Monthly Archives: April 2020

Basics for Describing Wind in Your Writing

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Here are some Basics for describing the wind in your writing. Pardon the fact each describing element begins with the letter B:

Blizzard: Common during winter months in northern latitudes, the wind during a blizzard is strong and can create white-out conditions. Snow drifts into at times impassable piles. Roads are covered in the white stuff and temperatures plummet.

Blow: The wind blows in situations such as hurricanes, tornadoes, n’or-easters and similar bad conditions that can be deadly. One can expect a blow — blowing wind (it always blows in some form) to cause extensive damage and be life-threatening.

Breeze: When the wind is a breeze, it can be pleasant or a bit tempestuous. A pleasant breeze cools you off during a warm summer evening while one with a stronger front can fill your sails or make walking into it a challenge.

Balmy: Most people, especially northern climate writers, think of balmy wind as a soft, tropical wind that makes living in warmer climates bearable. It’s t-shirts, shorts and flip-flop weather with warm sunshine and slight currents.

Blustery: If you live in an area where the weather change between autumn and winter can be unpredictable, you know what blustery wind means. Leaves are blowing across the yard and clouds bear the threat of snow as temperatures go from warm to cool.

Biting: Much like a blustery wind, a biting wind carries the harbingers of winter with it. Bits of frozen rain, or sleet, pummel the side of your house and chip into your clothing as you face a biting wind and shiver in the cold.

Becalmed: If you spend much time on the water sailing, a becalmed wind is the bane of the sailor. You’re stranded in the ocean with no wind because it has gone quiet. On land it often bodes a change in the weather akin to the eye of the storm.

If you’re a writer, use this as a reference for describing the wind in your writing so you can avoid writing that “it was windy.”

Why Should I Write During a Pandemic?

By Liz Allie

Finding the motivation to write is difficult for me even in the best of situations. My most consistent excuse is time. “I don’t have time to write.” Over the last few weeks, I have had all the time in the world. One would expect that I have been writing like a fiend since my biggest obstacle has been thwarted in magnificent fashion by a pandemic.

Nowhere to go. No one to see. WRONG. 

As I sit down to write I wonder…does this even matter? People are dying, people are losing jobs and losing their business and I’m going to write yet one more mystery book? Who do I think I am?

I close my computer, put away my notebook and sit. Just sit. I look for distraction and turn on the television. I flip channels until I see something that catches my eye. I watch the program. I turn it off.

I pull out a book by the same name, The Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie. 

It is a book of fiction. It is a mystery. I read it. I feel better during this time of craziness and loss. I escape to Saint Mary Mead and when I return, I am ready to continue on here in the real world. 

I am no Agatha Christie, but I realize that writing does matter. Even my writing. Perhaps a hundred years from now, my words will provide relief or escape to someone when their world has been tipped on its head.

So, friends, write like no one is watching.

How to Write Good Dialogue

By Rebecca Laurent

Writing good dialogue is no small task. I don’t imagine that there is any complete checklist that writers can follow that will allow us to craft perfect dialogue every time. There are, however, a few helpful rules of thumb that can help elevate flat dialogue and keep scenes from boring our readers.

Avoid using dialogue tags other than “said”

Trying to spice up writing using tags such as “she cajoled” or “she jerked out” is an easy mistake to make. Though, consider the reader’s experience. These kinds of tags can become very distracting from the actual conversations we’re trying to pull them into. Some might argue that these sorts of tags provide necessary information about a character’s disposition. Still, if those tags are truly bearing all the weight of such a large job, probably some critical content is missing from a character’s description and the wording of their lines.

Actually, use as few dialogue tags as possible.

Don’t get me wrong. Streams of naked dialogue are doom to any story, but that doesn’t mean every line should have a tag attached to it. Mix it up. Instead of “she said,” include a bit of physical description or body language which tells us more about a character’s mood. Such lines can let us know who is speaking just as clearly.

Edit out any conversations where your characters are telling each other about things they both already know.

Theater scrips have made this kind of banal conversation infamous, coining it as maid and butler dialogue. This is when one character says something like, “As you know, the master is out today.” If they already know it, why are they telling them? To readers, such overt attempts to cram in information come across as disingenuous and tend to pull them out of a story. Instead, ensure that your characters all have an appropriate level of motivation for whatever lines you give them.

Subtext!

So much of what makes fantastic dialogue fantastic is often not everything that the characters have said. Rather, it is what they have not said. Just like in real life, people in our stories can be passive-aggressive or say something which contrasts with what they’re thinking. Consider all the delicious possibilities which come with including a point-of-view (POV) character’s thoughts as they decide what to hold back from their conversation partner.

The Spring of 2020

By Dorothy Seehausen

Fishing on the Fox

It seemed like a vacation from the classroom at first, this shelter in place thing, probably a couple of weeks at most. I was sure I’d have gobs more time to write while keeping up with the pandemic on news stations.

 So, I cleaned and organized; re-arranged and threw out. I stocked up on necessities. I binge watched “Arrested Development” and season 3 of “Ozark”. I created a Seehausen Genealogy Facebook Group and connected with several relatives in the Midwest.

Yet I could not help being drawn into what was happening to the American way of life and I found a new perspective.  Facebook became an addicting time capsule. Schools and churches closed. Sunday sermons were posted on YouTube, parents added teaching skills to their tool kits, and college students exchanged dorm life for home life.

Health care professionals became our new heroes; and everyone kept hope alive from one inspirational meme to the next.

For my husband and I, daily routines changed right away. We bought less at the grocery store so we could legitimately get out more. Instead of the mall, we walked in Voyager Park in De Pere. We developed a newfound appreciation for life as well as each other.

But alas. I had social distanced long enough from my characters. Did Stuart Hall solve the murder of FBI Agent Jones in “Paint Chips”? What really happened to the cat in “The Tale of Duke Humphries”?  Is Molly McBride going to be happy as a secondary character in “Fire Pit”?

Experts predict things will get worse before they get better. A teacher myself, I’ll be back to work next week with online classes. Until then, I will grab a cup of hot chocolate and get back to business.

Let’s see now.…where was Stuart Hall when I left him?