Writers in the Storm

Since the beginning here at Writers in the Storm, we've been all about spreading the love. And every so often, we throw the doors open for some shameless self-promotion opportunities for our readers. Our only requirement for those glorious days -- formerly called "Pimp & Promote" -- is that they double the love and promote someone else's work alongside their own.

New Name - Same Awesomeness

As of now, we're officially changing the name of this event from "Pimp & Promote" to "Double The Love." First of all, it has a nice ring. Also, the world could use a whole lot more love these days so why not rebrand one of our favorite things here at WITS?

Today's event will give us all the opportunity to share great resources and celebrate our own successes. So get ready to double the love!

How DO you "Double the Love?"

For many in the States, school is back in session. In that same spirit, let's get out our pom-poms and cheer for ourselves and other writers! Down in the comments section, we ask that you:

• Heap love on somebody else’s work – a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person. Please limit your comments to one work.
  AND
• Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about – a hobby, a blog, a book, or a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us about it in the comments! (Please restrain your enthusiasm to just one of your WIPs.)

The rest of us will shake those pom-poms, and “ooooh and ahh” (with a side of rah-rah). Full disclosure: our to-be-read piles and our resource lists double in size on days like these, which is always a cause for both celebration and nail-biting.

We'll lead off the love fest with some of the WITS Team!

Ellen Buikema

New Love:

Thomas Davis has written a fantastic, epic poem in blank verse, The Weirding Storm. The story contains magic, dragons, witches, dire wolves, malicious spirits, community unrest, and some interesting transformations, all woven into a dance of words.

A wonderful Young Adult Fantasy.

Self-love:

If you are looking for a young readers chapter book series, take a look at The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon. I wrote these stories to help encourage empathy and cultivate insight into children’s lives.

These multicultural stories cover situations children typically encounter like getting lost, moving, starting a new school, making friends, family vacations, working in a team, and dealing with bullies using positive methods. Each chapter ends with one or more activities for children and parents or teachers to do together, related to the actions in the stories. These books are filled with humor to make the stories more engaging for children (and more fun for parents to read to their kids).

The first three chapter books in The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon Series are New Beginnings, School Days, and Summertime.

Jenny Hansen

New Love:

If you've been around WITS for a while, you've seen some of the gorgeous posts by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, the co-authors of the Emotion Thesaurus series of books. Perhaps you know about the labor of love they created called "One Stop" for writers.

They've kicked it up a notch recently with the Storyteller's Roadmap. Frankly, I love it. I love that it meets you where you are as a writer, and that there are three different paths you can take, based on your own writing challenges. For example, I have friends who get hives at the thought of plotting so they happily write away like the pantsers they are. Then they get stuck or get lost in revisions. There are roadmaps for all these scenarios!

Below is a screen capture of the main page.

And here is a snippet of the Planning Roadmap:

So, to summarize, if you haven't checked out One Stop for Writers with their thesaurus cheat-sheets, character builders, checklists, timelines, and now, their Storyteller's Roadmap...why not?

Self-love:

Writers in the Storm is looking for new blog hosts and contributors. We like to change it up every few years and hear from some new voices and viewpoints. And we like to spread out the hosting over 4-6 people so no one has to do more than a dozen hours of work throughout the year.

Let us know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in or send an email to writersinthestorm(at)gmail(dot)com!

Okay, now it's your turn!

What do you think of "Double the Love?" Do you like the new name? Spread the love all around the comment section, and we'll chime in and cheer you on!

Top Photo by Frantisek Duris on Unsplash

by Laurie Schnebly Campbell

What is it about trios that works so well?

For starters, three creates a pattern which isn’t feasible with just one or two.

Books that feature only two people are enjoyable, sure. But when you add a third character, like a loyal sidekick or a rival or a mysterious neighbor, the trio is all the more entertaining.

Two stories -- say, an original and its sequel -- are perfectly all right. But when you add a third book and make it a trilogy, sales rise far higher.

A two-act play can be pleasurable to watch. But a three-act play, which forms the essence of most story structures, feels more integrated…more complete.

The Romans had a saying, “Omne trium perfectum,” meaning essentially “whatever comes in threes is perfect.”

That might explain popular groupings like:

• Good, better, best
• Past, present, future
• Gold, silver, bronze
• Small, medium, large
• Oldest, middle, youngest
• Mind, body, spirit

Triads feel natural. Triads feel satisfying.

We see that in stories from our earliest years of childhood: 

• Three blind mice
• The three little pigs
• Goldilocks and the three bears

Such storytelling continues into adulthood with stories (turned into movies) like:

• The Three Musketeers
• Three Coins in the Fountain
• Three Men and a Baby
• The Three Faces of Eve, and so many more

You see the rule of three in other art forms, as well. Photographers divide their image into three horizontal or three vertical segments. Comedians talk about how an X, a Y and a Z walk into a bar. Orators treasure the power of phrases like “Friends, Romans, countrymen” and “blood, sweat and tears” and “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

So, it makes perfect sense that:

Three is a valuable number for writers.

Right off the bat, we have the beginning and middle and end. And we have narrative, dialogue and description. And we have thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

All of which can be useful in storytelling.

But even more useful than any of those trios, as far as I’m concerned, is something incredibly simple:  the basic braid.

I’ll bet you know already what the first two strands of that braid are. (No, you romance writers, they’re not Hero and Heroine. No, you mystery writers, they’re not Cop and Criminal. No, you literary writers, they’re not Protagonist and Antagonist.)

They’re the good old timeless classics of any story...Plot and Character.

In theory you could probably get a pretty decent book out of just those two strands, but adding the third is what gives you a really strong strand. Or a really strong story, as the case may be.

And the third strand is...Genre.

Now of course, some writers prefer to avoid what booksellers refer to as genre fiction. Instead, they’re busy writing what might be called mainstream, or literary, or philosophical novels.

But even so, their readers have certain expectations -- same as other readers have certain expectations of what constitutes a great crime, dystopian, fantasy, historical, horror, inspirational, mystery, paranormal, scifi, suspense/thriller, Western or women’s fiction novel.

EVERY reader expects certain things of a book. Even if they picked up a title at random, vowing not to look at the cover or blurb or reviews but to just dive in and start reading, within the first few chapters they’ll have an idea about what kind of story they’re in for.

And while surprises along the way are just fine, your reader doesn’t want to feel confused throughout the entire book. They want you to deliver the kind of experience they feel like they’ve been promised.

So it’s important to know what these readers expect when they pick up your book -- and THAT’s why genre is the third strand of your braid.

Do all three strands need to be equal?

Absolutely not. We’ve all seen decorative braids with two similar strands plus a more sparkly one adding some extra glitz.

Some books direct far more time and attention to the plot than the characters or the genre, and that works just fine. Some devote most of their attention to character development, which also works fine. And some focus primarily on the genre highlights that draw readers to this particular type of story, which also...yep.

Each of those blends can result in a fabulous book.

But a book that weaves all three strands together from beginning to end, regardless of how big each strand is, will likely be a more complete, more natural, more satisfying read.

That’s the magic of braiding.

We’ll go into more detail on what shapes your particular book during the September 6-30 class on “Your Plot-Character-Story Braid,” but while you’re thinking about tremendous, terrible and triumphant threesomes, I’ve got a question for you:

What trio comes to mind when you think of a story you loved?

It might be people, it might be settings, it might be titles, it might be something not even mentioned here. Just recall some story you’d happily read (or view, or listen to) again, and what triad in it you especially like.

And that’s our prize-drawing question.

If at least 25 people post an answer, one of ‘em will win free registration to the Braid class coming up a week from Monday. So I can’t wait to see what comes in before this weekend’s drawing.

In fact, I’m getting more and more eager…more excited…more enthusiastic…by the minute. By the hour. By the day. (Okay, enough with the trios.)

Somebody stop me. Call a halt. Cue the band.

Quickly. Right away. Lickety-split — Aaaaack!

* * * * * *

About Laurie

Laurie Schnebly Campbell (BookLaurie.com) always loves creating a class, so when a writer asked about “braiding” she was delighted at the chance to explore an untouched subject. Although she enjoyed braiding her own books, including one that beat out Nora Roberts for “Best Special Edition of the Year,” she enjoys teaching even more. That’s why she now has 51 first-sale novels on her bookshelf from authors inspired by her classes.

Top Image by Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay

by Tasha Seegmiller

This is my last post for Writers in the Storm. I can’t say forever, because forever is a long time, but I am stepping back as a regular contributor. I want to thank everyone who has commented on my posts in the past and those who have shared great insights. <3

I was recently in an online discussion concerning a new presenter in the MasterClass series. There were several people who were excited about the new presenter but wondered if the curriculum they would have access to would be too fundamental for their current level. It’s a valid question, in particular when it comes to a class that will require a $90.00 commitment.

About the same time, I attended a training where a psychology professor talked about progression, improvement, and learning. He discussed three areas that have to work in harmony with each other for learning to really have an impact: cognitive, behavioral, and affective.

While I could try and explain what each of those mean, it is easier to simply ask the questions he asked us:

• What do I know about ________?
• What do I do about ________?
• How do I feel about ________?

How this applies to writing...

Let’s break those down with some writing ideas. Ask the same three questions and substitute one of the following:

• Character development
• A particular character (especially if feedback indicates that character is weak)
• Pacing
• Sentence structure
• Setting/World Building
• Internal Arcs
• Emotional Arcs
• Fill in the blank with the ominous part of writing that you love to hate.

Doing this practice will give us a baseline of things to consider. I don’t recommend focusing on this too deeply while in the midst of drafting – deep analysis and intentional creation can make a brain go nuts. But, if you are an outliner, this kind of practice could work well before starting.

If you lean more in the “write as I go” or the “figure it out later” camp, this is the kind of consideration that works well before launching into an edit.

And in the interim? Well, ask the next series of questions.

• What do I want to know about ________?
• What do I want to do about ________?
• How do I want to feel about _______?

The nature of some of these questions may also take you into the authorial parts of being a writer accompanying the ideas about craft.

In addition to the writing ideas listed above, consider the following:

• Book swag
• Marketing
• Building an author website
• Pitching a conference class/panel
• Entering contests
• Writing a synopsis/pitch/query letter/blurb
• Guest posting
• Book events

At this point, most writers are able to break down where they are strong and where they need some help. Essentially, we are able to place our knowledge and awareness on various places within the four stages of developing a skill.

And this brings me back to the original paragraph in this post. Are we ever at the point where taking a class wherein basic writing skills are taught wouldn’t be beneficial?

Well, that depends on individual answers to the following questions:

• Relative to what I knew about ________, what do I know now?
• Relative to what I was doing, how do I do/create/engage with ______________ now?
• Relative to what I felt about __________, how do I feel now?

Sometimes, the value of taking a class that might be basic presents a new way to think about something that has eluded us for a while. And sometimes, the value of taking a class that might be basic is that we get to really see how we have grown. Word count is great for lots of things, but taking time to reflect and understand what we have learned needs to have its place as well.

Final Thoughts

There are several ways writers can continue to learn, whether through reading blogs like this one, books about craft and creativity, online courses like MasterClass, or workshops. The key is to keep learning and to continue reaching.

Because, as we have heard, just because a writer figures out how to write one book doesn’t mean the knowledge transfers seamlessly to subsequent efforts.

What have you done to continue to grow as a writer? How do you like to recognize your growth? Please share your story with us down in the comments!

* * * * * *

About Tasha

Tasha Seegmiller writes about womanhood, families, mental wellness, and faith. She is a graduate of Pacific University’s MFA program and teaches composition at a regional university in the high mountain desert where her husband and three kids live.

Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay