Friday, December 20, 2019

Getting Away from Your Life to "Entrain" at a New Level: Benefits of a Writing Retreat or Class Away from Home

Winter is the time of year when I think about entrainment.  Entrainment, as it pertains to the writer's life, is the art and science of learning by proximity to writers who are working at a higher level than you.  It's skill by osmosis, by community.  For me, it's an absolute necessity.

Why?  Because we only know what we know.  We reinvent ourselves over and over, unconsciously, until we entrain with something moving at a higher skill level.

Friday, December 13, 2019

Interiority? How Much Should You Show or Tell about Your Characters' Inner Lives?

Interiority or "internals" is a fancy way to describe the reader's view into your characters' thoughts, feelings, and inner lives.  Some genres require a lot of this (memoir), some much less (thrillers).  Interiority is what makes a character real to the reader.  Skilled writers reveal interiority in several ways.  It's important to know what your genre requires and how to plant and build the interior lives, without having them slow the momentum of the story.

Friday, December 6, 2019

Can You Use Real Place Names in Your Books? Can You Fictionalize Details?

Maggie is writing a novel about a group of people living in a made-up place, based on a real location.  She faced a dilemma this month about how much freedom she has, as a fiction writer, to use real places in her story. 

"The reader knows my novel takes place in Minnesota," Maggie told me. "I want to reference lakes, counties and towns that one of the characters--a realtor--covers.  These places are my real-world reference points."  

My first novel was based in a real-life place--the Adirondack mountains of New York State--and included real towns.  I made sure I visited those towns, used accurate information, but I also fictionalized parts and said so in my author's notes.  I know many writers do this.  But it is a good question to ask.