Let Your Colors Fly...

Right-brain? Left-brain? What's your Kiersey temperament?

Right now on the ACFW course loop (a benefit I highly recommend taking advantage of if you are a member of this wonderful group), Janice Hanna Thompson is hosting a course entitled U.N.I.Q.U.E.

As I've been hiding in "lurkdom" I've spent a bit of time reading the comments and pondering the way God wires us as individuals and as writers.

For instance, I found I'm almost evenly split between left brain (51%) and right brain (49%).  I love making lists and I love plotting my stories.  I have notebooks of story ideas.  I think this is the left brain side of mlle.

I can't make sense of commas.  I love thinking of new and different ways to teach an idea.  Yet I am the ultimate klutz when it comes to putting those ideas together in a practical way.  Yes, most of the elementary school students can put together a simple craft better than I can.

One thing Janice talks about is allowing our strengths and weaknesses to naturally influence our writing.

Personality wise I'm a melancholy.  How can I use that to influence my writing?  This means I have to seek out encouragement at certain times.  When I'm feeling discouraged about my writing I take out a letter from someone who has helped me with my writing.  I can also channel these melancholy times as when I'm introspective sometimes I'm able to best explore my characters.

What comes naturally in terms of writing time?  This is a busy season of life for me as I homeschool my children.  We all go through different seasons.  Something that works for a while may have to be changed.

Distractions?  Can you deal with them?  Are you a sit down in the midst of it and take a minute here writer?

My children are constantly on the go and I am not one who can write well with children jumping on my lap, begging for another cup of apple juice, or asking me to sound out a word for them.  In different seasons writing may fall at different places on our priority lists.

Right now what works for me is half an hour of uninterrupted writing time when my kids are in bed.  I tried to utilize large blocks of time several times a week and implement a word count.

My word count has been higher since I ditched the word count and changed my routine to something that seems to work well for me.

What kind of space do you like to write in? While taking a class this spring I found out that I'm a very visual writer and love to write outside or at a coffeeshop.  Nature is a great inspiration for me and I look forward to taking my laptop to the park this summer. 

I realize we can't always hit our ideals.  Most nights I write at home in a big brown chair.  But my husband is across from me and the house is quiet.  A cup of tea has become a writing ritual that helps me keep focused. 

Here are some fun links to test your personality or your characters' personalities. 

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

Left Brain Right Brain Test

I'm not a psychologist and make no claims on the accuracy of these tests, but they are fun and can give you insight into your writing style.

How does your uniqueness influence your writing?

GIVEAWAY!

Don't forget to enter for our huge giveaway at our Facebook Party, Saturday, August 30! For the big giveaway, we are giving away The Writer's Alley New Design Launch Basket containing the following:

• $20 Amazon gift card
• Here to Stay by Melissa Tagg (paperback book)
• Sandwich, with a Side of Romance by Krista Phillips (paperback book)
• A Side of Faith by Krista Phillips (paperback book)
• Duchess by Susan May Warren (autographed paperback book)
• Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Squares
• A Writer's Conference Jamberry PediPack 

Throughout the day of our Facebook party August 30, we will be giving away the following:

• A Side of Faith by Krista Phillips (ebook)
• A Home At Trail's End by Melody Carlson (paperback book)
• $10 Amazon gift card
• Captured by Love by Jody Hedlund (paperback book)
• The Writer's Toolbox
• Showdown by Ted Dekker (paperback book)
• Love's Reckoning by Laura Frantz (paperback book)
• Vanished by Irene Hannon (paperback book)

You can enter for a chance to win HERE. Just scroll to the end of the post and enter through our Rafflecopter giveaway widget!

Have a great day!

What Is Your Writing Inner Sanctum?

"A soul can create only when alone"

Abraham Joshua Herchel

What feeling does that quote evoke in you? Peace?
Excitement? Fear? When I first read it a sense of desire welled up in me. The urge to get away from life, sit in solitude and create was overwhelming. At the same time, a fog of despair rolled over me knowing that my life prohibits that kind of creative heaven.

There's no hard and fast rule that you must be completely alone to write your stories. There wouldn't be many published books if that were the case. But what kind of atmosphere is most conducive to your imagination taking flight? What is your inner sanctum?

A dictionary gave a couple of definitions for sanctum:
1.a sacred or holy place
2. an inviolably private place or retreat.

What writing rituals do you hold sacred? What private place or retreat do you run to when you dream up your novels? Do you wait for the family to go to bed, light candles and turn on soft music? Do you go to the farthest corner in the library? How about under the trees in your backyard? Or do you prefer to sit in the hubbub of your family, relishing the noise of life and vitality?

When I first started writing, I needed complete quiet. No music, no loud kids in the background, nothing. Over the last few years I've learned to tolerate more noise. I still cannot listen to music with lyrics, but a soft easy listening or classical song is now acceptable. I've learned I can sit on the couch while my husband watches football and work on my character sketches. I still need the quiet to develop the story, whether it is in the wee morning hours or the quiet of the car on the way to work.

I've heard numerous writing styles of various writers and I've learned that there is no right or wrong in any area of the writer's life. You do what works for you.

So what is your inner sanctum?

Originally posted October 5, 2010

****************************************************************************

This post is brought to you by

 Sherrinda Ketchersid

Sherrinda is a minister's wife and mother to three giant sons and one gorgeous daughter. A born and bred Texan, she writes historical romance filled with fun, faith, and forever love.

A change of scene: creating atmospheric contrast

Image by Master isolated images, freedigitalphotos.net

Imagine a stage before the start of a show, rich velvet curtains brushing the bare boards. The murmur of audience conversation hushes as the lights begin to dim, and then the curtains part to reveal the first scene.

What will it be?

Perhaps the interior of a Victorian house. Maybe a trellised outdoor garden. It might be a ship’s deck, or a castle parapet, or a hospital room. Whatever the case, the scene is set using backdrops, furniture, props, and clever lighting, all carefully arranged to create a particular mood.

Dark and dramatic? Warm and inviting? Cold and bleak? Cheerful and chaotic?

It all depends on the story, and the effect the director wishes to convey.

But creating an atmosphere for the opening scene is not enough. If every scene took place on the same unchanging set, it would make for a yawn-worthy play. The most dazzling set eventually becomes overly familiar, even wearying. The most dramatic and heart-wrenching play would be too much if not for moments of comic relief. The audience needs a break, a change of scene.

And so, each time the curtains fall, the scene changes. In location, but also (often) in something even more innate – atmosphere.

When it comes to the art of novel-writing, you are the director of your story. Setting is integral to creating the right atmosphere. But setting shouldn’t be static, or it will lose impact. You can heighten atmospheric effect by changing things up from scene to scene to create contrast.

I’ll use some examples from my WIP to illustrate what I mean.

Setting One

Maya’s childhood is harsh, impoverished, and emotionally barren. The landscape of Broken Hill, an outback Australian mining town, encapsulates this perfectly:

Maya walked hand in hand with her dead father beneath a sky so blue she surely could not have dreamed it. With every step her sandals scuffed up red dirt. The dust settled between her toes and beneath the cracked vinyl straps of her shoes. She couldn’t remember what had come before this moment, just that she was here, with her Papa once again, her mind empty of questions and heat shuddering from the ground in waves.

It felt as though they had walked together a long time. The landscape around them seemed alien and yet familiar, like the phantom ache in a long-ago fractured limb. The flat horizon. The shimmering light. The earth an open wound, cauterised by sunlight.

Setting Two

Maya’s aunt is her ally throughout this story – at times, her only ally. Her aunt’s beachside home represents an emotional and spiritual oasis:

As her mother’s demands grew more frequent and more fretful, the thought of Aunt Sylvia’s coastal cottage became a shimmering mirage against the red dirt of Broken Hill. Maya knew her aunt’s house was little more than a cheap shack set several blocks back from the bay; still, whenever she thought about it, the sea breeze ran cool bewitching fingers through her mind. She imagined days spent painting, twilight strolls along the shore with cold wet sand sucking at her toes, midnight feasts and girlish giggles. The need to escape her life grew into a solid mass of longing inside her chest.

Notice how, juxtaposed together, the image of the red-dirt town and the house at the bay each heighten the impact of the other.

Setting Three

When Maya moves to Sydney, she stumbles into a glamorous world of high society, completely removed from the narrow poverty of her upbringing. The contrast between these two settings creates a marked impression:

Maya lingered at the door, taking in the room before her. The ceilings seemed to rise up forever, and all around the walls, tiny sparkling stars had become entangled in a forest of trees. For a moment she had the heady sensation that she’d stumbled into the outdoors; she cast a quick glance back at the sweeping staircase to reassure her that she was, in fact, inside.

The trees were in pots, she saw as she turned back. In the low magical lighting, the people thronging this room seemed somehow imbued with otherworldly grace. Maya took in the swish of satin, the low smoky swell of conversation and laughter, evening gowns that dipped and flared and shimmered like so many delicate butterfly wings. In one corner, a trickle of mellifluous notes poured from a concert grand piano, while the pianist leaned into a microphone and crooned a Joe Cocker song.

Setting Four

But this world, as well as being beautiful and extravagant, has a cold and hard side. I’ve explored this atmospheric shift in several scenes, such as this one:

Twilight fell quickly in the city, the last warmth of sunlight cut off the instant they left the harbor for the high-rise shadowed streets. Maya shivered in her short sleeves and huddled close to Jed. On their way back to catch the bus they passed a storefront of black polished granite. Ornamental dwarf cypress trees stood in heavy black urns either side of the door. The bronze script above the entry read Van Norden. Maya slowed as they passed the window, her attention caught by the lights that gleamed through the dusk. Spotlit glass display cases seemed to hover before her eyes, set into the black granite like a row of square portholes. Each pure white case contained diamonds, sparkling from rings and bracelets and necklaces like a spill of stars.

“Are you trying to give me a hint?” Jed said, but Maya barely heard him. Her fingertips lingered against the glass, leaving a faint smudge of sap-green from the pastels she’d touched hours before. The diamonds floating in the dusk stirred something in her, some desolate wonder she could not describe; the same sensation she felt sometimes as she stared at the stars in the night sky: their ancient light a beauty so remote, so cold that it hurt.

No matter how vividly an author hopes to paint a setting, the impact is lessened if the setting remains static. Provide contrast, however, and each scene springs into sharp relief against the next.

Am I suggesting that you setting-hop relentlessly, or that every scene should sweep from one exotic location to the next? Not at all. A change of scene can be as simple as a visit to a new house or a focus on a different room. It can involve a change of place, a change of pace, a change of weather, or a change in mood.

The key is to take a step back and survey the bigger picture. Are you staging your story for dramatic effect, or does scene after scene pass by in the same fashion, with the details of setting always the same?

What are YOU doing to create atmospheric contrast in your WIP?

Karen Schravemade lives Downunder and likes to confuse her American friends by using weird Australian figures of speech. When she's not chasing after two small boys or cuddling her baby girl, she spends her spare minutes daydreaming about the intricate lives of characters who don't actually exist. Find her on her website and Twitter.