Map It Out

By Sarah Sundin, @sarahsundin


Author of The Land Beneath Us

In the course of our careers, novelists practice many professions—psychologist, historian salesperson, and graphic designer to start with. But how about cartographer?

Have you ever had your heroine gaze out her kitchen window to the street in one chapter—and to her backyard in the next? Or have you ever had the locations of banks and groceries and post offices shift during your novels? I’ve found these things in my first drafts.

The solution—map it out.

On a small scale, draw floor plans of homes and other important buildings, including locations of things important to your story—telephones, kitchen knives, windows. For my novel The Land Beneath Us, I sketched a floor plan of the heroine’s home and of the library where she works.

Two of the Best Editing Hacks Ever

By Wendy Wilson Spooner  @Wendy_W_Spooner

We all know that reading our work aloud helps us find typos, sentences that don’t make sense, and repeated story information in our WIPs. But what would you do if you could get someone else to read your work aloud to you? Or some thing?

Here are two hacks I use that save me hours upon hours of precious editing time.

No Cold Mashed Potatoes: Crafting Effective Backstory

By Linda S. Clare @Lindasclare

When I sent the first pages of my first novel to a well-known author, I wasn’t prepared for her feedback. “Your opening has way too much backstory.” From that moment, I was determined to master backstory techniques.

Journey of a Lifetime

By Edie Melson, Social Media Director for Southern Writers Magazine

The writer’s path is a journey of a lifetime—one fraught with discovery and discouragement. We can avoid some of its pitfalls if we define that path early on. Today, I want to share some insights into my writing journey and the markers I look for to help me stay at least in the vicinity of the path.

How I Do It: Novel Writing

By Creston Mapes

I’ve developed a system for novel-writing that helps me avoid dreaded “writer’s block,” and gives me tons of great ideas from which to choose when it comes to “what’s going to happen next.”

Do you want to Write? Learn from Great Models

By Delores Topliff

You want to write. People say you have a gift, but you’re not sure where to start. You’ve written a few things but haven’t hit your stride or quite found your voice.

Try this strategy.

The Old and the New

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine   

Everyone knows today is New Year’s Eve where we will gather with family and friends to await the new year, 2020. There will be many parties, dancing, eating, and at the stroke of midnight, champagne will be poured, we will kiss our special loved one and watch the fireworks as they shoot through the night sky. A joyous occasion to be sure. These celebrations will go on past midnight for some while others warm and toasty will watch on TV cuddled up on the couch and probably will fall asleep before the midnight hour.

However, let’s remember that this is also “Old Year’s Day.”  It is the last day we will experience 2019. It will never return. We need to say goodbye. We have memories of 2019 but as we grow older memories have a way of fading. A few special ones may remain.

This would be a good time to make a list of blessings we experienced in 2019 because those give us hope as we look to 2020. We have all experienced happy days and sad days in 2019. We’ve said hello to new friends and goodbye to old ones. That is the progression of life.

Through it all, God has been faithful. As we say goodbye to 2019 and thank God for His blessings, we will turn our faces toward the New Year of 2020 with hope in our hearts for a blessed New Year.

In the New Year 2020 may you experience new adventures in your writing; may you enlarge your tent to make new friends and enjoy love and laughter each new day with a thankful heart.

Happy Writing!

One Single Resolution for Writers

By Edie Melson, Social Media Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Almost every writer I speak with has the same challenge—finding time to write. I have a single resolution that will help any writer have more time.

Learn how to say no.

I don’t mean no to writing opportunities—say no to some other things in your life. 

We all only have so much time in a day. And if you’re like me, life is filled to overflowing. So that means changing some priorities. 

Sounds easy, but to anyone who’s tried, it can be tough to carve out time for writing.

Here are some tips I’ve used to help me realign my life:

Decide where you want to go with your writing. You don’t have to schedule your time to get there overnight, but to get there, you do need to know where you’re going.

Take an inventory at what’s happening in your life right now. This is also going affect how much time you can realistically spend on writing.

Now answer these two question:

• What are you doing now, that you love MORE than writing? 

• What are you doing now that you DON’T love more than writing?

These are the factors you need to consider to begin to map out a plan that works for you.

To help you see how to apply what you've learned I'll share my answers when I first started writing. This will help you see how it gave me a plan for my writing.

I was a stay-at-home mom with three school-age boys. I had a goal to eventually earn a full-time living with my writing. I also didn’t want to lose family time or even what little adult time my husband and I had to spend together in the evening.

My writing schedule developed from these parameters. Every night after family time, I’d retire with my husband. When he went to sleep, I’d get up and start writing. I’d usually write until three or four o’clock in the morning, then I’d go to bed.

In the morning, my husband would get up with the boys and get them off to school. I’d get up later in the morning and be fresh when the boys got home from school. It might have been unorthodox, but it worked perfectly.

What did I give up? Lunches with friends and other daytime activities. I also stayed on a budget so I could afford to attend at least two writing conferences every year.

I’ve never found a way to do it all. But I have discovered there is time enough for what I truly love.

Fitting Food into your Fiction

By Nancy J. Cohen

Culinary themes are popular in genre fiction. Witness the many mystery or romance novels where the protagonist is a baker, chef, or caterer. Scenes often take place in coffee shops, restaurants, or kitchens because people socialize around meals. Your romantic couple gets to know each other over dinner, or your sleuth subtly questions a suspect over a slice of pie at the diner. Apparently, readers never tire of these tropes. So how can you work food into your story without it being the central theme or main character’s occupation?

1. Set scenes between family members or friends in the kitchen. Have them chat while preparing a meal, gathering items for a holiday feast, or setting out a cup of coffee and a piece of Aunt Marie’s famous peach cobbler.

2. Weave memories into your protagonist’s mind that center around food and provide backstory at the same time. For example, passing by a food market brings the scent of cinnamon to the air. The heroine reminisces about how her sister loved to buy those cinnamon-scented brooms for Christmas. Her house smelled like cinnamon, too, when she baked her apple crumb cake. Sadly, the last time they were together… well, you get the idea.

3. For a fun variation, switch up our gender expectations. Make the man the gourmet cook and the woman a klutz in the kitchen. Perhaps to win his heart, she attempts to make his favorite dish even though she knows she’ll probably fail. But love is worth the risk, yes? Or maybe your serial killer in a thriller enjoys making pumpkin pancakes. Challenge us with the unexpected.

4. Make your reader’s mouth water with your food descriptions. If you describe the heroine melting a square of semisweet chocolate in a small pot, I’ll bet many of us can almost taste that chocolate on our tongues. Or maybe she’s assembling dinner and frying onions. Familiar actions involving food will elicit a desired response. Appeal to the five senses and remember that smell plays a large role in taste.

5. Give your characters food quirks. Maybe when nervous, the best friend chews on a stick of red licorice. Or your heroine fumbles for a mint in her purse when she’s unsure of herself. The hero loves beef jerky, which makes his non-meat eating girlfriend wrinkle her nose. Also, how do certain foods showcase your character’s heritage? Perhaps your heroine likes a cool bowl of borscht on a hot summer day because her grandmother from Russia used to serve it. Or she grew up in an Italian family, and pasta is her go-to dish of choice.

6. Regional foods can enhance your setting. What special foods are popular in the community where you’ve set the story? In the deep South, for example, grits are a common staple on the breakfast menu. Or gator bites might be offered as a dinner appetizer. Use food to flavor your story with items distinctive to the locale.

7. Add recipes of dishes you’ve mentioned in the story as bonus material in the back of your book. Readers love recipes, and they’ll keep your book in mind when they make one of yours.

Social occasions very often revolve around food. By paying attention to this aspect of our lives, you can spice up your novel with memorable sensory experiences.

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Nancy J. Cohen writes The Bad Hair Day Mysteries featuring South Florida hairstylist Marla Vail. Titles in this series have been named Best Cozy Mystery by Suspense Magazine, won a Readers' Favorite gold medal, placed first in the Chanticleer International Book Awards and third in the Arizona Literary Awards. Nancy’s instructional guide, Writing the Cozy Mystery, was nominated for an Agatha Award, earned first place in the Royal Palm Literary Awards and won a gold medal at the President’s Book Awards. When not busy writing, Nancy enjoys cooking, fine dining, cruising, visiting Disney World, and shopping. Social Media links: Website:  https://nancyjcohen.com Blog: https://nancyjcohen.com/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyJCohenAuthor  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nancyjcohen

Grow with What You Know

By Robin W. Pearson

If I’d graduated from law school, I would have written about a hotshot attorney who squeezes a “not guilty” verdict from a hostile jury.

If I ever take a picture that’s not out of focus or off-center and that captures something other than what I eat and who I birthed, I’ll publish a coffee table book filled with landscapes and close-ups.

If I was daring enough to kill more than time and the occasional eight-legged creature, I’d weave a complicated whodunit.

If I used my broom for something other than sweeping up Frosted Flakes, dust balls, and minuscule Playmobil pieces, I’d pen a tale of magic and fantasy and midnight flight.

But I didn’t, I probably won’t, I’m definitely not, and I never do.

Years ago, I was inspired to wrap some fiction around generations-old family stories and traditions. Being rooted and grounded in the South, I flavor my work with a y’all or two, a helping of grits, and some down-home wisdom that I acquired at my grandma’s and on the second pew in Sunday school. 

Later, when I was tasked with “building a platform” to further my publishing dreams, I laid the framework on those same cornerstones—faith and family. I sought to get that nod of understanding from those already on board while attracting others to climb on and join my adventure. To make my experience their experience.

And I don’t just speak from that experience; it also speaks for me. My writing reflects my spirit-filled life as a wife, mother, homeschooler, and artist and invites readers to step through the looking glass and drink up. While I love page-turning courtroom scenes filled with fast-paced cross-examinations in the pursuit of justice, I’m led to write drama that unfolds around a dinner table and leads to self-examination, mercy, and grace. And sure, nothing tugs the heartstrings when you read how a guy gets the girl, but nothing stirs my soul like writing how both the guy and the girl get God. My calling is an extension of who I am and what I believe, unlike watching television, doing puzzles, and of course, reading. These pastimes transport me from my day-to-day, destinations far from my laundry room and laptop while my work acts in the reverse, entreating my audience to pull up a chair and cozy up, so they can suffer, celebrate, and soak up life right along with me.

If you’re embarking on your own publishing journey, and you’re trying to build a platform to grow your audience, but you’re not sure where to start, consider sharing the story that no one else can tell, the one you live, love, and believe. Your audience will connect with you, the author, and relate to you, the person.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

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Robin W. Pearson’s writing sprouts from her Southern roots and her love of her husband and seven children. Both lend authenticity to her debut novel, A Long Time Comin’. After graduating from Wake Forest University, she has corrected grammar up and down the East coast in her career as an editor and writer that started with Houghton Mifflin Company twenty-five years ago. Since then she has freelanced with magazines, parenting journals, textbooks, and homeschooling resources. Follow her on her blog, “Mommy, Concentrated,” where she shares her adventures in faith, family, and freelancing. Helpful Links: Author Website Author Page  Media Center Page  Author Photo

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Christmas Gifts for the Writerly Soul

By DiAnn Mills

It’s that time of year, and most of us are in a quandary of what to give our writer friends. We want them to know they are loved and appreciated with the perfect item that suits their personality, but what? Search no more! The following will help you wrap up the dilemma with a special gift sure to please the writerly soul. Take a look at the ideas below—laugh a little, love a lot, and don’t forget to thank God for friendships and the joy of the season.

Take a look at the Pinterest Board here for a complete list of Christmas gifts for the writerly soul. 

Here’s another tip! Print this to take with you shopping. Here’s my list:

 

LED Pen, Blank Journal, Book Worm Ring, How-To Write Books, Social Media Mentoring, Writer Pajamas & Slippers, Twelve South Laptop Cover, Scholarship to BRMCWC 2020, 7 Writer Coffee Mugs for Everyday, Aqua Notepad and Pen for the Shower, A Writer Literary Shoulder Bag and Scarf, Latest Version of Chicago Manual of Style, License Plate Cover - I Brake for Book Sales, Fat-Free, Sugar-Free Yummy Homemade Cookies, Famous Writers 1000-Piece Puzzle by EuroGraphics,The Emotion Thesaurus - Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi, Take the Writer to Breakfast, A Reason to Get Out of the House, Pencil Tip Shoes, Scrabble Magnets and or a Wireless Mouse.

Happy Shopping, Y’all!

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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

Turn Real-Life Events into Stories

By Staci Mauney

As writers, we’re often asked how we come up with story ideas. Whether I’m writing a devotional or a fictional short story, I’ve learned that drawing from real life provides some of the best inspiration. 

We can use the events from our lives to create stories that encourage, motivate, teach, or entertain others. While someone who reads your story may not have had the exact same experiences, she can relate to the emotions you felt and the lessons you learned.

Here are five ways to turn real-life events into stories.

1. Start with the Truth

Remember that the truth is often stranger than fiction. Use the truth as a foundation for your story, but change the facts. Connect with the reader by providing an emotional experience. Both fiction and nonfiction appeal to readers when they see parts of themselves in the characters and settings.

2. Determine the Heart of the Matter

Find the heart of the story: your theme. Theme provides the foundation for your story and helps readers connect to your characters’ internal journey. Determine the theme before you begin writing, if possible. This way, you can develop your story around that theme. Don’t worry if the theme doesn’t reveal itself until you’ve completed several drafts. Focus on the story, and the theme will emerge.

3. Create Memorable Characters

Real people need to be tweaked to become interesting characters. Create a fictional character by combining multiple traits from people you know into one character. Also, limit the number of characters you include to make it less confusing for your reader.

When fictionalizing real people, you may be concerned about privacy. Ask permission when possible. Change names, including initials, and change other pertinent details, such as looks, age, and abilities. Give the character different qualities from the real person so that the character only vaguely resembles the person on which he’s based.

4. Develop Your Setting

Setting consists of the time, place, and mood of the character’s world. Most writers don’t think about world-building unless they’re fantasy writers. But writers of every genre, even nonfiction writers, should spend some time on this. To build a world for your characters, you can use a real place, or you can fictionalize the town (or city or country) while including a few general, recognizable locations.

5. Use Third Person Limited POV

When writing a fictional story about your life, it will be tempting to use first person since it happened to you. But you’re too close to the story, and writing in third person limited point of view will allow you to have some distance.

We share our experiences through storytelling. As with any story, one based on real life needs to connect with readers. It seems as if it should be easy, but there’s more to it than simply recounting an experience. Readers want to feel joy and heartache alongside your characters. Determine the story you want to tell, and then go write it.

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Staci Mauney is a freelance writer and editor and indie author from Oklahoma. She is the co-owner of Prestige Prose, a freelance writing and editing company found at prestigeprose.com. As an author, she has written four devotionals in the Echoes of Joy series, where her Yorkshire terrier, Lilly, is the main character.She volunteers for a variety of organizations in her local community and is a member and past president of the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc. (OWFI). Author Website: http://stacimauney.com/

Blog: http://stacimauney.com/echoes-of-joy-blog/

Social Media: -Facebook: @StaciMauneyAuthor  Twitter: @SMauneyAuthor  Instagram: @sdmauney 

INTRODUCING AND DEVELOPING CHARACTERS IN MEMOIR

By Brooks Eason, Author of Fortunate Son:The Story of Baby Boy Francis

When I started writing my memoir, Fortunate Son – the Story of Baby Boy Francis, I knew it had potential because the story was both amazing and true.

I was adopted as an infant, had wonderful parents and a wonderful childhood, never searched for my birth mother and never would have. I learned her identity and the story of my birth only because of litigation initiated in four courts in two states in an effort to identify and find me. The lawyers who were looking didn’t know who or where I was, but they knew my birth mother’s son had a potential claim to the fortune left by her grandfather, who owned oil wells all over the country as well as the only facility in the Western Hemisphere that made fluoride for toothpaste.

A week after I learned about my birth, my first grandchild was born under circumstances almost identical to my own. My birth mother got pregnant in the fall of her freshman year of college, my daughter in the fall of her sophomore year. The circumstances were the same, but the times were not. My daughter, unlike my mother, got to keep her baby, who’s grown into an extraordinary young lady.

I knew I had the makings of a good story. The challenge was to get readers who didn’t know any of the main characters – my parents, birth mother, daughter, granddaughter, and me – to care about us and feel they knew us. To achieve this, I wrote anecdotes about all of us that I thought were revealing, some no longer than a sentence or two. I wrote that my mother loved to dress up at Halloween, put on a mask, get down on her knees, and trick the neighbors into thinking she was a child wanting candy; that in World War II my daddy volunteered for the Navy because in the Army you had to sleep on the ground, but after the war ended he served as a Boy Scout leader for 60 years and spent more than 1,000 nights sleeping on the ground in a tent; that long after I was born my birth mother had late-night conversations with her sister about the baby she had to give away when she was 18, who by then she knew would be her only child; that my daughter declared before her third birthday that she needed to lose a little weight and the following year was chosen to be the barker in her preschool circus; and that exactly 20 years later my granddaughter played the same role in the same circus. Not long afterwards, she asked me, “Papa, am I taller than a penguin?” At the time she was taller than some but shorter than others, but now she's taller than all of them, even the Emperor, the tallest penguin on Earth.

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Brooks Eason has practiced law in Jackson for more than 35 years but has resolved to trade in writing briefs for writing books.  He lives with his wife Carrie and their two elderly rescue dogs, Buster and Maddie, and an adopted stray cat named Count Rostov for the central character in A Gentleman in Moscow, the novel by Amor Towles.  In their spare time, the Easons host house concerts, grow tomatoes, and dance in the kitchen.  Eason, who has three children and four grandchildren, is also the author of Travels with Bobby - Hiking in the Mountains of the American West about hiking trips with his best friend. Visit Brooks online at www.brookseason.com  https://www.facebook.com/brooks.eason

Memories of the Past

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine   

For some writers, writing during the holidays is difficult. The memories during this time of year can be hard and sad. Too many pieces of baggage from their past prevent them from sitting down at the computer and creating that awesome book.

However, maybe writing during this time is exactly what the writer needs to do. Letting those baggage items fall out onto a blank page, may be the greatest book they have written to date.

Everybody has “stuff” in their past. Sometimes the best way to sort through it so you can put it in the proper place is to write about it. When you do you will find it is like putting it to bed.

This will bring up memories you would probably rather forget; it also lets you view it from different angles. You are older, a lot of time has passed. It is like looking into a window at someone else. Through the memories in our head we have many stories we can tell. The beauty is we can make it fiction and create an ending we like.

Try it. Begin letting your memories surface and create your greatest book yet.

Relational Research

By Jody Bailey Day

The internet makes it so easy to find out anything about anything. That was the case as I researched such issues as Child Protective Services, Cancer, and Suicide for my book called Joy Express. I had all the details I needed to craft the story, but it just felt hollow.

I called my friend Michele Huckaby, a licensed professional counselor, and picked her brain. The same information relayed by a warm, caring person gave me the perspective I needed to put warmth and compassion to the story.

My current work–in-progress is a historical fiction rendering of a real life woman. Annie Riggs was a pioneer matriarch of my West Texas home town. There are plenty of history books and newspaper articles to flesh out the details, but many of her family are still living. Talking to them was an eye-opener.  I was not admonished to change anything, but to hear “that is conjecture and hearsay” about certain events, and to see the concern in their eyes sent me back to the drawing board. I had to decide whether relating those events, even in a fictional way, was important enough to cause discomfort to family members. I have to live in this town, after all. The book is not a biography, and since my goal is to highlight her faith and pioneer spirit, I decided certain things did not need to be related. It’s all in the history books, anyway.

These experiences have led me to seek out more “human” research than just internet, books, and newspapers.  Research with real live people gives one a sense that’s there’s more at stake, more behind the story than just jots and tittles.

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Jody Bailey Day is an author who looks at life through love-colored glasses. Her passion is inspiring people to live a life that embraces who they are in Jesus Christ. She writes poems, articles, devotionals, and novels from West Texas, where she is President of the Fort Stockton area Critique Café. She is a member of ACFW and Faithwriters.com. Her poems and articles have appeared in Mature Living, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Christiandevotions.us, EveryDayPoets.com, and Splickety Magazine. She has published the Washout Express Series with Pelican Ventures and has published a devotional, H.E.A.V.E.N, a Handle for Storms of Life, and Yellow Bottom Bob, a children’s Autumn story and activity book. She’s a musician, music teacher, and loves black-and-white movies and TV.

Coloring in the Lines

By Tammy Karasek    

Adult coloring books are popular now. I have a stack myself. I’ve always loved to color and for years our daughter would try to find a new pack of crayons for my stocking at Christmas. Often a new fun book would be sticking out of the top of the stocking, too. Now we don’t have to color in children’s books. We also don’t have to use crayons. We have a huge assortment of colored pencils and fancy adult books in which to use them.

I’ve always used coloring as a stress reducer, even though I’d probably be considered a little OCD about staying in the lines, or that the colors would be balanced in a paisley design. Just the experience of slowing down and coloring was a way to slow down my mind. But I colored it my way with no pressure to color it the way everyone else did. If you do color, are you the type that must stay in the lines or are you okay with the occasional slip over the edges?

Though how does coloring relate to writing you might ask. Quite a bit of parallel I would answer.

In writing we have certain rules or lines we need to stay within. But the way we write within those lines is chosen by us. Like we might choose pink (I would!) to color the flower, we  also choose the words to best describe our thought or design if you will.

Even though we have the choice to stay within the lines or rules, we can also sneak a little over the line. We get to add a little flair to the picture. As writers, we are using words rather than colored pencils to tell our story—or color our page. And each of us will use our own creativity to do that. We may choose carnation or a fuchsia pencil rather than just pink to liven up our story. We’re staying pretty much within those lines, but we’re going bold to make our statement pop. Or we may go with taupe or grey instead of cream to subdue the story.

If you like to color, are you the type that stays perfectly within the lines and uses the basic eight colors? Or are you a daredevil and go bold with the 64 pack and go over the lines?

And what type of writer are you? Do you stay in the lines or take it to the edge? Do you write with bright colors and show your personality—your voice—in your writing?

For me, I’ll be grabbing that fuchsia pencil, thank you very much.

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You’ll find Tammy Karasek seeing humor and causing laughter in every aspect of life. Her past, filled with bullying and criticism from family, is the driving force of her passion to always encourage others and give them The Reason to smile. She’s been married to her college sweetheart, Larry, for 37 years, a mom to their grown daughter, Kristen, and wrapped around the paw of a little dog named Hattie. Born and raised in Ohio, her family now resides in South Carolina. She is the President of Word Weavers Upstate SC, member of ACFW and My Book Therapy/Novel Academy. She’s the Blog Editor for Word Weavers International. A Conference Assistant for Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference. A monthly contributor for The Write Conversation. A contributor in the 2018 Divine Moments Compilation Book—Cool-inary Moments. Also a regular contributor to several other blogs.  Connect with Tammy: Email: tlkarasek@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tammy.karasek Twitter: https://twitter.com/tickledpinktam  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammykarasek/  Website: https://tammykarasek.com