February is the month of Valentines and romance. In keeping with our KISS theme (keep it short and simple), here is a short list of malignant memes about love that are perpetuated through modern storytelling. 1. My love will heal you syndrome. Love cannot cure dysfunctional behavior. You can love someone through their recovery, but the journey is theirs to undertake. If the character is severely dysfunctional and verbally, physically, or emotionally abusive, your hero/heroine should run, not marry them. 2. The Eeyore syndrome, or “Thanks for noticing me.” Your hero/heroine’s self-worth should not be based on who pays attention to them. Let’s model heroes and heroines with intact self-esteem: no more doormats. 3. The Jessica Rabbit Syndrome Your heroine does not have to have large breasts and wear stiletto heels to be sexy. Your hero does not have to have six-pack abs and a seven figure bank account. Sexy is confidence, humor, and a good character. Those ...

We have learned how to avoid backstory plot holes and discussed how to layer backstory to create conflict. This week, we look at other ways to manipulate backstory. 1. It is tempting to cheat by inserting letters, news articles, and pages from a book or diary to impart information. There may be instances where it works, but rarely. These shortcuts are generally boring in nature. Even worse, they are often placed in italics. If you insist on this, keep it short and simple. Pages of italics strain the eyes. Backstory in the form of letters or journal entries tests a reader's patience. They draw the reader out of real time. A few readers adore them. Most don't. I scan read them. If they are too long, I skip over them. They rarely contain conflict and are a lazy way of delivering information. If the contents can be summarized quickly through internal dialogue or dialogue, do that instead. We don't need to see a long news article about a body being found. Dick can...

Last time , we discussed how to avoid backstory plot holes. This week, we offer ideas for layering backstory into your plot to create conflict. 1. You can reveal your protagonist's critical flaw by explaining something that happened in the past. The critical flaw is revealed near the beginning to explain why Dick is drawn into the story problem and trips him up along the way. The flaw, his kryptonite, can stem from a traumatic episode from the past. 2. The secret weapon is revealed early on to explain why Dick, and only Dick, can solve the overall story problem. It can be a talent, strength of character, belief, or an actual object. You can show him using his secret weapon, or refusing to use it, in the past before he is called upon to use it in the present. 3. Whatever skills or failings Dick has, don't whip them out at the last minute by saying, "Oh, yeah, back in school I used to (fill in the blank)." That is backfilling and it is a no-no. 4. Backstory ca...

Backstory, when used properly, enriches a plot. Used poorly, backstory creates a plot hole that your reader is forced to skip over or sludge through. Most readers skip past the boring bits. The problem with backstory is often two-fold: too much too soon, or way too much information. Backstory can be related through dialogue, flashback, internal dialogue, thoughts, and narrative. Over the next few posts, we'll explore the finer points of using backstory with mastery. 1. Don't begin your novel with backstory. Invest your readers in the current situation before trying to explain the character's history. Otherwise, why should they care? If the action has already passed, we know the characters lived to tell about it. It may have bearing on what is happening now, but the characters survived and have moved onto what is happening now. The reader may feel there is no need to read a long passage detailing what happened in the past if the characters are clearly functionin...

You probably think I'm going to talk about how you should practice and never quit trying until you win. Nope. Though that is true. Instead, I'm going to illustrate what tension looks and feels like. My husband and I love watching the Olympics. We're not all that caught up in who wins. We genuinely want all the athletes to do well as they take their history-making runs. We sit on the couch to watch the skiers and snowboarders. My body tenses as they start off. I'm leaning forward, alert. I'm practically holding my breath as they defy gravity to make it down the hill. I fist pump when a move goes well. "Yes! Did you see that? Wow." I gasp and raise my hands to my lips when they fall. "Oh crap. Are they okay? That must suck." I exclaim when the judges, in my humble opinion, get it wrong. Irritation ignited a verbal response. "What the heck were they thinking?" "That other guy totally did better." "Th...

What’s the easiest way to find a plot for a story or novel? Let it find you! Just today I read a newspaper article about the chief executive of a media company - already a millionaire - who had voted himself a multi-million dollar bonus for the fifth successive year. Then he had used dubious schemes to avoid paying tax on it. I was outraged. Was he worth such a reward? No. Did he invest his surplus wealth in Good Works? No. He was an icon of unmitigated greed. And a plot started to emerge... I drafted a story in less than an hour in a white heat of anger. I added conflict. I imagined that the tycoon had an underling, poorly paid. She faced a moral dilemma. Should she stay loyal to her boss, who had done her many personal favours, or blow the whistle on his illicit schemes? On reflection, I made the man a decent fellow, brought up in terrible poverty and driven by insecurity to accumulate vast wealth. Did he deserve to be ruined? Hm... At the end, there was no moral conclusi...

This simple posture is excellent for releasing tension in the hips and relieving back pain. Try the level that best suits your flexibility.  

Nicole Langan asks: "What are some helpful tips on how an author can train their own editing eye even when they've read their own work a million times?" Kathryn Craft replies: When looking at my own work for the umpteenth time, here’s the problem I run into: no matter how steely my intentions for self-editing, I am immediately caught up, once again, in my protagonist’s plight. I may have started out looking for continuity issues ( Continuity issues! Continuity issues! ), but by page four or five I am seduced once again by the story’s central drama. Sound familiar? The way to counter this is to engage your inner critic while simultaneously disrupting your reading response. To do this I find it imperative that I not read my story through in order. Your word processor’s “find” function can help you by targeting select issues while keeping you out of the intention-bending mire of your own prose. When the word processor plunks you down on a new page, address the issue ...