Author Archives: Terry Misfeldt

Writers Are Readers

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Writers have a tendency to also be avid readers. Yes, folks, writers are readers!

We read to explore new worlds without leaving the comfort of our favorite chair. We can cross the plains of America in a covered wagon with a cup of coffee and a doughnut in our hands. We can be enthralled in a steamy romance while lying on a beach blanket.

Why do we read? We get ideas for writing from reading what others have written. We can study character development. We can create exotic worlds from seeing how other authors develop their fantasy planets. We consider sentence length, grammar, punctuation, and style from the words in those published works.

Sure, we read for entertainment or knowledge and sometimes just for something to do. We find authors we love and crave their next book. For me those are writers like Kevin J. Anderson, Brian Herbert, James Lee Burke, and Jeff Shaara…each of whom writes for a different audience. Their work can be inspiring, and writers need to be inspired!

As writers, we also read to learn how other writers grab your attention and keep it as they develop a plot through various crises to a climax. Part of why we read involves a never-ending search for new authors whose work we will either love or despise. Those we dislike usually have but a chapter or two before they lose us.

And no writer wants to lose their readers…for whatever reason! So we read.

The Marketing Side

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Professionals in the publishing business advise writers that the easy part of getting your story into print is the writing of it. The marketing side is the other half and should be considered the most important…unless you do not care how many books you sell and are only interested in holding that precious chunk of paper in your hands.

Trust me: The feeling of having a book in your hands with your name on the cover is an enviable feeling. It is symbolic of hours and maybe (in my case) even years of work to write, edit, re-write, edit, and think about what you have entered into a document in the hope they will be someone interested in reading what you have written.

That is where the marketing side rears its head. Go back to the simple process of thinking about who you have written your book for: Who is your audience? If you had a test reader from that target group evaluate your story and they were impressed, you know there is a good chance your book has a feasible chance of selling to that audience. Call it market research.

Now, how do you reach that group of potential readers to let them know it is available for purchase? Can you get in front of them through social media? It is a low cost approach to marketing if you can approach it wisely and avoid alienation.

For broader markets, consider media releases to home town newspapers, college alumni associations, fraternities or sororities, organizations where you are a member, family and friends. One-to-one E-mails can be effective in creating awareness. You must plug your book mercilessly and not be afraid to ask for a purchase. If you are hesitant to do this, think about a lawyer who hangs a shingle outside her office and wonders why no one is interested in hiring her.

The first principle of marketing is to make people aware of your work. If they are at all interested, they will check you out. Do you have a website where they can order your book? If they like what they discover (cover art, cover copy, blurbs, etc.) they will buy.

Blog about it. Tag everything you do with links to your selling page. Print up business cards with the cover on the back. This is the marketing side, and here’s an example: I recently published my first novel, Shevivor, which has an excellent cover designed by Angela Collier and is now available through Amazon and my website, https://www.terrycmisfeldt.com/shevivor. It is set-up for Pay Pal purchases.

Thanks!

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?

A Blank Canvas

By Ruth Wellens

It’s nearly spring so I was beginning to clean out the corner of my basement that has accumulated the mess of year’s past. My son is going to graduate from college this May but left behind numerous notebooks from his elementary and high school years. Somehow between us, we have gone through the notebooks and ripped out the instructive pages, but I just have a difficult time putting perfectly good notebook paper into the garbage which ends up in landfills. So – I end up with a lot of half-filled notebooks with crazy adolescent writing on the covers. 

Good news: I also ended up with ideas yet to be realized. Procuring all of the notebooks and paper together, I suddenly became inspired to write! Sure, as writers we have ideas rambling around our brains all the time, but this paper was tangible. Each piece meant my ideas could turn into reality with strokes from a pen.  Sure, I use my computer most of the time, but there is a visceral pleasure in putting pen to paper when writing.  Even if it is an outline or bullet points for your writing, it is visual proof of that idea when put on paper.

My broken down half notebooks are now stacked in my make-shift office, ready and waiting to turn into a story board, a story, a novel, an editorial, or maybe just random thoughts to be expounded on another day. The excitement is there. It feels like New Year’s Eve rife with resolutions! The first day of spring with all the promise of colorful flowers, warm sun and brilliant hues of green. The potential adventure of travelling to a new place! All of the paper ready and willing to serve my ideas.

I have heard some writers carry paper with them at all times in case an idea comes to them. With the advent of cell phones, some writers use the verbal choice of talking into them to retain their ideas until they can sit and think about them more. Yes, some of us get our best ideas in the shower, which, unfortunately, is not paper’s best friend. As for me, I have my half notebooks with lots and lots of blank pages to write on!  

Bogged Down by Minutiae

By Rhonda Strehlow

Writers have a love/hate relationship with word count. Am I writing a novel? Short story? Flash fiction?

What’s my genre? Mystery. Romance. Action. Suspense. Poetry. Memoir.

Where do I fit?

We get stymied by unimportant details.

More important than word count or genre is making your words count. Lately useless words have been irritating me. Some. Almost. About. Filler words. Check them out when you read your next book. Notice that they don’t add anything to the story. They are a distraction. Eliminate them from your writing. Or, at least use them purposefully.

Write like we’re in this together.

Use words that evoke strong emotions. Cringed with fear. Bubbled with excitement. Cried until he collapsed.

Use imaginative action words. Walked is boring. Raced. Stumbled. Hobbled. Skipped. Danced. All better words.

Some of your words should stretch the comfort zone of your readers.  One reader told me she had to look up two words in one of my books. I challenged her to use them the next time we met.

Make your descriptions memorable. Not, “She picked a flower.” Instead, “She reached for the most stunning hydrangea on the bush of a hundred beautiful flowers.”

End each chapter with images so powerful the reader stops to process what he’s just read.

Challenge your readers. If readers don’t come away even a bit changed, a little more educated, after reading our books, have we done our jobs?

I’m disappointed when I read a book and think, that was a nice book. And, then promptly forget it. (I’m old. I don’t have time for nice.)  I’d rather my reaction be, ‘Tell me there’s a sequel!’

Start Your Story in the Middle

By Rhonda Strehlow

We’ve been taught to be logical and chronological.  Starting your book in the middle is counter-intuitive. When your start a book it’s tempting to dump the whole backstory into the first few pages. If you’re like me, you just want to get on to the ‘real’ story.

However, that is not what readers are looking for. Readers want to get drawn into the story early on. They want to learn the specifics as they develop throughout the story.

Let me share why you should re-think your opening pages. Many readers will stop reading a book after two or three pages. If they’re not drawn in by then, they haven’t connected to the story line.

How do you make an immediate connection to your reader?  Surprise. Scare. Amaze. Intrigue. Draw in.

If you don’t lure him or her in immediately, they will make snap judgements about your book. Tedious. Boring. Repetitive. Ordinary. You are given surprisingly little time to prove yourself. There are billions of books available to readers, they don’t want to be bored for even a few minutes. Think instant gratification.

Dole out that backstory information throughout the book. Perhaps your protagonist is an introvert with limited social skills. Throughout the story you might drop hints that she is an only child. She was bullied in grade school. Her mother was a stay at home mom. Let your reader make associations. Slow unveiling draws the reader into your story. Let your reader share in those ‘aha’ moments.

What you want the reader to ask when she finishes your book is, “Where can I find other books by this author?”

What Do I Write About?

By Terry C. Misfeldt

If you have ever wanted to write but ask yourself: What do I write about?, here are eight tips:

  1. Write about what’s going on in your life. You may think your life is boring but other people may find what you do fascinating and of interest to them.
  2. Write about your area of expertise. You may be adept at crochet or solving crossword puzzles. Share your skills by writing about the steps you take to accomplish perfection.
  3. Write a book review. There are places on the web that offer you the opportunity to comment and share your thoughts about books you’ve read, like Good Reads. Writing reviews is a good place to start writing.
  4. Write about your family’s genealogy. You can write about your parents and what they went through when they were growing up. They can share storied about your grandparents, and maybe even your great grandparents if you ask. Don’t wait, though. You’ll regret avoiding those conversations if you wait too long.
  5. Write a poem about someone you love. It doesn’t matter if it rhymes or even makes sense; you’re writing to share your feelings with that special someone…and they’ll love it because it came from you.
  6. Write about a topic of interest to you, whether it’s hunting, the weather, science, gardening, tree planting, chemistry, or television programs. The idea is to write.
  7. Write about your childhood. Who were some of your friends when you were growing up, and what did you do that was memorable? Where did you play? What music did you listen to? What was your favorite TV program? Who did you admire?
  8. Keep a journal. Write down what happens in your life on a daily basis. What may seem mundane to you could prove to be the foundation of an interesting story.

Once you start writing, the ink bug will get you and you’ll want to put more words on paper or save them in a storage device. My, how times have changed from the days of pen and paper as our main method of communication. Yes, sending a letter to a relative, friend or loved one is another option for what to write. Think paper, envelope, and a First Class stamp. What?