Category: storytelling

4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

If you had time to sit down and have coffee with Doris Kearns Goodwin, she might give you some advice. As a Historian she loves stories. Especially great and interesting stories about the past.

She might give you some advice that sounds like this:

“Take time to learn how to tell a great story about a loved one.” 

“Allow time spent with them to turn into fun, funny, and inspiring stories that can be written or told orally to showcase some of their sparkling personality.”

Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says, “Stories keep people alive…”

She has written Amazon favorites like (Affiliate Links):

She also appears in masterclass which I highly recommend if you love learning. 

I’ve personally been enjoying it for years now and they keep getting better. I can’t recommend it more.

As a historian, she has learned not only the importance of storytelling but how it can accelerate your life and career as well as keep the memory of someone important to you and others alive.

Recognize the importance of storytelling and how it can accelerate your life and career as well as keep the memory of someone important to you and others alive. Click to Tweet

1. Understand who you are talking about.

Ask questions to find out about your ancestors and who they were.

– Where did they come from?

– How did they get here?

– Who did they let along the way?

– What challenges did they face?

– How did they overcome those challenges?

– What did they learn from those challenges?

These are all important questions that will lead to great bones for a story to be told to your kids and grandkids.

2. Have empathy.

What is empathy?

It’s the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person.

Empathy is a powerful tool in many settings.

It’s especially powerful in telling a story.

If I can understand what my subject is feeling and thinking, I can share that with my audience and, in turn, get them to understand what my subject is feeling and thinking.

If I’m not practicing empathy to understand others how will I be able to share that with my audience?

3. Dig out the gems.

Abraham Lincoln would say that all humans experience bad emotions: anger, malice, jealousy, revenge.

But he said these emotions were not good to dwell on. That it was better to use self-discipline to try to let these feelings go, so he had a certain practice he would use to fight against doing something foolish with his anger especially.

He would write what he called “Hot Letters.”

These hot letters would be to people that had made him angry.

In these letters he would really let them “have it!”

Saying everything he was angry about and why and maybe at times even “what he was gonna do about it.”

He would then put the letter aside and let time pass by.

He almost never sent these letters. We even have some to look back on.

General Mead failed to meet up with General Lee after the victory in Gettysburg.

Lincoln was furious with Mead and wrote one of these “hot letters” to him to tell him how if he would have listened to his orders the wear would be over but now it’ll dredge on for months or years because of his mess up.

Lincoln realised this letter would cripple his General so he never sent it.

Now I want you to realize that I just told you a story about Abraham Lincoln.

This is what you call “Finding a Gem.“

I found a piece of information about his life that is fascinating and also tells us as readers a lot about his character very quickly.

I didn’t have to tell you he was a man who tried to practice patience with others.

You got to see it retold in his regular practice of writing hot letters.

So now you understand Abraham Lincoln as a person a little better. You saw things about him that he thought no one would ever see. You saw the way he thought and felt about important things like emotions and how they affect self and others and even armies, wars, and nations.

And now that you’ve read this small gem about him, you can share it too.

“Find the Gems” and share them with others.

4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

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4. The importance of relevance and timing.

Teddy Roosevelt once warned American citizens, whether in different cultures, states, races, or religions, that if we started to see each other as outsiders to what’s going on and not as all American citizens that our democracy would start to crumble.

He warned of a day when we would allow ourselves to judge each other instead of seeing everyone as equals and working together as American citizens.

This warning could be a warning against “labeling” and how it divides people and does not unite them to a common cause and benevolence (the quality of well-meaning and kindness).

Teddy used to dress himself up as a police officer and go into the streets to make sure the police were doing their job and this gave the country extra accountability and stability to know that it’s common citizens weren’t being abused by power and were receiving help and justice they were paying for with their taxes.

This story of Teddy Roosevelt and his leadership qualities is timeless.

But notice how even then, the President of the United States knew that he had to keep a close eye on the accountability for his police force to make sure they weren’t abusing their power.

At a time like this, this story is powerful and poignant.

Keep memories like this in mind and use their timeliness and relevance to bolster the power behind them. Use these insights to give your stories new life for your audience.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

                                                                        

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Now back to the show: 4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

                                                                        

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4 Tips and Tricks About Storytelling from Doris Kearns Goodwin

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5 Tips How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters

How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters

How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters

We write our characters.

We think about them at lunch.

We dream about them. 

As writers in a weird way we are emotionally connected to the characters we create.

And thus we want our reader to connect with them and interact with them just as we do and have a fondness towards them.

One of the best ways to make your reader not care about them is to wane on and on about specific details about what they look like and what they act like.

We should avoid this.

It’s our job as writers to understand our characters deeply and reveal who they are through actions, inactions, and dialogue.

So how do we make our reader give two hoots about our awesome characters?

Give them something to lose

At any given moment in the story our character needs to be facing some type of conflict whether big or small.

We need to give our reader a reason to follow along as we reveal to them our beloved character.

Give them small things to lose

Some practical ideas of small things they could lose would be:

– An argument with another character

– They left their homework at home

– Forgot to do homework

– The bully steals their homework

– They have a huge zit they can’t hide

– They get to talk to a crush for the first time but forgot to brush their teeth that morning

– They are apprentice to a blacksmith and chipped the knife they were working on

– A thief steals their coin on the way to the market

– They live on a moon colony and they dropped their groceries outside the grocery store

You can see how the setting can be worked around or even used, but these problems they face are mostly small.

They have something to lose but it’s not life and death.

Use little problems like these to lead your character and reader to the big problems and the overarching biggest climatic problem.

As you take your character through little problems your reader will start to feel invested in who your character truly is at heart.

They will start to be concerned for them.

Keep in mind there is a caveat here.

In order for them to care about these characters, the character has to have some redeeming qualities.

They do not have to be perfect. I advise against that. Do not try to make them flawless.

Give them flaws and redeeming qualities.

Give them a strategic main character to follow

In order for them to care about our characters they have to get to know them.

A few ways to let our readers know our characters:

– From the view of the narrator (you can tell them the thoughts and feelings of whoever you want)

– From the view of the main character only (they only ever know what the main character is thinking and feeling)

– From the view of the main party (they get to see inside a band of characters)

So this can really be done anyway you prefer but if we are going to get them to like them and care about them losing stuff then we have to help our reader get to know them through a certain lens.

We can follow one character that interacts with all other characters.

We can follow a group of main players that we know the inner thoughts of and any one of them at any time could have individual moments with side characters.

This doesn’t mean our side characters can’t be interesting or noteworthy.

When Happy Days was in its prime, the directors and producers would specifically introduce new side characters to audiences to see how they would react.

If the reception was good, they would create a new TV show around those firstly side characters.

So you can take a side character and make them stand out as much as you want for as long as you want.

But whoever you decide to have the story play through, make sure your reader can follow a cohesive story line or it might get confusing.

Make your reader aware of your character’s emotional distress

Whether we want to admit it or not we are emotional creatures.

And with that we enjoy watching characters go through emotional rollercoasters just like we do from day to day stress.

How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters

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Help your reader see your character’s emotions:

– regrets

Almost everyone has a past. And most pasts come with regrets.

What are your character’s regrets?

– Worries/ Fears

What is your character worried about?

What does your character’s worries have to do with the main plot line?

– Character Flaws

Like we said earlier, do not make your character perfect.

Give them realistic character flaws that your reader can relate to.

By giving our characters these traits we can seamlessly invite our reader into our characters.

Ideas for character flaws:

– Selfish

– Self-loathing

– Arrogant

– Steals

– Harbors resentment

– Greedy

– Lazy

– Know-it-all

– Show-off

– Etc

Flaws are a good way to lead the reader into the characters emotional distress as their flaws create conflict with other important characters and strangers.

These flaws can lead to hurt and broken relationships and leave room for redemption and second chances.

Turn up the heat

We aren’t talking about romance.

We are talking about taking your characters from the frying pan and into the fire.

You can take your character through many small problems to get your reader to care for them but we also need to put them through even bigger difficult situations.

Ways to make your character’s problems seem big to your reader by creating tension:

– Create a time sensitive event

Nothing creates more tension than setting a timing and telling someone. You have this much time to do this OR ELSE.

In fact a popular TV show was made around this entire premise. Remember 24?

We were just watching Nonstop the other night with Liam Neeson and the entire movie the villains have him wrapped up in time tension.

“Every 20 minutes someone on this plane will die if you don’t give us 150 million dollars.”

It’s worked a million times before and it’ll work again.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use timed tension.

– Use the character’s career or reputation

Nobody wants to lose the respect they’ve earned over years and years of hard work.

Nobody wants to lose the company they’ve built.

We don’t want to lose a high paying career.

These are examples of high stake things that we can use to make our reader worry for our characters. Especially if they are being blackmailed or wrongly accused.

– Hunger Games: survival tension

I just said Hunger Games because it is the epitome of survival tension.

There are many stories that use this form of tension as well.

Put your character into a situation where they have to survive dangerous encounters with people, nature or other beings and you’ll create the nail biting tension you need to make your reader care about your character.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters

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How to Make Your Reader Care About Your Characters

                                                                        

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9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement

9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment

9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement

9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement

You love to write and you want to write well.

We want our reader to gobble up every page and to always be wondering “what’s next?!”

But how do we know we are writing in such a way that our story will become a coveted “Page Turner?”

How do we know that when our reader talks about our story they’ll say “Oh! I read that! I couldn’t put it down!”

“Couldn’t put it down…” We long to hear those words about our stories that we have mulled over and lived through.

We won’t know for sure until it is in their hands and under their eyes, but there are some writing techniques that can help us write page turners.

Make your reader worry by adding suspense

Suspense is a pivotal skill in creating a page-turner.

Suspense helps the reader feel like something bad is about to happen so they must know what will happen next because it could be a good or bad outcome for the characters involved.

Create suspense by creating a time sensitive event

A time sensitive event could be big or small.

For example, “We need to figure out the code in 60 seconds or the alarm will sound!”

That is a small amount of time and maybe a minor event but it still creates a moment of suspense for your reader.

It creates a moment where they are thinking and feeling, “What is going to happen next?”

Another example, “if we don’t stop him from reaching his destination, he will release the virus on London.”

“How much time do we have?“- classic suspense question

“He’s already on his way. We only have 16 Hours.“

This scenario has more time and more people are at stake but still creates time sensitive suspense.

In order to create real suspense in our reader’s mind the stakes have to be high.

Always make it that characters that the reader cares about will lose big time if they don’t accomplish their goal.

The what if

You can call this the “what if.”

You want your reader to feel the what if:

– “What if they don’t get there in time?!”

– “What if they release the virus?!”

– “What if the bomb goes off?!”

– “What if the alarm goes off?!”

If we can create questions like this in our readers minds, then we are doing our job as writers that create suspense.

Create question marks that you are ABSOLUTELY going to answer at some point

Let’s say we are with Bruce Wayne (Batman, for those living in non comic inhabited caves) and Bruce is with Alfred strolling through his collection of gadgets and he picks up a grenade that is implanted in the core of a real apple.

He says, “Alfred, how did this apple get down there?”

He goes to take a bite.

Alfred stops his hand.

“That’s not an apple sir. That’s a bomb. The apple core is infused with C4 and the detonator is specifically vibration sensitive to it being bitten. After you take a bite you have 15 second to place it before it detonates.”

“Hmmm, they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but in this instance I guess not.”

Now as a reader I’m not assuming this interaction was just to create a silly pun.

I want to see Batman use this apple bomb somewhere, somehow.

As a writer when you bring up a specific item you should be bringing it up for a reason.

Don’t tell your reader how your are going to use it yet.

Make it a “Question mark moment.”

Leave your reader wondering”how is Batman going to use that and when?”

Questions like these (and you should have many of them throughout your story) will give your reader a reason to keep reading.

They will want to pick the book up again after taking a break.

Revisit questions to add to the payoff

In your story you might mention a particular side Character.

They may bump shoulders with your character at the train.

Then later they see them at a coffee shop.

They see them again at a party and exchange words.

At this point you’ve created curiosity in your reader’s mind, “who is this character and why do they keep popping up.”

Now, depending on the genre of your story this could be a new budding romance or a deranged serial killer.

Only you can tell.

9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement

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But the more you bring up this person the more your reader will be waiting and longing for you to share why they are there.

We can do this with objects too.

In chapter one Bruce almost bit the apple.

In chapter 3 Robin could be riding in the cockpit and say, “Bruce I’m starving. Did Alfred put anything in here to eat?”

“Yeah” Wayne says, “check the black bag behind your seat.”

There are two black bags behind Robin’s seat. In one he sees a shiny red apple. He grabs it and pulls it to his face. He looks it over and goes in for a bite.

Bruce puts his hand in front of his mouth. “I said the black bag.”

“I did get it out of the black bag!”

“Let me see.”

Robin pulls up the black bag. Bruce looks into it. “Not that one. That’s not an apple.”

“Not an apple?! Well what is it then?”

“It’s a bomb.”

“Oh…” Robin gently puts it back into the bag and sets it slowly behind his seat.

They’re both silent for a moment.

“I’m beginning to think bombs and fruit don’t go well together.”

Again a comic relief moment but not the one, as a reader, that we’re anticipating.

We’ve seen the apple bomb twice now. And both times it almost kills our heroes but we have yet to see it used strategically by Batman (the hero of unbelievable gadgets) in a way that satisfies our gadget lust.

Having multiple moments surrounding an object or person can create more curiosity and thus bigger payoff when things are finally revealed.

Have multiple hooks working for you

In our stories it is necessary to create suspense and curiosity in almost every scene.

We can’t just say, “if the bad guy wins then the world dies,” and expect our reader to be engaged for the entire story without adding additional “hooks” (suspense and curiosity).

Create curiosity and suspense in every scene (well almost every scene)

Most stories have the long question: “Will our heroine beat the bad guy?”

“Will he find true love?”

“Will he solve the murder?”

“Will they survive?”

But along the way we as writers need to create many small questions to be answered too.

“Will she survive the booby trap?”

“Will they get over this argument?”

“Will they survive the affair?”

“Will she lose her business?”

“Will he get fired?”

Smaller questions help lead the reader to answering the Big question.

Bad stuff happens in real life, allow bad stuff to happen to characters

If we want our reader to keep page turning we need to teach them that the threat our character is facing is actually a threat.

How do we teach them that the threat is real?

By allowing bad stuff to happen sometimes.

If nothing bad ever actually happens to our characters we will inevitably teach our reader the wrong lesson: nothing bad ever happens to character therefore I don’t need to be worried about this problem they’re facing. They’ll be fine.

At this point, we’ve almost lost them.

They’ll surely be losing interest soon.

So instead teach them that the problems are real and worth being concerned about by letting bad things happen.

Use other page-turners

A great practice is to think of page-turners you’ve read.

Think of books you just couldn’t put down.

What did the author do that made you want to keep going and never put the book down?

Learn to read books and consume TV and movies critically in order to use the same techniques they used to keep you hooked for every juicy page.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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9 Tips on How to Write Page-Turning Excitement

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5 Tips on Naturally Writing Effective Dialogue

5 Tips on Writing Effective Dialogue
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
5 Tips on Naturally Writing Effective Dialogue

5 Tips on Naturally Writing Effective Dialogue

I’ll be the first one to say that I don’t love writing dialogue.

The actual task of recording down their conversation is quite un-riveting for me personally.

That being said, analyzing dialogue and the actual process of creating it, thinking through it, and revealing character using dialogue is quite fun.

It shows your reader:

– What’s going on in characters heads

– What their normal life is like

– Into scenes that they might otherwise not be able to see

– The story

– What makes characters different

– What makes them similar

– It can persuade your reader to believe something about a character that may end up being a great twist later

– Suspense

– Drama

– Conflict

– It also makes pages easier to read through

Think about people talking normally.

When you’re out the next time to the movies or mall or restaurant, out to the groceries or whatever.

Be purposeful to hear the way people talk to you and others.

Even think about the way you speak to others and your mannerism.

You can log this information away as normal speech patterns.

The more people and cultures you interact with the more dialects and different speech patterns you find.

But a great way to figure out how to give your characters the right words and thoughts is to listen to people in your real life.

Talk your dialogue out loud.

Another great dialogue practice is to have your character’s conversations out loud with yourself and maybe your editor or friend. Whoever you have that’s willing.

When you hear it out loud it gives it an entirely new feel and it’ll be easier to tell if it sounds weird, odd, or abnormal.

Draft it out.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard when it finally comes to sitting down and typing it out on the keys is to write it out without making many punctuations at first.

Just let the words flow fast and naturally so that you can feel what it’s going to look like and sound like right away without stopping much to be distracted by punctuation

Don’t be overly concerned with he said, she said just yet except to just keep it organized.

This will really free you up to create the dialogue and have it come out right rather than being bogged down in the first draft by all the writing technical work.

5 Tips on Naturally Writing Effective Dialogue

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Add the punctuation after you feel the dialogue is right.

Take your time in the editing process of your dialogue to make sure it sounds natural and each character has their own voice just like a real human.

When their talking and interaction seems right for them add the punctuation.

This helps compartmentalize the creative process from the technical process.

Common dialogue pitfalls to watch out for.

– Don’t overuse names.

Overusing someone’s name in real life is weird and it’s weird in writing too. Unless your character is a creepy salesperson.

– Try not to create a repetitive chain of information.

If you need two characters to talk about information that you already introduced once just make it that the second character found out from another source.

“Did you hear about so and so?”

“Yeah I did. Jackie just told me. Crazy right?”

– People in real life day umm a lot and make filler noise. Characters do not mostly.

Take this thought liberally as every once in a while it helps make a certain character to give them a weird noise that they make while they are thinking, but for the most part, cut it out.

– Get on get out.

Make each line have a purpose. 

Most characters shouldn’t talk too much. And other characters shouldn’t talk too little but our dialogue needs to have a point and move the characters forward in the plot. 

If they decide to head for Starbucks to gab about ‘whatever’ in reality one of the characters is about to bump into someone important. 

Otherwise they need to be meeting up at Starbucks to discuss things that are important to the plot and revelation of character.

– Help the reader see who’s talking without being annoyingly redundant.

He said.

She said.

He asked.

She said.

We don’t have to add ‘they said’ at the end or beginning of every quotation.

The goal is to just make sure that we are clearly letting the reader know who is talking and then write the dialogue in such a way that they can skim through and it’s very clear who is saying what even if we stop writing he said/she said/ she asked, etc.

Make your main goal to just tell the story and make it simple. Don’t be tempted to over display what they are feeling with adverbs while they speak.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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5 Tips on Naturally Writing Effective Dialogue

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This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail

This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail

This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail

Abraham Lincoln. You might remember him as honest Abe or you might not know who he is at all.

But his story is a powerful and persuasive one.

Abraham Lincoln

You see, Abe wanted to get into politics. We would imagine he didn’t like the way things were being run and wanted to make some changes of his own to the country’s political landscape.

The only problem was he wasn’t a very good politician.

He was running for state legislature and kept losing. His life wasn’t going anywhere except failure.

He became immensely depressed in his failures. So much so that his friends took all of his knives and razors away from him because they were afraid he would Jill himself.

He broke off is engagement to the woman he loved.

His life kept getting worse.

He ran for the senate not once but TWICE and lost BOTH TIMES.

You would think someone would think, “I’m not made for this,” and choose a different career path at this point.

But in 1860 Abraham runs as a “dark horse candidate” for the presidency and WINS!

He failed so many times for so long in his life but never quit and ended up winning the presidency instead of those lesser goals he tried for but it would seem that all the hard times he went through prepared to be the president of the United States at a very pivotal time in history.

He didn’t allow loss and adversity to prevent him from moving forward.

Teddy Rosevelt

Teddy’s story is a bit different.

Teddy was a well educated young man planning on becoming a naturalist but when everyone least expected it he suddenly ran for state legislature and to everyone’s surprise he won.

At this time his wife is pregnant with their first child and his mother who is only 49 comes out to his house in New York to help take care of his wife while he’s working in government.

This is when tragedy strikes.

For a brief moment everyone is elated as a telegram arrives for Teddy.

It says his child is born.

Everyone celebrates with cigars.

But not many hours later a second telegram arrives.

It says, you must return immediately. Your wife is dying and your mother is dying too.

It turns out that his mother had contracted typhoid fever upon arriving in New York.

Teddy arrived at home in time to see his mother before she died and about 12 hours later his wife dies too.

Teddy thought his life was over.

At this point he essentially runs away. He quits the legislature and moves out to the Badlands and rides his horse for reportedly 15 hours a day.

During this time he falls in love with nature and becomes quite a conversationalist.

He gains a deeper perspective on life and eventually goes back to run for the presidency.

Sometimes getting an outside perspective on things can lead to a deeper understanding of the big picture we need to move forward. And breaks aren’t always bad, but if Teddy has decided never to run again he might not have accomplished all that he did.

He did indeed quit for a time but ultimately he got back up “on the horse “ and kept going.

Rejections

You might not know it but MANY of your beloved authors have been rejected many times before finally being published.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: rejected 144 times.

Canfield once wrote, “If we had given up after 100 publishers, I likely would not be where I am now,”

“I encourage you to reject rejection. If someone says no, just say NEXT!”

This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail

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This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail

                                                                        

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Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.

Try it for free now.

This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail

Check this out.

Is Writing your craft? You might love this. Check out the 4,900+ reviews it has on Amazon to see if this might be what you’re looking for.

                                                                        

Lisa Genova, Still Alice: rejected 100 times (some of those were just non-responses)

She eventually decided to self published. It got picked up after that.

Kathryn Stockett, The Help: 60 rejections. 

She wrote, “In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help,” 

 “But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60? Three weeks later, Susan sold The Help to Amy Einhorn Books.” The book was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks.

It sold over seven million copies, and has been made into an inspiring award winning movie.

Heidi Durrow, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky: 48 rejections.

“When I was trying to publish my book, it received some 48 different rejections from publishing houses mostly because people said to me that there was no market for a story about a half black half Danish girl. There was no Afro Viking demographic to sell this book to.” 

Dispite the adversity her book was the winner of the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Socially-Engaged Fiction. The award came with a publishing contract and it became a bestseller.

One of my favorite authors James Patterson: James Patterson, The Thomas Berryman Number: 31 rejections.

Patterson’s first book was turned down by 31 publishers and he kept a list.

31 publishers turned down Patterson’s first book. The first of many in his extremely popular Alex Cross series. Now, of course, he’s one of the most successful authors in the world, arguably in history. 

He told the New York Times that he kept a list of all the editors that turned down his first novel. “Sometimes they send me books and ask for blurbs. Mostly, though, they’re dead.”

Stephen King, Carrie: 30 rejections. 

30 publishers rejected his first novel Carrie, the one that started King’s legendary novel journey.

One day he received a short letter from Bill Thompson at Doubleday:

“Congratulations. Carrie officially a Doubleday Book. Is $2500 advance okay? The future lies ahead. Love, Bill.”

And what was at that time their future is now our history.

The one thing that makes or breaks a successful entrepreneur is perseverance.

This key trait can be used in so many different avenues and career paths.

The thing is that most of us won’t be handed success in our endeavors so easily.

We inevitably will meet adversity and when that adversity comes what will we do?

I believe you have it in you to persevere and keep going despite adversity coming your way.

And as many we’ll have gone Beckies is would most likely admit that the adversity helped mold them into who they are today and who knows where they would be if they didn’t persevere and remain persistent despite many challenges.

Persevere.

Hope this helps! 

Happy writing!

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1 Bad Writing Tip You Can Cut Out Right Now That’ll Make Your Writing 10X Better

1 Bad Writing Tip You Can Cut Out Right Now That'll Make Your Writing 10X Better
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
1 Bad Writing Tip You Can Cut Out Right Now That'll Make Your Writing 10X Better

1 Bad Writing Tip You Can Cut Out Right Now That’ll Make Your Writing 10X Better

There is one thing that many authors do.

It could be by accident. It could be on purpose.

But if you cut out just this one thing, your writing will be better to read instantly.

What is that one thing?

Passive voice.

Now this doesn’t mean we can Never use passive voice as authors.

It just sounds better and it’s less wordy if we don’t. And less wordy is almost always better.

What is passive voice?

Passive voice makes the object look dominant to the subject.

For example, passive voice would say,

– The book was thrown by the student.

– The guitar was played by the musician.

– The door was opened by the driver.

Instead as writers we mostly want to use active voice.

What is active voice?

1 Bad Writing Tip You Can Cut Out Right Now That’ll Make Your Writing 10X Better

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Active voice makes the subject the emphasis over the object.

For example,

– The student threw her book.

– The musician played the guitar.

– The driver opened her door.

You can tell from the examples that active voice makes each sentence more concise and more clear. Not to mention it just sounds better.

It’s less wordy. And less wordy is less stress on the brain to figure out what is happening and why.

We want our reader to flow through our sentences and not think about the fact that they are reading.

We don’t want them to have to stop to think about which is the object and which is the subject.

We just want to be clear the first time.

How do I find passive voice in my writing?

The fastest way is to look for the subject and the object in each sentence.

If you can find those then you’ll see whether the object of emphasized or the subject is.

Passive,

– The mouse was chased by the cat.

Active, 

– The cat chased the mouse.

Cut out “was”and “were” from most of your sentences when you can.

When to use passive voice?

If you want to put the dominant thought onto the object instead of the subject then use passive voice. Otherwise just default to active voice.

So there you have it.

One of the easiest things to do to improve your story is to run away from passive voice and never look back.

Your sentences will be easier to read.

Your reader won’t have to stop to think about what is acting upon what.

Your sentences will be less wordy.

Cut out passive voice and your writing will be better today.

It is an easy and steadfast trick to making any story or project perform better with little effort.

Go back and look at some of your past writing to see how often you use passive voice.

If you change it, does it look better?

Do you notice the difference when you emphasize the subject instead of the object?

To make your ideas more clear for your reader, cut out passive voice.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.

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1 Bad Writing Tip You Can Cut Out Right Now That’ll Make Your Writing 10X Better

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Make sure your posts are readable. Use this readability score check

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4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader for More

How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader for More
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader for More

4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More

The cliffhanger is not a new technique. 

In fact, writers have literally made movies around the idea of dangling our beloved character off the side of a cliff to get us at the edge of our seats, biting our nails, ignoring everything else in the universe to see “what happens next?!”

Thankfully even though this technique has been waaaaayyy overused. It still works.

We can definitely add this one to the proverbial toolbox.

Keep it simple

We don’t always have to dangle our character over a cliff in order to make this technique work.

In reality, this won’t work if we do it too much. Our reader will see through our antics and get bored.

If our main character almost dies at the end of every chapter hanging over a cliff, you can bet the reader will be saying “fool me twice, shame on me” by chapter three.

Instead find creative ways to make little cliffhangers during chapters and at the end of chapters.

Them almost dying at the end of every chapter makes for boring and not suspensful, but if they were about to lose a relationship, or be caught doing something they shouldn’t and the reader has to go to the next chapter to find out what happens next, then you’re winning.

Examples:

– Characters are in a fight and might break up

– Something is about to hurt character like a dangerous animal

– One character just went missing

– A character just witnessed another doing something suspicious and unexplainable

Basically we want to create a smaller conflict that needs to be resolved in our reader’s mind that will gnaw at their curiosity until they get the answer.

This works best if we have done a good job of getting them interested in the characters’ lives and feelings.

Keep creating questions

We have to be careful how we do this one.

If we create a question for our reader to look forward to the answer, we better darn well answer it.

And a great skill to practice is the creative ability to create questions when we give answers.

Use dialogue to help the reader see the answer and the next question.

Dan Brown does an amazing job with this in the DaVinci Code. 

He uses Langdon in this way.

Langdon will answer one of the mysterious questions, one of the riddles, but then he’ll say something to the effect of, “but if that’s true then what about this?“

And then Langdon will say, “we need to go to the Sistine Chapel,” and before we know it Langdon is being shot at on the way to the Sistine Chapel and we’re hooked to find out if he’ll make it.

This is genius for answering a question we made and leading the reader right into the next one without drawing it out to much and leaving the reader bored as they wait for the next riddle to solve.

4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More

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4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More

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Your character can simply say, “this answers this question, but now we have this question to deal with.”

Now when your character needs to go to the next place we are happily following along.

It would be a bad idea to have no reason for your character to go to the next place and we just somehow end up there and stumble upon the next clue.

This technique can be toyed with, but I think you get the idea.

Create questions while answering questions, but BE SURE to answer all your questions eventually. Don’t leave your reader feeling cheated of the time they invested in reading your story.

Make them feel like they can predict what’s going to happen next, only to fool them.

Lead your reader into the most obvious choice or answer to the riddle.

And just when they think they’ve figured it out, put a twistaroo on it. (twistaroo is not a real word 🙂 )

This is called a good twist.

One of my all time top 10 fave twist moments was in the Sixth Sense. “I see dead people.”

I recommend watching it if you haven’t and as long as you aren’t easily spooked.

Spoiler alert:

The twist in the end was so shocking to me, I never saw it coming that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time.

It was like a left hook sucker punch for me and I, to this day cannot think of a better twist or reveal. Now that I think about it, it’s easily in my top 5 twisty movies.

So just like that, lead your reader into thinking that they know where you’re headed just to cut them off at the pass.

Surprise them wherever you can and they’ll love you for it.

Give them something to look forward to at the start

Don’t waste any time setting your reader up for cliffhangers.

Get started right away in chapter letting them know they are in for a fun ride.

Our main job as writers is to entertain.

Start off with a bang:

– “That’s the moment he knew he’d never see her again.”

– “As he looked at the clock sweat began to fall off his nose. He was taking to long.”

– “Bubbles were still surfacing as I dove into the river after the sinking suburban.”

Create mystery, intrigue, and suspense right away.

Don’t waste time explaining the plot, characters, or other detailed ideas. Allow the plot to unfold without them thinking, “oh so the plot is going to be about this.”

Allow your reader to discover clever ideas as you get them to turn the next page with cliffhangers.

Don’t let the reader in. Don’t show all your cards too quickly.

Be strategic.

Set up a powerplay by creating a moment of intense intrigue and use it to carry your reader to the next plot point without them knowing how they got there.

Entertain them as you reveal that your character’s mother is the true villain and everything they were raised to think was a lie.

It’s absolutely okay and maybe a good idea to make your reader confused and in the dark as long as you are going to show them the light and solve their confusion by the end of the story.

Never leave your reader feeling, “Why did I just read that? What was the point of all that?”

Give them something to continually look forward to or else they will look forward to it elsewhere.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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Resources:

Why Start a Blog

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For Blogging AND More

                                                                        

Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.

Need a Cheaper Plan? Try DreamHost.

If you enjoy 4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More, Storytelling, and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?

Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂

Already own a blog? Monetize with Ezoic. Make 5X more on ads with Ezoic! See for yourself. – These ads use machine learning. Set it and leave it.

Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.

Try it for free now.

4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More

Check this out.

Is Writing your craft? You might love this. Check out the 4,900+ reviews it has on Amazon to see if this might be what you’re looking for.

                                                                        

4 Tips How to Write Cliffhangers, Hooking in Your Reader For More

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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

Writing fiction is fun.

C.S. Lewis hits the nail on the head when he says, 

“You can make anything by writing.” – C. S. Lewis

It is so true. Anything your imagination can dream up, you can write, and if you can write it, then it can come true in your reader’s mind. Even if just for a moment.

Walt Disney said “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.“

That’s the wonderful side for the writer is we get to have fun creating the impossible.

But there’s a down side too.

Creating the impossible takes a ton of work, discipline, stress (at times), and know-how.

And our work isn’t necessarily an art form as much as it is a work of building entertainment.

Fiction is supposed to be entertaining; otherwise, readers wouldn’t read fiction.

So how do we help our readers gobble up every page?

There are certain literary techniques that have been used in storytelling for a long time that are powerful and should continue to be used in the stories we create today.

There are many literary techniques to make your fiction more digestible, but these four have been used uniquely throughout literary history and have become pillars.

Parallelism

What is parallelism?

It is the state of something corresponding or being parallel to something else.

Example,

“He came. He saw. He conquered.“

Story details can parallel too.

In the Star Wars Saga, Finn, Poe, and Rey parallel Luke, Leia, and Han Solo.

So you too can add parallelism to your story by adding characters that parallel each other.

Events can parallel.

You can have a story within the story that parallels what will happen to the main characters.

In Stranger Things, we see the boys playing Dungeons and Dragons. The game adventure they are playing with the “Demogorgon” parallels what will happen with them in real life very soon.

How is Parallelism used?

Parallelism is a way of leaving dynamic clues or breadcrumbs for your reader to follow. It makes the material more magical and creates powerful “re-readability” with your story.

Meaning, if they pick up your story a second time they may notice the parallelism in a way they didn’t before. This instantly makes your story more interesting to pick up again than stories without this technique.

I personally love “re-watchability” and “re-readability” in the stories I get into. It makes the difference between whether a story is good or amazing for me.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing and parallelism are very similar.

What is foreshadowing?

It’s a warning or indication of a future event.

In Stranger Things, the “Demogorgon” is also a foreshadowing of what’s to come.

A common “foreshadowing saying” that has been used a billion and one times in storytelling is the famous line,

“Be careful what you wish for…“

This usually happens after the character has lost her temper and said something like,

“I hate my life. I wish I was never born!“

Then some mentor or well meaning older character says “be careful what you wish for.“

And then the next day nobody remembers them as if they were never born and the main character learns a life lesson through the events that follow.

We see this happen to Macaulay Culkin in the Home Alone movies.

Foreshadowing is a powerful way to build a relationship with your reader. 

By giving them foreshadowing once you will have shown them that you are clever and thoughtful about your writing and the foresight of where your story leads.

They will be looking forward to this same cleverness in all your stories henceforth.

Thus giving you “re-readability.” 😎 

Repeating Important Details

The repetition of details whether it is about objects, people, or events will get your reader’s mind pumping.

It will alert them that something very important is happening in the repeated details and they will try to figure it out before you flat out tell them. 

They might also be the sort of reader that just loves a good build up to a reveal.

So repetition is appealing to most readers.

The main character could be trying to remember something about a certain day so you can take the reader into your character’s imagination as they try to remember certain details about the past.

Or you can bring up an object several times. Something as simple as a keychain will do.

But is there more than meets the eye about this keychain?

In Men In Black, we see the cat Orion many times before it is revealed to be wearing the thing that everyone is looking for.

We see the most important piece of the puzzle time and time again before we could ever guess just how important the cat is. And even more important the little keychain looking world dangling from its collar.

4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

Symbolism

Symbolism is a great writing skill to learn how to use well.

What is Symbolism?

Symbolism is when you have an object, person, animal or thing that represents something else.

To many Americans the bald eagle represents America and freedom. 

That’s symbolism.

The epitome of symbolism can be found in the book Animal Farm.

A story about personified animals on a farm where a group of sinister animals manipulate and convince the rest of the animals to work for them instead of being free to work for themselves.

The story represents the early years of the Soviet Union and how socialistic minds took over and took away the freedoms of the common people.

Symbolism is a wonderful literary tool to take from real life and create a story that is easier to digest than a documentary or history book.

For example, allowing animals on a farm to represent the Soviet Union allowed many readers to learn how the Socialist Soviets took the freedoms from their people.

It made the historical event more digestible for a wider audience.

One flaw with symbolism is that it almost always has to be explained outside of the story, it’s difficult to reveal in the story without the writer leaving notes behind that otherwise explain the symbolism. Symbolism almost always has to be explained.

The upside to this is people being able to have open conversations with each other about hard topics that might not otherwise be open to discussion.

Symbolism is definitely a great teaching tool and a way for a writer to share their views about real-world times, events, economics, societies, laws, religion, politics, etc.

Topics that are otherwise harder to talk about openly.

Another creative outlet for symbolism is the writer is able to write about things that happened in their own life without writing an autobiography or saying “hey, this happened to me.”

For example, Stephen King explains some symbolism for IT.

He explained that the story came from the troll under the bridge and the bridge represented the passing from childhood and adulthood. 

He also explains that Derry, Maine represents his childhood home Bangor, Maine.

He ultimately decided that the bridge would be the city of Derry and that something terrifying lived under the city, IT.

When you think of the story in light of the terrifying nature of the journey of childhood passing into adulthood and all the problems that could follow, this makes sense as to why he had the story so woven between the two major themes of their child lives and there adult lives and the 27 year gap he chose to put in between.

You can see more about his explanation here: Stephen King Explains…

We can do this.

We can use symbolism to write about parts of our own lives or stories that inspire us or that we find intriguing, or and especially hard events in our lives.

Most of us in our lifetimes will, unfortunately, go through hard times and traumatic events no matter what background we come from, and writing about those events is a way to share whats going on inside us with other people.

Use these 4 literary techniques to help your readers digest your stories and enjoy them and come back for more.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible

                                                                        

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6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

Schools are up in the air.

Some of us loved it. Some of us hated it, and some people just liked a few things about school.

But nonetheless whether we hate it or love it it has been a part of most readers’ lives.

Writing schools in fiction doesn’t have to be a difficult daunting task. It can be fun and full of creativity. Thankfully many writers before us have created schools in fiction and so we have a lot of wisdom to glean from.

Creating a fictional school is a great way to resonate with audiences and bring many story elements that are nostalgic to a broad amount of readers.

We don’t have to go far to find inspiration for writing a school in fiction because the majority of humans on the planet attend some type of school in their lifetime.

These are some of the best places to draw inspiration from for writing schools in fiction. Draw from your own experiences and memories. Do you remember the teachers that you couldn’t stand?

Do you remember the ones that bored you do death?

Do you remember who you sat next to in math or science?

These are the places to take inspiration from and turn it into a story of your own.

Teachers

Everyone has teachers they’ve loved or hated.

There are so many vibrant teacher personalities that can add unique Dynamics to any story.

You can have:

– the crazy teacher

– Fun teacher

– Strict teacher

– Mean teacher

Teachers can be supportive characters and challengers.

A really fun dynamic is having the teacher be the ultimate villain hiding in plain sight.

Teachers are a huge resource to a writer making a fictional school.

Peers

Again there’s an endless world of possibilities in peers.

Every personality you can think of under the sun you can add and take away.

There could be many relationships or only a few.

There could be a few peers that play pivotal roles. Or maybe just one repeating character peer.

The location of the school

The location of the school is a big deal.

Is it near the main character’s house?

Is it far away?

Do they walk there?

Or do they have to take Transportation?

Is it other worldly?

6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

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Is the school on Earth at all?

Is it in the city?

Is it in the country?

What country is it in?

Depending on where the school is, it means a lot for how the reader will preconceive the details of the school and what it looks on the outside and the inside.

The number of students

The number of students affects:

– Sports

– Classroom size

– Competitions

– Band

– Music

– Arts

– Number of classes

– Number of teachers

The number of students affects many details and should be considered.

Curriculum

Is this a regular school?

Is it a school for the dead?

Is it a magical school?

School for animals?

School for adventurers?

What is the school’s main purpose?

Some extra random thoughts to consider for writing your fictional school:

Are there competing schools?

How are the students arranged in the classroom?

When it comes to making a fictional school there are lots and lots of details to sort out.

The more questions you can answer before writing chapter one the better and it’s best to write these answers down somewhere so that you have a reference to look back on.

Otherwise it’s tough to remember how you first felt about the school and what you dreamed it would be.

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

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6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

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6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction

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We hope you enjoyed: 6 Thoughts on Writing Schools in Fiction!

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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story

The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
~ Jeremy ~ Leave a comment
The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story

The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes NOT BORING While Revealing the Story to Your Reader

Master writers and editors know what it takes to make scenes not boring while revealing the story.

Let’s talk about what makes a scene boring.

There is one major thing you don’t want to do to your readers when writing a scene and revealing the story.

Don’t make it work for them to read it.

Period.

If you make it a ton of work for them to get through chapter one scene one, they are going to put down the book and probably never want to pick it up again.

Here is how you make it a ton of work for your reader to make it through your scene. 

Chapter 1: I tell them about the world, the shops in the world, the streets in the world, the mountains, the trees, what the birds look like, the cool and exotic plants. I tell them about the characters and every tiny detail about them. I tell them about her hair and her eyelashes. What she thinks about the flowers…

Do you get where we are going with this?

We are being a bit exaggerated here, but let’s be honest, it happens. And stuff like that used to work, but not today.

To make a scene “too much work didn’t read” (TMWDR) aka (TLDR) we give them a million descriptive details to read through without once moving the story along!

And our reader is left feeling like, “let’s get the ball rolling people!”

We can give them the details about the beautiful world in our imagination, but give it in small doses and allow them to use some imagination.

Move the story forward

We can give them some descriptions and we should, but great authors know that in order to be allowed to explain what a character looks like we have to earn the right to talk about them and why they are important.

…we have to earn the right to talk about our fictional characters and why they are important to the reader and the story. Click to Tweet

The way that we earn the right to tell the reader anything while revealing the story, is when they are thinking this one secret thought.

We have to put this one thought in their minds and keep it there, the moment we’ve lost this thought that we’ve put in their heads, they’ll put down the book.

That secret thought is the same one all great writers use across all mediums, whether it’s story, freelance, copywriting, blogging, or marketing.

The secret thought is: “If I just read a little bit further, I’ll find out what I want to know.”

Figure out how to put this one thought into your reader’s mind and they’ll read everything you write them: “If I just read a little bit further, I’ll find out what I want to know.” Click to Tweet

When we are so into reading anything, a story, an article, a blog, we have this same thought too. It’s really more of a feeling. But we read on intently looking for the answer to our questions.

Questions like, “What will happen next?” “What is going to happen to this character now?” are what we want our readers to think as writers in any medium.

The way we plant the secret question in their head using story

The way we create the secret question is simple.

Keeping it in their minds is the hard part about writing a story and writing one that readers can’t put down until they’ve read every last page.

The way is simple but executing takes time, practice, and insight.

How do we create the secret question in their head?

We create a problem that must be resolved.

The way we make scenes not boring

The way to make scenes not boring is to move the story along. (I know we said this above but go with me here as we explain further.)

We need to give the reader something to be curious about and look forward to.

Along the way we slowly but surely reveal characters and scenery and explain little bits and pieces of the world and bring them into our world and share it with them.

But to make a scene not boring and to move the story along we must create curiosity about what happens next!

How to get your reader thinking what happens next?

It is the coveted moment. The reader can’t stop reading page after page, chapter after chapter all because they keep thinking, “what happens next?”

But how do we get them thinking this through every chapter?

I already told them about the hero and the bad guy and he wants to destroy the world, what else keeps them curious?!

The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story

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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story

The journey.

Moving the story along is the journey it takes to get from the introduction of our characters to the main problem that faces them to seeing it out to the end and all the misadventures in between.

But how do we make the journey interesting?

Let’s ask a more detailed question. 

The one we’ve been asking all along.

How do I make each scene interesting?

Give each scene a purpose.

If every single scene we bring the writer into doesn’t have a purpose in moving the story forward then why on Earth are we telling them about the scene?!

So when you plot your outline be thinking of each scene and the “why” behind it’s necessary existence, because if your reader reads one or two scenes that seem to be not purposeful, that is, there is no “pay off” for them taking the time to read it they will likely put down the book.

Make sure each and every scene you write creates curiosity and has a “pay off,” for your reader. Click to Tweet

An easy way to give our scenes a why

Yes, in our scenes we may want to show a certain detail about character development or reveal a hidden artifact, but the easiest way to get the reader through it and on to the next page is to create mini difficulties for the characters.

Our main problem may be that the antagonist(s) wants to blow up the world but while our hero is on the way to stop the no good antagonist(s) they need to run into many challenging obstacles on the way.

Think of your story as more of an obstacle course

To get to the finish line our protagonist needs to run through the maze, climb the slippery slime wall, survive the dread log tumble, jump through the fiery hoop, and before they can even see the finish line they have to carry the weighted sack of fortitude up mount killmyback.

That’s a story.

And each obstacle is a scene. We see the obstacles and how the character handles them and each obstacle reveals more and more to us their true character. (“Show, don’t tell.”)

That’s how we move the story along, keep the reader interested, and reveal the true nature of our characters as we go 🙂

If we told the reader all about how each obstacle was made, how long it took, and about the nuts and bolts of it, that might be a little interesting (if you are trying to write a documentary about the story) but not if they haven’t seen it in action and seen how the course wrecks a character and is extremely interesting to watch. 

Give each scene a purpose while you are revealing the story.

Make an obstacle around that purpose.

And your reader will be thinking that coveted question, “What’s going to happen next?!”

Give each scene a purpose. Make an obstacle for your fictional character around that purpose, and your reader will be thinking that coveted question, “What’s going to happen next?!” Click to Tweet

Hope this helps!

Happy writing!

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