writing fiction

Trotting After a Story

Trotting After a Story

Heather M. O’Connor

I’m writing this post from Quetico Provincial Park. Far from home. Far from the Internet. But very close to a subject near and dear to my heart—the Lac La Croix pony.

In the beginning

I first heard about this endangered Canadian breed about a year ago, after writing a blog post for Ontario Parks. The Lac La Croix pony was once bred by Ojibwe people living around the northwest corner of Lake Superior. Darcy Whitecrow, an Ojibwe elder and breeder, says the ponies used to “run in the forest like the deer.”

I was hooked.

Pre-Internet research
Quetico library
John B. Ridley Research Library

This little-known piece of Canadian and First Nations history was in danger of being lost. It’s not easy to dig up details on a pony that almost disappeared 40 years ago, especially when the topic is a First Nations pony from Northwestern Ontario. There aren’t a ton of resources. Those that exist are mostly uncatalogued.

My best hope was to visit Quetico Provincial Park. Ponies from the breeding program at Grey Raven Ranch visit the park once a year. I could see the ponies, compare notes with Darcy and his wife Kim, and research the ponies at the John B. Ridley Research Library, located right in the park! I could also collect oral histories from local residents and First Nation elders.

Just one problem. How would I pay for this trip?

Opportunity knocks
Quetico cabin
My cabin by the lake

That’s when I learned about Quetico’s artist-in-residence program, funded by the Quetico Foundation. Two weeks of writing time in a rustic lakeside cabin. Or, if I preferred, a tent-camping or back country experience. My only commitment? Offer a public reading or workshop.

Though the residency mainly attracts visual artists, it’s open to a broad spectrum of the arts. A spot is set aside each year for an emerging artist and a local artist.

The park staff encouraged me to apply. Several months later, I received good news. I would be their first writer. (Thanks, Quetico!)

Problem solved

Even with my accommodations covered, it would still be a costly trip. Airfare to Thunder Bay. A rental car. Food and gear.

The project had cultural and heritage value, and had already inspired a number of fiction projects. So I applied for a Marion Hebb Research Grant from the Access Copyright Foundation.

I got it. (Thank you, Access Copyright!) The grant covered three-quarters of my expenses.

Heather and a ponyCarpe diem

Now, here I am. Poring over the park’s rich archives. Talking to people with the pre-Internet history and equine expertise that I lack. Sharing breaths nose to nose with these beautiful and remarkably intelligent animals. Loving every moment.

Why? Because I asked.

Research grants and residencies are created to help us chase our stories. The opportunities are out there. What are you waiting for?

DID YOU KNOW?

Do you want to learn how to find residencies and grants, and write winning applications? Sign up for Get That Grant, Writescape’s popular hands-on grant-writing workshop. Coming to York Region in October. Stayed tuned for details.

Women Killing It

Women Killing It

Gwynn Scheltema

When I read Julia Cameron’s seminal book The Artist’s Way, she introduced me to the concept of a writer’s date: a block of time set aside to nurture your creative inner artist.

The idea behind this concept is that as we create, we run the risk of emptying our creative well, so we need to constantly refill that creative well by consciously experiencing new things, taking time to observe, taking time to breathe and reflect.

The Artist’s Date

There are many things you can do on your artist’s date. Because our creative brain is a sensory brain, anything that stimulates the senses or fires up the imagination will work: a walk in the park, making soup, lying on your back and watching clouds, going to a food or music festival. It doesn’t matter as long as you do it mindfully.

This coming Labour Day weekend, my artist’s date will take me to a new writing festival being held in Picton, Prince Edward County. It has the fun title of “Women Killing It.”

In the morning, I’ll be taking a workshop titled “So You want to Write a Mystery?” with author Mary Jane Maffini. In the afternoon I’ll join four writers of mystery and suspense for “Murder at the Vicarage”, an afternoon of readings, discussion and sumptuous Victorian high tea at Macaulay House.

Women Killing it

This Crime Writers Festival showcases nine Canadian women authors of crime and mystery. On Friday evening at “The Mysterious Affair,” a table-hopping event introduces each of the authors in turn: Mary Jane Maffini, Susanna Kearsley, Nazeen Sheikh, Elizabeth J. Duncan, Melodie Campbell, R.J. Harlick, Barbara Fradkin, Maureen Jennings and Robin Timmerman.

Saturday features the workshop and event at Macaulay house I mentioned earlier, and the day finishes with an evening event, “Appointment with Death (and Dessert).” Here, authors writing on the darker side will discuss murder, motives and MOs.

Why have this festival?

The festival was the brain child of mystery author Janet Kellough and Vicki Delany, also a crime writer and then Chair of the Crime Writers of Canada. They felt that Canada’s talented pool of women crime writers needed to have more exposure. I’m glad they did. What a treat! All this talent in one place, right in my backyard.

Perhaps you’ll take yourself on an artist’s date to “Women Killing It.” Find out details online or on Facebook.

You might also like to listen to two recent interviews with the organizers Janet Kellough and Vicki Delany on Word on the Hills radio program hosted by Felicity Sidnell Reid and me. These two prolific writers talk about the festival and their latest books.

 

DID YOU KNOW

Co-organizer of Women Killing It, Vicki Delany, will be our guest author at this fall’s Turning Leaves 2017 Retreat. Vicki is one of Canada’s most varied and prolific crime writers. Her newest cozy series is the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery Series. The first volume Elementary She Read was published in March 2017, and the next in the series, Body on Baker Street will hit the shelves on September 12.

Ten Ways to Get the Most from Writing Prompts

Ten Ways to Get the Most from Writing Prompts

Gwynn Scheltema

At the recent Just Right at Glentula Retreat, we used a number of writing prompts. Most writers have tried them at some point in their writing journeys. Some love them; some not so much. I find them invaluable. I’ve used written, verbal, visual, and textural prompts. I’ve even used smell and taste prompts.

Some writers resist prompts, because they feel that their writing time is limited and they should be writing the “real stuff.” But remember that “completing the prompt” is not the object. The goal is to get you writing, to get you writing what has the most energy for you, and to lead you into your writing project.

How do you do that?

Follow the energy

Often when you begin writing about the subject of the prompt — say swimming in a lake — it can take you  somewhere else — say an experience of drowning or crab baskets in Italy or how your father never believed in taking vacations. Go there. Forget the prompt and go where the energy is.

Prompts unlock memories and experiences, and when you write honestly about them, about how you felt, what you observed, and perhaps even capture some of the dialogue that was spoken, you can take that piece and adapt  it later for your “real” writing.

Prompts are not precise nor prescriptive.

Understand the possibilities of “You”

Prompts often use the pronouns “you” or “your”: “Write about your greatest fear” or “Imagine yourself beside a body of water…” Of course, you can write about your own experience, but you can also approach it as if you are one of your characters. And not just your protagonist or your viewpoint character. Often it is more revealing to pick your antagonist, or a minor character.

Switch it up

Try the same prompt from two different characters’ points of view. If the prompt says “What’s your favourite colour?”, get your character to answer. What colours does she/he have an aversion to? Perhaps you don’t know. Write about the fact that you don’t know that about your character. Why don’t you know? What else don’t you know? Or have characters answer that question about each other. What did your protagonist’s mother think were his /her favourite colours? How did that play out in your protagonist’s life? Did the mother always dress your protagonist in blue for example?

If you are a memoir writer, remember that the people in your life are your characters; they are just called Mom, or Dad or Great Aunt Mabel. And like a fiction writer, you can stretch by writing as if you are another character.

 

Prime the Muse

Prompts take you places you don’t expect, but I’ve also found them useful for getting into scenes that I was planning to write. Start by identifying a scene in your story you want to work on. For instance, you might want to do a scene where one character makes the first show of affection towards the other. Using the prompt “What’s your favourite colour?” as a line of dialogue could take you to a scene at a fair or in a mall where he is buying her something, or in a garden where the flowers are in bloom, or just in the kitchen choosing a coffee mug.

Write what you know  

The facts of your life may not be the stuff of wild imaginative novels, but your human reaction to events is as valid as any character in any novel. Perhaps you haven’t been in a dugout canoe in the Amazon Jungle, but you know how it feels to sweat. You also know how helpless you can feel in a strange place. Could the feeling of being swept down the river with the jungle crowding in also feel like being swept along in a crowd at a frenzied rock concert or at busy subway station? It’s not the facts from your life that connect with readers, it’s the emotions and commonalities.

The Senses

Like the things you feel, what you see, hear, touch, taste and smell also relate to what we all know. When writing from prompts, the senses will always ground you and lead you forward. Make use of ALL five senses. Also consider the temperature, the quality of the light, time of day, the weather, the seasons, the historical period.

Move into Metaphor

When you have considered the senses, move into metaphor. Ask yourself: What does this remind me of? What is it like? What is it not like? Explain it to someone who’s never seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted it before. What would a child relate it to? What would your character compare it with?

Be specific

As you write, imagine being in your scene. Notice and write about specific sensuous details: not “a car” but “the dented yellow Edsel-Ranger taxi.” Write about unusual details, incongruous details. Write about what’s missing. Imagine the scene with and without people — general people, specific people. Listen for snatches of remembered or overheard conversation.

 

Opposites

Turn the prompt around and do the opposite. Substitute “hate” for “love”, try “old” in place of “young”, use “like least” instead of “favourite”. Write using both approaches and consider the similarities or juxtapositions created. If you can’t remember, start with “I don’t remember.” If you’ve never experienced the prompt, say singing for a crowd, start with “I have never sung in front of people because …” or “I have never sung in front of people but I have …”

Lists

Sometimes a topic seems too big to approach with authenticity. For instance, if the prompt asks you to write about someone you fear, and you’ve always feared your father, you may not feel comfortable diving into writing about him. Instead make a list of all the people you fear. Try to make the list really long. The items you add to the list last are often the ones buried deep. At the end of your list may be a kid from grade school. Write about him. Chances are you’ll find you feared him for many of the same reasons you feared your father.

Or make a list about all the emotions you feel about your father, and write about any one of them.

Give it a go

Prompts have been the source of many of my “keep” scenes. I may end up only using a portion of what I wrote, perhaps just one paragraph, but the prompt usually takes me where I’ve been resisting going and anything that gets me writing is a good thing.

Need a prompt now? There are lots of online sites. Here are a few for fiction, non-fiction and poetry:

Now, go and write, write, write ….

DID YOU KNOW

At Writescape retreats, we provide optional creativity sessions to tickle your muse and a companion work book full of prompts and ideas to take your writing to places it hasn’t gone before. Join us at our next retreat: Turning Leaves 2017.

7 Ways to Keep Writing Every Day

7 Ways to Keep Writing Every Day

Gwynn and Ruth are on vacation for a few weeks. So we’re bringing back a couple of our favourite Top Drawer topics to share with new readers and to nudge long-time followers. The last two blogs explored finding time to write and finding inspiration. This week Gwynn’s April 2016 post rounds out the message with tips for writing every day.

Gwynn Scheltema

We’ve all heard the old maxim, “Write every day.” In the bogaiman quoteok Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Whether you believe in the 10,000 hours concept, or simple BIC [Butt in Chair], there is no denying that being a writer means actually writing—real words—lots of them.

“Write every day” is the number one piece of advice given by successful writers—and they should know. But it’s often easier said than done.

So here are 7 ways to keep you writing every day:

  1. Set aside writing time

paper-606649_960_720If writing is important to you, it needs to be built into your routine in the same way that you build in any other important activity in your life. If you need to schedule writing time like dental appointments, piano lessons, or hockey practice, do it. Think of writing as your “job” and block out set times like you would if you were going to work.

And perhaps once in a while treat yourself to really dedicated time on retreat, like Writescape’s Spring Thaw or Just Write at Glentula.

  1. Get buy in

Talk to your family and friends about how important your writing time is to you. More importantly, talk to yourself about honouring that time. Are you the one who gives up your creative time to do extra chores, or make way for what someone else wants to do? Ask yourself, “Would I take a day off work to do chores?”

  1. Know yourself

The right time to write is different for everyone. You know when you are most creative. If you feel guilty taking “family time”, get up earlier, or reserve after-bedtime time for yourself.

  1. Have a dedicated writing spacewriting-828911_960_720

If you learn to play the piano, you invest in a piano. If you play hockey, you buy skates and sticks and all the rest of the hockey paraphernalia. Yet so many writers believe that perching on the end of the kitchen table and clearing up when someone else needs the space is okay. It’s not. Claim a writing space that is yours. It doesn’t have to be a whole room, but it should be a place where you can be alone when you want to, and where you can leave things in progress.

  1. Get dressed and show up

While it’s comfy to write in your jammies, getting dressed to go to write lends a validity to the activity, like getting dressed to go to work. And as Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up”. If you can physically get your butt in the chair, then writing that first word is that much easier.

  1. Know your writing style

Stephen King says he writes ten pages a day; Hemingway wrote 500 words a day. Some writers set a fixed time—write for 3 hours. It doesn’t matter what writing goal you set for yourself, as long it is achievable, and doesn’t set you up for failure. Start small. Even 3 paragraphs done every day will get you further ahead than a full chapter not even attempted because it is too overwhelming.

  1. Use prompts, timers or ritualsteapot-574025_960_720

To make the transition from the practical world to your creative world, have a ritual: light a candle, play music, or make tea in a special pot. To get the words flowing, make use of writing prompts or timers or idea files. Anything that will get you started. Think of them as warm-up exercises.

From the picture at the top of this post, it looks like that writer channels Star Trek to get started. My writing ritual is to clear my desk, get a coffee and win three hands of solitaire. What’s yours? Share it in the comments below.

Other articles you might like to explore:

Strange Writing Rituals of Famous Authors

Daily Routines of 12 Famous Writers

Sit Down, Shut Up and the Muse will Come.

Villains, Vendettas and Vagabonds

Villains, Vendettas and Vagabonds

A one-day exploration into how putting “the bad” into your writing will hook your readers and keep them reading until the bitter end. Ruth E. Walker is known for her deft hand with intriguing characters in her fiction and she is not shy about her affection for the nasty ones.

Discover how even adding a few rough edges to a previously angelic character can bring important depth to your plots. Punch up a flat storyline with revengeful renegades, riots and rebellions. Writing `bad` characters and `nasty`plots need not be scary.

Ruth knows a thing or two about writing bad characters. Her bad ass characters in “Death in the Family” helped her win an honourable mention along with plenty of comments and Bonnie & Clydekudos in Geist literary journal’s Literal Literary Postcard Story contest. Her story then went on to be linked online by the prestigious Utne Reader in the U.S.

Her edgy fiction creations have appeared in Cadenza (U.K.) and LICHEN Arts & Letters Preview. And the complicated “villain” in her novel Living Underground has readers questioning their ideas about what constitutes evil.

Come prepared to write with hands-on exercises, learn from lively discussions and take home practical handouts.

Email info@writescape.ca to find out when this workshop will be offered again.  NOTE: an in-depth full-day Masterclass is also available.

The Making of a Short Story

The Making of a Short Story

Gwynn Scheltema

I wrote a short story last week that forced me to write outside my real-life comfort zone. My story was for an anthology being put together as part of the many commemorative events to celebrate Canada 150. The submission call was for an “immigrant story”.

I’m an immigrant. I came to Canada in 1982 to escape a country that had been embroiled in a civil war for more than ten years and which had recently gained independence. Unfortunately for my family, the other side won and leaving seemed the best option on many fronts. But this blog is not about that and I didn’t want my immigrant story to be about that.

The story I wanted to tell was how it’s the little details in a new life that are the hardest. Finding jobs and a place to live are huge, seemingly insurmountable problems, but they are expected hardships, things you can brace yourself for and work to overcome. But just when you think it is all going well, that you’re getting ahead, some small detail surfaces and derails you. That’s what I wanted to write about.

I’m a private person, not given to public displays of affection or emotion. I cry in private. But for this story, I wanted to zero in on an emotional moment and portray it without being melodramatic or cliché. But how to do that?

The emotional mirror

Most readers, even though they may not realize it, read to mirror their own lives. Have they felt that way before? What would they do in a similar situation? How is this situation different from their lives? A story about events of that civil war would be different from an average reader’s life, but would it connect with readers on a human, emotional level? The key to making my story work was to focus not the events the reader couldn’t relate to, but on the emotions the reader could relate to. The emotional mirror.

To resonate with the reader, I had to identify the emotion I wanted the story to illustrate and the reader to feel. In this story, I wanted to show the feeling of being out of control, disoriented and emotionally afraid when the logical mind tells you there is nothing to fear. All emotions that everyone has felt at some point in their lives.

Let it unfold…slowly

Peter Selgin, writer and professor at Antioch University’s MFA Creative Writing Program, gives his writing students an exercise: Write two pieces each about 250 words long. Piece One should rivet the reader; Piece Two should bore the reader stiff. Each student reads both pieces out loud.

“In almost every instance the result is the same,” he says, “The ‘riveting’ piece bores, while the ‘boring’ piece holds interest.”

Why? Peter explains that, “In their effort to grip us, beginning writers tend to rush: They equate their own adrenaline with that of the reader. Conversely, when trying to bore, the same writers take their time; they don’t hesitate to lavish 250 words on the subject of a wall of white paint drying. And—to their consternation—the result holds our attention.”

So for this story, I chose a small incident that happened over a short period of time, but I slowed down the telling, letting it unfold moment by moment. By not hurrying, there was room for the emotion to build, for inner thought as well as outer action.

Envision it

As I wrote, I closed my eyes and imagined the scene in my mind. What could I see above, below, to the sides? What people and things were in my periphery? What could I hear, smell, touch, what was the quality of the light, temperature of the air? What emotion was I feeling at each point and what did that emotion look like in gestures, actions and reactions? Show don’t tell.

Match style to purpose

Writers have two roles in every piece they write. One to tell a story; two to craft it well. Having decided on the subject matter and how to let the story unfold, I summoned up craft I’ve learned over time.

To heighten the feeling of disorientation, of not fitting into a new world, of being out of control, I edited to make the sentence structure disjointed in places, short and fragmented in others and even syntactically out of step at times.

I made sure to use smell and texture or touch where I could as these senses tend to be more emotionally charged than sight and sound. I used setting details to echo the atmosphere of the fear that the narrator was feeling.

Whether my story was successful, I won’t know until it’s accepted and published, but I felt good about it when it was finished and that’s always a good sign.

DID YOU KNOW

Among the workshops Writescape has offered is one on writing short fiction, “Does Size Matter?” Gather your group. Pick your topic and your date. And we’ll bring Writescape’s workshops to you. Choose from our Workshop Catalogue, or contact us to provide a custom workshop to fill your needs.

 

Your Writer’s Voice

Your Writer’s Voice

Gwynn Scheltema

The lake inspires on this beautiful spring day. All around me words spill onto pages, fingers tap-tap on keyboards and there is an electric energy in the room. I’m among people who understand me, the writer.

photo by April Hoeller 2017

I’m here at Writescape’s Spring Thaw 2017.

On Saturday night we shared our work with each other, and as always I was blown away by the stories and the places they took me. And I was struck by the range of voices in the room, each with their own way of telling a story, of painting mood, bringing out emotion, of relaying information. Some voices were a familiar comfortable journey, some a new adventure into story.

But each voice was unique. And I’m not talking character voice here, I’m talking about that elusive quality we call the writer’s or author’s voice. The way readers recognize you as a writer. It’s partly style, partly tone and partly an undefined quality you might call your writer’s personality.

What is your style?

Style is the mechanics of how you write. Do you favour writing in short sassy sentences or long languid, contemplative ones, or something in the middle? Is your default  word choice urban or rural or academic or down to earth? Is your writing spare, with little description or do you use imagery and metaphor with gusto? Style can also be dictated by the market or genre you write in.

What is your tone?

Tone is the attitude of your writing. Do you hit readers between the eyes or are you subtle? Are you passionate, emotional, even evangelistic? Are you formal or friendly or casual? Are you obtuse or matter of fact? Do you teach or argue or merely suggest. Just like style, tone can be influenced by the market you write for.

 

What is your writing personality?

Your writing personality comes from who you are both as a writer and a human being. It’s molded by what you’ve experienced, the lenses through which you see the world, what you believe in, what inspires you, what influences you, your fears, your loves, your passions, your morals. It’s not dictated by anyone, but it is yours alone.

 

Why does it matter?

On a practical level, it helps you hone and edit your work. If you default to introspection in your telling of a story, perhaps you might need to up the energy more in places with more dramatization. If you typically create a first draft that races headlong from plot point to plot point, perhaps you need to give the reader a chance to breathe once in a while. And we all have stylistic tics: insistent words, phrases, constructions or images that bubble too often to the surface and which we no longer notice because they are part of us. I know, for instance, that I tend towards longer sentences and use the words “somewhat” and “little” a great deal in a first draft.

But it’s more than that. Recognizing that you have a voice that is uniquely yours is what helps you write authentically. Trying to write what you think you should write, or what others want you to write, often fights with the way you authentically write. We all have those moments when we feel a piece is not quite what we wanted to say. Chances are you’ve written it in something other than your own authentic voice.

Embrace your writer’s voice

Don’t fight the writer within. Your best, most authentic stories come from that place deep in you and will resonate with readers when you allow the distilled essence of your life, your experience, your passions and your attitudes come through.

The more you write, the more distinct and consistent your voice will become. Don’t worry about “finding your voice”. Just write what you are driven to write, in the way you think it is best expressed and send your writing out into the world. Your voice will be there.

DID YOU KNOW

Spring Thaw is just one of the retreats that Writescape offers each year. You can escape for a day of inspiration or settle in for a weekend or more of focused writing. Learn about what you can expect at at Writescape retreat.

What’s in a Name?

What’s in a Name?

Gwynn Scheltema

I have a one-syllable name—Gwynn. It’s a fairly common Welsh name although my spelling is a little unusual in that it doesn’t have an “e” on the end. And, no, no-one was drunk on the way to the registry office, or misinformed or forgetful or anything else. The story goes that I don’t have an “e” because my brothers (who got to choose my name) couldn’t decide between Gillian and Lynn so they smooshed it together and added a “w” for easier pronunciation to make Gwynn.

Growing up, I didn’t know this story; I only found out in my twenties. However, my father’s family had emigrated from Wales in the late 1800s and the name means “bright, white, fair, pure, blessed” and I’m blonde, so it’s a good fit. I like it. I like that it’s different. I like that it can’t be shortened. I like that it fits my history.

Names affect the way we feel

How a person or character feels about his or her name can affect what they feel about themselves. I love the way this excerpt from Margaret Atwood’s short story “Hairball” sums up the idea. So much character and back story is packed into the paragraph. Sometimes it is the character’s own view of herself, and sometimes how others see her.

During her childhood, she was a romanticized Katherine, dressed by her misty-eyed, fussy mother in dresses that looked like ruffled pillowcases. By high school, she’d shed the frills and emerged as a bouncy, round-faced Kathy, with gleaming freshly washed hair and enviable teeth, eager to please and no more interesting than a health-food ad. At university she was Kath, blunt and no-bullshit in her Take-Back-the-Night jeans and checked shirt and her bricklayer-style striped denim peaked hat. When she ran away to England, she sliced herself down to Kat. It was economical, street-feline, and pointed as a nail.

What’s behind a name?

Playing with names is a useful and powerful tool to add to your writing toolkit. Names have meanings, ethnic histories, associations with myth and stories, famous people, gods and family ties. Choosing the right name is the key.

Finding out what’s behind a name can be fun (and addictive). The web is full of sites that give the etymology, history and meaning behind names—first names and last names. There are sites for choosing baby names, for seeing the popularity of names over the years and even “character analysis” based on names.

Choosing a name

Devyani Borade blogged in Writer’s Digest about a quirky method to choose character names for fantasy characters: “Eyes closed, I randomly open a dictionary. Then I run a finger down the middle of a column while mentally keeping a beat, and stop at the count of six. (Why six? Because on this occasion, my story has six characters.) “Macamba: (n) Tropical American feather palm having a swollen spiny trunk and edible nuts.” Interesting. I repeat the process and come up with “Tabes: (n) Wasting of the body during a chronic disease.” Ah, just sublime. Then I switch the last letters. Et voila! Tabea Macambs. Pretty exotic, eh?

Names and Personality

I went to Quizony and did a quiz called “What Should Your Name Be?” based on personality. Apparently, my name should be Camilla. The quiz tells me: “Camilla is the name of a legendary female warrior… can make tough decisions… never afraid of taking on responsibilities… always has new ideas and new goals.”

Actually, I like it. And it’s a pretty accurate assessment of me. So it got me thinking about a character I’m working with whose name I’ve changed several times during the writing of my novel. I did the quiz again, only this time I answered the questions as if I was my character, Emily. According to the quiz, her name should be Victoria: “… powerful and forceful… determined… people respect and look up to you.” Hmmm. It fits her. I’ll think on it.

If your character is young, you might like to try a similar site where all the questions are geared to YA.

Over to you

Do you have a character whose name you aren’t quite happy with yet? Perhaps a character that needs naming?  Spend some fun time looking up names, their meanings and histories, their connections and personality traits.  And let readers know in the comments below how you pick names for your characters.

DID YOU KNOW

The name of the Rice Lake resort where we hold our annual Spring Thaw retreat is Elmhirst. It means “the elm-wood hill”, from the Olde English pre 7th Century “elm”, with “hyrst”, wooded hill. Join us there to focus on your work in progress and receive feedback from two skilled editors.  Come for three days or five, April 21 to 25 for an all-inclusive escape to write.

Janus: the god of writing?

Janus: the god of writing?

Gwynn Scheltema

January is believed to be named for the Roman god, Janus. The first month of the Gregorian calendar, January replaced March as the first month of the Roman year, no later than 153 BCE.

As we’ve left behind 2016 and begun 2017, consider that Janus is, among other things, the god of time, beginnings and endings. His two faces look simultaneously to the future and the past.

Janus symbolized change, transition and motion. He presided over the progress of one condition to another, from one vision to another, and young people’s growth to adulthood, transition from savagery to civilization, from rural to urban space, from one universe to another. Janus oversaw the beginning and ending of conflict. As a god of motion, Janus caused actions to start.

He represented time, and was worshipped at planting and harvest, at births and marriages and deaths. He had a role to play in journeys and exchanges, gateways and thresholds.

Doesn’t that sound like a writer? I think writers are a lot like Janus, presiding over our fictional worlds.

So what can we learn from Janus?

Past and Future are connected

At any point in the writing of a story we need to be looking into the past and the future simultaneously. Even though action and plot are moving forward into the future, we need to be aware of our characters’ pasts or back story, because that is what drives all our characters’ quirks and traits and shapes the decisions they make.

The distinction between past back story and present, or future action and plot, is a cornerstone for understanding pacing. The plot and action is what moves the story forward and keeps the pace up (and the reader engaged). The moment you indulge in a flashback (back story; the past), your pacing stands still. Sure we learn things about the characters, but the storyline is momentarily halted. Stay in the past too long, and the reader will lose interest.

That’s not to say that backstory is not important. It is. It is the subconscious motivation that drives the characters’ present actions. The future unfolds according to the events of the past, and witnessing some of the past will help the reader understand why a character acts the way he does.

Beginnings and Endings are connected.

We all know that stories have a beginning, middle and end, but it’s more than that. Like Janus, we need to be aware of the beginning and end simultaneously wherever we are in the writing of the story. Everything is causal. Nothing happens without a reason.

Plotters write their plot beginnings with plot endings in mind. Pantsers freewheel the plot but know their character arc beginning and ending. At any point in the story the reader should feel that there is change afoot, that there is growth and discovery around the corner. Your reader should sense that at the end, it will have been worth the journey, and that the promise given at the beginning has been kept.

Duality in characters

The two-faced Janus reminds us, too, that our characters also have dual aspects. They are at once good and bad. Readers relate to villains who have redeemable qualities. Readers like heroes with flaws. It makes them rounded and believable, not cardboard.

A character arc is a progression from one condition to another: from shy to confident, from intolerant to tolerant, from angry to calm and so on. Cardboard characters have no arc. They are shallow and act without motivation, act only because the author needs them to. If the writer, like Janus, is aware of the character’s past as she writes the action and change of the future, then the character will be more developed. The reader will care what happens to the character and keep turning the page. And that’s what we all want.

So as we write, let’s remember Janus, this January and all year long. Our readers will thank us.

DID YOU KNOW

You can explore your inner Janus this April at Writescape’s Spring Thaw retreat. This all-inclusive getaway at Fern Resort on Rice Lake, Ontario, offers plenty of time to focus on character arcs, plot developments and flashbacks that don’t drag down your story. Gwynn and Ruth are on hand to give you one-on-one feedback on your work in progress. Registration is open now.

Write The Elusive End

Write The Elusive End

Ruth E. Walker

Oh, the love affair of writing the novel. The first blush of an idea. The rising heat as you pound out page after page of an unfolding story. You don’t want it to stop.

You constantly think about your novel, about your characters, your plot, your wonderful, endless possibilities… Until you find yourself without an ending.

Yeah, End-less: Your sense of dread when you need to finish your novel but there is no ending in sight.

Or End-less: Your sense of disappointment with an ENDing that is LESS than satisfying.

Poet and playwright Y.B. Yeats referred to the ending of a poem like a “click”:

The correction of prose, because it has no fixed laws, is endless, a poem comes right with a click like a closing box. (1935 letter to Lady Dorothy Wellesley)

While I might argue with him that prose indeed has many fixed laws for its “correction”, I’ve always liked Yeats’s idea of a “click like a closing box.” In my opinion, not just poetry needs to possess that “click” at the end.

No matter the issue, if you come to the end of your novel with a whimper instead of a bang, or at the least, the lovely satisfying “click”…your readers will be unhappy. And nobody wants unhappy readers.But if you’ve written a great beginning, do you need to give the same focus to the end? Prolific crime novelist Mickey Spillane said:

Your first chapter sells your book. Your last chapter sells your next book.

Click

Spillane’s not talking about sequels. A wise writer remembers that a disappointing or weak ending will undo all the joy your reader got at the beginning.

So what inspired this post? I’m working on the ending of my novel. I have three written (or at least, sketched out.) One tragic. One that leaves room for a sequel. And one that ends more positively. I’m undecided but I feel that I’m getting closer to the right ending. To help me work through the possibilities, I did some exploring on what a good ending needs. I’m sharing some highlights here:

A good ending needs:

To show change
  • Growth/change in your POV character is a common expectation for readers. But you could have a POV character who is “static” and remains unchanged right to the end. In that case, your reader must somehow be changed, have a new/deeper understanding of the impact of that character’s lack of change.
To be inevitable
  • This is not the same as predictable; no reader wants an ending that has been hinted at in every chapter since page one. And no reader wants deus ex machina endings with the ‘gods’ suddenly appearing and fixing everything.

To read something brilliantly written with an inevitable yet often unexpected ending, check out any of Alice Munro’s stories. I can re-read one of her stories and still get that yummy satisfaction from an inevitable, but often surprising, end. Munro’s “Dance of the Happy Shades”, about an uncomfortable children’s piano recital, has a masterful and quietly profound ending.

Not to be afraid to be unhappy
  • Who doesn’t want a happy ending? But if Romeo and Juliet ran off and lived to a ripe old age, how memorable would that be? Theirs was an “inevitable”, if tragic, ending. We may want a happy ending, but our lives (and some good stories) don’t always comply. And really, they are often better stories if the ending is not all rainbows and sugar plums.

In sum, a good ending needs to be satisfying for the reader…and for the writer. Whether it is a “click” at the end, or a sunset being ridden into with the future uncertain, a good ending needs to make sense. But how do you know if you’ve written the right ending?

In a later post in The Top Drawer, we’ll explore techniques and tips for knowing when you’ve achieved the best possible “The End.” Hopefully, by then, I’ll have found mine.

Did you know:

From endings come new beginnings. Writers in Ontario (and beyond) learned at the Ontario Writers’ Conference that it would be the last such gathering. Gwynn, Heather and I were so sad to hear that. We’d been at every OWC since its launch in 2006. But then the OWC announced an exciting new start. It wasn’t ending after all, just changing format and exploring how to offer writers its signature networking and education opportunities in new and exciting ways.

While it retools, OWC is still holding its monthly Story Starters contest, using images to spark the imaginations of writers. There are prizes to be won and bragging rights to add to your bio, so check out Rich Helms’ quirky and fun image and enter.