What Makes a Story Stick in Your Mind

Posted by Joanne Huspek

This is the million dollar question every writer asks herself as she sets about telling her story.

What do readers want most? Entertainment? Believable characters? A trip to a faraway land, another world, or another time? To experience a situation that would never happen to them in Real Life?

There are several books I’ve read over the course of many years that stick in my mind. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is one of them. It’s my go-to book when I’m on an emotional roller coaster. There is so much truth in this little book with its small, poetic chapters…for me, it’s the Bible of common sense and how to live.

I have been thinking about this as I finished Eden Springs by Laura Kasischke, one of my favorite novelists.

1lkasischke

Why am I still thinking about this book days after finishing it? It’s a small book (novella length), it’s a period book (Michigan in the early 1900’s), it’s a departure from her usual novels about broken people. I shouldn’t have even liked it.

I’ll tell you why I love this author, and others who write like her.

1. Her words are poetic without being purple. She does wonderful things with them. Not verbal gymnastics, an in-your-face exercise, but more like a beautiful, slow ballet. Of course, I’ve always been a sucker for an artful turn of words, which is why I love singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

2. Her characters are so believable, you can’t help but wonder what happened to them after you’ve reached “The End.” I still think of the survivors of In A Perfect World. Other talented authors like T. Greenwood and Michelle Richmond also populate their stories with very tangible characters.

3. I have the distinct impression (and I could be wrong, I’ve been known to be wrong about lots of stuff) that she writes from her heart. She’s not writing for an audience, but rather for herself, for her craft.

And now I am opening the floor. What about you? If you’re a reader, what makes a story stick in your mind? If you’re a writer, how can you conjure your words to achieve the same effect?

 

 

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Beyond Comfort: Writing (and Living) What You Don’t Know #2

Posted by Joanne Huspek

If you know me and/or follow me on Instagram, you would realize that I’m quite the foodie. (Instagram because I’m totally addicted to food porn. Most of my photos are food I’ve eaten, food I’ve made, or food I wish I could eat.) I especially love local dining, no matter where that might be, and regularly seek out holes-in-wall-restaurants that are gastronomical diamonds in the rough. I honestly do not get fast food (although I will falter and succumb to a Big Mac or KFC once a year), or chain food (ICK!). I mean, really…if you’re in San Francisco, why would you grab a coffee at McDonald’s or Starbucks when there are so many local java huts? Why would you eat at PeiWei when there are literally thousands of Asian restaurants within a 49 square mile radius?

I have taken my food snobbery to other, decidedly smaller venues. Everywhere you go, there are local restaurants who attempt to maintain cuisine that is true to the area.

Food is more than fuel or comfort; it’s art in its own special way. In order to experience the art, you may have to travel outside of your comfort zone. Way outside.

mipueblo

Which brings me to this cheese smothered “California” burrito which I half ate last night. (Daughter got the leftovers.)

I’ve lived in the Detroit area for nearly 30 years. Detroit has quite the Mexican community. A Mexican Town, even. I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO THIS AREA UNTIL LAST NIGHT, when I suggested we go to Mi Pueblo (technically Southwest, not Mexican Town) for dinner.

Why not?

Well, for one thing, this area of Detroit is not one of the best. It’s industrial. It’s gritty. It’s DEE-TROIT. Buildings are covered in graffiti, every third house is burned out – in other words, it’s soooo not suburban Royal Oak.

It’s also far from the main drag and a freeway entrance, making it scary for my husband.

But I (and the daughter) was craving a super burrito something fierce. Something genuine, or a reasonable facsimile of it.

Okay, so the “California” burrito pictured above was not a real San Francisco Mission burrito, but it was close enough. The rest of the meal was tasty. Mi Pueblo makes their own corn tortillas. The margaritas were decent. Our waitress was excellent, quick, friendly, helpful.

Now, what does this dinner have to do with writing?

As I mention in this post, sometimes as a writer, we must go to places (physical or psychically) where we are not familiar. Sometimes we want to take this trip; but other times we are pushed into it.

Either way, if you don’t take that leap of faith, you will never know.

Good artists and good chefs will push the envelope. They’re not afraid to try something new.

The best food snobs will eat just about anything – once.

The best writers keep their minds wide open to new possibilities, whether they jump or are pushed off that cliff.

🙂

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Forced Inspiration

Posted by Joanne Huspek

eyeroll

This is a photo of me attempting an eye roll. I’m no good at it anymore.

You’ve heard all the writing talking heads.

There is one school of thought: You’re a writer, you write. You write every day. You write for money. You write to sell. You don’t give anything away. Your sole purpose for writing (besides telling a good story) is to get an agent/contract/publishing house and make it into the big time.

There’s another school of thought: You write because you’re an artist. You might write to hone your craft, or when you are seized by whimsy. You write to create a world, perhaps beautiful, perhaps stark. You write because you enjoy it, not because it’s a job.

Either way, there must be a thread of inspiration. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes not so much.

I had a very uninspiring 2014. Too much drama, too many bad things visiting me all at once. When it rained, it poured, and poured again. My inspiration was frozen, like a freighter in Lake Michigan in mid-January. Stuck. It sucked.

When my kids were little, I started what I called Forced Family Fun Night. Usually, it was Friday or Saturday. We’d have our meal together, and then take turns picking out and watching a movie. Or we’d go to the symphony en masse. Or we’d go golfing or bowling. The point was to make an appointment to be with the family, the entire family, one day a week.

I can’t believe it, but my kids did this (albeit somewhat grudgingly) until they graduated from high school and flew off to the West Coast for college.

The point is this: sometimes you must force inspiration. Sometimes the Muse (or whatever you want to call it) doesn’t light on your shoulder  and sprinkle you with fairy dust. Sometimes you have to part a sea of self-doubt and beat the ideas out of your dusty, drafty head.

Sometimes you have to go to a place you don’t want to go to and experience something you’ve never done before. Step outside of your frozen comfort zone and off the cliff. The best inspiration comes from putting yourself into an uncomfortable situation.

And me? I’m going there. Right now. Write now.

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Write What You DON’T Know

Posted by Joanne Huspek

wordsWhile I was at the San Francisco Writers Conference in February, I sat in on a few workshops with my favorite author (well, definitely in the top three!), Michelle Richmond. Not only does she NOT outline, she doesn’t write in a linear fashion. (My kinda writer. An organized pantser.)

Another news flash: She also writes what she doesn’t know.

I know, I know. Writers are often told to embrace what they know and write about that. This was the first time a major author told us to consider writing what you don’t know.

I can see the value in this. First of all, if you are penning fiction that closely follows what happened in Real Life, you will often receive critiques. “This is unbelievable!” and then the resultant response, “But it really happened!” “But it’s not real!”

Good Lord.

Sometimes Real Life is too much. Real experiences sometimes are too graphic. A fictional story might be based in fact, but it doesn’t require an angst overload. However, your story does need enough conflict to keep the reader interested.

A little careful teasing helps here.

Also, if we are too familiar with a story, if we write more as a journalist instead of as an entertaining storyteller, we will focus too closely on the facts, to the exclusion of other possibilities with your story.

My novels are based in part on Real Life. The Virtual Moms are my fictional adaptation of the Beanie Mom online group I’ve belonged to for nearly 20 years. In some cases, a personality might be loosely based on one of my friends, but in other cases, I found I had to jazz up some of my characters. Give them recognizable quirks and personalities that are uniquely different from my real friends. I also had to come up with a plot that while it might have been plausible, it definitely did NOT happen to us.

The same holds true for Finding Cadence. People who know me saw my house as Cadence’s house; they knew which high-profile attorney I used as a muse for my antagonist; my son attended the San Francisco Conservatory; I grew up in Colorado. Most importantly, I’ve experienced that love and loss, the close but strained relationships between mother and child, spouses, and sisters.

But I had to change it up, and I did. I don’t write memoir; I write fiction, and most of the tale is just that – a story I concocted in my head.

Michelle Richmond writes what she doesn’t know as a way to get her to step outside herself and what she does know. She confessed that Golden State was written in this way. It’s an excellent idea, which requires the writer to research. Research equals found knowledge. The writer sees things from a different angle of the life prism. Not only does it expand the writer’s world, it expands the scope of writing.

After I get my current edit out of the way, I’m working (using the Paperclip Method) on the next story, which is now in bits and pieces. I think I’ll step way outside of my comfort zone and write about what I don’t know.

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Ratings and Reviews: Sharing the Love

Posted by Joanne Huspek

sharing the love

As an author, you would like to believe that the worlds and situations you have crafted have inspired or touched your readers. Yes, we long for validation. We’re the twirling ballerinas yelling “Look at me! Look at me!” But besides being shameful exhibitionists (and some of us waiting for the “Big Break”), most writers want to know that we did a good job with our stories.

In some ways, I don’t care if I’m liked or not. My first motivation for writing is to get my story out. My next is to write well. Once that’s completed, I can think about my readers. I’m honestly concerned about them. Did they laugh? Did they cry? Did they figure out the mystery? Did the characters seem real, as in multi-dimensional? Was the story believable? Were my readers entertained? Would they read more of my writing?

I used to write reviews, before I got caught up in my own writing. I might still if I’m really touched by a novel. I thought I wrote honest reviews, asking myself the very same questions I’ve listed above. The first rule of writing (or reading) a review is that it’s a subjective exercise. The reviewer’s opinion is not the end-all be-all. You shouldn’t base your art on what other people think. If you’re in the market to read, you shouldn’t be too swayed by the reviews of others. It’s nice to have a positive review or two (or three, like in the photo above for Virtually Yours), it’s better to have a constructive review, but there is a silver lining for bad reviews. Even bad publicity is publicity. Look at 50 Shades of Gray. It’s not my idea of a perfect read, but millions of people liked it. Even I bought the book, simply on the negative publicity.

If you’re a reader, you should provide feedback to the author. You don’t have to meet them and gush, or write them a letter and gush, although I’ve done both. Modern technology makes the ratings game so simple. I might not have the time to write a full review, but I do have time to rate books. (An aside: I used to only rate on sites like Amazon or Goodreads. I rarely read the actual comments, nor did I make any.) It takes less than a second to voice your opinion.

It takes the same amount of time to click one star as it does five. (I’m hungry. I’ll even take one star.)

It takes less than a second to like this blog post or to subscribe to it.

It takes less than a second to like my newly hatched Facebook page.

It takes less than a second to retweet an author post.

Even a brief nod is a nod.

Sharing the love: it’s what I do. Now go share the love with authors you know and admire.

 

 

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My Next Big Thing

Posted by Joanne Huspek

michelle richmond books

While at last month’s San Francisco Writers Conference, I sat in on a workshop given by Michelle Richmond (one of my favorite authors, if you haven’t read her, DO) on writing a novel by the “Paperclip Method.”

Okay, so at first I was star-struck. I am in the process of buying every book Michelle Richmond has ever written (along with Laura Kasischke and T. Greenwood – my bookshelves are bursting). These three women are, in my honest opinion, the greatest writers of these modern times. Their books are lyric, complicated, literary, sometimes gritty and real – basically they touch my heart in ways that can’t be explained with mere words. I find myself thinking about the characters long after I’ve read to the end.

Back to the workshop – I finally came out of my hero fog and began to listen. I had no  idea what the “Paperclip Method” was; I would have listened to Michelle Richmond reading from the phone book. I would have listened to her critique my first page to shreds. But after a few minutes of her talk, I realized that Michelle Richmond writes like I do. Talk about a hit-by-lightning moment!

Unlike most writers, Michelle Richmond does not write in a linear fashion (start on Page 1, end with “The End.”) She also doesn’t use outlines. Boom, and boom! Neither do I! And here I thought I was ADD, unable to start at the beginning, unable to know what I’m going to say in advance. *duh*

You might know what your next novel is. I kinda-sorta do. I’ve been working (lackadaisically) on a story about three women since last summer when I took some online classes with The WriterMama. Her 21 Moments class gives you a prompt each day to write about a “moment” in time. After six months, I had a notebook (hand written) filled with moments, most of which had to do with these three characters.

Do the math. If I was writing between 500 and 1000 words each day for 21 days each month for six months, I had a reserve of at least 63K words worth of story. All I had to do was to weave it together. Yeah, right. I tried to explain my story to my Editor for Life, but he was busy editing VY4ever. So the notebook has been fermenting since last July.

But listening to Michelle Richmond explain the Paperclip Method renewed my interest in the story. Her method involves writing in scenes or short pieces. (It helps to have a vague idea of the story line.) Once you have enough small pieces, you arrange them into stacks and use paperclips to keep the stacks separate. Scenes with specific characters might have their own stacks. Writing that might have to do with the theme of your novel. Maybe a parallel storyline that seems inconsequential but presents a hidden meaning for the main story in the end. Eventually, you study your stacks and piece your story together.

Like a quilt! Like one of my twisted pieces of jewelry! These start out with small pieces that are seemingly unrelated, but eventually make up a work of art.

After the dust settled from my trip, I went online and purchased Michelle Richmond’s workbooks, which are pictured above. They arrived this week. And now, I will retrieve my handwritten notebook and start paperclipping.

After all, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, or write a novel.

 

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It’s Two Weeks After the Writers Conference – Now What?

Posted by Joanne Huspek

02-19One short week ago, I was in San Francisco packing my bag for the return trip home. I’d spent a nice, long weekend at the San Francisco Writers Conference, and another week enjoying the City by the Bay (and my son).

I’m always amazed at the stuff I bring home: business cards from fellow writers or presenters; hand-outs galore; books (like I can keep from buying books when there’s an in-house mini-bookstore?); chatzkis like pens and bookmarks and bags and other things. After I’ve emptied my bag, done a quick load or two of laundry, and inventoried the souvenirs I purchased for my office staff, it’s time to sort through the bounty of information I’ve culled from the conference.

The wonderful thing about the San Francisco Writers Conference (besides getting to meet my favorite writer of all time, Michelle Richmond — swoon, tongue-tied, instant fever) is that everyone is so helpful, and the help extends way past February. In fact, I’d like to think none of these people want to be emailed 25 minutes after the last workshop. If they’re anything like me, they will want to decompress and let the whirlwind of the conference settle before tackling anything that resembles work.

In my case, since I didn’t pitch to any agents this year (working on edits, have nothing finished to pitch), I concentrated on gaining information. This year, it was filling my little pea-brain with everything Internet and social media.

I know I’m an old lady, but I do try to keep up. I learn by trial and error. I learn by watching others do it. I learn by reading up on the subject (of course, most of that flies right over my head).

Imagine my surprise when I learned I was approaching social media all wrong. The tweeting, the Facebook, the blog – all wrong! Savvy social media-ites have a system. My system is this: 5-10 minutes on Facebook, keep Twitter open while I work and occasionally scan it for interesting items, blog once a week (sometimes twice a month), and don’t push my book at all (well, maybe some half-hearted attempts).

This is not a good system.

I learned a few things:

Facebook is not my friend, nor is it much of a friend to any writer or business. I’d suspected that for some time. It’s undergoing some changes, there’s a shift in algorithms so that not everyone in your sphere of influence sees your posts. It’s not quite a needle in a haystack, but it’s getting there.

You can schedule tweets! No joke! Now, of course, I have to learn how to do this. I tried TweetDeck many years ago and didn’t get it. Fast forward to today, a new TweetDeck installed, and I still don’t get it. (I may have to email one of the new friends I made at the conference, the ones who actually have a clue.) Also, I learned that there are prime times for tweeting, where one gets the most bang for their buck, and that there’s a content tweet percentage – 20% personal, 80% tweets on other things. Who knew?

I should blog more regularly. And, I should always include a photograph with a blog post. I’ve done that at times, but now I’ll do it each post. Something about the fact that most Internet content is visual and people are drawn to photographs.

The one thing I have done right? Using Pinterest for writing. I’ve used it to sketch out story lines, to post flash (it’s got to be flash on the P – you are only allotted 500 characters), and as a pin board for my novels.

Today, I’m sorting through my business cards; tomorrow I will touch base with the presenters I was most impressed with and thank them for their information and say hello to the writers I’ve met.

A writers conference doesn’t end when you say goodbye. This is what makes going to them so valuable. The information that you garner, the friendships that you make, the electricity of ideas that jump start your own flagging ambition – all of this makes attending so worth the monetary expense.

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