Everything I need to know as a writer, I learned from Buffy

My husband and I have been indulging recently in last year’s Christmas present… the full series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but the show is brilliant. Joss Whedon is a freakin’ genius. It is my fervent belief that if every writer watched Buffy, the quality of books would vastly increase. Here’s what I learned.:

1. Witty irreverent dialogue makes characters interesting. Even the unlikable ones.
Principal Snyder is not a character you should like. He constantly causes problems for our heroine. It would be easy to cast this character as a throw away. Just a boring voice of authority. Instead, Whedon has given him some of the best lines, making him worth watching instead of a snoozefest.
Principal Snyder: That’s the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.

2. Sidekicks are almost as valuable as the protagonist.

Where would the Scooby Gang be without Willow, Giles and Zander? These characters are all essential parts of story. They add meaningful support as well as comic relief. Often sidekicks are relegated to very surface personalities. It’s easy to fall into the stereotype trap. The fat best friend, the nerd, the snotty cheerleader.. you name it and it’s been done. They don’t grow. So take it farther, make the audience care and give your sidekicks depth. Think of the growth Willow had throughout the series.

3. Angel was the original Edward from Twilight

And Joss Whedon did it so much better. Edward comes off as too good to be true. He has no flaws. It’s obnoxious. And unrealistic. Angel is awesome because he has issues. He’s not perfect, we don’t always like him; but in the end, we all root for him anyway. Have you ever had a relationship that was all sunshine and roses? Where the only problems between the two of you could be worked out through a little DTR (define the relationship). Didn’t think so. Buys make you cry. Love makes you cry.And sometimes… true love doesn’t conquer all.

4. Sometimes life sucks.

Throughout the series, Buffy goes through hell. How often do we read books where the main character is never in any real peril. Nothing bad really happens to them. Buffy got the crap beat out of her on a weekly basis. She doesn’t often get what she wants, but she does what is needed. Don’t be afraid to hurt your hero. If there is no true peril, the story isn’t interesting. And if it’s obvious that the hero will come out all peachy keen… why would we keep turning the page?

There are so many more lessons, but I think I’ll leave it on just one final thought. Fun. In every Joss Whedon project I have ever seen, it is clear that he has fun. Look at Buffy, Firefly, Avengers… they do well and have cult followings because he has fun with his writing. When the writer has fun, the audience can’t help but join in.

So until next week, live by my personal author tagline — Having fun on the page

How Do You Get Published?

This is one of super obnoxious chicken and the egg type questions. In an effort to get a book published, authors often run into the wall of platform and previous works.
Agents and publishers want to know that you have an audience. That people like your work. That you actually already know how to write. You know, the stuff you put in that all important Bio part of the query letter.

In other words to get published, you have to already be published.

There’s always the slush pile. You can get picked out of inbox sitting on an editor or agents desk. It happened to me. This is one of those lightning striking kind of things though. Right place, right time, bottle ready to catch that lightning.

But there is another way grasshoppers. Build up your credentials. Enter Contests, start a super popular blog (I clearly do not have the machanics down on this one yet), submit short stories and essays to magazines, find places on the web looking for content writers.

Today I’m going to plug the first option: Contests. One in particular.
Mormon Mommy Writers blog is having a contest. We are looking for personal essays, short stories, poems, haiku, limmericks (just kidding), but you get the idea. The subject pertains to the title of our blog. Mormons, Mommies, and Writers. Write about one or all. You don’t even have to be a Mormon or a Mommy to enter. Just a writer. Winners and honorable mentions will be published in an anthology.
Mormon Mommy Writers

So enter hopeful writers. What do you have to lose. Nothing. What do you have to gain. A publication credit. Something to put on that bio section.

Good luck! For more contest info use the above link. Submissions must be received by July 31. And yes, I am one of the judges.

Tut, Tut, looks like rain

One of the writer’s in my critique group posed a question the other day. She was having trouble with character dialogue.All of her characters sound the same. She said, If it’s going to rain, wouldn’t the character just say that. “It’s going to rain. Or it’s raining”. No matter who they were.

The answer of course is…bzzzz… wrong. If every character had the same way of phrasing something, there would be no character at all. Here are a few examples.

“Tut, Tut, looks like rain”- Winnie-the -Pooh

“The nicest thing about rain is that it always stops. Eventually.” – Eeyore

“There’s a storm blowin’ up – a whopper, to speak in the vernacular of the peasantry” Professor Marvel, Wizard of OZ

“My breasts can always tell when its going to rain” Karen on Mean Girls

You get my drift. Characters are interesting and memorable because they have interesting and memorable things to say. A person is 3 dimensional, with a past and personality that colors their word choice.

Here’s an exercise. Your character needs to say they’re hungry.

Pooh would say “I’ve got a rumbly in my tumbly.”

How would a colonist from space say it?

A Farmer?

An 11 yr old?

Have fun and be creative!!

Y is for You

The question I get asked the most by aspiring writers is this, There are a million books about (mourning, weight loss, parenting, etc). I’m just a nobody. What can I bring that’s any different?

My answer is always the same… you.

So What if you’re not a celebrity? You have something that nobody else has: your story, your voice, and your life experience. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Yes, there have been lots of books about losing a loved one. But there have been no books about losing your loved one.
That doesn’t just apply to non-fiction. How many times have we read boy meets girl, or girl meets vampire? What sells books is your unique narrative voice. What do you have to say and how can you say it differently from everyone else?

As a writing exercise, my teacher had us all go outside and look at the road. Then he had us go inside and write a paragraph about the road. As you can imagine, the six of us, though we all looked at the same road, had remarkably different things to say about it. One of my favorites said it looked like a meeting place for lost souls.

Point is, you bring something to the table that is awesome and unique and deserves to be written. So don’t try to make your book like any other that’s been written before. Don’t model it after a best seller.
Model it after you.
Tell your story.

W is for Writing… duh

I love writing. It’s cheaper than therapy and if you do it right, you can actually make money. Still working on the last part.

Biggest thing I’ve learned about writing? If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right. When I reread through chapters I’ve written recently, I can totally tell when I was having a fun and when I was forcing the scene to come out. If I had to guess, the reader probably can too.

When you write, you share a piece of yourself on the page. So thank you to all of the authors that I love that change my life. Thank you for sharing with me. From now on I will read your work and wonder exactly what piece of you I’m getting. The part where you’re hashing out your high school issues, or the little moments of parenthood that make you want to take your kid back to the OBGYN.

My favorite thing you share, your first love, re-envisioned, so that it happens the way it was supposed to.

S is for Success

So What is Success? What does it look like? When do you know you have it?

These are all questions that I’ve struggled with (ok still struggling).
Whatever I did, someone was better. Half of my friends went to Ivy League schools and the other half skipped school and became actors, writers, etc. And who was I? A stay at home mom. Big freakin whoop.
I didn’t have a big important 9-5 corporate job. Hilary Rosen would accuse me of “… never having worked a day” in my life.

Well this past year I’ve learned how to look at success a little differently. I even have a whole chapter about it in my book, Finished being Fat: An accidental adventure in losing weight and learning to finish. (coming out in January 2013, 🙂 thank you for asking ) As darn near every woman can tell you, motherhood is the hardest and lowest salaried job on the planet. First you have to grow a human being, which is pretty impressive considering I can’t even get my veggies to grow. You are responsible to teach your kids right from wrong, clean up sick, feed them healthy stuff, feed them crap when they won’t eat the healthy stuff, get them to school in semi clean clothes, make sure when they’re teenagers that they keep going to school, and the list goes on and on. Motherhood is definitely not 9-5, it’s 9-life.

I’ve decided that if my kids are still alive at the end of the day, I’m a success. It doesn’t matter if they’re the cutest dressed kids on the block, or the lead in the school play. As long as they are growing and improving as little people, then I must be doing something right.

Now for the hard part, applying what I’ve learned to writing. At first, my only goal was to finish a book. Once I did that the next logical step was to get it published. Okay, did that. Now I’m told that if I want my book to be a “success” it’s up to me to market the heck out of it. So I’m working my butt off, doing all the things my publisher has asked me to do: work on building an author’s platform, blog, gather facebook friends, tweet stuff, get endorsements.

I’ve started having nightmares. I’m over analyzing everything I do. Do enough people “like” me? Do I have enough followers? How many people are reading my blogs? Once again, whatever I’m doing, it feels like it’s not enough. I feel like a failure compared to everyone else.

Stop. Reboot. Go back to my original question. What is success? Is it being on the New York Times Best-sellers list? Is it have 5000 Facebook friends and hundreds of likes per post? Is it getting on a daytime talk show? If I did all these things then could I finally call myself a “success”?

Those things are all nice and fabulous, but I think success is something a little deeper. Just like in motherhood, I think success is changing one life for the better. Even if it’s your own. If your story, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, has touched someone… congratulations- you are a successful writer. So What if you self publish, or have a small indie publisher. Doesn’t matter.You have made a difference. Something you created has made the world a little brighter.

If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is.

G is for Writing Guru Caleb Warnock

Welcome back everyone. If you haven’t already, make sure to read Part 1, G is for Gardening with Caleb Warnock. I’m still here with Caleb Warnock. I’ve been attending his writing classes locally for six months, since mid-October 2011, and I can honestly say that if I hadn’t, I would not have been picked up for publication. My writing would still be falling under the category of long lost word files. Caleb doesn’t believe in sugar coating, except on his chocolate. But his tell-it-like-it-is attitude is something that, for me at least, promotes growth once the dead weight is burned away.

Betsy: So Caleb, if you wouldn’t mind, give our online audience a quick breakdown of your writing credentials. As in why the heck should we listen to you, aside for the whole best-selling author bit?

Caleb: Well you can check out my blog at CalebWarnock.blogspot.com for my full curriculum vitae and see a full list of credentials. But here’s a few highlights. I’ve won over 20 awards for my writing, including the David O McKay Essay Contest. I’ve been nationally published for the past 13 years, including publication in The Writer magazine. As you’ve mentioned, I currently have a bestselling book and 7 more book contracts — two of those co-authoring with you, Betsy. I’ve taught at UVU, and U of U, and I’ve owned my own writing school at WritingInDepth.com for the past 13 years as well.

Betsy: Haha. Ok ok, we’ll trust you. What the biggest difference you see in newbie authors writings as opposed to experienced authors?

Caleb: Hmm, I was having a conversation just the other day about this actually. I see a huge difference in the writers that write for fun and the writers that write to put food on the table. I belong to the latter group. I tell people I’m a retired farmer. I grew up digging ditches on a farm and retired at 19. Writing is what I love to do, and I’ve learned that when you’re forced to produce or starve, the writing improves dramatically. It has to be good to sell. There is a difference between being a writer and simply wanting to be a writer because you get excited to hang out with authors and talk about writing.

Betsy: What’s the biggest hurdle for an unpublished writer to overcome?

Caleb: Fear of failure. Giving in to all the voices, both in your head and not. Giving in to the discouragement because you didn’t get picked up by an agent on your first try. People don’t often realize that it takes blood, sweat, and tears. Most authors don’t just plunk down a story and wham, you’re a bestseller. It’s like being a concert pianist. There may be a virtuoso once in a blue moon, but most musicians have to practice and hone their craft for years and years before they even consider playing to sold out crowds. Being a bestselling author is the equivalent to selling out Carnegie Hall. You have to work for it.

Betsy: What advice would you give to someone who has five partial manuscripts in their drawer and dreams of becoming an author, but is afraid of rejection. (This was me).

Caleb: Go to a writing class with a teacher who will tell you the truth, and not just tell you what you want to hear. If your story is collapsing, help is out there. I had a teacher at BYU, and when she died, her obituary said she had three manuscripts in her drawers. And she had never been published. If that happened to me, I would be so mad I would come from the grave. Don’t let anyone write that in your obituary. Go find some help.

Betsy: In a previous post, I mentioned that a friend has nicknamed me the Voice Doctor. Well, I would have to nickname you the Plot Doctor. Everyone comes to you because their stories have collapsed in the middle. Why does that happen, what’s the diagnosis?

Caleb: Because no one has ever taught them how to structure a story, fiction or nonfiction. People think writing is creative, organic…art. To not plan out your story would be akin to picking up a brush, putting it in some paint, then putting it directly on the canvas– with no idea of what you’re going to paint. That’s the fastest way to ruin a canvas and a story. Artists sketch and plan. Writers plan and plot. You have to know where your story is going before you put pen to paper. I teach people the bones of plotting and structuring stories.

Betsy: You have taught a weekly writing class for writers of all skill levels for the past four years. But not everybody lives in a place so easily accessible to a mentor such as yourself. How can someone in the sticks find their own Guru. (hint hint…shameless plug).

Caleb: Well, I have online writing workshops for $50 a month. If people are interested they can email me at calebwarnock@yahoo.com. I’ve been teaching those online workshops for 13 years, and those classes got bigger after Becca Fitzpatrick, author of the national bestseller Hush, Hush was a student and thanked me in the acknowledgements of her fantastic book. The class has also helped published authors like yourself, Nebula award winner Eric James Stone, and many more. Just this year, I put all of my writing workshop lessons on Kindle and Nook. There are eleven booklets in all, part of my What Every Writer Should Know series. Each is $9.99, which far cheaper than you can get them through me, mostly because that’s as much as Amazon would let me charge. I think is a tremendous value, but I’m biased. The lessons cover just about everything. Marketing, Query Letters, PlotShop, Narrative Voice, and more. I think the first two lessons anyone should pick up are PlotShop and Creating Narrative Voice. These can save your stories.

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Thank you to all my readers from both Mormon Mommy Writers and this blog for stopping by. And thank you to Caleb Warnock for taking a few minutes out of his insanely busy schedule to sit down and chat with me. Below I will list the places once again where you can find Caleb and his books. Also please feel free to leave comments. Even if they’re about chickens.

The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers

The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast: Breads, Pancakes, Waffles, Cinnamon Rolls and Muffins

What Every Writer Should Know Series

calebwarnock.blogspot.com

E is for Exercise

Ok, so exercise is not one of my favorite things per se. But I sure love the benefits. Exercise has not only whittled away 75 pounds of chunk, but it’s helped balance my brain chemistry making the antidepressants I’ve been on for the last 15 years unnecessary. My other blog, Finished Being Fat, is devoted to tips and tricks I’ve learned and am still learning.

Exercise is also necessary for a writer’s soul too. I know I break out in a sweat doing all these blog posts. Or plotting my main character’s trials and tensions. Exercise in any form helps us to grow. To reach beyond our current capabilities.

Here’s one of my favorite writing exercises. Pick 10 people and write one sentence describing what makes them odd, unique, or interesting. After your done, you should have a sentence that would make someone want to know more about that person.

Example: My friend Amy developed a fear of water after falling in the toilet at age 5.

What’s your example?