Writers in the Storm

By Margie Lawson and Tiffany Lawson Inman

A big lovey Thank You to Laura Drake for inviting us back to WITS. Surprise! It’s a mother-daughter duo blog!

What happens to characters when they are in a high emotion scene? They experience emotion.  Duh.

What happens if the writer keeps the POV character in their head, intellectualizing about what they’re feeling, instead of experiencing the emotion physically too? It doesn’t ring true. The scene is not as credible. The reader will fail to become fully immersed in the moment, the character arc, and the story.

Um…that’s not good.

So what do we mean by experience the emotion physically?

Emotion almost always includes a visceral response.

Most of the time without the visceral, you will have a 1-2 punch without the 2.

You need to become a Visceral Warrior.

Visceral warriors push themselves to write visceral responses in ALL of their emotional scenes.  They put visceral responses in the right places. They amplify the visceral responses appropriately for that scene. And they don’t write clichéd visceral responses, they work hard to write original and fresh.

Quickie review of visceral responses: Involuntary physical responses to emotionally triggered stimuli. Responses like accelerated heart rate, sweaty palms, tight throat, dry mouth, clenched stomach, flushed neck and face, pumped up adrenaline, tunnel vision.

If a writer neglects to have the POV character experience a visceral response after an emotionally-loaded stimulus, the scene is usually not as powerful. Not a page-turner.

Today, we are using examples from a few of the hordes of Multi-Margie-Grads (and some Tiffany-Grads) who are visceral warriors.

Analysis of Visceral Responses:

Darynda Jones, Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet, NYT Bestseller, Multi-Margie-Grad

Nausea punched into my stomach and pushed hard, but I was getting used to the massive adrenaline dumps. I tensed and fought the surge of bile, forcing it down and holding it there.

Analysis: Fresh writing.  Empowered visceral response.  Power words: nausea, punched, hard, massive, adrenaline dumps, tensed, fought, bile, forcing.  Perfect  cadence.

The colossal adrenaline dump that had overloaded my system now needed a place to go. With every ounce of strength I had, I pushed him off, rushed to the wall, and emptied the contents of my stomach onto the concrete foundation.

Analysis: Fresh writing.  The power of three.  Power words: colossal, adrenaline dump, overloaded, strength, rushed, emptied. Compelling cadence.

Romily Bernard, Find Me,  2012 Golden Heart Winner, and Multi-Margie-grad, Romily’s debut YA will be published Sept. 2013.

Then I hear the car door slam and my heart rides up my throat with spurs.

Analysis: Powerful! Fresh writing. Shared stimulus and response. Amplified visceral response twice. Backloaded with power word: spurs. Compelling cadence.

The second example from Romily Bernard shares a well-written incongruency. The dialogue cue is incongruent with the visceral response.

“We have a visitor.” Weird how my voice sounds flat and confident when my insides are churning and liquid.

Read that example again.

The dialogue cue, the way she speaks, cues the reader regarding the subtext. Her voice sounds flat and confident. But she’s really terrified. We know she’s terrified because her insides are churning and liquid. She’s covering up her fear for her little sister.

Analysis:  Incongruent dialogue cue and visceral response. Fresh writing.  Complex dialogue cue.  Complex visceral response.  Parallelism.  Compelling cadence.

Fabulous example of using incongruence (which happens multiple times a day in the real world) to deepen character and enrich the scene.

I rub my thumb over the frayed binding, irritation pinching all my insides like I’ve got mosquitoes eating their way out.

Analysis: Wow! Clear action, clear visual: Thumb over frayed binding (of diary).

• Fresh writing: irritation punching insides. Compelling cadence.
• Power Words: irritation, pinching, insides, mosquitoes, eating their way out.
• Backloaded with powerful four-word phrase.
• Fresh simile: mosquitoes eating way out. That fresh simile could give readers visceral responses!

Threading Visceral Responses:

Here’s a four-part visceral threading in Katie McGarry’s edgy YA, Dare You To.

This is not the real passage. It will not flow. Several paragraphs and pieces of paragraphs are missing. We included some lines that are the triggers for her visceral responses.

Katie McGarry, Dare You To, Margie-Grad

“So it’s true,” someone says from the front of the class. “Your last name is Risk.”

Clank. Clank. The sound of chains squeezing my lungs echoes in my head.

Two paragraphs later:

Everyone in the class watches me. My hands start to sweat.

The next paragraph includes this visceral:

Panic pushes my heart past my rib cage.

Two  paragraphs later:

Sweat forms along the hairline on my neck as the world sways. It’s been too much: the changes. Losing Mom. Losing Isaiah. Losing my home. I’ve tried. Really I have. I’ve roamed the halls as the reclusive freak show. This answer will change everything again. “Yes.”

Whispers and comments rush through the class like wind from an oncoming thunderstorm.

Skip a few paragraphs, and we’ll find these two sentences in a paragraph:

The bell rings and my teacher’s expression gives new meaning to the term wrathful. A couple of more pounds of chains settle in my stomach.

Kudos to Katie McGarry for empowering this high-emotion section with five visceral responses.

1.    The sound of chains squeezing my lungs echoes in my head.

2.    My hands start to sweat.

3.    Panic pushes my heart past my rib cage.

4.    Sweat forms along the hairline on my neck as the world sways.

5.    A couple of more pounds of chains settle in my stomach.

The first and last lines are fresh, fresh, fresh. Love the way she used chains in the first line and amplified the chains in an unexpected way in the last line. Powerful.

Susannah Scott,  Luck of the Dragon, Multi-Margie-Grad

She was done—done, done, done. Her goose was cooked. Charred. Gino would know where she was now. But where was Joey? Her stomach flopped over and fisted under her ribs.

Analysis: WOOT WOOT! Epizeuxis – done, done, done. Goosey cliché twist. Alliteration. Alliteration. Visceral kick with flopped over and fisted under – fresh fresh fresh! Cadence galore.

Now – for examples from Multi-Margie-Grad Laura Drake!

The Sweet Spot

The sobbing admission burned like drain cleaner as it burst from her throat.

Analysis: Words like sobbing, burned, and burst create a clear emotional visual to the reader. Drain cleaner pops out as an original and dangerous simile. Kick butt cadence.

When black dots shot across her vision, she remembered to breathe.

Analysis: Used visceral action to show visual impairment and by saying remembered to breathe – told reader she wasn’t breathing. Two viscerals in one line! And again, clever cadence.

Delicious flames licked the inside of her skin, urging her on. “Well, then, you go on and lie in that bed, Jimmy Denny. I don’t want to see your face on this property again. Do you hear me?”

The freed flames roared in her ears, and her body shook with righteous crackling heat.

Analysis: Poetic punch of cadence with words like delicious and licked to describe flames on one’s skin. Brilliant and fresh writing.

Then slamming the last line with power words: flames, roared, shook, righteous, crackling, and backloading with heat.  How sad would this have been if she had written, “ She heard the flames crackle and her body was hot to the core.” (cliché alert!)

• Shared stimulus and response.
• Amplified visceral response twice.
• Backloaded with power word: spurs.
• Compelling cadence.

One more example. This one is from Laura Drake’s August release, Her Road Home.

The first paragraph below is the stimulus for the visceral response.  Viscerally creepy.

At the low, creepy tone, her head jerked up, though she knew what she would see. The concentrated, unfocused stare. Ruddied cheeks. His lips glistening, as if he’d just licked them.

She stood in flash-frozen shock, heart fluttering in scared-rabbit beats. Not again.

Analysis:  Alliteration, flash-frozen, fluttering, parallelism. Fresh, fresh, fresh writing. Kudos to Laura Drake!

Thanks for joining us (Margie and Tiffany) today. We had fun writing this blog together, and we even experienced some mother-daughter visceral hits. Wish you all could have been here!

Before you leave this blog, please know that this was an itsy-bitsy teensy-weensy sliver of our writing-visceral-responses pie.  Sorry, this was NOT a quick glance a guide. It’s not even a Cliffs Notes Version. It’s more like 1/30^th of a Cliffs Notes version.

What are we saying?

There is SO MUCH MORE TO LEARN in order to become a Visceral Warrior. But don’t worry, we know you can do it!

Margie’s online course, Visceral Responses: Beyond Hammering Hearts, is loaded with dozens of teaching points, a slew of dissected and analyzed examples, hundreds of learning opportunities.

POST A COMMENT on the blog and you could win a spot in the Visceral Responses course. The class runs August 15 – Sept. 15. We'll draw the winner's name Thursday Night, 8 PM, Mountain time. If you win, and you're already registered for the course, your registration fee will be refunded.

Check out all the online courses offered by Lawson Writer’s Academy.

WITS own Laura Drake teaches on online class for LWA in September, Submissions That Sell! She should know. She got contracts for seven books before her first book was released!

Lawson Writer's Academy -- Upcoming Classes:

1. Visceral Rules: Beyond Hammering Hearts, Aug. 15 - Sept. 15
Instructor:  Margie Lawson

2. Fab 30: Advanced Deep Editing, A Master Class, Aug. 12 - Oct. 20
Instructor:  Margie Lawson

3. Story Structure Safari, Sept. 1 - 30
Instructor:  Lisa Miller

4. Submissions That Sell!, Sept. 2 - 27
Instructor: Laura Drake

5. World Genesis: Building a World from the Ground Up, Sept. 2 - 27
Instructor:  Suzanne Lazear

About Margie

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

Margie has presented over eighty full day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Writers who have studied her material credit her innovative deep editing approaches with taking their writing several levels higher—to publication, awards, and bestseller lists.

To learn about online courses through Lawson Writer’s Academy, Margie’s 4-day Immersion Master Classes (in 2013: in Colorado, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Columbus, and on Whidbey Island), her full day and weekend Master Class presentations, keynote speeches, Lecture Packets, and newsletter, visit www.margielawson.com.

Tiffany Lawson Inman (NakedEditor) claimed a higher education at Columbia College Chicago. There, she learned to use body and mind together for action scenes, character emotion, and dramatic story development.

She teaches Action, Choreography, Physicality, Violence, and Dialogue for Lawson Writer’s Academy, presents hands-on-action workshops, and will be offering webinars in 2014. As a freelance editor, she provides deep story analysis and dramatic fiction editing services. Tiffany will be off maternity leave and back on-line before the end of the year! Stay tuned to WITS to see Tiffany’s upcoming guest blogs, contests, and lecture packets.

Laura here. I just wanted to squee a moment. The very first book I wrote (and edited 3,457 times,) Her Road Home releases tomorrow!  It earned a RT 4 star review! You can learn more about it on my website.It's available at Amazon, B&N, and other stores. Thanks for your indulgence - now here's Shannon with her monthly wisdom:

By Shannon Donnelly

Dead.

Line.

A looming date is enough to kill any writer's ability to get words on a page. Two weeks to finish two hundred pages—if that doesn't freeze you, add in that they have to be two hundred great pages. Polished, perfect prose.

Anne Lamont's wonderful book, Bird by Bird, deals with this--a whole book about deadlines and writing. That's how tough they can be. But why?

Because we want the work to be perfect? Because we said we'd be done on a date and we want to keep that promise? Because we're insecure and think we MUST or we’re just not a real writer?

A deadline taught me to learn to ask for an extension. A deadline taught me to let the writing flow and edit later. A deadline taught me that if I'm writing regularly, I can do fifty good pages in a weekend. A deadline also taught me how good I can be at procrastinating.

If you haven’t sold yet, you still need deadlines—that’s where contests are great, since they force you to get something done. I love the Golden Heart because you must finish the book to enter.

Deadlines can be a friend. They can make you finish that book, even if you have to drag yourself to the keyboard to do it. And, trust me, you don’t ever know if the writing is good or bad—you can never judge your own work, so it’s very often a good idea to write and worry about everything else later. But a deadline can end up being something you beat yourself with—and it kills the writing.

So how about giving up the word “deadline,” and make it something a little friendlier?

How about targets, goals, due dates, motivational milestones? Or maybe set a celebration date—about a week after you really have to get something done. Put down on the calendar a spa day, or a shopping spree, or dinner with a friend, or a movie binge day. For me, carrots always work better than sticks for motivation. Or break the deadline into smaller bits—a chapter done, to the half way point, a first draft finished. Chop it up.

But the best motivation for me is to make sure that book gets out there to start earning some money. So why not pay yourself for your writing, even if it’s only a few bucks for that spurge—that new shirt, or dinner out, or a chocolate cake?

The trick is to figure out what gets you to a computer to get a book done.

Shannon Donnelly Bio

Shannon Donnelly’s writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written."

Her Regency romances can be found as ebooks on all formats, and with Cool Gus Publishing, and include a series of four novellas.

She also has out the Mackenzie Solomon, Demon/Warders Urban Fantasy series, Burn Baby Burn and Riding in on a Burning Tire, and the Urban Fantasy, Edge Walkers. Her work has been on the top seller list of Amazon.com and includes Paths of Desire, a Historical Regency romance.

She is the author of several young adult horror stories, and computer games. She lives in New Mexico with two horses, two donkeys, two dogs, and only one love of her life. Shannon can be found online at sd-writer.com, facebook.com/sdwriter, and twitter/sdwriter.

I’m a software trainer by day so I have several “true loves” in the software realm. But as a writer, my hands down favorite lately is OneNote.

I. Heart. OneNote.

What is it, and where do you find it?

OneNote is a planner and note taking software. Capture text, images, video and audio notes, and keep important information readily available. If you’re the organized type, it’s likely that you have a binder with all of the research information and pictures for your book.

OneNote allows you to keep this information in the same format electronically so it’s searchable.

You’ll find OneNote in your START menu.

I could do several posts on the topic (and I probably will) but when I stopped to think about what I use the MOST in the program, it was pretty easy to come up with my Top Ten fave features.

#10 – ToDo Lists

OneNote allows you to insert handy checklists. You just check off the item when you’re done and you can keep it for posterity or edit the list as you move to a new day.

How to do a check list:

Click to type in your OneNote notebooks page (top tabs are sections, right side tabs are pages) and type “Ctrl+1”

• In the top middle of your Home ribbon in OneNote, there is a “To Do” button
• Type your To Do
• Hit Enter
• Use the Ctrl+1 shortcut key again to add more checkboxes

Note: You’ll see lots of keyboard shortcuts through this document and now that OneNote is available for the Mac, I'm going to have to dig up some of those. Incidentally, my favorite shortcut is Ctrl +PageDown to “flip thru” the pages in any section of your notebook.

Click here for the latest OneNote and Microsoft updates that affect writers.

#9 – Tag and Find Important Items

Why is this exciting? One Note has a series of Tags that you can add to any page that are easy to search by with the “Find Tags” button on the ribbon. I’m copying and pasting a screen shot of the Tags drop down to the right but there are even more than are listed. This feature makes me SQUEE!

#8 – Sync up OneNote between your phone and computer

Yes, you heard me! If you have a smart phone, it can synchronize with the OneNote on your computer. Sign me up!!

Note: You need to first set up the app on your smart phone and you must also set up OneDrive (used to be SkyDrive), which is helpful to do anyway. OneDrive is only available with OneNote 2010 and later! It will not work with the older versions.

Tips on setting up your OneDrive in OneNote and getting the iPhone app are here (along with a ton of other amazing OneNote answers).

#7 – Tables and Charts (which can be sent to Word or Outlook!)

Who doesn’t love a good table…perhaps you need one listing scene elements? You can create tables and charts directly on a OneNote page and then:

• Copy and paste it to Word
• Email it.
• Right click on your OneNote table and choose “Copy Link to Paragraph” to embed it in a document anywhere else on your computer. (If you haven’t set up SkyDrive, the One Note file and the file where you pasted the link must be on the same computer!)

#6 – Hyperlinks to anywhere

You can copy or create hyperlinks from any page, anywhere, and put it in your notebook page. I’m thinking of keeping an active writing notebook with tabs for each topic to store the amazing links that I run across in my web surfing. My bookmarks tend to get lost because there’s so many.

#5 – Print to OneNote

When researching, you can send a whole page or part of a page directly to OneNote. Click Ctrl +P on your keyboard (or you can choose File > Print) and your page is sent to an unfiled note in OneNote, which can be moved to any section or page. Note: You’ll see your “Unfiled Notes” tab at the top of your OneNote screen.

#4 – Send whole or part of any page to OneNote with a shortcut key

Imagine surfing the web and pulling up a side note by either pressing the Windows logo button + N or clicking the N (OneNote) icon button in the task bar (down by the time) and being able to jot down your notes to keep in your book’s OneNote binder. This shortcut automatically files it in the Unfiled Tab in OneNote, which you can move around.

#3 – Audio and Video Files

OneNote will also add audio or video files to your notebook pages. It can even record the same right into a page! Now that we’re in conference season, I’ve made the goal of adding my meeting and class notes into OneNote, and then recording those extras things that I didn’t get down in my notes.

#2 – You can attach files to any page in OneNote.

Can you writers say character charts? Photos? I thought of moving this higher on the list, it’s so sublimely amazing.

From your Windows Explorer, click and drag any file onto a OneNote Page. You will get the following dialog box:

You can insert a hyperlink, or choose the second option to have an icon on your page that you double-click on to open the file. But the last choice (to insert the file as a printout)? LOVE IT! I used this with a conference handout to make my notes next to the speakers content. It saved me a ton of time.

And my #1 FAVORITE thing in OneNote is:

OneNote doesn’t have a Save button. OneNote automatically saves your work on an almost constant basis in the background. This means I don’t lose work, even if forget to save.

p.s. If you want to save your notebook with a new name you can use the Save As feature located under the File menu. Also, if you’re using the OneDrive sync feature, you need to be sure to sync before you go on the road. OneNote auto-saves, but it doesn’t auto-sync!

Helpful Links:

• My favorite OneNote tutorial from How-To Geek
• Microsoft OneNote – An Author’s Best Friend from Self-Publishing Review
• For those of you who like to handwrite your notes, there is a product called Capturx for OneNote – It’s a digital pen that’s compatible with the app. AwesomeSauce!!

Does OneNote sound like it would be helpful to you? Do you have questions, or shortcuts you’d like to share? We’d love to chat with you in the comments!

Where can you get more of Jenny?

Her blog information is below, but she also teaches online. For all you writers and OneNote/Evernote fans, Microsoft just released OneNote for the Mac (it's FREE)!

Next week's class details:

• Course title: OneNote: The Simple (Kinda Sexy) Organization Tool
• Course time: webinar next Monday March 24th at 7 pm EST - it's available OnDemand afterwards, so don't worry if you can't make it.
• The initial webinar is followed by two weeks of online time where we cover the material and create notebooks. We finish with another quick webinar recap.
• There are various levels for the class, depending on if you just want the knowledge or if you need active one-on-one help setting up your notebooks. Be sure to click the course title link above to see what's included for the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum levels.
• Use the discount code MORECOWBELL for $10 off!

Lastly, we're going to have THREE special things for this kickoff class:

• A member of the Microsoft OneNote team will audit the class to answer any questions on the technologies and features that are still new.
• A drawing will held to give away a subscription of Office 365 to one lucky attendee.
• Any interested authors will be entered into a drawing to be a guest author for the Office blog - in return for the description of how OneNote helped you "get it done," Microsoft will promote the winner's novel at the bottom of the post.

Really, y'all...how can you beat that? (You can't! This inaugural class is the only one that will have all this, since it comes so quickly on the heels of Microsoft's rollout.) Click here to sign up!

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA and at Writers In The Storm.