Writers On The Go

 

 Writers On The Go by Mindy Lawrence

A Refresher on Writing Bugaboos

Although most of us have had classes about grammar and usage, there are still times when we need a refresher on the use of certain words. We know them but how to use them sometimes slips our minds. Here are a few bugaboos and a refresher on how to use them.

Also, see The Frugal Editor (second edition) and Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips both by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her books will enlighten you even more.

Whose vs. who’s
Both words are versions of the interrogative pronoun who.
Who’s is a contraction of who + is or who + has.
Whose means “belonging to whom,” and occasionally “of which.”

Examples:

•    Who’s afraid of Frankenstein? (contraction)
•    Whose car is that? (possession)


Lie vs. Lay
You lie down, but you lay something down. The problem here is that the word lay shows up in both the past and present tenses. You only need a direct object with lay, you will know that the past tense is laid.

 
Examples
•    I would like to lie down and listen to the rain.
•    Lay the hammer on the table.


Me vs. I
If the people are the subject of the verb, you should use I. If the people are the objects of the verb, me is correct. To help you figure out whether to use me or I in a sentence, follow this hint.

Remove the other person from the sentence. If it sounds right, you’ve used the right word.

•    Jerry took I for a walk. (wrong)
•    Jerry took me for a walk (correct)

Pique vs. Peek vs. Peak
Pique means to stimulate interest. Peek means to take a look. Peak means the top of a mountain or something else high.

•    Reading about Frankenstein piqued my interest in monsters.
•    When I heard the noise, I had to peek out the window to see what it was.
•    She walked to the peak of the hill.

These are just a few of the words we often confuse. The more you write and edit or yourself, the better you will get on using these and other troublesome words.

LIST

Grammarly
www.grammarly.com

Carolyn Howard-Johnson
https://howtodoitfrugally.com/

Mindy Lawrence is a writer, ghost blogger, and artist based in Farmington, Missouri. She worked for the State of Missouri for over 24 years and moved to Farmington in 2020. 

She proofread the Sharing with Writers newsletter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson and wrote “An Itty-Bitty Column on Writing” there for ten years. She has been published in Writers' Digest magazine and interviewed by NPR’s All Things Considered.

 

Using Psychology to Write Characters

By Mindy Lawrence

One of the first writers I fell in love with was Edgar Allan Poe. His gothic horror latched on to my mind. I was powerless to save anyone from going over the precipice. He not only got into the heads of his characters but also into the heads of his readers.

Using psychological information to reach out and grab your audience can create unforgettable characters that burrow into the psyche. Questions you can answer to create memorable protagonists and antagonists include:

What are my characters afraid of?

Is your character afraid of water and has to take a trip at sea? Is your protagonist raised by a family that strongly believes in hell and tortures them with the fear of going there? Fears like these can drive characters to do what they might not have done without their unconscious psychological upbringing. Decide what triggers those in your novel to fear.

What do my characters hate and why?

Did your protagonist or antagonist grow up in a household that hated cats? How about people or another religion or background? Making your characters try to overcome their faults (or carry through with them) can drive your story.

What are my characters’ oddities and what caused them?

When I think about oddities in characters, I think about Ignatius Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. In the first few pages, we get a snapshot of Ignatius that we picture in our heads throughout the entire book. He hates so many things. He writes his worldview in Big Chief notebooks. He’s obviously unsound of mind but winds up solving a crime by accident.

What backstory affected my characters?

What does the character(s) go through before the story begins that causes them to react as they do? Were they raised in a cult? In poverty? In a well-to-do family? All this affects the way the character thinks and acts.

Is there any salvation for my character(s) or is the story destined to follow the path it takes?

Like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, does his hate doom him from the beginning? Or like in Lord Jim does the main character find his own salvation and come to terms with his actions?

Characters that remain in our heads come from good development. Consider building your story using psychology to grab your reader, maybe forever.

Take some time to dig into the minds of your creations.


LINKS (For those not hyper, just copy and paste into your browser.)

Character Development Fears
https://unblockingwritersblock.tumblr.com/post/110467516538/character-development-fears

Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature
http://plaza.ufl.edu/bjparis/books/imagined/imagined.pdf

What Really Drives your Characters?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-writers/201109/what-really-drives-your-characters

The Psychology of Character
http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/02/17/the-psychology-of-character/

How to Diagnose your Character
https://www.amazon.com/How-Diagnose-Your-Character-Depth-ebook/dp/B00CH3WERA

How to Craft Characters Scene by Scene
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-craft-characters-scene-by-scene


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Mindy Lawrence is a writer and artist based in Farmington, Missouri. She worked for the State of Missouri for over twenty-four years and has retired to her sumptuous home office where she’s writing, doing calligraphy, and making a mess. She has been published in Writers Digest magazine and interviewed by All Things Considered.

 

 

Writing Residencies - Apply, Apply, Apply

By Mindy Lawrence

A writer I know decided to stick her neck out and apply for an international writing residency. Guess what? She was accepted! She got to go to Iceland and participate in a program for memoir and nonfiction writers. She’s getting to go for one reason—she applied.

It’s important to grow. We do that by pushing past what we think we CAN do and exploring the murky ground of the unknown. When we succeed, it gives us the motivation we need to investigate our abilities even deeper.  You might want to investigate some of the residencies mentioned in the links below and see if you are interested. By all means, look at them and apply, apply, apply.

LINKS

·         Nine Unconventional Writers’ Residencies: https://electricliterature.com/nine-unconventional-writers-residencies/

·         Conferences and Residencies Database: https://www.pw.org/conferences_and_residencies

·         Artist Communities Residencies: http://www.artistcommunities.org/residencies/directory

·         12 Offbeat Writer Residency Programs: https://mediablog.prnewswire.com/2016/10/06/offbeat-writer-residency-programs/

·         Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow: https://www.writerscolony.org/

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 Original first published in Sharing with Writers.

Mindy Lawrence is a writer and artist based in Farmington, Missouri. She worked for the State of Missouri for over 24 years and has retired to her sumptuous home office where she’s writing and doing calligraphy. She proofed and wrote a column for Sharing with Writers newsletter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson for ten years.