Category Archives: Writing

Creating Characters

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

editing1Yesterday, twenty of us gathered at Symposium Restaurant for a workshop with award-winning author J.K. Coi.  Having written several novels in the urban fantasy, contemporary and paranormal romance genres, Coi is best known for creating compelling characters that “leap off the page and into readers’ hearts.”

Some of her tips…

  • Strong characters will offset weak plots.
  • Allow your characters to have flaws. There is no tension or growth in a perfect character.
  • Keep in mind that believable does not translate into realistic. Inject an element of fantasy to entertain the reader.
  • Make your character so unique that they couldn’t be dropped into any other book.
  • Feel free to make tweaks and twists that readers will appreciate, but not throw them out of the story.
  • Avoid cliches but respect reader expectations. If you must deviate, add humor or provide an appropriate back story.
  • Character-driven books have depth and are more memorable than plot driven stories.
  • Give your characters complicated relationships.
  • Secondary characters are there only because they have a purpose. They should not be more interesting than the protagonist.
  • Use other characters to reveal the protagonist’s blind spots.
  • Figure out the intricacies of the characters before starting the novel.

Coi also provided us with information about Romance Writers of America and Toronto Romance Writers.

Thanks to Cindy Carroll of Guelph Write Now for organizing this event.

Asking Rhetorical Questions

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

question1

“Are any of you being hosed?”

Brian Patton’s question took us all by surprise. It was not the preamble we were expecting from the seasoned Toastmaster, but as Brian continued with his speech, it quickly became apparent just how effective that initial question really was.

That is the power of a rhetorical question.

Often asked for effect, a rhetorical question can emphasizes a point, present a challenge or serve as a call to action. Brian’s question immediately engaged all of us and forced us to actively listen instead of passively sitting back and absorbing very little.

Some well-known rhetorical questions include…

“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?” (H.L. Mencken)

“Aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish everyone did?” (1960s television advertisement)

“If practice makes perfect, and no one’s perfect, then why practice?” (Billy Corgan)

On the lighter side (From House M.D.)

Dr. Cameron:  Why did you hire me?

Dr. House:       Does it matter?

Dr. Cameron: Kind of hard to work for a guy who doesn’t respect you.

Dr. House:       Why?

Dr. Cameron:  Is that rhetorical?

Dr. House:       No, it just seems that way because you can’t think of an answer.

While crafting rhetorical questions can be challenging, toastmasters and writers should not shy away from this effective literary device. Consider the following tips:

·         Use these questions sparingly. If you have too many rhetorical questions in a speech, you can overwhelm and confuse the listener. One well-worded question in the introduction will give the audience members enough time to digest the information that follows.

·         Provide the answer to the question. While the question isn’t meant to be answered by the audience, it should be answered by the toastmaster who follows up with relevant material.

·         Hook the audience with a rhetorical question instead of an emotionally charged statement.  For example, if you are trying to rally support for an anti-bullying campaign, you could ask: “How many more children must be bullied before we take action?”

 


My Back Story

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

editing1I never intended to write fantasy.

Poetry. Contemporary women’s fiction. Inspirational literature. Possibly a cozy mystery. That was the plan, or more precisely the forty-year-old dream concocted at age eighteen.

While many winters have come and gone since 1973, I can vividly recall sitting in Sister Maris Stella’s Grade 13 English class reading the poems of T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence and, of course, Margaret Atwood. Between my heavy mathematics schedule and part-time job, I managed to scribble a few poems and short stories. Dreams of a writing career dangled before me, but I put them aside and gave in to my practical Italian side.

Degrees in mathematics and education led to a thirty-one-year teaching career with very little time to indulge my well-hidden writing dream. After I retired in 2008, I faced large blocks of unscheduled time which I quickly filled with writing workshops, seminars and online courses. Slowly, a writing practice emerged and I started seeing my articles and book reviews in newspapers, magazines and online.

Not the original plan, but satisfying nonetheless.

I had outlined a plot for a cozy mystery while teaching and completed the novel shortly after retiring. Two fifty-something Italian women, their mothers, four dead blondes, deserving and undeserving men and food: A Season for Killing Blondes showed promise, but never got off the ground.

On a whim, I started attending creative writing workshops offered by dark fantasy and horror writer Sarah Totton at the Guelph Public Library. Impressed by Sarah’s tenacity—she entered the Writers of the Future Short Story Contest 17 times before winning—I listened attentively to her advice.  Most of her examples dealt with the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres. Not my first choices for reading material, but I was open to learning more about the werewolves, witches, vampires, zombies and robots that enthralled the other workshop participants.

Could I write fantasy?

Driving home, I toyed with the idea and thought back to the fairy tales I had read as a child. Red Riding Hood. Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. And The Little Mermaid.

What if…

A beautiful mermaid gives up her tail for an upwardly mobile international banker. Her grandmother, an esteemed elder of the Mediterranean kingdom, is displeased. In a fit of anger, she chops off her grand-daughter’s hair and ages her thirty years. When the banker discovers that his lovely mermaid has been transformed into a middle-aged woman, he abandons her on the fog-drenched shores of southwest England.

Between Land and Sea will be released by Soul Mate Publishing in the fall of 2013.

Loving Those Oxymorons

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

oxy2Technically they’re oxymora, but according to the wordsmiths, oxymorons can be used as the plural form.

Regardless of the label, oxymorons attract attention. People who like to pepper their conversations with these literary devices are well aware that their listeners will stop and think, wondering whether they should laugh or not.

Perhaps, the most famous oxymoron is the expression “same difference.” Two words with completely opposite meanings come together to produce a verbally puzzling, but intriguing effect.

Other common oxymorons include jumbo shrimp, cruel to be kind, random order, open secret, act naturally, and passive aggressive.

Some well-known quotations also make use of oxymorons.

  • “I can resist anything, except temptation.” Oscar Wilde
  • He is the only honest thief.” Charles Lamb
  • I am a deeply superficial person.” Andy Warhol

I enjoy collecting oxymorons and using them in my writing and general conversation. Some of my favorite and less well-known oxymorons include planned spontaneity, controlled chaos, clean dirt, and pontificatory salvos.

Yesterday, I encountered several new oxymorons on the lively online chat facilitated by The Romance Reviews for the authors at Soul Mate Publishing.

When Collette Cameron, author of Highlander’s Hope, described her writing style, she referred to herself as a “linear pantster.” While most writers will classify themselves as either plotters or pantsters, Collette admits that she likes to plan but loves unexpected twists and characters who misbehave.

Jac Wright’s latest book is entitled The Reckless Engineer. Intrigued by this unlikely and potentially dangerous oxymoron, I am looking forward to reading about an engineer with a very messy love life.

The title of Catherine Castle’s book, The Nun and the Narc, does not technically qualify as an oxymoron, but it certainly captured the attention of many chat participants.

Any other unusual oxymorons out there?

My Take on Boomer Lit

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

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We’re the young generation,
And we’ve got something to say.

Almost five decades have passed since I first heard those catchy lyrics from The Monkees.  At age fifty-eight, the song continues to resonate with me.

I’ve still got something to say.

And so do seventy-eight million other baby boomers around the world.

We are fueling a growing demand for a different kind of literature, aptly called boomer lit. While it is entertaining to read about young vampires and twenty-something women wrestling with relationship and workplace issues, we want our own heroes who are not afraid to change the standard romantic and literary formulas.

Age-appropriate. Nostalgic. Finding meaning in the golden years. Or to quote LuAnn Schindler…

Move over, chick. It’s time for the hen to strut her stuff.

I started to seriously “strut” my literary stuff five years ago. After retiring from a thirty-one-year teaching career, I decided to devote my second act to writing. Excited about my first novel, I anxiously awaited input from a visiting screenwriter. That conversation is still etched in memory:

Writer: “You’ve got an interesting storyline here. And I like how you’ve developed the  main female characters. But…

Me: Spill it. I can take it.

Writer: Most of the characters are over fifty. You need to bring in a couple of young’uns. Create a sub-plot with the protagonist’s niece and introduce a love interest for her.

Me: What do you mean by young’uns?

Writer: Characters in their twenties and early thirties. That’s what selling now.

Since then, I have encountered different versions of this conversation whenever I participate in writing workshops and seminars. Several instructors urged me to downplay the “boomer” elements in my books.

“Don’t mention anything about age in your query letter.”

“It’s okay to have an older woman as a sleuth. She’ll be invisible and that works well for sleuths. But make sure you surround her with younger characters.”

“Stay away from retirement homes, senior homes, and nursing homes. Don’t dwell on all that negative stuff. Too depressing.”

Hmm

Thankfully, the writers and producers of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Quartet, The Intouchables and Downtown Abbey did not consider such misguided advice. I can’t even imagine creating younger characters to replace Maggie Smith, Dame Judy Dench, Bill Nighy or Francois Cluzet  in any of their outstanding roles.

I am equally impressed by Jeanne Ray, Lynda Rutledge, Debra Goldstein and other writers who have launched spectacular second acts.  Inspired by their stories, I  have continued to use boomers and their older siblings as protagonists in my novels and short stories. My determination and efforts are finally paying off. In the fall of 2013, Soul Mate Publishing will release my debut novel, Between Land and Sea.

Any other boomer lit success stories out there? I would love to feature you on this blog.

Related Articles…

Are You Ready For Boomer Lit? Laurie Boris

Boomer Lit: Romancing the Middle-Aged Reader by LuAnn Schindler

How I Reinvented Myself at 60 by Jeanne Ray

Life Lessons from Maeve Binchy

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

editing1Since 1999, I have read all of Maeve Binchy’s novels and short story collections, including her last book, A Week in Winter. Like many of her fans, I was taken aback by her sudden death last July and mourn the fact that there will not be another Maeve Binchy novel. I will also miss Maeve’s wonderful advice.

These are my favorite life lessons from Maeve Binchy:

Be supportive

Maeve was blessed with parents who thought “all their geese were swans.” As an overweight child who did not excel athletically, Maeve appreciated the warmth and positive feedback she received. Later, she met and married Gordon Snell, a writer who also believed that Maeve could do anything.

In her novels, Maeve extended this positive reinforcement to her characters. She once explained: “I don’t have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.”

Accept all gifts

In the early 1960s, Maeve worked in a Jewish school in Dublin where she taught French to Lithuanian children. The parents of these students gave her a trip to Israel as a present. At the time, Maeve had no spending money, but she went on the trip anyway and worked in a kibbutz—plucking chickens and picking oranges. To reassure her parents, she wrote regularly describing her adventures. Impressed with her writing, her parents sent the letters to an Irish newspaper. Equally impressed, the editor published her letters as travel articles and later hired her as a columnist.

Visualize

When Maeve began writing stories and novels, she was still working as a journalist. She got up each day at five-thirty and worked for three hours at the typewriter before going to work. To motivate herself on those dark mornings, she started to visualize the launch party for her first book. She imagined large crowds of people gathering and paying her compliments.

Unfortunately, the publisher did not intend to have any party at all. But this did not deter Maeve. She spent two hundred pounds, one fifth of her advance, and organized her own launch party in a room over a pub in Covent Garden, complete with wine and crisps. She invited friends, booksellers and the publisher “who cringed with the shame of it all and, in the end, it was such a good scene that it fired her to sit down and write the next book.”

Share

Success is not a pie where everyone who gets a slice has somehow diminished what’s left for everyone else. Maeve believed that success was “more like a cairn, a heap of stones where the more each person gets the more it adds to the general body of work out there.” She urged aspiring writers to “borrow” the techniques of successful writers and present them in their own unique voices.

And, most important of all, keep at it.

The Web Whisperer

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

get_image.phpOn Friday, Web Development Librarian Randy Oldham facilitated a lively and interactive workshop on “Writing for the Web” at the University of Guelph.  In addition to presenting five tips, Oldham provided well-placed humor and several practice exercises to reinforce those concepts. I appreciated the gentle nudges and urged Oldham to consider a sideline as web whisperer.

Be Concise

Words cost us brain power and time. If we imagine that each word has a cost and that our users are cheap, we will make an effort to get our copy down to the bare basic facts.

Good questions to ask…

  • What is the point of this page?
  • What content on the page fits with my expectations?
  • What doesn’t belong with the title?
  • Have I gone into too much detail?
  • Are my introductions too long?

Make it Scannable

Oldham informed us that three out of every ten people are color blind. So, when we use—and often overuse color—we are disenfranchising thirty percent of the population.

Other suggestions…

  • Break information into manageable chunks by using bulleted or numbered lists.
  • Keep sentences short and avoid long paragraphs.
  • Don’t use italics or the underline feature.
  • Use boldface sparingly and smoothly.
  • Select sans serif (Arial) over serif (Times New Roman) font.  Eyes will fatigue when reading serif font. Size: at least 12 point.
  • Avoid unnecessary images.

Use Active Voice

The passive voice is jarring to read and makes us sound robotic. On the other hand, the active voice makes sentences shorter and easier to read.

Be Conversational

Make web content friendly and easy to read.

 Link Smoothly

When you include tons of links on your page, you detract from your credibility. Aim for no more than five links in a post.

Colleen Tully and the Bees

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

colleenftullyColleen Tully likes to talk about beehives. Not the usual topic one would expect during a workshop on “How to Please Both People and Robots with Your Digital Content.” But the senior editor of Fresh Juice and former web food editor at Canadian Living effectively pulled it off yesterday at the University of  Guelph’s Third Annual Writers Workshop.

In comparing the social media community to beehives, Tully outlined the pitfalls that could be encountered by bloggers, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest users. We cannot and should not underestimate the intelligence of bees. The bees  know when we’re being greedy and will react accordingly if we annoy them.

So, how do we please our hive and get noticed in the digital arena?

Consider Tully’s suggestions…

  • Write concise digital content for easily distracted people who need to be entertained.
  • Your title will be vacuumed into other platforms. Make it count!
  • Break up copy into sub-headings, short paragraphs and lists.
  • Do not steal artwork for publication. Use Instagram or your own photographs.
  • Pick the social media platform you like and understand the rest.
  • Use conversations starters to generate more interaction on Facebook and Twitter.
  • Put space and time between each content share. Everyone hates a spammer.
  • Don’t push your content and walk away. Instead, share ideas from other sources, even your competitors.
  • Package content with timelessness, seasonality and trends in mind.
  • Keep in mind that social media is not the ugly stepsister to a website or print publication.

Many Winding Roads to Success

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

winding roads

The timing was off.

No one wanted to read about the Korean War, the forgotten war that was overshadowed by the immensely unpopular Viet Nam War.

But that didn’t prevent H. Richard Hornberger (using the pseudonym Richard Hooker) from devoting eleven years to writing about his experiences as a surgeon at the 8055th mobile army surgical hospital unit during the Korean War. His agent spent another eight years sending the manuscript to over thirty publishers who soundly rejected it. Hornberger then asked famed sportswriter W.C. Heinz to help him revise it.

A year later, MASH was acquired by William Morrow and Company.

In 1970, MASH was the third-largest grossing film that year and spawned the popular CBS series, which ran from 1972 until 1983.