Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

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Why Your Characters Matter a Lot to Your Story

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Knowing the deepest emotions, goals and motivations of your characters is super important to creating a compelling story. This is something that I am reminded of every time I write a novel.

As I’ve been reviewing/rewriting my 1920’s Novella, Longing for Love, I’ve been going through the emotional character arcs of both Eli and Charlotte(the main characters). I’ve been using Enneagram Type Descriptions to help me figure out more details about my main characters.

When you are writing your novel, I’ve discovered that you have the most ideas – and character revelations – when you are really immersed in who those characters really are.

Below, I share more of what I’ve learned…

My Aha Moments as I’ve learned more about my characters…

To understand more about Eli(the hero) and Charlotte(the heroine), I’ve worked through their reactions to different situations.

For instance at the start of the story, I realize that Charlotte has been so hurt by being rejected and left by her first suitor that it’s hard for her to trust again. She also feels like something is wrong with her, that she’s unworthy of love. Since she’s the only daughter of Senator Coleman and his wife Elizabeth, Charlotte has had to live in the public eye a lot and has never really been able to figure out who she really is.

She also has limiting beliefs that hold her back from receiving – and giving – true love. Some of her false beliefs are that she’s not worthy of being truly loved because she’s never felt like she measured up to her parent’s expectations; she also

When I did the Enneagram for Charlotte, I realized that she is a Type Two profile. She’s The Helper. Her key motivations are: wants to be loved; to express her feelings for others; to be needed and appreciated; to get others to respond to them and to vindicate their claims about themselves.

Charlotte’s Basic Fear is to be unwanted, and that she’s unworthy of being loved. 

Charlotte’s Basic Desire is to feel loved.

Eli on the other hand keeps his cards close to his chest.

He immigrated from Ireland with his parents as a small boy, but growing up he was always called that poor Irish immigrant. He’s the oldest of eight children and has worked hard since he was thirteen years old to learn how to run a ship. Since the small town where they live – Hidden Cove – is right along the ocean, he’s spent most of his life on ships. When he finally begins his dream to learn how to build cargo ships and luxury yachts, he grows more into who he wants to be and those dreams he’s had for his life.

However, those two years he spent working in the big city working for a ship builder weren’t only about building. He also fell in love and was engaged to a woman(Lillian), who Eli later finds in the arms of another man. So Eli has become very reclusive and has decided to live his life without having any romantic entanglements.

What I uncovered about Eli’s Enneagram was super helpful. I realized that he is a Type Eight profile. He’s The Challenger. So his Key motivations are: wants to be self-reliant; wants to prove his strength and resist weakness; he wants to be important in his world; he wants to dominate his environment and he wants to stay in control of his situation.

Eli’s Basic Fear is of being harmed or controlled by others.

Eli’s Basic Desire is to protect himself  – to be in control of his own life and destiny.

As Charlotte transforms she’ll need to learn how to stop ‘over-sacrificing’ herself to help others. It’s great that she’s a giver and loves to help others, but that when she’s not meeting her own needs, she can’t help others very well. Also when she over sacrifices herself for others she grows resentful and frustrated when they don’t reciprocate. So as she begins to fall in love with Eli, this is a real growth area for her because it’s a really long time before Eli tells Charlotte that he loves her.

As Eli transforms, he’ll need to learn to act with more self-restraint. Instead of asserting his will with others in a cut and dried sort of way, Eli will need to learn how to inspire people to action even while he’s taking charge of different and difficult situations. Also, he wants to be in control most of the time, but sometimes he’ll need to learn to yield his will to others and by doing that he’ll inspire cooperation from the people he values the most in his life.

I hope some of what I’ve been learning about characters is helpful. I encourage you to figure out your characters in the Enneagram Type Descriptions. I think you’ll really find it helps you dig deeper into who your characters really are 😉

 

How do you dig deeper – and immerse yourself – into your character’s point of view?  Please share your thoughts below… I’d love to learn from you!

044 How to Write Your Book in 30 Days with Kevin Tumlinson

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Do you want to learn how to write your book in 30 days or less? In this interview, Kevin Tumlinson shares that it took him two years to write his first book. Now it takes him 15 days to write a first draft… and he says anyone can learn to do it. Listen in, for Kevin’s tips on how you can learn to write your book fast 😉

In the intro, I share books I’ve been reading lately.

I’ve been learning how to make changes to my daily schedule so writing becomes more productive as I’ve read through Kevin Tumlinson’s book 30-Day Author: Develop a Daily Writing Habit and Write Your Book in 30 Days(or Less). Another book I’ve found useful to help learn better productivity habits as a creative is, Productivity for Creative People: How to Get Creative Work Done in an “Always On” World, by Mark McGuinness.

Click Here to Watch the Video Interview

Interview Highlights:

Kevin Tumlinson shares his story, of how he wrote his first book at 5 years old. He wrote for the local newspaper at 12 years old, which led naturally into a communications degree in college – which led to working in radio and TV. When he learned copywriting and started working for Ad agencies, he says that helped him develop a work ethic.

Writing novels was something he had done on the side in fits and starts. In 2008 he learned more about self-publishing. It had taken him two years to write Book 1 in his Citadel series and he delayed a year before starting Book 2 – which took him another two years to write. He then realized that if he wanted to make writing fiction something he could do full-time, he was going to have to learn to write books faster.

It was at that moment, he decided it was time to treat his writing career like a business. So he spent a ton of time reading books and listening to podcasts about writing, self-publishing and marketing.

He started to practice writing daily. When he set out to write NaNoWriMo, his goal was to write 50,000 words in 30 days… instead he wrote 70,000 words in 15 days.

Kevin says he was surprised that this book was written so quickly, and that it needed less editing than the first two books he spent years writing. He wondered if he could write another book in 30 days or less, so he tried again. He wrote another book and another. By the end of six weeks, he had four new books.

That step-by-step process, is what Kevin wrote about in his helpful nonfiction book, 30-Day Author: Develop A Daily Writing Habit and Write Your Book in 30 Days(or Less). 

Write everyday even if you only have 30 minutes and all you write is 10 words. @KevinTumlinson Share on X

Tips to remember when learning to write fast…

1.You need to make a commitment to write everyday. Anyone who can commit to write an hour or two a day can do this. Kevin says if your goal is to write full-time… if you really want that, you will write everyday.

2.While writing your first draft, you need to turn off your inner editor and just focus on writing.  When  you are writing, you only have one job, which is to write. Save the editing for later.

3.Treat all your writing projects as if they were assignments from paying clients. Work on your writing projects everyday, make your deadlines, and deliver a great project. Don’t multi-task while writing your first draft. Don’t do anything else but write. It deserves your undivided attention.

You can connect with Kevin on his website, listen to his Wordslinger Podcast or you can chat with him on Facebook or Twitter.

 

What are some writing productivity tips that you find helpful?  Please share your thoughts in the comments. It would be awesome to learn from each other 😉

7 of the Biggest Road Blocks for Writers (and how to overcome them)

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Do you struggle to write every day?

Resistance is something I battle with every single day. I used to let it beat me most of the time, but in the past few weeks I’ve been winning the battle more than I’ve been losing. To me that’s super encouraging.

Do you come up against resistance or procrastination? Do you want to write consistently everyday, but see road blocks of distraction and fear standing in your way?

In today’s post I share about how to begin getting those words onto the blank page and how to overcome obstacles that can get in the way of being the productive writer you want to be.

What Gets in Your Way and Stops You from Creating a Writing Habit?

As I’ve talked with writers just getting started and have also interviewed many bestselling writers, I’ve come to realize that writers everywhere have one major focus: to create a writing habit that takes them in a straight a line as possible towards their goals.

So the question becomes: How do you make writing a habit? How do you overcome what STOPS you from writing and put in place what STARTS and propels you toward you writing goals?

I’ve listed below 7 of the biggest road blocks that stop us from creating a writing habit:

1.Negative Self-Talk. This gloomy way of talking to ourselves is something many of us writers don’t even notice until we take the time to listen to ourselves. This shows up in many forms with comments like: “I suck at writing,” or “I just can’t seem to do this,” or “I’ll do this later.” I’ve become more aware of how I talk to myself in the past few weeks and all I can say is I really need to talk more positively to myself and encourage the child-artist inside. The negative self-talk can put a ton of doubts in our head that really defeats us… and stops us from writing. So how do we overcome this? Just listen to yourself. Become aware of the negative words you’re telling yourself and then for every negative word say something positive that counters it. And when you start writing, put a timer on and don’t stop writing (even when you really want to say “I’ll do this later”), until the timer goes off. You can start small – like set the timer for 5 minutes to start. You’ll start to be amazed by how much you can write in 5 minutes.

2.Feeling the urge to switch. As you are writing anything, more than likely you’ll want to switch and do something else. Wash the dishes, check social media, check your email. Again try this: set a timer for 10 minutes and tell yourself that you won’t switch to anything else until the timer is up. Write a paragraph or maybe two and you’ll be surprised how you get in the flow. But just stay in focus. When you feel the urge to click to check your email, don’t. Remind yourself, you have to stay and write or stare at the blank page until the timer goes. When the timer goes, then begin again.

3.The problem of distractions. Every writer has to learn how to handle distractions. At some point we’ve all given in to some form of distraction. The only way to really get rid of this road block, is to clear them away. If you have browser tabs open, close it. If you have your phone dinging notifications, turn it off. If  your desk is messy, clean up the clutter so you can focus. The only thing you need open in front of you is the program you are using to write your story. Start with focusing for only 5 minutes at the start and work your way up to 15 minutes. I’ve been using this count down timer I found online, and I set it for 10 or 12 minutes, and it really helps me stay focussed in that amount of time.

4.Dreaming of how easy writing will be. Writing is not easy. It’s takes a lot of time, it takes focus and sometimes can be quite messy. That’s not to say writing isn’t rewarding… because it is. But, if you are dreaming that writing your book is super easy, that illusion will get in your way when you actually sit down to write. Why? Because in most cases your dream of writing your book quickly and easily, won’t measure up to what your reality is. It is difficult and sometimes tough to get your thoughts onto the blank page, but writing is still meaningful and rewarding and something to be grateful for.

5.Distress or confusion on how to write your book. I really get this one. I was so completely stressed out when I started writing my first novel. I didn’t know anything about story structure, I was never that great at language arts classes in school and I felt like I would fail as soon as I started. These reasons all scared me to bits. Besides that, all I had going for me, was an idea for a story. But, I decided I would begin anyway. So, I just started reading books and blogposts on the craft of writing. Then I discovered writing and self-publishing podcasts, which were so inspiring and helpful. Then I started taking a few online courses so I could get better at writing, blogging and learning how to market my books. It’s difficult, when you are doing something for the first time and you don’t know how. You do feel like quitting. You feel sorry for yourself, and wonder why you’re even trying. That’s normal. Go ahead, give yourself a few minutes to feel that way, then get back up and start looking on google for the answers to questions you have. There is so much information out there, that in all likelihood you’ll find the solution to what you’re having trouble understanding.

6.Not enough time to write. Each of us are juggling many different things during the day. We’re all busy which makes it difficult to make the time to write each day. You might not have 1 hour to focus on writing, but I’m pretty sure you could find 10 minutes in your day to write a few words in your book or on your blog. Learn to be aware of what you use your time for in your day. If after your day job you spend an hour on social media, cut out some of that time. Or if you spend an hour watching T.V. at night, could you spend that time writing? If writing and getting your book published really matters to you, you’ll find that extra 10 – 30 minutes a day to write. When you finally finish your book and put it out into the world, you’ll be so happy you chose to dedicate that time to write every day!

7.Dealing with Perfectionism. Each of us wants our writing to be wonderful right from the get go. What often happens is we put so much pressure on ourselves that we nitpick our writing… and ourselves like crazy. What happens is that all these high expectations we place on our writing, actually stops us from being creative. It’s important to choose to just write messy first drafts. It’s important to just be okay with putting the words on the page, even though they seem terrible at first. Make it a habit not to go back and edit any of the words you’ve written, until you have finished your first draft. That’s something that has really helped me to get more words onto the page in a shorter amount of time.

As you have read through the above list of road blocks to writing, you probably found at least one obstacle that resonates with you.

Read through the list again, and as you find one or more obstacles you personally face to getting your writing done everyday, ask yourself why are you writing? Go ahead, write down the reasons why you are writing your novel, your nonfiction book or your blog. Once you gain more clarity on your reasons why feel compelled to write, you’ll see that your passion and motivation to move past resistance gets stronger too.

Recommendation: A awesome book that will help give you clarity as a writer and creative is a new release by bestselling author Jeff Goins, titled The Writer’s Roadmap: 12 Steps to Make a Living Writing. You’ll find useful tips and inspiration on how to focus your creative energy to get more stuff done as well as learning how to make money from your art. Get your FREE ebook here.

Make it a habit everyday to find the time to write so you can put more of your books into the world. Allow yourself to write a messy first draft, use a timer to help you focus and watch as little by little you finish writing your book!

What are some obstacles you face as you write? Are they different then the list above?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below, we can learn from each other 😉

043 How to Make a Business Plan for Success as an Indie Author with Denise Grover Swank

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Want to learn how to create a business plan to help you be more successful as an indie author?

In today’s interview, USA Today and NY Times bestselling author Denise Grover Swank, shares how she created her first business plan when she first started writing. So if you want to learn tips on how to be a successful Indie Author, listen in to these amazing tips from Denise 😉

In the intro, I share how amazingly helpful it’s been to be part of a Facebook accountability group for romance writers. I wrote more last week than I have for a long time.

I also share some books I’ve been reading which have really useful in both positive mindset and motivation.

Bestselling author Jeff Goins has a New Release out now called Real Artists Don’t Starve. In this book Jeff(after many interviews with successful creatives) dismantles the myth of the starving artist, and shows you how you can make a living as a writer and as a creative.

I’ve also been reading The Power of Productivity by Leonardo D.M. The author shares tips on how to choose your priorities for each day. Learn how to focus better by doing one thing at a time, how to say no to extra commitments and how to identify what distracts you.

Click Here for the Video Interview

Interview Summary:

Denise Grover Swank began writing in 2009 – giving herself a challenge to write 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo. When she started writing she had a rough outline and by the end of November she had written 69,000 words. The book was finished on Dec. 10th.

In 2010 Denise tried to get an agent and publisher, not considering self-publishing as an option at the time. She had positive feedback from agents but they didn’t think it would sell well. After a second novel rejection, she decided to self-publish.

Since Denise had a blog where she told stories about her family, she had learned to write by regularly . Blogging was a great place to learn writing and connect with other mommy bloggers. Denise originally grew her blog traffic by writing about her family and then transitioned those readers over to her fiction writing and to Facebook where she connects with readers everyday.

Learn to Make a Business Plan for Success as an Indie Author…

When Denise started out she didn’t know anything about business, but her brother had started his own business, so she did research into how to create a business plan.

At some point – whether it’s with your first book or after you’ve written a few – it is a good idea to create a business plan. For writers who are just starting out, your business plan doesn’t need to be in depth, but some sort of business plan is a great idea.

If you want to read more details, Denise shares in depth about her business plan in this blogpost.

The following are some of the details included in Denise’s business plan and some ideas for you to consider as you create your own business plan:

1.Describe your business. What business are you creating? Describe your mission/vision for your business.

2.Write down details of ownership and location. This simple. Most likely you own the business and based in your own home.

3.Write down what your business does. What is the reason for your business. Do you write novels. Do you write nonfiction books and plan to create online courses too?

4.What types of books and/or merchandise does this business create? For example: ebooks, print books, audio books, translations and possible merchandise like t-shirts, journals, etc.

5.Write down your overall costs and pricing strategy. Write down details of how you’ll price your ebooks, print books, audio books. Also, include costs like: book cover design; editing costs, etc.

6.Study your market because it’s always changing. Look at pricing model for books. Look at your target audience of readers. There might be times that you’ll need to sacrifice what you want to write in order to pursue writing something else that might be more profitable.

7.Study effective marketing/promotion plans. This changes often. So do your best to keep up with new ideas on what is currently working for other authors.

8.Write down a production plan that works for you. Take a look at your schedule and see how you can adjust it to work in when you want to have your first draft done for each book; when you want to self-publish it, etc. To be successful you need to write and be self-publishing books on a consistent basis.

9.Decide on long term goals and write them down. Denise says she started planning for one year in advance, but says another indie author, Susan Kaye Quinn recommends creating a five year plan. The plan is fluid and can change as you go along.

On a personal level, Denise wishes she hadn’t written in so many genres when she first started out.  But she says on a business level, it’s important to have two genres. That way when one genre is hot, the other on might not be – and your chances of straddling the market are better.

Advice for first-time authors…

“If you’re brand new, don’t be in a hurry to publish. Write it. Revise it. Then revise it again. Make sure your books are as good and clean as possible.” Denise Grover Swank

 

To find out about Denise’s New Releases and read more about other series, go to www.denisegroverswank.com. To connect, you can find Denise on Facebook or Twitter.

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