The Writers in Residence

Podcasts for Writers and Readers

I’ve never been a news hound, but felt a need to keep abreast of what was going on, locally and globally. For the most part, I watched the news while walking nowhere (treadmill). But a couple of months ago, I said “enough” and went on a news fast. I’ve been on many such fasts through the years, but this one’s lasting longer—all because I discovered podcasts!

Even though I’ve been a guest on a few podcasts, I rarely listened to them. They can run quite long, up to an hour and more. But many are much shorter, and I now listen to the long ones in segments.

A few of my favorites:

Sisters in Crime. Many of you belong to SinC and Executive Director Julie Hennrikus produces weekly interviews featuring author members discussing their writing journeys. She kicks off each podcast with the question: “When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?”

Readers get to know more about their favorite authors and discover new ones. View the list of episodes here.

The following three podcasts are educational and offer information, tips, and advice on many writing-related topics, including craft, publishing, marketing, promotion, and social media. The podcast hosts interview writers, editors, and industry experts. Some hosts present the material themselves. Many of the podcasts are accompanied by transcripts.

The Writing and Marketing Show with Wendy H. Jones. Wendy is a Scottish crime writer. In 2022, she visited my Sisters in Crime chapter with a virtual presentation, “Storytelling in Marketing.”

I get that kid-in-a-candy-store feeling when I scroll through Wendy’s long list of podcasts. In “Using AI In Your Writing and Author Business” she presents both sides of the AI controversy. I have my own thoughts and preconceived notions about AI, but I like to make informed decisions, so appreciated her sharing.

Wendy’s podcasts on TikTok are interesting, but I’m NOT embracing that platform. While it’s no longer limited to the young (at least not for writers using BookTok), I don’t see myself producing videos on a regular basis. Still I appreciated Wendy providing information that allowed me to make another informed decision.

Wendy’s many episodes on craft include “Mastering the Art of Crime Story Writing,” “Writing Romantic Suspense,” “Writing for Children,” and “Using Your Own Life Story in Fiction”. View the list of episodes here.

Indy Author Podcast is the brainchild of Matty Dalrymple. As the “Indy” name suggests, this podcast focuses on self-published authors, but the traditionally published can certainly benefit from Matty’s many current and archived episodes.

I had read about auto-narrated audiobooks created by Google Play Books and wondered if I could produce two of my novels as audiobooks without spending thousands. I listened to Matty describe her process in turning out an audiobook for a non-fiction book she had written. It sounds quite challenging—and may be fine for non-fiction, but the monotone doesn’t suit fiction with its variety of voices and accents. Just imagining how my dialogue in the redneck bar scene in Murder at the Moonshine Inn would sound makes me shudder.

Again, a podcast gave me the information I needed to make another—you guessed it—informed decision. View the list of episodes here.

The Creative Penn is produced by Joanna Penn. She spends time at the beginning of each podcast with updates on the publishing industry as well as on her personal news. I’m currently listening to guest Douglas Smith, a Canadian author of speculative fiction who has much knowledge of publishing rights as well as how to sell our work to foreign markets. Where has Mr. Smith been all my writing life! View the list of episodes here.

Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, brought to listeners by Kings River Life Magazine, caters to readers. Each episode features a local actor (Fresno, CA) reading a short story or first chapter of a novel. View the list of episodes here.

Recently I learned of these two podcasts, but haven’t listened yet:

Alliance of Independent Authors
View the list of episodes here.

Novel Marketing Podcast
View the list of episodes here.

So I’ve been able to acquire much useful information, and “meet” interesting writers and experts, all while keeping in shape. Multi-tasking at its best, and so much more enjoyable and inspiring than the news. If you think I should know what’s going on in the world, let me assure you that I do. News is in the very air we breathe.

There are lots of podcasts available, on a variety of subjects. Just do a search and you’ll find more than enough choices. Here’s a good resource.

Do you listen to podcasts? Any favorites to recommend?

Christmas Stories

By Gayle Bartos-Pool (G.B. Pool)

Ideas for stories come from everywhere whether it’s a person, a memory, a trip, a news article, an object or a picture. Something triggers a writer’s imagination and a story starts to form. Every short story or novel I ever wrote came from something I came across in my life. My three Christmas novels are no exception.

Bearnard’s Christmas was the first one. Many years ago I worked at a miniature store in California. It was one of the first of its kind in the country and the owner had a great store. She also had a holiday shop in a backroom off the open patio. We did Easter, Halloween, and most of all, Christmas. I could buy Santas for my budding collection wholesale which helped my bank account, but we also went to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena when they had their monthly swap meet. I could get Santas for $.50 to $1.00 way back then.

But Kay Kelley also had Christmas cards. I remember seeing one with a Polar bear in a Santa hat. Bing! That got me thinking about a story about this Polar bear who helps Santa and a lady who just happened to collect dollhouses who ends up at the North Pole one Christmas Eve and helps both Santa and Bearnard, the Polar bear.

Now, on my salary, I couldn’t afford to buy a dollhouse, much less a castle, but I could sketch one out that fit my story. Then I started writing that story. A few years later the shop closed and I had to find another job, but I finally found a new one that paid more in salary and I also met and married my wonderful husband, Richard. Within a few years I could buy a dollhouse kit or two, but my story was about a castle.

By then, I had written my story, but I figured I should build the castle to go with it. I did. And I fashioned the characters in the story out of clay and took pictures of everything for my book. Eventually I got the book published.

Then I saw this Christmas card with a mechanical Santa. Bing! Another idea popped into my head. What if Santa had mechanical likenesses of himself made that could be sent around to stores so his favorite stories could be told to children in his own voice? Santa has his elves make a few mechanical Santas, but a bad guy has them reprogrammed to tell kids to demand more and more toys. What is Santa to do? The Santa Claus Machine tells that story.

A few years later I happened to find this dragon ornament at the hardware store. He was just a little guy, but cute. While I was walking one of our dogs one day, I happened to spot one of those stretchy things girls use for their ponytails on the sidewalk. It was sparkly and just fit around the little dragon’s neck like a Christmas wreath. I slipped it on him and then took him upstairs where the Santa Castle was sitting. I placed the dragon on the roof and said: “Every Castle Needs a Dragon.” Bing! Guess what the name of the third book is?

A Christmas card or two, an ornament, and some imagination provided me with three story ideas and three books. Ideas do come from those things. But there is another holiday story that I wrote that had its own origin.

After the miniature store closed, I got a job at two stores in the Glendale Galleria before I got the better job at a bank. First, it was in a card store and then a bookstore. Both had their moments, but at the mall during the holidays, they had a Santa Claus. We’ve all seen them at stores as we were growing up. Well this guy was a neat Santa, but when kids weren’t around he sang. He had a microphone and he would entertain us with all kinds of songs. Bing!

I moved my singing Santa to Las Vegas where he started out as a lounge singer in really small places, but his agent, just an employment agency guy, gets him a job as a Santa in a mall during the holidays. He meets this little girl with an illness who needs some help and this Santa has to decide between his career and this kid. A few things pop up to let him know what life is all about and he makes his decision. This book is called The Santa Claus Singer.

(All books are available on Amazon.)

So ideas come from everywhere. It just depends on what you do with those ideas that determines if you get a story out of it. Write On!

Promotion

by Linda O. Johnston

It’s November. A special month for me. I have two new books being published this month. Yes, two. My sixtieth and sixty-first traditionally published novels.

I’m delighted, of course, but still want to do more.

Meantime, I am now in the middle of promoting those books. What are they?

One of them is CRY WOLF, the second Alaska Untamed Mystery that I’m writing for Crooked Lane Books under my first pseudonym, Lark O. Jensen. I’m going to let the world know about it in a variety of ways, including additional blogs and a chat at Writerspace. I’m being interviewed by some people online. And I’m doing a Great Escapes Blog Tour, also online.

The other is CSI COLTON AND THE WITNESS, a Harlequin Romantic Suspense book in their vast series about the large Colton family. Because it’s a series with a large following in itself, and this story is the eleventh in this year’s miniseries, The Coltons of New York, I’m mentioning it a lot but not doing as much promotion for it.

So what do writers do when they want the world to know about their stories? They get out there and tell people in whatever way makes sense!

I’ve been doing this for a long time and have tried many ways of blaring my books out to anyone who’ll listen, including being on panels at conferences, giving talks at chapters of local writers’ organizations, whatever I can find. I’m doing a blog tour and have done several before. I’m volunteering to write articles for various publications.

Do they help? Who knows? I do sell books, but I’ve not had a bestseller. Not yet. But I’m working on it—and the promotions surely don’t hurt.

So what do you do when you have a book published? How do you publicize it? I’d be delighted to hear new ways of doing it, and the other writers who read this would most likely enjoy hearing it too. What works best for you?

And even if you’re not a writer, what kind of publicity do you like to see best from writers?

Let’s get out there!

A NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER…

By Rosemary Lord

“Remember, remember the 5^th of November,

With gunpowder treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason,

Should ever be forgot.”

So begins the English children’s rhyme. Back in 1605, when Frenchman Guy de Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, his plot was discovered, and he was stopped. And each November since, the Brits celebrate their victory with ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ or ‘Bonfire Night.’ The children make a ‘guy’ – a dressed-up scarecrow figure that looks like Guy Fawkes. They take their effigies around the streets (usually in a cart or pram) asking for “A penny for the guy!” collecting money to buy fireworks.

The evening festivities include huge bonfires, in your own garden or in community squares, with informal fireworks displays, chestnuts and potatoes roasted on the fires and hot cocoa to drink. A fun winter evening for all ages.

November is a busy month.

The Hindu celebration, Diwali: The Festival of Lights, is November 12^th this year. It is a Hindu new year celebration to say goodbye to the negative and welcome the positive for the year to come. It is a five-day celebration of the triumph of light over darkness, where candles and lights abound, children with sparklers, music and dance (Bollywood style) delicious food and henna tattoos.

A more somber but very heartfelt event is Remembrance Day in England on November 11^th.

It commemorates the Armistice of 1918, signaling the end of the First World War. In England, Australia, and Canada – the Commonwealth countries – people wear a red poppy in respect. At 11 am – the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the Cenotaph in London, the guns fire a salute, broadcast throughout the countries, followed by two minutes silence. The buses, trains and traffic stop. The River Thames and various spots like Trafalgar Square are covered in red poppies in the tribute to the men and women who served in military and civilian service in World War I, World War II and later conflicts. The poppies are a reminder of the red poppies that grew in Flanders Field where so many perished and are buried.

In America, November 11^th is Veteran’s Day: a time to thank and pay tribute to all the men and women who have served or are serving in the military. A grateful nation decorates their homes and gardens with the American flags, and as they pay homage to the veterans, they celebrate with barbeques and patriotic concerts. Coffee shops, restaurants, shops, pay homage to the veterans with welcome signs in the windows and gifts and special discounts. Flags are proudly displayed everywhere. It is a National Holiday.

So, with all this pageantry and celebration going on you might ask, what has this to do with writing? Well – for me, it’s the inspiration. As a historian and writer, I just love to write about these amazing points in history. I think the human angle to these great events gives us rich sources of personal encounters, heroic actions, missed opportunities for mayhem and miracles. Finding a personal account of someone who was there, an eyewitness. I like the idea of using actual historic events and traditions as a backdrop. And when we delve into the real-life stories, we uncover real people; from the big heroes to the ordinary folk just trying to survive the challenges of everyday life. We discover fascinating tidbits of human nature that raise our stories to make something very special.

And November ushers in the winter months, when we turn our clocks back, the days are desperately shortened, with darker mornings and a chill spreads around us. (Unless you’re living in Australia, of course). We dig out that cozy, thick wool sweater, heavyweight sweatpants, fuzzy slippers and we’re ready to sit at our computers with a mug of something hot. The empty page beckons and away we go: off to write another best-seller!

Every November I promise myself that in these ensuing long, dark evenings I will get a lot more writing completed.

And the winter season presents even more back-drops for our mysteries, romances, horror stories or science fiction. Holiday themed novels are always popular. Christmas stories are especially fun to write and popular – except you’re not allowed to call them Christmas stories anymore. So, that’s a fun writer-challenge: how to write about Christmas without using the word Christmas! But I digress…

Another really good challenge for some of us during the winter months is… decluttering the computer files. I didn’t say it was fun challenge, did I? But it is surprisingly therapeutic.

I discovered this need, after spending almost an hour trying to find a file I had just been working on. You see, I couldn’t remember exactly what I had labelled it. If you add a ‘the’ or start with a date, you have to know where to search. (Sometimes, learning Greek seems easier than mastering computers!)

In this quest I discovered dozens of files in a foolishly labelled folder “Assorted writing.” Lesson #1: NEVER file anything under “Assorted” or “Miscellaneous”.

That was another file: “Miscellaneous” with ‘2022’ added for supposed clarity! Didn’t help. I learned the hard way.

Despite the fact that my hunt for my file was lengthy and tedious, I discovered a few gems of old, forgotten, partially written tales and story ideas. Hmmm.

And so I resolved to declutter (there’s that word again!) my files and create a comprehensive labeling and filing system. One that I could remember! A Herculean task, I realize. But one that I can work on during the long, dark, winter evenings.

It’s either that – or I’m diving back under the duvet –and reading my kindle in the dark, where no one can find me!

What’s your plan for the winter months ahead?

Making Your Words Count

I went to a gathering of local writers from Devon and Cornwall last week. Although I have been living back in the UK for five years, I have been a bit of a recluse. A lot had to do with Covid and the self-enforced isolation that seemed not only to curb my freedom, but my confidence too. It’s only now that I am slowly putting out feelers and making new writer friends.

Anyway, about twenty of us met in a lovely restaurant in Exeter and I found I was sitting next to a writer who epitomizes the word “prolific.” I won’t list the number of books of all genres (from Sci-Fi to Romance and non-fiction to ghost writing), that she churns out annually but what stopped me in my tracks (actually, I almost choked on my Halloumi fries) was her goal to write HALF A MILLION WORDS a year. And she casually said she usually comes close.

My first thought was that she had to be a robot. My second, maybe she uses ChatGPT, or maybe she’s a “first line writer.” I use that phrase because my former husband wrote for a TV show and was once accused of being a “first line writer” which upset him greatly. For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s an insult literally saying, “writing the first thing that comes to mind.” I did ask my new writer friend (who was also very nice which made it hard to dislike her) her process. Was she a Pantzer? Did rewriting, editing, and proofreading count towards the magic 500,000 words but nope, I was assured her words were all brand new.

So what’s wrong with me? If I’m lucky, on a good day, I could write nine hundred new words. I’ll probably go back and rewrite them a few times. My books under contract ask for 70,000 to 75,000 words (relatively small if you are used to 80,000 and above). Once, I wrote two books in one year so that topped at 140,000. I never used to be obsessed with my word count until that lunch.

To make myself feel better, I did a bit of research. In my defence, I still have a full-time job, a sick mother, two demanding dogs and – fanfare of trumpets – I’ve just become a grandmother for the first time … so I’m a little busy.

Even so – here are a few famous authors and their daily word counts.

Tom Wolfe: 135 words. As you can imagine, each book takes a very long time to write.
Ernest Hemingway: 500.
Graham Greene: 500. He said that when he has written his 500 words, he stops – even if it’s in the middle of a scene.
Ian McEwan: 600.
W. Somerset Maugham: 1,000. Maugham said there was no set formula on writing. “There are three rules for writing a novel,” he said. “Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
Peter James: 1,000. Once you start writing a book, make time to write every single day. Find a comfortable number of words for you to write each day and stick to that number. I am comfortable with 1000 words.
Margaret Attwood: 1,000-2,000.
Mark Twain: 1,400 to 1,800. Twain believed that location was important to his word count. I write very well on transatlantic flights, so I think he has a point.
Lee Child: 1,800. He says it takes him about six months from the first blank screen until the end.
Stephen King: 2,000. As a side note, if you haven’t read his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, or you haven’t read it for a while, it’s worth revisiting. Stephen says that following this would add up to about 180,000 words in three months … well on track for the annual 500,000 goal but what about rewriting? Speaking of Ernest Hemingway, he famously said that “All writing is rewriting.”
Nicholas Sparks: 2,000. He says his is a daily goal which takes him about five or six hours to write.
Anne Rice: 3,000.
Arthur Conan Doyle: 3,000.
Michael Crichton: 10,000. Okay, this one got my attention. He’s up there with my new writer friend.

POSTSCRIPT: Okay … yesterday I was part of an event at the Torquay Museum called Crime at the Coast – sitting next to me was another prolific author who writes four, 70,000-word cozies a year, screenplays for her TV job and a standalone. I didn’t have the courage to ask her if she topped half a million words a year but one thing is certain, I’m just desperately slow.

So … what about you? Do you write to a daily word count?

SHADOWS OF THE PAST

by Miko Johnston

My first book, A Petal in the Wind, begins a family saga that encompasses a half century. As each subsequent entry in the series carries a subtitle, my fifth and last book, which I’m writing now, will be called Shadows of the Past.

That phrase took on new meaning recently when my husband Allan and I traveled to Europe.

Our trip began in Prague, where much of my series takes place. I spent a day walking in the footsteps of my characters, visiting their homes, businesses and the landmarks mentioned throughout the pages. I’d selected most of the locations on Google Maps, so seeing them for real was, shall we say, enlightening. It took an hour to find U Seminaire, the location of the bachelor pad I’d used for the man who eventually marries my protagonist, Lala. I’d chosen it because it seemed like a quick walk from the Charles Bridge. In actuality it sits underneath the bridge, entangled in a labyrinth of short blocks and alleys. Somehow the building’s image got reversed on Maps – it’s on the opposite side of the street. Ouch. The little greenbelt across from Lala’s mother’s apartment, where ladies sat on benches underneath the shade trees and gossiped, actually sits below street level, though trees do line the sidewalk and there are benches. And the “gentle slope” of the street where Lala’s family lived for twenty years turned out to be a heart-pounding climb on a good day, and treacherous during inclement weather. Sigh. Still, as I stood in front of the building, seeing it for real, I felt thrilled.

In my fourth book, Lala launches her design career by converting a series of buildings into a world-class hotel. Ironically, the palace (the Czech term for a fine home), which I’d chosen for the location is now an actual hotel, and we decided to book it for our visit. It turned out the be the finest hotel I’ve ever stayed in, and although I have no right to take pride in that, I can’t help but feel delighted. On a slow afternoon I cornered the hotel staff and peppered them with questions about the building’s history, particularly during the Second World War. What began as a brief history lesson turned out to be a wild series of stories and gossip, which will inevitably solve some plot issues.

Three days later Allan and I bid ahoj to Prague and boarded a train bound for Poland. After an overnight stop in Katowice, the largest city in the region known as Upper Silesia, we took a cab to the nearby city of Bytom, the hometown of my father and his entire family. Back then Upper Silesia was part of Germany, the city known as Beuthen. As I walked along the streets, I tried to picture what his life must have been like. I gazed at the people who passed, wondering if I’d see any signs of familiarity in their faces.

The picturesque parts of the town – with some remarkable architecture and a delightful town square, partially rebuilt after being bombed in WWII – surprised me, but other areas wore the hard reality of over a half-century of decline. I saw it in the run-down buildings left to rot and the pervasive trash, especially cigarette butts, in the street. I also saw it in the faces and the body language of so many, but most strikingly in the older folks, who’d lived through Nazi occupation, followed by decades of Soviet rule, only to be largely ignored by the European Union. They bore a sense of quiet despair, of resignation to the bleakness in their existence. The only signs of joy were in little children interacting with pigeons in the town square, swarming with them, chasing them or karate-kicking them away. I saw no faces that resembled mine, nor any signs of my past in the city. It had been wiped clean.

Our next stop in Poland was Krakow, a city Allan has always wanted to visit. Rich in history, it has a beautiful castle on a hill overlooking the Vistula River, and the largest town square in Europe. I went for a different reason. On our second day there we boarded a bus to tour the two largest and most infamous Nazi-era concentration camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Entering into the first camp, with its ARBEIT MACHT FREI (“Work sets you free”) sign over the entrance gate, I wondered how I would react, or feel. I’m still not sure, to be honest, other than the eerie familiarity of what I heard and saw – from decades of studying photographs accompanied by written accounts, of documentaries and movies filmed on location, and stories I’d heard from survivors, including my father. For many, the trip was a history lesson. For me, it was akin to visiting the cemetery; I lost an estimated ninety members of my family there.

After a brief break, the tour continued to nearby Birkenau. Unlike Auschwitz, which to me felt small and claustrophobic, Birkenau is huge. You’ve seen it in many movies: a long low building with railroad tracks leading to a central tower, open at the bottom to allow trains to enter with their human cargo, like a gaping maw ready to devour all who arrive. Alongside and beyond the entrance, what seems like miles and miles of barbed wire fencing surrounds a huge open area interspersed with low barracks and guard towers. In the distance I could see different tour groups traversing the grounds, and for one brief moment I pictured them in the striped uniforms and hats of prisoners.

Prior to abandoning the camp in January 1945, days ahead of the advancing Russian forces, the Nazis burned the meticulous records they’d kept of all who were brought to the camps and blew up the gas chambers. Only piles of rubble remain. Many, many piles. They left behind the prisoners too weak to continue; the rest (including my father) went on a forced march from one concentration camp to the next, always trying to stay ahead of the Russians, whom they rightfully feared more than the other Allies. It took several more months until my father was liberated, but at least the Americans freed him. Had he stayed behind in Auschwitz, he would have lived the rest of his life under the thumb of the Soviets. After what I saw in Bytom, I’m grateful he had the strength to wait.

The entire tour took seven hours and, although it allowed for a few bathroom breaks, it did not include a meal. The irony was not lost on me.

We left Poland and continued our travels, with France the next destination. There I stumbled upon traces of history that will influence my writing, and my life, but I’ll save that for a future post.

I can’t say these experiences will enrich the final chapter in my saga, but I can say I truly feel as though I’ve walked in the shadows of the past, both my characters’, and mine.

Miko Johnston, a founding member of The Writers in Residence, is the author of the historical fiction series, “A Petal in the Wind”, as well as a contributor to several anthologies including the about-t0-be-released “Whidbey Island: An Insider’s Guide”. Miko lives in Washington (the big one) with her rocket scientist husband. Contact her at mikojohnstonauthor@gmail.com

Teaching Seniors to Write A Memoir

by Jill Amadio

Invited to give as class on How to Write Your Memoir at the Westport, CT senior center, I agreed, somewhat reluctantly. It would be six 1-hour sessions and limited to 10 people. I almost wrote ‘students’ which, I suppose, they are, but somehow the idea of a group of elderlies didn’t seem to fit.

Having written what I now regard as a rather staggering number of biographies and autobiographies when I pulled all 18 of them from my bookshelves to show the class and let them know I felt confident to consider myself qualified to a certain extent, I realized that no matter how young or old such students would be, I had over the years accumulated the knowledge and experience to write and be published. Thus I would share my insights as an instructor. Of course, six hours is a laughably insufficient time to teach someone how to write their life story but I decided that covering the basics could start them on their journey.

All but six of my books were ghostwritten. The remainder were authored by me or co-authored – often a surprise as my contracts specifically identified me as the ghostwriter and thus hidden and forbidden to reveal who actually wrote the story. I am usually mentioned at the end of the ‘author’s’ Acknowledgements page, with a simple ‘Thank you to Jill Amadio.’ I am still waiting for a client to add – ‘for writing my book for me.’

One traditional publisher insister I be listed as co-author, much to the chagrin of the client’s boyfriend, and a UK publisher graced another book with my name as co-author without asking my permission. Quibble? Ha! It was a delightful surprise which earned me author talks at area locations including to a large group of auto racing drivers and vintage car collectors.

However, this first teaching gig to seniors gave me a few pre-class jitters. Would I have to speak very loudly if they were hard of hearing? Would they be able to read the handouts, meaning I’d probably have to print them in 18-point font? Would they find me boring and self-serving by passing around my hoard of books to establish my credentials?

I need not have worried. The first class was a group of extremely enthusiastic six women and two gentlemen who sat at our conference table with pens and pads ready to jot down my golden advice. I’d created a syllabus, and explained the subject matter each of the six sessions would cover. I also told everyone that they could interrupt me at any time with questions. I thought that if they held their questions until afterwards they might forget them.

All went well and I was bombarded with queries about all aspects of writing, not just memoirs. By the way, I had decided to lump the telling of life stories under the term ‘memoir’ because these days it appears to include biographies and autobiographies, and to my mind has a more important ring to it. Time was when ‘memoir’ meant a telling of a slice of one’s life, a particular incident, but these days many media outlets, for example, have called Prince Harry’s whiny-fest book, ‘Spare,’ by that description (whiny-fest is my own opinion)

My only admonition to the class was that they should not give in to temptation and use their book as a bludgeon against relatives, friends, employers, or others who have, perhaps, wronged the writer at one time or another. I hope they will remember this advice from Omar Khayyam’s poem, “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.”

As I prepare for my second class, next week, I will explain that bringing in several elements of mystery writing can lift a life story by adding tension and suspense, to name a few. Settings and characters can be enhanced with the addition of the writer’s detailed emotions, feelings, and personal point of view. I had told the class about the rhythm of writing and the very next day there was Tammy Walker’s excellent post on our site!

While researching my subject I came across a marvelous list of more than a hundred descriptive verbs. Using them is a great way to bring a scene alive – as we do in our mystery and thriller writing.

Interestingly, as a final note, there was a general consensus from the class when I announced there would be no prompts to be written. Many writing classes include a prompt at each class, whereby students are given a subject, a phrase, or a sentence, and must write a page around it. To my mind, this is a waste of time that can be better employed writing your book. Everyone agreed with me! However, I do encourage journaling as one way to loosen up that creative s spirit.

Do any of my fellow Writers in Residence have any relevant tips?

A few of Jill Amadio’s ghostwritten biographies.

Listening for the Rhythm of What Your Characters Say: Applying Poetry Writing Techniques to Writing Dialogue

by Guest Blogger, Tammy D. Walker

Writing dialogue can be difficult. First, there’s the content of what the characters say. And then, there’s the subtext, or what the characters are trying to communicate to each other without saying something that might be too awkward or imperiling for them to say directly. And, also, there are the actual words that need to go between those harrowing quote marks.

As readers, we want what characters say to sound realistic, even though, as writers, we understand that the best-sounding dialogue in the context of a story might strike us as odd if we heard it in real life.

So how do we balance all these moving parts to make them work as solid dialogue?

One solution I’d like to offer is to use techniques from crafting poetry.

Before I started writing mysteries, I’d had a couple collections of poetry published, and I studied the form in grad school. And while I find writing poems and novels to be quite different in most ways, I did find that the “ear training” required for writing poems has helped me fine tune my dialogue writing process.

Though most of the poems we encounter are in print, poetry is still a very auditory art, meant, for the most part, to be read aloud. So when I’m thinking about how to construct dialogue, I apply the same sound-related techniques in writing poems as I do while writing dialogue. Though dialogue in fiction, like poems, isn’t generally read aloud, we should still consider its sound and how that sound serves the story.

Writing poetry requires the poet to not only think about individual words but also their arrangement in syntactic units, in lines, and in juxtaposed groupings. As fiction writers, we can apply these ideas to writing dialogue to give our characters words that make them more compelling to our readers.

Countering Some Possible Objections

Let’s just get something out of the way, first: Poetry has a reputation among the general public for being obscure, enigmatic, and perhaps also stodgy. Which, I think, is unfair. The poems most of us encountered in high school are throw-backs to previous centuries, when flowery language twisted harder than barbed wire to fit the perimeter of some rigid form might well have kept all but the most diligent reader out of the green pastures of meaning.

Okay, maybe I took that metaphor too far. But I think you’ll get my meaning.

Contemporary poetry, and that leading up to it in the last century, relies on plainer language. Sure, there’s metaphor, simile, and all the other techniques we learned about in freshman English class, but there’s also a directness and freshness to language used now. Victorian poems were written for Victorian audiences; poems written in the 2020s were meant to be read by, well, you and me. In general, the language is accessible by your average reader.

So, for the most part, the language in this poetry-techniques-in-dialogue should be what your character would use in day-to-day life.

Unless you don’t want them to, of course.

What the Characters Say

So, that out of the way, let’s get to content.

Before I write either a poem or a scene, I first think about what the content of the poem or the scene and outline what needs to take place. For a scene, of course, that means thinking about what the characters want and how they’ll either achieve that or how I can thwart them. For a poem (and yes, I outline my poems before I begin drafting) I think about the arc of the poem, or what argument the speaker of the poem will make.

(A note on terms: even though many poems are autobiographical–or even confessional–many aren’t, including almost all of mine. The “I” of the poem is the speaker, who may or may not be the poet, so it’s useful in this context to think about the poem as spoken by a character, even if that character functions more as a narrator than a in-the-scene actor.)

Since most of my fiction these days is cozy mystery, I’ll use examples from that genre. Let’s say we have two characters, Curtis, an art collector and one of the suspects in my novel Venus Rising, and Amy, a librarian intent on solving the mystery of a painting at the center of the book’s mystery.

Amy joins Curtis for dinner in his suite. She wants to know more about his art collection, but, of course, being a good amateur detective, she can’t ask her pointed questions directly. But she’s there to gather information. Curtis, on the other hand, just wants to impress Amy. So this gives me both Amy’s content–she wants information–and Curtis’s–he just wants Amy.

How the Characters Say It

So now we know what the characters want to say. But Amy can’t tip her hand about her suspicions just yet, and Curtis can’t come on too strong. Let’s go back to a few ideas from poetry about wording, rhythm, line length, and syntactic units.

Curtis wants to woo Amy, and his language is more song-like. The rhythm of the words is more lilting. He calls Amy “A vision in aquamarine,” and later asks “Champagne for my lovely companion?”

To which Amy replies, “I don’t drink.” Her words here are clipped and emphatic. (She’s caught on to Curtis’s intentions by this point, and she has no interest in him.)

The rhythm of the words in this short example show how differently the characters are approaching each other. The words themselves are also worth noting, as Curtis uses Latinate language (“vision,” “aquamarine,” and “companion”) to inflate is dialogue, whereas Amy’s more Germanic retort punches back.

Line length is also key to establishing rhythm and the perceived speed at which the dialogue is spoken by characters. While dialogue isn’t split by line or stanza breaks in the way poems are, it can be split by tags (“she said,” for instance) or by the end of a sentence.

Longer lines tend to quicken a reader’s pace. Shorter lines, conversely, slow it. Poems such as H. D.’s “We Two” cause us to stop more often at the ends of short lines: “We two are left: / I with small grace reveal / distaste and bitterness[.]” Poems with longer lines draw us forward at a quicker pace. W. B. Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” does just this: “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, / Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings[.]”

So as I’m writing dialogue, I think about whether I want the character to speak quickly, perhaps revealing their anxiety, or slowly, to reveal their uncertainty. And then, from there, I’ll decide whether to use longer or shorter words in longer or shorter phrases, and how I’ll either break them (or not) with tags, interruptions, or actions.

In this example, I wanted to show Amy’s distaste for Curtis, even though she can’t reveal the fact that she does not like him just yet, since she needs to know more about his art collection. She backtracks a bit and later says, “Sparkling water would be lovely, thank you.” I wanted to move her more toward Curtis’s rhythm and longer lines, so that she doesn’t reveal her suspicions too soon.

Concluding Remarks Using the Best Words

One of the concerns of poets in the early 20th century was that the language of poems had been, too often, contorted to fit forms, and that the resulting work sounded contrived and unnatural. This carries forward through contemporary poetry, and poets do strive to make the sounds of the words, lines, and syntactic units fit with, complicate, and enrich the arguments of their poems.

This concern with the naturalness of language is also useful to fiction writers crafting dialogue. We want the content of what our characters say to sound natural. Considering the content in light of poetic sound craft can give the characters compelling things to say in a way that enriches the characters themselves and their movements through the story.

Which is an aim that, I hope you’ll agree, sounds good.

Bio: Tammy D. Walker writes mysteries, poetry, and science fiction. Her debut cozy mystery, Venus Rising, was published by The Wild Rose Press in 2023. As T.D. Walker, she’s the author of three poetry collections, most recently Doubt & Circuitry (Southern Arizona Press, 2023). When she’s not writing, she’s probably reading, trying to find far-away stations on her shortwave radios, or enjoying tea and scones with her family. Find out more at her website: https://www.tammydwalker.com

Tammy D. Walker’s article is posted by member, Jackie Houchin (Don’t you want to run out and buy her cozy mystery to see how she does this? Wow!)

Roadblocks

In responding to a wonderful post a couple weeks back by Gayle Bartos-Pool, I said I write what I like to read. Not a new statement or thought from me. But then, as I finally started working on my latest, I said to myself, you’re not writing what you like to read (or even writing similar stuff to dramatizations of what you like to read). At a minimum, what I was flippantly saying/repeating was “off-handed;” and at a maximum, I was deluding myself, and probably to my writing detriment.

I’ve also commented in my own blog posts more than once in the past, about what I like to read, what authors I admire, and characters I like. Then Maggie King so thoughtfully talked about short stories and I remembered Hector Hoggs my first ever protagonist, and then Jackie Houchin talked about character names—and Eureka! The essence of this post came together.

Also, as an aside, I sometimes believe in channeling from the past—i.e. channeling Agatha Christie in particular. I would have loved to know her. Indeed, her writing is what I like to read…smart, quirky, protagonists who pull the murderer “out of the bag of all the clues that have trickily/sneakily been presented.” Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are my prime examples. When I look back, these are not the protagonists I attempt to write. Truth is of course, there’s no way I can approach Queen Agatha. But the process of trying to is the motivator. (wonder where she got the name Hercule! And where/why/how come I chose the name Hector Hoggs(good grief))

Well, this last weekend I finally came up with major character names! I even have a name—there’s a third person narrator who is also a character who speaks to you at beginning and end. In my mind, that’s me calling myself Margo. My hubby picked my alter-ego name. (better than Lucretia his other choice!)

My intent in this post is to once again highlight a side trip on the trickily winding writing-road. Nonetheless, I can’t imagine life these days without writing. And consequently all this thinking stuff—starting with a negative revelation has led me to a new enthusiasm for writing. Writer, or “want to be writer”—the winding road I’m always jabbering about is tricky, but well worth it. And for me, writing what I like to read is definitely going to be an uphill challenge! Though so glad to have actually started my latest.

I would love to hear what you think. Is writing a true love? Stumbling blocks? What would you do instead (I’d love to have been a tv star(famous of course) but don’t have the stamina or the “put myself out there part to my personality,” nor the Talent! Another problem, I can only work with what I’ve got!

Happy writing trails!

How Do You Name Your Characters?

by Jackie Houchin

NAMES in stories are important in that they have to “fit” the characters, the era, the country, and even class in which they live. You wouldn’t name a society woman, Buster. (Well, unless there was a right good reason for it.) Also, a native seamstress of New Delhi probably wouldn’t be called Manuela. So how do you find those perfectly fitting monikers?

It used to be you could use telephone books, but who even has seen one of those in the last 15 years?? There are websites that offer names for babies and their meanings. Some even suggest names that were popular in different years. (See below) Maybe you will name your heroine or villain after someone you love, or love to hate.

SUGGESTION One – A couple years ago I came up with an idea for a short story in a contest. I liked the name Autumn (the story had to be set in the fall). She would be a painter. I know how I wanted her to look – long, wavy auburn hair, green eyes. And she would be the quiet type.

Boy, did I get a shock when I asked my friends on Facebook what a character with the name Autumn Gold would look like and what she might do for a living. Nearly all of them said she would be a sexy night club dancer or even a street walker. Yikes! I changed her name to Audrey Gould. But I titled the story, and named the fantastical woodland painting her boyfriend made with her hidden image in the colors, “Autumn Gold.”

I got honorable mention out of 400 entries. Asking around might be a way to check out that clever name you’ve chosen.

SUGGESTION Two – I also wrote a middle grade mystery titled “The Bible Thief” set in a church much like the one we attend. For some weird reason 4 or 5 people (including myself) lost their Bibles at some church event. Some were found, others not.

Hmm. I pondered, and immediately thought of a clever gang of kids who would “investigate” and discover the remarkable solution to this mystery. Because I wanted to share the story with the kids in the 4^th-6^th grade class I was teaching, I minimally disguised their own names as the gang, their parents, and a few other easily recognizable people (by description) in the congregation.

That was easy! And maybe YOU have used names of people you know but changing Sheryl to Sherry, or Garrett to Darren.

SUGGESTION Three – And lastly, I also wrote a series of related short stories for the same age children, set in Africa. There were seven kids (one set of twins, and one who passed away at a week old), and they all had names that coordinated in some way with the month they were born in.

The youngest boy, born near Christmas (and since his father was a mission pastor) got named Deacon. “Deek” for short.

There was a girl, April (yeah, I know, too easy) and the twin girls were named Melody May and Charity June. (Know why twins have two months?)

A younger boy was named August, nicknamed “Gus.” The oldest boy was Marshall (can you guess his month?).

A sensitive girl born in July I named Julie Joy. And the little guy that didn’t make it very long was Freddie, born just after Valentine’s Day.

So, that is how I sometimes choose character names. How do YOU come up with yours?

Baby names from Social Security lists by popularity, the top 5 by year, by decade, state, and US Territory – https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/

2023 Baby name finder and the meaning/origin – https://emma.ca/baby-names

70,000 Baby names by gender, alphabet, origin, meaning, and religion – https://www.momjunction.com/baby-names/

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