Writers in the Storm

Writing is the most powerful of all professions. Everyone needs us. And I do mean everyone. Readers need us to entertain them and transport them from the challenges of their daily lives. Businesses need us to describe what they do in compelling language that helps sell their product or service. Children need stories to help cement their learning and teach them about life. Even the storytellers need the stories and creativity that flow through their veins. Stories provide writers with joy and hope and respite from dreary everyday life things like pandemics.

Stories are good for our mental health and development.

Research has proven that oral storytelling particularly assists with the development of social and emotional abilities, cognitive growth, and language skills in babies. It's why we see so many ads telling us to talk, sing and read to our children. Spoken stories are good for our mental health. (Can anyone say audiobooks?)

Ideas are meaningful and storytellers have power.

Whether it's the Hawaiian hula, which tells a story through dance, or the oral stories that were passed down around the fire, the art of telling stories is a tradition long-honored. The Irish seanchaí were welcomed everywhere and provided room and board for the gift of their stories. The troubadours, or minstrels, of the Middle Ages were honored members of the royal courts. The ancient Greek fabulist, Aesop, is still famous today for his fables.

Interesting read: How stories are told around the world.

Our creativity can be a blessing and a curse (often at the same time), but most of all it is a gift with far-reaching power. Earlier this week, Barbara Linn Probst wrote a post sharing the tangible ways her debut book affected two peoples' lives. One of the people who wrote to her credited the book with saving her life.

Story underlies everything.

Story is always there, underneath everything that resonates and engages with others. Lisa Cron has made a career from helping writers discover the power of story and showing them how to tap into it. She's quoted in this Jerry Jenkins piece, explaining how and why story is the most important element of any story.

What grabs readers isn’t beautiful writing, a rip-roaring plot, or surface drama; what grabs readers is what gives those things their meaning and power: the story itself.

- Lisa Cron

Lisa and Donald Maass said this in an article at Writer Unboxed:

"When it comes to crafting a compelling story, a writer’s most important job is to relentlessly ask 'Why?, the better to drill down to the real reason behind every action the protagonist takes.  After all, isn’t that what we continually do in real life: wonder why things happen, largely so we can figure out what the heck to do about them?"

A sampling of great WITS posts from Lisa Cron:

• The Origin Scene: Where Your Story Really Starts
• Story Logic: The Crucial Importance of Because, But, Therefore
• Story Genius for Pantsers
• Story Genius on Backstory

Storytelling is more important than ever for companies and authorpreneurs.

In the business world, Simon Sinek has made the question of "Why" famous with his TED talk on the subject. Leaders everywhere are "finding their Why" and stuggling to put those concepts into words.

(I highly recommend you spend the five minutes on this video!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYeCltXpxw

There has never been a better time to make a living as a storyteller. Brand-driven storytelling is killing it in the marketplace these days with luminaries like Seth Godin saying, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories that you tell.”

Think about that from a writer's perspective for a moment.

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories that you tell.”

Yes, this applies to our stories, but it also speaks to how we brand ourselves as authorpreneurs. Somewhere in your personal bios, WHY you write or why you write WHAT you write needs to be included. That story forms the basis for how readers will relate to you. I remember the "how I got started writing story" from every author I've ever heard speak, even if I've never read a single book of theirs.

Like everyone else, I'm more likely to pick up an author's books if I like them and their story. Our personal stories help our hard work (aka our books) jump into readers' hands.

Just as Colleen Story's post last week illustrated that our author photo tells a story about us, so does our bio. These quick visuals of us are evaluated in the six-second glance people give anything new on the internet. Yes, you heard me. Six. Seconds. That's all the time we get to make that first impression, so it better be easy to see who we are with a photo, a tagline, a catchy phrase.

Final Thoughts

Remember: stories change lives and minds and buying decisions. This means that you, my storytelling friend, are one of the most powerful beings in the world.

I'll close with this quote from Carmine Gallo, the author of Talk Like TED and The Storyteller's Secret:

“Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. In the information age, the knowledge economy, you are only as valuable as your ideas. Story is the means by which we transfer those ideas to one another. Your ability to package your ideas with emotion, context and relevancy is the one skill that will make you more valuable in the next decade. Storytelling is the act of framing an idea as a narrative to inform, illuminate and inspire.”

What are the details that make up your story?

Have you ever spent time thinking about your own personal "Why?" Do you struggle to write your own personal profile, mission statement, tagline, bio in a meaningful way? Share it down in the comments if you want Jenny to give it an edit! (Limit to two paragraphs please.)

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About Jenny

By day, Jenny provides corporate communications and LinkedIn advice for professional services firms. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 18 years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Facebook at JennyHansenAuthor or at Writers In The Storm.

Top Image by Pexels from Pixabay

You never know the difference your book might make in someone’s life …

By Barbara Linn Probst

When we publish a book, we want it to be read. Obviously. But what else do we want?

At the most obvious level, we want our book to be bought, liked, shared, and reviewed. We want to see it on lists; we want lots of reviews (and stars) on Goodreads and Amazon. But we want something else, too—that connection with specific human beings who have been touched and changed by what we wrote.

When I published Queen of the Owls, I wanted all of those things—and I got a lot of them. The book earned awards, made it onto several “best of” lists. And yet, the most important results are things I never could have foreseen.

I’d like to share two of these “results” with you today. One has to do with a wonderful and unexpected connection with a photographer whose work took the experience of my fictitious protagonist to a whole new level. The other has to do with how Queen of the Owls saved someone’s life. Literally.

The first experience came from photographer Angelika Buettner, who saw my article in Ms. Magazine entitled Naked: Being Seen is Terrifying but Liberating .  In the article, I personalized a central theme of the novel, which is about the power of “choosing to be seen”— the deep longing to reveal and embrace one’s whole self. 

The article attracted Angelika’s attention because she had recently published a book called I Am: Celebrating the Perfect Imperfect

Through a gallery of 121 nude photos and testimonials that reveal the “inner and outer beauty” of women ages 40 to 99, Angelika’s goal is to empower women (and girls) by portraying the “aging and ageless” beauty of our perfectly-imperfect selves. As she told me in our first conversation: “I invited women to wear nothing but what they are feeling inside. Those women stepped out of their comfort zone and gave me the permission to portray their naked souls. I photographed a feeling they had lost—of loving oneself.”

When Angelika saw the article in Ms. Magazine, she immediately reached out to me, and from there to my novel. She read Queen of the Owls nonstop because, to her, it was exactly what she had been trying to convey in her portraits. “The protagonist is expressing the feeling my ladies have, and she finds why it so important to be seen, the real me, by myself. In the end those images are for ourselves.” We discovered that we were offering the same message—for me, through story; for her, through photographs.

From there, a collaboration began. We’ve been meeting on Zoom to talk about ways to work together, joined by a third woman, Lilianne Milgrom, a painter-turned-novelist whose work also addresses the theme of female embodiment. Our dream is a cross-disciplinary presentation about the female body in painting, photography, and story. A shared message, delivered more powerfully through complementary channels.

Who knows if we’ll be successful? But it’s the journey as well as the destination—the gift of an incredibly rich dialogue and friendship among the three of us that I never would have anticipated when I wrote my novel.

My second story is about a woman named Delia Rayburn (a pseudonym, at her request), who won a copy of Queen of the Owls in an Facebook giveaway. In Queen of the Owls, the “bookworm” protagonist reveals, sees, and comes to claim her body through studying—and re-enacting—the nude photos that Stieglitz took of artist Georgia O’Keeffe. 

I’ve received many messages from people who found the book to be deeply liberating, but Delia’s was the most important. She wrote: “My connection to your novel is so surprising and totally unexpected ... I'm uncomfortable looking at nude photos of women and reading descriptions of them. Nevertheless, I did quickly look up the photos of Georgia O’Keeffe that you mentioned in the book. The bigger deal is the book prompted me to do a breast examination of myself, which I know I'm supposed to do monthly, but don't usually do. I found a small bluish-purple discoloration and a slight indentation. I called and had the physician’s assistant check me last week. She said it was not my imagination and scheduled me for a mammogram. They will also do a biopsy, if necessary. I am extremely grateful that I won a copy of your book and it prompted me to do this.”

Indeed, the doctors found a lump, and Delia was able to receive early treatment. She wrote to tell me she would never have had this early detection if she hadn’t read my book and been open to what it offered her.

Her story brought me to tears, reminding me that what we do through our writing has far more important consequences than how many stars, awards, reviews, or copies our books might achieve. There are purposes we serve, as authors. Delia’s is a story I learned about. There may be other stories that I’ll never hear.

Our work as writers really matters. It might even save someone’s life.

What about you?

If you’re an author, was there an unexpected gift you received from a reader?  If you’re a reader, was there an unexpected gift you received from a book?

About Barbara

Barbara Linn Probst is a writer and researcher living on a historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her novel (Queen of the Owls, April 2020, and forthcoming novel The Sound of One Hand, October 2020) tell of the search for authenticity, wholeness, and connection. In both novels, art helps the protagonist to become more fully herself. Queen of the Owls has been chosen as a 2020 Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection.

Top Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

by Eldred “Bob” Bird

One of my passions outside of writing is music. I don’t just love the music itself, but also the creative process and the tools that go into making it. I ended up spending so much time at the Musical Instrument Museum here in Phoenix that I now volunteer there. Seeing all the amazing ways music is created around the world got me thinking about the parallels between an excellent musical arrangement and superior writing. A well written book is music to the eyes.

Building Your Orchestra

Like orchestral composers, writers have a lot of instruments at their disposal. In addition to different characters with diverse voices, we also call on things like location, weather, historical timeframe, and a host of other factors to breathe life into a narrative. So, let’s strike up the band and see how we can utilize these instruments to build our stories.

Percussion

Just like a musical score every story needs a foundation to build on. I liken this to the percussion section in a band. Percussion sets the pace of the music and punctuates it, adding emphasis to specific moments and giving breathing room when needed.

Sentence lengths and punctuation marks perform the same function. The roll of a snare drum builds drama in the same way quick, short sentences do, while the crash of the cymbals adds the exclamation point!

Brass and Strings

The brass and string sections paint the mood and bring color to the music. I see the physical environment, such as weather and settings, in this section of the orchestra. Think about the first time you heard "The Flight of the Valkyries." The deep tones of the bigger horns conjure up visions of thunder clouds and raging storms, while the strings recall sweeping winds. The bright, brassy passages let the sun break through the clouds, lighting up the landscape.

Similarly, we can use the world around our characters to show what’s going on inside of them. We all know weather can set the mood for a scene, but how your characters interact with their environment also gives the readers clues to what drives them. One character may hold onto his hat, hunch over, and trudge through a downpour, while another might dance and sing, stomping in puddles like child at play.

Woodwinds

The woodwinds can play the main melody in a movement, but quite often are called upon to play a counterpoint, filling spaces and adding to the overall mix. They can bring attention to specific details by complimenting or contrasting the other instruments as they play their parts.

Secondary characters perform the same function. They give your main character someone to bounce things off. It might be a conversation designed to introduce needed information or they may take the opposite side of an argument and complicate things. Sometimes secondary characters are called on to take the lead and fill the space when the main character isn’t present or is otherwise unable.

The Soloists

That brings us to the soloists—the featured players. These are the people you’re really paying to see. The whole orchestra may play the music, but the spotlight shines on these talented, creative, and sometimes surprising instrumentalists. The entire concert is built around them.

The soloists in our stories are the main protagonists and antagonists. Sometimes they play in harmony, other times they fight for the spotlight, creating conflict and tension. In the end, only one can be the star. Whether the monster our main character fights is internal or external, it’s that conflict that drives the story to its crescendo.

The Conductor

The entire arrangement is brought together by the conductor, the one standing between the players and the audience, signaling each movement to the group. While we, the authors, are the ones writing the music, it’s the conductor that emphasizes certain elements of the score and pulls the musicians back on others.

In third person, the narrator is the conductor. They point details out to the reader and lead them through the story, scene by scene. When we write in the first person, the conductor is usually the soloists, your main character. We see the performance through their eyes, allowing the reader to be a part of the experience.

Then again, your first-person conductor could be the music critic sitting in the wings watching the show and giving us the play by play as the concert unfolds. Think of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes was clearly the soloist and Watson, the reporter.

The Last Chair

There’s always that one musician who was the last one to make the cut. They try their best but sometimes get a little out of tune and out of time. Everyone else in the orchestra struggles to figure out how to work together to recover from his missed beats and sour notes and bring the score back into balance.

This guy is the plot twist—the one who throws a monkey wrench into the gears. Just when things are rolling along smoothly, he drops a beat and plays one of his sour notes, sending everything sideways. Whenever things are going a little too well for your soloist, he throws in another one of those sour notes. Now you’ve got a story.

Some Final Thoughts

Sometimes we can get in a rut. We listen to the same style music from the same musicians over and over again. It’s a formula we don’t like to deviate from because it’s comfortable. The same thing can happen with our writing.

But why sit and strum the same three chords on the guitar when we have so many instruments at our disposal? By carefully combining all these elements in just the right mix, we can go from singing the same old song with a slightly different tune, to creating magnificent symphonies. Who knows? Maybe one of us will end up writing the next big hit.

Do you listen to music while writing? Are there certain songs you use to help create the right mood for a scene?

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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.

The top photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.