Category: Craft

picture of a teen girl with a healing black eye
Posted in Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing, Tools

Ouch! Black-eyed Character

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

My character got punched in the face and hit his head on a locker when he fell. Of course, the school nurse checks him out and has him ice it, and recommends a trip to the doctor. His mom takes him and it’s all fairly simple: “he’s fine.”

But then…

I had my own fall where I hit my head (do not recommend passing out). My doctor’s nurse said I should go to the ER. Where not only did I get checked out by the ER doctor but had a CT scan of my head and x-rays of my bruised shoulder.

My personal experience sent me to the revision table. Now my character doesn’t just go to an urgent care clinic, but to the ER. And now, yes, he gets a CT scan too. Neither of us had brain damage thankfully.

As I rewrote I kept checking the interwebs for details on black eyes—it’s been years since I had one—and I needed reminders on how long the swollen “can’t see” stage lasts. Plus, how many days of color and the changes to the color of the bruise. I also re-examined the following scenes to ensure I hadn’t forgotten my character’s sore eye and how it affects his experiences.

So, my advice to you, don’t just rely on your memory when a character gets injured. Make sure you medical knowledge is up-to-date and accurate. Use reliable sources, not merely anecdotes.

Injury Writing Resources

Today I came across this useful article that another writer shared. I hope it is helpful to you too. “The Injuries Checklist” by K.M. Allan

That made me wonder what other resources for writing about injuries there are. I found this one by Angela Ackerman: “Want to Show Your Character’s Pain? Here’s Everything You Need to Know.” What a great resource!

Here’s another one: “Writing about Pain: Describing Major & Mortal Injuries” by Becca Puglisi.

And one last entry: “Writing Injuries: The Art of Appropriate Scaling” by Shonna White.

Injury Resources

My online go to is the Mayo Clinic. You can search “Diseases and Conditions.” I might also use WebMD. Of course, I browse for specific injuries as well. Here’s one for black eyes from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. In addition, I ask friends who are nurses or talk to those who have experienced what I want to describe.

portions of two pages of a novel at an angel
Posted in Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing, Tools

Changing from .doc to .docx

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

If you’re like me, you have old old manuscripts (finished or unfinished), that you want to revise. So old they are .doc files. Saving As a .docx is simple, but I found I had other issues to deal with in my YA novel.

Two spaces after periods. Easy fix, Find and Replace.

Tabs instead of indents. How I fixed it:

  • Use find (drop down on find, let’s you choose tab character) and replace with nothing. Of course, that means I have to go back into my header and add back in tabs that are needed.
  • Next, I Select All, and go to my ruler and change the indent. Yay, now when I add a new paragraph, it will indent automatically.

Ellipses. I used to use the Chicago Manual style with spaces between the periods. Somewhere along the line, I switched to AP style, no spaces…which means . . . looks funny to me. Again, I used Find and Replace to make them consistent.

Those changes made, I saved my file as a .docx.

BUT THEN THE SERIOUS CHANGES COME! (I’ve learned a lot since I wrote the manuscript I recently opened.)

Eliminate distancing. Also known as filtering, the character sees/hears instead of the action just happening. I must edit those instances. If you’re not familiar with this concept, check out this post.

Establish setting better. Am I taking advantage of my setting to help with mood or tension? Can I slip in specific details about the place to help bring it more alive? Does the reader know where we are? Not so much, then I’d better revise some more. “Ground Me,” might be a helpful post for your revisions.

Move the characters. It’s so easy to have characters sitting around talking. But I can do better than that. Here’s a post that might be a helpful reminder for all of us.

Check sensory details.  Am I using a mix or relying on sight? Yes and no, but I can go further. Like deepening emotion or mood with a sense. Or adding what this particular character has a tendency to focus on. This article has some helpful suggestions. I would also add the sense of temperature—it doesn’t quite fit touch, but it’s something I definitely react to and my character can too.

Some writers may wait to fix these after a manuscript draft is done. But for me, it helps the world of my story feel more real and important while I work on it. It makes me want to move forward, instead of sending the whole .doc or .docx into the trash bin.

Getting to “The End.” Basically, I must keep writing, writing, writing. For further thoughts on that  topic (under my writing for adults name) read this: “11 Reasons Why You Can’t Write the End of the Story.”

photo of lion cub head pushed right up against snarling male lion's head
Posted in Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing

Close or Deep Point of View

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

As a reader I prefer close third person viewpoint or first person point of view. (Yeah, even in the face of a lion!) Both help me be invested in the main character. Since I know his thoughts, experience what he is experiencing, I can identify with him. I can salivate for what she is eating, feel cold because she is, be anxious about what she’s worried about. Either viewpoint done well helps me get “lost” in the world of the book.

This translates to my own writing. I express what my main character knows, hears, sees, feels, tastes, touches. My main character can’t know what someone else in the story is thinking or doing out of sight. She can guess. She can learn about it from another character. He can spy on another character. He can ask. But I don’t hop from one head to another. In my opinion this makes a story more realistic—after all, I can’t tell in real life what the people around me are thinking, or what they are doing when I’m not present.

I’m not alone in wanting to avoid head hopping.

In a post called “Headhopping, Authorial Intrusion, and Shocked Expressions,” I love what author Anne M. Marble said about her example text: “Either that scene had headhopping or Blythe is psychic. How else would she know what both Anthony and the waitress are thinking and experiencing?”

Author Marcy Kennedy agrees, “Head hopping damages your story because it makes the writing feel choppy. Readers constantly need to pause, however slightly, and figure out who they’re supposed to identify with.”

“…when the narrator switches from one character’s thoughts to another’s too quickly, it jars the reader and breaks the intimacy with the scene’s main character.” – author Joe Bunting.

“Keep the reader in one head, one heart, at a time.” – fiction editor Beth Hill. Ooh, I love that emphasis on heart. And it works whether you are writing in first person or close third person point of view.

I think writers sometimes have trouble staying in one head due to knowing what the other characters are thinking. Writing third person may make it easier to slip up. Author and teacher Jane Friedman has a good post to help: “6 Tips for Writing Deep Third-Person Point of View.”

Writing in first person may be easier, but there are also pitfalls, such as the overuse of “I.” Here’s a helpful post by author Sharon Short: “Six Secrets to Writing from the First Person Point of View.”

I will read books in omniscient point of view—especially if they change from scene to scene or chapter by chapter—but they aren’t my first choice. If you want to learn more about that pov, check out this article: “Omniscient Point of View: 10 Pros You Should Know About” by author and coach Karen Cioffi.

The word GRAMMAR under a magnifying glass
Posted in Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing, Tools

Got Grammar?

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

I was reading about a writer struggling with “was” and “were.” I’m guessing she wasn’t having trouble with simple singular and plural:
I was there.
He was there.
We were there.
They were there.

Of course, it gets tricky when we look at the exception of:
You were there.

These all would be the same when phrased as a question versus a statement. (Was I there?)

Perhaps her trouble was with the more complex versions, such as:
A flock of crows was on my lawn. (Ignore the “of crows,” notice the use of “a” before “flock” which implies singular.)
Crows were on my lawn. (If we cut flock.)

But it gets more complicated when we are speculating:
If I were rich, I’d buy you a car. (This is called the subjunctive mood.)

So where do we go when we need help with grammatical issues like this?

One of my go to sources is the book Errors in English and Ways to Correct Them by Harry Shaw. It has a great index to find what you need and is easy to understand. I remember catching one of my elementary age daughters simply reading sections of the book for fun.

But when my cat is in my lap and I can’t reach my bookshelf, I go to the Internet.

One of my favorite sites is Grammar Girl. Check out what Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, has to say about subjunctive verbs. She also has several books out: Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing and The Grammar Devotional: Daily Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl.

Colleges and universities often have writing help too. Here’s one I like from University of Minnesota.

This is an interesting post on how to improve your grammar: “Grammar Skills: 10 Tips to Improve” by Hannah Yang. She comments about using grammar checkers—just remember they are not 100% accurate.

I’ll end with a quote: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” – Dorothy Parker

What are your favorite grammar resources?

black and white photo of a smiling black man with a white child in overalls on a dock viewed from the back
Posted in Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing

Flashbacks

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Should you use flashbacks?

If you can do without, no.

A professional critique made me realize I shouldn’t use a flashback in an opening scene. Making the story chronological gives the reader a chance to be grounded in the present. Author Bharti Kirchner says, “Don’t use flashback immediately after the opening, when the story hasn’t yet gotten off the ground.”

Another writer pointed out where a flashback scene in my novel wasn’t necessary. I read the story without the flashback and it made sense, so I totally cut it. Maybe writing the flashback was necessary for me to know what the characters were doing, but it wasn’t necessary for my reader.

I love this quote by Nancy Kress: “Flashbacks offer many pitfalls. This is because even the best-written flashback carries a built-in disadvantage: It is, by definition, already over.” (emphasis mine.)

“Don’t let unnecessary flashbacks take over and rob the forward momentum from your story’s main conflict.” – Author K.M. Weiland

Screenwriter Jenna Milly says, “It’s better to see your character react to the information the writer wants to get out there in the here and now rather than have it explained in flashback.”

“Flashbacks inevitably go on too long and aren’t usually the best way to tell a story. A flashback is only effective if it moves the story forwards and it’s the only way to tell that part of the story.” – Author Joëlle Anthony

But how do I get the information from the past into my story without a flashback?

First off, during a life and death situation, you don’t. A main character hanging by their fingertips doesn’t have time or energy to spend on memories—they’re trying to figure out how to survive!

Something from the past can be shared in brief dialogue or thoughts. And these thoughts or words could be inspired by a found object, sensory experience, or current event. In other words, something reminds the character of the past. For example, certain scents take me back to a vacation spot in the redwoods when I was a child.

Through conflict. Jenna Milly says, “Or better yet, another character notices how upset your protagonist is when he or she picks up the ring and then pushes for answers. This is how you get conflict – in the here and now – into a scene and also give us the information that would come out in the flashback.”

Use summaries. “One way to keep readers engaged with summaries is to keep them short and mix them between scenes,” Kyla Bagnall says. “You can also use a summary sentence or two as a transition between scenes.”

Tips for using flashbacks:

In her article “The Only Reason Your Story Should Have Flashbacks,” K.M. Weilland shares two reasons to have flashbacks. First, “the character has an interesting backstory.” And second, “the backstory moves the plot.”

In her article “3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks,” Nancy Kress talks about using a flashback after a strong scene, orienting the reader in time and space, and using verb tense conventions to guide the reader in and out of the flashback.

Kayla Bagnall says, “A flashback should significantly alter either how the reader perceives the present, or how the character does.” This is from her article: “5 Ways to Handle the Passing of Time in Your Story.”