Writers in the Storm

by Lisa Hall Wilson

I’m often asked how to go deeper in fiction. My jam is Deep Point of View, and I get that not everyone loves deep POV. That’s okay. However, if you’re looking for a really quick way to make your setting or characters come alive on the page, personification is one of those tools that every writer can use more effectively.

Personification: giving human-like qualities to non-human things. 

The last piece of pie called his name.
The story jumped off the page.
Opportunity knocks.

All of these examples give a human-like quality or emotion to something that isn’t human. Pie doesn’t talk. Stories can’t jump anymore than opportunity can knock on something. These are obviously not literal meanings but figurative.

Some types of personification deal in the literal. This is actually a deep rabbit hole on the various types of personification, but I’m not convinced that knowing the labels for these things is all that helpful, so long as you know of them and use them strategically.

Other types of personification are: anthropomorphism (a non-human animal, object or deity literally acting like a human), pathetic fallacy (attributing human feelings to the natural world), embodiment (a person or thing is representative of an abstract concept – she is integrity itself), etc.

Personification is efficient – it captures a big idea with just a few words. Here’s how personification can create an immersive and emotional depth for readers.

Make the Setting Instantly Relatable

Giving non-human things human qualities gives readers something tangible they can imagine and empathize with. Think of rain. We often personify rain to help us describe how we feel about it, but also describe its intensity or impact. It’s more efficient and allows us to show others how we perceive the rain. The rain punished everything it landed on, flattening and breaking. The rain welcomed us with a warm mist and a cooling touch. The rain blinded us and drove us off the road.

Can you picture or imagine the intensity or the impact of the rain in each of those sentences? It’s efficient writing, not only because it uses two seemingly unalike things to create a vivid picture, but also because it allows us to imbue emotion into it.

Setting details can reflect the character’s mood, or their impression of the natural world around them. A man running for his life who is hopeful he’ll survive, could find that the trees help him hide and shelter him. The man running for his life who isn’t sure how things will turn out, who maybe feels overwhelmed or overpowered, might perceive the branches pull and tear at his clothes and skin, hoping to slow him down.

The weather could be oppressive, foreboding, or temperamental.

Personification Is Immersive

Personification allows us to immerse the reader in the story and especially make the setting come alive. Describe the things in the scene as if those objects expressed an emotion.

Neil Gaiman writes, “Personification is an effective tool for placing the reader in the story with a 360 view of the setting. In Bleak House, Charles Dickens describes a thick fog settling as rolling, hovering, creeping, and ‘cruelly pinching’ the toes and fingers of a boy.” (source here)

A warrior stands on the edge of the arena, rolling her neck and bouncing on her toes. She looks up at the trees. The leaves wave their encouragement.

How does this character feel about the upcoming battle? Can you now picture the trees with their waving fluttering leaves, and how – to her – the leaves stand in for some deity’s support perhaps?

Amplifies Connotation and Mood by Indirectly Expressing Feelings

How a character feels, the mood you’re trying to evoke, is efficiently created with personification. A young woman walks up to a house. How might you describe this walk from the character’s perspective?

The house might lean over her, frown at her, stand immovable against time, or keep secrets. Maybe the house is cheerful or tired. Maybe the house tells lies, allows the people inside to put on a veneer, a false façade. Each of those descriptions would be a slightly different take on how the character feels as they’re walking up to that house. Especially in deep POV, this is super effective in conveying mood, priority and even expressing feelings.

If the tired house leans over the broken walk, do you need to describe every broken shutter or missing shingle for the reader to understand how the character feels? The description also lends itself to a sympathetic view for readers.

If the looming peaks and angry pillars glare at those who dare to trespass, well, that’s a different house altogether. It may not be important that the reader pictures that house exactly as you do. What’s important is that the reader understands how the character feels as they’re walking up to that house.

Personification Requires Creativity

It’s very easy to fall into cliché and just repeat phrases we’re familiar with. Don’t do it. Surprise your readers! Force them to lean in and care, to sympathize, to cheer for the characters because they know how this feels!

Take the extra step to immerse yourself in your character’s viewpoint. What in their world would be familiar to them that could also show readers what’s important or a priority?

Metaphors and similes with their comparisons are popular, and fairly so, but to take your writing even deeper, consider strategically using personification to pull your reader deeper into the story.

Do you regularly make use of personification in your writing? Which method is your favorite? Please share it with us in the comments!

Make sure to visit Lisa’s free Facebook group Going Deeper Writing Emotions for tips, free content, and other goodies.

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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 Eldred “Bob” Bird

My characters are my children. I create them, nurture them, and help them grow. I also abuse them, annoy them, and torture them. I’m a writer—it’s my job.

If I’ve done my job well, by the end of the story the main character will have gone through the fires of hell and come out the other side a changed, more well-rounded individual. That’s the hope anyway.

But you’ve probably heard it said that for someone to profoundly change, they must want to change, and therein lies the rub. People—including our characters—need a reason to step out of their comfort zone and make deep, lasting changes. As writers it’s our job to push our characters out the door and slam it behind them, giving them no choice but to move forward.

So, how do we accomplish this task? We must answer the question our characters ask every time we try to get them to step up:

“What’s my motivation?”

Creating Change

The catalyst for change can come from an endless number of sources, but they usually fall into one of two basic categories:

• External motivators - Just as the name implies, external motivators come from the world around our characters. These are factors that are out of their immediate control—things like weather, natural disasters, interference by other characters, or major life changes (divorce, financial ruin, death in the family).
• Internal motivators. – Psychological needs fall into the category of internal motivators. These are the things that feed our emotions and egos and are fertile ground for planting the seeds of fear and self-doubt, among other things. While these factors are under the individual’s control, they don’t feel like it in the moment.

A Helpful Tool

My favorite way to generate motivation is to consult with our old friend Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow gives us plenty of rocks to throw at our characters. Let’s look at his five levels of need and see how we can use them to create internal and external pressures to force change.

Basic Needs are the external motivators and minimum requirements everyone needs to survive. They make up the foundation of Maslow’s pyramid and are an easy place to start when looking for ways to complicate our character’s lives.

• Physiological Needs - food, water, warmth, rest –Take away any one of them and you create desperation, a psychological state that can easily push someone to cross a line they might not otherwise cross. Force someone into survival mode and they will lie, cheat, steal, and in some cases, even kill to get what they need.
• Safety Needs – security, safety – These can be internal or external. It’s not just about locking doors for physical security or to hide from prying eyes, but also about the feeling of security, or lack of it. Sometimes those feelings are rooted deep in the past, giving us scars to pick at and expose weaknesses. The trick here is to expose the old scars without dumping too much backstory and pulling the reader out of the narrative. Weave the details into the action but use them sparingly.

Psychological Needs. Now we get into the tough stuff. Psychological needs are internal motivators—the mental triggers both dreams, and nightmares are made of. Messing around in the psyches of our characters can be a dangerous and disturbing exercise. Bringing truth to the narrative often requires us to face our own demons in order to lead the character through the experience and bring them out whole on the other side.

• Belongingness and Love Needs – intimate relationships, friends – The romantic love angle is obvious, but there are other types of intimate relationships. They may be as simple as needing that one friend you know will listen or as complex as the blending of families after a second marriage. The need to belong can be deeply rooted in the past, like trying to overcome a rejection that shakes you to the core.
• Esteem Needs – prestige, feelings of accomplishment – This one is ego driven. While your main character might be pushed to change by the need for recognition, I find this a great tool to use when developing the antagonist. Villains are often ego driven, overcompensating for being put down or ignored in the past. This can push someone to try to “prove everyone wrong.”

Self-fulfillment Needs

• Self-actualization – achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities – As creatives, this is a motivation I feel everyone who writes can connect with. We’ll do just about anything to finish that novel or land our dream agent. We can feed the characters with our own desires to reach the top of our personal mountains, beat our chest, and scream with delight at achieving our goals.

Some Final Thoughts

Anyone who has ever tried to break a bad habit or make a life altering course correction knows that change doesn’t come easy, so don’t make it easy on your characters either. Maslow is a great place to start when looking for motivation, but don’t stop there. If you do your research, draw on your own experiences, and make the change relatable for your readers, you’ll end up with a more engaging, believable tale.

How do you motivate change in your characters? Do you have any favorite tools to get the job done?

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About Eldred

Eldred Bird writes contemporary fiction, short stories, and personal essays. He has spent a great deal of time exploring the deserts, forests, and deep canyons inside his home state of Arizona. His James McCarthy adventures, Killing Karma, Catching Karma, and Cold Karma, reflect this love of the Grand Canyon State even as his character solves mysteries amidst danger. Eldred explores the boundaries of short fiction in his stories, The Waking Room, Treble in Paradise: A Tale of Sax and Violins, and The Smell of Fear.

When he’s not writing, Eldred spends time cycling, hiking and juggling (yes, juggling…bowling balls and 21-inch knives). His passion for photography allows him to record his travels. He can be found on Twitter or Facebook, or at his website.

Top Image and Pyramid Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

by John Peragine

As the date of the launch of my novel, Max and the Spice Thieves, approaches I have been seeking and receiving reviews. Every time I see a new one in the mailbox, I cringe a little before opening it. I brace for the worst and hope for the best.

There is a certain amount of courage that is needed to send your “baby” out into the world, not only to be read but to be judged. On purpose, no less.

Before I was a full-time writer, I was a symphony musician. Since I was a boy, I played the flute and had many years of lessons and education. By the time it was performance time, I would have rehearsed with the orchestra for two or three weeks. As I sat down, I still worried about missing a cue or hitting a wrong note. As the piccolo player, there was no hiding in the orchestra. If I played at the wrong time or missed a passage, it was very obvious. 99.99 percent of the time, I played well, but it did little to help me reduce my stress for the next performance.

Sending a book out, and having someone read it, is my live performance. When I finished a piece with the orchestra, the conductor motioned with his hand, I stood up, and there was applause. When I type “The End,” there is no such applause or feedback, and so reviews take the place of the applause.

How To Protect Yourself

Coming from a music and theater background, I often heard, “Don’t read your own reviews.” For many years, I believed this advice is to deter people from getting an inflated ego, but now I think it was for a different reason: to protect your confidence.

Even one bad review can wheedle away at your self-confidence and allow the fraud police to step in and whisper in your ear, “You see, they hate it. Give it up. You’re not a writer. You’re a fraud.”

There have been times I have read a review and heard those very words in my head. So, maybe I shouldn’t read my reviews? I don’t think that is the answer. Instead, I have to read them with the right mindset.

Not Everyone is Going to Love It

I have accepted (or I am learning to accept) that not everyone will love my book. To me, it is like taking my human baby out for a stroll in the park and someone coming up and saying, “Damn, that’s an ugly baby.” It’s tough, right?

But the truth is that not everyone will love my book. I have broken down the common reasons for this:

1. My book just wasn’t good enough. It could mean I need another edit, a better cover, or a rewrite. I have to watch for patterns of many reviews saying the same thing, determine they are right, and then being willing to do something about it. This is why authors MUST get reviews early and allot at least 90 days before they release their book so they can make changes before the book goes live.

2. The reviewer is a troll. You know, someone who just likes to trash another person because they are a coward or a bully. These are easy to spot, as they are usually one or two sentences, and from their remarks, it is obvious they never read the book. Moving on.

3. Jealously or competition can be a motivation. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. An author may trash another author to try to bring the book down and reduce its rating. If you know that this is happening, you should contact whoever is in charge of the platform for the review and report it. Most readers can recognize these types of attacks. Again move on.

4. It just isn’t their type of book. This is the category that most less-than-stellar reviews fall under. It’s not you, it’s not your writing, they just don’t like your book, and that is fine. You want honest reviews. Accept it and move on.

Reviews are Important

Sometimes people skip asking for reviews. They fear people are not going to like it. They may or may not like it, but reviews are very important for a couple of reasons.

First, they provide you with feedback about what works, what doesn’t work, and what your readers are craving. If they like a particular character in your first book, you should definitely consider putting more of them in your second book. If Jar Jar Binks appears in your book, then you should kill him off quickly and in a satisfying way in your next book.

Second, you are building buzz. You are getting people to talk about your book and hopefully convince them to buy a copy when it’s available.

Third, it adds credibility to your book. Good blurbs make your book worth reading. Adding these to your book listings, your cover, and inside your book make it look desirable.

Final Thoughts

Having a few imperfect reviews makes the other reviews look more authentic. No one gets all five stars, and it could look like to readers that you only had friends and family review your book.

Less than perfect reviews can trigger me a bit, but then I sit and analyze the review further and remember that someone on the other end cared enough to read my book and then sit down and write a review. And for that, I am grateful.

Where do you get your reviews? What is your best “bad” review? Please share your stories down in the comments!

About John

John Peragine has published 14 books and ghostwritten more than 100 others. He is a contributor for HuffPost, Reuters, and The Today Show. He covered the John Edwards trial exclusively for Bloomberg News and The New York Times. He has written for Wine Enthusiast, Grapevine Magazine, Realtor.com, WineMaker magazine, and Writer's Digest.

John began writing professionally in 2007, after working 13 years in social work and as the piccolo player for the Western Piedmont Symphony for over 25 years. Peragine is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. You can learn more about his books at JohnPeragineBooks.com. 

His newest book, Max and the Spice Thieves, will be released on April 20, 2021. Click here for a free first chapter.