We just returned from a week of camping. I love the slow-paced vacation option camping offers our family. Swimming, kayaking, fishing, biking, campfires, S'mores, and my favorite, reading! There is no better way for a writer to tweak his or her story telling ability than through reading a variety of authors. You can learn from those who've mastered the craft, and you can learn from the mistakes of others. As you can see from the covers above, there are some excellent storytellers in my list from this past week.

I began by completing Luana Ehrlich's debut novel One Night in Tehran. The second book in the series, Two Days in Caracas, recently released in June. This was a great read for a debut novel. I have made an intentional effort this year to read both new-to-me authors, and indie authors. This book qualified in both regards.

The next book I read was really more of novella from Stephen King. Many years ago, I watched the movie Langoliers. This was my first exposure to King's unique story telling ability. While I am not a big horror fan, Langoliers is more of a speculative fiction than some of his more traditional horror stories. So, in preparation for my vacation reading, I picked up the Four Past Midnight ebook, which contains the Langoliers story. I'm not usually one to read or watch a story more than once, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story.

From there, I went on to read a couple series continuations. The first was Silver Hand by Stephen R. Lawhead. I really enjoyed book one of this series, though I haven't written a blog review of it. These books do stand alone, but there is a tight thread running between them. Whereas, the next series book I read, Watcher in the Woods by Robert Liparulo, is really more like the second act in a three part story. This series has a great premise, but I would have preferred the books had been combined rather than sold as three separate novels.

The final novel, which I began reading while camping, and I hope to finish yet this weekend, is Distortion by Terri Blackstock. I was first introduced to Terri's writing through her great series called Cape Refuge. I read these books back before I started writing In The Image of Man. Without a doubt, Terri's writing along with Frank Peretti's Darkness series had the most significant influence on my own writing.

Back to reading. . .

'Till next time.

I have read many resources on the craft of writing. From these I have gleaned, and I’m sure missed much valuable information. However, I do not believe I have read anything as valuable to the development of a quality story as the book Story Trumps Structure by Steven James. I’ve read several of this author’s novels, a couple of which I've reviewed previously in this blog. I absolutely love Steven's engaging and suspenseful writing. This book brings an under-the-hood look at his thought process while creating those enthralling stories.

So much has been written about plotting, outlining, creating backstory, point of view (POV), grammatical good and bad, and on and on it goes. As its title suggests, this isn’t that book. Instead, Story Trumps Structure is a guide to really thinking through your story. How do you escalate tension? How do you create it in the first place? And, why do you need it? It guides you to think through your plot twists, overall and in each scene. There are many other valuable story considerations presented, such as cause-effect, story progression, and the value of organic writing, just to name a few.

The book also examines character development. This is the best, if not only, book I’ve read on character status, and the value varying status between characters. There are other character considerations, which I have observed in other resources, such as quirks, transformation, uniqueness, and attitude. But, even in these more common considerations, his approach is fresh and effective. I also really enjoyed his discussion of character intention.

I read this book, as I often do, between the first draft of my next novel and the rewrite process. I believe Steven’s insights will prove invaluable in taking my own writing to the next level. I only wish I had read this book before writing my first novel. Yes, I have much to learn about my craft, as I believe we all do.

This book will remain on my writing desk for years to come and I give it a “14 dog-eared pages” rating!

‘Till next time.

If you’ve read my book reviews, you know that I usually comment on the quality of the characters in a story. In my opinion, the ability to develop characters that are both believable and relatable is paramount to an engaging story. As a writer, it is my job to develop characters to the point that the reader cares about what happens to them. Whether they are lovable, or easy to hate, they need to feel like real people. Even if they aren’t people, as may be the case in speculative and fantasy novels.

So how does one go about creating jump-off-the-page characters? I’ll admit, I am not a recognized expert on the subject. I haven’t been writing best sellers for decades. But, I am a student of people and I believe that is key to creating realistic characters. When we attempt to describe someone, our first instinct is to address physical characteristics—tall, short, lanky, not, blond, curly, bald, blue-eyed, green skin, fangs, talons, on and on and on. While these can be important to help the reader establish a frame of reference, just a little detail will allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest.

More important are the personality, past experiences, and goals of the individual. While these won’t necessarily make their way directly into the story, they shape everything about the character—how they dress, walk, talk, think, react, solve problems, and relate to other characters. If a writer doesn’t work through the details of a character’s personality, past, and plans, the characters will begin to look and act an awful lot like the author. Let’s face it, most of us just aren’t that interesting.

I’ve personally found that the ability to flesh out the details of my characters is helped by studying people. This involves more than just watching people to see how they act, though I certainly do enough of that. It means reading about people. How do introverts and extroverts differ? How do creativity and logic shape a person’s responses? I read an article earlier this week which looked at autistic traits in IT personnel. How might someone over-sensitive to sounds or smells respond in my story? Or, how might someone under-sensitive to touch play out as my antagonist?

There are hundreds of ways that studying what makes us unique can enhance a writer’s ability to create relatable characters. But, I’ll leave you with one more that came to me today. As I read an article about what your Facebook posts say about your personality, I began to ponder, “what would the Facebook or Twitter posts of my characters look like?” One more unique way of adding dimension to those flat characters that first step onto the page.

‘Till next time!