Category Archives: Motivation

Who do you love?

What do you love?

Everyone needs a little passion.

The interesting people in story, and in life, are those who embrace what they love with passion. It might be a spouse, family, work, or hobbies. We love people who are excited about what they do or who they are. We respond to passion. Easy example is when people tell us about a recent book or movie that we haven’t read or seen yet.

If they say, “It was all right.” No matter what our previous anticipation level might have been, it now falls a notch.

What if they say, “It was awesome! I’m going to camp out at the movie theater right now and wait until it opens tomorrow so I can see it again”? We can’t help but absorb a little of that passion. It’s contagious and exhilarating.

People do need to find balance in their life, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still feel passion for each component that makes up who they are and what they do. They just can’t let that passion lead to excess and stupid decisions.

One of the most tragic things we see in literature and in life are people who won’t follow their passion. They won’t ask the girl on a date, won’t apply for their dream job, won’t take a chance and LIVE their lives. Thankfully, this character flaw is seen most often only at the beginning of a story to highlight a hero’s dramatic character arc.

A great example is Walter Mitty in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Here’s a guy who has buried his passions so deep, he has to escape life in lengthy ‘zoned out’ moments where he dreams of doing great things. He has shackled himself to a boring job and refused to live, even though he dreams of it. The story is beautifully told, includes breathtaking scenery, and excellent music as Walter begins to break out of the repressed life he’s lived for so long and embarks on an amazing adventure that changes everything. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

In real life, it can be hard sometimes to chase our dreams, to live passionately. Are we Walter Middy before or after the moment where he decides to live?

How many times do we hear someone say, “I’d love to do that!” Only to then banish the thought and turn away. If it’s not illegal or immoral or likely to prove fatal, maybe they should reconsider.

Are you holding back, suppressing your passion?

Fear of failure is often the cause. Sure, we might fail, but at least fail while trying. Failure is a way to learn so much, but society has made failure taboo. The problem is, life is full of failures. Why not fail while doing something we’re passionate about instead of failing at life because we lack the courage to try? Here’s what a few famous people had to say about failure:

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” (Michael Jordan)

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” (Bill Gates)

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” (Thomas Edison)

We don’t like stories of cowards, of those too repressed or afraid or timid to live. Usually in stories, cowards are either killed or, if they’re a main character, their initial cowardice is overcome as they rise to become a hero. There’s a good reason for that. Readers don’t buy stories that lack progression.

Not surprisingly, it was hard to find great examples of characters terminally afraid to live their lives, afraid to embrace their passions.

One example that came to mind for me is Pierre Gringoire, the struggling playwright in The Hunchback of Notre Dame who is saved by Esmeralda, but lacks the courage to do anything productive. He is about as completely useless a character as any I’ve ever read. I’ve hated him since I was first forced to read this dark, depressing book as a kid. Pierre refuses to fight for the beautiful woman who saved his life, refuses to fight for anything useful, and eventually slips away from all conflict, taking along Esmeralda’s pet goat, Djali, the only creature who seems capable of dealing with his pitiful life.

So be Walter, not Pierre, and embrace your passions.

What are you waiting for?

Do You Wanna Know What Love Is? Do You Want Me To Show You?

February 2, 2015

Kristin Luna

Author's Perspective Character Craft & Skills Doing Good in the World Goals Guest Posts Kristin Luna Motivation Narrative Voice POV Reflection Self-Awareness The Writing Life Tropes & Archetypes Writing Tools 2 Comments

Some like it hot. Others just plain don’t like it, hot or cold. I could either be talking about oatmeal or love. Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out a month’s worth of posts about oatmeal, so we opted for love.

But not just any old love. Complicated love. Confusing love. Forbidden love. Exhausting love. Unique love. Carnie love. Maybe not carnie love, but maybe someone should start talking about it, gosh darn it, because love is love! And while we have our individual experiences, we share one thing: we’ve all been touched by it. How we’ve been touched by it is a whole ‘nuther conversation.

But we’re about to have that conversation. How can you make love between two characters unique? Should you or should you not marry your cat? How do you reach outside your own experience to create unique, surprising love between characters? How can you get that guy to stop stalking you? We hope to answer most of these questions this month.

You can look forward to posts from all of your favorite bloggers, along with special guest posts by author Lisa Mangum, her talented filmmaker husband Tracy Mangum, Cthulhu convert and author Stephan McLeroy, aspiring author and illustrator Victoria Morris, and editor/hair god Joshua Essoe. Join us as we celebrate love and relentlessly pound the crap out of it this month!

Git Er Dun: Using the Vernacular

January 7, 2015

Kristin Luna

Character Craft & Skills Kristin Luna Motivation Narrative Voice POV The Writing Life Writing Tools 1 Comment

One potentially powerful and useful tool to have in your toolbox is the ability to write in a certain vernacular that makes your characters memorable. Stylistic voicing has been successfully used by some great authors. Let’s take a look at those, and why they were successful.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

One of the most memorable characters I can think of is Holden Caulfield. The Catcher in the Rye is a staple for coming-of-age readers. It’s my favorite book, in fact. Why? Why did this book resonate with me so much? No, it’s not because I’m

a sociopath, as many critical readers think of Holden. I loved the book because it was real.

We understand that this is the first time Holden has ever truly spoken his mind, consequences be damned. And we get a front row seat! His raw vernacular often includes calling people “phonies” and using “goddamn” as a consistent adjective. This usage of stylistic voicing achieved a certain authenticity. Whether Holden was right or wrong about the other characters being phonies, we never question for a minute that Holden is completely convinced that they are.

Room by Emma Donoghue

The book Room is told by a 5-year-old boy, Jack, whose main education is the television. Why? Because he is a captive, along with his mother, locked in a shed for years. Jack’s stylistic voicing is so convincing, so well constructed, that the reader is completely enveloped into Jack’s world, where he has only known the Room. He has never been outside. He hasn’t received any sort of education, apart from the one his mother tries to give him, which makes his sentence construction short and plain. He only describes what he sees, not knowing exactly what certain things mean. But you, the reader, know exactly what it means. And it makes your stomach churn and your heart ache.

You may want to pick up Room to see an excellent example of emotional transport with a stylistic narrative voice. It should also be noted that some readers simply could not get past the stylistic voicing. That is one of the risks you take when choosing a stylistic narration, but the rewards can be BIG. Room won Emma Donoghue over ten prestigious awards for her effort and risk.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Perhaps the most well-known example of using stylistic voice is Huck Finn. It was, in fact, the very first novel published to use American vernacular, or more specifically, regional dialect (an example:“Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin.”). Huck is described as a pariah, son of the town drunk, and the other children wish they dared to be like him. That’s one hellova introduction. If Samuel Clemens decided to write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in third person, I venture to say everyone would hate Huck. A bratty little kid, running around causing havoc. What Twain did so brilliantly was deciding to tell the story from Huck’s perspective, showing us the charm and charisma Huck has to offer, so we can’t help but love the little shit. Using stylistic voicing, Twain made us relate to an otherwise potentially annoying character.

You may have noticed that I chose all first-person novels, as well as young narrators. Can you think of any examples of stylistic voice using adults, told in third person? Was it as effective as a first-person stylistic voice?

If you’re on the edge about whether or not to write a character’s unique voicing, take heart. Mark Twain had never seen it before, but did it anyway. Emma Donoghue received some unkind reviews of Room because of her style choice, and probably cries about it in front of her wall full of awards. Just kidding. She doesn’t. And Holden Caulfield wouldn’t be one of the most notorious voices in literature if Salinger hadn’t let him. Tell your character’s story in the most authentic way possible, even if that includes letting him or her speak for him/herself.

What I Set Out to Do: Closing the Door on 2014

December 30, 2014

Evan Braun

Balancing Acts Evan Braun Goals Living Deliberately Motivation Reflection Self-Awareness Successes The Writing Life Work-Life Balance No Comments

With one day left in the year, I think it’s safe to say I will not achieve the goals I set out for myself in 2014. I was hoping to complete three books, and instead I completed precisely zero. This suggests that I failed rather spectacularly, though the truth is not nearly so dire when I drill down to the amount of work I actually completed. The primary book I intended to write was supposed to be finished at approximately 100,000 words, and indeed I wrote 110,000 words—so I’m not done yet, but not for lack of trying. There’s just more story than I anticipated when I started it back in January. The other two books are already written more or less in full, and only require some polish to get ready. And therefore, with great confidence, I am able to predict that I will not only write, but also publish, three books minimum in 2015. A fourth book is not out of the question.

A year ago, I think I might have found a year in which I published no new titles discouraging. As important as it is to be releasing new material as often as possible, though, it’s also important to realize that one must devote the necessary time to producing quality writing. For me, 2014 was just such a year, and I expect to reap the rewards starting in the spring. So despite my seeming failure, the past twelve months have in reality been very productive. I’m enthusiastic about the coming months as I creep closer to the finish line on these multiple projects.

My primary novel-writing endeavour this year was getting through The Law of Radiance, the still somewhat tentative title of the third and final book in my Watchers Chronicle trilogy. In past years, I’ve adopted some pretty solid techniques for maintaining productivity and discipline, but this year the challenge was more about bringing a long-form story like this one to a close in as satisfying a manner as possible. Tying up the various plot and character threads of a single novel is challenging enough, so tying up three novels’ worth is a tall order. I’ve definitely learned a few things I’ll be taking into account next time I attempt a story on this scale.

Other lessons learned: don’t let yourself lose momentum when you reach a difficult yet critical juncture in your work in progress. My tendency is to work my way up to those big difficult moments, then back away for a few weeks, using the excuse, “I need to think this through before I move on.” The end result is that I typically go back and write it according to my first instinct anyway, so I don’t gain much by the delay and lose quite a lot of time in the process.

And as usual, the biggest professional obstacle standing in my way is my handling of the day job, which I routinely allow to take precedence over my writing. Which is, of course, a common scenario. This always seems to make sense at the time, but looking back over the past year, my biggest regrets revolve around not taking full advantage of the short periods of free time between my day job hours. It seems to me I could have squeezed out several more chapters if I’d made myself fill in all the cracks in my schedule that way.

Well, there’s always next year!