Category: Writing Tips

Considering Your Audience

Writing Tips

Crowd of people in an audience looking toward a speaker or stage.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig 

When I was a kid, there was one part of Cinderella that baffled me.

The clock struck midnight and Cinderella, in a panic, cries out that it’s late and that she must leave.

The handsome prince responds, “But it’s not late; it’s only midnight.”

Only midnight.  To a four or five year old me, this pulled me right out of the story.  I’d never even witnessed midnight.  To someone who turned in at eight o’clock, this seemed like an outlandish thing for the handsome prince to have said.

I frequently read on blogs that considering our readers is very important.  But how do we know who our audience is?  And what does it mean to keep them in mind as we’re writing?Continue reading

Keeping a Series Interesting Twelve Books In

Writing Tips

A hand is flipping through a book's pages and the title of the post, "Keeping a Series Interesting Twelve Books In" is superimposed on the top.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’m a fan of series…both reading and writing them.  As a reader, though, it really bothered me when my favorite series would get stale or if I felt as if the writer was recycling plots and other elements.

I published book twelve in the Myrtle Clover series in January and am planning a 13th release in the same series later this year.  This has caused me to be a lot more deliberate with my plotting and with the other ‘layers’ that I include in my stories.  The last thing that I want is to disappoint readers.

Thinking it through, I made a list of elements that I either appreciated from other long-running series, or wished that those series would have used to pique my interest.   Here’s what I came up with:

Use unique descriptions for staple characters and settings.  One thing I noticed in one of my favorite series is that the author seems to cut-and-paste the descriptions of her protagonist and other recurring characters from older books to the new one.  In some ways, this can be a fun inside joke (I loved Agatha Christie’s descriptions of Poirot as having ‘an egg-shaped head’, for example), it might be good to come up with fresh ways of describing characters and settings.

Offer up any details that have never been mentioned (and immediately add these details to your story bible).  I realized I’d never actually named the street that Myrtle lived on, for example, or talked about her sidekick’s family.  Incorporating interesting details can help readers stay interested.

Dig into the protagonist’s backstory.   While this is something that would likely be tedious in book one, you have the luxury of a reader’s interest by book 12 or 13.  It’s just important that we handle it in a way that we don’t lose their interest.  I’m exploring having a friend from a protagonist’s past reappear and cause trouble in a future mystery.

Can characters grow while still remaining consistent? One good thing about being this far into a series is that you really know your characters.  It’s possible to have a lot of fun with that by putting your characters in situations that make them uncomfortable…or just new situations, altogether.  They could start a new job or a new relationship.  The most important thing to consider is … does it feel forced or natural? Does it serve the story and the reader?

Related to the above, but a bit more external: Are there new elements (new characters, new situations, new setting, new setbacks) that can be naturally added to help the characters continue growing and help the readers discover more about them?

Specific to mysteries: Make the mysteries more complex.  Have two separate murderers, change the number of victims, increase the clues and red herrings.  Add or reduce the number of suspects.  Play around with locked room  or manor house set-ups.

The point is that we should make sure that the series is still satisfying for our readers (as well as for ourselves).   By putting a little extra thought into the process, it’s really not that hard to do.

Do you have a long series?  How do you keep it fresh?  As a reader, what has kept you reading longer series?

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Making Progress on Tough Writing Days

Writing Tips

A foggy path through the woods has the post title "Making Progress on Tough Writing Days" superimposed on the top.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I read an interesting article by James Preston titled “How to Get to Carnegie Hall. ”  Preston used an old joke as the basis of the piece:  A tourist asks a resident how to get to Carnegie Hall and the resident replies “Practice, practice, practice.”

Preston goes on to list exercises that help him write on uninspired days,  including writing letters from the protagonist’s POV, and writing a paragraph about your character’s life before the time your story starts.

Sometimes a project seems so big and so overwhelming that it feels as though we must have equal parts inspiration to face it.  But this isn’t really true.  I’m usually uninspired when I sit down to my manuscript every day.  Inspiration usually only hits about five minutes into my story, when I become immersed in the story world.  I know what I do every day at 5:30 in the morning, however: I write.  It’s practically muscle memory at this point.

But some days start out chaotic (fortunately, these days are few and far between for me now) and we can’t write on our schedule: inspired or uninspired.  Kids can be sick, animals can be sick, we can be sick there are family emergencies, etc.  For those days, there’s nothing wrong in skipping writing altogether.

But if you’re worried that you’re going to mess up your writing habit from taking a break, there are things that we can do to make progress on our stories (practice, practice, practice), even on the toughest days.

Writer  mentioned in her post “Write Some Days” for Writer Unboxed, that she lets her story percolate on tough writing days: 

“Working out plot and character elements, and turning them over and over to consider all the possible ramifications and permutations, is better done without access to a keyboard.”

What I do on tough writing days is a sort of focused brainstorming.  When even brainstorming can seem too tough, focused brainstorming, in the form of making lists, can be an easy and productive way of working.  Top 10 ways for my protagonist to change during the story, 10 details of my story’s main setting, 10 possible endings for my book.

More on my method here in my post from 2010.

One important note: if you do skip a day or two or three of writing, don’t try to catch up.  It’s incredibly demotivating.  Just jump right in wherever you are in your manuscript and make that day’s goal.  Pick up where you left off.

What are your thoughts about taking breaks from your story?  Is it easy for you to hop back in?  How do you make progress on your book on the toughest writing days?

Tips for making progress on our books during the toughest days: Click To Tweet

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Overcoming Emotional Wounds: How to Show Your Character Is Beginning to Heal

Uncategorized, Writing Tips

Photo shows a close-up of the Emotional Wounds Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The post title is superimposed on the top.

by Angela Ackerman, @AngelaAckerman

When it comes to writing a story where a character is going to work through a difficult past wound, there are two behavioral states to convey: one showing their brokenness and dysfunction, and one displaying hard-won insight, self-acceptance, and increased self-worth, all important aspects of growth.

Ironically, writers tend to struggle more with how to show a character’s healthy behavior than they do the downward spiral. (Maybe after all the lessons on tension and conflict, we’ve gotten very good at throwing rocks? Or we’re just all a bit more sadistic that we’re likely to admit!) Either way, that shove down the hill is less stressful to write than the painful crawl back up it.

Here’s what I know: change is painful, both in the fictional world and the real one. Transformation doesn’t happen overnight. So when it comes to showing our character’s path to healing in the aftermath of a destructive wound, we need to take it slow. Trusting others, especially after one’s been hurt, is hard. And believing again in hope, that a better tomorrow is possible? This is often the most difficult thing of all.Continue reading

Setting the Scene for Mystery

Uncategorized, Writing Tips
A wooden dock leads off to some sunset-illuminated water and the post title, "Setting the Scene for Mystery" is superimposed on the top.

The setting for the Sgt. Windflower Mysteries is not just a prop or a way to entice the reader to enter the realm of these books, although I certainly hope that it does. It is much more than that. For me the setting is the story, at least the beginning of the adventure. It is the only part of the story that I control. I get to start the story by setting the scene. Once I begin the journey the characters come and tell me the rest of the story and I just write it down.

It’s been like that from the very first time I sat down on the wharf in Grand Bank, Newfoundland on the easternmost tip of Canada and gazed out into the fog at the blinking lighthouse. Sgt. Winston Windflower almost walked out of that fog and introduced himself to me and started telling me his story. Sure, I get to limit some character’s voices from time to time and maybe I have a little say over the moral lines that I will allow the characters to play within. But once I have the setting, that opening scene, the story flows on its own.

So, for me, the bigger question is not how the setting affects the story, but rather why an author would choose a particular setting. Because once that choice has been made a lot of things flow from that including the physical environment, the weather and what the characters can actually do during the progression of the story line. I chose the Grand Bank area of Canada because it is located in my home province and I wanted to describe the physical beauty of the natural surroundings and tell some of the history of the area.

I have tried to capture the beauty of the ever-moving ocean and banks of fog that linger on the horizon, but words can barely touch the canvas that creation has revealed to us. That’s why I always put a picture on the front cover that illustrates it far better than my words ever could. Like the lighthouse in Grand Bank on The Walker in the Cape and the boardwalk in Burin on The Body on the T. Or the fishermen’s wharf and fishing stages or rooms in Fortune on A Twist of Fortune. All real places that I have visited and that a reader can too by looking at the cover or reading the book.

The setting by the Atlantic Ocean also makes the weather a real character in all of the Sgt. Windflower Mysteries. It is almost always windy and the potential for some form of precipitation is high at any time of day or in any season. Both of those force people inside, sometimes for a meal, sometimes for coffee, sometimes just for shelter from a storm. It allows me to show people in close quarters where their interactions reveal more of themselves, their true selves and their intentions. Maybe even their motives…. Plus, it’s always a great opportunity to show off the delicious cuisine of the local area and maybe even a chance for Windflower to get a piece of his favorite chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.

For me, I simply couldn’t set the Sgt. Windflower Mysteries anywhere but in Newfoundland. It gives it the touch, texture, smell and feel of the ocean breeze blowing in my hair. The salt air wind whipping the bedsheets drying on the clothesline. It makes the characters come alive and hopefully makes them real to the readers as well. Come back to Grand Bank and experience it yourself in the latest adventure, A Tangled Web.

Cover shows a coastal village with the name of the book "A Tangled Web" by Mike Martin, superimposed on the front.
A Tangled Web is the latest book in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series set on the East Coast of Canada. The previous book in the Series A Long Ways from Home was shortlisted for the Bony Blithe Award as the “Best Light Mystery of the year”.
“Life is good for Sgt. Wind­flower in Grand Bank, Newfoundland. But something’s missing from the Mountie’s life. Actually, a lot of things go missing, including a little girl and supplies from the new factory. It’s Windflower’s job to unravel the tangled web of murder, deceit and an accidental kidnapping that threatens to engulf this sleepy little town and destroy those closest to him. But there’s always good food, good friends and the love of a great woman to make everything better in the end.”
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