Insecure Writers Want to Know: How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

            How has creativity in my life evolved since I began writing? I expect more from myself with anything I write. And I feel others expect more creativity from me once they learn I’m a writer. Whether it’s a letter [remember those?] or a response to an e-mail, a blog post or even an answer to an essay question, I feel pressure to create something pithy, something memorable, something witty.

Creativity to me is like leaves in autumn. Some seasons are better than others. Whereas trees need successive days of sunshine and warm weather during their growing season for colors to be their most radiant in autumn, so too does my creativity require days of sunshine—or at least  calm—and the warmth of positive thoughts for my stories to become the best I can make them.

            Positive thoughts. Calm. It’s what every person needs—especially writers.  How can we become creative if we don’t believe in ourselves? How can we remain calm?

            Don’t get me wrong. Life’s not meant to be easy; at least mine isn’t. But neither should our characters’ lives be easy. Our own struggles help us to create stories with meaning.

            I remember learning in my Story Genius course that writers need to make things as bad as they can for their protagonists. Thanks, Lisa Cron. And then, she adds, make things even worse.

I have this problem about being mean to people. And our characters are people. At least they are to me. I feel sorry for anyone who’s having a bad time in life.

I know. Why am I a writer, then? It’s a good question. The answer is: I feel compelled to write. I can’t just not write. This makes life a bit more difficult for me. When my life is exploding all around me, I fight with myself that I must write. I need to accomplish something worthwhile in the writing realm; whether it’s a blog post, a eulogy, or a short story.

My battle lies clearly defined between trying to find time to write and trying to find time to maintain [or is it create?] a social media presence so that when I ever finally finish the next [hopefully better] draft of my memoir story about attending college as a mother of five children, I have the necessary connections and presence to submit it, either for critique or to publishers.

            But I need this time, in my writing life, to concentrate solely on my memoir. And I need to truly recall the events during those frustrating college years when things got harder and harder for me [the protagonist in the memoir] at college or where family life—or the guilt of not finding any “down time” to spend with the family—lodged deeply in my psyche, almost paralyzing me from moving forward with my college career.

            The best thing for authors to realize, when creating story or memoir, is when they need professional help for the book to come to fruition. I feel I’m at that stage. I’m seriously considering becoming a part of Author Accelerator where each writer has his or her own professionally trained editor offering concrete feedback to the manuscript. I need someone to help me find the “because of this, the next event happens” structure to the college memoir.

            Where or who do you look to for professional guidance in preparing your story? Please share any information here at Adventures in Writing.

Thanks for visiting. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. Leave your blog link in your comment so I can be sure to do the same for you.

This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s SupportGroup. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.  

Secondary Characters in Fiction or Memoir #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Because memoirists can’t change what happened and who is involved in the particular memoir slice of life story they are telling, it’s all about what they choose to show the reader about the secondary characters in the memoir and what they choose to leave out. And whatever the memoirist tells or shows needs to be explained through the lens of the protagonist.  

Secondary characters grow and change within the story arc of the protagonist in fiction or memoir.  You don’t want just plot puppets, characters used to move the story forward without any background or desires of their own. All characters think they’re the hero of their own story according to Lisa Cron in her Story Genius course. But when you’re crafting a story, you want the protagonist driving the change within the story, not the secondary characters.

In memoir, the other characters are real life people. And the reason why they are in the story is to amplify and support the protagonist’s transformational arc of change. The reader needs to get a sense of what the secondary characters are about and what their specific agendas are. They are real people with real lives. The memoirist can’t change anything about their real lives or she’s writing fiction—not memoir.

In my memoir about attending college as a mother of five, my husband and our children play an informative role in helping me and hindering me in my attempt at college. I felt like a specimen under a microscope with not only my own family watching to see how I handle college, but also my mother and siblings. I felt like everyone was waiting for me to fail.

            Like in many families, my five children are all different. But as the protagonist in my memoir, I not only need to distinguish each of my children for the reader, I also need to remember to include only what matters about their lives to the story I am telling, my journey through college, my understanding of what education is all about. When I talk about distinguishing each child, I don’t mean what they look like. I’m talking about their personalities, how they act, what’s important to them and how that affects me the protagonist in the memoir.

            For instance, my second daughter Michelle is the family brainiac. Every family seems to have one! But what does that mean to Victoria in the memoir story. It means that even at a young age, Victoria relies on Michelle as a family [and later college classwork] sounding board. But because Michelle is young and inexperienced in the beginning of Victoria’s college journey, Michelle still wants Mom’s attention, still needs to be individually noticed within the family.

Marie, the oldest, is special needs. She consumes most of Victoria’s time and is the impetus for Victoria to begin college. Marie can process only one thing at a time. Victoria has trouble remembering this and frequently becomes frustrated.

My husband Bill’s task in the memoir story is to be the voice of reason. He tries to get Victoria to stop and listen to others, a very difficult job as Victoria’s always short on time. He feels Victoria is consumed by her studies [true], thus taking too much time away from family, increasing his workload, and denying him “couple time.”

Bill’s job is to counter what father had said to Victoria. Bill needs to change what is ingrained in Victoria, that she’s not good enough for college/not smart enough for college. He, along with other secondary characters, chips away at Victoria's misbelief that she’s inferior to those who attend or attended college. Victoria can do whatever she sets her mind to—even if she needs to study/learn differently or take longer to do so, like Marie.

My son William, the middle child, is smart, but needs to be watched to be sure he does all his assignments. He’s laid-back, not high-strung like Victoria. During Victoria’s college years, he has a calming effect on her.  But he, too, wants his time with Mom.

The family is used to having Victoria’s time. She doesn’t mind. This is her life. But if Victoria wants to succeed in college, things would need to change because she still learns differently, like her daughter Marie, and needs to play catch-up with the more traditional college student.

            *Please feel free to offer comments or ask questions about my secondary characters. This helps me to move forward on my memoir.*

            Whether it’s memoir or fiction, each secondary character needs to have a specific personality, a reason to be, that benefits the main storyline. As the writer, you include only the facets of secondary characters’ lives that pertain to the story you are telling.

Once again, I’d like to thank Jennie Nash of Author Accelerator and Lisa Cron for helping me to understand these concepts in my memoir.

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. Leave your blog link in the comment so I can be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

Going Beneath the Surface in Story #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

To go beneath the surface in your story, or shall we say beneath the plot, the writer needs to ask why what happens in the plot matters to the protagonist or the characters in the story. As Lisa Cron of Story Genuis fame says, the plot gets its emotional weight based on how it affects your protagonist who is in pursuit of a goal.

Let’s see how it works in two books I enjoyed.

The Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown is an historical non-fiction book told as a riveting story. The plot is about how these nine disparate, poor American college boys finally come together as a team to win the eight-oared crew race in the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. [Eight oarsmen, 1 coxswain = nine American boys in the boat]

That’s what happens.

But who would really care if not for the why it matters to one particular boy in the boat, Joe Rantz. This book is mostly his story. Of course, Brown brings to life all of the crew members, the coaches, the boat builder, Joe’s family and girlfriend, the Depression, the Dust Bowl, and Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

What Joe has always wanted is a family who cares about him. The reader watches Joe’s attempts to get his father and step-mother to care about him, to be proud of him. And we feel Joe’s pain as he is abandoned again and again by his family.

We see his misbelief become a reality, that he can’t trust anyone to be there for him. The reader is part of his search for family and connection. And he finds it in rowing and realizing that he can trust his fellow crew members.

In fiction, John Grisham’s The Client works the same way. The plot is about the suicide of a mafia lawyer who knows about the mafia cover-up of a murdered Louisiana senator.

Okay, it’s about the mafia’s dirty works. Why should it matter to regular folks?

It matters because the protagonist, an eleven-year-old, street-wise but poor boy named Mark Sway, tries to prevent the lawyer from committing suicide.

Okay, so what?

It’s the backstory in any story that helps the reader understand why the plot matters to the characters.

Mark’s always wanted security for him and his mother and younger brother. He’s been taking care of them since before his abusive father left.

What happens in the plot matters to the Mark because he feels responsible for bringing a mafia threat into his family. A heavy load for an eleven-year-old to bear. Like any good story, problems escalate. Not knowing who to turn to, Mark retains a lawyer for his family with a dollar. Together Mark and his lawyer Reggie Love, a woman with her own complicated backstory, end up in a race to discover the body before the mafia moves the body.  

Again, this all matters to Mark because he doesn’t want his family to live in fear of the mafia killing them.

            I’ve only given a basic outline of what I’m trying to show here with the above two titles. It’s easier to show how the questioning system works with finished stories. It’s much harder to do this in your own work of creation.

In each scene, the writer needs to know:

What the characters go into the scene believing,

What they want, and

Why what is happening in the scene matters to them.

By the end of each scene, the characters need to change; their outlooks on the situation, their feelings, or their next moves, even if it is just slightly. Writers need to let the reader into the character’s head.

In the first scene of my memoir about attending college as a mother of five, Victoria is at school with her special needs’ daughter Marie. They are meeting with the guidance counselor from the high school to choose a curriculum for Marie.

Victoria enters the scene believing that she’s inferior to college-educated professionals, but if she can only get the counselor to understand Marie’s needs and what Marie wants to do in life [attend college to become a teacher], choosing the curriculum will be easy.

What Victoria wants in this scene is for the counselor to listen to Victoria. [Counselor ignores Victoria.]

Why what is happening in this scene matters to Victoria is because she is reliving her own struggle of trying to convince her parents that she desired to attend college, and Victoria, too, was told that she was not college material.

Victoria changes by the end of the scene [only slightly] by deciding, as a mother, to give her daughter the opportunity that Victoria was denied so long ago. Victoria allows her daughter the opportunity to at least try to attend college. [Counselor makes Victoria sign paper stating that if Marie fails high school it’s Victoria’s fault because Victoria wouldn’t follow recommendations made by teachers and the Special Education Department, people who are more educated than Victoria, who wanted Marie to stay in Special Ed classes.]

Writers of fiction as well as memoir need to remember that we never just give us the what in the story. We need to always dive into the why. In other words, when creating story, writers need to know the questions to ask of every scene, every character:

What happened?

Why did that happen?

What did the character do as a result?

If we keep asking why and where the feeling is coming from and what does it mean to that person, we can discover the true meaning of our story.

I want to thank JennieNash of Author Accelerator and Lisa Cron for helping me to understand which questions to ask for each scene in my memoir.

*As before, please offer any insight or comments you may have about my college memoir. Thank you! * 

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. Leave your blog link in the comment so I can be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

What is the Aha Moment in Fiction or Memoir #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Lisa Cron, in her Story Genius course, states that your protagonist’s “aha moment” near the end of your novel is when the protagonist finally overcomes her misbelief. This is where your novel makes its point. A writer needs to know the point she is trying to make in her story to be sure each scene is focused on that point.

If I analyze my college journey experience, I notice that throughout my experience I am the mother of five children first and a college student second. My life has always been about the parenting of my children.

            This brought me back to how my parents raised me and my brother and sisters. It made me reconsider deeply my father’s words in the origin scene. You can find my post on origin scene here.   

“What makes you think you’re smart enough for college, Vic?”

Because Victoria struggled in her early education, her father felt he was saving his daughter from possible failure in life. Perhaps he thought he could save all his children from failure by choosing an easier path for them; a path, he thought, without unnecessary struggle; a path, it seemed, without a college education in it.

Victoria’s initial interpretation of the origin scene was that those who struggle in school should not go to college because they’d have a higher risk for failure.

But what if Victoria realizes near the end of her college journey that success in college doesn’t depend only on how quickly you learn but rather on your determination to succeed? Doubt and fear of failure are a part of life. Many people struggle to better themselves. Parents shouldn’t keep their children from attempting new and difficult goals solely to keep them safe from the risk of failure. We must realize our full potential, and to do this, many need to struggle; like Victoria does in her quest for a college diploma.  

Maybe becoming a parent myself solidified my work ethic. Perseverance matters in life. Those who struggle early in their education learn this as they move through life. Perseverance can overcome obstacles. Victoria learns this through her college journey. She learns differently. Others may learn faster, but Victoria keeps chipping away at education and understanding of course material to receive her Bachelor of Arts degree from an Ivy League university.

The takeaway message to readers could be:

Effort counts in life as in college.

Perseverance matters.

Don’t let fear and doubt keep you from your goals.

*In your opinion, which sentence encapsulates what Victoria has learned from the info I provided above?*  

While researching concrete evidence about what Victoria learned during her ten-year college journey, I came across two great TED talks:

Angela Lee Duckworth defines “grit” as passion and perseverance for long-term goals.

And Dr. Carol Dweck speaks of a belief called the “growth mindset” and how we can improve in learning.

            In memoir as in fiction, the protagonist needs to deal with her misbelief scene by scene by scene in order to earn her “aha moment,” that point in the story where the protagonist discovers that her misbelief is in fact a misbelief. This is usually an “internal realization” according to Lisa Cron in Story Genius, an internal realization that is prompted by an event in a fiction story or memoir. Thanks for reading.

And thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. Leave your blog link in the comment so I can be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here.            

The Transformational Arc of the Protagonist in Fiction or Memoir #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

In fiction or memoir, the story needs to be about the protagonist taking the reader through an arc of change and letting the reader feel that experience, feel that change within the protagonist. Writers need to remember that the internal story arc of change for the protagonist, the transformational arc, needs to unfold slowly, scene by scene, and it needs to be interpreted for the reader through the protagonist’s thoughts.  

But in order for the writer to construct a story to change the protagonist, the writer needs to understand how the protagonist interprets her story world. That’s where the origin scene comes in. Remember the origin scene from a prior blog post? The origin scene is where the protagonist’s misbelief about the world is born. This is a misbelief about how the world works according to the protagonist. This guides the protagonist’s life from the moment it happens—the actual origin scene—according to Lisa Cron in her Story Genius course.

In memoir, the protagonist is you the writer. You need to think:

How am I going to show one explicit arc of change in the protagonist’s memoir story?

Think what particularly is Victoria’s arc of change in her college memoir?

            Victoria begins the memoir believing that if you struggled in school, you’re not smart enough for college because her father said as much in the origin scene when she attempted to sign up for college prep courses in high school.

As a writer, I need to show the protagonist’s change from someone who doesn’t believe that she can handle college—because she’s unprepared and inadequate—to someone who does in fact graduate from an Ivy League university. I need to show the daily struggles with fear and doubt—and what they mean to the protagonist—through scenes in the memoir.

In order to do this, writers need to set the place, the time, and the context of each scene moving forward. Scenes need to be specific. Writers can’t simply focus on what happens externally in the story. We’ve got to let the reader know what our protagonist is thinking as she reacts, internally, to everything that happens in the story according to Cron. And we need to help the reader understand why our characters are thinking and believing what they do. We need to put the character’s inner struggle right on the page so readers can experience her internal conflict themselves.

The misbelief needs to be at the forefront of the internal struggle in the story. Backstory scenes need to reinforce Victoria’s misbelief; scenes that show her feelings of fear and doubt and inadequacy that if she went to college she would surely fail. My blogpost about backstory can be found here. 

            A few backstory scenes to reinforce Victoria’s misbelief could be:

A scene with a college-bound high school friend where the friend tries to explain her science classwork to Victoria and Victoria is completely lost, believing her father correct. She could never understand the subject material.

Note: Victoria comes to realize, as she struggles through college herself, that she needs to be taught the subject matter visually to be able to understand.

After the birth of her first baby, Victoria discovers that a fellow secretarial student friend from high school graduates from community college. Victoria interprets this as her friend probably didn’t struggle in school. She was simply smarter than Victoria.

Victoria fails the math portion of the College Entrance Exam.

However, to chip away at her struggle to believe she can succeed at college, Victoria learns that the college offers basic skills math courses to help her build a math foundation.  

           

            Another scene that chips away at Victoria’s misbelief is when the Phi Theta Kappa advisor informs her that she should apply for All U.S.A. and All New Jersey Community and Junior College Academic Team awards. The professor believes in Victoria, but Victoria is more worried about what would happen if she won the awards.

Fear, doubt, and inadequacy in my particular memoir story can manifest themselves as inferiority or even feeling like an imposter. When I attended the University of Pennsylvania, I didn’t feel like a real Ivy Leaguer. I felt like I didn’t belong.

*As before, please offer any insight or comments you may have about my college memoir. Thank you! * 

Lisa Cron states that the protagonist’s “aha moment” comes near the end of the novel. It is when she finally overcomes her misbelief. This is where your novel makes its point. I’ll talk about the “aha moment” in the next post.

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. Leave your blog link in the comment so I can be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here.

In Memoir or Fiction: Story Is Internal #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

            Happy New Year, Toolbox Writers! I hope you enjoyed some quality family time during the holidays.

            My last Toolbox post talked about “What Exactly is the Origin Scene in Memoir or Fiction?”  The origin scene starts a misbelief in the protagonist, a misunderstanding about herself.

Think about Harry Potter. When the series opens, Harry Potter believes he is an unwanted child. Insignificant. Nothing. Why does he feel this way? The adults who are raising him, the Dursleys, tell him and show him so.

In the first book, Harry is just looking for acceptance, in my opinion. He’s looking for friendship, and hopefully someone who will tell him he isn’t worthless. A deceptively difficult goal for an 11 year old boy.

Now let’s consider what Lisa Cron, the author and teacher of the Story Genius method of writing, has to say about story.

Cron teaches that story is internal. It’s about how what happens in the plot, the physical action of the story, affects a character who has a deeply ingrained misbelief about himself or about his place in life. And this character perceives his goal in the story to be difficult to attain. The internal change will be at the heart of your story and will make your point.  

            This is true in fiction, and this is true in memoir. The writer is telling a story. And there needs to be a point to the story, the universal theme. The uniqueness of memoir is how it’s a true story first and offers insight second. The hardest thing for memoirists to remember is that the memoir story is not really “all about them.” They need to think about their readers and how this particular slice of life can help the readers in turn.

            I believe that I have the “difficult goal to obtain” part in my memoir story about attending college as a mother of five. It’s to believe in myself enough to, in fact, obtain that Bachelor of Arts degree while still raising those five children, while still being the main teacher of my special needs daughter.  My internal struggle is constantly fighting doubt; it’s fighting inadequacy. It’s [mis]believing that I am not college material, not smart enough to succeed in college.

            The plot, the story present, is learning how not to allow someone else’s judgment of me to color my world, whether it’s my father, one of my children’s teachers or counselors, or the many professors I encounter at college. And my story present begins when my special needs daughter wants the same dream that I had once allowed my parents to convince me that I was not worthy of.

Everyone wants to be seen as worthy in someone else’s eyes—especially someone important or close to them. Someone they feel who knows more than they do; whether it’s about education, about life, or about them specifically.

            This memoir is about a younger Victoria, an inadequate Victoria, finally coming of age. For I believe that attending college—at whatever age a person attends college—can help her to believe in herself, in her life choices, in her parenting skills. At least it did for this Victoria.

            The theme of “coming of age” doesn’t necessarily deal with only children becoming adults. I believe it can be realized whenever a life-altering event takes place in someone’s life—even if she is already an adult with children.

            Please offer any insight you may have on a “coming of age” theme for my college memoir or about my thoughts on allowing someone else’s judgment to affect you. Any thoughts you wish to share are truly helpful to me in writing my memoir journey.

            Next month, I’d like to discuss the transformational arc of the protagonist. I wish you all every success in 2018.

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. I’ll be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

What Exactly is the Origin Scene in Memoir or Fiction? #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

The inciting incident is the start of story present. In my case it’s when a high school guidance counselor challenges me to help my special needs daughter through her high school years and I realize I can't do it without a college education myself.  

The origin scene is where my misbelief about not being smart enough to handle college work originates. The origin scene and misbelief started when I myself tried to sign up for college prep courses in high school and was told more or less that I would fail if I attempted college.

Writers need to consider what the key origin scene is that starts the belief in a flaw that is so important to their particular protagonist in the fiction or memoir story they’re trying to tell. The origin scene is where the protagonist’s flaw first comes into play, and it usually happens during childhood, according to Lisa Cron, the creator of the Story Genius method of writing.  

A flaw develops in the protagonist’s logic in the origin scene to help the protagonist cope at that particular time in his or her life with the situation at hand.

Why did Victoria believe she wouldn’t succeed in college? In 1973, she brought home the course selections book for high school. Her parents needed to sign off on the courses. 

*Rough origin scene, Victoria’s 13 years old:

 Dad picked up the folder.  “What’s this, Vic?” 

He pointed to the curriculum path I chose.  College Prep.

I was all smiles.  They should be so proud of my choice.  Me, the daughter who had so much trouble in school before.  Now I was considering college.

            “Vic,” he said, “We don’t go to college.”  He placed the folder back on the table.

            “What?”  Can’t just anybody go away to college?  I didn’t get it.  “Dad.”  I looked at my mother.  “I want to be a writer.”  And an actress, I thought, but I couldn’t tell Daddy that.  He already told me that was stupid when I had mentioned it to Mom last year.

            “College is for doctors and lawyers,” he said.

            That’s all?  Really?  I was at a loss of what to say.  I shook my head.  “But all the authors I read about…”

            “They must be rich,” he said.  “We’re not.”  He leaned forward on the table.  “There’s no money for college, Vic,” he informed me, in that definitive tone I knew so well.  He pushed the folder back to me.  “We’re a working class family.  Everybody goes to work after high school.”  He rose from the table.  “At real jobs,” he added. 

But why can’t working class people go to college?  I felt my dream slipping away.  I searched my brain for some proof.  “Dad, Betty’s sister wants to be a teacher, and she’s going to college.”  I glanced up at him. 

He was looking at my mother.  Neither one said anything. 

“Vic,” Dad said finally.  “What makes you think you’re smart enough to do it?”

I felt like it was the middle of summer instead of early spring.  I wanted to run outside into the darkness to cool off.  Or was it to hide from my past? I struggled so much in school before 6^th grade.  Mom told me that the school had wanted to hold me back in 3^rd grade but Daddy wouldn’t let them.  He had worked with me in math for hours after his night shift had finished.  Yet I continued to struggle in 4^th and 5^th grade.  But somehow in 6^th grade I finally got it, although it took much studying and work on my part.

“Dad,” I said desperately, “I’m on the honor roll now.” 

“You need more than that to survive college, Vic.  Play it safe.  Go to work.”  When I didn’t reply, he left the room.

I sat there dumbfounded, trying to make sense of this. My parents didn’t go to college. And neither did my girlfriend’s parents.  Mom’s a secretary.  And Dad’s a machinist.  They have a house and cars.  They’re successful.  So are my friends’ parents.  College isn’t necessary for success. It didn’t matter what other writers had done.

            Daddy’s right.  If I tried college and failed, I’d embarrass them.  And Dad wouldn’t be able to help me this time with math.  It’s good to know this now before I have trouble with college prep courses.  And even if I did all that work, I wouldn’t have anything to study at college because I don’t want to be a doctor.  I don’t like blood and guts.  And I don’t want to be a lawyer because I’m afraid of the bad guys.  And I don’t need to struggle in college and then fail, proving to Dad that I’m not smart enough. 

  

*End of scene.

The origin scene begins a misunderstanding in the protagonist’s life. This misunderstanding must be connected to the main thrust of the story. And the misunderstanding should become a way for the protagonist to save herself from future problems. In my case, the misunderstanding that I’m not college material would save me from failure in life. I needed to choose a more secure path without the need to struggle further in my education.

Does this sound overly dramatic to you? Your insight is always appreciated.

The origin scene’s misunderstanding blooms into the flaw that the protagonist carries around with her for the rest of the story. But remember, to the protagonist, this misconstrued logic shows her how to interpret life so no harm or bad feelings come to her in the future.

Victoria’s father made it clear that doing well in the basic classes does not prepare one for college, in his mind. Victoria needed to be smarter. And she wasn’t. He instilled in her that failure in life is not good. Victoria interpreted this as “don’t attempt anything that you might fail at.” So she stayed away from college until her own daughter wanted the same dream.

Remember that many times, the antagonist’s intentions seem logical to him. They’re from his own life experience. The antagonist, many times, is just trying to help the protagonist. 

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. I’ll be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

What Does Backstory Do in Memoir or Fiction? #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

The question of “why” continues in memoir and fiction. Why this protagonist? Why now? Why does what happens in the story present matter to the protagonist?

Through backstory, we find the why of the present story we are trying to tell, according to Lisa Cron, the creator of the Story Genius method of writing. The reader wishes to understand why the protagonist behaves as she does. What is her backstory?

In memoir as in fiction, backstory shows the reader why what’s happening in the story—the story action—matters to the protagonist.

            In Victoria’s memoir story, she had always revered those who went to college. College graduates were smarter than she was, she felt. They were successful, in her mind. And, the college-educated were in charge of her children’s education—especially her special needs oldest daughter.

            Victoria dealt with these feelings of inferiority until the high school guidance counselor told her that her oldest daughter shouldn’t go to college. She wasn’t capable. She wouldn’t be able to handle the work.

This is where the writer brings in “why this matters to Victoria.” Without the “why” of the story, the memoir would be merely surface. Who cares? Just stick the child in special education and let the educated people deal with teaching the child.  

            But Victoria had never done that. She was a team player and always supported all her children through their education. Until now. Until high school. Victoria didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to teach her children high school subjects.

            Okay. But why let this bother Victoria? Why did what the counselor tells her matter so much to Victoria?

It matters because Victoria has always wanted to be included among the college-educated. She feels she could be a better mother, if she is college-educated.

Then go to college, the reader thinks.

But Victoria believes, at the time the memoir story opens, that the opportunity to attend college has passed. She has five young children, the oldest special needs. Her husband travels for work.

To go deeper, Victoria was told by her father she wasn’t smart enough herself to succeed in college because she too struggled in her early education. Her father felt he was saving his daughter from possible failure in life.

This is why what is happening in the present memoir scene with her daughter’s high school guidance counselor matters so much to Victoria. This is where specific backstory comes into play.

            You put story-specific backstory into the scene at a moment when something triggers the protagonist to think back to a particular past situation or action in order to make sense of the present situation.

A protagonist may use his or her personal backstory to make a decision on how to respond or how to act in a specific confrontation or situation in the story. Backstory helps the reader understand why the protagonist is reacting the way she is.

            Think about it in your own life. We use our own personal backstory; how we were brought up, our experiences and learned life lessons, to make sense of our present world and personal life. Our past—our backstory—helps us to decide what to do next in life situations. Our past helps us to make meaning of our present.   

            Backstory can be a few words, a few paragraphs of explanation, or even an entire scene to explain what happened in order to show why a character acts the way she does in story present.

Backstory is uniquely tied to the origin scene in story. In the origin scene, a flaw is found in the logic of the protagonist. Where is this scene in the life of your protagonist, the particular flaw that is addressed through your story or memoir? Why did Victoria believe she wouldn’t succeed in college? We’ll address this next month.

Please offer me any feedback about the logic of Victoria’s memoir story, for it truly helps me to move forward in my work. Also, feel free to pose memoir topics. I will share what I know through my blog posts.

Thank you for visiting Adventures in Writing. Please follow my blog if you haven’t already and connect with me online. I’ll be sure to do the same for you. To continue hopping through more amazing blogs or to join our Author Toolbox blog hop, click here. 

Insecure Writers want to know: What is one valuable lesson you've learned since you started writing?

            So many valuable lessons, so much still to learn. I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned since beginning to write is to believe in myself enough to send a story out. And if it comes back, to brush it off, and send it out again. And again, and—yes—even again.

            Many times, writers are a fragile creature. I know I am. We try so hard to believe in ourselves, in our stories, in our writing. And in my case, I’m crushed again and again. To be able to pick yourself up and continue to believe is a power all writers have. It’s just difficult to find sometimes. 

            Where can we find this inner strength to continue calling ourselves writers, to actually be writers? Here are a few tips that help me.

            Safety in numbers. Writing groups help writers find confidence. I belong to South Jersey Writers Group, a friendly group of writers in many genres who support one another, critique one another’s work, and offer presentations about writing, publishing, social media, and other tools of the trade.

            Writers helping writers. When writers learn something new, they don’t keep it to themselves. The very nature of the writing beast is to share what they’ve learned with others in their number. I do this through South Jersey Writers Group and reading other Insecure Writers Support Group blogs and sharing information on my Adventures in Writing blog and through workshops I present.

            Here are a few excellent writers and bloggers that I have come across: Jennie Nash, Lisa Cron, Writers in the Storm, The Editor’s Blog. You might like to follow them as well.

            Finding a quiet space to think. We are a multi-tasking society, and writers are no different. I believe writers need a peaceful place to leave the world and all their obligations behind in order to look within and consider what’s working and what’s not in their writing in progress. Some writers attend writing conferences, which not only allow for the first two points in my post, but also some time for uninterrupted thinking and writing. I realize they are expensive and some writers don’t have the money or time to go away to write.

I find thinking time in chunks, a few hours lost among the stacks in a library—away from the five children and home obligations. But I also find quiet in a walk through the woods or around a local lake. Sometimes just a walk in my neighborhood gets me away from the computer screen and into my thoughts about story flow, pacing, and logic. Writers can’t be afraid to look within to find answers; both for their writing and in life.

If writers are lucky enough to share these three key pieces of the writerly life, then they can find the courage to let go and send their stories and essays out into the world time and again, whether through traditional publishing or self-publishing. No. It’s still not easy. But it can be done.

I wish you all a solid belief in what you are doing in your writing life. Thanks for stopping by Adventures in Writing and sharing any thoughts you might have about this or about writing. Writers sharing with other writers. It’s what the writing life’s about.

This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s SupportGroup. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.  

Story Genius Writing Course: The Origin Scene

Sometimes I feel so small in revision.

If you think about it, all stories begin with relevant backstory. For just as real people deal with the present based on their past, so too must our characters deal with the story problems based on their relevant past experiences. The key word here is “relevant” past experiences. Jennie Nash and Lisa Cron in my Story Genius course asked:

What was the pivotal moment in your character’s past that changed her outlook on life? This will be the “origin scene” that sets the character up for interpreting the present story problems. Even in memoir.

In my memoir about attending college as a mother of five, I felt highly inadequate for college—and amazingly so at the Ivy League level. Attending college is not something rational people do on the spur of the moment. Not even when the prospective college student is a mom challenged by an all-knowing educated person who determines that her child shouldn’t attend college because she’s not good enough.

In my mind, people who attend college spend years preparing for it. At the Ivy League level, students spend their entire lives in preparation for it. No, college isn’t something to take lightly. After all, I could fail out, proving that educated person and extended family members that I am, in fact, unable to succeed and therefore my child might be as well.

It all came back to me. The origin scene for my college memoir, that is.

It was early spring in 1973, and I was perusing the high school curriculum booklet given out by the counselors, dreaming of going away to college. At that time, I thought everyone who attended college went away to be able to concentrate solely on their college education. At least that’s what they did in movies and on television.

Boy was I naïve! We never heard of community college or college loans. My family had no money for college.

I sat at the kitchen table, selecting college prep courses from the curriculum booklet for high school. I was the second child of four in my blue-collar family, the first who wanted to attend college. Then my father, a machinist by trade, the realist in our family by necessity, took note of what I was doing.

“Vic,” he said. “What makes you so sure you can handle college?”

My hand went numb, the course selection form blurred on the kitchen table. Why couldn’t he forget about my earlier struggles in school? I tried to.

“Dad,” I choked out. “I’m on the honor roll now.”

“It takes more than that to succeed in college, Vic.”

The scene continues as my father hammers into my consciousness that our family goes to work after high school. As someone who struggled earlier in her education, I should accept that I wasn’t college material and move on in life.

Finally, Dad’s realism became my realism. I wasn’t cut out for college. I was inadequate to those attempting higher education. It ate away at my confidence to succeed in life. I needed to settle, not strive. This was my present, my future, my life.

This origin scene works in conjunction with a post on the ticking clock of a story.  

It wasn’t until I was a mother of five with a special needs daughter that I finally realized if you don’t take any risks in life, you have already failed.

I think the choosing of my high school curriculum scene was the first “relevant” past experience, the origin scene, that formed my belief of not being good enough for college. I also feel it shows the effect a significant adult can have on a child. It forced me to be sure not to do the same to my children.

Please offer any comments or questions regarding this scene or your own college preparation, for they truly help me to define the moment and improve the writing. Thanks again for stopping by Adventures in Writing and leaving a note. It’s greatly appreciated. 

Story Genius Writing Course: One Ticking Clock in Story

Crawling along in the
Story Genius method for
my college memoir.

A story is one external problem that grows, escalates, and complicates from beginning to end, Lisa Cron says in our Story Genius class.  Jennie Nash concurs. And, the ladies tell us, the writer needs to develop one overarching ticking clock with real life consequences. 

Right!

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? Try it in memoir.

So I started with my misbelief that I shouldn’t attempt college because I’m inadequate to those seeking a college education. This was instilled in me when I was growing up and struggled in school. This belief kept me out of academia and away from failure, humiliation or displaying incompetence. Or so my father told me. I chose the successful path of secretary with a regular paycheck and married and became a mother like my mom, sisters, and friends.

I was safe in my cozy box of motherhood, safe from any fear of failure until my disabled daughter signed up for high school classes. Then I needed to choose whether to be a failure at guiding my children or disabled child or a failure at attempting college.

The ticking clock begins as I am forced by a comment made from a high school guidance counselor, an educated person respected in society, to either re-teach my daughter as best I could, the material needed to pass high school by educating myself first through college classes, or condemn her to only special education classes in high school.

So you may ask why I was so afraid of failure in college.

Because, in my mind, if I fail at my attempt to obtain a college degree, I have wasted the time I could have spent with the family, trying to achieve a goal that was not possible for me. My father would be right. I am not college material. 

But my family is everything to me. If I failed college, I would have wasted my family’s time, which is more precious to me. It’s ok to waste your own time but not someone else’s, especially when you love them.

So what do you think of my memoir problem and ticking clock? Any comments you offer are greatly appreciated.