How to Enhance Your Writing Career

DiAnn Mills  @diannmills

"Expect An Adverture"

We writers are well over a month into our 2020 writing resolutions and goals. Some may have abandoned their dreams when their objectives seemed impossible. We writers can’t survive in the publishing world without a consistent approach to enhancing our writing careers.

How can we work effectively and efficiently in our writing, social media, marketing, promotion, branding, and all our other responsibilities? Does your “how-to” outweigh the “want-to”?

The following seven tips will not only enhance your career but are also simple to understand and follow.

Historical Research

By Donna Schlachter

Researching any topic in the past can be a fun and exciting adventure. Sometimes, however, it can also be a series of frustrating dead ends. You can even compile a history for places you make up. Simply base it on another town or area nearby.

Here’s my process:

Decide on the setting and the year for the story. Look for something interesting that happened during that time in that area. Begin with the internet, but look for several articles that agree.

Once you have the nugget of a story, locate newspaper stories, books, journals, and diaries to give you more background.

If possible, visit the setting before you start to write. See what the lay of the land is like. How would that impact the story and the characters?

Read books and watch movies set during that time, but don’t believe everything you read and see unless it was written/filmed contemporaneously. Sometimes authors and producers tend to don rose-colored glasses when looking back.

Keep notes. Print everything, especially web pages. Photocopy everything. Record movies and other references you used. You might be asked by an editor to validate a fact that’s crucial to your storyline.

Once you start writing, don’t let research distract you from writing. If you arrive at a point where you don’t know a particular fact, insert a symbol (I use @@) in the manuscript, and carry on. Go back and look it up later.

In Double Jeopardy, because I wanted to include mining in the story line, I researched and found that the Colorado Gold Rush ended around the late 1870s, and the Silver Rush began in 1879. This was perfect for the backstory of how Becky’s father went to Colorado a year before the story began.

I’d visited the Durango area, and loved the landscape. I’d talked with people who lived there, went up some of the canyons, saw old mines, some ghost towns, and decided I wanted to set a story there. I created the fictional town and valley of Silver Valley, and I visited some museums in Colorado where I learned about sheriffs and law enforcement in the 1880s.

For specific details such as silver mining, I did online research then visited a mining museum. For minutiae such as when women began wearing dungarees (not until about 10 years later), when fountain pens came into common use (around that time, but they were still expensive and a luxury item), and Fourth of July celebrations and Indian relations, I relied on various articles from Wikipedia and history books.

So you can that much of your research can be done online from the comfort of your home, but don’t rely on any one online source.

Leave a comment to enter a random drawing for a free ebook copy of Double Jeopardy.

_________________________________________________________ 

Donna Schlachter lives in Denver with husband Patrick. As a hybrid author, she writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts, and has been published more than 30 times in novellas and full-length novels. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Writers on the Rock, Sisters In Crime, and Christian Authors Network; facilitates a critique group; and teaches writing classes online and in person. Donna also ghostwrites, edits, and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, and travels extensively for both. Donna is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management.

www.HiStoryThruTheAges.wordpress.com

www.HiStoryThruTheAges.com Receive a free ebook simply for signing up for our free newsletter! Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DonnaschlachterAuthor

Twitter: www.Twitter.com/DonnaSchlachter Books: Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ci5Xqq and Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2gZATjm What Can Be Online University: https://what-can-be-online-institute.teachable.com/

Excellence in Writing

By DiAnn Mills

When we place our name on our writing, we are ensuring the reader discovers excellence. The effort to create an outstanding manuscript requires time and skill with a commitment to learning the newest trends in the industry. Consistent learning, edits, and rewrites are part of the process.

Whew!

Every writer has experienced the defeat of rejection and the dive into the waters of discouragement. We raise our fists and wade through the tears to work harder and not allow defeat to drown our publishing dreams.

How do we move forward in promoting excellence in our writing? The following are my practices. They’ve proven to work, and I want to pass them on to you.

Schedule time with God every morning before turning on the computer.

•         Before writing a word, spend time in the Word. Simple advice, but the best way to tap into our Creator’s heart.

•         God may have something different for us to write or do, and His ways are always perfect.

•         Pray our words bless His name.

Schedule time daily to study the craft.

•         Explore the blog posts written by professionals who practice quality writing.

•         Read the how-to books, highlight and underline the information that speaks to you.

•         Put the instruction into practice.

•         Don’t be afraid to fail.

•         Don’t be afraid to change.

•         Never knowingly send a faulty manuscript to a critique partner or editor.

Schedule time daily to study social media.

•         Explore the blogs written by social media experts targeted to writers who understand the value of effective and efficient posts.

•         Read the how-to books and highlight/underline the information that pertains to your brand.

•         Learn how to meet readers’ needs.

•         Put instruction into practice.

•         Don’t be afraid to fail.

•         Don’t be afraid to change.

Schedule at least one writing conference per year to deepen knowledge of the craft, network, and find encouragement.

•         Explore all the conferences available and choose the one that fits your genre, brand, and level of expertise.

•         Ask your editor or publishing house for a conference preference

Schedule time to give back to the writing community.

•         If we aren’t diligent in helping others, how can we expect to grow or pass the baton of excellence when our season of writing is over?

•         Practice saying no to those projects that we feel aren’t from God.

•         Consider mentoring a serious writer who is willing to work hard.

We all want three P’s after our name: Published, Professional, and Polished. How will you strive for your writer excellence?

Write on!

______________________________________________________________ 

DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She weaves memorable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels. DiAnn believes every breath of life is someone’s story, so why not capture those moments and create a thrilling adventure? Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. She is the director of The Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, Mountainside Marketing Conference, and the Mountainside Novelist Retreat with social media specialist Edie Melson where she continues her passion of helping other writers be successful. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. DiAnn has been termed a coffee snob and roasts her own coffee beans. She’s an avid reader, loves to cook, and believes her grandchildren are the smartest kids in the universe. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas. DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on: Facebook, Twitter, or any of the social media platforms listed at diannmills.com

Normal Writing Language

By Ramona DeFelice Long

After maneuvering through a crush of back-to-college students, I flounced into our car and announced to the man I’d married that I was done with shopping until the new semester started.

“But when those husbands go on sale, I’m coming back,” I declared. “The husband in our bedroom doesn’t have any oomph anymore. I’ll get one for the guest room, too. I’ll bet your mother would appreciate a new husband next time she comes to visit.”

I waited for him to start the car, but he didn’t.  The man I married was too busy staring at me.

“Excuse me?”

It took me a moment to realize why he was so aghast. Laughing, I explained that a husband is the Southern nickname for a back pillow, the kind you prop up against in bed to read or watch television or study.

He was relieved. “Next time,” he said, “please use normal language, especially if you’re going to mention my mother.”

What, exactly, is normal language?

Every region enjoys word quirks and colloquialisms. I grew up in Louisiana, where people make groceries, fix dinner, take off the light.  When I moved to western Pennsylvania, I had to switch from y’all to you’ens.  In Delaware, I learned that YoUDee is a mascot, not some kind of cold drink.

For writers, a word can reveal a character’s cultural background. In Raney, Clyde Edgerton uses the word “dinners” in an amusing mix-up between a country bride and her sophisticated groom from Atlanta. As I did with the man I married, Raney must explain that “dinners” is not only the evening meal, but a woman’s bosom. Her husband’s befuddlement over the word highlights one obstacle for a couple who wed across a cultural divide.

Husbands meaning pillows and dinners meaning breasts can make a specific point in a specific scene. In a larger context, a word’s double meaning can be a story starter. 

Consider Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbon’s brilliant coming of age novel. Young Ellen—orphaned, unloved, misunderstood--observes a family everyone calls the Foster family. It’s clear to the reader, but not Ellen, that foster is not a proper name or a proper noun. Ellen, however, sees a lady who takes in children and gives them the kind of safe and loving home every child desires. This is the family Ellen longs for, so she makes her way to them and adopts the name Foster as her own.

Kaye Gibbons built an entire novel around a single word taken slightly out of context. 

Husbands, dinners, Foster family.  Words can be used, abused, misused, misconstrued, misleading, or enlightening. They can do double duty, have double meanings, offer double entendres. With a slight swerve out of normal language, a word can create a scene or seed a story.

Are there words in your normal language that can be a story starter?

______________________________________________________________________

Ramona DeFelice Long is a native of south Louisiana and a graduate of LSU. She lives in Delaware. In 2013, she was awarded a literary fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts as an Established Artist in Literature-Creative Nonfiction. Ramona is also an independent editor. She teaches workshops on all aspects of writing, at conferences and online. She has led weekend writing retreats and monthly Free Write programs at her local public library and a variety of book group and writing workshops for young writers and readers. Ramona has collaborated with Sisters in Crime national organization to edit two anthologies of mystery and crime stories: Fish Nets and Fish Tales. She also co-edited a collection of stories from Delaware authors, Tales from the Ink Slingers, with Wilmington writer JM Reinbold, in addition to several short story anthologies for writing groups. Ramona serves as Member-at-Large for the Delaware Literary Connection. She’s also member of the Newark Arts Alliance, Sisters in Crime, Pennwriters, the Eastern Shore Writers Association, and The Written Remains Writing Guild. Her blog can be found at http://ramonadef.wordpress.com/