GRAB YOUR STORY BY THE HORNS

GRAB YOUR STORY BY THE HORNS

Guest Post by Gordon Rothwell

I think most writers have hazy, unformed ideas kicking around in the shadowy recess of their brains. And it’s almost impossible to tell when they might pop out. Or if they ever will.

When I was an advertising copywriter in San Francisco years ago I was always working on print campaigns that demanded catchy headlines. Often, I’d be wracking my poor brain for weeks without success. Then, as I stood under a hot shower head with the water pounding the back of my neck, out popped the winning headline! I also kept a notepad and pen handy beside my bed, just in case my subconscious came up with a brilliant idea while I was catching some zzzz’s.

But there are other more complex ideas that need a long gestation period before they’re ready to make an appearance in the outside world. Take my bullfight story, The Seventh Bull, for example. It took over 70 years before it saw the light of day.

I guess it all began way back in 1940 when I was just a boy sitting in a darkened Seattle movie house watching wide-eyed as Tyrone Power, in a glittering suit of lights, faced an angry thousand-pound bull in Blood and Sand. I was captivated by the pageantry, colorful costuming and spectacle of the sport.

Through the ensuing years, I became a huge fan of the bullfight. I read everything I could find, especially the writings of Ernest Hemingway. I collected cardboard boxes and filled them to the brim with magazine tear sheets and hardback books and paperbacks on bullfighting.

Eventually, as a young adult I saw my first corrida in person in Barcelona, Spain.  That was quite a thrill. But the event that stuck in my mind was another bullfight I attended in the 1960’s in Tijuana, Mexico. I went south of the border from Los Angeles with a group of friends. We wanted to see Antonio Ordoñez, the Number One Matador in the world at that time, in his first appearance outside of Spain. Ordoñez had been featured in a three-part article by Ernest Hemingway in LIFE magazine. Papa’s write up told of an historic mano-a-mano duel between Ordoñez and Luis Dominguin, a darling of the world press and Ava Gardner’s beau.

That entire experience in Tijuana was absolutely surreal. Especially the wild partying at a famous motel after the bullfight. While a strolling mariachi band trumpeted out hot songs equally hot young senoritas clad in tight leather outfits and flat-brimmed sombreros clapped their hands and wriggled their behinds to the delight of a large gathering of Hollywood stars and starlets. Much of what I saw and heard that weekend crept into a corner of my brain and began to percolate.

A half-century later my Seventh Bull tale showed its face to the world when  purchased by MuseItUp Publishing a few months ago. My bullfight story had been growing inside my brain for over 50 years.

If a story is worth developing, you have to dig deep. And find it.

Yank it out by the horns if you have to.

You’re not a Spanish rancher raising high-spirited Miura and Vistahermosa bulls for the arena. You are a breeder of ideas. And if you nurture yours, one day it will come charging out of the chute, past the Gate of Frights, and into the literary arena to give a memorable performance that will have fans cheering: “Ole΄! Ole΄!” and critics raving.

Come on. Grab those horns! And watch what happens!

Gordon Rothwell was born in Seattle and got a BA in Journalism from the University of Washington. As an advertising copywriter—one of the original Mad Men— he wrote material for over 100 major firms in California, including PR for the Apollo lunar space program. He received numerous awards including a CLIO (the Oscar of advertising). He’s also a sportswriter and screenwriter, and many of his screenplays have won and been finalists in the Motion Picture Academy's Nicholl, Acclaim, Chesterfield, Hollywood Symposium, and FADE IN competitions. He’s published articles and stories in numerous men's magazines as well as youth-oriented publications like BOY’S LIFE. He enjoys the fanciful and macabre on screen and in books. Gordon now lives in the shadow of Mt. Shasta, surrounded by a loving family and one sweet pit bull named “Dreamer.”  Mr. Rothwell’s blog address is http://olddognewtricksblog.wordpress.com  And, he can be contacted as “Gordon_Rothwell” on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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Get Started Writing: More Than a Dozen Ways to Build, Maintain, and Even Increase Your Momentum as a Freelance Writer

by Suzanne Lieurance, the Working Writer's Coach

Whether you’re just starting your freelance writing career or you’re wanting to take it to new levels, you need to create momentum and maintain that momentum if you hope to build your business. Here are more than a dozen ways for doing that.

1. Write no more than 3 major long term writing goals on a sheet of paper, and put that paper somewhere where you will see it every day. Read your goals every morning before you start work for the day.

2. Develop your weekly action plan (also called a marketing plan) every Sunday night. Don’t give up on this. Make sure you create your action plan every week and stick to the plan as well as you can each week.

3. Expand your network - think of ways to help promote others as you continue to promote yourself.

4. When you face an obstacle or challenge, think “outside the box” to come up with a way around this obstacle or a way to meet this challenge. Don’t be stopped by the first little obstacle or problem that crops up.

5. Start every day with positive thoughts and maintain these thoughts. Let go of any self-limiting thoughts, feelings, or actions. Just BELIEVE that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to doing even if you aren’t sure HOW you will do that. You’ll figure out HOW as you go along.

6. Be confident when you tell people you are a writer. Create a tagline that tells them exactly what you do. For example, your tagline say, “Freelance Writer, Author, and Speaker.”

7. Attend at least one writers’ conference, course, or workshop every year - more often if you can afford it. Get to know the people in charge. Volunteer to help out at the event.

8. Get business cards made, then pass out your business card everywhere you go. Leave cards on the bulletin boards in coffee shops, book stores, grocery stories. Leave your card in the bowls at restaurants to win a free meal. Make sure you have plenty of cards with you at all times. Give your card to friends and tell them to give the cards to people they may know who need a writer.

9. Create your own e-books, special reports, workshops and teleclasses to sell, then work with other writers who can help you promote them.

10. Write articles for article directories on a regular basis - at least one article written and submitted every week.

11. Write a press release about some new aspect of your business every 6 weeks and send it to local publications and have it distributed online. There are many free online distribution services available.

12. Continue to grow your mailing list any way you can. Read articles about growing your mailing list at ezinearticles.com. You’ll get plenty of suggestions in these articles. Get creative and think of new ways to add to your mailing list.

13. Visit blogs of other well-known writers in your field and leave a meaningful comment, along with your name and URL. Develop an online relationship with these people. It will help you acquire more readers.

14. Be sure you belong to at least a few listservs for writers. Then stop lurking! Become active! Get to know the other writers on these listservs by leaving comments, asking and answering questions, and by providing information about jobs, publishers, editors, etc. whenever you can.

15. Join at least one or two professional organizations for writers. Take part in their events. Volunteer to be a group leader or organizer.

Follow some or all of these 15 suggestions and you're sure to keep moving forward with your freelance writing career!

Suzanne Lieurance is an author, freelance writer, writing coach, speaker and workshop presenter. She is a former classroom teacher and was an instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature for over 8 years.

Lieurance now lives and writes by the sea in Jensen Beach, Florida. She offers The Morning Nudge free every weekday morning to writers who need a little inspiration and motivation to get their writing done.

Your Website Images - Be Careful What You Delete

If you're like me, you upload images as needed for your posts, like the one to the left here.

Once uploaded, those images sit in your Blogger Images File. If you use WordPress, it's the same thing - you upload the images and they're saved in your Media File.

This is all great. You have the images saved on site to be used again if needed, as part of your online marketing strategy.

BUT . . .

Yesterday, I decided to tweak my Google+ account. I edited my work information, changed the header (more on that below) and I deleted some of the albums cluttering up the Photos File.

This would seem like a good thing, right?

Not so much.

What happens is, as you upload images to your Blogger site they're saved in your Google+ account in Photos. Google creates a name for the album it creates of your site's images.

This is where haste makes waste comes a knockin' on the door. I knew some of the albums were connected to my Blogger sites, but it wasn't a thought in my head, as I deleted the album for this site.

SO . . .

The BAD thing that happens when you delete images or an entire album related to your Blogger site is those images are no longer available for your site. Where you added an image (that you just deleted) to a post a year ago or yesterday, it's no longer there. It's GONE.

The images you thoughtfully added to your posts from your Blogger Images File are GONE. In their place are grey circles.

SO, BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO DELETE YOUR IMAGES, BE SURE YOU HAVEN'T USED THEM IN YOUR POSTS!

Now, when you see a post with a grey circle in place of an image, you'll know why.

The Google+ Header

Google+ now has a bigger header and I created three different headers for my account. The dimensions specified are 480X270 and I made them to the correct size. I uploaded the first one and it appeared blurry, so I created a completely new one, uploaded that one, and it too was blurry. I repeated the process with a new third header and sure enough it was also too blurry to use.

Since this didn't work out I had to use one of Google's header designs and I'm not thrilled about it. A header should be site/genre relevant. While the image is beautiful, it has nothing to do with my work. I also don't like the new bigger header - it just takes up way too much website real estate space.

Here's what it looks like now:

I guess I'll ask the woman I use at Fiverr to create a header for me to see if her's will work correctly.

Happy marketing,


Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelance/Ghostwriter
Author-Writer Online Platform Instructor

Create and Build Your Author/Writer Online Platform


P.S. PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR THE WRITERS WORLD newsletter (top right sidebar).

P.S.2 If we're not already connected on GooglePlus, please add me to your circles - I'll add you to mine: https://plus.google.com/107054879622971281466/posts

~~~~~

ACX - Narrator Sienna Beckman - Guest Blogger

Guest Post by Sienna Beckman
Posted by Elysabeth Eldering

Since I've been posting my progress with the audio book side of things, I thought I'd let my narrator for Finally Home show you her side of things.  I have received the files but haven't had a chance to go through it yet as work has been rather hectic.  I'm shooting to go through the audio files this weekend and possibly the first part of next week.  For the release of the audio book, I've put Finally Home back in the KDP select program.  I'm offering it as a free download Monday and Tuesday, so if you haven't already purchased a copy or would like to gift a young girl who enjoys Nancy Drew mysteries my book (which is similar to a Nancy Drew mystery), next week will be the time to do so.

GUEST POSTING - SIENNA BECKMAN

My name is Sienna Beckman and I’m an actor based in Los Angeles, California. I’ve been recording audio books for about 4 months and have loved all the learning experiences. Both of my parents read aloud to my brother and me when we were growing up, so telling stories has always been a big part of my life. I studied music (piano and trumpet) and played soccer growing up and was very focused on those activities. When I was required to be a part of my 8th grade operetta, Guys and Dolls, I discovered my love for being on stage. I was in several plays in high school and my passion only increased. I attended Occidental College in Los Angeles and earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Theater Arts.


Becoming a narrator through ACX was very easy. They make all of the audition files and contracts very accessible and straightforward. When I’m looking for a new project, I will search through available titles for books that fit my voice type. It’s especially exciting when I find one that requires an accent, because I love accents and it always adds an extra challenge for me. Then I will record an audition file and send it in to the author via the ACX website.  (Audition files are submitted by the author and are usually a few pages or a chapter to get a feel how the narrator will read the characters and the story itself.)

(Of note, Sienna does read the books first before she starts recording.)  When I hunker down with each new book I’m going to record, the process is always slightly different. Depending on the amount of time I have, how long the book is, and how many characters, my process always begins with notes. I make a list of all of the major characters, some minor ones too, and decide how I’m going to shape their voice. Because audio books have no visual aid, it is up to me to create a very distinct line between characters, so the listeners don’t get confused as to who is talking. In my notes I also make notes of pronunciation questions I might have. My voice is best suited for young adult fiction and some fantasy novels.  If there are unusual names or countries or worlds that I don’t know how to pronounce. I always like to check with the author beforehand, if I have any questions.

When I actually get to recording, the chapter breaks are perfect break markers for me. I will record each chapter and then be able to take a break and rest my voice for a few minutes before continuing. There are several techniques to recording audio books, but my method is as follows: if I misspeak or make a mistake, I allow the software to keep recording and simply back up to the beginning of the sentence, or to the last logical point where I can easily make an editing cut, and begin again. This way I can keep my rhythm and continue along with telling the story. If I were to stop the recording and delete the outtake right then, I would lose momentum and the story telling would suffer.

After all of the tracks are recorded, then comes the editing and mastering process. This is the most time consuming part of being an ACX narrator by far. As the narrator, I am also the producer and editor, and must be responsible for making the completed files sound professional and ready to be sold online. I have to go back, listen to all of the tracks, and delete all of the outtakes. Or if I say a sentence or a phrase two different ways, I have to decide which way I like best. Then I have to go through the tracks and take out any background noise there might be, soften any speech plosives or mouth sounds I might have inadvertently made, and make it all sound seamless. Then I export the files as mp3s, and they are ready to be uploaded to ACX.

Along with audio books, I also write, produce, and record my own audio podcast, called “At the Beep.” It is a passion project that I began in the New Year that is about environmental and social awareness. Each week I highlight a different individual who has dedicated his or her life to making the world a better place. There is so much negativity and selfishness and greed corrupting the world in this time, and the premise of my podcast is that, on the flip side of that, there is also so much love, conscientiousness, and dedication to peace, health, and happiness. There are so many people out there who are so passionate about finding innovative, intelligent, and accessible ways for the general public to learn to live a green, healthy, clean, and un-wasteful life. A few of my highlights have been the Straus Family of Straus Family Dairy and Creamery, Medea Benjamin of the women’s anti-war organization Code Pink, Father Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries, and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.

Please subscribe to my podcast by searching “At the Beep” on iTunes. I aim to spread happiness, helpfulness, and awareness in the most accessible way possible.

Please visit my website for more information or if you would like to contact me.  You can also follow me on Twitter @siennagrace89

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Posted by Elysabeth Eldering
Author of Finally Home, a middle grade/YA mystery
blog
website

Finding Inspiration through Words and Pictures with Sarah E. Sauer

When I was little, I dreamed of one day owning my own horse and being a vet at a zoo. I felt a special connection to animals. However, all that changed suddenly when I was diagnosed, at age seven, with brain cancer. The surgery, chemo and radiation treatments were horrible. In fact, in order to get me to cooperate during my treatment, my parents promised me an animal at the end of every treatment cycle. It was from my animals that I gained strength to endure my illness. 

Animals have helped me in ways that no person ever could because animals aren't judgmental. They don't care if you have hair, can't walk that well or whatever the reason might be. They just love you for you and not for your appearance or abilities. 

My high school photography teacher first noticed my talent and encouraged me to share my love of animals through my photography. She told me I had the potential to tell stories through my pictures. While attending classes in early childhood development, I was given an assignment to create something that would show how I saw my role as an early childhood teacher. Even though I knew my dream of being a vet was over, I would not let go of my dream of working with animals. I wanted to combine my love of animals with my future career in early childhood education. I decided to put together a children's book that would develop an appreciation in children to see the beauty and detail of all animals. I want children to look further and see more than just an animal and see the smile on the elephant's face or the tear in the horse's eye. 

The cancer and its treatment left me with limitations. Despite the fact cancer took many things from me, it did not take my love for life, especially my love for animals and wildlife. I hope I can tell stories through my pictures and words that will teach young children how precious life is and how we need to take care of the world we live in.

*****

Sarah E. Sauer is a childhood brain cancer survivor. She is also an animal lover. Sarah’s love of animals was something she drew on for strength throughout her illness. In her first children’s book, Sarah shares her love and respect for wildlife animals through her photos she took for her high school digital photography class. Sarah is currently studying early childhood education and hopes to share her love and knowledge of animals to promote and develop an appreciation of wildlife in young children. She currently lives in Corydon, IN with her family and her horses, llamas, donkey, cats and dogs.

Sarah E. Sauer’s animal photography children’s picture book, What Do You See When You Look at Me? engages her young readers with bright and colorful photos and invites them to see more than just an animal but to look at the beauty of each creature in detail.

Find out more about Sarah E. Sauer and her book at the World of Ink Author/Book Tour, visit http://tinyurl.com/carfswr

Character Mapping for Juicy Characters

When you think of any great novel, what you usually remember is the characters. When they're done well, a powerful character will stay with the reader, as if they were a real person, and their story will be a story that resonates as universal -- one that readers identify with. Great fiction is almost always driven by the protagonists, and how they cope with the situations that they encounter through the plot. Every author needs to know how to create good characters. Great characters need to be real, engaging, and motivating; they need to keep the reader reading. They need to touch something in the reader; so that they are remembered.

So what, exactly, is characterisation? Put simply, characterisation is about peopling your story and fleshing out those people. Or better still, characterisation is about driving a story thorugh the response and development of your characters. By showing the reader your character in-situ, having conversations, responding to their environment and the changes they go through, and through other character's responses to them, the reader begins to visualise and understand them.

The term characterisation was introduced in 1894 as a literary term meaning a "description of essential features." Novelists like George Eliot, Flaubert and Balzac, and William Dean Howells were all writers who wrote stories where the plot was grown out character development: where character transitions or arcs were the focal point of the story. There are a range of methods that writers use to bring their characters to life. Some of these are as simple as giving them a relevant name, describing your characters, and having them perform in situations, in effect, illuminating your characters' outer life. Other techniques are much more subtle and complex and involve revealing, through action, reflection, psychology and impression, your characters' inner life.

Although whole books can, and have been written on this topic, creating a character map is a really good way to creating more juicy, interesting characters and thereby improving your stories:

If you're a visual person, why not cut out magazine pictures and paste them onto an A3 sheet, with a few details about each of your key characters. This might include not only what they look like, the clothing they wear, how they hold themselves, and the sorts of accessories or accoutrements they might gather around themselves. The resulting map could end up being quite a good visual cue for you to work with as your story develops. If you choose famous actors and actresses, you'll have a head start on the casting call for the movie which results from your book.

If you're not a visual person, then there are other good tools, including Excel, Mind Map, or just MS Word. I particularly like Mind Map (there are many open source mapping tools out there including:

The Brain: http://www.thebrain.com/c/personalbrain/?c=32, and
Free Mind: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Whichever tool you use, you'll want to begin by creating a summary box or heading for each of your key protagonists, antagonists and the more prominent minor characters. Then under each of those headings, describe them, including things like what they look like, age, sex, hair, eye colour, scent, names and nicknames, politics, personality, etc.

After that you can go deeper into the internal life of your characters and the world they inhabit, teasing out their wants, needs and desires, intelligences, flaws, beliefs, motivations, history, etc, and how tht maps to the key points in your story - the character arc.

Whether you use tools, or just define your character with pen and paper, a thorough understanding of the characters and their journey in your story is the key to good fiction.

Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the  novels novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, a nonfiction book The Art of Asssessment, and in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, a number of poetry books including the recently released Sublime Planet.  Find out more about Magdalena at http://www.magdalenaball.com.  

Building a Writer's Portfolio

Building a Writer's Portfolio

Guest Post by Joan Whetzel

Freelance writers, new or old-hat, need writing portfolios as an addendum to their resume. The published writing samples contained in their writer's portfolios, like the artwork in the artist's portfolio, is a way of sharing their body of work with prospective employers. Having their writing clips collected in one place - a portfolio or e-portfolio - keeps their writing samples available at a moment's notice.

What to Collect

It's best to keep all writing samples old and new. However, once the writer's list of writing clips expands beyond a certain point it is no longer practical to carry them all in their portable portfolio. Older samples are best archived. When does a writer begin archiving writing clips? When is the cutoff point? That's a decision best left to each author. But keeping an index with each year's clips or samples, will help writers find older writing clips that may be appropriate for showing to future employers. (You know, that travel article you wrote 3 years ago? Your next employer is looking for evidence you've written travel articles).

For freelance writers just starting out, and who have few if any articles published, volunteer to write as many freebies as you can afford until your begin having clips with your name on them. These include local neighborhood newspapers with small budgets, favorite causes, startup magazines and e-publications, screenplays or stage play scripts for startup production companies. Even blogs can fill a writer's portfolio. It's advisable even for published writers to write freebies on occasion just to keep your name out there, especially when paid writing opportunities are on the lean side.

Anything that has your byline, a publication name, and a publication date (if possible) is fodder for the writer's portfolio. For freelancers who can write on a number of topics, or in more than one genre, can sort their portfolios by topic or genre to be used for different jobs, matching the clips to the job being applied for. Setting up your own website and/or blog site is an ideal way to showcase your web skills as well as your writing skills, and acts as a way for potential employers to locate and contact you as well as place to provide links to your writing published on other websites - all for little or no cost.

For clips published in print, keep one entire copy of the publication with your story printed in it as evidence of which edition the story was published. The publication shows the publication number, the name of the publication and the date as well as the writer's byline. For stories published on websites, print a hard copy of the article which will show the website name, the URL, the writer's name and date that it was published (in most cases). If you print it out the same day it appears on the website, the printing date appears at the bottom of the page next to the URL. Keep an index of all stories written, categorized by website, and be sure to include the URL to link to that story. You may have to go through the index occasionally to see which stories are still available online, and which ones have been deleted or archived by the website.

How to Carry Writing Clips to Jobs

Writer's Portfolio - The Paper Version: Purchase a 3-ring binder, preferable one that zips closed and has handles to carry it (check office supply stores). Insert clear plastic slip sheets meant for carrying 8.5x11 inch pages or 8x10 inch photos in a binder (also available at office supply stores).

Make 2 to 3 copies of each print or e-clip, and place them the plastic sheets. The 2 to 3 clips for story #1 go in to the first plastic slip, the copies for story #2 go in the second plastic slip, and so on. They are ready to carry with you. Save one of the plastic slips for copies of your resume and a second plastic slip for types references.

Writer's Portfolio - The Electronic Version: Scan in paper publication writers clips to your computer and store them in a folder on your hard drive and in a secondary location like a thumb drive or a CD, to be kept separate from your computer. If need be, sub-categorize them by publication, topic, or genre.

For stories published online, keep an index file by e-publisher that includes story name, month and year of publication, and URLs for each story. Also keep a copy of your story where you wrote it on your word processing program and saved to computer before copying and pasting it to the e-publisher's website. Keep these stories in folders by publisher, with sub-folders categorized by month and year of publication. Save these files to the hard drive and to the secondary source (thumb drive or CD). Make sure these files include any photos you uploaded with your stories. Keep a hardcopy of the word processing document along with the downloaded copy from the website.

Electronic Sharing of Your Writing

Since you indexed the URLs for your stories, you can copy and paste them to an e-mail body to send to potential employers. They can also be pasted to your blog or website either as links or as references that others can copy and paste into a search engine to look up. This is a way of turning your personal blog or website as an online writer's portfolio. The URLs for your e-stories can also be added to print articles, newsletters, etcetera, for readers to type into search engines.

The advantages of having an online writer's portfolio include: not having to provide paper copies, or go through the cost of mailing them and the stories in your portfolio can be viewed in their original format rather than faxes or copies. Among the disadvantages? E-published stories are ready and waiting for someone to plagiarize, which is becoming a real problem. How many times have your researched a subject online and found the same article, word-for-word, supposedly written by three different authors - or more? There's also the problem of virus's being transmitted either from an e-publisher's website or across e-mails. With this in mind, some potential clients or employers may prefer to have a paper copy of stories from your portfolio rather than an electronic one.

Producing Appropriate Clips for Job Applications

Whether online or on paper, keep your clips organized so that you can find your articles by topic, category or genre. That way you can provide copies of specific stories to match the clients' or employers' expectations and needs. Don't put all of your stories in an online portfolio. Separate the stories by genre, subject or category and linked to a button on your site. Provide readers with the only the best 2 or 3 stories under each genre, subject or category button.

Send links to your stories or e-mail attachments as self-promotion to potential new clients or employers. Try to have a variety of samples that show the different writing styles that show off your writing skills - ads, articles, newsletters, promotional material, press releases.

Periodically update both your paper and online writer's portfolios, archiving older articles and replacing it with newer material. As your writing career progresses, your portfolios will expand and your writing skills mature exponentially. Creating and updating your writer's portfolios seem like daunting tasks, but they are necessary ones. And if you make a habit of regularly updating both portfolios, you will always be ready when new clients or employers come calling and looking for new writers with current and exciting writing samples and a wealth of experience.

By Joan Whetzel
http://joanwhetzel.blogspot.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joan_Whetzel

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What is Your Favorite Reference Book?

I rely on my old favorites, The Little, Brown Compact Handbook, Self-Editing for fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King and the Flip Dictionary (better than a thesaurus sometimes).

But I’m always preaching “feelings” to my students and editing clients. What is he feeling here? What is her reaction to this? How does sad (happy, angry, frustrated) feel? I sometimes have to stop my own writing and think about how to describe a feeling in a way that’s not over-used, trite or clichéd. You can only have your character’s stomach clench a time or two before your reader begins to suspect he or she has an ulcer.

So, recently I downloaded The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writers Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Angela and Becca host The Bookshelf Muse, an award-winning online resource for writers that offers a number of different thesauri to aid authors in their descriptive writing efforts.

This is an excellent resource for prompting your creativity in expressing feelings. It gives the definition of a word, for example, “Anger.” Then it follows with a list:

• Physical signals, such as flaring nostrils or jerky head movements
 • Internal sensations: such as sweating or the body heating
• Mental Responses: irritability or taking inappropriate action
• Cues of acute or long term anger: skin problems, ulcers, etc.
• Cues of suppressed anger: false smiles, sore muscles and jaw

I keep this handy reference on my Kindle for PC so it’s always right there when I get stuck.

~~~~~
A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in Northwest Arizona. Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, and the sequel, Follow the Dream, has recently won the national WILLA Award. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of Northwest Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing, and edits, blogs, and is working on the next books in her “Dare to Dream” series.

~~~~~

Come out the Gates Fast

In track and field competitors are coached to "come out the gates fast". What that means is to get an early lead or start strong. Writers need to do the same thing. There is nothing worse than having a really good book to share with the world and being unprepared to start strong on your launch date. There are a few things you can do to ensure a great start...

Start simple: We all know that you need to start with a well-written book that has been professionally edited and has a professional cover. You don't want to throw some art work together or have "your friend" who loves to read check it for editing mistakes. Invest early and reap benefits later.

Ask early: Any author with a plan will work on obtaining advanced reviews. You can do this in online groups, from friends and previous readers or request advanced reviews on social media sites, your mailing list or celebrities.

Budget: Every marketing plan has to have a well thought out budget. Here are just a few ideas of what you might want to include:

• Budget for paperbacks ( giveaways increase exposure )
• Marketing budget
• Editing and/or design expenses (BC's/promo items/cover art)

Plan: Prepare a list of "to-do" items and a checklist to figure out what you need to complete

30-60 days prior to launching your book consider the following list:

• CREATE BOOK TRAILER (make sure it is captivating)
• SCHEDULE A BLOG TOUR  (organize your online presence)
• SCHEDULE IN-PERSON EVENTS (at local bookstores or other locales)
• SELECT ADVERTISEMENTS  (stick to your budget)
• CONTACT MEDIA   (shoot for the stars)
• REQUEST REVIEWS   (ebooks and paperback reviewers)
• CONTACT BOOK CLUBS   (past contacts and potential book clubs)

Don't forget to have fun with it and start strong...Finish strong too!

RL Taylor is an award-winning fiction author with five novels released to date. His newest writing venture is a series of non-fiction books on style, etiquette and self-improvement for men and women who want to help the men in their life. 

Click here for a free copy of The Gentlemen's Code which Esquire.com featured as recommended reading.

Web: http://www.livelikegentlemen.com

Fiction: http://www.rltayloronline.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rltheauthor

Protagonist PLANNING YOUR NEXT STORY: PART 5

Protagonist   PLANNING YOUR NEXT STORY: PART 5

Subjects we’ve covered are: PREMISE, the PLOT POINTS andCOMPLICATIONS, SCENES, the MEATY5 (story’s heart).

Today you will discover who your PROTAGONIST is. You may think you know him/her, but when you finish with today’s questions, he/she will feel like your best friend.

For those who might not know, the protagonist (protag) is the one about whom the story is told; he/she/it solves the problem. The protag doesn’t have to be the ‘good guy’. You can have a bad protag, as long as the story is ABOUT that character and they are the one facing and solving the problem (remember, no conflict/problem=no story).

So, you probably have some idea who your protag is at this point in the story development. But you may not know enough INNER DETAIL about him/her to keep them from becoming a flat character. Here are some ways to get to know the character.

Complete a Character Worksheet. There are tons of these available online or you can email me and I’ll send you some I use.

List 10 of the worst things that could happen to the character. How does he/she respond?

For example, Rayna is captured by the Peacers at age 13. She thought she was ‘safe’ from having to go to the Gestortium. But an evil lady turned her in out of revenge. What does Rayna do? She recalls her father always telling her to “Be invisible.” So she goes along, but watches for her chances to escape.

Next list 10 of the best things and how the character responds.

What are the character’s Internal Conflict? We all have it. Sometimes out internal conflict becomes so overwhelming we can hardly function—and some can’t function so they get sent to prison or a mental facility or check out with drugs/alcohol/sex/shopping. So, what conflicts does your character deal with besides the ones thrown at them in the story?

For Rayna:

Who is she?

Why is her hair red, eyes green?

Why are these taboo in society?

Why can’t she love Trae and express that love openly?

Of course, being a young teen, she has many more issues, but you get the idea. Keep brainstorming EVERY POSSIBLE conflict you can think of from all aspects of the character’s life. Some of them may NEVER be used in the story, but it helps you know them better.

Which of the character’s viewpoints change throughout the story and in what way? The protag MUST grow throughout the story or they become flat, like a paperdoll. So, decide what the character is supposed to learn and how and why. It’s called Character Arc and is similar to the Story Arc but for the protag. Ask him/her—let them tell you.

Mine: Rayna starts out quiet, subdued, listening to Da’s “Be invisible” as a result of living with taboo features. But as the bully pushes, she has to begin standing up for herself then her friends. Finally, she is pushed too far and decides that being invisible may not be the best answer for her.

Lastly, answer these questions:

What is his/her greatest weakness? Who is he/she hurting?

What does the character want? Need?

What does he/she know at the beginning? Middle? End?

What is he/she wrong about at the beginning?

What will he/she learn at the end?

Next month, your Protagonist’s Backstory.

Thanks to K.M. Weiland’s Outlining Your Novel

Rebecca Ryals Russell, a fourth-generation Floridian, was born in Gainesville, grew up in Ft Lauderdale then lived in Orlando and Jacksonville with her Irish husband and four children. Due to the sudden death of Rebecca's mother, they moved to Wellborn, near Lake City, to care for her father, moving into his Victorian home built in 1909. After teaching Middle Graders for fourteen years she retired and began writing the story idea which had been brewing for thirty years.  Within six months she wrote the first three books of each series, YA Seraphym Wars and MG Stardust Warriors. The world she created has generated numerous other story ideas including two current works in progress, SageBorn Chronicles based on various mythologies of the world and aimed at the lower Middle Grade reader and Saving Innocence, another MG series set on Dracwald and involving dragons and Majikals. She is finishing a YA Dystopian Romance which has been a NaNoWriMo project for three years. She loves reading YA Fantasy, Horror and Sci Fi as well as watching movies.  Read more about Rebecca and her WIPs as well as how to buy books in her various series at http://rryalsrussell.com  You may email her at vigorios7@gmail.com