Writing The Body Language Of Dominance In Deep Point Of View

April 6, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 4 Comments

There are people who have dominant personalities. We might call them an alpha. They don’t have to be abusive, arrogant, angry, or dismissive. In fact, when you combine the positive traits of dominant males with generosity, humility, and a few others, a compelling character can emerge.

Dominant Characters In Deep Point Of View

In deep point of view, you’re limited to just one or two (maybe 3) point of view characters. To make it even more challenging, the reader is limited to only what the POVC can see, know, feel, hear, etc. so it becomes really important to learn what dominant body language looks like to avoid telling and draw the reader into the story.

Remember, in deep point of view you (the writer) can only present evidence to the reader (judge), and they make decisions on character mood, emotion, attitude, etc. So how do you do that? In your writer’s toolbox, you’ll have your own character’s posture and gestures, thoughts, physiology, and words. You also have how others respond and behave when with your point of view character (their posture, facial expressions, words, etc.) Your alpha character doesn’t have to put people down, be a jerk or abusive to show the reader they’re in control.

“In the dim light, he saw a woman flat against the wall, pinned there even though the man before her wasn’t touching her. He was an inch away from her face…” The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman

This book isn’t in deep point of view, but you see how the dominant body language is evident here in a negative light.

“‘Will you shut up, you stupid wom–‘ William Baker began, then took a sudden step backwards as Strike took a half-step forwards. Nobody said anything.” The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith

Power Poses

Amy Cuddy’s TedTalks videos explore power poses. I’ve spent some time just watching people in innocuous situations — waiting at a bus stop, at the theater, at a restaurant, etc. and these power poses are actually used unconsciously all the time. Do a search on an image site and it’s hard finding a male in a submissive pose.

A power pose is the body language of someone feeling powerful (in control, in authority) or victorious. You’ll often see athletes raise their arms up over their heads when they win. When you feel powerful, you’re more likely to feel uninhibited and adopt an open posture.

This often involves making yourself look bigger in some way:

arms raised up or spread wide
puffing out chests
keeping head up (like there’s a string attached at the ceiling to the top of the head)
putting feet up on a desk – lounging (though this really smacks of arrogance too)
hands on hips (think Wonder Woman)
standing upright or erect
chin up, chest out
legs spread apart
chests, crotches, necks exposed or on display (not in an indecent way)
elbows or knees spread wide
Foot or ankle resting on top of knee in a figure 4 position
looking down from a higher position or elevation
man-spreading, crowding the space of others

Submissive poses are the opposite. This body language seeks to make a person appear smaller and they adopt a posture that appears to protect their vulnerable bits – chests, hearts, necks, crotches, etc. Power and submission poses are practiced equally by men and women, though women are often culturally conditioned to strike submissive poses because men find these kinds of body language attractive.

Let’s look at a real-world example. At the Yalta Summit in 1945, a media photo was released of the three most-powerful men in the world at the time: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin.

Photo via Wiki Commons

This photo perhaps captures how each man feels about his place in the group or the outcome of the meetings. Churchill (left) is holding his hat in his lap covering his groin and appears to have his shoulders hunched. This is a submissive pose.

Roosevelt (center) isn’t covering either his neck, chest or crotch, but this isn’t a power pose. He’s confident but not feeling victorious or in control. Stalin (far right) with his open display of chest, crotch and neck is striking a power pose. See how Stalin is spreading his elbows and knees wide. He’s not slouched but has a very rigid posture. He feels he’s in a position of power or is celebrating a victory perhaps.

Deferring To The Dominant Personality

In deep point of view, it’s important to avoid “telling” the reader the character feels in control. Rather, we want to show it. One way to show who is the dominant personality in the room is by how others act around them.

One key body language “tell” is that everyone pauses and listens when the dominant personality is speaking. Those who aren’t feeling dominant (in control, victorious, etc) will unconsciously mimic the dominant person’s responses and posture. They’ll defer to that person when a question is asked.

Without the dominant personality, no one knows what to say. They are unwilling to meet anyone’s gaze. No one steps up. When a non-dominant personality exits a group, the conversation will continue and the circle will close in the gap like they weren’t there. When a dominant personality leaves, the conversation stops and people stare at the floor and they begin to shift and move about. They don’t know what to say.

Alpha or dominant male body posture.

Dominant In Specific Spheres

Dominance can be location or people specific. Someone could be the dominant personality in their own home, their work, their community, or social group. Their dominance may overlap with many spheres, or it could be limited to just one. Let their posture and body language shift between the spheres to show the loss or lack of dominance. You can really play with this. How would a contest for dominance look in a civilized setting? How would a good alpha assert his authority in public?

Consider the person who is dominant, but relinquishes that power to someone for a time, for a reason. The dominant personality in a meeting may temporarily give up their power in order to hear from an expert for instance. How would that affect their posture or body language? How will the “expert” react to having that power taken away again?

How Does All This Work In Fiction?

We know how things work in real life so how strictly do we need to stick to it in fiction? Let your character’s alpha-ness be a source of the conflict they feel internally or create externally. Many times in fiction, we’re writing about the outliers, those who don’t fit the society mold so there’s lots of freedom to depart from what’s above as long as you’re consistent.

In the age of #metoo, despite the popularity of the 50 Shades books and movies, your alpha hero can (and should) respect women and understand consent, etc. He can be an alpha without needing to dominate those closest to him. Your alpha doesn’t have to be a Wolverine when they could be Professor X. Not many writers are interested in creating those types of characters–or at least, avoid celebrating them.

Been told you should learn Deep Point Of View? Had an editor or critique partner tell you to “go deeper” with the emotions in your fiction? Looking for a community of writers seeking to create emotional connections with readers? Check out the Free Resource Hub and then join the Going Deeper With Emotions In Fiction Facebook group.

7 Ways To Be A Confident Writer Even If You’re Not A Bestseller

April 4, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Artists of all stripes seem riddled with self-doubt. Part of that is because we so closely identify with our work that a rejection of our work is felt as a personal rejection. Learning to be a confident writer, not even all of the time but at least some of the time, requires a shift in how we think of ourselves and our work.

Your Confidence Doesn’t Have To Correlate With “Success”

Being confident in your ability to write doesn’t have to directly correlate to financial success. Confidence is easier when our skills are recognized by awards or achievements, but they don’t have to be. Define for yourself what financial success looks like. Do you need to make seven figures off your writing to find confidence?

Here’s the honest truth. When your personal confidence about your writing, your art, is defined by an outside circumstance or situation you have no control over — you’re fighting a losing battle. You can’t control if people will buy your book. You can write the best book possible, learn marketing, and do everything right. Does that feed your confidence or do you need to make it onto a bestseller list to be confident? Really think that through.

Our Work Is A Reflection Of The Artist But Our Work Doesn’t Define Us

Whether you’re writing, performing, painting, dancing, acting — we must bring so much of ourselves to the art that it can feel as though we are one with our art. We become our characters, we see things as they do and feel as they do — there’s no other way to be authentic. But when we step away from the laptop, we have to separate our self-worth from how others perceive the work we’ve created.

I grew up in a rural township with a small soccer league. At a certain age, I couldn’t play with the boys or afford to travel to a city to play in a girl’s league, so I became a referee. I refereed small children, teenagers, house league, competitive, and even men’s league games. I got yelled at a lot because it seems yelling at the ref is just what you do.

You can’t cry. You can’t stop the game and insist they apologize because their remark was unkind, unfair, or point out they don’t know the rules. And the next day when you run into that player or the parents at the post office, everyone would nod and smile and “how’s school” or “how’s work” and it was like the game never happened. It wasn’t personal.

Are you able to receive criticism about your work (whether it’s kind or unkind) without spiraling into a bucket of ice cream? Will it sting? Of course. The comment might linger, if there’s truth to it consider it, but you have to learn to shake it off and get back to writing.

Give yourself permission to produce something that stinks every once in a while. I had an editor send back a piece I’d written as not good enough. He shrugged it off. “Not everything can be top drawer. You wouldn’t be human if it was.” I reworked it and he loved it and published it. Stay humble.

Keep Learning

Part of what I love about writing is that I’ve never learned it all. There is always more to learn. Even with my deep point of view course, each time I run it I often include new info I’ve learned because I’m always striving to be better. Do I cringe when I read my early work? Yeah, sometimes. But it’s part of learning. Don’t ever become so arrogant that you stop reading craft books or blogs, or interviews with other authors. Read – everything. We’re all learning from one another and helping one another to get where we want to be. Be teachable. Having the confidence of knowing that if something isn’t working but you can figure it out is art-changing (instead of life-changing – get it bahahaha. K – so it wasn’t that funny.)

Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

This requires a bit of humility because you often can’t learn what your weaknesses or strengths are without soliciting feedback. And sometimes that feedback can sting. But instead of letting it crush you, learn from it. My personal weakness is description. I write very sparse. My beta readers are constantly telling me they can’t picture a setting or a character. That’s something I have to actively work on getting better at. Every writer is weak at something. Know what it is and work on it. Your weakness may shift or change the longer you write and the more you study to fix another weakness. This isn’t a one and done kind of career — it’s a learning arc with pain points along the way you have to work through.

Take Care Of Your Health

Confidence is directly tied to your personal health. If you are always working in the fringe hours of the day, chances are good that you’re tired. Take time to rest and refresh. Fiction is an imitation of real life, so make sure you go out and experience some life so you can write about it. Get out of the writing cave often and live. Be mindful of your back and neck, your elbows and wrists. It’s really hard to write well if you’re in pain and I have so much respect for those who write through injury or long-term illness.

Routine And Creativity

Your mileage with this advice may vary, but learn when your best creative hours are. Are you more alert and creative in the morning or evening? Guard your creative hours. Guard your creative mind space. Maybe that means you have to write in a coffee shop to get some peace from your kids, or you put a lock on your office door for a couple of hours a day. Maybe you turn off your phone or wifi and remove the temptation to surf the internet when you should be writing.

How does this play into confidence? I’ve found that when I do this (the steps above) I can get into my creative zone faster and maintain it longer. There’s no lost time staring at a screen. Also, my confidence rises because I know I get into that head space when I need to. There’s no writer’s block, there’s simply writing time. Experts say you only have about six hours of creative time in a day. Guard how you use those six hours.

Doubt Will Creep In

Even the most confident writers have seasons when doubt creeps in. That makes you human, don’t beat yourself up over it. Being a confident writer doesn’t mean you’re confident ALL THE TIME. My problem is that I know if I just set that manuscript aside for a bit, I’d know so much more than I do now. I hate closing the final page on a book because I’m never convinced it’s my best work. Is that perfectionism? Maybe. Whatever aspect of doubt that creeps in for you, push through it. Keep writing even if you’re convinced the work is terrible. First drafts are allowed to be terrible. No one publishes their first draft (or at least, they probably shouldn’t).

Your turn. How do you push the doubts and fears aside and keep writing anyway?

What If Your Antagonist Isn’t Human – What’s The Secret Sauce Then?

March 15, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

In my last post, I looked at the secret sauce you need to make antagonists menacing. Today I want to go beyond basics with non-human antagonists. In school, we all likely learned the different types of conflict in literature:

human vs human (very common, no examples needed)
human vs himself (Hamlet, The Tell-Tale Heart, A Walk To Remember)
human vs nature (Lost in the Barrens, The Perfect Storm)
human vs supernatural (anything with vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, zombies, etc.)
human vs animal (King Kong, Godzilla, Ghost and the Darkness)
human vs society (Hunger Games, Handmaid’s Tale)

Not everyone likes to be put in a box, so there are other types of antagonists who don’t fit in these categories like time (sometimes it’s a plot device, sometimes it’s an antagonist), memory (faulty, spotty, unreliable), phobias or anxieties (preventing a character from reaching his goal), situations (they only have 12 amps to bring Apollo 13 back to earth)–you get the idea.

How To Recognize An Antagonist

Sometimes things can get really muddled in story land and it’s hard to know exactly who or what is the main antagonist. Some stories include villains, themes, and obstacles that can look like an antagonist. Flip to the beginning of the story. What’s the inciting incident? Whatever problem is caused by the inciting incident is the main story problem and whatever is causing or in opposition to the main story problem is the antagonist – generally.

Obstacles vs Antagonists

Many of the types of conflict above can also be just an obstacle. A man who is marooned on a mountain in a snow storm is in conflict with nature and if his goal is survival, then that’s a valid man vs nature conflict. However, if the man’s goal is make it off the mountain to kill the person who put him there, then the mountain (nature) is simply an obstacle. Do you see the difference?

An antagonist actively works to prevent the protagonist from reaching their goal. Even in man vs nature stories, where the weather or environment is indifferent, it can take on its own personality and seem vindictive or angry and throw its worst at the protagonist so they can’t succeed. There’s no story if the man stranded on the mountain happens to land there when a chinook wind passes through, melts all the snow, and he just walks back to civilization. Instead, the mountain will throw an Alberta Clipper at the man and bury him chest-deep in snow for a week, have rotten ice give way and toss him down an embankment so he breaks an ankle, and and and – as though the mountain is actively preventing the man from leaving, sees him as an intruder.

The key point is what’s your protagonist’s goal? This will directly flow out of your story’s inciting incident which should be emotionally gripping. They want/need this goal so much they won’t turn back no matter what. If nature, or animals, or some character flaw is just an obstacle then you need to make sure you have a compelling antagonist too. Let’s say we have a story about a man on trial for drunk driving and killing a pedestrian. His alcoholism is certainly a flaw he needs to overcome, but if his story goal isn’t getting clean then it’s just an obstacle. Maybe his goal is convincing a jury he’s innocent, or his story goal is to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. These kinds of internal conflicts can be a compelling emotional arc, but it takes more than a man being an alcoholic for addiction to become the antagonist.

Personification

Now that you know you have a genuine antagonist that’s non-human, the difficulty becomes in showing that conflict. Many writers use personification–they give the nebulous antagonist a tangible shape or face. They use a proxy character. President Snow stands in for The Capitol in The Hunger Games. Often in stories where natural disasters are looming, there’s a radar that predicts the coming damage. There’s a live computer simulator they fight with trying to find a solution. There are naysayers, other antagonists and even villains working against the protagonist. Conflict is best when done face to face, so how can you give your non-human antagonist a face?

If your character is opposing a large faceless corporation, government, or societal will, have someone who defends what the protagonist is fighting against stand in for the antagonist. Readers want to put a name or a face to the “bad guy.” They want to know what the protagonist is fighting against. In The Lord of the Rings, the big bad antagonist is an evil force with no body or face, it’s just a lidless eye wreathed in flames, but it has a name–Sauron. The story was over when Frodo destroyed the ring and Sauron.

Fighting An Inner Character

Some characters have two sides to them. Think of werewolves or Jekyll and Hyde. These seem like human vs himself, but they’re really human vs human because their alter personalities act and think independently, sometimes without memory of what the other did. Even though the personalities inhabit one body, one is the protagonist and the other the antagonist. You write them as though they are two separate characters.

Ted Dekker’s novel Th3ee uses a character with split personalities, but you don’t know that until the end because you don’t get the antagonist’s point of view. Dekker’s construction of these two separate characters in one body who act and think independently is well done.

Create An External Force

In Nicholas Spark’s novel A Walk To Remember, Landon’s pride is the real antagonist but it’s shown through external forces. That conflict is shown through his distinct dissatisfaction with tangible things – his friends, his recreation choices, his volunteer work, Jamie’s father, his relationship with his father. It becomes a battle of wills with a visible result. Readers will feel cheated if at the end of the story it doesn’t feel like the protagonist has achieved anything.

Look at the movie Armageddon. What’s the main antagonist there? The surface story problem is the giant asteroid careening towards earth that will end all life as we know it. Harry Stamper agrees to take his team into space to destroy the asteroid and thereby save earth. However, the inciting incident is when Harry finds out his right-hand man AJ is sleeping with Grace (Harry’s daughter). Keeping Grace safe is Harry’s emotional goal and story problem so what stands in opposition to that (aside from the asteroid)? Pride. Harry’s and AJ’s pride serves as the antagonistic force for his emotional story problem. Harry agrees to destroy the asteroid to keep Grace safe (surface story problem and emotional story problem collide).

As Tolkien wrote in The Lord Of The Rings, there are some things time can’t heal — like PTSD. So even if the antagonistic force in your story isn’t one that can be overcome–like a recovered alcoholic can’t ever drink again–having a tangible external force to fight against that parallels or highlights the internal struggle still delivers a payoff (satisfying end) for readers.

3 Reasons Writing in Deep Point of View Should Not Bloat Your Word Count

January 17, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 3 Comments

Deep Point of View (POV) is a writing technique, a style choice, that’s become very popular among writers over the last five or ten years. The goal of Deep POV is to create an immersive experience for the reader where they’re experiencing the story along with the POV character(s). It’s like strapping a GoPro to your character or giving your reader a virtual reality headset while they’re reading. Deep POV is often THAT immersive.

Deep POV is a stylistic choice and it doesn’t suit every story. However, I have heard some scoff at this technique or point a stiff literary finger saying they won’t write in Deep POV because they don’t need to get all emotional for readers to connect with their characters or express fears that their word count will bloat.

I’ve written about why I love Deep POV here and here and here. I think it’s time to address some of these misunderstandings.

There Is No Telling In Deep POV – False!

Of all the point of views you can choose, Deep POV either in first person or third person, most heavily relies on showing and not telling. The power of Deep POV is in removing as much distance between the reader and the POV character as possible.

However, it’s unrealistic to think you can or should eradicate telling. Sometimes you need to summarize. A character simply walks to the door, drives to work, or flies across the world. Strictly speaking this does violate Deep POV, but I don’t know any author who writes in Deep POV who doesn’t use telling from time to time simply to move the story ahead where it could get bogged down with unnecessary description. Over describing the action or dwelling on internal dialogue for too long is just lazy writing.

Further, telling or using a more distant POV strategically for effect is a great tool. Pulling back into a more distant POV can create a feeling of time flying past, emotional or mental disconnect from what’s going on, an out of body emotional trauma, etc. Where writers using a distant POV will switch to a limited or close POV to pull a reader in emotionally, pulling back when the norm is a very limited POV can have a reader leaning in as well.

Deep POV Is Just A Bunch Of Navel Gazing – False!

Navel gazing is when a character spends so much time on lengthy or unimportant self-reflection and internal dialogue that the pace is slowed to a snail’s crawl. Whether you’re writing in Deep POV or not, navel gazing will have readers reaching for a book mark. Deep POV often does rely heavily on internal dialogue, but navel gazing is just lazy. It’s the workaround for doing the hard work of actually providing the evidence or proof to the reader of how a character feels. Often, the navel gazing is the workaround to avoid author intrusion but the effect is the same.

Deep POV Will Bloat The Word Count – False!

Deep POV can increase your word count, but not learning to write tight is a much bigger problem. Just like any other POV, you need to be economical with your words. Every word needs to move the story forward, you have to be THAT ruthless about your word choices. If a word can pull double duty, go ahead and do that. This is where connotation comes into play, as well as various literary devices such as pathetic fallacy, personification, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, alliteration, sibilance, and others.

There are a number of stylistic choices when writing in Deep POV that remove words such as speech tags, distance words, naming emotions, etc.

Distant POV: Jason watched the woman walk into the bar, her heels clicking on the hard linoleum. The lanky blond-from-a-box strode across the room towards the bar. Little early in the day for that much cleavage, he thought. He tipped his beer to his lips. But who was he to judge. (49 words)

Deep POV: Feminine heels clicked on the hard linoleum behind him. Jason swiveled in his seat. The lanky blond-from-a-box strode across the room towards the bar. Little early in the day for that much cleavage. He tipped his beer to his lips. But who was he to judge. (46 words)

I removed the word “watched” which adds distance for readers. I removed the words “he thought” because in Deep POV the internal dialogue is woven seamlessly into the narrative. I did reword the first two sentences, but used the same number of words to put into Deep POV rather than a more distant third POV. The differences between Deep POV and a more distant POV can be subtle, but the second example puts the reader in the story with the character rather than placed in the role of observer.

Do you have a question about Deep POV? Do you have a favorite novel written in Deep POV – what was it?

Editing In Layers Part 5: Layering Emotions

January 2, 2018 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 4 Comments

This is part 5 in a 6 part series on getting a manuscript ready for beta readers. This is a systematic process where you read through your work 5 times and each pass focus on a specific element. This makes the editing more efficient and consistent. In the end, you’ve got something so much better than what you first envisioned when you sat down and typed that first word in chapter one (or wherever you started).

You can’t skip ahead. There may be early layers that you work through in the planning stage, but confirming the structure underpinning these beginning layers is crucial. If those first layers aren’t solid, the rest is a house of cards. If you don’t have a first draft or are struggling to complete one, this post on fast drafting might help.

Let’s recap:

Prep Work: Goals
Layer 1: Plot
Layer 2: Scenes and Sequels (Pacing)
Layer 3: (Weakness) Plus Characterization
Layer 4: Emotions (you are here)
Layer 5: Consistency

The emotional punch is why readers pick up a book. They want to be entertained, to escape, to sigh and laugh and cry–this is where all that magic gets examined. In this layer, what you’re doing is making stylistic choices. So what I mean by that is there’s no right or wrong. You need to choose where to intensify the emotions, intensify the introspection, slow the pace and ask your characters some hard questions. I find it most helpful to get to a place where I won’t be interrupted for an afternoon or two and get down and dirty with this character.

This layer follows the layer on characterization intentionally, because you should know your character inside and out at this point. If you are working your way through this layer and realize you don’t have an answer to something, you might have a problem you haven’t spotted in a previous layer.

Be Objective…

It’s so important to be objective at each stage of this intense revision process. If you need to take a few days off between each layer go ahead and do that. Set yourself a specific time away where you’re going to work on other projects and then come back to it with fresh perspective.

I purchased Donald Maass’ book The Emotional Craft Of Fiction and basically work through the questions he has throughout the book. I sit with a notebook and force myself to answer two or three questions from each chapter.

Here’s an example of the kinds of questions he asks:

Select any moment in your story when your protagonist feels something strongly. Identify the feeling. Next, ask your protagonist, ‘What else are you feeling at this moment?’ Write that down, too. Then ask, ‘Okay, what else are you feeling now?’ Write that down. Now begin to work with that third, lower-layer emotion. What does it feel like to have this emotion? Is it good or bad to feel this way? Why? What would a better person feel instead? Justify this feeling – it’s the only possible thing to feel at this moment and here is why.

Here’s another:

Choose any small thing that happens somewhere in the middle of your manuscript. When you find it, write down your answers to the following questions: This small event is symbolic, but symbolic of what? What does it mean to your POV character personally? What meaning might anyone see if they bothered to look? How is your POV character’s understanding of himself changed in this moment even in a small way?

This won’t be easy. This is where you have to really pause. You have to simultaneously be objective and think through your story but also give yourself freedom to really FEEL your way through key scenes in your manuscript. I find this layer the most intense and physically draining.

Be Strategic…

Sorry to ruin the magic if you thought things like symbolism or emotional layering happened organically in the first draft. In this layer you are making stylistic choices, they must be intentional. You may find in this layer that there are layers of emotions to explore you hadn’t even thought of. You may find your character sharing things with you that you’d never thought to ask. Once you work through these questions, take those small snippets of emotional layering and skip to those places and edit accordingly. It might be as simple as changing a few words or as much as adding a paragraph. This layer shouldn’t change the plot or character arc but intensify the emotional arc.

When To Go Deep And When To Tell

In Layer 2 you examined and tweaked the pacing of your story. This layer deals more with the emotional pace. It’s OK to slow the action for a moment to add an emotional throat punch for readers. It’s OK to tell and use a shallow POV for specific effects such as showing your character is so overwhelmed they’ve stopped feeling anything at all. This is effective to show a character intentionally stepping away emotionally from a person or situation. That moment the character realizes their small place in a giant cog or puzzle, when they realize the consequences of failure or what they have to lose. Keep these emotional punches brief, a paragraph or two at the most.

You might find it effective in a moment of high tension to really back off the introspection and use a more wide angle lens to tell this part of the story. That could last for a mere sentence before you’re back to the action. You’re the director of a film and you can use showing and telling like a director uses his lens. They do with a brief shot of a actor’s face, a pause in the action for grief to flicker across their features–that’s what I’m talking about here.

How It Looks In Action…

Here are some questions I asked the protagonists in the novel I most recently edited to give you an idea of how I used the questions in the book as a jumping off point to intensify the emotional punch of the story. The character’s answers as I recorded them are in parenthesis:

Where are you most concerned about how others view you? What are you most afraid of? (*Points to a scene.* Will they still follow me? Will they think I’m a day late and a penny short?) What does that feel like? (Shame – they’ve been doing their duty and giving their lives for something I chose to ignore.) BOOM!
How would a braver person act in this situation? How would a more reckless person respond to this injustice? (He needs to DO something for the sake of those girls. Stop blaming others for his inaction. Stop hiding behind indecision.) What do you want to say to him? What are you afraid to say? (I need to stand up for her no matter what it costs me right now.) BOOM!
What’s something small that happens that’s symbolic of something much bigger? (When we take a moment to bandage each other up after the big fight.) What’s it symbolic of? What’s really being said without words? (It’s symbolic of forgiveness and responsibility. It means acceptance, a truce, humility.) How did that change you? (I set aside my first impressions and gave him the freedom to show me who he really is. Who he wants to be.) What did he teach you? (That the scars we have aren’t failures but show we survived what should have taken us down. That setting aside my first impressions scares me because if he’s not what I thought he was he might be someone I could love.)
What’s the worst thing that happens to you? The most traumatic, damaging, not-sure-you’ll-survive event? (This – points to scene at the 75% mark.) What else are you feeling? (Angry at myself because I couldn’t stop it.) What else? (Powerless because I couldn’t fight.) What else? (Unseen and unheard again. Worthless, not worth searching for.) That’s shame – what primary emotions are fueling that shame? (Fear, sadness, failure, embarrassment, regret, self-blame…) BOOM!
When did you learn something that surprised you? That made you stop and rethink something you’d thought to be true about yourself? (Here – points to a scene.) What were you feeling? (Anxious – new place, wanted to impress him — wanted him to be proud of me.) What are you afraid of? (That he’ll second guess his decision to marry me.) What do you want right now that would help you feel less anxious? (Be more in control. Desperate for control.) Is that what you’re really feeling or is that a cover up for something? What is seeking control helping you ignore? (I really want to feel safe. I’ve confused control with security.) BOOM!

It’s important to understand the difference between primary and secondary emotions, or emotions and feelings if that’s easier to understand. For the rest of this week, you can get my Writing Emotions In Layers 5-day E-course for free here.

How are you doing so far with these editing layers? I’d love to address any questions you might have in a future blog post. Send me an email or post the question below!

How To Shut Out Writer’s Block So You Can Fast Draft!

November 8, 2017 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 4 Comments

Fast Drafting is a concept I first heard about from author Candace Havens. I have never taken her workshops, but I gleaned the concept from a handful of blog posts and ran with it. Jami Gold summarizes this writing technique: “Fast drafting entails getting the framework of our stories down as fast as possible—without worrying what that draft looks like.” (Read Jami’s post here.)

I have always been a S L O W writer and a dedicated pantser, but I was frustrated with the relentless editing pantsing requires. It was always one step forward two steps back. I was getting nowhere. So, I tried fast drafting. WOW! Totally changed things. In order to fast draft, I needed a skeletal outline and everything has fallen into place for me.

My preference now is to disappear for a weekend and pound out 20,000 – 25,000 words in 2.5 days. So, fast drafting is just that. You don’t stop and edit what you wrote the day before. You don’t stop to create a timeline or do research or check a thesaurus. You just write.

Isn’t this really what NanoWriMo is? Fast drafting? I mean, to make a word count of 50,000 words in a month you have to write 1,667 words a day. Most professional writers are setting themselves 2500 word counts per day, but for a month you can get kind of the idea of what it takes to write full time.

But what if you get stuck?

You’ve committed to doing NaNo, you’ve signed up and joined a camp/tribe for the encouragement and accountability. You started well…

And now you have this dedicated time to sit and stare at a blinking cursor. :/

Four Tips To Overcome Writer’s Block

When I find myself staring at a blank screen, it’s often the result of one of three main problems. I may only be struggling with one or two or all three at any given time.

Fear

What if this sucks? What if no one wants to read it? What if this entire idea is stupid? What if I embarass myself or my family with this? Fear creeps in through a variety of lies, and when the writing gets hard it’s easier to believe the lies and blame writer’s block than admit you’re scared and push through it.

I can only share how I push through this. First, acknowledge that the first draft is just for you. No one else gets to see the first draft. It might be terrible, but it’s a skeleton. It’s not supposed to be pretty or eloquent. A first draft has a purpose and it’s to get the bones of the story down. Second, when it comes to writing (unless you’re outting someone or admitting to a crime, plagiarizing — something of that nature) the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. You’re at the keyboard pounding out the story where dozens of others only SAY they want to write and never have the chutzpah to actually do it. Give yourself credit.

Third, often in my experience, two-thirds of fear is simple perfectionism. Admit that you’re not perfect. Say it out loud in front of a mirror if you have to. Your story will never be perfect either. You do your best and ship, and promise to make the next project better. AND YOU MOVE ON. This doesn’t mean you don’t get beta readers, pay for editors and proof readers and all that jazz, you create the most professional product you can, and you move on.

Lack Of Planning

Yes, this dedicated pantser is admitting that a lack of planning is a problem. Using a visual planner has completely changed my writing! I took the visual planner offered as a free PDF (from Writing Helping Writers) and tweaked it a bit (I incorporated different language here and there, added some teaching from James Scott Bell) and then created a blank version I can print off and write on. As long as I can jot a line in each of these boxes, I can fast draft like a beaver through aspen.

I found that a good part of the time I sit staring at a screen it’s because I don’t know where the story needs to go. This helps that quite a lot.

Procrastination

Ooooh – does this hit home for you too? Writing is hard. It requires that you dig deep into emotions you’d rather not dredge up. It requires going to places the story dictates even if it makes you uncomfortable sometimes. It requires stepping back from the story and being objective about aspects that you really really love and desperately want to keep but need to go. It means showing your work to people and getting feedback — even harsh feedback. It might mean starting over or rewriting portions.

Get Moving

This is pretty big for me. Sometimes I just need to change rooms or locations and that helps jog the creativity. Sometimes just moving for a minute helps. I’ll put on a load of laundry or wash a sink-full of dishes. I also try and do some kind of exercise every day – whether it’s a long walk, weight training — whatever.

So, I hope the tips that help me might help unstick you too! Remember, head down – dive deep!

What helps you get your creativity moving again?