersed in the POV character’s experience. It’s a subtle difference, but once you learn to see the differences, deep POV offers a different level of intensity and intimacy.

An Example

Sitting at Prim’s knees, guarding her, is the world’s ugliest cat. Mashed-in nose, half of one ear missing, eyes the color of rotting squash. Prim named him Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat matched the bright flower. He hates me. Or at least distrusts me. Even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he's a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

This novel is really good at using context and subtext to create setting, tone, backstory—all the things. It’s very economical writing, in that many of these phrases and sentences do more than one job—they convey information, but also emotions, motivation, backstory, etc. But do you see where the narrator voice creeps in?

Katniss here is narrating her backstory with this cat. She assumes someone is leaning in to listen. If this was in deep POV, this would be written as though she was alone in her own head. When alone with our thoughts, we don’t remind ourselves of things we know, we don’t label things, we don’t explain or summarize, or catalogue details.

How This Works in Deep POV

One way someone might use deep POV here is to have Katniss interact with the cat to bring these features to mind instead of cataloguing the details about Buttercup. Maybe she would set the bucket of offal on the floor for the cat, reaching down to touch its one ear and the cat hisses. Maybe she leans down and whispers a promise that she’ll never try to drown it again, and the cat just flicks its tail and glares at her. Then, maybe it walks away from the bucket to guard Prim. Whatever.

Deep POV is a shift in how you tell a story.

Choose the style that will work best for the story you’re telling, the genre conventions you have to work within, and your author voice.

Do you struggle to identify the author/narrator voice in your work?

About Lisa

Lisa Hall-Wilson is a writing teacher and award-winning writer and author. She’s the author of Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers. Her blog, Beyond Basics For Writers, explores all facets of the popular writing style deep point of view and offers practical tips for writers. 

She runs the free Facebook group Going Deeper With Emotions where she shares tips and videos on writing in deep point of view. 

Top Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay