Writers in the Storm

by Ellen Buikema

We experience the sixth sense every day.

Driving down the highway, you feel a persistent need to get off the road to take the long way home. Later in the day, you discover that you narrowly missed a horrific accident.

A parent working at home has a sudden feeling that something is wrong. Not knowing why, he runs down the stairs to find his child staring at the edge of a deep, uncovered sewer hole.

A patient opens a new bottle of medication and holds a pill in her hand. Something about it feels wrong, but since her doctor prescribed the medication, she takes it anyway, leading to a trip to the emergency room from an allergic reaction.

Intuition impacts us in a multitude of ways.

Writing using the sixth sense

We are born with a sixth sense used to feel a situation or story. Some of us can better use this sense to perceive others’ emotions and pains. But you don’t need to be an empath to write using the sixth sense.

Writing fiction is a lot like finding a story that is happening somewhere, but you see and hear bits and pieces of it, or sometimes entire scenes, in your mind. We know some details of the story intuitively. The other information lurks about in the dark, waiting to be discovered.

“I see fictional people. And they don't know they're fictional.” – Stephanie Orges

We discover scenes, arranging events around our characters’ personalities and needs. That may be why our characters refuse to do things. I had a secondary character, a dad’s drinking buddy, who demanded a name change. I couldn’t get past a particular scene until he was given a new name. The struggle was real! Now he is Hugo.

I am not alone. According to Jim Davies’ article, “When Alice Walker was writing The Color Purple,  not only did her characters seem to choose their own actions in the plot, but they regularly visited her and commented, sometimes unwelcomely, on Walker’s own life.”

Ways to Develop Your Sixth Sense

Take “Me” Time

It’s hard to hear your inner voice when you are distracted by the constant stream of information from the world via electronics, as well as other folks and situations clamoring for your attention. Get some “Me” time and listen to the silence.

Listen to Your Gut

Pay attention to those “gut feelings.” They tend to lead us in the right direction and out of harm’s way.

Follow the Signs

Is something catching your eye? Do you keep hearing the same tune? These may be signals from the universe, clues to move you further on your life’s journey.

Note Your Experiences

We think we’ll remember the “lightbulb moments,” but we don’t always. Write them down. It’s horrible to have a fantastic plot twist and then lose it in the day’s whirlwind.

Pay Attention to Your Dreams and Daydreams

Your dreams serve you. They might be cryptic and strange sometimes, but they are informational. Dreams can open a whole new world full of interesting stories and opportunities.

Use a Dream Journal

When your subconscious mind comes out to play, in your dreaming state, your intuitive powers enter your awareness.

Writing your dreams may improve your memory in general.

Find tips for using a dream journal here.

Writers Inspired by Dreams and Nightmares

E.B. White

“Where did I get the idea for Stuart Little and for Charlotte’s Web? Well, many years ago I went to bed one night in a railway sleeping car, and during the night I dreamed about a tiny boy who acted rather like a mouse. That’s how the story of Stuart Little got started.”

Mary Shelley

This dream birthed her first novel, Frankenstein.

“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.”

Anne Rice

She wrote Interview with a Vampire while despairing over the loss of her five-year-old daughter’s death from leukemia.

“I dreamed my daughter, Michelle, was dying — that there was something wrong with her blood. It was horrifying. Several months afterward, she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.”

Stephen King

King’s childhood nightmare that inspired Salem’s Lot.:

“It was a dream where I came up a hill and there was a gallows on top of this hill with birds all flying around it. There was a hang man there. He had died, not by having his neck broken, but by strangulation. I could tell because his face was all puffy and purple. And as I came close to him he opened his eyes, reached his hands out and grabbed me.”

Maya Angelou

Angelou, on dreaming in general:

“I do believe dreams have a function. I don’t see anything that has no function, not anything that has been created. I may not understand its function or be able to even use it, make it utile, but I believe it has a reason. The brain is so strange and wondrous in its mystery. I think it creates a number of things for itself — it creates launching pads and resting places — and it lets steam off and it reworks itself.”

The following steps may help to liberate a suppressed sixth sense.

• Have an open attitude. Accept that you can’t control everything.
• Listen to your body. Respect your limits.
• Set aside your reason. Forget about the practical and think about what makes you happy.
• Let go and leave space for chance.
• Relax. Rest your mind by closing your eyes, lose yourself in thought, and listen to your inner voice.
  • Meditation is an excellent technique to use if you have many stressful dreams, which can cause muscle tension and spasms.

If you dream it, you can give it life.

Have you experienced the sixth sense in your life? How do you use it in your writing? Have any of your characters refused to do as you ask?

* * * * *

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works In Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and Crystal Memories, YA paranormal fantasy.

Find her at https://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Top Image created from photo by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

by Lisa Hall Wilson

Trauma can create great internal, external, and interpersonal conflict, but readers are not interested in clinical definitions or objective recitations of symptoms. Trauma needs to be more than emotion-theatre. It should make your character’s journey more difficult and be specific to the journey ahead of them.

If you can take out the backstory, the flashbacks, and the character remains unchanged, maybe you don’t need to use trauma in your story. Stephen King wrote that fiction is the truth inside a lie.

Be honest about living with trauma. Entertain with your fiction, but be honest about the lived experience of trauma.

What Is Trauma?

We misuse the term “trauma” all the time in regular conversation. When many people say they struggle with “trauma” they mean they were betrayed, disappointed, embarrassed, ashamed, hurt, sad, grieving – whatever. These are legitimate emotional hurts that can FEEL traumatic, but this is not what is meant by mental health professionals when they talk of trauma.

Trauma is ubiquitous, but it’s also specific. Trauma is any event or situation where a person feels overwhelmed, helpless (loss of agency, voice, autonomy, mobility, hope), a sense of horror, sustains a serious injury, or perceives a threat of serious injury or death. Trauma is a visceral experience.

Trauma is a failure of recovery.

Everyone experiences things that are troubling or hurtful, and that haunt them. Everyone. But not everyone struggles with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, borderline personality disorder (BPD), PTSD, c-PTSD, bipolar disorder, dissociation, panic disorder, agoraphobia, suicide ideation, self-isolation, etc.

These are the real-world consequences of trauma. There’s an escalation of harm, of injury, a sense of being “stuck” or “broken” that is intrinsic to struggling with and managing trauma; an inability to “just get over it.” Be honest!

The Lived Experience Of Trauma

Most people will do almost anything to avoid being reminded of the worst moment of their life. These are not the sorts of things people navel-gaze over. They don’t reminisce about that time they almost died. They don’t share the nightmares or night terrors they relive every night with friends.  Instead, they avoid going to sleep, they medicate in order to sleep, they have poor sleep because their brains won’t allow them to reach deep restorative sleep.

Follow that thread.

What other consequences would one face if chronically exhausted? There are medical conditions, attention, and focus problems. They’re probably prone to overreacting. They may be forgetful, accident-prone, and/or make a lot of errors. They may self-medicate to mitigate these issues, chugging cups and cups of coffee and then drinking themselves to sleep at night for instance.

Show the reaction to the emotions the memory brings up, rather than have your character THINK about the emotion they feel.

“Trauma comes back as a reaction, not a memory.”
~Bessel Van Der Kolk

Writing Tips for Trauma

Instead of your character spending time thinking about their trauma; instead of writing out all that backstory or flashbacks, show what they avoid.

Where don’t they feel safe? What lengths do they go to in order to feel safe? Some people need to have their backs against a wall so no one can sneak up on them. What clothes do they wear to avoid feeling a certain way, to avoid attracting certain looks or certain kinds of attention? Maybe it’s the opposite, and they wear certain clothes in order to attract attention. Do they react to a hard day by hooking up with the first available prospect disregarding their own personal safety – compulsively?

The reader will pick up on how this behavior is about something else that’s happened in the past.

There have been studies done on young men who suffered abuse by priests as young boys. Those who struggle with anxiety (of any sort) often become gym rats because they don’t ever want to be overpowered again. This obsessive need to be strong is the reaction, but they may deny what happened, avoid anywhere that reminds them of what happened, and many won’t talk about what happened.

We FEEL Trauma, We Don’t Dwell On Memories

Our brains don’t record memories like a director films a movie. Our brains crave context, continuity, and closure. So, trauma memories appear unreliable because events are recorded with skips and gaps. Details that are too overwhelming may not be remembered in the moment, but come back after days or months. Things that are too overwhelming might be recorded initially, but then forgotten in time.

You can use the unreliable and faulty function of memory to show a character with past trauma. They may believe they’re crazy, or struggle to trust their own memory of what happened and question everything. They may obsessively seek to create a narrative about what happened or use other sources to fill in what they can’t remember or don’t want to be true.

For those who’ve had troubling experiences, those emotions and memories will often fade over time. But those struggling with trauma will involuntarily relive those trauma emotions over and over and over. Many trauma survivors describe it as a movie in their brain that they can't stop playing.

So anytime the character feels vulnerable for instance, instead of THINKING about how vulnerable they feel, or how this moment feels a lot like that trauma moment, show the reaction instead. 

• Do they immediately reach for alcohol?
• Do they punish themselves (because in some way they blame themselves for what happened) by doing three extra laps around the block when jogging?
• Do they abruptly leave, or constantly cancel?

Jessica Jones is one character where this coping/denial spiral is very clear. The Netflix show Unbelieveable captures this aspect of memory with compelling realism.

Choosing Trauma Details

[Trigger Alert: Detailed trauma in this section. (Labeled for ease of reading.)]

I have watched and read a lot of survivor accounts of various types of trauma: holocaust, domestic violence, natural disasters, car accidents, victims of crime and abuse, terrorist attacks, etc.

The brain captures those details that aren’t as they should be. What is out of place, what is wrong, and the implication of those out-of-place things will be highly upsetting (not forgetting the sense of hopelessness and the real or perceived threat of injury or death).

Holocaust

One holocaust survivor recalled being discovered by the Nazis. She hid, but her mother was dragged outside in winter without a coat. Through a crack in the doorway, she saw a soldier point at her mother’s head and heard a crack (a gunshot). In vivid detail, she recounted how the snow turned red. She stared at her mother for hours from her hiding place after the Nazis left, waiting for her mother to get up.

These were the details that haunted her. These are all details that were out of place, and all pointed to something being horribly wrong. She didn’t remember understanding that her mother was dead, but she certainly perceived a real threat to her life.

Molestation

One survivor of molestation recalled how the hook and eye to lock the bedroom door (in the room where she was abused) was up high, near the top corner of the door. How the weight on top of her was too heavy and she struggled to breathe. These adult memories point to what most traumatized the child – the inability to escape, and the perceived threat of suffocation.

Keep in Mind

When writing memories like these for your character, instead of seeking to capture the complete horror of an event, try narrowly focusing on what would be most upsetting to them. Be visceral with the sensory details. Sound and smell are two senses very closely linked with memory. This will be specific to your character, unique to their experiences and threat levels.

How can you be strategic with the reaction to the trauma emotions your character suppresses or tries to avoid? Do you have questions about writing about trauma? Please share them in the comments if you feel comfortable doing so!

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. 

by Lisa Norman

I recently attended the 2021 Publishing Year in Review: Opportunities & Continuing Trends, an online publishing seminar put on by Ingram Content Group. The entire presentation was encouraging and fascinating.

One moment caught my attention during the presentation by Pete McCarthy, the Director of Consumer Insights from Ingram Book Company. This is a man who makes it his business to be up on the trends among readers. With his permission, I'm going to share some of these trends with you.

The Visible Trends

He pointed out the trends both before and during the pandemic. Note that the growth in the e-book and audiobook markets are good, but perhaps less than we would expect. Print was essentially flat, whereas reading in any format is up. It has fallen from 2011, perhaps, but not by much.

This is great news. People still like to read books!

Print vs Digital

He described 33% of the book readers as omnivorous. They'll read a book in any format depending on price point, availability, and other factors. These folks just want to read.

Next, he shared information showing that most people buy books both online and in physical stores.

The takeaway here is that the modern consumer will buy a book in any format and from whatever location is most convenient.

E-books

Then he did a deep dive into e-book statistics.

Are e-book sales up or down? He said the answer is nuanced with the range being dependent on genre. Adult fiction is doing well with some areas up 6%. In general, he sees overall growth in e-books.

But then he showed something fascinating.

Non-Ownership Reading

"Non-ownership" reading refers to areas like Kindle Unlimited and libraries, where it is possible to borrow a book and read it without necessarily being tracked in the sales numbers.

This area is growing significantly, but doesn't show up on the trend charts.

The Invisible Readers of the Future

There's another readership that doesn't show on any of the charts, an invisible demographic.

Most of the statistics we track are for adults, but younger readers are interacting with stories in a completely different way.

Wattpad, WebToon, and others are extremely popular among younger readers. These are websites and applications that get numbers like 400 million monthly visits with average time spent on the apps in excess of 20 minutes each visit. Online statistics for Wattpad show that it had 90 million monthly users as of November 2021.

If you haven't seen these venues yet, they're places where people share stories. Like Kindle Vella, these stories are often released periodically or episodically. These stories are generally free, often supported by Patreon or Ko-fi donations.

And there are more venues like this. Venues like Archive of Our Own, one that my daughter loves. She loves the fresh and unusual voices of the authors. She loves that this is a place where fans can hang out and write fan fiction as well as create new worlds in fresh ways. Here are their statistics from 2020, where they were tracking in excess of 50 million views per day.

These statistics and trends are difficult for us to compare and quantify to industry standards, but they are examples of digital reading. According to Pete McCarthy, this is a massive trend. He said that he doesn't want to overreact, but he thinks this is a trend worth keeping an eye on in a big way.

Not Just for Kids

These websites are not just attracting children.

A press release from Wattpad in 2021 claimed that the platform boasted 90 million readers and 5 million writers. Eighty percent of their users are Gen Z (born after 1997). These works are not all amateur, either. Almost 1,500 Wattpad stories have been either published as books or adapted for TV or film. You can see insights into the trending topics here.

Pete said that Archive of Our Own is reporting 400 million monthly visits with an average time on site of 17 minutes.

Digital reading is up much more than the 6% that shows in the official statistics. Pete showed that consumer engagement with online media is also up, and this includes engaging with stories in different media formats: audio, gaming, and streaming content being up, while time spent watching TV was down.

People are engaging with stories online in non-traditional formats, not just with paper books, e-books, or audiobooks.

Types of Content People Spend Time With on the Internet

This chart only shows the top 20 types of online content, and books are #19. He sees this as very positive.

I've added my own highlight to entertainment and games because my research shows that these are also ways in which people are engaging with stories.

In my research of WebToons, Wattpad, Archive of our Own, and other similar trends, I've noticed a movement among the younger generations towards a passion for transmedia content: stories that transcend the format they are presented in, stories that can be experienced in many different types of media. I suspect that a lot of what is classified as entertainment content is interacting with stories in the form of games, online short-form reading, fan fiction, movie adaptations, and animations.

What is Transmedia?

To understand transmedia, think of Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, or DC Comics.

There are movies, games, books, animated shows, graphic novels, comic books, fan fiction, and many more ways that fans are interacting with these elaborate story worlds. Fans get together for conventions. They talk in forums. Want a non-science fiction example? How about Sherlock Holmes?

This page at Archive of Our Own lists all fandoms they currently explore.

Increasingly, fans want to interact with the stories they consume. Fans still enjoy the printed word. They just want to have more interaction with the worlds their favorite authors are creating.

This trend isn't new. Any reader who has ever become immersed in a book has had that moment when they close the book and wish they could stay with it, stay in that world.

With modern technology and modern transmedia storytelling, readers can. Readers become a part of the story.

I loved one quote that Pete put on the bottom of a slide:

"Opportunity is everywhere — stay agile, adapt, try new things."

What are you doing to engage with this hidden demographic of readers?

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 her first novel was written 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, she can be found 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, an indie publishing firm. She teaches for Lawson Writer's Academy.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? See her teaching schedule below.

Classes:

• May: Digital Organization Skills for Authors
• June: Crazy Easy Awesome-Author Websites
• July: Crazy Easy Social Media for Authors

Credits:

Top Image by maximiliano estevez from Pixabay

*Slides Reprinted with permission of Ingram Content Group