Creating unique voices for multiple POV characters – and how to show their emotions

July 29, 2020 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

So excited to have Aiki Flinthart on the blog today. I’m recovering from knee surgery and Aiki generously stepped in for me and is sharing about creating unique characters. Aiki describes every pantser’s nightmare below, *grin* but don’t panic. You would go through all the same steps to pants your way through this, you’d just do it through a first draft and a lot of rewriting.

Be sure to check out Aiki’s book for writers (I’ve already ordered mine):

As authors, we all know that she who makes the reader cry, wins. If a reader connects strongly to your character, then they will react emotionally to the character’s conflicts.

But, for many genres, it’s not the external conflict the reader gets caught up in – it’s the internal conflict; the character’s feelings about what’s happening. That’s where the treasure lies.

So how do we ensure the reader cries when we want them to? Or laughs? Or gets angry?

By creating characters the reader identifies with in some way. Then showing how that character reacts, so the reader can easily imagine themselves in the story.

A Personal Challenge

A couple of years ago I wanted to improve my ability to write unique character voices, in close first person POV, with deep emotional connections for the readers.

Sounds good, huh?

Yep. Except that I like to make things hard for myself and chose to create a mosaic novel – a collection of intertwined short stories that all advance an overarching narrative.

But wait! It gets trickier.

Set in 1486 London, Blackbirds Sing consists of 24 short stories, each from a DIFFERENT woman’s POV. Each story is stand-alone, but also interlinked with the larger narrative (someone trying to kill Henry VII). And various POV characters pop in and out of each other’s stories for continuity.

One of my readers has called it the literary equivalent of a quadruple back somersault.

It certainly wasn’t easy.

And the hardest part was creating so many unique voices, unique backgrounds, and unique emotional reactions to conflicts. Twenty-four different characters that people cared about enough to cry over in just 4500-word short stories! Sheer madness.

Readers Bring Their Own Past Experiences To A Story

When the book came out, I sat back, biting my nails. Would it work?

Then I started getting message from readers. So many said they’d loved this character or that; cried at various points; stayed up all night reading.

You know what was most interesting?

Different readers cried over different characters.

I counted that as a win. It meant readers were bonding deeply with all the characters. They cared when terrible things happened to these women.

Here’s how it worked.

Planning Twenty-Four Unique Characters

To begin with, I ensured the overarching narrative, the novel’s theme, and the internal conflicts/character arcs for every POV character were all closely related. Then I made sure that each short story’s external conflict also revolved around the central, universal theme. (The sacrifices people make to protect their families, lives, livelihoods).

Next, I meticulously created the POV characters – resulting in a very large, complicated spreadsheet. (I’m sure there are better ways of doing that part!)

I started with their birth-personality (use whatever personality profiling system you like) then layered on backstory influences – traumas, culture, family life, physical and mental limitations/issues, mental health, wants, needs, occupation, etc etc.

Then I noted their dialogue and physical tics – the ways of speaking or moving that indicate to a reader which character is talking even if you’re not using dialogue tags. So every character had a unique way of speaking, favourite words they used, way of swearing – all of which reflected their upbringing, personality, and education.

And when they were under the influence of a strong emotion, their dialogue would change – perhaps become faster or choppy when they were angry; halting and hesitant when they were feeling vulnerable; sullen and monosyllabic when hurt; etc.

They also each had a unique stress-tell. A physical action to show the reader the character was upset or worried. Perhaps rubbing at their skirt, fiddling with hair, or twisting rosary beads etc.

Additionally, I worked out how they filtered the world – what they noticed around them. That’s usually based on either their occupation and hobbies/interests, or on their emotional state/priorities. A pessimistic work-a-holic girl who’s frightened and walking the streets alone at night will notice different things than a scatterbrained optimistic girl who’s partying on with a group of friends as she strolls home. The frightened girl will jump at noises and shadows that the party girl won’t even notice.

The spreadsheet noted each one of these traits for each of the 24 POV characters, so I could keep their reactions consistent.

Lastly, came 24 internet images – one for each woman – based on physical appearance and personality. If the character was 40-year-old dark haired woman with a happy-go-lucky optimist personality, I’d google ‘happy middle aged woman with dark hair’ until I found an image that suited. It helped to remind me of how she would most likely react to conflict, and how to describe her facial and body movements to reflect her emotions.

All of these things, when added in as little details to each scene, help immerse a reader into the character’s feelings without ever having to say, “Sarah felt frightened.”

Of course, not all characters need that level of creation information. But even listing personality, dialogue tics, and physical tics for a minion will help the reader to understand what each character is feeling, and to distinguish between various characters. Which, in turn, helps them connect with the one they love best.

Show Your Character’s Priorities – Don’t Get Distracted

Spend time creating a fully-fleshed human for your POV characters before you launch into writing the entire novel. Whether you use a spreadsheet or do some freewriting from that character’s POV, it doesn’t matter.

Just learn how each character thinks, reacts, swears, talks, moves etc. Then use that information to show the reader how the character feels about the conflict.

One more crucial thing: leave out the distractions – the details that don’t show us what’s important to the POV character.

Keep only what will make your reader understand or care more deeply about your POV character/s. Keep only what makes each character – each person – unique and fascinating. Keep only what will make us smile, or laugh, gasp, or cry.

What’s your process for creating unique character voices in a multiple POV story?

About Aiki:

Aiki Flinthart has 14 published speculative fiction novels, two collections of short fiction, two non-fiction author craft books, several short stories in anthologies and e-mags, a romance novel, and has edited several short story anthologies. She has been three times shortlisted in the Australian Aurealis Awards for Speculative Fiction, and a top-8 finalist in the USA Writers of the Future Competition. When not writing or running her business, she teaches workshops to authors, trains in martial arts, knife-throwing, archery, and lute-playing. Every once in a while she even sleeps. Find Aiki on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

www.aikiflinthart.com

5 Pro Tips On Writing Description In Deep Point Of View

December 31, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Woop! Let’s give 2019 a giant kick out the door and welcome in 2020 with a bang! Beginning January 1^st, I am launching 30 Days Of Deep POV on my Facebook page, where I’ll be creating a video a day based on my 30 most popular blog posts (including guest posts) on deep point of view (t. Don’t miss out! Join the fun on Facebook!

I am continuing the Deep POV FAQ series and today’s question is: how do I add more pertinent details without boring my readers?

I get asked this A LOT concerning writing in deep point of view. I’ve blogged about writing description here and here. Here and here. But it is hard to know what you should expand on or cut way back, so let’s get super practical right now. Because to you – ALL the details are important. So how do you know what to keep and what to get rid of?

How Much Does The Reader Need To Know NOW?

Some details are important for the reader to know – to understand the story, but resist the temptation to deliver all of it at once. Ask – how much does the reader need to know RIGHT NOW to understand what’s going on? My personal rule for backstory is to answer one question and leave the reader with two more. Drip. Drip. Drip. Same rule applies here with description. Scene by scene, drip-drip-drip, ask yourself what information the reader absolutely needs to know to understand what’s going on right now. Does the reader need to know the history of THAT coffee table RIGHT NOW, or does the reader just need to know that there’s an interesting coffee table that catches her eye because right now something is more important to the character?

It’s better to deliver information to the reader through dialogue than a narrative passage, it’s more fun to read and is less likely to slow the pace. Think of the Immortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. Clary knows nothing about the shadow world, about shadowhunters, so she’s always asking questions and needing things explained to her. Her questions deliver the information the reader needs to know to understand the story, but Clary couldn’t possibly know all the questions to ask in Chapter One. She has to keep moving forward and ask questions as they come up, on a need-to-know basis. That’s the best way to think of it. Keep the story moving ahead always.

For Those Who Love Flowery, Flowing, Descriptive Passages…

If this is you, probably you find that you have to edit out big sections of narrative (and it feels a bit like you’re gutting the heart of the story). First, you can’t fix something that isn’t written, so a pat on the back for getting the words down. That’s the first big hurdle.

With deep point of view, every bit of information given to the reader is filtered through the point of view character – not you, the writer. The goal of deep point of view, remember, is for the writer to disappear and for the reader to feel like they’re IN the story with the character. Ask yourself, at the beginning of any scene, what’s your POV character’s motivation in this scene? Sounds like something an actor would ask, but it works here too. Because, whatever your POV character is zoned in on determines what they notice, ignore, explain away, take in but don’t linger over, etc.

I often use the example of a teenage boy home from school who’s hungry. (yes, this might be an example ripped straight from my own life). The boy won’t notice the new paint on the wall, that the furniture has been rearranged, that mom’s got a new haircut – nothing. (all true stories) What he will notice is that the dog is wet when it jumps on him. He’ll notice if there’s a smell in the house that hints at baking taking place. He will have catalogued everything in the fridge and know if something’s been added or removed (say, leftover pizza).

This filtering of details is super important in deep point of view. A character who’s eager to impress or please, might trip over themselves offering compliments or searching for something they think the other person is proud of. A guy who’s walked into the local coffee shop and sees his girl sitting with some other guy will notice different things than the friends who are standing right next to him. It’s not that those other things don’t exist, but the details are filtered through what’s important to that character right now.

Additionally, remember that the reader does 80% of the work of description. If I tell you that a female walks into a male co-worker’s office, shuts the blinds, slips out of her heels and pops open the top three buttons on her blouse – does it matter what colour the carpet is, or if the desk between them is mahogany or oak? Ask what would THAT character focus on, IN THAT MOMENT? That’s what the reader gets to know about. Cut everything else.

The Details Given Specificity Are Considered Important By Readers

One of the pitfalls of deep point of view is falling into what’s called writing on the nose. This is when every movement is described in a blow-by-blow account that doesn’t serve the story. This needless description frustrates readers because the story’s pace moves at a glacial speed. Remember, the more time you spend describing anything, the more importance the reader will assume it to have. Whether it’s an object on a table, the table itself, or even the walk to answer the door, if it’s important to the character in that moment it had better help move the story forward. Be ruthless about this.

Some writers love these sweeping all-encompassing descriptions of setting. The moon, the stars, the wind through the trees, the crickets, the blah blah blah. Keep in mind that these sections of description slow the pace of your story, so be strategic with them. If it’s true to the character to notice the colours of the setting sun and reminisce about some childhood memory, that’s fine, but be strategic with the pacing. In the middle of a chase scene is not the place for that kind of narrative. Also, drip-drip-drip. It’s hard to justify giving more than a couple lines to this kind of description. If it’s a paragraph, two paragraphs, half a page or more, be very objective about whether the reader needs all that information in that spot.

What is the norm for the genre you’re writing in? Some genres make more room for these types of descriptive passages than others.

Use Description To Show More About Your Characters

Yes, it’s good to be specific when possible because it helps the reader picture the scene better. However, one pitfall to watch out for is giving the character knowledge they don’t actually possess. I can open the hood of my vehicle and find where to add wiper fluid, where to check the oil and add oil… and that’s about it. I’m sure those parts have proper names but I don’t know them. You wouldn’t have to tell a reader your character is a mechanic if they can open the hood and actually name all the parts and know their function, or recognize a problem in a particular part by a sound.

I can walk into a garden (near where I live) and name many of the plants growing in any season. My husband notices flower colours. I couldn’t tell you one designer hand bag from another, but I know what expensive looks like.

Use this filter to give the reader information about your character. This is part of show don’t tell. If I’m reading about a character who can walk into a new-to-them garden and name many of the plants, I assume they know a lot about gardening. The writer wouldn’t have to tell me that. But if your character knows everything about everything, I can’t discern anything about their character.

Additionally, does this garden-loving character get upset that the Irises are planted too deep (and now won’t flower), or do they take a moment to recall the Latin name for the plant? These small details give insight into the character, but are just a drip, drip, drip of information. The reader may not catch every single hint, but they’ll catch enough to get to know your character. It’s just a phrase, not even a whole sentence, of this kind of description filtered through what’s important to the character, that really brings a character and a story to life for readers.

Ask Your Beta Readers

In the end, knowing what to keep and what to cut comes down to how well you’re communicating ideas that you feel are important/vital to the story you want to tell and the characters you’ve created. Take the time to interview your beta readers. Pick out a particular scene, ask them how it made them feel? What did they love? Where were they tempted to skim? Know what effect you were going for in that scene and blatantly ask if you pulled that off. Ask more than one beta reader.

This is the kind of feedback that will help you learn where to be clearer, where you can lean closer to what might feel like melodrama to you, or where to cut back because the point is being muddied or the passage skimmed because there’s too many details. Ask people who love your genre, but will be honest with you. Beta readers who are afraid to hurt your feelings are all that helpful, ultimately — not if you’re looking to improve your writing.

Are you a writer who writes very sparse on a first draft and has to edit in description, or are you a writer who loves to add description and has to later go back and edit much of it out? How do YOU decide what to keep?

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.

How To Write A PTSD Flashback In Deep POV

December 4, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 5 Comments

Flashbacks are super popular among writers, but less popular among editors and agents. Partly because some writers call info dumps and backstory “a flashback.” If you’re interested in diving deep into writing flashbacks caused by trauma and PTSD, read on because I have some good tips for you!

Quick Recap: What Is Deep Point Of View?

Deep point of view is a stylistic choice to remove the perceived distance between the reader and the point of view character. This technique puts the reader IN the story as it’s happening. The reader knows everything the point of view character knows/sees/hears/etc. but that’s all they know.

If you’re not sure if you’re writing in deep point of view or not, check out this guest post I did at Writers In The Storm and then come back here and learn more about writing flashbacks in deep pov.

What Is A Flashback?

In my online classes, I often get asked for help in writing two kinds of flashbacks. One kind of flashback is the idea of a glimpse into a character’s past, basically a cut scene to something’s that happened before. This is usually written as a dream or as backstory. These are really hard to do well in deep pov because much of the time they come across as author intrusion.

Be objective about whether the reader needs to know ALL of that info in one place. My personal rule for backstory is to answer one question for the reader and leave them with two more. To drip in the backstory a sentence, a phrase, at a time. If you’ve got a paragraph, two paragraphs, a whole chapter — that’s just a look at the past, for the sake of looking at the past, “kill your darlings.” Yes, other authors use them, and they’re not wrong per se, but there’s a great post here by K.M. Weiland about writing this type of flashbacks.

Flashbacks As A Symptom Of Past Trauma

I’ve written before about writing trauma backstories and even writing PTSD in deep pov. So, let’s dig a little deeper into flashbacks as a symptom of PTSD as a storytelling device.

First, please do some research into PTSD before tritely using flashbacks. According to Psychiatry.com PTSD occurs in 7%-8% of the population and is twice as likely in women as men. PTSD makes a great source of internal conflict in fiction especially as general awareness of the condition grows, but don’t be a source of mis-information. Don’t cheat your reader! **climbs off soapbox**

We want to show and not tell, but deep pov takes this to all new levels. So, how do we show a flashback so readers know that’s what’s happening without TELLING them it’s a flashback?

Here’s the thing: a flashback is your body reliving the worst event of your life over and over without any warning or control to stop it from happening. It’s more like a nightmare than a memory, because it can be completely immersive and block out all sense of time and place.

Think about that for a moment. How would that daily reality affect you? If you’re using flashbacks, be sure to learn about all of the other symptoms of living with PTSD: hyper-vigilance, inability to sleep (not always insomnia), nightmares, avoidance, exhaustion, heightened startle reflex, trust issues, inability to concentrate, irritability, physical pain, sweating, etc.

Actors use this trick called Emotive Memory – they are able to recall an event from their past with such intensity they can relive that emotion. When you’re writing flashbacks, think about the absolute worst thing that’s ever happened to you, really let it well up and overwhelm you (stay safe), and recapture how that felt. How did your body respond? Now, imagine those feelings amplified by a life or death consequence to that event. Now, imagine living with the constant reality of having that memory pouncing on you like a starving lion at any moment. And knowing that people will think you’re insane if they find out what’s really going on with you.

Fight, Flight And Freeze Responses

Many are familiar with the fight or flight responses. Anger and violence are common responses to PTSD flashbacks. Leaving immediately, without explanation, or avoiding any situation that could trigger a flashback is also common. The survival response fewer know about is Freeze.

For those who experienced a trauma where they couldn’t escape, they were literally overpowered. They couldn’t fight back because the perpetrator was too strong (physically, or because of a power imbalance). The brain turns to the last option available to it in order to survive – dissassociation. They go numb. Their mind goes blank, or they disconnect mentally from what’s happening to their bodies. They comply.

These survival instincts will all trigger a similar physical response – increased heart rate, sweating, tidal wave of adrenaline, you breathe heavily. The processes not needed to help you take quick action are turned off or un-prioritized – like thinking. Unlike a general anxiety attack, you can’t think your way out of a PTSD flashback or attack. All you can do is remove yourself from the perceived threat.

Here’s the thing about a fear response. When faced with a real life-threatening situation, your body will act without you thinking about it. It’s an instinctual response right, like being startled. Most of the time, when faced with an imaginary fear (such as public speaking, where there’s no real physical threat), we struggle with indecision, second guess ourselves, etc. Do you see the difference?

Flashbacks Should Be An Individual Response

Flashbacks come in various severities, so do some research into them. At its most severe, a flashback can cause you to lose all connection with your current reality, like a nightmare you can’t wake up from.

“…When discussing the topic of flashbacks with friends and family, most assume it’s just a memory, like remembering your first kiss or your first time at Disneyland. However, that’s not what it’s like at all. For most people, myself included, flashbacks are an intense re-experience of a traumatic event, which feels like it’s happening now and involves all your senses. In effect, it feels like being re-traumatized, even though you are not actually experiencing the event for real…” Read the whole post here.

There are emotional flashbacks, where you remain conscious of where you are and whether you’re physically safe, but your body is convinced you’re in imminent danger and that emotional response tangibly controls you.

“…Because most emotional flashbacks do not have a visual or memory component to them, the triggered individual rarely realizes that she is re-experiencing a traumatic time from childhood…” Read the whole post here.

Don’t Cheat Readers On The Consequences Of Flashbacks

Flashbacks, particularly if they sneak up on you, are exhausting. Like, bone weary, sleep for a week and still be tired, exhausted. There will be heightened vigilance following a flashback, because the character will want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. There may be actual consequences because of their behavior. You can’t randomly run out of a board meeting without explanation and there not be social or professional consequences. Most people don’t want others to know they’re struggling, so do some research into the coping mechanisms used.

Writing Internal Dialogue During A Flashback

The internal dialogue is what most people tend to struggle with. Remember, in deep pov, internal dialogue must be written as though the character is alone in their own heads. They won’t explain to themselves what the traumatic event was, when it happened, who hurt them. You’ll have to strategically build in the necessary backstory for readers, one drip at a time, over the course of the story.

Do you have any questions about flashbacks in deep pov? Is this a device that you’re using? Where are you struggling?

3 Basic Rules For Building A Fiction Platform On Facebook

July 25, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 3 Comments

I love to write. There are writers who write and don’t care if anyone ever reads their work. I write so my work can be read. And for that, I need readers.

Facebook remains the gorilla of social media. This has been the case for a few years now and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. So, when my cowriter and I sat down to plan out our marketing (yes, we’re working on marketing as we write the book), we knew Facebook had to be one of the biggest cogs in our strategy.

For the summer, I’m sharing the marketing strategy that might blow up in our faces because I don’t see many writers approaching social the way we are. (I’ll be back to focusing on Deep Point Of View in September.) Over the years, I’ve written a lot about writers using Facebook to build platform. I’ve spent the last couple of years going much deeper with Facebook and marketing with great teachers like Rachel Miller (Moolah Marketer on Facebook), Stu McLaren (Founder of Tribe – find the group here), and Warren Carlyle (he’s BIG on Instagram but uses the same principles – his group is here), and others.

Friends, I’m all about free and organic reach is NOT dead on Facebook. If you just want to pour money into ads and not work at building an engaged community (aka passionate and vocal readership) then what I’m about to post likely won’t have much value for you. That’s OK. If you’re all about the free, and nearly free, stick with me.

3 Rules Of Facebook Marketing

These are going to be overly simplified. I’m not going to waste time writing out points of strategy that no one is interested in. You all get to decide the direction of these posts.

There are three principles I keep in mind with every piece of content on Facebook. Write them on a sticky note and post it to your monitor if you want. These are important!

Facebook Loves Itself

Facebook is in the business of keeping people ON FACEBOOK. This is a problem when you want to use Facebook to direct people to a blog, a landing page, Amazon or another book retailer.

Sharing content on your page that’s already been popular on Facebook can help. Posting videos and photos natively instead of using auto crossposting capabilities built into Instagram or WordPress will help. Use Facebook’s native scheduler instead of a third party one.

Links that just point people away from Facebook will not get as much reach. They won’t. Why? Because Facebook (and Instagram) loves itself. Posting links to Youtube or other social sites will be suppressed by the algorithm. Links in general won’t do as well.

Making links one aspect of your posting strategy is one way around this. If you show Facebook you’re interesting, then the one link you post among four or six other types of content will still be seen as long as people interact with it (ie – click through to the blog or website). You need to make sure your website is Facebook friendly (think SEO, loading speed, bounce rates, etc.). Don’t use link shortners, so people can see where they’re being directed to. Also, it’s a great idea to find ways to direct people back to Facebook (for example, I’ve added links to Facebook in this post). I’ve embedded content from Facebook into blog posts as well.

Does that mean there’s no point in posting blog post links on Facebook? Nope.

Facebook Gives You More Of What You Already Have

Have you participated in mutual like-fests on Facebook? I’ve lost count of how many friend requests I’ve accepted from writers and then immediately gotten a private message asking me for a reciprocal like on their profile or page. *face palm* On the page we’re building for fantasy readers (a specific niche of fantasy readers) there will be some writers on there, but we’re focusing on attracting fans of the particular niche of fantasy we’re writing.

Facebook makes assumptions about who your audience is and will strive to give you more of what you already have – writers.

If you’ve got a bunch of fans from a country that doesn’t speak English and you only write in English, that’s a problem. If you have a bunch of fans from a country where they can’t even buy your book if they wanted to, that’s a problem. If your mom asked all her senior friends to like your author page but you’re writing to 20 and 30-somethings, that’s a problem. Facebook will give you more of what you already have.

Know who your audience is. Know how old they are. Know where they live. Know as much about them as you can – because Facebook will give you more of what you already have. It’s better to have 100 or 1000 fans who LOVE your work and comment, like, and share your content than 10,000 who ignore your posts and never interact with your content. Don’t get caught up in numbers, focus on building a community. Our goal is to have 1000 passionate readers who LOVE our fantasy niche by launch day. We do plan to run ads on a minimal spend ($1 – $2 a day).

Communities are made up of people who talk with one another, encourage one another, support one another, tell all their friends about this great community they’ve found, etc.

Facebook Wants People To Feel Good

Facebook is implementing what they call community standards because they want people to feel safe while on their platform. Which gets tricky because everyone has different levels of comfort when it comes to health conditions, sexual content/imagery, politics, issues like vaccinations, etc. So it means that maybe some content you’re OK with seeing, Facebook has decided it doesn’t like.

Post content that makes people look good. Reframe the questions you ask and the images you post so that when people share it they can smile – this is so me! Don’t frame content in such a way that makes people look or feel bad.

Instead of: Don’t be the loser stuck at home this weekend try 10 fun ways to get out and meet people. Of course you’re going to find popular examples of negativity, but there’s a viral tipping point that needs to happen and it’s rare.

The community standards are hitting some romance and fantasy authors hard because they know what sells their books and Facebook has said it doesn’t like that imagery (I think Amazon may be swinging in this direction also). Romance readers and fantasy readers may love man-chests, chainmaille bikinis, and sexy images, but Facebook does not.

And I’m not just talking about blatantly sexual books covers, but imagery that shows or implies any sexual content – consensual or not (ie. the sexy embraces even when fully clothed, hands on breasts or hips or buttocks, etc.) are listed among those Facebook has specifically stated will be suppressed or removed. The algorithm is supposed to know the difference between a photo of a nude statue in a museum and a porn photo, but it’s a computer. There’s too much content being posted to have a human pair of eyes see it all. Controversy is not a great strategy on Facebook.

Starting A Platform From Scratch

I started posting content on my PROFILE (where people are asked to become a friend) that would attract fantasy readers. I asked questions and started conversations because I was looking for people willing to interact on Facebook not just passively lurk with a like. Lurkers are great, they buy books too, but I need my first 100 fans to be really passionate fans of fantasy to get the free organic reach on Facebook.

I created a friend list and added the people who liked that content to it. They can’t see that I’ve added them to any list. It’s a way to segment my friends. When I reached the number I wanted on that list (so this took time, it wasn’t a one-post and I’m done strategy), I created the fantasy page (there was an entire strategy behind that) and then posted content ONLY for the people on that list to encourage them to like the new page.

My cowriter has one fantasy novel out already and has a small email list from that book. We knew those were our ideal passionate readers already, so we created a free survey on Survey Monkey. We crafted the questions in such a way so that they TOLD US what they wanted to see in terms of content on Facebook, how to target ads to find others like them on Facebook and Amazon, etc. I also shared the survey, but only to the segmented friend list of people who had already shown that they loved to read fantasy. We didn’t want non-fantasy readers skewing our results.

Yes – they told us what they wanted us to post. No more guessing. No more posting content that attracts the wrong people. They told us exactly what they loved to see, what they hated, and why.

We built a Facebook, marketing and Amazon strategy on that survey! We created a Facebook page targeted to our ideal readers and have a 200% organic reach there right now (granted, we have fewer than 100 people on there because we are still in soft launch phase).

Want to see the 10 questions we asked? Get those here.

Remember – those reading this short series get to direct these posts. What aspect of this platform-building strategy would you like to know more about? Share below and I’ll get really specific on the topics people are interested in.

Identify Your Character’s Emotional Triggers

June 26, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson Leave a Comment

Everyone has an emotional trigger. This is not about mental health, anxiety, PTSD — none of that. Every one has emotional triggers – but are you using this to increase the emotional tension in your story? Why not!?

What Does Your Character Think Is Their Strength?

What does your character pride themselves on having, being, doing, possessing, needing, controlling, etc? Do they rest their identity in any of these things? Some common ones are: acceptance, respect, being liked, being needed, freedom, attention, being in control, autonomy, safety, etc.

It could be a strength or aptitude that was reinforced when they were young. A child identified as gifted at a young age might place all their identity and self-worth in being smart, in being the smartest person in the room. How would they feel when faced with a new colleague who is smarter, faster, more innovative? What would that do to their self-confidence?

This where personality plays into things. Would they react in anger and lash out, gossip, try to undermine the new colleague at every opportunity? Would they sink into shame and beat themselves up constantly? Would they become competitive and work themselves into the groud to maintain what they believe they’re owed or due?

A woman who’s always told how pretty she is might begin to expect that compliment from people, from men in particular. What thought takes root if that doesn’t happen? What emotions come to the fore if she’s in the room when another woman gets all the compliments and not her?

Emotional triggers are often linked to anything at all that a character feels they’re really good at, that they deserve, something they see as their personal identity, or that they’re constantly striving for (feeling heard by a spouse for example).

What Does Your Character Value Most And Fears Having Taken Away?

This where the primary and secondary emotions come into play. You can read more about that here – but for to recap a primary emotion is an instinctive emotional response: fear, guilt, envy, jealousy, attraction. A secondary emotion is any emotion that requires a thinking response: love, anger, hatred, shame, etc.

Anger and shame and love are always secondary emotions.

Some emotions can be either a primary or secondary emotion. Take attraction for instance (learn to write the body language of attraction here), attraction can be an instinctive thing (a primary emotion), but it can also develop over time with familiarity (a secondary emotion).

An emotional trigger skips the primary emotion phase and jumps right to the thinking response – the secondary emotion. That’s why you can instantly be angry at something and not know why.

So, for example, I have a character with an emotional trigger of feeling high maitenance. If she perceives that people think she’s being high maitenance, too-big-for-her-britches, because it’s a learned response (one that she’s practiced many times) she skips right to feeling shame. The shame is what’s observable (showable in actions or dialogue). The shame is what I show when writing this emotional trigger.

What Emotions Are Activated When Key Needs Are Or Aren’t Met?

Activated is another way to say triggered, but in this context it seems more descriptive. Once you’ve identified the feelings or fears that are emotional triggers for your character (and yes you can have more than one), next figure out what emotions are activated when that situation crops up.

You have to think in terms of secondary emotions here. Do they immediately become angry? Are they riddled with shame? Do they feel loved? Remember, triggers don’t have to be negative!

Now, to manage or overcome an emotional trigger, an individual needs a good measure of self-awareness and humility. Then, as Brene Brown would say, they need to get curious. Why do they feel that way? What do they feel is at stake?

How To Show And Not Tell An Emotional Trigger

In my Method Acting For Writers Masterclass, I talk about how primary emotions are usually felt and secondary emotions are usually seen. How does that play out?

Eliza’s husband is three hours later coming home than he said he’d be, without answering texts, emails or phone calls to explain the delay. Eliza has shipped the kids off to grandma’s for the night, prepared a nice dinner, and gottten all dressed up — as a surprise.

By the time hubs arrives home, Eliza has cleared the romantic setting from the table, put all the still-edible bits of food in the fridge, and Eliza’s changed out of the sexy outfit she’d been wearing into a terry bathrobe.

During the whole clean-up, her primary emotions are going wild. Frustration (feeling taken for granted). Concern (did something happen at work). Fear (was he in an accident). Jealousy (was there another woman). You’d show all these emotions colliding around inside through physiology , actions, and internal dialogue.

Once hubs arrives home and is safe – oh, whoops – went out for drinks did I forget to text you? Now she has to DO something with these emotions so now she’s angry. But if Eliza had an emotional trigger of say… feeling in control, then not knowing where her hubs was when he was supposed to be at home would be a trigger for a secondary emotion. Having her well-thought-out plans for the surprise would be an emotional trigger.

Emotional triggers can be powerful and effective, because they’re so often over-the-top emotional reactions. When your emotional triggers are activated, you’re not just angry — you’re livid. People can observe these night-and-day emotional hairpin turns because they seem to come out of nowhere if you’re not privvy to what the trigger is.

Are you using emotional triggers in your novel? What is your character afraid will be taken away or threatened?

4 Tips To Get Unstuck Writing Hard Emotions In Fiction

May 22, 2019 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 2 Comments

Emotions are hard to capture authentically in fiction, maybe in part because as a society we tend to want to express things more in terms of what we’re doing or thinking. This diving deep into the raw humanity expressed through emotions is the power of deep point of view.

How You Doin Joey GIF from Howyoudoin GIFs

Emotions are hard and uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient and there’s an inherent vulnerability in writing — in good writing — where the writer lays bare her own heart for readers in a variety of ways.

I’m an avid student of psychology and learning how emotions work intrigues me, so being able to authentically capture all this for my readers is important to me. And if you’re here on this blog, I know it’s important to you too because that’s kinda… I mean *smile* that’s what I blog about alot. What I’ve been digging into recently is trying to better understand how emotions work, how much predictability there is in terms of the consequences of past events on adult behaviour, and the dichotomy between what’s expressed outwardly (what’s observable to others) and what’s said and felt internally.

To that end, here are four aspects of writing emotions that I’ve focused on with my characters with good results. You might not use/need all of these for any one novel or even a character, but they are tools to keep in your pocket and pull out if you’re stuck or struggling how to convey an emotion authentically.

All The Girls At The Table

A friend (who’s a counsellor) described this idea of the girls at the table which she uses with her clients and it really resonated with writer-me. When emotions for your character get hot, confusing, sad, overwhelming, uncomfortable, create foggy thinking — get curious as Brene Brown would say. What’s driving those emotions for your character? Whether your character has enough self-awareness or personal insight to figure it out or not, you need to know. Why do they feel like this? Why does this hurt? What are they really upset about? Why don’t they want to be here?

This can be transformative. Get curious about your character’s emotions. Why are they feeling that way? Why don’t they want anyone to know they feel that way? What are they afraid of?

Now, add in my friend’s advice. Sit down with all the girls at the table. For every hurt moment or traumatic event in life, imagine that kid (girl or guy) at the table. Each traumatic event or hurtful moment adds another seat at the table of the heart. That group, collectively and individually, influences which past events are triggered in the present. Ask that kid – why are you afraid? What are you trying to hide? You’re hurt about this — but what does this really mean?

I have a character who’d made plans for a vacation with a close friend, and the close friend had to bail at the last minute (legitimate reason) but my character was devastated by this. The reaction wasn’t in line with what had happened so as the writer, I had to get curious. Why was this so hurtful? I realized the hurt was legitimate disappointment about not going on the trip but there was something more. There was a kid at the table slumped in her seat, arms folded over her chest, kicking her feet against the legs of the chair. That friend routinely cancelled, for always legitimate reasons, and there were past disappointments at play.

Another kid at the table cried. This was a younger still kid, she remembered that many many times her needs were ignored, overlooked, told they didn’t matter as much as someone else’s. THAT’s the kid causing the tears because once again she had felt unimportant, not a priority, passed over. Once you have this information, you can express the primary emotions at play with visceral authenticity that will capture your readers. Read more about primary and secondary emotions here.

Feelings Aren’t Facts

Feelings and emotions can’t always be trusted. As someone who struggles with foggy thinking at times because of a post traumatic stress injury, this has become super important to remind myself of.

Just because I feel a certain way, doesn’t mean that feeling is true or trustworthy. Because there’s a lot of past experiences and prejudices at play (see above with all the girls at the table) that can influence, skew, and colour my perception of what’s going on around me or being said (or not said).

This is important to understand, because emotions and feelings power our goals, motivations, and priorities. Where does your character’s feelings lead them astray? How does their past influence them to incorrectly evaluate a situation or threat? At what point do they realize their feelings may not be trustworthy in any given situation or recurring circumstance? What are the consequences of the thinking based on feelings that can’t be trusted? OOooh – tell me you can see all the conflict that potentially arises from this?

Emotions Aren’t Stable

Being emotionally stable is nebulous though highly sought after. We tend to avoid people we perceive to be emotionally unstable. Here’s the thing though, we’re all emotionally unstable at times and our characters can’t always have it all all together either. Just as feelings aren’t facts, emotions are neither static nor linear. Some days our emotions bounce from one conflicting emotion to another like a ping pong ball. We have what’s called a “window of tolerance” and anyone can be pushed out of their window of tolerance (the ability to function, perceive, and integrate information and emotions effectively) at any time.

Those perceived as emotionally unstable are often individuals with a narrower window of tolerance. However, a car accident will push you out of the window of tolerance. A sudden death in the family or a close friend will likely push you out of the window of tolerance. Those with anxiety or traumatic injuries will likely have a narrower window of tolerance and a learned response to certain triggers (hyper arousal -fight or flight- or hypo arousal – freeze).

Most of the time, as writers, we craft a situation (or several situations) in a story where we push our characters out of their window of tolerance which means they’ll be emotionally unstable. Be authentic with that. Let there be consequences to that. Let them learn from that. Will that experience narrow or widen their window of tolerance? Hmmm…

Emotions Are Subtle And Nuanced

Speaking of wide brushes, I hope I’ve made a case for drilling down into why a character feels a certain way, determining how much intergrity those feelings have, and the natural consequences of that unique blend of factors combined with a character’s past experiences, prejudices, goals, and motivations. If you’re able to know your characters well enough to have all this sorted, then deep point of view is going to intensify your fiction and grab your readers by the throat!

Not every emotion your character feels needs to be BIG. Not every decision needs to be based on a BIG emotion. Sometimes we’re ruled by emotions we refuse to acknowledge but are readily picked up on by others. Avoid the easy road with your fiction. These are really simple factors that when combined create endless possibilities. It’s the possibilities that make each character unique.

Not every character needs to be thought through to this level, but certainly your protagonist and antagonist do.

Which character(s) from your favourite book or movie had an emotional journey that really resonated with you?