Writers in the Storm

Kerry Schafer

It's one of those days. Your inner critic is on a rampage. Your writing sucks. All the good words are hiding in the corners of your brain and you're left with the rejects. You turn to Facebook for cute cats and emotional support, only to discover that every other writer in the world is having a fantastic day.

Friend X is celebrating her arrival on the NYT bestseller list!

Friend Y just signed with his dream agent!

Friend Z  sold the 100,000^th copy of a book you personally feel kind of sucks.

Acquaintance A just had a huge breakthrough and wrote 10,000 words this morning...

The virulent comparison bug kicks in and in the dark recesses of your soul you wish for some small bad thing to befall that oh-so-successful friend of yours. Nothing really bad, of course. Something small, like a zit in the middle of a perfect forehead, or a little muscle twinge, or bad traffic on the way to work…

No? You're a better human than that? Of course you are. Me too. (clears throat, shuffles papers, conceals voodoo doll in desk drawer.)

Of course we are happy for our friends' successes. But at the same time, maybe there's a little voice in our heads shouting, "What About Me? When Is It My Turn??? How come I'm not ever the one who gets lucky?"

If that voice is loud enough, you might suddenly notice that the toilets need cleaning. Those boxes that have been in the attic for twenty years need to be sorted through today. A job as a circus performer sounds like a good idea because ANYTHING would have to be easier and make more sense than writing.

What to do?

I've found the following to be useful remedies:

1. Keep coming back to the love. Throughout the day, call into your consciousness anything that you love about your writing process. What inspired you to write your current work in progress? Where is the spark? Can you feel that again? Find a way to remember, whether it's a sticky note on your mirror, a mantra you repeat to yourself while you comb your hair, a dream board, a collage – experiment until you find what works for you.

2. Remind yourself of all of the things that are already in place in your writing career. Connections with other writers. Conferences you attend. Things you've written, whether published or unpublished, finished or unfinished. Make frequent lists of what you've done as a reminder that you're already living your dream.

3. Lavishly celebrate your own accomplishments, even the small ones. Treat yourself like the celebrity you are.

4. Consider a Social Media fast. Sign off. Take a break. Read a good book. Go for a walk. The sky won't fall, and it's good to get some space.

5. Think of that successful writer as a guide, a scout who has gone before to prepare the way for you. What can you learn from them? What small step can you take to follow in their footsteps? Even if your opinion is that a supremely successful book is not all that and a bag of chips, clearly there is something about it that appeals to readers. Can you be an objective observer and figure out what it is?

6. Practice helps us gain perspective so our inner voices aren't running the show. Five minutes (or even sixty seconds) a day is helpful and you can do it anywhere. In the bathroom. In your car before or after work. At your desk before you start writing. While you're rocking the baby to sleep or waiting for the dog to pee. The beginning instructions are simple. Get comfortable. Focus in on your breath. When your mind wanders (as it will) notice and bring it back, over and over again.

7. Loving Kindness Meditation This practice is to the Comparison Bug what Tamiflu is to the flu. It's magnesium and black elderberry and zinc and vitamin C, D, and X,Y,Z. Find a minute or five where you won't be interrupted. Sit down, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and breathe out. Bring into your mind an image of the person you are comparing yourself to. Breathe in again. As you breathe out, think the phrase, "May you be well." Breathe in, and on the out breath think the phrase, "May I be well." Repeat for your allotted time, ending with, "May we all be well." Repeat throughout the day in small increments. Practiced regularly, this simple exercise will retrain your brain and your emotions and help you focus your attention where it belongs: on your own writing process.

What have you done to get over the comparison bug?

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Kerry Schafer (also writing as Kerry Anne King) knows of what she speaks. She has six traditionally published novels to her name, one indie, and three novellas. She is also a creativity coach who works with writers to help them discover –and trust—their own unique creative process, freeing them to get their writing done. Kerry would like you to know that she is currently in full remission from the comparison bug and has burned the voodoo doll. You can find her through her coaching website, Swimming North, at her Facebook creative community the Dreamweavers Attic, or drop her an email at contact@kerryschafer.com

This month I chose an ‘en media res’ beginning. They can be fast-moving and titillating – but they're not easy! You need to clearly lay out the stakes, and since you don’t have time to flesh out a character, (and make us care about them) at least give us a rough idea of who the characters are, and lay the emotion!

Black = original

Red = my thoughts/comments

Purple = text I added/altered

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I crawled forward from the cargo hold after the plane stopped throwing us around, careful. I made sure to find handholds at each point in case the plane jolted again. Only when I reached the cockpit did I pull myself upright, grabbing the door frame for support.

Remember, the reader comes cold to the page. We need a bit more setting for us to settle into the story. Questions I have after reading this far: Is this WWII? Current day? Are they still flying, or have they crashed? It doesn’t sound like a commercial flight because ‘cargo hold’, so what is it? Fedex jet? Military plane? See how we don’t know?

Lieutenant Robert Jones, our pilot, smiled when he saw my reflection. Reflection in what? A mirror? The windshield? If they’ve been thrown around – I’m guessing due to a storm – would he be smiling? “Glad you came up, Lieutenant Bowman. Sit there.” He motioned to make sure I heard him over the engine’s grating noise. A motion wouldn’t make him be heard – a motion would be to make his meaning clear in case he wasn’t heard. The engine must have swallowed a huge amount of sand as we went through the storm which would explained why it now sounded so Thanks to the sandstorm, it sounded much worse than it had when we left Malta.

Why are they going? On a mission? Is it critical they get there? That's important, because it goes to the stakes. Are they in danger of crashing? The readers don’t know how to gauge how dangerous this is unless they know what’s at stake.

I twisted into the other seat, behind a half-wheel identical to his. like the one he gripped.

I find myself wondering why he doesn’t have a co-pilot, or a navigator. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think the government/a company would trust a big plane to one pilot, would they? Is anyone else on the plane? These are the only two people mentioned, so the reader will assume it's  just them if you don't tell us differently. Easy fix if there are - up in the top, 'I crawled forward from the airmen packed cargo hold'.

“Find the two ends of the seat belt and fasten it around you.”

A belt held him to his seat. Ah, 'seat-belt'. I found the ends of mine and fitted the prong into an eyelet.

We all know about the two parts of a seat belt, and how to use them. Unless this person doesn’t know what a seat belt is. Is that what you’re trying to tell us? Since we don’t know the time period, we can’t guess.

“Take the yoke.”

“Yoke?”

“That half-wheel in front of you.”

I threw up my left hand between us as if it could block his words. “But. But I can’t fly an airplane.” I shouted as loud as I could although he wasn’t much more than a foot away. I wanted to be sure he heard my objection. We know why.

The sound must be very loud – wouldn’t he think that his ears are hurting? Is it hard to think? Is he afraid? What’s missing here is the emotion (wait, is the POV character a woman or a man? You haven’t told us). You want the reader to feel like they’re in the cockpit, and experiencing this, firsthand. To do that, you have to use the senses (sound, sight, smell) and emotions. Is it day? Night?

“Can you drive a car?"

“Well…” I didn’t want to admit it, but I could hardly lie.  “Well…”

For some reason, he took that as a yes, though few women had driven before the war. “The yoke moves in more directions than a steering wheel, but just keep it steady. you’ll just be keeping it steady. You just have to remember not to Be sure not to move it forward or back while you keep it steady side to side. I’ll be here to make slight adjustments.”

Ah, here we find it is a woman, and, I’m assuming, WWII? Why is he showing her how to fly the plane? Is he injured and incapable of doing it himself?  But he was smiling earlier, and seems nonplussed, so that doesn’t seem right, either.

I'm betting you had everything I've mentioned in that perfect scene in your head. We all do this...we're so busy getting the scene on paper, that we forget details. That's what critters (critique partners) will help you with.

This can be a tense, tension-filled scene that will launch the reader into the rest of the book, with a brush-up.  I’d fill in the blanks, and set the stakes early.  Take a line or two to set the stage – set the stakes, then give us the emotion of what it’s like to be in that cockpit! This has the bones to be a great first scene!

It's a delicate balance, telling the reader what they need to know, in a compelling way, without an info dump. Trust your critters (critique partners) to tell you when you have the right mix.

Hope you find this helpful!

What say you, WITS readers? Have you begun a story 'en media res'? Did you struggle with it? Why and how?

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ABOUT LAURA

Laura Drake is a city girl who never grew out of her tomboy ways, or a serious cowboy crush. She writes both Women’s Fiction and Romance.

She sold her Sweet on a Cowboy series, romances set in the world of professional bull riding, to Grand Central. The Sweet Spot won the 2014 Romance Writers of America^®   RITA^® award in the Best First Book category.

Laura began a video blog for writers, answering their burning questions. You can watch all the episodes HERE. If you have a question you’d like her to address in a future episode, leave her a comment!

Did you know Laura teaches craft classes? Check out her upcoming ones, both online and in person, HERE.

Margie Lawson

Clichés pop in a writer's mind as fast as lightning. They cover the bases. 

Clichés roll onto your page like gumballs rolling out of a gumball machine. They require no more thought than swatting a fly. They fit like a pair of old shoes. They sound right, look right, feel right as rain.

I get a bee in my bonnet and a burr under my saddle when I think about writers taking the easy road, using clichés to pave the way to lickety-split writing. Haste makes waste. 

Fourteen clichés in eight sentences. 

According to Donald Maass, clichés sprout up everywhere. Donald Maass has a sensitive cliché-meter. So do other agents. So do I.

 Clichés are sneaky. You may not catch them until a seventh or eleventh read. Or you may not catch them at all. Critique partners may catch overused or clichéd phrases and sentences you miss. It’s up to you to decide whether to keep, nix, twist, play, or rewrite fresh. I’m not saying writers need to nix every cliché and overused word pairing. I am saying it would be smart to nix or play with most of them, and see if there’s a stronger option.

Writing experts recommend avoiding clichés. Why?  

1. They’re predictable. Not interesting.
2. They invite the reader to skim, to disconnect from your story.
3. They don’t deepen characterization or draw the reader deeper into the scene.
4. They may cover up the power you could have had on the page.

This first example is from my Fab 30: Advanced Deep Editing course. Rayn Ellis had these two sentences in a chapter she posted for editing.

Soul Song, Rayn Ellis, Multi-Immersion Grad, Golden Heart Finalist

Another charismatic, handsome man had no place in her life.

Been there, done that.

My cliché meter pinged. I wrote this note:

Here’s an easy cliché twist that just popped into my brain.

Been there, failed that.

The overused carry-no-power line is gone. Now that line carries a WOW factor.

And it conveys THE TRUTH. Regarding men, she was a failure.

 Cliché twists can add interest and deepen characterization. Let’s check out some other examples. 

Esther Scott’s Grand Adventure, Megan Menard, Multi-Immersion Grad

1. Before: Over her dead body.

After: Over her freshly-rehabbed body.

2. Before: “Forget it. You’re slower than molasses.”

After: “Forget it. You’re slower than dial up internet.”

The cliché twists makes those sentences pop. Add a Hit of Humor

I Do Not, Rhay Christou, Multi-Immersion Grad

By mid-afternoon I was worth about as much as an overwound Timex. I’d taken a licking and wanted to stop ticking.

Rhay played off a commercial for Timex watches. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

Using rhyming words makes it funny. What if they’d used a non-rhyming word in that commercial?

 -- Takes a beating and keeps on ticking.

Not funny. Never would have been in the commercial.

They used the rhetorical device: assonance, rhyming vowel sounds. Simple and powerful.

Soul Affinity, A.Y. Chao, Immersion Grad, Golden Heart Finalist

“Get her out here. Now.” Vandenberg’s voice exploded from the intercom, all pissy and pompous and panties-in-a-twist.

Deep Editing Analysis: 

That cliché was amplified with what I call a rhetorical device combo. She combined  two rhetorical devices, alliteration (pissy, pompous, panties) and polysyndeton (many ands with no punctuation), and she gave the sentence a compelling cadence too.

Campari Crimson, Traci Andrighetti, Immersion Grad, U.S.A. Today Bestseller

1. My B Positive blood began to race. “O Positive can donate to B Positive. So there could be a link to the blood bank break-ins.”
2. Anthony flipped onto his back, splayed his legs, and snored like a drunk with severe allergies and sleep apnea.

Struck By Eros, Jenn Windrow, Multi-Immersion Grad

Angelo was short, chubby, and Puerto Rican. His clothes were louder than Tara’s laugh, and he wore more oil in his deep-black hair than flowed through the engine of my Mustang. They were a match made in tacky heaven.

Evil's Unlikely Assassin, Jenn Windrow, Multi-Immersion Grad

White granite floors. White granite walls. White granite pillars. All gleaming like a freshly polished fang.

Love how Jenn themed that cliché play. Smart.

Sharing Hunter, Julie Glover, Multi-Immersion Grad, Cruising Writers Grad, Golden Heart Finalist

1. Before: The plan formed quickly.

After:    The perfect plan zip-lined into my brain.

2. No Before, Just an After: I grinned and gave her a kiss-my-sass wink. 

The power of playing on rhyming words. Ass/sass. Fun!

All is Bright, Andrea Grigg, Immersion Grad

1. I could eat a horse, a stable, and the rest of the barn.
2. Or maybe I’ve had this emotional baggage for so long it’s sick of riding the carousel.
3. He gives me a long look and I freak out on the inside in case he’s found me out. But he shakes his head and like a lucky fish, I’m off the hook and back in the river. 

Fresh writing carries power.

CEO for Hire, Lisa Wells, Multi-Immersion Grad

1. It had been a while since Isabella had locked stilettos with someone, but this chic's four-inch Louboutins were about to become hell-scraping flats.
2. "I'm telling you, Grandma Patti, the guy thinks he's a nine-day wonder, but he's really just a nine-day blunder. There is no way he's my soul mate. You need to recheck your algorithm." 
3. The air whooshed out of her lungs when she read his reply. Pardon my emoji, but I think I love you.

The Curse of Tenth Grave, Darynda Jones, Multi-Immersion Grad, NYT Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller

 “It breaks my heart that you don’t remember me. Not bad. Not like a complete break. More like a hairline fracture.”

The way Darynda amplified that cliché makes me laugh every time.

The Dirt on Ninth Grave, Darynda Jones, Multi-Immersion Grad, NYT Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller

Darynda and I worked on Ninth Grave in her first Immersion class. I remember our late night editing. Working with Darynda and her characters is always crazy-fun.

The Set Up:  Cookie spilled coffee on a customer and started dabbing at his crotch.

Before:  When she came to her senses and realized where her hand was, she…

After:  When she realized she had her hand on his erector set, she stilled, stood, and stammered.

Deep Editing Analysis: We avoided a cliché and added specificity (erector set) that included a big time hit of humor with the play on words. Darynda loaded the last part of the sentence with alliteration.

Why use rhetorical devices like alliteration and assonance and polysyndeton? Because they often make the cadence compelling. Because the repetition, the rhyming vowel sounds, and the rhythm add power. Because they make writing sound award-winning cool.

Margie grads may have noticed I used polysyndeton in the first sentence of that paragraph. They probably noticed I used alliteration in the third sentence. They should have noticed the last three sentences of that paragraph created anaphora.

I encourage writers to take a long moment and give cliché-busting their best effort. 

Rome wasn't built in a day. There's no time like the present to go all out and push harder. Time flies when you're having fun. And cliché-busting is more fun than falling off a log. 

I shared a few more clichés, and I also shared my truth.

I hope you all find your clichés and overused word pairings. I hope you consider nixing or twisting or rewriting to add interest and power.

Kudos to the Immersion grads cited in the blog. Impressive writing!

As always – a big THANK YOU to the WITS gals for inviting me to guest blog.

THANK YOU ALL 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.

Lawson Writer's Academy – April Courses

1. Deep Editing, Rhetorical Devices, and More

Instructor: Becky Rawnsley, Teaching Margie Lawson’s course  

2. Story Structure Safari

Instructor: Lisa Miller

3. Taking a Book from Good to Sold

 Instructor: Shirley Jump

4. Author Power on Pinterest

Instructor: Lana Pattinson

5. Write Better Faster  

Instructor: Becca Syme

6. Revision Boot Camp or Revision Retreat

Instructor: Suzanne Purvis

7. Navigating the Tightrope Between Historical Fact and Historical Fiction 

Instructor: Anne Mateer

Post a comment. Let me know you’re here.

I’ll draw names for the TWO WINNERS Thursday night, at 9PM Mountain Time, and post them on the blog.

If we have over 100 people post comments, I’ll triple the drawings.

That’s right. TRIPLE.

We’ll have SIX WINNERS!

Ha! Surprised you. Right?

Like this bog? Give it a social media boost, and you’ll boost your chance to win!

Okay, your turn! Share a cliche twist with us!

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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 (in 2018, in Phoenix, Denver, San Jose area, Dallas, Yosemite, Los Angeles (2), Atlanta, and in Sydney, Melbourne, Bellbrae, and Coolangatta, Australia), Cruising Writers cruises, full day and weekend workshops, keynote speeches, online courses through Lawson Writer’s Academy, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit: www.margielawson.com