“Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice.” Margaret Atwood

cj Sez: There once was a saying that writers should write what they know. Well, you can put that fairy tale to rest.

   Remember Agatha Christie? English-born Christie was a home-schooled child, studied vocals and piano as a teenager, took up nursing in her early twenties, and published her first murder mystery in 1920. How about J. K. Rowling? Rowling, another English-born author and a single mother on welfare, said she got the idea for her fantasy Harry Potter series while riding on a train. The mothers of both women encouraged them to read and applauded their childhood writing efforts. Christie and Rowling are just two examples of successful authors who wrote what they wanted to read. But both women were avid readers before they were successful writers.

   The best advice a writer/author can get is to read, read, read…

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.”  William Faulkner

   You can start by reading books, magazines, whatever you can find in the genre you’d like to write. Imitate your favorite author at first. When you’re satisfied that you understand the rhythm and pacing of the genre, then you will develop your own writer’s voice and write your own story. 

   Writing what you love to read and writing what you know are not mutually exclusive. It’s the “only” inference of that adage that’s wrong. Writers naturally bring some parts of what they know (about people, places, events) as well as their imaginations to their manuscripts. They bring their writer’s “voices” as well. That’s what makes the story uniquely theirs.

   I think author John Floyd offers great insight into that in his recent SleuthSayers post (http://bit.ly/2g5RnDt). He says his stories are drawn from his life experiences, but he’ll “inject them with steroids” by asking “what if.” 

   “What if” is the question to ask when the action slows down and your character needs to face a new challenge to keep readers turning the page (and John’s short stories do that extremely well).

   I find the following quote thought-provoking and think I want to take up the challenge. How about you?

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”  Haruki Murakami

  Okay, if you undertook the NaNoWriMo challenge, I hope you succeeded beyond your expectations. (Congratulations) If you missed by a few words, there’s always next year. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

Here’s a freebie for Christmas . . .

Christmas Through a Child's Eyes: True Stories That Capture the Wonder of the Season

Free on Kindle Unlimited.  Cntrl Click on the name above or this URL:   http://amzn.to/2fWVZvk

And I’ll send a free print copy to the first three people who leave me a comment.

The anthology includes one of my childhood memories, called “Dancing with Daddy” and written under my maiden name of Marilyn Olsein.

The joy of Christmas often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. For many people, fond memories of a childhood Christmas can bring back that special feeling. This book collects tales written by adults remembering their favorite Christmases of the past. This heartwarming collection evokes the true spirit of the season—the perfect gift to rekindle the true magic and wonder of the season. 

cjpetterson@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/CjPettersonAuthor

Amazon Central Author Page:  http://amzn.to/1NIDKC0

Choosing Carter  -- Kindle  /  Nook  /  Kobo   /  iTunes/iBook

Deadly Star --  Kindle  / Nook  / Kobo

Characters Need to Talk to You

 FRIDAY FORUM

Last weekend cj and I attended Carolyn Haines’s Daddy’s Girl Weekend for writers and readers. From pirate costumed participants, ghost tours, and treasure hunts to serious discussions of the art of writing, not a minute of the weekend was wasted. Carolyn's new cookbook to benefit Good Fortune Farm Refuge is jam-packed with wonderful recipes which we tasted throughout the weekend. Buy one and save an animal.

I made new friends and had the privilege of hanging out with some well-published authors, an agent, and several publishers. My head is still reeling with new ideas I want to incorporate into my writing.

I was especially thrilled when my belief that characters are the key to the story was supported repeatedly. While I know that is self-aggrandizement at its height, it’s what I believe and teach in my character development classes.

Holly McClure, well-known agent with Sullivan & Maxx Literary Agency, pointed out that characters need to talk to the author. We need to know our characters better than we know ourselves to bring them to life on the page.

Listening to the authors who have successful book series (proof positive they created good characters) and others with numerous publications under their belt — Carolyn Haines, Dean James, Sue Walker, Holly McClure, John Floyd, David Sheffield, Cynthia Walker—it was obvious that characters and a reader’s connection to them is pivotal to the success of a book.

The bottom line: take the time to develop your characters. Dig out those character sheets you got at a conference or read about in a book on character development and fill them out. That will get you started. Then bring them to life with psychological and sociological information.

I teach my creative writing students that a character is developed through profiling: physical, psychological, and sociological. We are all the sum of our experiences, our looks, our surroundings. Our personalities develop through our experiences/choices/ desires/decisions.

Think your characters are blah?

Create something they hate or love: people, place, or thing, then expose them to it.

Give them a tic. Who can forget Inspector Jacques Clouseau in Pink Panther movies? His clumsiness kept us laughing. Add to that the eye tic of the commissioner when Clouseau created  another disaster and you have memorable characters. Want to go to the dark side? Hannibal Lecter and his fetishes will take you there. Check out R. B. Chesterton’s The Darkling.

Make them vulnerable. How will your characters get what they want or need from where they are starting? Examples: True Grit (youth). Rocky (loser). Argo (impossible). Steel Magnolias (disease). Great Expectations (poor). The Language of Flowers (stranded).

The most fully developed, deeply motivated characters are always the most compelling, no matter how ordinary they might be. Think Mrs. Dalloway, Jane Eyre, A Gathering of Old Men.

Flesh them out now, and your readers will thank you later.

Kudos to cj who sat on the mystery writers panel!  Mahala