Writers in the Storm

Kathryn Craft

Turning Whine Into Gold

In high school, I was the type of high achiever that had my teachers taking me under their wings. Turns out, that wasn’t always such a good thing.

My fifth-year Russian teacher, thinking I’d follow in his footsteps, challenged me to write a research paper on a Russian ballerina—in Russian. My biology teacher got permission for a small group of us budding doctors to watch two surgeries at Johns Hopkins Hospital (where my best friend fainted dead away). I loved math, and attacked my homework problems the second I got home each day. I’m sure my math teachers wouldn’t have been surprised at all if I’d become an engineer, although that was at a time when girls weren’t encouraged to think such things.

I benefitted from my teachers’ interest in ways I will never be able to fathom. But one thing they did was particularly damaging to a girl whose self-esteem was already wobbly: they whispered to my parents about my “potential.”

If you believe in the power of words, then know this: “potential” is a cruel mistress. Such talk set up a syndrome in which I was always comparing my performance to a future standard I had no clue how to define—and without fail, I found my performance lacking.

A person who strives to fulfill her potential can be a person who is never done preparing to live her life.

“Potential is a concept that can bind us to personal powerlessness,” wrote Marianne Williamson in her book, A Return to Love. That held true for me at the start of my writing journey. Wondering if I had the “potential for brilliance” made it all the harder to take those first, bumbling baby steps toward story without the handrails of an MFA or PhD to guide my steps.

How could it be, I wondered, that many successful novelists never even graduated from high school? My guess is, they didn’t waste time focusing on their potential. They just wrote.

Instead of potential, Williamson suggests we think of our “capacity for brilliance.” Capacity is available to us right now. Our memories, curiosity, imagination, and desire to learn can open the gates to unused brain space and open our hearts. As a novelist, I already have the capacity to be a Russian translator, a doctor, and an engineer—all in one story.

Instead of thinking, “I have the potential to be a novelist,” try telling yourself, “I already have the capacity of a novelist.”

By celebrating our capacity to write, we no longer need to worry about our potential—we’ll be accumulating the words that will line a path straight toward it. Extend your efforts into the fullness of your capacity. Show up powerfully on the page and apply the brilliance that exists within you, today. As Williamson says, “how will we ever get to tomorrow’s promise without making some sort of move today?”

The story that is growing within you is yours to tell.

We’re waiting.

Have you ever been paralyzed by worrying about your potential? What unlived lives are within your capacity, that you would like to manifest through your characters

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About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft  is the award-winning author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy, and a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft. Her chapter “A Drop of Imitation: Learn from the Masters” was included in the writing guide Author in Progress, from Writers Digest Books. Janice Gable Bashman’s interview with her, “How Structure Supports Meaning,” originally published in the 2017 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, has been reprinted in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, both from Writer’s Digest Books.

Amy Sue Nathan

Twelve years ago, right in the middle of a memoir writing workshop online, I started writing fiction instead. From that day forward, I continued doing two things: writing novels, and signing up for online writing workshops. The comfort of taking a class while wearing my pajamas appeals to me almost as much as the bottomless bowl of popcorn by my side.

This started off innocently enough. I had been a journalist. I had articles and essays published. In these arenas I wrote the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was that memoir workshop where I realized I wasn’t willing to write anyone’s story but my own. Memoirs contain anecdotes and storylines about other people. Without that, my book would have been thin and flimsy and unpublishable. And that’s what I wanted. To be published. The only way to give heft to the story I wanted to tell was to take myself out of it and make stuff up.  

I didn’t discriminate much when it came to workshops. Anything would do. Anything could help. I found workshops that focused narrowly on things like dialogue and structure, to workshops that offered broad strokes of knowledge on writing and publishing. All I needed was someone who knew more than me, and that was everyone.

An equal opportunity addict, I signed up for workshops by reputable companies and well-known authors, as well as bloggers who simply “seemed” to know what they were talking about. One of the best things I did was not limit myself to my genre. Thriller writers and romance writers were welcoming and flexible when helping me modify some content to fit the women’s fiction genre.  

Tip #1: Look outside your genre box for workshops, or even for writing books. There’s always something to learn from other writers who are masters of their craft. No matter what they write.

With time I found that workshops differed in two major ways. Some provided lessons and posted “homework assignments” and I received feedback from the instructor only, while some are structured so that the workshop participants posted their homework and the class chimed in with feedback of its own. I was always open to having as many writers cooking in my story kitchen as possible. Sometimes the feedback was relevant, sometimes it wasn’t, but even that showed me I was started to grow my writing spine. As I was starting to know myself as a writer, I became more confident in discerning which feedback worked for me or didn’t. And more importantly, why.

Tip #2: Do the homework. Sometimes I’d be in a workshop with ten or twelve writers and only two of us would do the assignments. Can you say extra attention from the instructor?

As I moved forward with my writing, I looked for genre specific workshops, or ones tailored to a struggle I was having with a work-in-progress. I found workshops on countless methods of storytelling and outlining, from three acts to five acts, from timelines to snowflakes. I have taken workshops on how to write flashbacks and others on how not to write flashbacks, on happy endings and tragic ones.

Tip #3: When it comes to any workshops, feedback, or conflicting ideas, take what you need and leave the rest.

You might think I stopped signing up for workshops when I found an agent or had novels published. No way. Accountability and camaraderie inspire me. Meeting new writers intrigues me.  Reading and giving feedback challenges me.  I always say I’m a workshop junkie. I’m always Googling different topics to see where and how I can learn something new or strengthen a skill.

The thing that did happen after my first novel was published, I was given the opportunity to teach workshops. Not only did I begin to help and connect with writers near and far, of all backgrounds and ages and interests,  but –you guessed it—I had access to the workshop materials! For me! Two birds, one workshop.

Tip #4: Being a writer is a never-ending learning process. It can be a solitary endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be lonely.

Do you take workshops? which kind? Any tips/recommendations?

 

Amy Sue Nathan is the author of Left to Chance, The Good Neighbor, and The Glass Wives all published by St. Martin’s Press. She is also the founder of The Women’s Fiction Writers blog, named a Best Website for Writers four years in a row by Writer’s Digest. Amy’s essays and articles have been widely published in print and online, including The Chicago Tribune, Writer’s Digest, Psychology Today, YourTango and Huffington Post. She is a frequent speaker and workshop presenter, a member of Tall Poppy Writers, and has been a freelance book coach and editor since 2009.

Amy lives near Philadelphia, is the mom of two grown children, and the servant to one geriatric dog. When she’s not taking workshops (and even when she is) she’s working on her fourth novel.  

You can connect with Amy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram where she’s @AmySueNathan (clever, right?),  her website, AmySueNathan.com, and her blog, WomensFictionWriters.com.

 

 

Lisa Hall Wilson

             

 

Deep point of view is a great writing technique when used well, but if you’re not careful, deep POV will bloat your word count and tie an anchor to the pace of your story.

Pace Must Be Strategic

I’ve met very few bestselling authors who, when asked, can’t tell you the pace they were intentionally aiming for with any particular novel. Whether your intent is to create a fast-paced action-packed crime novel or thriller, a slower-paced romance or contemplative literary novel, or something in between, this is an intentional choice (aka not a happy accident). Some writers use deep POV strategically in key scenes and others use deep POV throughout their whole novel. If you’re using deep POV throughout your whole novel, lean in. These tips are for you.

Avoid Writing On The Nose

Technically in deep POV, you would capture each moment and thought in a play-by-play sort of action.

Shane shuffled across the foyer and reached for the brass knob. The cold metal echoed the frosty temperatures outside. He turned the knob and pulled open the door. The metal hinges creaked and groaned…

Unless there’s a reason to stay in deep POV there, it’s OK if Shane just opens the door. If you spend this much time describing your character opening a door (slowing the pace), there had better be something important behind that door. The more time you spend describing something, the more importance a reader will assume it to have.

Sometimes your character just opens the door, goes to work, drives across town, or jets across the globe. If that journey isn’t important to the plot, if nothing happens in that journey to move the story ahead, using a shallower POV is appropriate.

Create An Effect Of Time Flying By

We’ve all had this happen in real life. We’re busy doing something and we’re surprised by how much time has gone by. This can and should happen to our characters from time to time as well. When you break down how this happens though, it’s usually because we’re distracted or intensely focused. Usually we want these scenes to have a quick pace, so the way to capture this (without using telling) is to use a shallower POV.

Consider a woman flying through the house doing a last-minute speed clean before company arrives. You might choose to write that scene in a more distant or shallow POV (stripped of internal dialogue) to show how little thought she’s putting into each specific task. Or, perhaps have her focus instead on the ticking hands of the clock instead of cataloguing every item she’s putting away or dish she’s washing. Maybe her stomach growls, someone comes home, whatever—something happens to crack her focus and make her aware of the time again.

Capturing High Emotions

When your whole novel is in deep POV, using a shallower POV for high emotion scenes can force the reader to lean in more. It’s the change, the surprise, in the writing style that causes the tension for readers. Whether you’re trying to create an out-of-body effect, numbing effect, or a mind unable to process all the data they’re taking in (articulate what they’re feeling), using a shallower POV can show this very effectively.

For instance, someone who’s been seriously injured will repeat the same phrase over and over focusing on whatever hurts. They’ll chant: my arm hurts, my arm hurts, my arm hurts. They may not be able to say much else in the moment because all they’re aware of is the pain. Use a shallower point of view to show this without writing pages of the same phrase.

My sister-in-law was hit by a car while riding her bike and broke her femur. Ouch. After the accident, she could recall hearing someone moaning and crying and she thought to herself man, that’s annoying. Who is making all that noise? And then she realized she was the one making all the noise. These kinds of out-of-body thoughts read as shallow POVs often because they’re devoid of emotion, but can help keep the pace moving in moments of high trauma or emotion.

Here’s an example from my current WIP. This is a moment of high emotional trauma, so the shallower POV comes through because of the lack of internal dialogue. She’s just overwhelmed with emotion, she’s not processing any of it.

Her father’s lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, his mouth gaped as if he’d died mid-scream. She coughed and sputtered like she’d been punched in the gut. Her hand covered her mouth and she dropped to her knees. Crawling the short distance, she reached for the box and then withdrew her fingers. There was no mistaking Wyne’s features. But that wasn’t her father anymore. Her fingers trembled and tears blurred her vision. She shut the box. How had this happened?

I wanted to give the sense that she’s overwhelmed, emotional overload. She hasn’t taken a moment to process what all of this means. And what’s the one question that floats to the top of the mental chaos? How had this happened? This is the only paragraph in this scene where I’ve used a shallower point of view, those leading up and following this bit are in deep point of view. You can switch back and forth for effect quickly.

To add more internal dialogue here (to stay deep) would’ve slowed the pace. I wanted to convey a sense that she was being battered with one emotion after another without time to process any of them, each one intensifying her horror. To keep this part of the scene truly in deep point of view could’ve worked but I was going for a specific effect.

Think Like An Artist

I love crafts like knitting and quilting. I’m a bit of a Pinterest junkie, but I’m not an artist. An artist creates the patterns, a hobbyist follows the patterns. I haven’t been prescriptive here because these kinds of choices are more art than pattern. Know the WHY of your scene (read about that here) and the primary emotions powering your character, and then choose the best technique to create the effect you want.

Choosing to stay close in moments of high emotional tension or zoom out to a shallower point of view are stylistic choices that affect the emotional arc of your story and the pacing. Both techniques may work equally well in any given scene, but what effect, what pace, what feeling, are you trying to capture for readers? The answers to those questions guide your stylistic choices.

Have you used shifting from deep to shallow POV to affect your pacing? Will you, after reading this?

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About Lisa: 

Lisa Hall-Wilson was a national award-winning freelance journalist and author who loves mentoring writers. Fascinated by history, fantasy, romance, and faith, Lisa blends those passions into historical and historical-fantasy novels.

Find Lisa’s blog, Beyond Basics for intermediate writers,  at www.lisahallwilson.com.

 

Be sure to check out my new release Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers available as an ebook or print from Amazon.