Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

First of all, I want to thank Writer’s Digest for the honor of choosing Mystery Writing is Murder as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers (Genres/Niches). Their list has just been published in the May/June 2010 issue, just hitting the stands now. Thanks so much!

But it’s all due to my friends who are so active on my blog—supporting me with their comments and making me think. Y’all are incredibly supportive and I really, really appreciate it.

I spoke Thursday evening at the Women’s National Book Association of Charlotte meeting with Susan Dosier and Carrie Ryan about social media promoting for writers.

One thing I found interesting was that many of the attending industry professionals were on Facebook and Twitter but didn’t blog.

I think it’s easy for the blogging world to get a little insular. I’m starting to think that everybody blogs and that’s just not true.

So here’s a quick post on setting up your writing related blog.

The first thing I would do is set a goal. What are you trying to accomplish with your blog? And I’d caution that even if a blog is supposed to be a promotional vehicle, that’s probably not going to fly for very long in the social networking world. Social media is really all about supplying content—and providing a service to your readers. A soft sell approach is best in the social media sphere.

After you know what you want, decide how much time you have to spend on the blog. If you’re honest with yourself and realize you don’t have a lot of free time, then limit your posting right out of the gate. It really doesn’t matter that you’re only posting once a week…but you need to let your readers in on your plan. Even if readers are using Google Reader to tune in to new content, it’s still nice to know that “if it’s Wednesday, there must be something fresh on Julie’s blog.”

Then I would write a whole slew of posts before the blog goes live. Write as many high-content posts as you can handle. That way you’ll have a buffer between you (and your busy life) and your blog.

Decide who you’d like to host your blog. WordPress gets the best press and is probably less-buggy…but I’ve gotten used to Blogger, quirks and all.

Keep your blog somewhat focused, at least at first. Otherwise, readers might get a little confused about where you’re going with it. Sometimes I’ll visit blogs and one day they’ll focus on politics, another day on humor…that’s fine if you already have your audience. If you’re building an audience, that can make things tricky. If you want to regularly show photography or focus on your hobby, etc, it might be good to assign it to a particular day of the week..and even post those days in the sidebar so that we all know that Wednesdays are “Wordless Wednesdays” with photography featured.

Give your readers a way to follow you and become part of the community. Feature an RSS feed button, a “Followers” button, etc, prominently on your blog page.

Develop your readership (and learn how blogging is done) by visiting blogs that are similar to your own. When you hang out at blogs that are frequently updated and with regular commenters, then comment there—adding content to the post with your comment, if possible. Link back to your blog.

Visit other blogs in this active blog’s blogroll. If those are active and healthy, comment on those blogs….adding content and a link back to your blog.

Make sure, if you’re an author, to have a buy button on your site, “contact me” info, and that you’ve made it clear that you’re a writer. Profile pictures are nice, too, and help readers to relate to you a little better, I think.

Blogging has been an incredibly experience for me and I’ve gained so much from it. Is it time-consuming? Yes. Is it worth it? Definitely.

Usually my son gives me a play-by-play of what he’s working on at school.

But the past couple of weeks, his Language Arts class has been concentrating entirely on writing to prep for a standardized exam. And somehow he neglected to tell me until a couple of days ago. :)

I guess he thinks I’ll be entirely too interested. He’s right. Writing, I think, is hard to teach, and I’m curious how people approach it.

In preparation for this exam, the school had each of the six 7th grade English teachers specialize in a particular area and then teach it to the rotating student body.

His favorite class of the series was on mood. To pull the children in, the teacher had shown them a YouTube clip on the SmartBoard that was a parody of the Mary Poppins movie.

First she showed the regular scenes with Mary Poppins drifting gently down from the sky with her umbrella, surprising the children by swooping up the banister, and magically cleaning the nursery.

Then she showed the other version, where the creator of the clip had given it all a menacing tone with spooky music when Mary came from the sky and with horrified expressions of the children when the nursery went crazy—topped off with Mary Poppins’ head spinning around in a very non-Disney, Exorcist-type fashion.

The mood in the two pieces was totally different.

It’s probably easier to create mood on film. You’ve got the benefit of using music (sometimes it’s overused, but it’s always an option.)

But we can accomplish the same type thing in our writing. We just don’t want to make the reader feel like they’re being manipulated. And we’d want to make it as seamless as possible.

Setting is one big way of creating mood. How the author treats the setting is also important (the author’s tone.) The author can turn the spooky old house into a lovely historic home just by his word choice.

What kind of imagery are we using? If we write all the senses, we can create an ominous or a happy mood even with aromas—is there a strange smell coming from the woods? Is the sweet smell of gingerbread making the kitchen a cozy place?

What sort of sounds are in the scene? Eerie whistling as the character is walking alone at night? Birds chirping in the backyard? Children laughing?

Characters’ thoughts and actions can definitely work toward mood creation—how are they reacting to the situation they’re in? Are they relaxed? Nervous? Frightened?

What kind of a climate are we creating in our WIPs? How do you create it?

What happens if you have two things—or two facets of a character’s personality—that are equally important to the protagonist but conflict with each other?

We could use the tug between a character’s work and his family—and a character who loves both things equally. Suddenly we increase his work demands and his family needs simultaneously. How will he respond? What kinds of choices will he make and how will it change the plot? Maybe he misses his shot at promotion when he spends more time at home? What does that do to him?

We could invent an obsessively neat character who is always perfectly polite. Then we could dump a freeloading, messy, down-on-his-luck relative on him.

One of my neuroses is my punctuality. I have to be on time. My daughter just got the role of the White Rabbit in “Alice in Wonderland” and I burst out laughing—the White Rabbit should be my avatar in life. I also want to do a Good Job with everything I take on. So where does the need to be punctual and turn a project in conflict with my desire to have it be as perfect as possible?

How do our characters handle this stress? How does it affect their decision-making?

So we can personalize the torture we’re putting our characters through. What are these characters like? What do they need? Do they need two things—and what if these needs conflict with each other?

What matters most to our characters and how can we threaten it?

Living in Charlotte, North Carolina, I’m—surprisingly—one of the few Southerners I know here. I’m surrounded by neighbors who’ve moved from the North for (mainly) banking jobs.

In the small Southern town I grew up in, we would have called these folks Yankees. Not in a derogatory way, but more as an explanation. (“She couldn’t understand a word I said. She’s a Yankee.” Or maybe: “A big water bug landed right next to her on the table and she screamed bloody murder! She’s not used to bugs that big because she’s a Yankee.”)

Sometimes Yankees were even people who just weren’t from around the area. Someone from Iowa could be a Yankee. Or a Californian.

But in Charlotte, people from the North don’t want to be referred to that way. That’s completely understandable. Southerners don’t care to be called ‘rednecks,’ even if it occasionally fits. I’ve squashed that Yankee word from my vocabulary…pretty much.

I was having lunch with a friend from New York. And lately, I’ve had a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease….I really don’t know why. I’m starting to think the fact I don’t get out much is beginning to show.

But my friend was talking about another friend’s daughter. “Ah,” I said. “Yes, she’s sort of sassy.”

“Fresh?” she asked.

I paused. Fresh was something that I used in reference to baked goods. “Yes,” I decided. “She’s fresh. I guess. If that means sassy.” I thought about it. “Actually, the girl’s mom has said that before, too. That Emily is fresh.”

My friend said, “So they’re from the North, too? Like me?”

I said, “Yes, they’re Yannn….Northerners.” I was so proud of myself.

“From New York?”

The accents all run together for me, not being as familiar. I can tell a Charleston, SC accent from a New Orleans one, but Northern accents? “Yes,” I said. Then I thought for a second. “Or maybe from Ohio.”

So of course she burst out laughing at New York and Ohio being anything at all alike. All my tiptoeing came to naught—it was clear that I lumped everything over the Mason-Dixon line all together.

This is one reason why I stay away from subjects I’m not familiar with in my writing. And why I don’t tarry long around religion and wouldn’t touch politics with a ten-foot pole…I just don’t trust myself not to screw up and accidentally offend someone (or show my ignorance!)

I’ve read books where it’s handled well—where religion and politics are side issues. I’ve read books where religion and politics are the issue—but I think it’s tricky. If it’s not handled well, you risk alienating a lot of readers, or even an editor or your agent.

How do you handle sensitive subjects in your writing? Or do you avoid them altogether?

Since our novels are all supposed to have tons of conflict in them (major, minor, and in between), our protagonists need to use their problem solving skills…usually.

In real life, I think our personalities have a lot to do with the way we approach our problems.

Some people panic, some people shut down, some avoid problems as much as possible, some people deny there is a problem, some attack problems head-on.

Some people have a methodical approach to solving problems, some have a wait-and-see approach.

My books are mysteries, so my protagonists do have some organized methods for investigating the murders…or else we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere in the book.

But I’m curious about other protagonists and their approaches to conflict. Because I don’t really think that in real life most people attack problems directly.

In books, though, don’t readers lose interest if the protagonist doesn’t confront their problems? Does the story drag if the character is just having things happen to them and not working through the issues?

If you do have a reticent protagonist, how do you keep the reader interested while they either avoid the problem or deny the problem? Or while they wait to see what happens?

Or do we all have protagonists who are natural leaders? I think many of us might…