Writers in the Storm

By Ellen Buikema

Every writer dreams of developing characters who continue to lurk in a reader’s memory long after the story is over. Memorable characters, well-rounded dynamic beings who grow and change over the course of a book, will make a great story even better. Often static characters, who remain unchanged throughout the story, can be memorable too. However, every character must show emotions the reader can relate to if they want to achieve “memorable” status.

Emotion directs action.

Emotion, which is a blend of energy and motion, directs action. The four basic emotions -- happiness, sadness, anger, and fear -- can be woven into your characters’ frameworks to cement them into the reader’s mind.

How can you do this?

Using facial descriptions in your story paints a vivid portrait for your reader.

The following physical descriptions may be helpful to use while writing your characters’ actions to indicate these four emotions:

For happiness: 

• Smiling with teeth exposed or not
• Wrinkles near corners of the eyes
• Facial cheeks raised
• Crescent-shaped eyes

Showing sadness:

• Inner corners of the eyebrows are
  squeezed in and upwards
• Jaw protrusion
• Lips downturned
• Lower lip pushed outward
• Eyes cast down

To indicate anger:  

• Eyebrows pressed together to make a
  crease
• Eyelids taut
• Head lowered to a minor degree
• Eyes look upwards through a lowered brow
• Strained facial muscles
• Flaring nostrils
• Lips pressed tight
• A severe gaze (Disgust looks similar to
  anger.)

For fearful looks:

• Eyebrows are raised and drawn together
• Raised upper eyelid
• Forehead wrinkled
• Tensed lower eyelid
• Whites of the eyes visible
• Mouth open, and lips pressed (Surprise
  looks much the same as fear.)

Every character needs…

A reason to exist

Your characters live in a world you’ve built for them that is just as real to them as our world is real to us. Characters need a reason for being to keep the story alive and in motion.

Balance of strengths and flaws

Whenever I read a book or watch a movie I feel very uncomfortable if there isn’t balance, or at least someone to have faith in. The first time I watched The Night of the Hunter I had the worst time until the children found a sensible adult to help balance the pursuing murderous, grifter character, played by Robert Mitchum. (I based the main antagonist for my WIP on this nasty fellow.)

In order to be well-rounded characters, the protagonists and antagonists require both strengths and weaknesses. A character without flaws is unnatural and irritating. Think of the fun you can have giving flaws to your antagonist! Perhaps she has an irrational fear of bunnies or a revolting personal habit. This website on Character Flaws is comprehensive.

Internal and external conflicts

Internal and external conflicts are obstacles to the character’s goals. Both force your characters to grow and change. These tensions create conflict and propel the story forward. Consider how internal and external conflicts might collide. A character may be fiercely independent yet find himself in the middle of a disaster and need help from others to survive.

Distinctive mannerisms

Your characters may have unusual speech, repetitive gestures, or walking patterns. For her distinctive walk, actress Marilyn Monroe had a half inch removed from one of her shoe heels, adding to her swinging gait.

Mannerisms help the reader understand the character’s self-image. For instance: “He sat at the kitchen table, eyes glazed while he chewed his fingernails to nubs.” This sentence gives us a good understanding of the character's frame of mind. He is showing us how he feels. Mannerisms can also show how one character feels about another. For example: “The sixth-grade boy sauntered up to a girl from his class and punched her lightly on the arm, grinning a sloppy smile.” He definitely had a crush.

Backstory

Consider the physical and mental health, and how the character has been affected by family and local environments. Was she ignored as a child, leading to a great need for attention?  Did he grow up well-to-do and then lose everything as a preadolescent, completely changing his personality? This background information doesn’t need to be included in the story, but truly helps the writer understand character motivations.

Research Homework for Your Story

One or more of your characters may have a physical or cognitive disability, be of a culture foreign to you, or have an unusual ailment or psychological profile. The character’s believability will stand or fall squarely on research. Today’s readers are more diverse and discerning than ever before.

Some tips:

Internet searches are helpful. If at all possible, find and interview professionals in the needed areas and add their names to your acknowledgment page if they’d like to be included. In my most recent book, The Hobo Code, I needed information on a psychopath and wanted to be sure I had the correct profile. I happen to know a retired forensic psychologist. We had a lovely, albeit weird, luncheon discussion all about psychopaths.

Final Thought

Layer your fictional folk with emotional reality. Finding perfection in the imperfect will give you beautifully flawed and memorable characters.

Above Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay

What do your characters need? Do you tend to favor certain emotions in your characters? What type of characters do you have the most fun writing?

******

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.

By Kris Maze

Young Adult novels have come a long way from the classics we read in school.  Novels like S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye were first accepted into the newly coined category, Young Adult (YA) in the 1960’s. While YA literature focuses on adolescence and coming of age stories, it can span any genre and follows the rules within those types of writing.

YA also appeals to multi-generations of readers, evolving from the single-problem stories of an after school special to the mega-blockbusters we see today. One thing is for sure: readers of all ages are gobbling up these stories.

Writers today have questions about how this multifaceted category works, and whether their novel is actually YA. Below are tips to help you answer these questions. (Plenty of examples and ways to enhance your current story are included.)

How To Know if You Are Writing YA

Do you have a story featuring a young protagonist? One topic writers ask about is how to create a YA book editors will swoon for. Although this book category is defined by the age of the protagonist (between 12 and 18 years old), writing a YA novel is way more involved than a number. Working through the following questions may reduce the confusion and help you identify whether your novel is considered Young Adult.

What is your character’s age?

The age indicates which shelf your book sells from in bookstores or Amazon accounts, but not always. Most publishers say YA stories have protagonists between the ages of 14 to 18, or the time they would be in high school.  Sometimes the lower end dips to a younger age, but then it overlaps with Middle Grade.  A book with an older Main Character (MC) experiencing first milestones such as an apartment, job, or serious romance tends to be in the New Adult (NA) category. The difference then becomes the content and tone of the story as to the intended audience.

Age drives how your character acts, and what they are able to do. The MC’s age has to intertwine with the purpose of the character’s age to make the difference.  This can determine whether you have written a YA story or one in another category.

Some examples:

In All the Bright Places (Jennifer Niven, 2015), MC Violet Markey rides a bike for transportation.  Why?  Because we know that 16 is the youngest age someone can legally drive and bikes are a way to travel without your mom driving you around in the broken-down minivan.  While bikes are a logical part of a YA protagonist’s world, we also find out that Violet is actually avoiding other types of travel due to a tragic loss. 

Here is where the real YA juices start flowing. 

Violet isn’t just rebelling from her family and seeking independence, she's flat out refusing to use her driver’s license! Teens avoid the inevitable acceptance that life as an adult is inherently different. It is natural for a teen like Violet to want to push "pause" and stop growing when life becomes overwhelming.

Using plausible but interesting plot points that relate to a teen’s life helps readers recapture that wonder.  Making the reader warn the characters from behind the pages about the foreseeable pitfalls of their choices and breaking our hearts anyway, makes the YA story irresistible.

What is the time frame of your story?

Most YA storylines last a year or less. There are exceptions, but there are pragmatic reasons for keeping your story's timeline short. These kids haven’t been alive that long.  A year is forever, especially in high school.  A story arc for a freshman would appear very different from one with an upperclassman.

If your story is longer than that, the good news is that you may have more than one story to tell!

What is the Main Conflict in your story?

There are certain constraints for your character built into their YA story arc.  Characters act differently if they're thirteen years old versus eighteen. The age of the protagonist should match the main problem they face.

Is your story about a character's first independent trip, or starting a babysitting business?  These situations have more impact when your character is closer to the Middle Grade stage (12-14 or younger).

Whereas decisions about an occupation, working in a restaurant, or getting cut from a high school sports team is much more suited to the 14 years or older age range.

No topic is off-limits if handled with care.

It isn't hard to find examples of controversial but popular books and series that cover dark subject matter. The Hunger Games, 13 Reasons Why, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Fault in Our Stars cover sanctioned murder, suicide, mental illness, and teens with cancer. This hardly seems like material to hand to young readers.

I've read many questions from writers who wonder if their gritty story line is too dark. Teen novels thrive in the dark corners of the undeveloped mind.
Their early cynicism is part of what keeps teens alive through this impulsive part of life. Dark stories can provide safe, vicarious places for readers to make their own choices about what is right and wrong. 

Readers learn empathy and experience other cultures through these stories.
A writer's job is to capture that worry and wonder and give readers experiences to feel of all the feels.

What is your story’s Conflict?

Identify your conflict - YA by definition is all about awkward, cringe-worthy, desperate, confused, and at times incredibly innocent, adolescence. These elements when rooted in the coming of age, problems of a teen kind of way, pave the way for a YA novel readers will crave.

If the main problem (i.e. mom’s dating my math teacher) is inherent to the teen years, your story is YA.  If the story could fit in a different time, maybe it’s not. 

One writer asked whether we would categorize their story about a teen who snuck into the army as YA.  This writer considered the conflict and point of view of the MC with the following questions. 

• Do we feel as if we are alongside the teen in their situation?

• Are the concerns of the protagonist consistent with what teenagers feel? 

• Do they pick up the weapon but worry if they said the right thing to the girl? 

• Is doing something for the first time in all its glory oozing from the story?  Flying a plane, traveling beyond the borders of a little town, meeting a new kid with worldly tales?

• Do they trip over their own feet and feel out of place, even though their dialogue shows a different tale? 

Teens are faking it until they make it. (Kind of like a lot of successful people!) This dynamic of uncertainty must be present to make authentic YA that resonates from the pages.

Does your story need to be in the category of YA?

Write your best story. Should be experienced through the eyes of a teen? Find the bones of the story.  The story will let you know. Listen carefully as it may be whispering something else to you.

If it isn’t inside the parameters of YA, or you don't hear any whispering, don’t be discouraged.  The story may belong on another shelf, if the story isn’t suited to YA, make it shine as a MG or Adult novel. 

YA is a narrow focus with many genres and is just one type of story to tell.  Stay true to your tale and make it shine.  Use the questions above to focus your story and enhance if it is YA, if not you will know better what to disregard. 

IMPORTANT TIP: Know that part of adolescence is having a superpower to spot pandering and two-dimensional characteristics light-years away. Effective YA writing involves working out tough topics and plotting them in satisfying ways. No shortcuts in fleshing out the stereotypical characters either.

If you have seen this character before, or feel you have figured out the ending in the first pages, why would you as a reader continue? 

This article by a YA editor offers great suggestions to read to continue your exploration of the craft. Writer’s Digest has an interesting article written by a teen writer asking adult writers to just… stop. We have covered guidelines here to get to the heart of what makes an effective YA story, but really listening to your protagonist helps.

What story featuring a young protagonist has stayed with you?  Are there favorite stories from your youth (or a youthful story) that you've re-read recently?  What other YA writing tips do you have to share? I look forward to your comments!

About Kris

Kris Maze writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. You can find her brief horror stories and keep up with her author events at her website.

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, hiking the forest with her dog Charlie, and pondering the wisdom of Bob Ross.

Kris Maze's debut novel IMPACT arrives tomorrow! See here for the last day of Pre-Sale prices!

The year is 2098, and Nala Nightingale is a young journalist at the media conglomerate Intercambio 7. She wants to investigate her parents untimely deaths. Instead, she’s stuck reporting on the latest makeup trends with her rival Mimi. That all changes when a catastrophic asteroid hurtles towards earth. Inspired by a wordless book and the red gems on her bracelet, Nala turns down the broadcast of a lifetime to unravel her past before the impact. However, things don’t go as planned. The world above ground is in ruins. Trapped underground with a mysterious scientist named Edison and his chess master AI, can Nala Nightingale find the will to live and to love in a dystopian future?

Published through Aurelia Leo in various formats.

by Tasha Seegmiller

Once upon a time, I thought that publishing was a thing where you learn your craft really well, do the work, and then navigate the query trenches.

Once upon a time, I thought that once someone got an agent, the two of them would work together to make the manuscript better and then have conversations about how to submit manuscripts.

Once upon a time, I thought if an editor liked a book, it was like an agent liking a book, wherein they worked out the details of the contract and then proceeded to make the book better until it was publication-ready.

I have since learned that all this is as likely as Cinderella’s fairy godmother, as likely as Prince Phillip winning a battle with an enchanted sword flung toward a raging dragon, as likely as an ogre ending up with a princess who is also an ogre.

This post is not meant to be a downer. I promise.

It is meant to help people align their expectations of writing a little better. Because though I have a very vivid imagination (writer on purpose people), I don’t think I’m the only person who thinks publishing works that way. I don’t think I’m the only one who has been shocked that people change agents, that publishing houses can sell two books fairly well and then have a gazillion reasons for not resigning.

It wasn’t until I started knocking on the door of the publishing arena that I noticed many – MANY – of my favorite authors had several books by one publishing house, and then others with another.

There are a lot of people who think getting an MFA is the way to cure that. That having someone dedicate their time to helping you become a better writer is the way to skip ahead in the line a bit.

While I am currently in an MFA program, while I have loved being in my MFA program, I will say that I have had more than one advisor let us know that 3% of people in such programs go on to be published. In fact, amid the advisors in my particular program, only the ones old enough to have retired are those not also working another job, generally at a different university.

What’s an aspiring author to do?

The easiest answer is quit. (Wait, wait, hear me out.)

If every time you sit down to write, you dread trying to get words on a page, if the thought of creating stories and revising and editing and promoting and talking about your work gives you a longing to chew on broken glass instead, maybe you should quit. You don’t have to tell anyone. Just quit.

I have quit a few times. I was done with the mucky, murky, miserable middles. I was done thinking about character arcs and their interactions and everything. I was done.

So far, the longest I’ve been able to quit has been about three weeks. And then, when I’m folding the never-ending pile of clothes or making dinner or washing my hair or even just hanging out in the hours between wake and sleep, a way to advance the story I’m working on moves across my mind like a breeze.

I will be sitting somewhere and see someone who makes me wonder, who makes me interested, who makes me want to consider their story. It’s generally nothing brighter than a candle-sized flame at the end of a massive, dark cave, but it’s enough that I want to get closer to it, to see what’s going on there, to play a little in that light.

And then I’m making up names and backstories and other characters, breaking through the struggles characters and I were having about where a story needs to go next, and before I realize it, I’ve thrown 500 or 1000 words on a page for a story, and I want to write again. 

If quitting doesn't work, what does?

Since quitting hasn’t really seemed to work for me, and since the odds are really not in a writer’s favor, what’s an aspiring author to do? I recommend the following.

1. Education

Yes, I know I already told you the reality of MFA programs. And while I do not regret for one single second the work and money and time I have put into my program, I’m not necessarily talking about that kind of education.

I’m talking about taking the time to really look at what has happened to an author’s publishing careers. You can do this via a website like Goodreads, and just scan through. How often have they published books? Who published them?

Pay attention to the acknowledgments pages of books you read, especially by the same author. Most won’t make an announcement that they have left a relationship with an agent publicly, so you want to see who they are thanking for helping bring their work forward.

Read books that really talk about the writing industry. I recommend Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum and The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman. Follow these people on social media, take time to understand the content in their newsletters, really look at what is going on in the world around publishing.

Read lots and lots and lots. Read the kinds of books you want to publish. Read the kinds of books that break what you thought you might consider your genre. Pay attention to what is being published NOW (Harry Potter and Eat, Pray, Love are great books. They are not current. You need to be aware of the current).

2. Talk

Make friends with authors and then engage in conversations.

• How many of them got an agent with their first book?
• How many of them signed with a publisher with their first book?
• If they went the self-publishing route, what did they pay to editors and cover designers?

All authors need to learn what is involved in marketing in a saturated market? What does a publisher/publicity person do and what is the author expected to do?

Recently, there have been conversations on Twitter about how many jobs agents have to work in order to make things work. Did you know that?

There was also a serious conversation about what authors made up front with their books. Go see #publishingpaidme to get insights. It’s not awesome, so keep some comfort food nearby, but know that most authors are working other jobs for a good amount of time into their publishing careers. They often talk about this candidly.

3. Write for You.

Okay, a caveat. If you decide to do a story about aliens and vampires secretly conspiring and it’s all in a dystopian setting, you likely aren’t going to get very far. There are some rules within genres and a smart writer will be aware of those (see Education above).

But you need to write stories that speak to your heart. You need to craft characters that reflect what you want to say about life and the world and society and whatever else is driving you. You are going to put a lot of time into writing that story.

A LOT.

Make sure you start out writing something you love because you will hit a point where it is not as fun as you thought it would be. Don’t go chasing markets, trends, bestseller lists, or try to create a story your mom/ dad/ boss/ cousin/ dog/ neighbor/ cat/ spouse has always wanted you to write because it’s not going to work.

In the quiet of the night, in the solitude when it is you and your story, what rings true?

Keep writing that.

What are lessons about publication you have recently learned? Any resources you think help give a better idea of what aspiring authors can expect?

About Tasha

Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is an MFA candidate in the Writing Program at Pacific University and teaches composition courses at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven, is the mom of three teens, and co-owner of a soda shack and cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.

Top Graphic by K Maze