Writing Resources Made Easy

I have a collection of books on writing that takes up at least two shelves on my wall. I probably won't ever get rid of those books because I simply never get rid of books. I mean, they're books. Getting rid of books is like, the devil's work, or something, right?

When I first began to write, books were the only option to get writing advice and find somebody who might actually read something I wrote. Fifty years later, we writers have more options than ever before along that infinite road called the Internet.

(I'd like to thank Al Gore for that, but I've been told he actually didn't have a thing to do with it. That was just a myth started on the Internet.)

So I've gone hunting along that electronic path and have found a plethora (love that word) of excellent writers' sites. I'm sure all my writer friends know about these sites, but just in case, I've made a short list of some where I've found great advice, comprehensive resources, and general commiseration that becoming a writer is harder than becoming an astro-physicist.

Here are 6 of the best of those sites and what you can find there to help you write and sell your work.

AEROGRAMME WRITERS' STUDIO
This site offers advice from well-known authors, a listing of contests and competitions, and other opportunities for writers to submit their work.

A WRITER'S PATH
You can find a world of great writing articles, and book listings and reviews here on this site. Great blog posts, and information about research, publishing, brainstorming, and even an online thesaurus.

C.S, LAKIN LIVE WRITE THRIVE
Author blog, writing articles and tips.

FICTION UNIVERSITY
I found this to be one of the best sites, with more than 1,000 articles, and a long list of online resources.

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS
Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi offer great resources for writers, blog posts, articles, and thesaurus collections for character traits, character motivations, settings, etc.

THE CREATIVE PENN
Joanna Penn offers online resources on self-publishing and platform-building, writing articles and author interview podcasts.

These sites and many others like them are not only informative but validating. By taking advantage of these online writers' sites, I've found that I don't feel so alone in my profession. And I've found all kinds of advice that has helped me to write better and to have more faith in my work.

I still won't get rid of my writing books, because first, they're books, and second, there is still excellent, timeless advice to be found on the pages of those books, old and dusty as they are. Words on the page will never go out of vogue, but who knows how long this crazy Internet thing is going to last? Right?

Why I Read

So far in October:
The Forever Bridge, T. Greenwood  (Great)
Grace, T. Greenwood  (Very Good)
The Cellar, Minette Walters  (Good)
The Summer that Melted Everything, Tiffany McDaniel  (Excellent)
Forgive Me, Daniel Palmer  (OK)
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, Bryn Greenwood  (WOW)

Now for the sad news indeed:
14% of adults can't read.
50% of adults are unable to read on an 8th grade level.
28% of adults haven't read a book in the last year.
33% of high school grads will never read a book after high school.
42% of college students will never read another book after graduation.
80% of US families will not buy a book this year from a bookstore or as a download on an electronic device.
(Statistics are from various sources, 2013 - 2016.)

But . . . here's what else I learned while I researched those sad statistics.

Just six minutes of reading can reduce stress by 68%. That alone is worth the effort to learn to read. If that isn't enough encouragement, reading keeps the brain functioning effectively, and studies suggest that elderly people who read regularly are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimers. Reading stimulates memory, analytical skills, focus, and concentration. Reading before bed has also been shown to improve sleep.

The list of benefits goes on. Mental stimulation, knowledge of . . . well, of anything. Other people, other places, other planets. Aliens. Expanding vocabulary. (I was so proud of myself when I learned the word naive.) Empathy, understanding, and relating to others. Writing skills -- a personal favorite benefit -- are improved, and you become more articulate.

The books listed above that I have read this month are all fiction. I read and do research for articles in non-fiction genres, also, of course, and I spend a lot of time reading health publications, children's magazines, general interest publications, and especially books about writing as a profession. But my passion is fiction. There are those who would argue that I can't learn anything reading stories. Really? The Forever Bridge explained much about the conditions of paranoia and agoraphobia. Grace told me things about living in Vermont that I didn't know, pretty much drawing me a map of that Green Mountain State and its people. The Cellar introduced me to the lifestyle of Somalian citizens living and working in the United States, an eye-opener. The Summer that Melted Everything gave me pinpoint insight into the racism and superstitions of small town society, and brought back memories of the music and culture of the eighties. From Forgive Me I learned a great deal about private investigators, human trafficking, The US Marshall Service, and the way the FBI investigates kidnapping. All the Ugly and Wonderful Things put me right in the middle of how meth is manufactured and its devastating effects on everyone, especially children. It also introduced me to some of the people who wear leather and ride motorcycles and how people are, in the end, simply people. And it was a hell of a love story.  

We've become a visual society, but I don't believe that a picture is always worth a thousand words. Sure, I can look at a picture of a gray sky and my mind acknowledges it as "a gray sky" and I assume it's going to rain. But I can read the words "a churning gray sea of a sky" and know for sure it's going to storm.

The worst problem, of course, for those folks who don't try to learn to read, or those who actually can't read, is that the world can be a confusing place. There are circumstances when a person must be able to read travel directions, how to take medications, understand insurance policies, contracts and other legal papers. And unfortunately, for those who don't think reading is important, their children suffer for it, in school and in life. There are very few high-paying jobs for people who think reading isn't important.

I can't imagine a day without reading. Not one day.

The Story is Inevitable

It's the cliche question writers are most often asked by those who don't write: Where do you get your ideas? And the answer that always comes to my mind is Where doesn't a writer get ideas?

The Story is inevitable.

There is a story in the tiniest grain of sand, and there is a story in every stone in the Great Pyramid. There is a story in a light switch, and in a summer storm. There are countless stories in the lives of every living -- and dead -- human being since the beginning of time. In every sight, every sound, every smell, every thought, there is a story that can be told to carry us into fantastic other worlds and realities and possibilities.

A writer's imagination is fertile ground where the seeds of unique ideas grow to bloom.

The problem is not so much where to find ideas, but the choosing among the millions of bits of information that are planted in the course of even one twenty-four hour day.

That young bank teller who cashed a check for you today has a story. The old man in the park has his. Even that candy bar wrapper on the sidewalk has a potential story: Why is it yellow? Who wrote the standards for the ingredient labeling? How was the candy made in the candy factory, what kind of machine created it, how do the machines work, who invented them?

What is the reason behind the design of the parking meter where you left your car this afternoon? What were the mechanics of its production and the materials? Who decided the number of coins you dropped into the meter slot and did that person have a brother who might be a murderer?

Even beyond the plot of that entertaining novel you're reading, there are myriad stories that grow from the very production of the book itself. Who designed the book jacket, where did their own ideas come from? Where did the paper come from for the book's pages? How old was the tree from which the paper came, and did squirrels scamper among its branches?

If you write fiction, your story is in the faces of the people whose paths you cross in your daily routine, and definitely in the face in your mirror. Your story is in the lives of the people you love and the people you don't particularly like and the people you want to get to know. Your story is in the anger, the joy, the common experience in all humankind.

Life is fascinating. You need only to pay attention.

Look, listen, absorb. Create.

If you're a writer of research articles, how-to pieces, technical copy, advertising blurbs, a story is in the what, where, when, why, and the how. Everyone has some kind of experience or expertise in something. Ideas are endless for the magazine, newspaper article, and feature writer. Published materials and the great infinite web offers access to every fact or statistic you could possibly want to know. (And, of course, some you don't want to know.)

Ideas bloom from ideas. Writers read. We're guaranteed to find something to write about.

No matter what the format or genre, whether fiction or non-fiction, mystery or how-to, a writer's garden of ideas is lush.

In the garden there be dragons, alien beings, maybe even the fascinating story of a rock. All around, every day, every minute, there is a story in full bloom.

The story is inevitable.

What's a Grammar Checker?

Recently, I was questioned about my use of sentence fragments, and since I am such an insecure scribe, I began to wonder if I was using them too much, or if I should be using them at all. I specifically find myself using them for emphasis, and to break up unwieldy sentences. And according to all the information I found on the internet -- all from institutes of higher learning -- students of the English language are terrified of them. It seems that your professor will mark your paper with a big FRAG, or SF, or FIX THIS, or something equally horrific if you don't give every sentence a subject, a predicate, and a complete thought.

I thought, wait a minute now. I read 3 books a week. (I used to read as many as  5-7 but even the most avid readers slow down eventually.) I was pretty sure I'd seen a lot of sentence fragments. And since I have more than 150 books on my own shelves, I was curious to find out if I was mistaken in thinking that sentence fragments don't always get your work rejected. So I pulled out some well-known authors from my shelf to see if maybe I was crazy, thinking I'd seen a million instances of sentence fragments over the last 40 years, written by well-known writers of award-winning books. I also thought that when I read these amputated sentences, I understood every one.

These are some examples of bestsellers where the writer made use of sentence fragments for a variety of reasons.

Joyce Carol Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys: "She wished Michael, willed him, to sleep. To relinquish shame."
Stephen King, Lisey's Story: "Suppose it was Scott's? Oh, sweet God, suppose."
Wally Lamb, I Know This Much is True: "See what, specifically? The conspiracy?"
Tawni O'Dell, Back Roads: I tried to think about disgusting things to help me hang on. Rick's fat ass waddling out of Shop Rite."
T. Greenwood, The Forever Bridge: "It was their playground. Their world."
Heather Gudenkauf, Missing Pieces: "It also meant that everyone who had stepped inside Julia's hospital room was a suspect. Including Jack."
Flannery O'Connor, Good Country People: Yesterday she didn't do anything but ramble in the bureau drawer. All she did.

There seems to be many reasons for the writers of these works to use fragment sentences. Emphasis. Explanation. To fast-forward. To add pacing. As many reasons as there are writers. As many reasons as there are stories. So I think I'm safe in using fragments to get my story out there, as long as there's good reason to chop up those "correct" sentence structures.

I never attended an institute of higher learning, and I have only a vague idea where the grammar check function is in my word processing program. Even if I did know where it is, I doubt that I would use it. (I know I wouldn't use it.) I'll just have to play it by ear, and keep on reading good books by great writers who probably don't know where their grammar check function is, either.

Who Does This Guy Think He Is?

What comes first, the plot or the character? Or does it even matter -- one way or another, we've got to fit both to the story. And either way, whether the story is based on plot or person, we've got to get our story-people right.

Huck Finn would never have made it as a street urchin in Brooklyn. Gone with the Wind probably would have lacked certain elements if Scarlet had been a mousy seamstress. The plots of successful novels need to conform to its characters, and vice versa.

It doesn't matter whether you first have a plot in mind or its characters, you have to know your people to their core. And a character sketch is the most comprehensive way to get to know them. Besides, character sketches are such fun for those of us who love to create other humans, outside of actually giving birth to them. We writers have this god-complex going on. If we didn't, we'd all be shoe salesmen or accountants. (Seriously, I'm not denigrating either of these professions, I'm really not sure what size shoe I should wear, nor can I add two plus two without wondering why it always comes up four. For my own peace of mind, I need both of these people.)

Logically, your character sketch might begin with the physical attributes of your story-people. But, again, we're not accountants. Your character sketches could begin with background, parentage, favorite color, or any other defining characteristic. Somewhere along the way, if you suddenly realize he's only five feet four inches tall, and has a mole on his back, add it to the sketch, you can always put everything in order later. Even if you never use this mole in your physical description of your character, you know that he has one, and it helps make him real in your mind.

In addition to the physical description of your character, you might want to know what he eats for breakfast, who is his best friend, what kind of music he prefers, if he drinks cheap beer or expensive wine. Does he have distinctive mannerisms such as peering into every mirror he sees, a certain way of speaking, does he tell off-color jokes, is he always hitching up his pants? Does he sing in the shower even though he can't carry a tune?

Know every detail of all your characters' lives, no matter whether you use any of these things in your story. Open up their heads and walk in, learn what their inner-worlds are like. Even before you start your novel, listen to your characters talk. After you've decided what they look like, what their likes and dislikes are, actually give them words and listen to what they say, and how they say it. Is there anger in their words, sadness, love, hate? How do they feel about the setting you're putting them in? You might think you're putting words in your characters' mouths, but you also might find that they start talking on their own to explain who they are.

This might seem like excessive work to create a character sketch for every character in a full-length novel, but once you can see your people and they've told you all about themselves, you're ready to pour them into the plot cauldron and stir it up.

So, here's the scary part: One or more of your characters doesn't conform to the plot, or the plot itself just won't seem to wrap around these rogues. The solution is to either change the plot, or -- much easier -- to re-mold the character until he fits. There will be character traits and opinions that won't need to be changed, but there will be those that will. And so, here's the happy part: There's a delete key on your keyboard and an eraser on your pencil. Because you're a writer, and the people you create can also be un-created. You can change blond hair to black, or a love of Jack Daniels to a hatred of all things alcoholic. And if you just can't find a place for that particular person in your story, you can just set him aside for the next story.

You're a writer, after all, and there's always a next story, maybe even tomorrow.

Who's Telling This Story?

This is a previously published article I did for the Brown County Writers Group's newsletter publication The Twig.

If you're writing your story in Jack London's voice, you better be Jack London. Stephen King? Nora Roberts? Annie Proulx? Sorry, those literary shoes have been filled.

Nope, you're telling this story, in a voice that is probably not yet established with a particular reader/fan base. That takes years. Agents and editors have not yet fallen to their knees and deified you for your not-Dean Koontz, not-James Patterson writing style, but for your brand new voice that is brilliant and unique. And insanely sale-able, which enables agents and editors to put meat on their tables, which makes them very happy to share their paychecks with aspiring writers.

When writers read (every day of our lives) we most often read our favorite writers whose material matches what we want to write. Unfortunately, we also tend to try to hijack our favorite writers' voices and call them our own. Sometimes we don't realize we're doing this, and sometimes we do.

Just as actors set aside who they are to become the characters they portray, so too should writers become the people we invent. We made up these characters, it's our responsibility to match how they think, what they're saying and why they're saying it, with their thoughts and actions.

Not only do your characters have to present a certain voice, every element of the story should project a certain tone. Setting, scene, circumstance, incident, and even era should reflect the overall voice of the piece. It can be understated and muted, boisterous, serious and melodramatic, sad, funny--whatever voice enhances the story in the most original way.

Fiction writers create fascinating stories about fascinating people who do something fascinating, and say something fascinating about something fascinating, from somewhere fascinating.

Well, that's the goal, at least. I've thought I've written something fascinating and find out that maybe only three people in the whole world find it fascinating, and that those people are on some seriously fascinating antidepressants.

The hard part is doing it in a voice that is exclusively your own. Your right word in the right place at the right time is not my right word in the right place at the right time. It's also not Jodi Picoult's right word, or John Grisham's. It's your voice you're selling.

To quote Raymond Carver, whose short stories earned literary acclaim and prestigious awards: "Every great or even very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications."

Every word you write, and every word you choose not to write, has to work to build a new world of your own that readers clamor to experience, a story told as only you can tell it.

Enhancing your Fiction with Figurative Language

Ah, those figurative language devices. Those pesky English terms that I always manage to mix up. Is this a simile or a metaphor? What is onomatopoeia? I can't even pronounce that word, never mind remember what it means.

So I decided to do some research, and here are the official definitions of those language devices writers often don't even know they're using. Or not using.

Simile:
A specific comparison using like, as, than. Examples: heart like a stone, thin as a rail, run like the wind. These may be excellent examples, but they are also cliches we've heard too many times. Create your own. 

Metaphor:
An implied comparison, such as fish out of water, hard-hearted. Again, these are cliches, so create your own brand of metaphors to enhance your particular character, setting, or plot.  

Personification:
This is a term for giving human characteristics to animals, abstract ideas, or nature. Mother Nature is a perfect example. Another is roots clutching the earth like a child clutching his mother. Personification is often used in magical realism to add poetic flow.

Symbolism:
Symbols can be objects, characters, colors, or aspects of nature, among many others, to represent abstract ideas. For instance, spring water could represent purity. Friendly dog could stand for happiness. A cemetery might symbolize grief, fear, or loss. But remember, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Alliteration:
Similar, repeated sounds such as a salmon-colored sunset settled over the sea does a great job of creating flow and mood.

Assonance:
The repetition of vowel sounds, often used in poetry.

Consonance:
The repetition of consonant sounds, also often used in poetry, but just like assonance, can be a tool in writing prose also.

Allusion:
This is a reference to a work of art or a cultural icon. This sometimes doesn't work because not everybody will recognize the same art or icon. But it does have its uses if the reference is a common one.

Analogies:
Example: "The federal debt is so high that if the US was a family, it would be homeless . . ."

Antithesis:
Example: cold hands, warm heart. Yeah, it's a cliche, don't use it. Come up with something brilliant of your own.

Hyperbole:
Exaggeration: "I've told you a bazillion times, I hate peas." Obviously, hyperbole is common to kids.

Irony:
The perfect example: I saw a political sign on a lawn that said "Vote no on libarry." Enough said.

Onomatopoeia:
Usually used as verbs, these literary device words mimic the sound of a thing or an action, such as pluck, blast, zoom, gallop, sizzle, whine, clatter. Thunder booms. The dog woofs.

So those are just some of the techniques and literary devices that can enhance your writing. I hope to be able to recognize the opportunity to use them in my own writing. I also hope I can remember what onomato . . . whatever . . .  is and how to pronounce it.