Writers in the Storm

by Dr. Miffie Seideman, Pharm.D.
Part of the “Over My Dead Body” Series

Sights, sounds, and smells often evoke very powerful memories. Consider your own emotions or memories, when you imagine the smell of freshly cut grass? Or the scent of a charred marshmallow clinging to a stick over a campfire? What feelings surface while imagining the deep sound of rolling thunder or the sight of a lightning-streaked sky?

As writers, most of us use sensory descriptors to engage our readers more fully. It wouldn’t seem unusual to spend time deciding how to describe the eye color of a character or the smell of his after-dinner coffee, sipped on the veranda. We may add the aroma of his cherry pipe tobacco or the amber glow of the brandy swirling in his snifter. These descriptors add a more three-dimensional experience for our readers.  

But what if our brandy-sipping character leans down and snorts a line of cocaine from the crystal serving tray? Would you consider describing the pungently bitter taste of cocaine dripping down the back of his throat, before he chases it down with a bit more brandy? Describing drug-related sensory details can be very powerful for the reader and the story.

Some suggestions for incorporating drug sensory descriptions into your scenes:

Use scents to build tension.

Which is more powerful? Reading how a teen character gets grounded, when his parent catches him smoking pot? Or putting the reader in Mom’s point of view, as she first recognizes the distinct skunk-like odor coming from under her son’s bedroom door? And what an opportunity to hint at why Mom knows that smell so well!

Drug odors can be used to validate a character’s next action.

Maybe the sweet, nail-polish-like breath of an unconscious patient helps the emergency room doctor suspect isopropyl alcohol poisoning. Or the lingering odor of cat urine mixed with burnt marshmallows at a drug bust makes the officer search for a cache of meth.

Colors are another great way to add dimension to drug-related scenes.

Scene tension can change dramatically, when the reader realizes the sky-blue pills at the party are just like the lethal fentanyl-tainted pills from an earlier drug bust. Yellow nicotine-stained fingers can betray a character’s smoking habit. The blue-lips and almost imperceptible breathing of a teen found lying next to an empty syringe will cause the paramedic to grab the opioid antidote.

Don’t be afraid to use sound.

Consider how a character’s chattering teeth during meth withdrawal or the strenuous, whistling sound of him gasping for air from an opioid overdose can intensify a scene. Even small sounds, such as the repetitive sniffing from snorting cocaine or the bubbling sound of a marijuana bong being smoked, add depth to a reader’s experience.  

How to sound familiar with the unfamiliar, or illegal?

The problem with writing sensory description is that it often relies on past experiences- ours or those of people we know. Not knowing what a certain drug looks, smells, sounds, or feels like is a barrier I hear from authors. “If I haven’t seen or used crack, how could I know how to describe it?” I completely understand. I haven’t seen crack cocaine in person either (except for a baggie left in the hospital bathroom by a patient once). Just being a pharmacist doesn’t mean I automatically know what all drugs look or smell like.

Thankfully, the internet has a number of good places to research this information, especially parent and addiction support sites. In my work, I’ve had to use online resources to identify pills found near patients or partially eaten by a family dog. In my writing, I use them to garner description for scenes.

For prescription drugs: Free online pill identifiers, such as the one at Drugs.com can be searched by color, shape, or imprint number to find pictures of capsules or pills fitting the description. Searching by a drug name shows pictures of the actual medication, with links to information, such as usage and side effects.

For illegal drugs: Drugabuse.com offers a parent guide, listing some distinct sensory characteristics for a number of abused drugs. Getsmartaboutdrugs.gov/drugs contains a wealth of information regarding abused drugs.

Finally, poison control centers and first responders, including paramedics, medical personnel, and police can be invaluable in providing accurate information for many drug-related details.

Hopefully, these tips and resources will help make describing drug-related scenes a bit easier, offering yet one more way to add dimension to your writing.

Do you have examples of drug-related sensory descriptors you have used to enhance your writing? How have you used them to strengthen your readers’ experiences? I’d love to chat about it down in the comments!

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About Miffie

Miffie Seideman has been a pharmacist for over 30 years, with a passion for helping others. As a published non-fiction author, her articles have appeared in several professional pharmacy journals. An avid triathlete, she spends countless hours training in the deserts of Arizona, devising drug-related plot twists. She can be found hanging around onwemerrilystumble.com and on Twitter @MiffieSeideman.

By Ellen Buikema

Using humor in writing is vital, especially in our current times. We all need more laughter in our lives.

Creating Humor in Writing

Know Your Audience

Not everyone has the same sense of humor. One person’s mirth may be another's eye-roll. The reader’s age is important to take into consideration.  Something funny to a teen or adult will not necessarily work for a young child—although bathroom humor—which starts very early in life, never seems to get old.

 It’s helpful to have a feel for your readers’ expectations.

Jim Butcher’s fantasy/mystery series, The Dresden Files, is full of humor—sarcastic as well as oddly motivational. The following quote in which detective and wizard Harry Dresden interacts with medical examiner Waldo Butters is from Dead Beat, number 7 in the series.

“‘We are not going to die.’

Butters stared up at me, pale, his eyes terrified. ‘Were not?’

‘No. And do you know why?’ He shook his head. ‘Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I am too stubborn to die.’ I hauled on the shirt even harder. ‘And most of all because tomorrow is Octoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die.’”

Create Comedy using Repetition

Like the knock-knock joke, repetition with a surprise ending formula can work for prose. Here is an example by essayist David Sedaris from his collection Naked showing comedy through surprise.

“The first two times I read the book, I found myself aching with pleasure. Yes, these people were naughty, but at the age of thirteen, I couldn’t help but admire their infectious energy and spirited enjoyment of life. The third time I came away shocked, not by the characters’ behavior but by the innumerable typos.”

Subtle Humor

Terry Pratchett, a king of subtle humor, wrote wryly humanistic prose. Such as this from his book, Interesting Times.

"And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason."

Genre Dependent Humor

Not all types of humor work well in all genres. Adding slapstick in the middle of a thriller or horror novel can be jarring and pull the reader right out of the story. That said, humor can add an interesting dimension to characters such as in Lish McBride’s Hold Me Closer Necromancer.  

“I began to wonder what he meant by politics. Zombies in the Senate and as heads of state actually cleared a lot of things up for me. In fact, if you told most people that the White House was being run by legions of the undead, they'd probably just say, ‘Figures.’”

Humor for Characterization

Reveal the personalities of your characters through humor, or have a witty narrator.  A humorous narrator works well for first person point of view. Sherman Alexie’s  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a good example, using humor as a coping mechanism.

“Two thousand Indians laughed at the same time. … It was the most glorious noise I’d ever heard. And I realized that, sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean, but dang, we knew how to laugh. When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.”

More About Laughter

Short-term benefits and long-term effects, physical as well as emotional

• Lowers blood pressure – A good belly laugh improves vascular dilation so there is better blood flow.
• Burns calories – Fifteen minutes of laughter burns ten to forty calories, depending upon intensity. That doesn’t sound like much, but that is still one to four pounds per year.
• Cleanses the lungs – A belly laugh requires deeper breathing, which saturates the lungs with oxygenated blood. You might cough a bit, but this action is helpful for respiratory problems.
• Works out the abs, shoulders, and heart – Laughter provides an internal workout by contracting the abs, exercising the diaphragm, and heart. Remember laughing so hard that your stomach ached?
• Improves relationships – Laughing makes you feel better, causing a lighter mood that attracts positivity in others.
• Reduces stress – Laughter reduces stress inducing cortisol and increases endorphins in the body, causing feelings of well-being.
• Boosts the immune system – Laughing triggers the production of dopamine, which enhance the effectiveness of T-cells, helping to improve overall immunity. It may be possible, in part, to laugh yourself healthy. Norman Cousins’ book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, covers this topic.
• A sign of high intelligence – It takes both cognitive and emotional abilities to understand and produce humor. Funny people are bright.

Humor, from Burlesque to Deadpan, is all around us. Allow some of the joy of laughter into your heart. Be happy.

What is your favorite type of humor? Do you feel it’s possible to use humor in all stories? Tell us a joke in the comments if you'd like - it can be from your life or works, or someone else's (just give them credit).

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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 Work In Progress, The Hobo Code, is YA historical fiction.

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

Top Image by Galina Bogdanovskaya from Pixabay

By Ellen Buikema

Writing historical fiction begins with a base of facts that sit atop the whisper of a story. As a child, my mom told me stories about her mother, who was adopted by a rather strange, superstitious woman with a daughter of her own. Mom also mentioned that Grandma’s older brother and sister escaped from the orphanage and ran away with the help of hobos, eventually finding their way from the Midwest to the West Coast. Only three years old, Grandma was too young to run with her siblings. Her older sister and brother were eleven and seven. It must have been terrifying for all of them.

For The Hobo Code I started with my mother's stories, then added the information I gathered from genealogical studies, interviews  (phone, email, text, as well as in person), Google Earth images, YouTube videos, Pinterest photos, and document searches.

Research assistance can come from unexpected sources.

My uncle spent much of his retirement either on the golf course or on his computer working on genealogy for several branches of the family. He sent me the data which I eventually used in my story.

Poring through his files, I learned my great grandmother's street address in Wausau, Wisconsin, the cause and date of her death, and where she was buried. I also found a marriage certificate for my great aunt showing she married in Los Angeles, California. The Hobo Code grew out of all this information, using historically accurate locations and cultures from Wausau to Los Angeles, and the train stops in between.

Since I was unable to travel the route myself, I made liberal use of Google Earth to check for train tracks, waterways, state lines, cities, and train stations. Finding and following those train tracks was a bit tedious, but accuracy is important. In one scene my protagonist spots hobos atop a train passing by the cemetery where their mother had just been buried. Google Earth images, combined with a phone interview with a retired railroad worker, allowed me to be sure of the setting’s validity.

On this writing journey, one conversation led to another.

Nothing pushes the research for a historical novel forward like live conversations.

When I lived in Arizona, a delightful group of miniature railroad hobbyists—actually more obsessors—had a club housed not far from my home. During the drafting of The Hobo Code, I stopped by the club to chat. I left with a few books and several suggestions for internet searches, and the telephone number of a gentleman who used to work on the railroad in Chicago.

That man is now the General Manager for the Union Pacific Historical Society. The amount of information he can call to mind in an instant is astounding. He helped me determine the probable route taken considering the years of travel and the start and end points.

Once I was firm on the story’s direction, I contacted a lot of resources:

• 6 libraries
• 5 historical societies
• 2 historical museums
• The owner of a bar in Wausau, Wisconsin.

Everyone I spoke with was happy to join in the fun. The bar was the Glass Hat, previously known as the Langsdorf Saloon, in Wausau, WI and the owner is Gisela Marks. The bar is directly across the river from my protagonist’s family home and the father in my story frequented the saloon.

Gisela and I discussed the bar’s history at length and it was incredibly helpful. In one scene, I wanted to have music playing and considered either a piano or accordion. During our conversation, I learned that she found a box from an upright piano in the basement when she inherited the bar from her parents. So my scene has the father accompanying a piano player.

Details like this help make the history of your novel come alive. For example, the bar owner saved photos of the original ceiling tiles as she’d considered restoring them. Those images were integral in setting my scene. To fifteen-year-old Jack, my main protagonist, those tiles made him feel that someone was watching him from that ceiling.

You can't use everything.

For example, the gangster John Dillinger frequented the Langsdorf Saloon and was once saved from capture by an employee. This would have been wonderful to include. Alas, my story begins in 1905 when Dillinger was a young child making this a fascinating but unusable fact for this story.

I grew up hearing about the Wild West, thinking it was mostly tall tales.

I was wrong. Here are some fascinating examples.

The Burnt District of Omaha, Nebraska, was an area of downtown where most of the city's brothels were located. Estimates placed the number of sex workers at over 1,600. The brothels had large windows through which potential customers could gawk at the acts going on within.

Hidden behind respectable businesses lurked Electric Alley, Ogden, Utah’s red-light district, known for its opium dens and brothels.  Dora B. Topham, “Belle London,” was Ogden’s most notorious madam. She used the London Ice Cream Parlor as a front for one of her bordellos, located on the upper level. Running a brothel was one of the few business opportunities open to women at the time. The residents of Electric Alley were evicted in 1912, but illegal activities continued there into the 1950’s.

The London Ice Cream Parlor building still stands. You can buy ice cream and sandwiches there while being haunted by the ghosts of day’s past.

Final Thoughts

Although the research for a historical novel is time consuming, I enjoyed every minute of it. The Hobo Code became a journey for me, even as it followed my characters across a large part of the United States. They met fascinating people along the way, and so did I!

When you read historical fiction, what do you hope to find? Do you feel it’s important to use historical figures or does that not matter? What is your favorite historical time period to read about?

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 Work In Progress, The Hobo Code, is YA historical fiction.

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

Top photo found on Pinterest