Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is a two week email series full of worksheets to help you DIY your MFA, so you can get the “knowledge without the college.” You’ll learn more about how to write with focus, read with purpose, and build your community. You’ll also receive Writer Fuel, our newsletter full of words of wisdom and resources to help you keep the momentum going in your writing. And you’ll be the first to hear about other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! You can sign up with your email at diymfa.com/join.

In this episode I discuss:

• Why it’s important not just to build something, but build the right thing.
• How failure plays into innovation, and why we should accept it rather than avoid it.
• How originality is about the execution of the idea, rather than the idea itself.
• Why it’s crucial to embrace the concept of “good enough.”

Link to Episode 476

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If you liked this episode…

Head over to Apple or Spotify and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 476: Lesson 1 – Jump First, Build After appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for March is Voice and Narration, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Patricia Leavy and Lori discuss:

• The neuroscience behind reader engagement.
• How her sociology background influences the way she develops characters.
• Exploring the beauty of writing by muscle memory as opposed to convention.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Patricia Leavy

Patricia Leavy, PhD, is an award-winning, best-selling author. She was formerly Associate Professor of Sociology, Chairperson of Sociology & Criminology, and Founding Director of Gender Studies at Stonehill College. She has published more than forty books; her work has been translated into many languages, and she has received more than forty book honors. She has also received career awards from the New England Sociological Association, the American Creativity Association, the American Educational Research Association, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and the National Art Education Association. In 2018, she was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame and SUNY-New Paltz established the “Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice.”

You can find her on her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Hollyland

What happens when a seemingly ordinary woman with a passion for the arts falls in love with a Hollywood star known for his bachelor status and quick temper with the paparazzi? Something extraordinary.

Dee Schwartz is a writer and arts researcher. Ryder Field is a famous actor descended from Hollywood royalty. On the night they meet outside a bar, their connection is palpable. Ryder’s mother—legendary actress Rebecca Field, half of Hollywood’s golden couple when she died—was kidnapped and murdered by a crazed fan in a shocking event that forever tarnished Tinseltown. Dee’s mother, too, died when she was young. Bonded by this loss, the two embark on a love story that explores their search for magic—or “gold dust”—in their lives. Everything changes, however, when Dee mysteriously disappears after an awards ceremony. Is history repeating itself? Can there truly be a happily ever after in Hollywood?

Set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles, Hollyland is a poignant novel that moves fluidly between romance, humor, suspense, and joy.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link where, if you choose to purchase via the link, DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 455

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 455: The Magic and Science of Writing – Interview with Patricia Leavy appeared first on DIY MFA.

In simplest terms, dread is a constant, certain feeling that something bad is going to happen. It can be an abstract, ill-defined sort of bad, or it can be something concrete and very real, but in both cases, the exact timetable for when this bad thing will show up is yet to be determined.

It’s intangible, this sort of fear. It lives inside the psyche and taps into our feelings of unease, our sense of foreboding.  Readers stay in a constant state of unsettling expectancy that won’t go away until the bad thing is finally revealed and confronted.

A great example of dread in fiction can be found in one of my favorite Stephen King novels, Misery. Bestselling romance novelist, Paul, has been in a serious car accident and is bed-bound, trapped by his superfan, Annie, who pulled him from the wreckage.

From the start, it’s apparent that there is something… not quite right about Annie. She’s erratic and totally obsessed with the main character of Paul’s novels, Misery Chastain—who Paul has unfortunately killed off in his latest manuscript. What lengths will Annie go to to force Paul to rewrite his latest novel to her liking?

As Annie grows more and more unstable, the readers’s dread builds. It’s obvious from the start of the book that Annie is never going to let Paul go, that much is guaranteed by the story set up itself, but exactly what Annie is going to do to Paul while he’s trapped with her is unclear, though we know that whatever it is will be horrific. How can he possibly survive this situation. given his weakened physical state? Readers will keep reading chapter after chapter to find out.

Most successful horror writers are masters at infusing dread within the pages of their stories, but how exactly do they do it? I believe there are four key tools to building dread that they implement that if you do too, will elevate your fiction from merely interesting to unputdownable.

Choose First or Close Third Point of View

Dread is all about interiority because it is a danger your character is perceiving even before they have substantial evidence to prove it’s real. The more readers are inside your character’s head being privy to their in-the-moment thoughts, the easier it will be to convey their anxiety. 

Edgar Allan Poe uses this tool throughout his story, The Tell-Tale Heart. The main character is telling the story in first person, trying to convince the reader and himself that he is not mad when there is plenty of evidence from the start to the contrary. His accounting of his victim’s filmy vulture eye in the darkness as he visits him in his bedchamber night after night before he kills him is unsettling and repulsive—so much so that on some level the reader comes to dread it too.

In your own fiction, make sure to have your character’s thoughts feel oppressive, weighing them down so they are loath to face whatever it is that’s coming for them, but also forced to because there is no way to survive—either physically or mentally—unless they do.

Select a Remote or Closed Setting

The more hemmed in your character is, the more heightened the dread will be because there is no escape except through confronting the thing they fear: a monster, death itself, another person. Whatever their foe, there is no way out but through. 

I used this tool in my latest young adult horror novel, Flight 171. The entire story takes place on a plane being held captive by a supernatural creature in need of a new body to possess. One of the passengers must be that new body, but which one? The teens on the plane have the duration of the flight to figure this out. They can’t avoid making a decision no matter how much they want to because they are literally trapped.

Use Unsettling, Repetitive Details

The subtle and not-so-subtle things you have your character notice or that are present in a scene can add up to a large amount of dread. Having someone’s smile reveal a rotting tooth for example, immediately conjures a feeling of revulsion when your reader pictures it. 

In The Tell-Tale Heart, the two most prominent examples of this are the old man’s vulture-like eye and the sound of his beating heart, which the main character continues to hear even after he is dead, so that it drives him to confess his crime because the dread he feels over it is just too great.

Delay the Big Reveal

Whatever the big bad is that’s coming for your character, seed in hints of it from the beginning that don’t have a payoff right away. Have you ever noticed that when it comes to horror, the longer we go before we see the monster, the more scared we are? This is because the anticipation of that monster, what our imagination conjures it could be, is scariest. Once we see it fully, our terror dissipates quickly. 

In the movie, Alien, it takes a long time before Ripley and her crew get a clear look at the actual alien and even then, it’s most often shown in quick glimpses. Imagine seeing your closet door swing open on its own so that the gaping darkness inside is visible. Suddenly, something inside that darkness claws at the door frame before skittering into your bedroom and under the bed. This scenario is horrifying because it taps into a communal fear we all have of unknown danger lurking in the dark, and it allows us to imagine our own unique version of what that danger might actually be.

When it comes to darker fiction, the use of dread isn’t just necessary, it’s key. Horror, mystery, and thriller readers want to be unsettled. They come to our stories expecting we will deliver this. In order to do that, you have to become a master at lighting a fire of anxiety and foreboding inside readers’s psyches that doesn’t let up, but instead builds and builds until whatever darkness threatening your characters is found and confronted.

Five Novels to Study

Now that you know what dread is and how authors create it, it’s time to study! Here’s a list of five of my favorite dread-filled novels to start with.

1. It by Stephen King
2. Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
3. Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
4. Come Closer by Sara Gran
5. The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

Amy Christine Parker is the critically acclaimed author of the thrillers Gated, Astray, Smash & Grab, and Flight 171.

You can find her on her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

The post Four Powerful Tools for Creating Dread in Your Fiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Adult readers want topics that produce a strong emotive response. They want to know they are not alone in their struggles. They want to relate to characters who share their own painful journeys. Self-help books and memoirs often tackle these issues, but fiction readers also want stories that give voice to tough topics.

In particular, women’s fiction deals with themes that are part of our national dialogue. My debut novel A Week of Warm Weather explores sensitive subjects such as abandonment, addiction, and both physical and emotional abuse. Having experienced these issues—either myself or with people close to me—it was important to me to portray these experiences with empathy and authenticity for my readers.

Here are five tips for writing about sensitive subjects in fiction:

1. Don’t Sugarcoat

Sure, fiction is supposed to be entertaining, but unless you write fantasy or sci-fi, it should also be real. When writing about tough topics, don’t be afraid to be raw and put it all out there. Sensitive subjects resonate with readers when they are written realistically, not glossed over.

In A Week of Warm Weather, my protagonist Tessa was abandoned by her biological mother as a child. This affects her profoundly and informs every subsequent choice and behavior. Because she’s internalized her feelings and not worked through them, she feels inadequate and damaged. She is a people-pleaser to the point that she sacrifices her own emotional well-being. 

Most of all, she is terrified of further rejection and abandonment. This causes her to put up with abuse from her husband that will have readers screaming out loud at her. To sugarcoat such a trauma would be to minimize the severity of it and may alienate readers who have endured a similar experience.

Writing authentically about difficult topics results in a powerful novel that resonates with readers.

2. Draw on Your Own Experiences Whenever Possible

As the author, if you’ve experienced the sensitive issue(s) yourself—as I have—understand that you will be exposing a part of yourself. Don’t be afraid of that—it’s a good thing. 

My own experience gave life to Tessa’s emotions and actions. As an adult, I’ve worked through my trauma; therefore, I was able to draw on not only my memories of going through it as a child, but also how it affected all my later thoughts and actions.

I channeled that energy into creating Tessa. Though it was hard to dredge up painful memories, it was cathartic to embark on the journey through my character. 

My hope is that, while no two people who experience trauma react in exactly the same way, my book’s themes will resonate with readers and initiate a dialogue that helps them find ways to work through their own difficulties. 

Writing about a subject that matters to me helped me to treat it with the weight it deserves.

3. Do Your Research/Ask the Pros

When writing about sensitive subjects that you have not personally experienced, speak to people who have. They will ensure you portray characters authentically including how they talk, dress, and behave. 

Also, recruit beta readers who are members of the marginalized community or have lived through the experiences in your book. There is no better authority to determine if any part of your writing comes across as not believable. They will help you avoid stereotypes or “token characters” that add nothing to the story’s arc and are a sure way to alienate readers.

For my book, though I have personal experience with abandonment, addiction, and abuse, I sought the expertise of others with similar experiences and also professionals who have helped people through them. 

I attended AA and Al-Anon meetings where I spoke to people (after disclosing that I was writing a book) whose lives have been affected, and some destroyed, by addiction. I spoke to counselors who know firsthand the behaviors and responses of real people dealing with all forms of abuse. 

Even if you have experience with the difficult topics in your writing, research them thoroughly.

4. Have a Purpose

Even in fiction, readers want to know why you are writing about a topic, especially a sensitive one. It’s offensive to readers if a delicate subject is “thrown in” or does not advance the story. 

If you set out to write about a sensitive topic, commit to it. Learn everything you can about the topic so you can give it the authenticity it deserves. Don’t incorporate “buzz words” or “hot topics” to attempt to show you are in tune with what’s going on in the world today. 

Readers are smart. They will know immediately you are seeking attention, not deeply exploring an important subject to begin a dialogue or enact change. Don’t try to tackle multiple issues or characters that “tick a box.” This will result in your readers tossing aside your book in favor of one that deeply explores a topic that matters to them.

After reading my book, I hope people who have gone through similar experiences—either personally or relating to someone they know—will realize that secrets make us sick. Only through acknowledgement and dialogue can change occur. 

Decades ago, people did not openly discuss how it felt to be an adult who was abandoned by a parent. They were ashamed to admit they or someone they love was an addict. They hid abuse, especially emotional abuse, for fear of not being believed. 

Today, largely due to the impact of social media as a platform for discussion and debate, these issues are part of our nation’s ongoing dialogue. Make sure readers know your writing is part of that important conversation.

5. Bring Closure

In the end, we are all hopeful that better days are ahead. Try to give readers hope that they can overcome difficulties. That’s not to say you should patronize readers or pretend that every problem has an easy—or any—solution. 

When I write women’s fiction, I am mindful that although I am not writing a traditional self-help book, my readers are real people with real challenges. They are the sum total of their experiences, and within the pages of my book, they are likely to see a bit of themselves or someone they know. They want to be part of a community of people with shared experiences, even if those people are characters in a novel.

My book explores the effects of abandonment with the hope that readers know it is possible to break the cycle of generational trauma. It explores addiction with the hope that readers recognize and break free from codependent behaviors. It explores abuse with the hope that readers will shed their denial and shame. Mostly, I wrote my book to inspire readers to start a dialogue that helps everyone going through challenges.

If you have an idea for a novel that contains sensitive subjects or controversial issues, these tips should help your writing to resonate with readers. Hopefully by using these suggestions, you will compose a meaningful story that will affirm to readers that others share their struggles. 

Though my protagonist’s problems are not all solved by the end of the book, she finds her voice. Shouldn’t that be our wish for our readers?

Tell us in the comments: What tips are you going to use the next time you write about sensitive subjects?

Born and raised in a large family in eastern Pennsylvania, Lee Bukowski has always had an interest in reading, writing, and storytelling. She holds a BA in English and Secondary Education from Millersville University and taught seventh grade English and writing for fifteen years. In 2017, she obtained an MFA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Currently, she teaches writing at the college level and freelances as a proofreader and editor. When she’s not teaching or writing, she loves reading and traveling, especially visiting her grown daughters in Boston and Fort Lauderdale. A Week of Warm Weather is her debut novel. Lee lives with her husband in Reading, PA.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The post #5onFri: Five Tips on Writing about Sensitive Subjects in Fiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Voice: A Working Definition

You’ve probably heard some iteration of “you know it [voice] when you see it.” The same section of our brain, I suspect, that recognizes whether it’s Kathleen Turner or Michael Caine narrating a segment on TV lights up when we identify lines of prose as belonging either to Hemingway, Jamaica Kincaid, Junot Díaz, or Raymond Carver.

I also suspect that voice is more complex than what I can cover in this article, but I’d like to start at least with the idea that voice is the combined effect of a writer’s style, word choice, repetition, the rhythm and musicality of their language, sentence and paragraph structure, and other textual details.

Kinds of Voice

When we talk about voice, we tend to be referring to authorial voice, the unique way a writer has of expressing her story in writing. It is her unique style or tone that we can generally trace across her various works. Take for example, when a friend mentions that Vonnegut is her favorite author because, she says, “I just love his voice.”

I like the comparison (which people more sophisticated than I) have made of authorial voice as a kind of literary fingerprint. Distinct, with enough signature “you-ness” in it that a reader could pick you out of a crowd.

But a given piece usually includes a narrative voice and distinct character voice(s) as well. We use all three voices to weave our story. They can serve as key elements of world-building (using vocabulary and conventions related to formality in order to evoke a specific historic time period or fantastical realm, for example), create a sense of tension and/or suspense, and of course, be vehicles for characterization.

Character Voice

The way people write and speak, the words they use, and the way those words are strung together are influenced by their history and experiences, culture, their families and friends, and all facets of the greater world in which they live. What we say (or choose not to) and how we do that convey emotion, subtleties of meaning, and our relationships with other people.

And unlike in the real world, in fiction we are privy to the immediate, deepest thoughts of others when we read internal monologue. We can understand what motivates characters, what they desire and fear, and what the world is like from their point of view.

For me, strong, compelling voices are what turn fictional characters into believable ones I care about. Voice peels characters off the page and plops them, walking, talking, dreaming, and mistake-making into the “real” world of your book as it exists in your reader’s mind.

Whenever I struggle with a character’s voice, it helps me to reexamine my understanding of who that character is. Not only what they want, hope for, desire, fear, and are willing to risk, but also what their formative years were like. How does all that they’ve experienced manifest in their actions as well as their voice? Are they self-aware? Quiet? Impulsive? Naive? Do they behave or speak differently based on who is in the room?

Narrative Voice and Story

The narrative voice of a work depends on the POV from which it is told. Your narrator, as visible, active, or invisible as you might make them, is still another character to consider in your story.

Selecting the right POV and nailing the voice of my narrator tends to be one of the larger hurdles in my writing and rewriting process. When a story isn’t clicking into place the right way, I find it helpful to ask myself some of the following questions.

First, who is the person telling the story in this draft? And is that the person best positioned to tell it? The ideal narrator, for me, is not just who can recount what happens but support what the story is really about.

How does the narrator’s voice blend, harmonize, or contrast with those of other characters? Is it wry? Honest? Self-effacing? Sympathetic? Humorous? Does it build tension as a result of sentence structure? Is it plain spoken with a kind of austere, brutal beauty? What effect does that then have on your reader? 

And, how do these voices, particularly that of the narrator, the filter through which your reader experiences and interprets the events of the story, support or convey the theme of your work?

A Note about Your Authorial Voice

We’ve now reached the part of the article where sentimental music begins to play. I look at you, my eyes bright and shining with tears, and I say, “But, dear Writer…It’s been in you all along.” 

Some believe that voice can be taught, but I tend to think that you do, in fact, already have your own voice as a writer. It might be developing or buried just under the surface of a current writing style that is a close fit or an approximation of another author you think you should sound like, but it’s there.

If you read and write voraciously with a ferocious heart, chances are it has taken cues from your favorite books and the dazzling, heart-rending sentences (too numerous to count!) which you have ingested, your voice quickening unconsciously like a plant turning its face instinctively toward the sun. 

Chances are too that it will breathe with some of the same speech patterns used by your parents, your best friends, and people from the various neighborhoods in which you have lived, but it’s there. 

So, dear Writer fretting about your voice. I humbly believe you already have one. It’s been in you all along.

Can you refine and polish it, punch it up in places with even more signature “you-ness”? Yes. Write and rewrite. Tinker and play. Read, indiscriminately at times, and eavesdrop with an ear for prosody. Re-read your own words, aloud if it helps, as your rewrite. 

A Final Tip

Please remember, I offer these thoughts merely as a fellow sailor on, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s words, “the sea of story,” waving and signaling from the deck of a different boat. I am not the expert who dictates what your voice and work should look like, and my own thoughts and methods might change with time. Take what makes sense for you. Ignore the rest.

And Now, a Prompt

Write a scene in which two couples meet for dinner during a double date. Aim for 500 to 800 words. Then rewrite that scene as a bit of gossip, narrated by a different character.

For example, let’s say in your first attempt, written in third person limited, one of the couples lets an old argument spill over at the restaurant and sour the evening. 

In your rewrite (let’s try first-person POV this time), their waiter is catching up with a friend over the phone and begins the conversation by recounting the awkward double date he just witnessed.

Now reflect, has the point or theme of your story shifted? What does each version of the scene seem to be saying? Do you recognize any traits of your emerging authorial voice in both? How are the characters’ voices different based on who is telling the story?

Tell us in the comments: What did you learn about voice in this post?

The elder daughter of Korean-Canadian and Austrian immigrants, F.E. Choe currently lives in Columbia, South Carolina. When she is not at her desk trying to craft true and beautiful sentences or piecing together her latest short story, you will find her feeding the dog scraps under the table, reading, or training her backyard flock of hens to walk backwards. Follow her on Instagram @f.e.choe.

The post A Few, Humble Thoughts on Voice appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter, especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for June is Young Adult, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Scott Gates and I discuss:

• Truth in a first-person narrative, especially when the protagonist is unreliable.
• The traditions of travel literature and including Classical structures in modern literature.
• How to balance writing and the research rabbit hole so you can maintain your momentum.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Scott Gates

Scott Gates is the author of Hard Road South, published by Blue Ink Press. He is a magazine editor and a second-generation communicator for rural electric cooperatives. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Auburn University and a Master of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Scott grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and currently lives in North Carolina with his wife and three kids, where he enjoys a slower pace of life and reliable barbecue options. He and his brother share perspectives on Southern culture at incidentalist.com.

You can find him on his website or follow him on Facebook and Instagram. 

Gone, the Redeemer

Thomas Sparkman wasn’t looking for trouble. He never could have imagined being on a wanted poster, let alone becoming a notorious gold robber hunted in two states. But when Thomas sneaks off the Cuban front of the Spanish-American War with his sights set on returning to his pregnant wife in California, his path takes a series of unexpected turns. He’s joined on his journey by a mysterious mercenary, a runaway circus sideshow performer, and an Apache guide and her infant son.

As the group traverses the American West, they cross paths with rogues, loners, and hired guns—some searching for their own form of redemption, some working to stop him dead in his tracks. Thomas and his travel companions must stay two steps ahead of their pursuers, outwitting them at every turn, or Thomas may never see home again.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 414

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If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 414: The Travel Novel, the Unreliable Narrator, and Forgotten Slices of History – Interview with Scott Gates appeared first on DIY MFA.

Plus, as a writer, it’s pretty much your job to turn concepts into plots and an internal image or vision into a rich character or compelling narrative. This gives you a bit of a cheat code to tarot reading!

So let’s put this hidden skill you didn’t even know you had into action by using a custom tarot spread to develop the skeleton of a manuscript outline.

Tarot Cards for Storytellers 101

As a reminder, in Part 1, we learned that a tarot deck consists of 78 cards, each with its own meaning and symbolism. They’re often used for divination, but have many more uses, too! Including as a creative writing tool. You might use them to get quick inspiration when you’re feeling stuck, use mini spreads (aka a sequence of multiple cards in a row) to build a character, or research the meaning behind tarot cards to inspire a story or setting.

But you can also leverage complex spreads to get more specific and granular while plotting. Let’s take a look at a custom spread to see how the random fall of the cards can lead to creative ideas and interesting storylines.

Your DIVINE Spread

First, let’s review the spread I’ve designed just for you! This spread consists of six slots, each with its own purpose in building out your novel outline.

This spread uses six tarot cards, and is designed to help you determine the why, who, and what of your story. We’ll start with our why and who first, and with that taken care of, we’ll let the cards figure out what sort of chaos we’ll put them through in the beginning, middle, and end of their journey.

D – What does your protagonist desire? 

I – What is an important factor to your character’s identity? 

V – Who or what is the villain of the story? 

I – What is the inciting incident of this story? 

N – What causes the nadir, or the low point, for your protagonist? 

E – How does your protagonist change by the end? 

So let’s give our deck a little shuffle, and see what pops up! 

And in case you’re wondering, there’s no “right way” to shuffle tarot cards. It’s what feels right to you! I like to shuffle at least four times to really mix things up. If I’m feeling really crazy, I ask my cat to rub her head on my cards as my personal, fluffy muse.

I’ll be using The Star Child Tarot deck, which has stunning multimedia images and really reflects my own writing brand of mystical, contemporary fantasy. But you can use whatever tarot or oracle card deck you’d prefer.

Now let’s get divining.

DIVINE Plotting

Alright, the cards have been laid, and here’s what I got. Let’s pretend I’ll be using this spread to come up with the concept for my next contemporary fantasy novel.

Card 1: What does my protagonist desire?

Answer: Three of Cups.

The cupeth is fulleth! When I look at this card I get a sense of supreme, emotional and intuitive power. Waterfalls are running into cups, the moon is full, the sky is alight with stars and colorful galaxies. It all aligns directly to an ancient pyramid.

Translated to character desire? To me, it feels like an abundant, joyful life. My character wants to be happy, and surrounded by people that make her feel alive and aligned. Of course, we’re not going to make it easy for her. That wouldn’t be a fun novel at all.

Card 2: What is an important factor to my character’s identity?

Answer: Eight of Cups

A prettily dressed woman is surrounded by cups, looking out upon the beach as if waiting for her crew to show up.

My girl likes to party. She likes to be at the center of a crowd. She loves fashion and looking cute, and being told she’s cute. She is the consummate hostess. Perhaps she’s even built a brand around this? Maybe she’s an event planner. Whatever the case, she does not like to be alone, and has designed her life to avoid having to spend too much time navel-gazing.

Because she comes from a long line of psychics and mediums, and she’s seen how little indulging in that family trait has gotten them. She’s decided that being happy means being as normal as possible.

Card 3: Who or what is the villain of the story?

Answer: The Wheel of Fortune

The name of this card says it all for me.

Times they are a-changin’. I’m starting to get the feeling that my character is meant to be maturing out of her party-heavy twenty-something life as she enters her thirties, but has been very resistant to this maturation. Meanwhile, all her friends are getting married and having babies or moving to the suburbs, leaving her her least favorite thing: alone.

So the villain here is time itself, something that cannot be fought, only lived. And she’s been fighting the power of time and the messages hidden within it her entire life.

Card 4: What is the inciting incident of the story?

Answer: Page of Cups

The page of cups loosely holds a goblet. So immediately my head goes to “party.” Which is fitting!

I’m picturing this: it’s a work happy hour and my protagonist (let’s call her Miranda) has had a few too many glasses of Pinot Grigio. She drinks to drown out the visions she sometimes gets when she’s overstimulated. 

She’s at the point of being drunk where she thinks she is hilarious and bold, but really she’s embarrassing and stupid. She gets it on her mind to jump on the bar and show off her old dance team moves she learned in high school…and then she falls off. And then she gets kicked out of the bar in front of all her co-workers.

Miranda realizes that it’s time to grow up and learn how to control her powers. But where to even begin?

Card 5: What causes the nadir for your protagonist?

Answer: Akashic Records

The Akashic Records is an esoteric concept in which everything that has ever or will ever happen to us is recorded in a mystical book we can tap into via meditation and spiritual journeying.

This feels super out there. A moment in which Miranda is forced to reckon with her gift…or else. Perhaps she develops a new power that overwhelms her just when she thought she had a handle on her first one. And it overwhelms her to the point of passing out at work.

When Miranda comes to, she’s had a vision about the future of the company. Her boss, thinking Miranda is drunk on the job, fires her.

Card 6: How does your protagonist change by the end?

Answer: Five of Swords

A winged woman stands in the desert, hands outstretched. She is surrounded by swords, all at the ready but none in use. She is like a valkyrie, waiting for the call to battle.

Near the end of the story, Miranda finally convinces her boss that she wasn’t drunk. And that they need to listen to her or risk the company going under. She finally gets to use her clairvoyant power in public, and save the company and community she loves from certain ruin.

Miranda realizes that she’s been hiding from her real purpose her whole life. She’s finally ready to follow her destiny. Because she can’t be happy until she feels whole. And she can’t be whole until she embraces her powers and uses them for good.

Now It’s Your Turn

So there you have it: six cards, one story. We took Miranda from party girl to professional psychic…with a bit of tumult and heartbreak mixed in for good measure.

And now it’s your turn. Get your deck, give it a shuffle, and see what stories the tarot cards want YOU to tell.

Tell us in the comments: What kind of outline did your tarot cards create for your novel?

Ashley Christiano is a fantasy writer, experienced tarot reader, and professional astrologer. As The Novel Mystic, she combines the power of astrology, tarot, and creative writing to empower women, educate the Astro-curious, and inspire her own storytelling. 

You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter or Instagram to learn more or get your own reading.

The post Tarot Cards for Storytellers, Part 2: From Tarot Spread to Novel Outline appeared first on DIY MFA.

Through my own struggles with writing a novel, as well as my work with other writers, I’ve seen this firsthand. Cultivating the right mindset about writing a novel is just as critical to success as understanding the craft of it. 

Here are the five things about writing a novel that I wish I’d realized sooner.

1. Let yourself be a beginner at writing a novel.

When you first start writing a novel, you are a beginner, no matter how much writing you have done before. You will struggle with description, you will write flat characters, and you will agonize over making dialogue sound real. 

It’s even more frustrating if you’re an avid reader, and you know what good storytelling and good writing look like. You may think you’ll be able to easily replicate advanced skills in your story. 

What you’re experiencing is a gap between your taste and skills. Ira Glass explains: “All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years, you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.”

Writers give up in the early stages of the first draft because they don’t understand how their writing could be so bad—especially if they’ve been told before that they’re good at writing. But even if you’ve been good at writing other things, you’re a beginner at writing a novel. So try not to compare yourself to your favorite authors or expect that you should be more advanced. Give yourself the grace to be bad and the permission to practice your craft until it improves. 

2. Everyone has to learn how to write a novel.

Our tastes trip us up, but so does a belief in natural talent. There’s a pervasive idea that some writers are just born with it, that a whole and compelling story just flows out of them and onto the page. 

However, despite how easy some novelists make this endeavor look, no one is born knowing how to write a book. Yet, so many first-time novelists sit down with the hope that they are a natural talent, and that writing will be easy and storytelling will come effortlessly. If we don’t get our first draft perfect on the first try, we might believe it’s a sign that we don’t have the gift and we can’t do it. 

In reality, you have to learn. Even if you have plenty of experience writing articles and short stories, you still have to learn to write a novel. 

A novel’s conventions are not like any other piece of writing. A novel is also such a large-scale project that it requires a different approach. Learn about story structure and character development. Try out different planning methods and writing habits. Look at a novel as something you have to learn how to do. 

3. You don’t have to do it on your own.

Along with the genius myth, we also believe that writers do their work alone. And while the act of writing is generally solitary, working on a novel should involve outside input. We get so close to our own work that we can’t evaluate it objectively. Getting outside perspectives on your story will help you see the problems that you can’t identify on your own. And help abounds to get your writing and your story in the best possible shape. DIY MFA, writing groups, critique partners, coaches, editors, workshops, and more are all available to you.

You also don’t have to wait until you already have a draft to get help. Want to skip years of writing in circles, trying to figure out on your own how to raise the stakes of your novel or make your characters more believable? Take a class or work one-on-one with a book coach. 

Asking for help doesn’t mean that you’re not cut out to write; it’s just a more efficient way to learn and hone your craft. 

Getting help will better prepare you for traditional publishing as well given that the industry is more competitive than ever, and agents don’t have as much time as they once did to help promising writers develop their skills. As such, they’re less likely to take on a writer who’s not quite there yet. So before you query, you should take advantage of any opportunity you can to learn new skills, get feedback on your work, and make your draft the best it can be. 

4. Editing will take longer than drafting.

Many beginning writers think that the hard part of the process is completing the first draft; then all the story needs is a polish, and the book is ready to publish. They wind up discouraged when they either finish the draft and find it’s a mess, or they try to query a story that’s just not ready and get continually rejected.

Instead, go into your first draft with the mindset that your novel will be far from done when you type “the end.” In fact, in the case of your first novel, the editing process will likely take the bulk of your time. You can’t see the scope of your novel until you’ve completed a full draft because you discover so much about your story and your characters along the way. And then you can see what’s working and what isn’t. 

Ultimately, your first draft will need a massive story-level edit before line edits. Plan to spend significant time on that step of the process. 

5. Persistence is more important than talent or natural ability. 

Given the debunked myth about natural talent, the thing that separates successful writers from—well, writers who do not publish or do not finish—is persistence. 

It takes time to learn, to practice, to develop your skills, to revisit your story over and over to make it better, to work with others and apply their feedback. But writers who think that talent is all it takes will not realize they need to put in this effort; they will never see their skills improve because they give up when the work gets hard. 

I’ll admit that this happened to me on more than one draft. I felt like my terrible first drafts were a sign that I couldn’t write well, and I’d never get better. I just never got better because I kept quitting. 

So remember, your writing and storytelling skills can be improved, but only if you’re prepared to stick it out through all the tough times. 

With the right mindset, you can learn to look at those challenges as opportunities for growth, rather than warning signs that you’re doing it wrong. 

In fact, if you have the mindset that writing a novel takes continual learning and practice, and you show up to write consistently, you’re doing it right. 

Heather Campbell is a book coach who helps writers develop tools to overcome their perfectionism and mindset blocks so they can create lasting and effective writing habits to complete a novel. When she’s not immersed in fiction, she’s running in the fresh mountain air of Colorado or snuggling with her rescue dog, Chase. Find out more at www.thewriterremedy.com and follow her on Instagram!

The post #5onFri: Five Things I Wish I’d Known about Writing a Novel appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Susann Cokal. Susann is a moody historical novelist, a pop-culture essayist, book critic, magazine editor, and sometime professor of creative writing and modern literature. She lives in a creepy old farmhouse in Richmond, Virginia, with seven cats, a big dog, a spouse, and some peacocks that supposedly belong to a neighbor.

Susann’s first young adult novel, The Kingdom of Little Wounds, received several national awards, including a silver medal from the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award series. Her books for adults, Mirabilis and Breath and Bones, received some nice notice too. Her shorter work has been published in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, such as Electric Lit, Prairie Schooner, Writers Ask, and The New York Times Book Review.

Today we’ll be talking about her new novel, Mermaid Moon, which is out now and is about a mermaid who leaves the sea in search of her landish mother.

In this episode Susann and I discuss:

• How to craft a “mood” in your story.
• Using point of view to illustrate character and world-building. 
• What makes a prologue “work.”
• Why it’s so important to experiment as you write. 
• How exploring different possibilities can be a powerful writing tool. 

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Susann Cokal

Susann Cokal is a moody historical novelist, a pop-culture essayist, book critic, magazine editor, and sometime professor of creative writing and modern literature. She lives in a creepy old farmhouse in Richmond, Virginia, with seven cats, a big dog, a spouse, and some peacocks that supposedly belong to a neighbor.

Susann’s first young adult novel, The Kingdom of Little Wounds, received several national awards, including a silver medal from the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award series. Her books for adults, Mirabilis and Breath and Bones, received some nice notice too. Her shorter work has been published in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, such as Electric Lit, Prairie Schooner, Writers Ask, and The New York Times Book Review.

Her new novel, Mermaid Moon, is officially out as of March 3, 2020.

Mermaid Moon

An award-winning author tells of a mermaid who leaves the sea in search of her landish mother in a captivating tale spun with beautiful prose, lush descriptions, empathy, and keen wit.

Blood calls to blood; charm calls to charm.

It is the way of the world.

Come close and tell us your dreams.

Sanna is a mermaid – but she is only half seavish. The night of her birth, a sea-witch cast a spell that made Sanna’s people, including her landish mother, forget how and where she was born. Now Sanna is sixteen and an outsider in the seavish matriarchy, and she is determined to find her mother and learn who she is. She apprentices herself to the witch to learn the magic of making and unmaking, and with a new pair of legs and a quest to complete for her teacher, she follows a clue that leads her ashore on the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands. There, as her fellow mermaids wait in the sea, Sanna stumbles into a wall of white roses thirsty for blood, a hardscrabble people hungry for miracles, and a baroness who will do anything to live forever.

From the author of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book The Kingdom of Little Wounds comes a gorgeously told tale of belonging, sacrifice, fear, hope, and mortality.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 309

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 309: Experiments and Happy Accidents in Novel Writing – Interview with Susann Cokal appeared first on DIY MFA.

Thirteen years ago I was driving home with my beautiful new bride Becky on our way to, what would be our first home in Abilene, when I decided to mention the fact that I was going to change careers.

“I think I want to be a writer,” I said, only having departed from our honeymoon spot an hour earlier.

She nodded slowly, cautiously. “You’re still going to have a regular job though, right?”

I reassured her I had absolutely no intention of going the Bohemian path, casting away financial responsibility in the face of ‘the dream.’ But it was my earnest belief at twenty-two that if I worked harder than every other writer on the planet, I’d eventually find my way to the Best Seller List.

It took me ten years of writing five to six days every week, along with two dedicated mentors, an infinite amount of patience from my spouse, and a conversation with Joe R. Lansdale for me to publish my first short story. That story was gracefully picked up by a small publisher and can now be found in the Amazon store, though I’m not sure anywhere else.

Emboldened by the sale, I decided I had arrived. It was time for me to take the world by storm. I turned my full attention to the art of the short story. I took Ray Bradbury’s advice and started writing one, seven thousand word story every week. Stories that tailored to the submission needs of all the paying e-mags you’ll find on the Submission Grinder. I submitted to publisher after publisher with story after story.

Want Science Fiction? Here’s my Diesel Punk version of Mad Max killing the Three Little Pigs. Need a Weird Western? Do you have time to talk about this Lonesome Dove meets Vampire Hunter D situation I have going on? Begging for horror? Well, if you must ask, I do have a collection of stories revolving around a corrupted exorcist…

Swinging wildly out of the corner of my little success, I threw every haymaker I had at the publishing world. And I didn’t sell another story for over a year, when I sold my second short story to an anthology, a wonderful little Treasure hunter pulp situation a la Indiana Jones that came in at around five thousand words.

Twelve years in, at this pace, I knew I was never going to leave the kind of legacy I hoped to. I heard the voice of the inner-critic: “You’re wasting your life pouring over that computer each night, sacrificing time with your friends and family. All in the hope that one day you’ll be ‘good enough.’ Not happening, Chief.” My inner-critic, who is probably like yours, is a real jerk.

I decided that the short story work wasn’t cutting it, that if I was going to be who I wanted to be, I needed to start working on novels. I mentioned that to my friend Laird Barron, author of the forthcoming Blood Standard, on the phone one day. A moment of silence passed between the two of us.

“Settle in for a long campaign,” he said.

The way he said the words laid a veil of dread over my mind. After our conversation though, I thought about how far I’d come as a writer, all the tools I’d built, and the voice I am proud to say is uniquely mine. I went over to my desk in my study and on my Legal Pad, I wrote a title, just a title: The Massacre at Yellow Hill.

I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know where Yellow Hill was. I for sure didn’t know who was going to die when the killing began. But I could already feel a sense of sorrow for the people who lived in Yellow Hill. I felt a responsibility to tell the story of those metaphorical “little people” living in a dry, dusty town currently only existing as an idea in wet ink. I sat down that night and screwed my mind into a siege mentality.

As writers are wont to say, but it’s true, I started falling in love with the little town of Yellow Hill. Its quirks, its people, and especially its dark corners and secrets. What was more important, and interesting, is that I desperately wanted readers to love this place and the people inside it as much as I did. I wanted people to see the little war I was waging to tell the story of a West Texas widow, a post-Civil War freed slave turned occult bounty hunter, and just as importantly, the children in their lives. I wanted to know the promises they made, the ones they could keep and especially those they could not.

Four months later I had my first novel (just barely, coming in at 56k words). After two months in the can and four months of editing I was happy with the spoils wrought from the siege. A year later, after alpha readers and the harsh, wonderful red lines of my editor Rob Bass, the novel sold and will be published on March 22, 2018 via the wonderful people at Black Rose Writing.

All writing is a long campaign. Novels, short stories, flash fiction; all of it adds up. It’s a war authors wage because stories matter and so do the fictional, true voices that tell them. I believe that now more than ever after experiencing all the work, time and care that went into making this book. Now, I’m on book three, and can’t imagine doing it any other way.

If you’re an aspiring novelist, or really, a storyteller at heart, take Laird’s advice. Settle in for a long campaign. When you’re done falling in love and finish with the attritious work, be proud that the campaign is won. Then, for all our sakes, wage another one.

C.S. Humble is a novelist and short story writer who lives in Houston, Texas. His debut novel The Massacre at Yellow Hill is a Weird Western adventure available through Black Rose Writing, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Reach out and connect with him at his blog, facebook, or on twitter.

The post Using a Siege Mentality to Write That Book appeared first on DIY MFA.