Adult Writers, Child Readers?

For our next roundtable, let's look at being child readers and how, if at all, that influenced us as writers. 

Were you read to when you were a toddler/young child? Do you remember favorites that you continued to read alone once you learned how?

Ef Deal: I wasn't read to, but I learned to read very young, three years. I read in secret by the wedge of light from the bathroom after bedtime. Then I found the town library was on my street and ripped through the children's section in six months. Got a library card before I was five. My dad was a reader -- of trash. 

Elizabeth Donald: I learned to read when I was three (or so I am told), so I don’t have strong memories of being read to, but I know I was. My earliest associated memories are of reading to my parents. In fact, I recall sitting next to my mother reading her a Berenstein Bears book and she suddenly stopped me and summoned my father. I had no idea what was going on and wondered if I’d done it wrong. 

Instead, my mother asked my father to please get the box of Nancy Drew books from the attic. They were her books from her own childhood, those older 1950s blue tweed covers with the silhouette of Nancy and her magnifying glass (which I do not recall appearing in any of the books.) Mom realized at whatever age I was -- 6, perhaps? -- that I was ready for chapter books. I dove into Nancy Drew and never looked back. 

From there I discovered Judy Blume, Black Beauty and The Black Stallion, fought beside Johnny Tremain, explored the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, climbed My Side of the Mountain and attended Sweet Valley High. Then Lois Duncan introduced me to horror, which eventually led to swiping my mother’s Stephen King hardbacks which I wasn’t supposed to read but I left the dust jackets in their places so she wouldn’t realize they were missing. When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered I was hooked into Trek, and started devouring every tie-in novel I could find. Then it was, “Hmm, I like this Peter David guy. I think I should see what else he’s written…”

Jen Mulvihill: Yes absolutely, my mother read all the horse books to me, International Velvet, Black Beauty, Little Nick, all of them. Then she read all the Laura Ingles books to me. When I got older I started reading L. Frank Baum, I still have not read them all yet.

Scott McCullar: I don’t remember my parents reading to me as a child. Perhaps my Mama did when I was a toddler, but I just do not remember it happening in my life. Instead, she would have conversations with me and would encourage me in my love for art. I know my Mama gave me the Little Golden Books before kindergarten. I think I was more infatuated with the illustrations. 

When I was a little older in kindergarten circa 1976, my Daddy started buying me comic books as an incentive to help me learn how to read. At that point, I was this little blonde-headed kid with freckles from Tennessee living in California who still retained his thick Southern accent. The school out in Fresno wanted to put me into speech therapy classes to lose the accent. The other kids in class made fun of me constantly with my Southern drawl – especially when it was time for me to read the “I See Sam” yellow children’s books. I was so infuriated at the time at the other kids that I refused to talk in class and it impeded my reading development at that time. With that, comic books solved the problem and I became a voracious reader. By second grade, I was reading biographies of historical figures like Babe Ruth, Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, and others. 

John Morgan Neal: I have no memory of being read to. First reads were Batman comics. And S.E. Hintons's The Outsiders.

Gordon Dymowski: My parents instilled a love of reading from an early age - according to family legend, my father purchased a copy of ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH the day I was born. Not only was I read to, but I was encouraged to head to the local library when I was a kid. Between Chicago Public Library and my Catholic school, I read several series multiple times: Alvin Fernald, Danny Dunn, Tom Swift Jr...and eventually, Sherlock Holmes.

Bobby Nash: I don’t remember being read to as a kid. I probably was, but don’t recall. My mom did like to read so that got me interested in reading. She used to get the Reader’s Digest collections. It was there I read my first novel, The Snowbound Six. I was hooked. From there I went to Han Solo’s Revenge and comic books. Plus, The Monster at the End of this Book with Grover was a favorite.

Brian K Morris: Yes, my mother read an assortment of Golden Books to me. My father tried to read some of my comics to me, but he grew bored with the task. I don't recall any of the books from back then, aside from The Night Before Christmas (which I own several editions of), but I loved them a lot.

Sean Taylor: Absolutely. Both my Mom and my MeMe (grandma) read to me. And they were both always buying my books. I was fortunate in that all my sets of parents and grandparents (as a child of divorce and remarriage I had "bonus" grands) supported me in being a reader from an early age. When I was able to read for myself, I always went back to the ones I remembered most and best -- The Pokey Little Puppy, Never Talk to Strangers, The Sailor Dog, and How to Make Flibbers, etc. : A Book of Things to Make and Do. I still own each of them, and they are still barely holding it together after all the years of love I gave them. I hope to pass them down to my own grandkids and build memories of reading them together. 

Susan Roddey: My mother read to me every day until I learned to read. It was always my favorite part of the day. My absolute favorite book was called "There are Rocks in my Socks," Said the Ox to the Fox. I bought a copy of it for my own kids... they were not impressed.

How often did you read as a child? Where were you on the spectrum that goes from "lock me in my room with my books" to "please don't make me read"?

Bobby Nash: I loved to read. Comic books became a huge favorite. Spider-Man, G.I. Joe, Space Family Robinson, Star Trek, and the big treasury editions of Captain America, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars were constant companions. I read novels. Those small paperbacks of the 70’s were a big influence on me.

I hated being told what to read. That’s probably because I don’t like being told what to do.

Brian K Morris: I grew up in the country, so books, comics, and TV were my real friends back then. I learned to read when I was three so throwing me into my room with my reading material proved to be no punishment for me.

John Morgan Neal: All I needed was to be in my room with my comics and my toys to reenact or create new stories from the characters I loved. School introduced me to The Outsiders, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty Four, and such.

Gordon Dymowski: I read voraciously as a child, and my parents encouraged this habit. I read everything from catalogs and newspapers to books and comics. If there's a statement that describes my youthful reading, it would be "Go find a book and entertain yourself." (Keep your minds out of the gutter, people)

Susan Roddey: I started reading early, and have been a voracious reader ever since. I was the kid they punished by telling me I wasn't allowed to read.

Scott McCullar: After discovering comic books in kindergarten where I learned to read and moved on to other “real” books, I became a lifelong reader. I didn’t have to be “locked in a room”, I just instead took books with me wherever I went. To the living room on the couch. Outside under a tree. On the bus with me to school. Wherever I walked.

Jen Mulvihill: I read all the time. I would sneak books in school instead of doing my school work. I didn’t have many friends so I would almost always be reading. You could usually find me in an apple tree eating green apples and reading.

Elizabeth Donald: So I was the bookworm, the kid who had a book hidden in her lap for those long stretches of math class (and got yelled at by my third-grade teacher in front of the whole class for READING when I’d finished the math assignment. “You spend your whole day with your nose in a book!” It did not occur to me for years to question her priorities.) My parents gave up grounding me, as I didn’t watch much television and ordering me to stay inside and not go out to play? Gee darn. Being a shy bookworm with unruly hair and thick glasses, naturally I was a target for bullies (mostly male, the girls just ignored me). So hiding in the storage closet during recess (with a book) or staying inside instead of going to the park (with a book) was definitely me. Instead, if my parents needed to ground me, they grounded me from my books, which got my attention. 

Sean Taylor: I read every time I could. I would spend hours in my MeMe's front bedroom (we spent a lot of time with her) reading. The books got more complex and longer and I branched out more in non-fiction too. I would read every book I could get my hands on about sharks, snakes, spiders, or dinosaurs, and I devoured my set of Childcraft Encyclopedias too. And I went from re-reading the children's books to reading the illustration and abridged versions of classics (not to be confused with the Classics Illustrated comic book though I read those too) with an illustration every other page. I particularly enjoyed the Verne and Wells abridgments. That's also when I found my favorite book that I probably read at least 200 times between the time I was 7 and 15 -- The Adventures of Monkey by Arthur Waley. I was very much into adventure stories at the time. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: We had a big family so we got sent to the library a lot to keep us out of mom’s hair. Alone with a book was infinitely preferable to getting bullied by sibs. I was reading Asimov and Tolkien by age eight. 

Did those early experiences help to instill in you a love of stories, and how did that reading stories bug transform into a telling stories and writing stories bug?

Susan Roddey: I've always loved everything about the written word. Even before I understood how to write stories, I would pretend to be a writer. It's always been a part of me.

John Morgan Neal: Not sure instill is the most accurate word. Awoked. Revealed. Because I think it was always there.

Brian K Morris: Being in the country, the only companions I had were imaginary. That's who I read to when I was younger. And the storytelling bug is still strong in me.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Dr. Seuss first showed me what imagination can do. My imagination always took anything I read and made whole universes out of it. And never stopped.

Scott McCullar: By fourth grade, I was writing my own stories. I won a “Young Author’s” contest at school for my first story “Mice Wars” which was loosely based on the historical story of The Alamo with a cast of characters that were all mice. I would continue to write stories here or there in my spiral notebooks, but my other interest wanting to illustrate also pushed me in the direction of wanting to be a comic book creator who handled both the writing and art chores in his own work. 

I just loved storytelling in all forms. Whether it was books, comic books, illustrations, television, film, or even audio-only sources such as radio dramas, records, or listening to someone speak in a lecture, interview, or tell a tale around a campfire, etc.

Elizabeth Donald: I have always been a storyteller, in any form. From my very early childhood I was writing, way back to early-80s Smurf fanfic. I was never going to BE a writer, mind you -- you needed Dumbo’s magic feather and to live in New York for that, or so I believed. But books were absolutely integral to my childhood, developing my imagination, and entry drug after entry drug kept me in fictional magic. I wrote my first novel in high school and it was terrible, as most first novels are. And I rewrote it a couple of times in college, and it was still terrible. I wrote plays as a theater major and they were terrible. But that’s the gig, isn’t it? The more you write, the less terrible your writing. Every word you write -- and every word you read -- makes you a better writer, in tiny increments. Those baby steps start with the Berenstein Bears and Nancy Drew and end up with your name on the cover displayed in the front window at Borders. 

Jen Mulvihill: I really think it did have an impact on me. Especially when I became a teenager and started reading Science Fiction, I could not get enough. But now I see in my writing a little bit of influence of a mix of Baum and Heinlein. As a child and teenager, I used to make up all kinds of stories in my head, sometimes I wrote them down and sometimes I didn’t. I still have an old suitcase full of old short stories, songs, and poetry.

Bobby Nash: Oh, yeah. I started thinking of ways to do my own stories. I studied the books and taught myself how to write, how to create stories and characters, etc. That urge has not diminished over the decades.

Ef Deal: I couldn't separate reading from imagining, so I began writing early, and yes, because I was an avid reader.

Gordon Dymowski: Since I grew up as an only child, I relied on my imagination and curiosity to provide entertainment. One method was drawing stories on scrap paper my mother brought home from work. I think that experience shaped my ability to tell stories since I knew I could take characters from comics and translate them into rough narratives. It wasn't until college that I started writing short stories...and developed a large collection of rejection slips.

Fortunately, the past eleven years as an author helped me realize I have a knack for this whole writing thing. It's still a learning process., but I feel more confident in my abilities now than I ever did in the past.

Sean Taylor: I don't think there's any denying how important the stories I read were to making me want to tell my own stories. I did it with everything from paper to pencil to playing with my action figures. I never played with them correctly. Luke and Leia were never Luke and Leia. Nope, Luke was a swashbuckling hero while Walrus Man wore the Jawa's cloak and became an evil wizard who captured Leia (I was a kid. I hadn't learned yet women didn't need us men to save them.) and foiled Luke's plans with his giant robot (Mazinga) while keeping hidden in my Fisher Price castle with the secret trapdoor. That play became stories that still influence me to this day, hence my love of adventurous tales of heroes and heroines in outlandish situations. 

The Power of Whimsy

Whimsy: "Behaviour which is unusual, playful, and unpredictable,
rather than having any serious reason or purpose behind it"
(Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers). 

When we think of whimsical writing we often default to the same kind of ideas. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Wind in the Willows. Mrs. Fisby and the Rats of NIMH. And typically books for children or young adults. But there's plenty of whimsy to be found in adult fiction too. Anansi Boys. The Left Hand of Darkness. Kim Harrison's The Hollows books. Something Wicked The Way Comes. (Just to name a few.) Some might even argue that pulp fiction and lots of action-adventure fantasies are nothing but whimsy stories for adults, feeding the hunger to see ourselves as the heroes unbound by the regular world. (Die Hard, anyone?)

How about you? Do you embrace the whimsy when you write? I figured that was a good question to put to the folks in the hot seat this week. 

How do you define whimsy for your writing? Do you think about it as you write?

John L. Taylor: For me, even in Horror, whimsy is a factor I incorporate into most of my work. I define it as a dreamlike quality that awakens a sense of wonder in the reader. It's one of the powerful aspects of fiction. being able to process the human condition through the lens of whimsy. Every truly successful classic of fiction has used it to some extent. Even Jane Austen and Herman Melville used small amounts of it to great effect, whether it was Austen's Regency-era visuals that seem dreamlike today, or Melville's legendary White Whale, the sense of whimsy helps the reader bond with the work. 

Susan H. Roddey: Whimsy is at the heart of my writing. It's a natural occurrence, probably because I write to escape the real world. 

Danielle Procter Piper: A bit of whimsy appears in my work when I add humor in a cheeky manner to either break up too much seriousness, to spin the storyline off in an unexpected direction, or to punch it up with a bit of humorous showmanship that is intentionally a bit unrealistic but fun. In one of my sci-fi stories, I added whimsy when my astrobiologist had to sedate a large, rampant alien, and when asked how he'd known what to do, mentioned he'd only seen it done on TV. It's unrealistic because he's serious enough about his job that he would never risk a life in such a reckless manner, but it's a pretty funny moment it exposes a bit of daring in the old boy, and it actually foreshadows an event further into the story. I might get a "joke" in my head as I'm writing and realize it will fit a section I'm working on, then include it, but I don't typically plot these moments. The muses flick them at me occasionally to see what may stick. 

Bobby Nash: Not really. I use wit and humor in my stories, usually character-based. I can't say I've ever thought about whimsy for whimsy's sake.

Jen Mulvihill: Whimsy is an important part of my writing because I write Y/A and I feel it shows how real the characters are and how they have not been fully jaded yet. My characters may have whimsical moments either in dialogue or by actions born of the spontaneity of the moment. There are a few characters who are whimsy by nature at all times. For instance, in the Steele Roots series there is a character named Raine who everyone thinks is just a bit touched. The truth is she just lives in her own little world and can’t be bothered with everyone else’s problems. She is no Lune Lovegood, but her comments and actions come off as unpredictable and out of step with the rest of the characters.

Sean Taylor: For me, whimsy is the power behind my writing before I ever start. I usually begin with "what if" questions, and that's where the whimsy sits enthroned. Only whimsy leads to questions like, "What if the mirror in Through the Looking Glass was the same mirror in "Snow White"? Or "What if a zombie writer came back from the dead and started writing her own posthumous work for her publisher husband?"

To what extent do you let a sense of whimsy guide your writing? Or are you more a meticulous follower of "the plan"?

Susan H. Roddey: I have a whole book series built on the most whimsical of premises (an Alice in Wonderland reimagining, as it were), so in the case of those books, I do let the whimsy lead. There's movement to it, sometimes hard and poetic, and sometimes goofy to the point of absurdity. The books are dark, violent, often gory, but also sensual and often funny. 

Jen Mulvihill: Other characters in my novels have whimsical moments and those are unpredictable even to me. I never plan them they just seem to happen as I write the story. It’s the characters who choose their moments and I simply journal the action or dialogue as it unfolds before me. I don’t think I could ever force or plan too much whimsy because I think it would feel forced and not flow properly or organically. But that is my style of writing and not necessarily the right way or wrong way of doing things, it is simply Jen’s way.

John L. Taylor: It's a cyclical process for me. Often a surreal or dreamlike visual theme or really moving line of dialogue occurs to me. I then go "so, how did this happen?" and create a plan on how to connect several of these through a linear plot. Sometimes that throughline will suggest new possibilities for the characters, adding further new scenes. Repeat until a finished first draft is ready.

Sean Taylor: I don't consciously think about whimsy as I write, but it does, as I said above in question one, drive the questions that create my stories. 

Danielle Procter Piper: I have seen that minimal use of whimsy in a story tends to be of greater benefit. Too much can destroy a story. Case in point; there's just enough magical whimsy in Raiders of the Lost Ark to open your eyes and make you question your beliefs briefly, which quickly turns humorous as we get to gleefully watch Nazis melt. There's too much in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which helped tank that film. If, for the most part, your stories are realistic...then, for the most part, keep them that way. If you've ever seen the original script for The Blues Brothers, you'll be glad Dan Aykroyd's whimsy was held in check. It's already a silly movie that gets sillier as it goes, but if you don't know, the Blues Mobile was nearly sentient and could perform on its own in a magical manner...which would have pushed things too far. 

Bobby Nash: No idea. When it happens, it just sort of happens. Usually, any sense of whimsy in my stories comes from my characters. You'd have to ask them. 🙂

Have you found that by embracing the "playful" and "unpredictable" as you write, you actually end up accomplishing the purpose after all? Why or why not?

Danielle Procter Piper: Playful moments in a story are certainly valuable, depending on what you're writing. I have found that my sense of humor seeps into everything I write even when I don't wish it to. Because I write horror...it's sometimes expressed in an incredulously dark manner, often extraordinarily disturbing if you're unable to recognize the humor in it. Again, to me, "showmanship"— that is, going over the top to grab the attention of the reader and drop a big hint on them they may not recognize until later, is often accomplished in a moment of whimsy. An example of too much whimsy would be Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, or Harry Harrison's Bill, The Galactic Hero series. They're both actually very funny and enjoyable, but most people don't like them because they're too "far-fetched" and silly. Chevy Chase's Modern Problems is another example of too much whimsy killing a project, while Three Amigos works despite a heaping helping of it because it's a screwball comedy.

Sean Taylor: I try to keep myself open to the playful as I work, but I don't automatically default to the most "out there" ideas. For me, a lot of it depends on the story I'm writing. Sometimes a story gets so serious or dark that something odd or flippant really needs to happen. For example, I'm working on a story for my next horror collection about a house for sale at a basement-level bargain -- with the following caveat: the dead squirrel in the jar must remain in the cellar, or you can't buy the house. Because of the way I plot by questions, my plots are pretty much set by the time I actually start writing, but I try to remain open to where whims can take me.

Jen Mulvihill: I think by embracing the whimsical you embrace being human. Those little whimsical moments in life when you trip over your own feet, or do something laughably stupid and then turn around and own it, this makes life real; this makes characters real.

I also feel the need for whimsy in writing given sometimes the seriousness of the subject or event taking place, a little whimsy breaks up a serious moment without damaging the message if done correctly and organically.

Bobby Nash: Unpredictability is my method. Trust the characters and see where they take you. It's not the most elegant method, but it works for me.

Susan H. Roddey: It's fun to play with every aspect of human nature, twisting them up into magic and exploring the blurred boundaries between reality and fantasy. [Just for reference, writing narrative poetry and iambic tetrameter is not easy.]

John L. Taylor: Playful more than unpredictable. I'm not afraid to blend elements that don't seem to go together. An example of this was my novella The Rocket Molly Syndicate. Despite being an alt-history pulp action story, we meet our protagonist in a scene with biplanes chasing pterodactyls. At first, the editors and proofreaders were like "What the hell is this?" but reviews by readers often praised that scene for its whimsy as a great metaphor for the chaos in the protagonist's life and making it read more like a 30's era serial/pulp tale than some modern pulps had. By going for the dreamlike aspects, much of the other out there visual cues like scenes on rocket packs or fights on airplanes seemed more grounded by contrast. Fear of whimsy is the death of imagination itself, the real mind-killer.

I used the above line to illustrate my point. In Dune, the Gom Jabbar makes no sense in the universe. Even with the Bene Gesseret having psychic powers, the Gom Jabbar is a magic box in a universe with no magic. But the scene is so powerful and establishes characters so well, and foreshadows later events that it becomes indispensable. That is the power of whimsy.

Characters Who Kick Ass... Emotionally

Main characters who are intense and aggressive and filled with vim and vigor, who punch first and may not ask questions at all, who get in in the villain's face and shake an angry fist while escaping the 13th death trap today, who climb mountains and ride dragons and drive swords through demonspawn... well, those heroes... we know all about what makes them tick and how to put all that energy and action on to the page. (If not, check out the bulk of the tutorials and roundtables on the blog.)

But what about those times when that energy and action needs to be less, well... actiony... and a lot more subtle. What about those heroes who are heroes of the heart and warriors of words? How do you do that exactly as a writer?

How important is it to present intensity of the mind and emotions in your characters (main or otherwise)? Why?

Jen Mulvihill: Super important, yes. My characters must grow and become who they are meant to and the best way to show that is through emotions.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: It's very important to show the deeply held intention of the character so if they go against the grain and break their own code, it is a clue that Uh oh! something is up and cranks up the tension. 

Bobby Nash: I think it all depends on the story and/or the characters. Not every character is the same. Some are more intense than others so, for those characters, it is more important. For me, it all starts with character. Once I get to know my characters, once they become real, live, living, breathing, talking, feeling characters, I do whatever I can to make sure they are well represented as such. When I put Tom Myers or Abraham Snow through hell, which I do often, I want to make sure the reader cares.

Gordon Dymowski: Showing emotion in a lead character is critical; after all, part of the joy of fiction is relatability. Even in a straightforward action piece, readers need (and want) to connect with characters. It's easy to get lost in high drama, but crafting an effective story means creating a character who answers the reader's question, "Why should I bother?" 

Mark Bousquet: It is the most important. All the punching and kicking is just that unless the characters have an emotional investment in the outcome of the fight.

Selah Janel: For me, it's very important. I want my characters to have something going on beneath the surface, whether that's intelligence or an emotional life people relate to. I write a lot of nonhuman characters, so having that thinking, feeling element up front is always on mind. Action is fine, action is great, but I want there to be connection between my characters and readers, so sometimes I have to dig deep and think outside the box to get there.

Bill Craig: Most read for escapism, go have an emotionally tense character captures the reader. But you have to layer the character in order to show what they are like underneath the face they show the world.

In action writing, it's easy to show physical intensity through fights, daring escapes, even failed escapes -- but how do you translate that intensity to the realm of the heart and the mind within your characters?

Selah Janel: I do show a lot of thoughts on the page - sometimes this works better than others. Too much interior tight can distract from the action and get exposition heavy. Otherwise, for me it's about giving the characters emotional stakes that will affect them. Sometimes it's a balancing act: too much can get melodramatic and exhausting, too little and it doesn't serve the purpose. I try to keep in tune with my characters and draw from my own emotions amd experiences to keep a semblance of emotional realism.

Bobby Nash: How does the character deal with fights, escapes, success, and failure? It all starts with character. Once I know the character, I will know how they feel about losing or winning. I trust that they will show me their emotions so I can share them with the readers. In prose, a lot of this happens through the point of view character’s thoughts. POV can also show how one character perceives the emotions of other characters as well, which gives insight into the POV character. The way Rick Ruby perceives his secretary, Edie, dealing with a problem tells you a lot about him as well as her, especially if he misinterprets things, which he is wont to do. Action tells a lot about the character. Does he or she crack jokes in the ace of danger or are they serious? Spider-man and Batman do not react to their villains in the same way, for example. That comes from character.

Bill Craig: You have to write a vivid description of what they a thinking or feeling eg. Every muscle burned with strain as he fought his way back up the cliff face. Hannigan knew that the odds of him making it were slim, but he had to try. To give up meant to give into weakness. Giving into weakness meant he would die! 

Mark Bousquet: I get into trouble with this one because I think I tend to both overcomplicate and oversell. Doing both tends to slow down the narrative and make my prose run over the melodramatic edge. A little goes a long way here, I think. I try to make sure readers know the stakes for the characters, and make sure the characters are showing the pressure of the emotions on their decision-making process.

Gordon Dymowski: Demonstrating intensity and drive in a lead character can be done through behavior: do they stop, listen, and then suddenly look around? If they're putting on a coat, are they deliberate or do they jab their arms into the sleeves? When they stop, are they full in the moment and aware of how their heart is pumping, how they're breathing, and other behaviors? Although I have no problem with "thought balloons" in the text (and many editors do), the best way to demonstrate intensity in a character is through describing their large and small behaviors.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Since Jake is done in a First Person POV, you get to hear his thoughts and know how he's feeling. That's a bit of a cheat, I guess. I think if you show the character losing or giving away something they desire for the Greater Good (i.e. Casablanca), that resonates to the reader.

Jen Mulvihill: In the Steel Roots series the story is written in first person present tense so the reader knows exactly how the character feels during the action. With the Elsie Lind series I use point of view and conversation to reflect how the characters feel and felt at the time of the actions.

How do you avoid the mistakes of either going overboard (and making your over-emotional character almost a parody) or not going far enough (and leaving your character a stereotype or one-note)?

Bill Craig: You have to make their feelings real so they will resonate with the reader, allowing the reader to be emotionally invested in both the character and the story.

Jen Mulvihill: There is a fine line when writing characters and I use the old adage "walk a mile in their shoes," but with my characters as real people. I take a real person and study them and then I use this to write them doing my best to put myself in their position and from their perspective. I think it helps for a writer to take acting lessons and learn how to be a different person then you can add that to your imagination to bring out the characters. I hope that makes sense.

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: I try to keep a balance and the best way to do that is through my editors and beta readers. No one works in a vacuum and a great editor will pull you out of a quagmire.

Gordon Dymowski: Much of this is through editing, revision, and proofreading. (Beta readers can also help if you give them the proper guidance). Thinking of behavior in terms of a "use of force continuum" helps - if I can match a lead character's reaction to the appropriate situation, that makes for an easier read. (Having a private eye start firing away when served soup in a restaurant is an overreaction; having a gangster take aim at that same private eye is an appropriate reaction). It also helps to think of characters as people rather than archetypes, and that crafting grounded (if fantastic) characters is more rewarding to the reader - and the writer - than cutting and pasting names into all-too-easy narrative tropes.

Selah Janel: Editing. I also pay close attention to what's actually needed in the scene. I took a lot of acting classes in college, so I also fall back on sense memory and try to link up character response with things I've been through to keep a sense of honesty, even if it's run through a genre filter. There has to be that sense of 'of course this character would act like this' or 'wow, this really gets me,' even if the situation and character aren't necessarily relatable.

Bobby Nash: I trust the characters to get me where I need to go. If I have fleshed the characters out correctly and paid attention to what they say and do correctly, then I feel confident that they won’t delve into parody, unless that’s the goal. Avoiding stereotypes is tricky. They exist for a reason and some characters in fiction, as in real life, fall into those stereotypical roles. If I have a character who does, then I own it. It gets pointed out that he’s behaving this way or someone calls the character out for being predictable. You’ve acknowledged it, which takes away it’s negative power, then you move on.

Mark Bousquet: For me, this is where the second, third, fourth, etc. drafts really come in. Because I'll oversell emotions all the time in the first draft, it's really up to the subsequent drafts to reign that in. What I like to do, after the first draft is completed, is (to borrow a cooking term) boil off the excess and reduce the characters down to the proper flavor they need for that story.

New Release! Return To Easa

Death Is Not Predictable.

By J. L. Mulvihill

Death is losing its hold in the land of Authora. As the dead rise and sleepers awake, the weaving of webs begins and the lines blur between the two worlds as memories fade from one to another. Elsie Lind is slowly remembering and regaining her past, but in doing so, she has become an outlaw and now the most coveted woman in Authora. As word of her return spreads throughout the land, a change has come and not even the dead will rest. The Spider Witch, now free of her prison, will not be deterred from her plans. She will stop at nothing to secure Elsie as a means to her own power. But, who else seeks the benefit of the heir to the throne of Easa? A benefit such as being able to control the dragons could make grand plans more than possible. What evil awaits? What plans have been set in motion?

Who will Return to Easa?

http://www.darkoakpress.com/returneasa.html

Imaginarium -- The Birth of a Truly Literary Focused Convention

The Imaginarium Convention I attended this past weekend is unlike any other convention I've been a guest for. Why? Because this one was all about writers and their creative works. Rather than short-sheeting the folks who create the stories readers love, Imaginarium chose instead to honor them and put them on display.

Were there some obstacles to overcome? Of course. Any con will have them. Particularly any first-year con. But with plans in place to stomp them into dust, Imaginarium is one of the cons I'm most looking forward to hitting again as a guest -- as often as the awesome folks there will have me.

What rocked?

For starters, the staff. Stephen Zimmer, Susan Roddey, and their team of evil minions made me feel right at home from the get-go. They seem to have a knack for anticipating issues and already be working on them before someone like me could even approach them to let them know the issue existed.

Also, the guest list was like a family reunion for me. It's often been said that you have two families -- the family you're born with and the family you choose to surround yourself with. This family is the one that I've made my own and has welcomed me into the madness we all share.

So, thank you to all who made it awesome from the bottom of my heart. My “booth babes” (daughter Charis Taylor and friend Ellie Raine) and I had a great time, from hanging with friends new and old to shaking out booties on the Masquerade Dance Floor.

Can't wait for next year!

And now for the photos...

The lovely Charis Taylor, working the table. 

My neighbor and new friend, author Heather Adkins. 

The beautiful and very patient Spider Queen herself, Jen Mulvihill.

My doomed dance partner, Selah Janel.

Tommy Hancock, Grand Guru of Pro Se Productions.

One of the finest writers I'm privileged to know, L. Andrew Cooper.

The best legs in Florida, M.B. "Embe" Weston.

Embe in action, selling books. 

Charis Taylor, holding down the fort and making all the money.

The books. 

The books and the comics. 

Charis' books and comics. She's also a published writer.

Dinner in the dark. I'm surprised the waitress could put up with us. 

Michelle looks far better in Tommy's hat than he does.

Ellie Raine, Kimberly Richardson, and Charis Taylor

wait for food. And wait, and wait, and wait...

The cast and crew of Kimberly Richardson's sure to be award-winning film short

The Attack of the Killer Beignets, coming soon to a computer near you. 

(From left to right, Michelle Weston, Charis Taylor, Me, Allan Gilbreath, Andi 

Judy, Tommy Hancock)

My lovely daughter Wonder Charis and my favorite femme

fatale, Kimberly Richardson.