How Weather Affects Your Characters

Posted on May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 by vlaw759

Just as characters affect one another in your writing, they are also affected by the weather around them. In fact, just like people do with the setting, think of weather as a character. Keep in mind that weather and climate are two different things and will affect characters in different ways. Climate tends to affect lifestyle, social structure, and culture, whereas weather affects daily choices. There are myriad ways weather can affect your characters. If you can think of more to add to my list, I’d love to hear them!

Symbolism/metaphor

This can sometimes be overdone, but think of the symbolism of some weather forms. Is your character confused or unsure of something? You could make it foggy outside. Is the plot building up to a big climactic scene? Maybe a storm is approaching as well.

Foreshadowing/Mood

This could apply both to the mood of the piece or the character’s mood. Weather could either complement or contradict how the character is feeling, e.g., if they’re upset the weather could either be stormy or ironically sunny. Depending on which it is, it could deepen the character’s mood. After all, long periods of darkness may result in moodiness or depression. The build up to a storm can increase irrational behavior and sensitivity to pain.

Health/Survival

Weather can affect health in subtle or extreme ways. A walk in the rain could lead to anything from a minor cold to pneumonia. Take hypothermia, for example: you don’t need to be in freezing conditions to develop that condition. “An unfit person in wet clothes can be hypothermic in temperatures as mild as 15^oC (60^oF). A hypothermia victim is often confused, and can be the last to be aware of their state,” writes expert Candida Spillard.

Plot/Setting

Even a small turn or change in weather can lead to a turn or change in plot or characters’ movements. Weather is a huge factor in decisions people make throughout the day. For example, if it’s raining, fewer people will be outside, which could be a way for there to be fewer witnesses in, say, a plot involving murder.

Do you have more examples to add to this list? Let me know in the comments section! And remember: depending on where your character lives, the climate (and weather) will vary based on season and location. Do your research!

The Upside of Arguing Badly

Posted on May 18, 2018May 18, 2018 by vlaw759

Arguing has a bad reputation. No one wants to be known as argumentative! In my opinion, that’s because disagreements become arguments when they are handled badly. If all goes well, they are more likely to be labeled discussions! Having characters arguing badly is a powerful tool for writers. Here are 11 ways of arguing badly you might not have thought about recently.

1 One person is trying to dominate another. A symptom of this type of arguing is shouting. Of course, it doesn’t always work. Often the exchange devolves into a shouting match. Or a non-shouter will eventually just physically leave.

2 Name-calling. Insults up the emotion—often pulling resentment into the mix, leading the insulted person to defend against the insult and veer off the topic of the disagreement and into mutual character assassination.

3 A related tactic is comparing the other person to some disliked other person. E.g., you’re just like Aunt Agatha. Here the reaction depends largely on whether the person compared to Aunt Agatha likes or dislikes her.

4 Physical violence or the threat thereof—e.g., punching the wall or throwing things. This doesn’t settle a disagreement, it just stops the expression of it, leaving the threatened party to stew silently—and perhaps plot revenge.

5 Kitchen-sink fighting—i.e., throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the argument. This often involves bringing up past grievances, failures, or misdeeds that have nothing to do with what originally started the argument.

6 Not letting it go. Once the parties are stale-mated, instead of agreeing to disagree one or both parties bring up the issue repeatedly, nag, and/or sulk.

7 Trying to gain allies in the argument. This is simply trying to get others to take one’s side in an argument. It could be friends, neighbors, co-workers, or—perhaps most damaging—family members, especially children.

8 Interrupting. Not waiting for the other person to finish a point is another great way to up the emotion.

9 Not listening. This is similar to interrupting but not so active. One person is trying to make a point and the other person is reading, watching TV sports, texting, etc.

10 Make things up. One party simply asserts facts that aren’t. These sound authoritative, informed, and relevant—as in 89% of people do X, or as Abraham Lincoln said in 1873…. They backfire when the truth comes out—as in, the other party knows Lincoln died in 1865. Being caught in a lie escalates the argument.

11 Last but not least, add alcohol. Alcohol disinhibits, meaning that people speak and act more freely. And depending on the amount of alcohol, one or more of the parties may not be thinking clearly.

People are creatures of habit. For your characters, establish a pattern of arguing based on his/her typical weapons. Conflict is a beautiful thing!

The Best Time of Day to Write

Posted on May 4, 2018May 4, 2018 by vlaw759

There are manuals about how to write, what to write, and where to write, but a bigger question for me is WHEN to write.

Often our lives get so busy that even when writing is a full time job, it’s easy to set it aside to take care of “more pressing matters.” Enough procrastinating like that and the work never gets done, so it’s important to find your best time of day to write, block it off, and try for as few interruptions as possible. (Yes, that means logging off of Facebook!)

But when is the right time?

Most people say that it’s best to write first thing in the morning. You have more willpower (your energy hasn’t been diminished by other tasks), the creative part of your brain is more active after sleep, and that time of day is quieter and less hectic than the rest of your day.

But writing in the morning might not be the best move for everyone.

What if you’re not a morning person?

As Kevan Lee writes, Mareike Wietha and Rose Zacks conducted a study where they found that morning people best solved problems in the evening, while night owls were the reverse. Lee adds,

The theory goes that as our minds tire at our suboptimal times then our focus broadens. We are able to see more opportunities and make connections with an open mind. When we are working in our ideal time of day, our mind’s focus is honed to a far greater degree, potentially limiting our creative options.

What’s the bottom line?

Even if you don’t know what time of day works best for you, just try to be consistent. By training your brain to be in the writing mindset during a particular point of time, you’ll be able to jump back into writing quicker.

What time of day has worked best for your writing? How do you keep yourself consistent and focused?

Setting as Character Notes

Posted on April 20, 2018April 20, 2018 by vlaw759

Some of you will remember that last week I spent a day in Savannah, GA, taking a NOGS (North of Green Street) Garden Club tour of “Hidden Gardens.” They do one about this time annually. These gardens were small and walled. And as we toured, I thought about what theses gardens said about their owners/creators.

Of course there were flowers. We could, perhaps, talk about the language of flowers and what the selection of plants might reveal. But, frankly, that seems a bit esoteric. instead, I want to focus on what people chose to put in their gardens in addition to the flowers.

Below I have grouped pictures of artifacts by garden. For each grouping, consider the character/s of the people who created and/or enjoy these gardens. As you page through, just jot down your first impressions.

Garden One

Garden Two

Garden Three

Garden Four

Garden Five

At this garden, the Garden Club woman hosting made a point of mentioning that this bronze fountain was imported from France in 1830.

Garden Six

In addition to the chandeliers in this garden, there was a gas grill, a bar, and a half-refrigerator.

Garden Seven

Garden Eight

Using setting elements as character notes is a fine old tradition. Consider Jane Austen’s Rosings Park, Pemberly, and Cheapside houses. Although these pictures emphasize garden ornaments, but objects reflecting character could equally well apply to paintings, bric-a-brac, furniture, Hummel figurines, etc. Think about it.

Pets: A Treasure Trove for Writers

Posted on April 13, 2018April 11, 2018 by vlaw759

This insert with the Sunday Richmond Times Dispatch has been lying around since March 11, thoughts of ways it might be useful to writers niggling at me. It’s finally come to fruition. And I can testify—on the basis of my middle daughter—that the points made in this brief article apply to pets other than dogs!

Most obviously, you might have a character who is overboard on his/her pet. (If your character owns a cat, surely you can get comparable info online.) Indulging a pet could lead to teasing, ridicule, even ostracism.

But moving on: What about the pet service providers? Suppliers of pet party items. People make and/or sell pet gifts and toys. Someone who runs a pet daycare. People who design, make, and/or sell pet clothes. Any of these could provide an interesting job for a character.

What about pets as a source of conflict?

Last year pet owners spent almost $70 billion on their pets, approximately a 70% increase over a ten-year period. Money spent on pets could be a source of conflict between characters, or a source of financial difficulty. The American Pet Products Association says dog owners shell out about $3,000 per year, depending on the breed. But owners say they spend $8,000, $10,000, or more on everything from pet health insurance to new furniture to travel. (Nearly 40% of dog owners take them on vacation.)

And what about other heirs of the 44% of dog owners who provide for their dogs in their wills?

More than half of dog owners let their dogs sleep in their beds. What if the spouse/partner/love interest doesn’t like that?

The Emotional Upside to Owning a Pet

Scientific studies have documented the positive effects of pets on mood. Your body produces oxytocin and endorphins, hormones that lift mood and strengthen the emotional bond between owner and pet. Oxytocin is the hormone that creates bonds between mother and child or between lovers. So how dependent is your character on animal love? And at what cost?

Other Bits that Might Come in Handy

My oldest daughter trained with her rescue dog to make therapy visits. Is that something your character might do? What about a character who is the recipient of such visits? Where might that lead?

My youngest daughter is surgical veterinary technician. During a recent visit, she gave us a tour of her workplace.

Most of us are vaguely aware that animal hospitals do things similar to human hospitals. But to actually see the oncology lab, the MRI equipment, the physical therapy suite, the surgical areas, the precautions for animals in isolation, the incubator for preemies, and the site of the future serenity garden brings home the parallel.

But one unusual bit: this hospital maintains blood banks for dogs and cats.

The dog blood bank is filled by donations from the pets of staff and clients. Star donors (like Bruce Lee, above, who is a universal donor) donate blood every six weeks or so. Each donation can be used to treat more than one patient.

The hospital maintains colonies of cat blood donors. The cats come from animal rescue. At the hospital they are treated, vaccinated, and spayed. Even so, there are separate colonies for males and females. The cats are maintained as donors for a year and then placed for adoption.

Cat donors must be 1 yr old and at least 10 lbs
Dogs must be 1 yr old, at least 50 lbs
Both: no blood born diseases, no condition requiring chronic medication except NSAIDS, hypothyroidism, or meds for flea/tick/heart worm
Bruce Lee (the dog donor pictured) is 6 yrs old, has been a donor for 18 mos., and donates more than 6 times per yr. He’s a universal donor, like Type O for humans.

What if your character has a pet that is or was a blood donor?

I would have adopted Olaf in a nanosecond but he isn’t yet available. He’s affectionate AND has one blue eye, one green one.

Bottom line: Consider the value of pets in your writing!

The Worth of Flexibility

Posted on March 20, 2018March 20, 2018 by vlaw759

It’s never right to lie… unless you’re a writer. If you’re pulling your writing from real life, you mustn’t be bound too much by reality–e.g., just because someone said something that way doesn’t mean it’s a good way to say it. Just because it really happened doesn’t mean it’s interesting.

Furthermore, just because it happened in 1964 doesn’t mean you can’t set it in 1934–and vice versa. Of course, if it is something famous, like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, you can’t move it around too much, unless you are writing sci-fi or magical realism. But if you have a story about a great uncle who was married five times (that the family knows about), there is no reason you can’t write about such a character in current time.

Similarly–with certain obvious exceptions–just because the actor was a male doesn’t mean you can’t attribute the action to a female. Ditto parents and grandparents, siblings and cousins.

Bottom line: Be flexible when it comes to reality.

Bits and Pieces

Posted on March 9, 2018March 10, 2018 by vlaw759

I never set out to collect random bits of information, but things just stick in my brain—for no particular reason and in no particular order. Some comes from life experiences but many come from books. I enjoy coming across these nuggets, and so I drop them into my own writing upon occasion. Just for the fun of it, I’ll share some of these with you.

The Northern Cardinal is the most popular state bird, adopted by Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Other bits and pieces about birds come to mind as well. When both the male and the female sit on the clutch of eggs in the nest, there is little differentiation in plumage between the two; when only the female sits, she is always the dull looking one. Female goshawks are significantly larger than the males, as much as 25% bigger, and this is called reversed sexual size dimorphism. Didn’t you always want to know?

Goshawks are secretive and tend to fly solo, but other birds are considerably more social. Hence we have a flock of geese, a murmuration of starlings, and a murder of crows! This is one of my favorites.

Real cadavers are used to calibrate crash-test dummies. At one time, before more modern—and reliable—methods of determining death were available, the fear of being buried alive was so great that in Germany they constructed death houses (I forget the term for them) where corpses were left unburied until they began to decompose.

skeleton bits pieces — [Creative Commons]

Together, the hands and feet make up more than half of all the bones in the human body, 27 per hand and 26 per foot, 106 of the 206 total. And check out disappearing human bone disease!

You Are One-third Daffodil is the title of a book which includes this tidbit: humans share 35% of their DNA with daffodils. Could this be the reason voles don’t eat daffodil bulbs or humans? Consider the possibilities for fantasy fiction.

And speaking of eating. . . Queen Anne’s lace is also known as wild carrot and the roots are edible when young. Hominy was originally made using dried corn and wood ash lye, which is still the way to have homemade hominy—which I don’t. Sort of related: lye soap is made using leftover cooking fat and wood ash lye. My maternal grandmother made it in big flat trays in the basement.

lye soap bits pieces — [Creative Commons]

In junior high school I learned that the Battle of Hastings was fought in England in 1066. I haven’t been able to unlearn it!

During the Great Depression ham was 10 cents a pound and gasoline was 10 cents a gallon. The first “rubber boots” were when people in South America coated their feet in latex from the rubber tree. Ex-Lax has been around since 1906, created by a Hungarian immigrant in New York. My list could go on and on, for there is no good stopping place.

BOTTOM LINE: In addition to journaling about story ideas, drafts, etc., consider keeping your own list of bits and pieces that might fit into your writing life. Even if not, it’s entertaining.

Your Writing Tools: Search and Rescue Info

Posted on March 2, 2018March 2, 2018 by vlaw759

Robert J. Koester studied lost person behavior in a systematic, scientific, statistical way and the result is what many consider to be the best book on search and rescue ever written. So maybe you’re thinking Whoopdedoo. I’m into fiction. Maybe you’re yawning and about to browse elsewhere. Read on instead.

This book contains invaluable nuggets to make your writing not only accurate but also richer. Its usefulness for mystery writers might be more apparent than for more general literary fiction, but consider all the ways and reasons someone might go missing—either as the primary plot line, or as a subplot that complicates everything.

This book is useful whether you are writing from the POV of the missing person or the searcher(s). For example, it delineates strategies lost people use to try to get unlost, including the effectiveness of each.

To aid the searcher, data are organized into 34 subject categories, ranging from Abduction through Urban Entrapment and Worker. Data about children are partitioned by age. Data on Skiers are partitioned by Alpine and Nordic. And so it goes. And for each Subject Category, there is an brief introduction, followed by guidelines for getting the search started and—perhaps of most interest to writers—pages of Additional Investigative Questions. For example, consider the usefulness of these questions concerning abductions.

Perhaps my favorite chapter is 6. Lost Person Myths and Legends. For example, is it true that lost people will turn in the direction of their dominant hand? To some extent. When forced to make a clear choice between right and left, handedness matters. But the extent to which it matters is influenced by learned driving patterns.

People without visual cues do, indeed, walk in circles. Why? When blindfolded and told to walk in a straight line, whether one circles clockwise or counterclockwise is strongly influenced by which leg is longer. Too bad that bit of information is seldom available to searchers!

Potentially relevant information is everywhere in this book. Do the mentally retarded and children behave similarly when lost? Yes and no. The distances traveled from the initial planning point are quite similar for those with mental retardation and children 7-12 years of age. But there are important differences.

Dementia wanderers essentially travel straight ahead till they get stuck. Therefore, the most important first question to ask is, “Which door did he go out of?” Despondents, on the other hand, are most likely to just walk out and are most often found on a path, trail, or at their destination. Despondents are not truly lost.

I became aware of Koester’s book during a SinC/CentralVA program by 4 members of the Piedmont Search and Rescue staff. The book is expensive but you might well find it worth adding to your shelf.

The organization has an enormous amount of information and experience. You can find lots of it online.

Hanahaki and Other Useful Diseases

Posted on January 5, 2018November 28, 2020 by vlaw759

Hanahaki comes from two Japanese words: hana, which means flower, and hakimasu, which means to throw up. It is a fictitious disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when suffering from unrequited love. The most common version is when the victim’s lungs fill with flowers and roots grow in the respiratory system. The victim chokes on blood and petals and dies.

In another version, the flowers are surgically removed. The surgery also removes the victim’s feelings of love and s/he can no longer love the person they once loved. Sometimes this also removes the ability to ever love again.

My 13-year-old granddaughter came across hanahaki disease while researching possible diseases for a book she and her friends are writing. Need I say the book is fantasy fiction? She also enjoys special effects makeup, and one evening created three generations suffering from hanahaki disease—me, her mother, and herself.

In researching hanahaki disease, I discovered a whole world of disease and disaster that I was previously unaware of. Wikipedia has 40 pages of fictional diseases in literature, film, TV, video games, and role-playing games, everything from the Andromeda Strain to Cooties.

Fictional diseases is probably not the first association you have for Stephen King, but he has created his share, including the superflu in The Stand, the Ripley in Dreamcatcher, and the pulse in Cell. Authors from Edgar Allan Poe to J.K. Rowling have invented fictional diseases. Why not you?

Getting started is easy. If nothing comes to mind immediately, go to seventhsanctum.com and use the Disease Generator. You can get 25 disease names in an instant.

And if nothing appeals to you—not ancestral heart or zombie’s malignant lunacy, not seeping sweat or torture itch—just push the button for more diseases.

Once you have a name, you need to develop the disease, starting with disease type (childhood/common/rare) and moving on to cause (bacteria, virus, parasite, fungus, imbalance of bodily humors, etc.). You need to consider transmission (airborne, body fluids, food or water, touch, etc.) and virulence (how likely a person is to catch the disease after coming into contact with it). How long is the incubation period? A person could be showing symptoms and become infectious almost instantaneously or it could take years. What are the symptoms of this disease? Is it treatable and/or curable? And last but not least, how do people react when they encounter someone with this disease?

Feel free to use symptoms from real diseases, past or present. For example, cholera, dysentery, small pox, consumption, syphilis, the Black Plague, etc. BTW, the Black Plague is a zoonotic disease, meaning it moves from animals to humans—as in bird flue or swine flu.

The more realistic your story line, the more realistic your disease should be. For inspiration, check out Inverse Culture.

Bottom line: Consider the advantages of deadly diseases. As long as people fear death, they will push protagonists to the edge, and that’s a good thing.

Writing Resolutions for 2018

Posted on December 29, 2017December 26, 2017 by vlaw759

A new year links the past and the future. (You heard it here first!) So it’s your opportunity to wrap up things already started, launch new projects, and and develop (or strengthen) good habits. So here’s the plan.

1a) If you have a project underway, review a hard copy of all writing to date. DO NOT REVISE. Instead, note in the margins things to tend to when you do revise. If you want to make major changes (e.g., add a character, a death, a divorce, etc. that needs to have already happened) note those but don’t go back now. Write going forward as if you’ve already revised.

1b) If you have nothing new in the works, browse your files of old writing. (Of course you have these!) Pick one that strikes your fancy and work on it in the new year. If it’s old, you have grown and developed. You might change POV, add striking details. even use the same material in a different genre. Make use of work you’ve already done.

2) Read current periodicals (at lest one) on a regular basis to see what’s trending. Choose something that you wouldn’t mind reading anyway. It might be Style in Richmond. Any major publication you follow, such as The New Yorker, etc. Who knows when knowing that early teens all across the country are into sexual fluidity and rating their degrees of homo or hetero tendencies might be fruitful.

3) Follow the news of the weird. You can do this online, by searching that phrase. But you also can find tidbits in the daily paper, church news bulletins, etc.

4) Write something every day! Depending on whether you keep a writing journal or something more like a diary, that might suffice. But ideally, it will be something totally creative. Consider any dreams/nightmares so vivid that you woke. If all else fails, start by writing about surviving the holidays.

Bottom line: Keep on truckin’! The only way to write is to do it.

Vivian Lawry

Writer

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