What’s the Cost to Your Protagonist to Accomplish a Goal? #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Everyone makes choices. People are a sum of the choices they’ve made in life. But each choice usually costs them something. Think about your own personal choices. Are you married? Then you are making a commitment to love and honor your spouse and not someone else. Do you have children? Then you’re making a commitment to care and educate them in their lifetime. Are you religious? Did you choose a career? All of these choices cost you something to commit to. Relationships and careers take time and effort to deal with the problems that come up in life. 

In fiction or memoir, our protagonists must make choices in their story lives that cost them something in return. It must cost the protagonist to change internally or externally or even deal with a plot problem. Does she get what she’s after? The goal must cost her something, emotionally or physically, to attempt it.

Think about Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help. One of the main protagonists is a young white woman who wants to be a writer, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan. It’s the early 1960’s, and Phelan’s mother wants her to get married and have babies, like Phelan’s friends. There is so much to unpack in this novel. I’m going to choose one tiny piece. Phelan chooses to write a book about the horrible treatment of “colored” maids in the Deep South. This takes much effort and time for Phelan, and she requires assistance to gather the information. But her choice to compose this book costs her the love of a man she had initially wanted a meaningful relationship with. It also costs her acceptance in the neighborhood. In fact, Phelan ends up moving north to be a writer.  

                                                                                                      

So what does it cost Victoria to choose to begin college as a mother of five?

The major cost is time with her family. This affects others. And it hinges on another cost for Victoria. Internally, because she struggles with feelings of inferiority, and works twice as hard just to keep up in college, Victoria can’t seem to relax or take a break. So Victoria believes she’s wasting time and effort that could be spent making life better for her family.

No, she can’t be the Mom she was before attempting college, spending most of her downtime with the children. She needs time to study if she wants to show those children how to be successful. Her children need to mature enough to understand this. So does her husband. And, most importantly, so does Victoria. She must learn to stop worrying about taking too much time away from family because she learns differently and studies constantly.

Please feel free to offer any insight regarding the costs in this college journey. It would be truly appreciated.

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. 

Insecure Writers Want to Know: Whose perspective do you like to write from, the hero (protagonist) or the villain (antagonist)? Why?

            Ooo! What a juicy question. Since I write predominately YA short adventure stories, I’m mostly in the mindset of the protagonist, the young teen who will change the most and be the hero of the story. In a lot of my adventure stories, the physical antagonist is a wild animal or weather or natural phenomenon, like an avalanche or a fire. That’s not to say I don’t have a sibling or bully causing external problems too. There also needs to be an internal “antagonist” of sorts in the form of something bothering the protagonist; like a personal fear or lack of courage to do something, or an unwillingness to change. 

Even so with such a tight word count, usually 1800 words, I only have word space for one perspective.

            So how does the writer get the perspective of the antagonist onto the page when writing on a limited word count?

            The writer does this through the protagonist’s perspective. The protagonist projects his or her own feelings about the bully, the mean sibling, that natural phenomenon, or even the protagonist’s personal fear to the reader. In other words, the protagonist interprets what all the action, inner struggle, or problems mean to the protagonist, who’s driving the story and must solve the story problem, especially in children’s fiction.

In order to go beneath the surface of the story, the reader needs to see how the action or problems, affect one person—the protagonist. If the writer chooses to write through the perspective of the antagonist, the story needs to be affecting the antagonist the most.  

            As a writer, which character is more interesting to speak as; the protagonist or the antagonist? Again, I think it’s important to see how what’s happening in the story affects each of those characters. It’s what the story actually means to a character that adds depth to the story, that helps the readers connect with the character. Ultimately, that’s what makes the story distinctive.       

I can’t wait to see whose perspective you prefer to write through and why. Thanks for visiting! Please follow Adventures in Writing 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 Support Group. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.  

Obstacles Add Tension in Story #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

As in life, obstacles can add tension in fiction or memoir stories. When I say this, I mean literally whatever keeps your protagonist from reaching her story goal is an obstacle. 

Obstacles can be physical things like:

Wild animals blocking the path back home

An evil villain forcing your protagonist to retreat or hide [antagonist]

Any treacherous trail to negotiate in order to find freedom [landscape]

An ice storm or bitter cold or icy waters to traverse [weather]

Government or societal corruption

But obstacles can also be internal things like:

Lacking physical ability to do something

Lacking in knowledge

Mental or physical illness

Regret

Mental or physical abuse

A bad relationship your protagonist can’t break free of

Inferiority

Any belief contrary to a logical standpoint [if someone’s being nice to you, that means they want something]

Writers should include both internal and external obstacles for their protagonists—in varying degrees of intensity. They can’t all be life-threatening in a story or the writer will run the risk of exhausting his reader. The writer needs to choose obstacles that mean something important to his protagonist. How the protagonist interprets these obstacles is the reason why writers include them in their stories.

If we turn to my college memoir, Victoria’s main obstacle in keeping her from obtaining her college degree is internal. It’s her belief that she can actually do it. It’s her feeling of inadequacy when compared to other college students.

A few external obstacles in this college journey are:

            Her children – Although they are the impetus for Victoria to begin college, the time they require in their growing up years collides with Vic’s ability to focus on college.

            Failing the math portion of the entrance exam.

            Professors – their teaching style and Vic’s ability to learn collide.

            Dropping a course in order to save sanity

            Vic’s always fighting the clock, trying to find time to complete assignments

            Vic struggles with learning subject material

Feel free to offer any insight regarding my obstacles in this college journey. It would be truly appreciated.

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. 

Insecure Writers Want to Know: Besides writing what other creative outlets do you have?

Me, creative? I wish I could say I’m a musician or a painter, but my medium is words. I’m a storyteller just like my father before me. Okay, I specialize in anecdotes—family anecdotes. But something besides storytelling? I really had to think about this question. 

I’m the keeper of my family’s memories, our treasure, our adventures. I create photo albums for each child with this treasure. Each of my five children receive a life book, I call it, filled to the brim with their personal anecdotes and life treasure. These books take me months and months to create. I fill them with redwood tiny pine cones, elementary reading certificates, small sea shells from Jersey beaches, scouts badges, and zoo pins. Stickers, photos, and snippets of their life memories fill the pages.

I like nothing more than to enjoy a fresh pot of tea in the morning. But I don’t like the teapot to get cold quickly, so I created tea cozies. I ask the children what we should make. We go up into the attic to search for scraps of material. We make a template. And I sew our new creation. Now, I’ve created tea cozies for each of my married children using their favorite clothing growing up. I create a cat using my daughter’s favorite leopard print skirt. I use contrasting fabric for ears and tail. I make dogs or cabins. I offer one of my many teapots and two tea cups to go with each tea cozy.

Have a hot cup of tea, enjoy the love
and share precious memories.

I was the hospice caregiver for my mother in her last months of life. Once she died. I made “Grandma G” heart pillows out of Mom’s housecoat. I wanted the children to remember that Gram’s love would always be with them. I attached ribbons to the hearts so the children could hang their Grandma G hearts anywhere.

I always enjoyed community theatre. I used to be in shows, but needed to decide if I was going to spend time acting or creating stories to sell. There is only so much time in one day, and my family has always been my priority.

I can’t wait to see how creative you all are. Thanks for visiting! Please follow Adventures in Writing 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 Support Group. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.  

Let 2019 Be the Year You Believe in Yourself #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

            Happy New Year, fellow writers and bloggers! Believing in yourself is what life’s all about, isn’t it? Whether you are a college student struggling with classes or a writer struggling with a manuscript, you need to believe you can do it. You need to take the chance and at least try.  Otherwise, you’ve already failed. 

            Is it easy to truly believe in yourself? No. At least it’s not for me. I can’t seem to get out of my own head. Insidious thoughts keep voicing their ugly opinions. In other words, it’s easier for me to help my children think positively and help fellow writers find the point of their manuscripts than it is for me to commit to a point for my college memoir and move forward with the manuscript. You see, I’m not trapped inside other people’s heads, only my own. I can hammer away at their negative thoughts from the outside, offering positivity, focusing on the good rather than the bad. I don’t have to live in their thoughts.

            This college memoir is my first attempt at a book-length manuscript. I have a first draft that is more a summary of what happened during my college experience rather than a memoir story with a “because of this, the next thing happens” trajectory.

Even though this is a book-length manuscript, I’m trying to break down the writing process as I do in my short story writing. Do you break down a difficult project into smaller pieces to be able to move forward?

Let me answer a few questions for the memoir project. Please offer any insight you may have as this truly helps me to move forward.

The main goal of the protagonist in the college memoir story is to help her special needs daughter, her oldest. Victoria needs to find the courage to believe in herself and her abilities enough to complete a college degree as a nontraditional student, a mother of 5, because this is the only way she thinks she can truly assist her daughter, and by extension her other children.

The main conflict: Abandoning her own derogatory thoughts about her abilities, built through her backstory, and finding the foundation and time needed to be able to reach her goal of an undergrad degree, thereby demonstrating to her children how to succeed.

The premise of the story [I hope] is that determination will overcome all obstacles.

           

Why does it matter that this story is told?

People need to see that it’s never too late to embark on a dream, to commit to attempting something that scares you to death, to finally learn to believe in yourself. I hope to inspire others.

I need to take baby steps and begin telling the journey again. I wish you all a healthy and successful 2019. 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. 

Insecure Writers Want to Know: What are your favorite and least favorite questions people ask about your writing?

I like how IWSG phrased the question with “favorite” coming first. I think everyone wants others to be interested in their work—especially writers. To show true interest in what someone else is doing, though, a person needs to ask specific questions about the project. Sometimes I think this can help a writer move forward in her story when she’s stuck because a specific question may trigger a path the writer hadn’t thought of before.

As for a favorite question to ask me generally, it’s all in the word choice. My children always ask me what fine adventure I was on today. So did my mother. I think it’s the best way to approach my story writing. As any writer knows, word choice is important, especially when handling a neurotic story teller. Unfortunately, my name’s at the top of the neurotic list!

But about those specific questions I like to be asked about my YA adventure stories, I need people to ask: what are the internal and external problems in this story? Where is it taking place? What are the family dynamics? I need to be able to answer these questions in order to move forward with the story. Of course the person needs to know me and how I write to be able to ask these specifics.

My least favorite question of all time that people ask about my writing is: “Did you ever finish your memoir?”

Instead of actually saying: Yes. Two different versions. I just answer: Nope!

It’s not that easy. I’m not just recounting what happened to me. That’s not memoir. Memoir is a story about a certain time in someone’s life and the life lessons that person learned from the experience. And—man! Is it difficult to do well.

            Asking a writer if they’ve finished a book they’ve been working on is like asking “So what did you publish today?”

            Writing book-length manuscripts take time—lots of time. This is why it’s a celebration when the story is complete even though there is much more work to accomplish in revision before sending it out for representation or self-publishing it. Then there’s marketing the work. I think when people ask a writer about their writing life, they’re only thinking of the story, and many times they’re only asking generally. Non writers might not understand there is much more to the writing life than just creating stories.

 

So how do you handle when other people—especially non-writers—ask about your writing endeavors? Please share any thoughts or tips here at Adventures in Writing.

Thanks for visiting! Please follow Adventures in Writing 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.  

Insecure Writers Want to Know: What Are Five Objects You'd Find in My Writing Space?

            So let’s see…five objects in my writing space. I guess the five children don’t count. Unfortunately, they’re always in my space. But that’s a different story. What would be considered useful in my writing space that could help you in yours? I like my posts to be helpful to my fellow writers. 

            I like quiet when I write. I know! That’s funny coming from a mother of five. Maybe that’s why I like the quiet. I don’t get enough of it in my house. But the only one I want talking in my writing space is me. And yes! I do talk to myself. Or maybe I’m really talking to my characters. Many times, I’m looking for the sense of the plot, the why of an action or decision for my characters. I’m a concrete and logical person. I need real reasons for things to happen in story. I think many readers come to story to find a logical world. Because of this, the next thing happens. Many times in real life, we can’t find—or understand—the reasons for actions and decisions. This doesn’t mean that your story logic should be simplistic. On the contrary, the deeper the story, the more likely the reader will stay with the character to the very end, hoping for a happy [or logical] ending. Do you talk to your characters?

            Another thing I like in my writing space is a fresh, hot pot of tea. I must have been English in my last life. Brewing a fresh pot of tea relaxes me. It helps me think. Taking the time to step away from the computer to pour another cup of hot tea allows me to consider my story as a whole and decide what should happen next. I don’t drink coffee. I don’t drink wine. What’s your mental go-to drink when writing?

            A pad of paper and pen are essential to my writing space. Most of my YA adventures deal with journeys through forests or caves, down rivers or across mountains. I like to draw crude maps to keep me focused on the literal journey while my characters are struggling on the inside with personal problems. I also write key words or notes on the pad of paper. How about you, do you draw maps for your story or plot lines?

            I also keep my family camping journals handy because they’re crammed with details of the national parks we’ve visited with the five kids. Many times, one of my YA adventures begins at a park we’ve visited. I peek inside my journals to find our family’s real life adventures, looking for ideas to fictionalize for my characters.  Do you keep journals of real life events to fictionalize in story?

            How about photographs of places and people? They help me visualize a scene or a character in my stories. Then I begin to ask questions: if a storm comes up in the mountains here at Rocky Mountain National Park, where could I hide until it pasts? What about a fire in the desert? Who could be living in that cave or who could I meet on the trail that would add more tension to the story or assist my protagonist to finish the journey? Stories have both internal and external problems, remember. How about you, do you use real photos of places you’ve been to or do you search online to find locations to set your scenes in?

So how do you find creativity in your writing space? Please share any information here at Adventures in Writing.

Thanks for visiting. Please follow Adventures in Writing 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.