KaraBosshardt

Writing Hacks. Are they helpful or hurtful? I, for one, have never cared for the word hack in this instance because it makes it sound like you are potentially BS-ing your way through your writing goals, thus leaving your integrity at the door. I’ve also never really understood the entire “hacking” trend because in so many instances they are just using the word hack in place of the words tip or advice. However, with all that being said, we’ll say that hacking is a good thing for our purposes today because it helped me find some new techniques for novel writing that I couldn’t have found any other way. So, here are my top five writing “hacks” for the week (the titles are pretty self-explanatory): #1: Top 5 Writing Hacks to Distract You from the Nightmare of Your Daily Life #2: Writing Hacks – Using A Bulletin Board #3: The Hack’s Guide to Writing while the Kids are at Home #4: Meal Planning Hacks to Maximize Your Writing Time #5: The Hack’s Guide to Writing During a Pandemic Happy week and happy writing to you all. Until next time, Kara

These rules to writing that Hemingway has come up with are certainly interesting. I'll give him that. I can appreciate that his first rule about using short sentences helped changed novel writing today. Now we can use long and short sentences interchangeably to create different types of pacing in our stories when we need to. However, I also think he created this rule because he had his own personal contention with the style of writing during his time. It's certainly not one that I would suggest that writers adhere to now. As for the other three rules, well... Whether you watch this video or not, that's up to you. I, for one, didn't find it to be all that helpful.

I found John Steinbeck's writing advice to be a bit vague and generalized. There were a couple things I agreed with like no rewriting until you've gotten everything down because otherwise that can be an excuse for not finishing the story. Been there, done that, so this makes sense to me. I also liked his mention that scenes nearest and dearest to your heart may not have an actual place in your story. However, take this piece of advice with a grain of salt because there can indeed be scenes in your book that you love AND are absolutely crucial to the overall plot. Just keep this in mind incase there's a scene you're hanging onto that you're only keeping because you love it. Make sure it enhances your story instead of bogging it down. I certainly didn't understand his advice about writing for a single person. To me, that's much more ominous than a general audience because then you're weighing your entire project on the likes and dislikes of a single individual and whether or not they would like what you're writing. It just doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It could sway what you're writing too easily and your story wouldn't be what it was meant to. Overall, I didn't find this video to be very helpful, so feel free to skip it, unless you really like Steinbeck and want to hear what he has to say.

My very first manuscript was horribly cliché and pretty much plotless. In fact, it didn’t even have an ending to it. I never bothered writing one. It was clear to me that by 80,000 words there was no point in wasting my time on devising a resolution because there was never even a climax. It literally turned into one very lengthy exercise in getting to know my main characters—because I hadn’t bothered doing that before I started to write my novel. And this was okay at the time. I was brand new to creative writing and I just wanted to test my hand at being a writer since I’d never done anything like it before, unless you count the horrible required writing assignments in English 101, which I don’t. My point is that in order to get out of those cliched beginning manuscripts and onto something really high concept and novel—pun intended—then we have to become more creative as writers. So, with that being said, I have just one top pick for the week that centers on this very concept of creating something new in your writing. #1: Novelty and the Novel Literary agent Donald Maass keenly points out the need for authors to write stories that have more unique and novel settings, characters and plots. I would recommend that you pay extra special attention to the bulleted list of questions he has come up with for you to ask yourself about your story. These are gold and well worth your time pondering over them if you need to get yourself out of a cliched writing rut, or if you need inspiration to breathe new life back into your story. Happy week and happy writing to you all. Until next time, Kara

When it comes to my all-time favorite fictional character it will always and forever be Andrew Wiggins, better known as Ender. I have loved fictional stories ever since I could read. I especially love fantasy and sci-fi. However, I had never really connected with a main character very deeply in a novel until I read Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, when I was in the latter part of Junior High school. I have since read that story multiple times and my 14-year-old self connects just as deeply every time. Every author’s dream, right, to have their stories cherished for decades? But why did I completely fall in love with this particular character? I was a teenage girl who secretly dreamed of becoming a princess one day, while Ender was a 6-year-old savant, battling in space. Well, the answer’s simple. I felt like Ender from page one. He was bullied because he was a Third, he was small and weak, and felt like no one wanted or liked him, with the one exception of his angel sister, Valentine. But then, as the story progressed, he had to overcome his obstacles in super creative ways, conquer his bullies and eventually he became someone the other kids looked up to and followed. I wanted to do what Ender could do. But other than seeing myself in Ender, I couldn’t really tell you why I loved him so much. At least that was the case until I decided to become a writer and learned all the intricacies of novel writing. It’s one thing to conceive of a particular character for a story and to see them in your mind, but to translate the images in your head to words on a page can be a very difficult thing. Orson Scott Card had to not only see who Ender was in his imagination, but he also had to write him in a way that would create sympathy from a reader. He had to make you care about Ender and what happened to him. He had to create scenes and moments in the novel that would show Ender’s personality, his ability, his vulnerabilities and fears. You learned about Ender little by little as the story unfolded, but in a way that created sympathy, mystery and kept you intrigued about what Ender would do next, and how he would react. Essentially, the author created a very appealing, but also realistic character arc; the protagonist starts out in a place of weakness, but then becomes the humble hero by the end—which is just one example of a character arc. We all connect with different characters for different reasons, but that is the very goal of all good authors. They need readers to care about their characters in order to sell their books. I can’t tell you how many books I have literally stopped reading within just a few chapters because the MCs have zero likeable or sympathetic qualities. I simply did not care what happened to them and the story was no longer interesting. So, how do you get your writing to a place that you can create these deep connections between your characters and your readers? I’ll let my top picks for the week explain: #1: Love me, love my characters This article is about the good and bad character traits generally present in romance novels, but it can be applied to other genres too, especially if you have an a**hole character that you’re including in your story. #2: The Bedrock of Character Development This is an interesting take on how to develop a character. If you’ve struggled with rounding out your MCs, or can’t seem to get past surface details about them then you may want to try a new approach. #3: Use Writing Prompts to Dig into Character Development While this title is a bit misleading, as there is only one writing prompt that they actually give an example of, I still find this helpful. Using this technique may be just what you need to dive deeper into your character’s head than you were able to before. #4: Creating Complex Characters: A ‘Mass Effect 2’ Case Study This is a super in-depth article that focuses on the RPG Mass Effect 2—something I’d never heard of until running across this article—and the complexities of those particular characters. It is a pretty lengthy read though, so I recommend viewing it when you have some extra time on your hands. #5: For the Love of Moira – The Arc of a Memorable Character This is the perfect example of a character and their evolution. Character arc is so very important to your story and this article demonstrates how that can be executed correctly. Happy week and happy writing to you all, Until next time, Kara

Truthful, authentic, honest. All these words mean roughly the same thing, but in this case, I’ve chosen these words to describe writers and the stories they create. I’m sure you’ve all heard phrases such as “find your own authentic voice,” or “write your truth,” or “be true to your craft.” Or even “be honest with your readers.” I realize that these phrases are ambiguous at best and are usually tossed around at writing conferences to make a speaker sound like they know what they are talking about. So…what am I getting at? To be honest in what you are writing, or to be truthful in the story that you create means showing a side of yourself that you may not want to. To be authentically you as a writer means to be vulnerable, to let down your walls just a little bit, or a lot, and let people into your world. It’s a scary reality, but when it’s done well, it shows in your writing and enhances your story significantly. Any character you create, or any setting you envision all have bits and pieces of you, of your imagination, of your ideas, of your creativity. If you aren’t connecting with one of your characters neither will your readers. If you’re painstakingly writing every word just to get the book done, your readers will feel that as well. Stephenie Meyer said that she will not write a sequel to Midnight Sun because she experienced a great deal of anxiety every time she sat down at her computer to write Edward’s story. Guess what? I felt nothing but anxiety every time I picked it up. No joke. This stuff is real. Your emotions, your beliefs, your humor, everything about you ends up on that page and if you’re afraid of judgement, criticism, or “what will my family think?” then you’ll likely become less and less authentic and your story will suffer because of it. Your readers aren’t going to know precisely why they don’t like a scene, or heaven forbid your book altogether, but it will happen nonetheless if you start censoring your writing voice. If you find that you aren’t allowing yourself or your characters to explore certain emotions or situations because it’s uncomfortable for you as the writer then this should be a wakeup call. If you’re fighting this, but keep feeling pulled to write something you don’t particularly want to then it probably means that you need to put on your big girl or big boy underwear and do it. Even if it’s scary. Even if it means putting a little more of you on the page for everyone to see than you are currently comfortable with. In the end, you’ll be glad that you did. In full honesty (no pun intended, or maybe a little), I’m not perfect at this yet either. I’m guilty of taking whole scenes out of manuscripts because I was afraid of what other people would think. In the end, my stories suffered because of it. With all this being said, you certainly don’t have to take my word for it. Instead, take the word of my top picks for the week: #1: Terrified About Writing Your Novel? Excellent! The author of Waisted goes into depth about the fears she had to face in order to write her fictional story about weight obsessed women and the society they lived in. She not only had to face her own weight obsessions and body image issues, but also the criticism after her story was published. #2: What Gandhi Taught Me About Telling Stories that Mean Something Kelsey Allagood encourages writers to not only tell the truth, but also to create stories that push the boundaries of current societal belief. “Of course our readers are going to look at our stories through their own lenses—the ones that stories have helped them shape over the course of their lives. Our role as storytellers is to write stories that help shift those lenses.” #3: How Honest is Too Honest? 6 Books That Straddle That Line While most of these books listed are either memoir or self-help, I still find this article helpful for friction writers in order to see just how much truth previous authors have put on a page and lived. Perhaps this article will give you the courage to explore those ideas or scenes in your story that you’ve been avoiding. #4: Write of Way #15 – Write True to You “I think it’s a lesson all authors learn that, whether we intend them to or not, our books reflect things about ourselves that we might not have even realized.” “If your creativity is flowing through a filter, you risk losing themes and ideas like that. You might not notice you’re losing them, but you will be, all the same.” Spot on, A.Z. Anthony. Spot on. Oh, and the rest of the article is good too. #5: Make it as Honest as You Can - Neil Gaiman This is actually a short video I linked from the Novel Writing Advice Videos section of Author Connect. It’s Neil Gaiman talking about how he found his own style of writing by being honest with himself. It’s definitely worth the 5 minutes it takes to watch it. Happy week and happy writing to you all. Until next time, Kara

I completely agree with Elise on this one. Having a computer program randomly generate your characters is a neat idea if you're just practicing, or warming up to the idea of writing a novel, but beyond that I don't find this video useful. In fact, I got really bored watching it and the novel idea that was created to demonstrate this plot structure was also boring and full of clichés. I realize that Shaylynn (or however she spells her name) was doing this spur of the moment, and I'm sure she did the best she could, but I think that's where the main problem began. This video could have been so much more inspiring if she'd taken even just 30 minutes beforehand to plan out a story idea that had a bit more depth and creativity to it. I probably might have even considered trying out this type of plotting template, but now I have no interest in doing so. Feel free to pass on this one and save 24 minutes of your life.

Meg Latorre's "11 ways to improve your writing" are worth learning about if you're a new writer. While I find that she covers a lot of the same points that have already been addressed in other videos, there were a couple things that stood out that I think new writers should definitely take note of. Critique groups vs. beta readers - Meg takes the time to explain the difference between these and why you would find them useful during the editing phase of your manuscript. More than once she kindly encouraged writers to be open to making changes to their story upon receiving constructive criticism. She also helps new writers understand how to discern between useful feedback that should be taken into consideration, and feedback coming from someone who is an "outlier." I also really like her point about grammar: This also goes along with her points about editing and I definitely agree with her that writers need to take the time to edit their manuscript before sending it out for anyone else to read.

Conflict should be at the very heart of every story you write. Its presence throughout your manuscript, or lack thereof, can literally make our break your ability to get published. Your main characters need internal conflict, they need conflict between themselves and other characters (more than just the conflict raised by the antagonist). There should also be conflict within the setting of your novel like a picturesque countryside that isn’t entirely what it seems, etc. etc. etc. Without conflict, or tension or raised stakes for the main characters, beginning with the first scene and ending with the resolution, stories meander, they are quiet and your readers get bored. Conflict helps readers care about the fate of both protagonist and antagonist (if your antagonist has sympathetic qualities) and it gets readers hooked. So hooked, in fact, that they will read your entire book just to find out how the story ends to get their much-needed resolution from all the said conflict you’ve created. Since this is such an important topic for all fiction writers and even some nonfiction categories, I’ve chosen seven picks for the week. Feel free to read them all, or choose which ones speak to you. #1: Confessions of a Conflict-Avoidant Writer #2: Create Conflict in Your Characters #3: 6 Tips for Creating Good Bridging Conflict #4: What Dungeons and Dragons Taught Me About Story Conflict #5: Levels of Conflict #6: The Science Behind Conflicts in Literature #7: Conflict, Plot Lines, And The Devil Wears Prada

I think the title of this clip is what throws you off because it uses the words "writing advice." Like Michael and Joe said, there isn't much writing advice substance to it. This clip isn't going to give you advice about the craft, but rather it's advice on an emotional level. What Neil Gaiman actually says is that this is how he "took his darkest period and turned it around." I always appreciate when famous authors allow themselves to be vulnerable and let people know what they went through in their early days, which is exactly what he does. I also think his use of the word "honest" to describe the main characteristic that writers should have would have made more sense if he'd used the word "authentic." He talked about how his work got rejected multiple times in the beginning and he realized that he was worried about judgement and letting people in to see who he really was. I can relate to this, especially in writing and I think most people are afraid to put themselves out there for fear of the criticism that may come their way. He also admitted that he could have mimicked the style of other writers that were popular and probably done it well, but then he never would have created his own authentic voice and style in his writing. All in all, I don't think you should watch this if you're looking for "how-to" type of advice because there isn't any. However, I still think it's worth the watch if you've ever struggled with your own sense of self as a writer, or have yet to find your own voice in your writing. It just may help for you to know that you're not alone.

Creating your author’s platform can be both exhilarating and nerve-wracking, and for good reason. There’s lots to worry about. What do I say about myself? What photo of me looks the best? What if I’m nowhere near close to being published? Do I start with a website first, or a presence on social media? Rest assured that all these questions, and more, get answered in my top picks of the week: #1: Your Author Platform – Is it Ever too Soon to Start? The short answer is no. It is never too soon to start and I’ll let Karen Cioffi explain why. #2: Do I Need a Platform and If So, How High? Are you an expert on what you’re writing about? This article gives tips on how to become one to help you get seen and eventually published. #3: Social Media for Authors: An Interview with Leili Mckinley Learn from social media expert Leili McKinley. In this article she gives the answers to a few burning questions authors want to know about social media marketing. #4: A Smarter Author Platform for the Digital Era of Publishing This really gets into the meat of social media, websites, and other marketing strategies. If you’re ready for a hefty dose of information that really digs deep into the author platform then this one is for you. Happy week and happy writing to you all. Until next time, Kara

While I'm not a writer of romance, nor is this a genre that I reach for at the bookstore, I can appreciate Jenna Moreci's advice. It sounded solid and down to earth. She really seems to know what she's talking about and her delivery is downright humorous. A few points she made that I very much agree with if you are going to commit to the task of writing sex scenes in your novel were: Don't make sex sound gross. Be mindful of your adjectives. Use sexy verbs. What does this moment in the book mean for your characters on an emotional level. Make sure the timing of these scenes come when they are appropriate in your story. And, above all, understand how sex works! If you are writing romance, or have a sex scene in your novel, I definitely recommend this video.

Have you ever had a hard time figuring out what genre your story fits into? Or, maybe you know the genre of your story, but you don’t know how to structure it. Perhaps your book keeps switching from one genre to the next depending on which chapter you’re writing. If genre is feeling a bit hazy for you, or if you just want to understand it better then this week’s picks are for you: #1: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy: The Joys (And Dangers) of Blending Genre Elements W.L. Goodwater states, “When readers browse the genre shelves at the bookstore, they are looking to sign a contract with the writer: I, the undersigned, will purchase and read this book, but only under the following terms. Writing genre is not simply about meeting readers’ expectations, but managing them.” And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why understanding genre is so important. #2: Mixing Genres Is All About Messing with Structure Stuart Turton explains about the structure of different genres and how he was able to get his stories to fit snuggly within the right ones. While he specifically mentions genres like mystery, time-travel and sci-fi, his methods of fixing his stories could work for any writer, no matter your genre of choice. #3: A Taxonomy of Nonfiction; Or the Pleasures of Precision As an assistant professor of creative writing, Karen Babine explains in detail, genre, subgenre, form, mode and shape of nonfiction writing. Ever thought about writing a memoir, or essay? Consider this article as your basic 101 course. #4: Genre Labels: What Makes A Book More Thriller Than Sci-Fi? Writing a sci-fi thriller? This article lists five main points about how to scrutinize your story and determine where it falls on the spectrum between science fiction and thriller. You’ll know exactly what you need to change to balance your story correctly within these two genres. #5: Writing a Genre That’s New to You A short read and to the point about how to get started writing in a new genre that you’ve never written in before. Or, perhaps you’ve only toyed with the idea, but haven’t been brave enough to try it yet. According to the author, Greer Macallister, “No one can stop you from writing in a new genre but you.” #6: In Psychological Thrillers, The Abyss Stares Back This article is an interesting and even freaky example of how writing and the genre you choose to write in can mirror your own life, without you even realizing it. The uncanny experience of author Sebastian Fitzek and his not-so fictional story shows firsthand how our lives can bleed into our work, thus giving us a new perspective of our own past and how it has shaped our present. Happy week, and happy writing to you all. Until next time, Kara

Just like Joe, I too will probably be biased in this review, as I learned the majority of my plotting and story structure from Brandon Sanderson as well as from his friend Dan Wells, whom he mentions. While Brandon states that his advice is for those participating in NaNoWriMo, I think it can be used for just about any novel writing circumstance. I really appreciate how he goes in depth into plotting and story structure for beginners, instead of just skimming the surface like many others do. His advice to borrow your initial plot structure from a favorite movie in a favorite genre is fantastic advice to help any new writer ease themselves into writing novel length stories. Writing a monologue with your main character(s) to get to the heart of who they are and what they need or want is priceless advice. This is a little golden nugget he got from his author friend Dan Wells, and who I learned it from first. It is really helpful when you need to figure out backstory. I recommend it to all. It's what I have done for all my characters (major and minor) in all my stories and it works every time to help me know their personalities, quirks and how they will behave in any given scene. This way, you never have to worry about a character doing something really weird or spontaneous, thus hijacking your story. "Prime your mind" is good advice for keeping yourself focused on your writing, even when you can't write. However, I'm sure I'm not the only writer who needs pen and paper close by anytime I'm brainstorming or even thinking about my story because inevitably, if I do not jot it down right then then I forget what my 'ah-ha' moment was about. So, while this point wouldn't necessarily work for me, I'm sure it can benefit many others and is still worth trying it out. In summary, I think this is a great video for any writer and definitely worth 12 minutes of your time.

Thank you, Elise, for putting into words what I could not because I was too irritated. I love that you bring up the mental health of new writers because that is for sure an incredibly important thing when you're just starting. It's such a vulnerable process in and of itself until you gain some confidence. You definitely don't need someone shouting at you on top of it all.