Who Wants to be a Gong?

Thursdays - Devotions for Writers

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
(I Corinthians 13:1 NIV)

What if we slightly changed the words of the verse above? It could read, “If I write in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I come across as a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” Gongs and cymbals have their place. But hearing them consistently for a great length of time would become annoying.

Our country recently celebrated Independence Day with picnics in parks, backyard barbeques, and fireworks. We have neighbors who are quiet and rarely seen. But they love to blow things up every 4th of July.

This year was no different. They held a large party and set off explosives nonstop from eight until midnight. It sounded like we were being invaded by the military. No one in the surrounding area could sleep. This morning our back and front yards were covered with ash and debris. It happens only once a year, so we try not to get overly irritated. But there would be a neighborhood uprising if it was a frequent occurrence.

How does this apply to writing, you ask?

Just as there are times when preachers need to be “on fire” as they share God’s word, there may be times when writers need to be direct in relaying how God desires us to live. But if those words aren’t tempered with love, the affects can be messy. Like after a wild party, it can take a lot of work to clean up the disaster left behind. Only in this situation, devastation may happen in a person’s heart or mind, as opposed to a yard. That is . . . if he's is even willing to read through the “sermon.”

Jesus on rare occasions felt the need to display anger and shout God’s word, but most of the time he took a gentle and loving approach. He often spoke in parables so it was easier to grasp what he wanted to teach.

I believe love and gentleness play important roles in the motives and manners in which we share our faith. If we write out of love - and not condemnation or with an attitude that we’re better than others - our words won't feel like gongs or clanging cymbals in the minds of our readers. Through our fiction and nonfiction stories, we’re able to share God’s love and forgiveness in a gentle way that can seep into the hearts of those who engage in the lives of our characters.

I desire to write out of true love for my readers – and not my personal agenda.

I want my words to be a sweet, soothing song to the reader’s spirit. Not a loud, clashing cymbal.

How about you?

Dawn

Idea Boards by Jill Eileen Smith

Are you looking for tools that will help inspire you while working on your manuscript? Author Jill Eileen Smith is here this Writer’s Journey Wednesday to share some ideas. (Dawn here.) I haven’t used an Idea Board – yet. But recently, I had an “ah-ha” moment. I realized that a certain actor made a perfect fit for the hero I had envisioned in my head. I now have an assortment of photos – smiling, brooding, laughing, etc., to help me visualize this character. It’s fun! Enjoy what Jill has to offer us today. She’ll return to share her journey to publication on Fortifying Friday, July 30.

Idea Boards

What is an Idea Board? When I mention my use of them, some people mistake them for storyboards as they are used in filmmaking. Storyboards are sketches that tell the story (movie) frame by frame, showing each scene to be filmed. They give the director a specific idea of how to shoot the film, to keep him/her on track.

Idea Boards are different—they are poster boards filled with photos—pictures of people and places. I borrowed the Idea Board suggestion several years ago from women’s fiction author Deborah Raney, and have used it in each of my books since. I cast my characters for my biblical novels from pictures of Jewish actors and actresses, or in some cases from Arab or Egyptian actors and actresses for characters like Hagar and Ishmael in my current WIP (work in progress). I’m looking for faces that are similar to the character I envision. (This comes in handy when the publisher asks for book cover ideas. The Jewish actresses I “cast” for each of the wives of King David, Michal, Abigail, and Bathsheba came very close to the models they found for each respective cover. (The attached example is my Idea Board for Abigail.)

Once all of my characters are “cast,” I look for photos of place. Archeological sites of ancient Israel are great, along with pictures of artifacts or anything else that gives me a feel for the setting. I’m a visual learner. I need pictures to stimulate my imagination most of the time. Research books like pictorial dictionaries or cultural atlases are too nice to cut up, so I get most of my pictures off the Internet and print them for the Idea Board. I love making them! Maybe it’s the kid in me getting to play with scissors and glue and pretending I’m artistic, but this is one of the fun parts of writing!

Another option to add to an Idea Board is to make Character Trait Cards and tact them to the bulletin board on either side of the Idea Board. Brightly colored (or white if you prefer) 4x6 or 3x5 cards work well. Put the name of each character at the top, then list their characteristics below their name. Things like: hair and eye color, weight, build, age, birth date, career, favorite food and color, unique characteristics, and how they were related to other characters in the story. Depending on your genre, you can get pretty detailed with these things, and making such a list does come in handy when you go to write. It helps to know the character’s eye color doesn’t change from blue to green because we forgot what we wrote one hundred and thirty pages earlier. And editors appreciate having such a list when they read through your manuscript to make sure you stayed consistent.

Idea Boards hang in my office as inspiration. If you find yourself stuck as you try to write your own novel, perhaps such a visual reminder will get you going again.

Jill Eileen Smith is the best-selling author of Michal and Abigail, books one and two in The Wives of King David series. She has more than twenty years of writing experience, and her writing has gathered acclaim in several contests. Her research into the lives of David's wives has taken her from the Bible to Israel, and she particularly enjoys learning how women lived in Old Testament times.

When she isn’t writing, she enjoys spending time with her family; in person, over the webcam, or hopping a plane to fly across the country. She can often be found reading Christian fiction, testing new recipes, grabbing lunch with friends, or snuggling one or both of her two adorable cats. She lives with her family in southeast Michigan.

To find out more about Jill and her books, please visit
http://www.jilleileensmith.com/
http://www.thewivesofkingdavid.com/

God's Promises to Writers Series: To Keep Us

He Will Keep Us
God's Promises to Writers Series

Net's Notations Tuesdays

Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you
in the way and to bring you
into the place which I have prepared. (Ex. 23:20)

Isn't that beautiful? The "Angel" in this verse is actually referring to Christ before His incarnation. He goes before us. He goes with us.

As writers, some of us are just getting started. Some of us are newly signed and some are veterans—with variations everywhere in between. But this promise of God lends us security as we venture forth: He will keep us. Because even if you’re multi-published, there is still new ground to cover, there are new venues to explore.

“Venturing forth” can be frightening. It’s the unknown and the known that can rattle us. For example, a lot of times authors end up becoming speakers, even fiction authors. Makes sense. They have a way with words. They have a message. You have a message. God has planned for you to touch people’s lives. But what if you’re timid before crowds? What if the mere thought of speaking in front of a thousand or more people makes you break out into a cold sweat?! See that? Fear of the known.

And then there are the what-ifs—the unknowns. The inherent risk of visibility, or the fear of not earning out your advance, or not measuring up. The fear there will never another contract. Or what if I can't write another novel as good as the last?

And then, there are risks spiritually. Nope, not talking spiritual warfare (though it’s very real). I’m talking about our own tendency to trip merrily down the path toward selfish desires (rather than selfless serving), pride (versus humility), self-sufficiency (rather than dependence upon God), entitlement (rather than gratitude).

There’s a promise in the midst of our concerns about that as well:

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy (Jude 24)

That encourages me as I’m so far from where I want to be. Raise your hand if you can relate with this: serving God (in whatever capacity) both involves and requires a maturing process. And writing for Him is about so much more than writing for Him. Amen?

Praise God He promises to keep us.

Don't Let This Happen To You: Dialogue Tips by Kay Marshall Strom

Hi, readers! We hope you had a great Independence Day. This Manuscript Monday Kay Marshall Strom has graciously agreed to let us post her blog article on dialogue. Here’s the original link. Enjoy!

Don’t Let This Happen to You: Dialogue Tips
by Kay Marshall Strom

“Write good dialogue,” she said.

I just got a message from an excited writer eager to tell me all about the novel she’s writing. “My greatest fear was the dialogue,” she wrote. “I was afraid I couldn’t make it realistic enough. But I stumbled onto a secret. I’m hiding my tape recorder in the house so I can capture real talk.”

Um… unh-uh.

See, the aim isn’t really to write “real talk.” In real talk, we say such things as:

“Hey, guess what! I just got back from the… what’s it called… um… oh, I hate getting old! That place where we had your brother’s birthday deal, remember? Over by the apple place? Anyhoo, I thought I saw Micky. So funny after what happened that other time. Last year, you know… You were there. It was so hot and windy and that funny guy who sells the….”

No, the aim is to give the illusion of real talk while you actually accomplish something important such as moving your story forward or revealing a character or showing an incident rather than simply telling about it. The illusion of dialogue might say something like:

“Hey, I just got back from Gray’s Farm. I thought I saw Micky, but after what happened last year, it can’t be!”

Writing good dialogue is an art. (Okay, that dialogue isn’t so good, but you get the idea.) If you do dialogue well, it will add great strength to your work–non-fiction as well as fiction.

So what can you do to help your characters speak well? I’m so glad you asked! Here are some dialogue-polishing pointers I call: ”Don’t let this happen to you.”

• Unnatural Dialogue: “You’re crazy, Justin!” said Megan. “Look who’s talking, Megan,” Justin replied. When we talk to people, we hardly ever say their names. Yet the tendency in dialogue is to repeatedly address our characters by name. Don’t. Better: “You’re crazy!” said Megan. ”Look who’s talking,” Justin replied.

• Over-descriptive dialogue: Too many adjectives and adverbs give a fake, amateurish feel to your writing, and dialogue is no exception. “When I gazed upon the snowy-white petals of the lilies, so like winter’s icy coat of velvet, I knew Louie’s love for me was at an end,” she murmured tragically. Choose your adjectives carefully and sparingly. Make certain each one is worth its presence. Be even more stingy with your adverbs. Much better to let your sentence set the emotion than tack instructions on at the end. Better: “When I saw the white lilies, I knew what they meant; Louie no longer loved me,” she murmured.

• Lectures or soliloquies: “You will be taking the driving test next week,” Mother said. “All the days of practice, all the hours of study, all the mistakes and all the do-overs will come into play when you sit down behind the steering wheel, take off the parking brake, and put the car in gear. Take a deep breath, my dear daughter, and clear your mind of everything but the test. I know you can do this.” Long speeches grow stale very quickly. Don’t try to pack too much information into a passage. Dialogue isn’t the place to display all the research you did, either. Nor should you use it to sneak in “And the moral of this story is…” Better: “You will be taking the driving test next week,” Mother said. “You’re ready. I know you can do it.”

• Exposition: “I happened to run into your sister Julia, the one who married the doctor, Tim, from Peru, and who has the three children–Luisa, Freddie, and Lizzie. She was telling me that your mother moved to an eight-bedroom mansion on the tip of Florida where she lives among writers.” Oh, my! Please, do not have your characters tell each other what they already know just for the sake of letting your readers in on it. If you want us to know that kind of information, give it to us in narrative form. Better: I had wanted to hear the words from Sarah‘s mouth. Her sister Julia was in town with, Tim–her doctor husband from Peru– and their children. Julia had talked on and on about her mother’s eight-bedroom mansion on the tip of Florida, and all her writer neighbors. When I finally saw Sarah, I said, “I talked to Julia.”

• Unnecessary Dialogue: “Frank, this is my good friend, Jean. Jean, this is my neighbor from up the street, Frank. I thought it would be nice for the two of you to have a chance to shake hands and at least say hello to each other.” If the dialogue has no real purpose, leave it out. Dialogue that fills the page and simply serves to bide time succeeds only in slowing your story down and boring your reader. Better: She introduced Jean and Frank to one another.

• Repetitious Dialogue: All day, Marianne had been busy painting the room. She paused when Philip entered. “I’m painting,” she told him. She lifted her blue brush high. “Blue,” she said. Tell us in the narrative or tell us in the dialogue, but don’t do both. Better: Marianne had been busy painting the room. She paused when Philip entered. “Blue,” she said, holding her brush high.

• Sugary-Sweet Dialogue: “Oh, Mother, the dinner is delicious, as always. Brother, dear, please pass me more of the wonderful potatoes,” little Francine said. You say you have to be extra nice because you are writing about your own family? And you don’t want anyone to look bad? So you just add an extra touch of the positive and pare off anything that could be interpreted as negative? Your readers won’t believe a word of it! Better: “Eat your dinner, Francine,” mother said. “Starving children around the world would be glad to have those mashed potatoes!”

• Creative Attributions: “Don’t talk back,” he coughed. First of all, attributions must be other ways of speaking. People cannot cough words–or smile them or laugh them or sneeze them, for that matter. Second, plain old said and asked and answered are far more serviceable than more creative options, such as queried or extrapolated or implored. Third, look for opportunities to use an action in lieu of any attribution. Better: Franklin’s face went livid. “Don’t talk back!”
Okay, that’s my ”get started” list. Any dialogue hints you want to add?

~~~~~~
Coming in October, 2010: The Voyage of Promise

She is safe, and she is free . . . but she is still alone.

Slavers burst into Grace Winslow's life with guns blazing and tear her family apart forever. She watches in anguish as her husband is led in chains aboard a tightly packed slave ship bound for America. An old enemy has a more sinister plan for Grace and prepares her for a different kind of servitude in London. But Grace will not be enslaved. And she will not give up on the man she loves. In her determination to be reunited with her husband, she finds God reaching out to her.

~~~~~~

Kay Marshall Strom is the author 36 published books. Her writing credits also include numerous magazine articles, short stories, curriculum, two prize-winning screenplays, and booklets for writers. For 10 years Kay taught writing classes through the California State University system, during which she designed and directed the Writers Certificate Program for Long Beach State University. Today her writing and speaking take her around the word.

You can learn more by visiting www.kaystrom.com
Blog: http://www.KayStrom.wordpress.com
http://www.vibrantnation.com/our-blog-circle/kay-strom
Twitter: http://twitter.com/kaysblab