Guest Post by Laurel Garver, Building Story Tension

Today I'd like to welcome author Laurel Garver to the blog. Laurel is the author of several books

I had the privilege of reading this novel
early. It was wonderful!

including: Never Gone, Almost There, Muddy-fingered Midnights, and Emotions in the Wild.

How Fragile We Are: Building Story Tension through Illness and Injury

By Laurel Garver

If you want tension in your fiction that’s truly organic, you can’t go wrong with a character experiencing bodily weakness, whether due to illness or injury. It’s something every reader can relate to, at least to some degree. We’ve all had a stubbed toe or minor cut or bruise, fallen ill with a head cold or stomach ache.

Suffering a more serious injury is something we all deeply fear. The mere implied threat of it will naturally cause a self-protective fight-or-flight response. Illnesses provoke a similar fear—and often disgust as well, sure to create tension in any relationship.

No matter the time or setting, human characters are vulnerable to forces that can steal their health. This applies to every character in your story. Illness or injury can incapacitate or simply hobble your protagonist, and it can also remove his or her usual sources of help. It can threaten the protagonist’s one true love, or family, or other favorite people. It can also knock your antagonist down a few notches when you need to buy your protagonist time.

The illness or injury might also become a rallying point for your heroes, such as cancer or a sudden loss of sight that requires a team to help the affected person.

In my novel Almost There, I explore the way illnesses and injury can become a family’s rallying point. Illness also directly challenges my protagonist Dani’s core flaw—wanting to be in control—by first removing a source of help and then hobbling her. The medical components of this story took the most significant research and planning. Here are some lessons I learned from that process.

Do your homework before selecting your means of bringing on a fictional illness or injury. Some injuries heal more quickly than others, some are more dangerous in certain environments, some gradually drain a person of strength, and some will lead quickly to more serious issues. Not all illnesses are created equal either. Many vary in how they spread, how quickly or slowly they incubate before causing symptoms, and how easily they can be treated.

Some key things you want to know before picking your “poison”

Injuries

What commonly causes this?

What’s the typical range of severity?

How much and what kind of pain and discomfort accompany it?

What is the typical treatment for this injury?

How much professional care is usually called for?

What is the typical healing time?

What are the stages of healing?

What are common complications that prevent healing?

Under what circumstances might this injury prove permanently disabling or even fatal?

(For non-contemporary stories—how advanced is care for this kind of injury in my world?)

Illnesses

How is the illness contracted?

What is the incubation period?

Is there a vaccine? How effective is it?

What parts of the body does it effect and how?

How much and what kind of pain and discomfort accompany it?

What are early interventions? How effective are they?

What is the typical treatment?

How much professional care is typically called for?

How long is the typical recovery time?

What are the stages of recovery?

What complications can arise?

Under what circumstances could it cause permanent disability or prove fatal?

(For non-contemporary writers: how well is this disease understood in my world? How would it be treated? Could it be cured?)

Read as much as you can from established, evidence-based medical sites to begin with. The CDC and Medline Plus are government-run health agency sites; The Mayo Clinic and Web MD are two other comprehensive, well-regarded sites worth exploring.

You might discover that your cool medical plot twist requires some additional planning. I make use of a common contagious illness with a very long incubation period—10 to 14 days, most of which the person has no symptoms. I found I had to create a calendar in which I tracked not only the incubation but also the progression of symptoms and recovery for each affected person.

Once you’ve done some initial research, you absolutely must fact check it with a health professional. Chatting with several nurses and doctors in my life has helped me tremendously—not only in having the most accurate information, but also in getting real-life details about how real people experience the condition. Chances are you are no more than one degree of separation (friend of a friend) from a healthcare provider who’d be happy to answer your questions. (For additional advice on interviewing, see my posts “Expertise is Everywhere: Why and How to Use Interviews to Research Fiction” and “Channel Your Inner Reporter: Using Interviews to Strengthen Your Fiction.”)

Be sure to let them know this information is for a fiction project, not a real person who could hold them legally liable for health outcomes. For this reason, some folks will prefer to fact check something you’ve already written—so give that as an option. You might find that the healthcare pro will steer you toward even cooler ideas than you could have come up with on your own.

How might illness or injury add tension to one of your stories?

About the Author

Laurel Garver is a writer, editor, professor’s wife and mom to an arty teenager. An indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she enjoys geeking out about Harry Potter and Dr. Who, playing word games, singing in church choir, and taking long walks in Philly's Fairmount Park. You can follow her on her blog, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

About Almost There

Seventeen-year-old Dani Deane is certain a magical trip to Paris will cure her widowed mother's depression. But when Dani’s tyrannical grandfather falls ill, they must go to rural Pennsylvania to deal with his hoarder horror of a house. In the midst of crisis, can Dani trust God to bring hope and healing?

Amazon  /  Barnes and Noble  /  Smashwords  / Apple iTunes   

Book Review, Emotions in the Wild

Emotions in the Wild:A Writer’s Observation Journal by Laurel W. Garver

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I first heard about this book, I was struck by how much I wanted it. How it filled a need I didn’t even know I had.

As any writer knows, one of the most difficult things to communicate is the emotion of a character. How can you communicate a character’s feelings subtly yet distinctly? In other words, how do you show these emotions to your reader without telling them? And how can you do so without using clichés?

Ms. Garver’s book Emotions in the Wild is a guided journal that shows writers how to use the power of observation in their everyday lives to create an “emotions bible” to guide them in crafting a unique reference book for their writing, a personal source book for help in describing what an emotion (anger, jealousy, etc.) looks like, sounds like, and even how it might be provoked.

The book begins with an introduction explaining how to use the journal. The rest of the book is divided into emotion chapters—a total of 39 different emotions are given for examination. Each chapter includes pithy quotations from famous individuals to stimulate thought about the emotion. Following the quotes are sections where the writer records observations on the particular emotion’s “Common Triggers,” “Facial Expressions,” “Postures and Movements,” “Range of Reactions Observed,” and “Related Words, Idioms, and Phrases.”

In the past when I’ve been stumped with how to describe or explain something, I’ve often used Roget’s “Concept Index,” but now I’m looking forward to incorporating this journal into my life and watching it bear fruit in my writing. Five Stars! Click here to buy it.

Me and my copy.

Make Words Your Playground

Today, in honor of National Poetry Month,  I'm welcoming poet and author Laurel Garver (Never Gone and Muddy-Fingered Midnights) to the blog. Welcome, Laurel, and thanks so much!!

Make Words Your Playground.

I started writing poetry at ten, and it has been a life-long love for me--a way of writing that’s condensed, intense, and musical. But it’s never too late to start. Here are a few favorite tips for beginning poets.

My first, ultra-obvious piece of advice would be to READ poetry. If you’re new to the genre, there’s no need to put historical barriers in your path--start reading contemporary poets. There are loads of free e-zines with wonderful poems. Every Day Poets is a favorite of mine. They post new pieces daily that are accessible (you don’t need a PhD to understand them) and cover a variety of styles and topics. My collection Muddy-Fingered Midnights also offers diverse styles and topics.

Try a beginner’s poetry class hosted by a local writer’s group, public library, or adult education evening classes at your public school. You could also try a free online course.

Or simply read some poetry-writing books and start experimenting. Here’s a list of recommendations from a beginner poet.

If I were to pick one thing that has helped me most as a poet, it would be vocabulary building. I don't mean simply picking up a thesaurus and looking for fancier ways to say things. I mean delving deep into the world of words. A poet must look not only at a word's definition, but also its connotations and connections. A poet must hear the tones and feel the textures of words.

Developing a wide and flexible vocabulary is a life-long pursuit, not something you can master in a few weeks. Most of all, it should be fun!

Here are a few journaling exercises I recommend to open your mind to words’ many possibilities.

Word clouds
Select a word and spend fifteen minutes writing down every word that pops to mind to describe it, that you associate with it, that comes from a similar setting, or has similar meanings, connotations or sounds. Here's an example:

RABBIT
long-eared, cottontail, velvety, fluffy, tawny, spotted, lop-eared, floppy, hop, scamper, skittish, twitchy, whiskers, nibble, hutch, hole, meadows, woodlands, thickets, briar patch, Brer Rabbit, Thumper, tree roots, Peter Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy, blackberries, MacGregor's garden, Springtime, Easter, chocolate treats, March Hare, Alice in Wonderland, Bugs Bunny, wascally wabbit, what's up doc, carrots, munching, crunching, large litters, perpetually pregnant, fertility, multiples, growth, expansion, invasion, hare, jackrabbit, habit, Babbitt, rabid, rapid, traffic.

Word studies
Select a word and delve through its many layers. Start with a basic definition. Consider what activities, settings and literature/films/music you associate with the word. What rhymes with it? What almost rhymes with it? What sounds ring loudest in the word? What do you sense(hear, feel) from those dominant sounds apart from the word’s meaning? In other words, if you didn't know what the word meant and had to guess based on how it sounds, what meaning do you hear?

Here's an example:

CHALICE

Definition: A stemmed cup

Associations: wine, Holy Grail, Arthurian legend, king’s tables, celebrations, banquets, church, Eucharist, weddings, toasts, drink offerings, poisoning, drinking games

Rhymes: Alice, callous, cowl-less, Dallas, malice, towel-less

Slant rhymes: ballast, foulest, Gaulish, jealous

Dominant sounds: CH, S

Sound texture: Slicing, whistling, hissing, sword swinging, wind shear

By all means, don't limit yourself to nouns in these explorations. Pick a verb or an adjective. Open the dictionary to a random page and choose a brand new term to research for its meaning and associations (Google can help there).

Let your imagination loose in the world of words, and you will never be at loss for poem ideas.

Does poetry intimidate you? How might read, study, and wordplay help you overcome your fears and set your imagination free?

Laurel Garver is a magazine editor, poet, and writer of faith-based fiction.She enjoys quirky independent films, British TV, and geeking out about Harry Potter and Dr. Who. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

About Muddy-Fingered Midnights
This thirty-poem collection is an eclectic mix of light and dark, playful and spiritual, lyric and narrative free verse. In an intricate dance of sound play, it explores how our perceptions shape our interactions with the world. Here child heroes emerge on playgrounds and in chicken coops, teens grapple with grief and taste first love, adults waver between isolation and engaged connection. It is a book about creative life, our capacity to wound and heal, and the unlikely places we find love, beauty, and grace.

Available now. $1.99 e-book Kindle / Nook / all other ereaders ; $6.50 paperback

Guest Post: Elements of Voice

Today I'd like to welcome Laurel Garver to the blog. She writes the blog "Laurel's Leaves" and is the author of the recently released novel, Never Gone. (NG has just made it to the top of my Kindle TBR list, and I can't wait to read it.)

Elements of Voice

Sometimes the term “voice” is used interchangeably with “style.” What I’d like to talk about is not that sense of “authorial voice,” but rather how to develop character voices that are distinct from one another. If you write from multiple points of view, this is an essential craft to learn. But it’s also helpful for making sure that your fiction isn’t one-note and that the characters around the protagonist seem just as unique as he or she does.

Diction 
How do the characters say what they say? This will reflect their levels of education, local dialect and to a degree their temperament. A morose Oxford graduate will have a different manner of expressing himself than a scrappy graffiti writer from the Bronx.

Here are a few examples from my novel Never Gone. Can you guess which is the teen from New York, which is her middle-aged British uncle and which is her grandfather from central Pennsylvania?

-- “Your mother ain’t right in the head, seems to me. When you love someone, you can’t throw it away. You hang on with every ounce of strength. Right?”

 -- Cecily bubbles with fake cheer, no doubt trying to make up for being such a grinchy wench to me lately. She tells a dorky story about crushing on Ollie Mawbry, and her little horse-riding escapades to spy on him. No surprise he ignored her. Guys don’t exactly dig stalker chicks.

-- “It’s good of you to take an interest in Liza’s pony,” he says. “She’s always banging on endlessly about him. It’s hard for us to be enthusiastic anymore.”

Notice the use of cadence (speech rhythm) and key terminology. You immediately get a sense of place from “ain’t” and “banging on.” You get a sense of age from “right in the head” and “stalker chicks.”

Developing varied diction comes from doing lots of research. A few places to start: Keep a log of overheard conversations and transcribe speech from YouTube videos. Beware of taking your cues from TV, film or other novels, because those writers may not have worked from life. Go to the source as much as you can.

 Associations 
These “tip of the mind” thoughts are a huge part of character voice because they tell a tremendous amount about a person in just a few words. Think of the word-association games psychotherapists use. When your character hears the word “home,” does he think “fried chicken,” “fear,” or “fantasy”? Any one of these answers gives a window into an intriguing story. Associations can be a shorthand way of showing what kind of past experiences the character has gone through, what he values, and what forms of culture shape him. Associations show up in the way characters describe things, and especially how they make comparisons, such as similes and metaphors.

Here are a few associations at work from Never Gone:

--Images burst in my mind like sudden sun through stained glass. (association of a church-goer)

--“Crikey,” Uncle says. “We’re in Dante’s eighth circle of hell.” (association of a reader of classics)

Attitudes 
Attitudes are essentially value judgments made about elements of the world around us--what is good or bad, valuable or worthless. Attitudes most often come out when a character is confronted with something new, unusual or unexpected. The fireworks display is awesome or lame; the new teacher is nice or mean or airheaded or so cool; the flat tire is infuriating or just typical of my hopeless life. Look back at my first examples and you'll see strong expressions of attitudes. Danielle's grandfather finds fault with how her mother grieves. Dani herself is exasperated with her aunt's attempts to be cheerful. Dani's Uncle appreciates what he sees as her patient forbearance of his child, who he judges as repetitive.

Diction and associations will play into how attitudes are expressed, but by golly, all characters should have them. A character that never expresses an attitude will come off as emotionless, or perhaps on the autism spectrum. He’ll see fireworks and say “chemical explosions are causing light effects in the sky.”

Getting to know your characters beyond just age and occupation will help you develop distinct voices that engage readers and make your story come alive.

Which elements of voice come most easily to you? How might research help you create more distinctive voices for your characters?

====

Laurel Garver is the author of Never Gone, a novel about grief, faith and finding love when all seems lost. A word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

Trailer for Never Gone



Add it on Goodreads. Read a sample chapter.

It is available as an ebook and a paperback at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, CreateSpace.