Writers in the Storm

Margie Lawson

Hellooo, Writers —

I’m excited to share some truly stellar examples in this blog.

I’ve guest blogged for WITS 30+ times and worked hard to make sure my blogs are power-packed with tips and techniques, examples and analyses. Every teaching point is there to help you make your writing bestseller strong.

I’m always impressed by the comments left by so many writers who are excited about what they’ve learned in my blogs.

But sometimes, I wonder how many of those writers remember and use what they’ve read. I can tell you everything I know in blogs, online classes, and lecture packets. I can even work with you one on one and share all my secrets—but your writing won’t be stronger if you don’t use them.

How do teaching points stick in your mind? How do you learn? Do you take notes? Print the blogs you want to remember or save them in a file?

One of the college courses I used to teach was "The Psychology of Learning." Most of us have to review new material several times, and use it, or it’s gone, gone, gone.

Try it with this blog. Review the material. Use what you learn. And keep reviewing and using. Then see how much you retain as you write forward. I think you’ll be amazed at how much stronger your writing has become.

Here are some gems from two of my earlier WITS blogs.

2014:  Get Fresh!

How often do you get fresh…on the page?

Sometimes writers forget about writing fresh. Or they don’t include enough hits of fresh writing.

Fresh hits may be unexpected. But when they fit the POV character like Peter Pan’s shadow fit him, they’re yummy. Those twists of phrases, tweaks for humor, fresh visuals, and more power the reader through your story. They make your book a page-turner.

Some fresh hits are super subtle. Others grab you and propel you through the passage.

Season of Change, Melinda Curtis, Multi-Immersion-Grad

Example 1 -- Melinda Curtis could have written:

Slade tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight.

But she wrote this fresh piece:

Shameful. The word spiraled up Slade’s windpipe, closing it off to vital functions like breathing and calls for help.

Wow. Fresh and powerful.

Example 2 -- Melinda Curtis could have written:

Slade’s stomach clenched.

She really wrote this version:

Slade’s stomach wound up tighter than a slugger protecting home plate.

Ah. An amplified simile. Smart writing. Perfect cadence.

The Pieces We Keep, Kristina McMorris, Margie-Grad

Example 1 – Kristina McMorris could have written:

The room went quiet.

You’ll be glad Kristina worked harder and wrote this line:

The quiet left behind was the type that followed a shove off a cliff.

Boom. That’s a powerful simile.

Example 2 – Kristina McMorris could have been content with this cliché:

In her frenzied state, she’d follow him anywhere.

Kristina didn’t bore the reader by giving them something they’d read before. She treated them to this sentence:

In her frenzied state, he could lead her to hell and she wouldn’t think to object until waist deep in flames.

2018:  Not Your Mama’s Character Descriptions

Does your real or imaginary writing checklist include:

-- Make Character Descriptions Fresh, Unpredictable, Multi-Powerful?

If not, it could.

Character descriptions can add power on multiple levels. They can boost cadence, add a humor hit, strengthen emotion, and slip in backstory.

You can treat the reader to something fresh, something they haven’t read before. You can slip in details that deepen characterization too.

The more important a character, the more attention and power they deserve in the description.

Attention:  Consider the number of lines.

Power:  Be strategic regarding style and structure.

NEW EXAMPLES:

The Scandal, Nicola Marsh, Margie Grad, USA Today Bestseller

Elly wasn’t the type of woman I’d normally befriend Stunning on the surface, from her designer shoes to her flawless make-up, wearing her sexuality like a killer outfit. But the eyes never lie and I knew, with the instinct of dealing with fragile women for years, that Elly’s overt beauty hid a brittleness she strove to hide.

Deep Edit Analysis

Power Words – stunning, designer, flawless, sexuality, killer, lie, instinct, fragile, hid, bitterness, hide

Deepened Characterization – multiple points

Cliché Play – from her designer shoes to her flawless make-up

Compelling Cadence

A School for Unusual Girls, Kathleen Baldwin, Immersion Grad, USA Today Bestseller

The headmistress, Miss Emma Stranje, sat behind her desk, mute, assessing me with unsettling hawk eyes. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, I couldn’t tell her age. She looked youthful one minute, and ancient the next. She might've been pretty once, if it weren’t for her shrewd measuring expression. She’d pulled her wavy brown hair back into a severe chignon knot, but stray wisps escaped their moorings giving her a feral catlike appearance.

Deep Edit Analysis

Power Words: headmistress, Stranje, mute, assessing, unsettling, hawk, youthful, ancient, pretty, shrewd, measuring, severe, escaped, feral

News-of-a-Difference Details:  throughout

Compelling Cadence

Dear Wife, Kimberly Belle, 5-time Immersion Grad, USA Today Bestseller, International Bestseller

Amanda Shephard steps through my front door, looking just like she did in high school. Blonde, thin, a complicated sort of pretty—big lashes and acrylic nails and long, heat-curled hair. Her face is caked under a layer of makeup I’ve never seen her without, not even the summer before senior year when our entire class spent every day bobbing in blow-up tubes on the river. All the other girls had shiny cheeks pink from the sun, but Amanda’s makeup was like a mask, flawless and im­penetrable.

Deep Edit Analysis

Power Words –  complicated, pretty, never-seen-her-without (makeup), mask, flawless, impenetrable

Rhetorical Device:  polysyndeton –big lashes and acrylic nails and long, heat-curled hair

Rhetorical Device:  Alliteration – bobbing, blow up; makeup, mask

Deepened Characterization:  Throughout

Backstory Slip Ins:  high school, tubing in river

Compelling Cadence

Wrapping Up

I hope this blog motivates you to use what you’ve learned. You can make your writing bestseller-strong. You just have to put in the work.

You get a taste of my deep editing techniques from my blogs. But my online courses and lecture packets are each a couple of hundred pages long. And they’re loaded with teaching points and analyzed examples.

Kudos to the Margie grads I referenced in this blog. Impressive writing.

THANK YOU to the WITS gals for hosting me again. Love you all!

THANK YOU for dropping by the blog.

Please post a comment or share a "Hi Margie!" Post something -- and you have two chances to be a winner.

You could win a Lecture Packet from me or an online class from Lawson Writer’s Academy.

The drawing will be Sunday night, 9:00 PM Mountain Time.

Lawson Writer’s Academy – September Courses

• Your First Five Pages, Reader Glue – Instructor: Laura Drake
• Empowering Characters’ Emotions – Instructor: Becky Rawnsley teaching Margie Lawson’s course
• Deep Point of View – Instructor: Rhay Christou
• The Sizzling Scintillating Synopsis – Instructor: Suzanne Purvis
• The Rule of Six – Instructor: Shirley Jump
• Crazy-Easy Social Media for Authors – Instructor: Lisa Norman
• New Course! Kidlit Crash Course: Writing and Publishing Your MG-YA Novel – Instructor: Michelle Schusterman
• New Course! Memoir: For Your Children’s Children – Instructor: Sarah Hamer
• New Course! Set Up for Success: The Author’s Strategic Plan –           Instructor: Donna Alward

About Margie

Margie Lawson—editor and international presenter—teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners.

She’s presented over 120 full day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France, as well as taught multi-day intensives on cruises in the Caribbean.

To learn about Margie’s 5-day Immersion Master Classes, full day and weekend workshops, keynote speeches, online courses through Lawson Writer’s Academy, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit: www.margielawson.com

Interested in inviting Margie to present a full day workshop for your writing organization? Contact Margie through her website, or Facebook Message her.

Interested in attending one of Margie’s 5-day Immersion classes? Click over to her website and check them out.

A personal note from Margie:

Many of you know about the tragedy in my life. My husband died in a plane crash on May 15.

It seems inauthentic to not mention this horror.

I miss my Tom every minute. I’m forever sad. Forever adjusting.

All the notes and cards and flowers are so comforting. I’m incredibly appreciative.

Thank you.

See you in the comments.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a theory about what each human needs. The hierarchy, shown below as a five-tier pyramid, attempts to explain the connection between our basic human needs and our motivation.

But we are writers. Our needs might differ a bit from the average human. We are mighty beings formed of stubbornness, creativity and caffeine.

The world will always be crazy. With 7.7 billion people on this planet, there is simply no way to avoid misunderstandings and differences of opinion. However, I believe we are all more alike than we are unalike, especially as writers.

We want to make enough of a living that we can carve out time to write. We want our families to be healthy and happy. We want our kids to have more happiness and opportunities than we had.

We want to write wonderful stories.

What is the Writing Hierarchy of Needs?

I’ll encourage you all to add to these in the comments, but here is my take.

Physiological Needs

Water is awesome and important, but did you see that part above about “the mighty beings formed of caffeine?” Most writers consume prodigious amounts of coffee or tea. At the very least we need something fizzy every once in a while.

The best food for writers should have two qualities:

• Portable
• Able to be eaten at room temperature

We don’t want to have to get up in the middle of a scene just because we’re hungry. It could anything (fruit, chocolate and protein bars come to mind) but it must be food we can ignore for hours on end while our brains are busy creating…and then fall on ravenously when we’re done.

Many writers swear by naps. Having a handy couch or bed near our writing space is helpful.

The writing dress code usually contains one of the following: pajamas, shorts, yoga pants, possible addition of socks and/or hoodies for warmth.

Note: If you wear something different, I want to hear about it in the comments!

Safety Needs

I don’t know how you see safety and security, but I see it as a safe writing space and a reliable backup system. You’ll know what makes the best writing space for you, but let’s talk about backup systems.

Oh sure, we knooooow we’re supposed to back up our stuff. We plan to back up our files. We think about backing up our files.

Most of the people I know don’t back up their files, unless it happens automatically with something like Carbonite or Dropbox or Office 365.

Or if they do, they don’t do it regularly. They only do it when there’s “a glitch.” Trust me, I’ve been there myself. And I had to pay the $800+ for data recovery. It hurts…bad.

Because we knoooooow we were supposed to back up…

Note: A few years ago, I did an entire post about backing up called Help Me Computer, For I Have Sinned.

A blankie or talisman is another way to add to the "safety" factor. My favorite writing talismans are a pack of matches, a vanilla candle and a digital kitchen timer. I set the timer before I sit down (digital so the ticking doesn’t distract me). When I smell the sulphur from the match and then the vanilla of the candle, something just unlocks for me and away I go into Word Land.

Belongingness and Love Needs

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need writing friends.

Online friends are awesome, especially for those who are in less populated locations, but there is something about meeting writing friends in person. Holding their hands, seeing their faces, watching them laugh, acting out the logistics of a scene. There is something so creative about in-person time.

If you are lucky enough to have family and every day friends who will support your writing, that’s an amazing gift. But if you don’t, go get some writing friends.

Your writing pals can be found just about anywhere if you run an online search for writing chapters and organizations in your neck of the woods. And remember, if your neck of the woods is hard to get to – there are huge writing communities online.

Esteem Needs

Even if you aren’t published yet, there are ways to meet those Writing Esteem needs. Take classes. Enter contests. Join a critique group.

Anything that gets you feedback on your writing, or new skills to try out, will meet these needs.

Laura Drake and I talk about this all the time: most professional writers would love to go back to that time when they wrote only for the joy of it. No contracts, no deadlines, no reviews, no pressure. They wouldn’t trade their stories or their careers for anything but when writing is a job, it is easy to get burned out.

Enjoy those writing retreats and times of pure creativity.

Appreciate the beauty of this writing life you have chosen for yourself.

In what other job can we go days on end with no shoes or pants if we don’t want to put them on?

A note on competition:

It is really really hard to keep from being sucked down the Comparison Rabbit Hole. There will always be someone who went further, faster, more SOMETHING than you.

Falling down this Comparison Rabbit Hole is a surefire way to shred your self-esteem. Do what you must to resist. Keep a gratitude journal or a goal list that allows you to see your progress. When you are looking at someone else’s accomplishments all the time, it becomes impossible to see how far you have come yourself.

Self-Actualization

If you’re like me, you’d like to jump over all the rest of the Writing Hierarchy and live here. You just want to create already, right? But every journey starts with a single step.

If you haven’t slept, you can’t create.

If you are hungry or cold, you can’t create.

If you are worried about your loved ones, you can’t create.

But you can forgive yourself and resolve to create at your next opportunity. You can practice the self-care you need to climb back up that pyramid to the exalted Self-Actualization stage. You can scribble notes, to be ready when you get there. You can breathe.

We know you are better, stronger, wittier and prettier when you are writing. We are too. And we are here to encourage you to do what you must to achieve your fully self-actualized potential.

Here is an infographic of the Writing Hierarchy of Needs if you need to post it somewhere prominent as a reminder.

Now go write!!

What would you add to the Writing Hierarchy of Needs? Where are you right now in the Pyramid? Which stage do you find the most challenging?

About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate software 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 Twitter at JennyHansenCA or here at Writers In The Storm.

by Christina Delay

Ten years ago I was newly married, living in a new city, sans kids, and alone a LOT as the hubs was starting a new business. My community existed of my husband, a betta fish named Albie, and a hyper puppy named Trogdor the Burninator.

I turned to writing. 

In the past ten years, my writing has turned from a hobby to a career, led to starting a creatively driven business, and most important of all, opened the floodgate to a tribe of friends that I am eternally grateful for.

Writing does not have to be lonely. 

In fact, it’s much better when it’s not. 

How to find your writing tribe

[Note: You might call it a community, team, posse, clan. Insert your favorite word for your peeps as you read on!]

First of all, you kinda have to leave your house.

I know, I know. Introverts Unite. Trust me. Totally get it.

While you can find people to connect with online, and that’s exactly how one of my strongest tribes started, eventually, you need to be in the same room with your tribe.

Some suggestions:

• Join a writing association near you
• Attend a writing workshop or conference
• Try an in-person critique group
• Invite a writer in your community to do writing sprints in your local coffee shop
• Take on a new writing buddy on a trial-only basis
• Join online Facebook groups of other authors with either similar goals or similar genre—and start a local meet up once a month
• Start with a small group that you can connect with (it’s why I keep our Cruising Writers Retreats small!)

Benefits of a writing tribe

I’ve been reminded about how grateful I am for my writing tribe recently. 

With the release of my new book, Song of Destiny, they not only cheered for me, but they ran contests and giveaways, invited me to post in and takeover their reader groups, wrote cover blurbs for me, shared my release with their readers and friends...all without me even asking.

They also helped me work through some major issues I’m having with a book I’m drafting. And went with me to visit a grave.

The grave and the book are related.

When you’re facing writer’s block, self-doubt, dead-end plots, self-doubt, cliche storylines, self-doubt, creative burnout, self-doubt, your tribe will be there for you. And you’ll be there for them.

They’ll remind you that you can actually write and that you don’t have to struggle alone.

• They will visit cemeteries with you.
• They will love you through your comma deficiencies.
• They will be up from brainstorming, with very little bribing (coffee, tea, wine, and chocolate are all usually acceptable bribes).
• They will cheer for you when you win.
• They will cry with you when you don’t.
• They will big your biggest cheerleader (and if they’re not, they’re not your tribe).
• They will share writing experience—what worked for them, what didn’t.
• They’ll be real with you.
• They won’t be afraid to tell you that YCDB—you can do better.
• They will lift you up with them.
• They will read your pages and re-read your pages and re-read your pages and re-read your pages. 
• They will make this writing journey unbelievably life-affirming, joyful, and fun.

Do you have a tribe like that? If not, don’t worry. They are out there.

Take the next step and kiss your fears goodbye

Finding a writing tribe can be a trial and error process spread over many years. For most of us, it won’t happen overnight. It takes a lot to learn to be vulnerable with people, from our selves to our stories. 

Just remember, the first step of any journey is often the scariest. But take it, and it’ll make the rest so much easier. Here's a link to a fun, motivational video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d05jHfRVuKE

If you’ve already found your writing support team, congratulations! Would you be willing to share how you found your tribe?

About Christina

Christina Delay is the hostess of Cruising Writers as well as an award-winning author of Young Adult Fantasy and Adult Suspense. She may also have a new series out under a pen name. When she's not cruising the Caribbean, she's dreaming up new writing retreats to take talented authors on or giving into the demands of imaginary people to tell their stories.

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About Cruising Writers

Cruising Writers brings writers together with bestselling authors, an agent, and a world-renowned writing craft instructor writing retreats around the world. Cruise with us to the Bahamas this November with Alexandra Sokoloff of the internationally-renowned Screenwriting Tricks for Fiction Authors, Kerry Anne King—Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author, and Michelle Grajkowski of 3 Seas Literary.