Writers in the Storm

Aimie K. Runyan

Three years ago when I sat down to begin plotting my novel, Promised to the Crown, I knew I had a huge task in front of me. I was dealing with an era most readers would only have a cursory knowledge of, and a series of events they would probably not be familiar with at all. The settling of early Quebec isn’t something most history teachers spend much time on… if any.

So how to convey the reality of 770 women who were sent over as “mail-order brides” by the king in order to marry the settlers and make little Canadians? You can’t. But what you can do is try to give a larger picture of what the women experienced by selecting a sampling of characters that can provide a wider lens to the reader on the world you’re trying to show.

With only the historical premise of Louis XIV’s “King’s Daughters” (so named because he paid for their dowry and crossing to Canada), I set about crafting three completely fictitious characters who came from different situations, but who would have to face the same challenges and realities in the New World. I didn’t want the limitations of using real historical figures because my goal wasn’t to tell the story of one or two women—I wanted to convey a larger truth. These are some of the methods I used to weave three separate narratives into one cohesive story:

• Start with archetypes. “The mastermind” “the mother” “the artist” are all concepts you can use to formulate how your characters take on the world. The person obsessed with solving problems is going to address issues differently than the person combing the world for inspiration for their next poem. You want to make sure your POV characters have a different enough world view to make it worth the hassle of writing from more than one POV. I began my characters with three very basic concept characters: the mother, the teacher, and the sheltered farm girl.
• Diverge from those archetypes. There is no person so simplistic that you can simply write them off as a two word personality type. Your character has likes, dislikes, needs, wants, and a past that shapes how they deal with reality. Making a rich character will make it easier for your reader to parse who is speaking. What if my maternal character was barren? What if my teacher character loved children, but was petrified to have her own? Dig deep into their psyche.
• Make sure each chapter or section advances the plot. Telling the same scene over again simply to get another character’s take is tedious. In small doses, it can be brilliant, but forward motion is key. This was a challenge in my early drafts because I wanted to tell each of my main characters’ in the moment they decided to leave for Canada. This made for 50+ pages where the characters got no closer to the new world. Choosing one character to focus on and begin the story in France, then giving the other characters’ ‘pivotal moments’ in bite-sized chunks of back story propelled the reader through the action faster and made for a much more compelling read.
• Make sure each main POV character gets enough “screen time” to make us care. You don’t need to make sure that the number of words you spend with each character is the same, but it shouldn’t feel lopsided. We also shouldn’t go so long away from any one main POV character that we’ve lost track of where they are and what they’re doing. I made several passes through my manuscript to ensure each main character was at least mentioned if they were ‘offscreen’ for a whole chapter, and tallied up their word counts to make sure there wasn’t a huge disparity. I didn’t have a perfect rotation of POV, but I made sure it was fairly close.
• In addition to strong characters, your voice for each must be on point. Pet expressions, gestures, vocabulary limitations, and more are key in keeping your POV characters distinct. The illiterate character, no matter how smart, will not have the vocabulary to match an educated counterpart. This is important, even when not dealing with multiple POV, but absolutely essential when you are. I made sure my Parisian characters were more worldly than my rural ones, and the literate ones more eloquent than those who had been denied an education.
• In most cases, it’s great to show one main POV character from the eyes of another. Is your detective as witty as he thinks? Is your ninja as cunning as she would have you believe? Let the other characters show us another angle on the truth. I loved showing my insecure character through the eyes of her friends. She was much more capable than she ever recognized.
• If you are travelling between different time periods in a dual narrative, make sure the language, setting, props, and more all fit the eras so as to keep the narratives separate. It’s easy to slip in an inappropriate word that will take the reader out of the appropriate context.
• Make sure that if you have a large number of main POV characters that you achieve a satisfying story arc for all of them in addition to an overreaching story arc. Each main character deserves a fully fleshed-out storyline, and for this reason, multiple POV books tend to be longer than single narratives. If you take on this structure, invest the time to do it thoroughly.
• Make sure you make transitions from POV character to POV character smoothly. Titling a chapter heading with the POV character’s name is very common. You can also shift from scene to scene in a chapter if you are very distinct with your voice, but this does not mean “head-hopping” willy-nilly within a scene. Stick with one character for a logical chunk of the story.
• The golden rule: Do not use multiple POVs for the sake of using multiple POVs. If you can tell your story without the shifts, you don’t need them. Use of multiple POVs is a really compelling tool if used well and is a necessary part of your narrative structure. If it’s not vital to the story, you’re just making your novel more complicated for no real reason, and complicated is not the same as complex and/or interesting.

We have seen some really wonderful multiple POV books in every genre recent years: The Poisonwood Bible, the Song of Ice and Fire series, The Girl on the Train and more. Is this structure to your liking, or do you prefer the author to stick to a singular narrative?

About Aimie

Aimie K. Runyan writes historical fiction that highlights previously uncelebrated contributions of women in key moments in history. Her first novel, Promised to the Crown, comes out in April of this year. She loves travel, music, and books above almost all things. She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children.

Find Aimie online at www.aimiekrunyan.com, her author Facebook page, on Goodreads, and on Twitter at @aimiekrunyan

Sierra Godfrey

If you’re anything like me, January isn’t so much a chance for resolutions and fresh starts as it is a reminder that now is no time to slack off. Things are still crazy!

For my part, I never make resolutions because I dislike it when I break them—but this January I did get really organized. I bought a gorgeous paper planner that is so pretty it’s a sure I’ll look at and use it, and I started a budget and finance binder. I might or might not have organized all our contact info into a Household Home Base Binder.

One area where I still need help is social media—for my business, for my writing. There’s so much of it and the sheer possibilities can be overwhelming. How do you keep up with it all without losing your mind? One of my website clients, the lovely and fantastic Kristin Lippert Martin, nailed it when she said to me, “I have Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, a blog, and Facebook—and it’s exhausting.”

No kidding.

What I know is this: Not every social media channel works for every type of business, and you have to spend a little time getting to know which one works for you. But you probably shouldn’t ignore them altogether. How? Glad you asked.

Do what you like.

This is a no-brainer, but there’s pressure these days to be on everything, otherwise we’ll feel left behind, especially if you’re of an age where the internets came into your life as a teenager or in your early twenties.  If you hate a social channel, don’t use it!

For me, Twitter works best. I am not going to Tumblr, and filming myself for YouTube is never going to happen. I resisted Instagram for a long time, but it turns out I like it. I hate Facebook. I’ve got enough going on in life to know that forcing myself to use the channels I dislike is silly. Do what you like!

But here’s the thing—set it up so the other channels are taken care of anyway. How? Glad you asked.

Recipe Tools.

There are a few websites that know there are those of us who want to be everywhere, but dislike many of the channels. Thank goodness! My most favorite of these is If This Then That (ifttt.com), which is a fantastic resource. Set a "recipe" so that every time you publish a blog post (for example), it publishes that post to twitter and intsagram and Tumblr for you—or however you like! It works all ways, so that an Instagram post can go to Twitter or Facebook or whatever. This saves you oodles of time, but its downfall is that it does not engage for you. So you’ll post—but people will figure out it’s an auto-post. (Meh. You might not care.)

A similar tool is Postso, which allows you to schedule posts across all your channels. Pinterest, Facebook—you name it. Postso isn’t free, but if this kind of thing takes up your time, it could be a worthwhile expense.

The one drawback with recipe sites is posting to Instagram. Instagram does not want any program posting to it, so it’s not possible to push posts to it from other channels.

But let’s say you hate using your phone to handle Instagram, and yet you heard there’s a significant writer community on it. What do you do to make things easier on yourself? Glad you asked.

Bluestacks

Bluestacks simulates a tablet or phone environment—on your desktop. What this means is you can use Instagram on your desktop and therefore get around the painful typing out of all those hashtags and things with your sausage fingers making typos every two seconds and Autocorrect embarrassing you with scatological or swear word corrections. It also means you can cut and paste from your other posts. It’s not perfect, but it’s free and it is a tremendous relief to be able to upload photos from my desktop or type out a long comment from my keyboard. I use it plus my mobile Instagram app, and the combination works really well.

All these tools are nice, you might be thinking, but none of them truly help you stay organized when it comes to getting that content out there. How do you manage that? Glad you asked.

Consider keeping really organized with binders.

I’m saying this because I’m super into paper planners these days, but I think there’s something to be said for writing something down and it sticking in your brain better than typing it. And there’s that out of sight out of mind thing, too. I can’t see where I type and file things away on my laptop, but I can see a pretty binder full of info on my desk.

A blogging binder could be too organized for some (possibly me), but for others it could be that kick start that you need. A blogging binder might look like this:

• A sheet for blogging topic ideas
• A sheet for your blogging schedule
• A sheet for your blogging goals, by week, month, or year if needed
• A sheet to show how the traffic is affected by your efforts

You can make these sheets up yourself in Word, or download a starter version. Here are a few places:

Strange and Charmed shows you what one looks like

Measuring Flower has free printables for a blog binder

If you want to go all the way with this, here’s the Epic Blog one year editorial calendar, $16.65 from Amazon. It’s a bit much, but hey—whatever works!

And my favorite, the Ultimate Blog Planner Kit is a free download.

How about you? How do you handle the madness of keeping up with social media? What tools do you use to keep it all under control?

About Sierra

Sierra Godfrey writes fiction with international settings and always a mention of football (soccer) or two. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and a quarterly contributor to Writers in the Storm. She writes weekly about Spanish football for various sports sites, and is also a freelance graphic designer. She lives in the foggy wastelands of the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

Come visit her at www.sierragodfrey.com or talk with her on Twitter @sierragodfrey.

Kathryn Craft

A writer’s life is full of conflict. Sometimes it seems as if we are always fighting, whether heading out into the world to improve our craft and gain notice for the results or turning inward to fight our fears and insecurities. This struggle can be even tougher if the loved ones we lean on for support expect immediate results, or even worse, have no clue why we bother.

That was my situation the first time I went to a meeting of other writers. But after the discussion began every cell in my body relaxed. Here, I did not need to fight. I’d found a group of people who shared the same language, customs, and beliefs.

I had found my tribe.

A few years later my artsy brother, who was struggling with addiction, came along to one of the group’s workshops. He said, “I can’t believe how supportive everyone was. It’s like AA only you don’t need to be an alcoholic to belong.”

Writers complain about how they must forge on alone, but I know for a fact this need not be true. For a writer I have quite a social life. That feeds me in countless ways.

Writing organizations. My goal was clear at that first writers’ group meeting: I wanted their storytelling mojo. Storytelling was a weakness in their programming, though. So I accepted leadership positions, rolled up my sleeves, and initiated programs that brought me the high-quality mentors I sought—all while helping others. In time, my weakness became my strength and passion, and I started a developmental editing business in 2006.

Informal groups. When lectures and workshops failed to sate my hunger to connect with other writers, I founded a program that encouraged local writers to cheer successes, analyze failures, and share resources. After I moved to a new community I discovered a similar program already existed there—and as a bonus, it offered no-holds-barred access to published authors. Four years later I became one of them.

Writing conferences. Writers who attend conferences have worked hard to figure out what their writing has to offer and are eager to talk about it to agents, editors—and other conferees. This aura of dedication, vulnerability, and nervous sharing can forge fast friendships as conferees cheer one another on. I love the vibe so much that for twelve years, in addition to sampling a handful of conferences across my state and country, I chaired two conferences and served on two different conference boards. I met a writer who has become a trusted beta reader. Now, I teach at these conferences.

Online groups. Writing groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, critique groups—I belong to so many. The dearest to me is the Tall Poppy Writers, a marketing cooperative of published women authors that has been a remarkable source of camaraderie and wisdom. But it is the groups committed to meeting in person that net the strongest relationships. Once frozen in airbrushed profile pics, faces animate and inspire with human imperfection; thoughts set in type morph and grow within dynamic discussions.

My local independent bookstore and library. I go to any events I can to meet new authors and swap ideas. I want to support the industry that I hope will support me.

My neighborhood. Feeling out of place at a baby shower in my new community a few years ago, a few other middle-aged women and I migrated toward the sushi tower—and I walked away having started what became a supportive kaffeeklatsch of writers in my new community that saw me through many revisions of the memoir material that would become The Far End of Happy. A month later, a conversation at the gym resulted in an invitation to join the neighborhood book club, whose members have heartily supported (and discussed and debated) my first two novels.

My grocery store. For several years I’ve met every Wednesday in the café of a local Wegman’s with a group of other women. We witness efforts as we tap on our computers all morning and then solve problems and share tips over lunch. You can’t argue with the results: in the three years we’ve been together, four of us have gotten agents, six have published, and two others earned an MFA.

My living room. If it weren’t for my winter Craftwriting workshops in PA and the summer writing retreats I host in NY, I would never force myself to devise writing prompts or write pieces based on them. The activity stretches me to think about craft anew. The array of creative results that can grow from one prompt reinforces time and again the reassuring fact that in this great wide world of writing, there is room for us all.

My head. All of these interactions define my world. More than a “platform” or “network,” these are friendships that lift me up when I’m struggling, cheer me on when I taste success, advise me when I’m clueless, and spread the word when I have a new release. That’s invaluable. But beyond that, my social writing world nurtures my relationships with the characters in my head.

Speaking of which, I think I hear them calling now…

Let’s celebrate community! In the comments, give a shout-out to your favorite tribe and the way it feeds you, or use this supportive blog platform as a place to announce your commitment to finding a tribe in 2016! Still not convinced? Read Jamie Raintree’s December post, “Why Writers Need Human Connection.”

About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks: The Art of Falling, and The Far End of Happy.

Her work as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft, follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she hosts lakeside writing retreats for women in northern New York State, leads workshops, and speaks often about writing.

Kathryn lives with her husband in Bucks County, PA.

Twitter: @kcraftwriter
FB: KathrynCraftAuthor