Where's a Whale When You Need One?

by Pam Hillman

We’ve all read the story of Jonah, right? God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to the Ninevites. Jonah refused to go and boarded a boat with the intention of getting as far away as he could.

Well, that didn’t work out so well when God caused a great storm and the sailors on the boat cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Knowing he was caught, Jonah told them to throw him overboard, and you know the rest.

God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah and spit him out on land close to… you guessed it, Nineveh.

So, how does this relate to writing?

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but many of my characters and even portions of my plots run parallel to some Biblical story. I don’t start out to write mirror images of Biblical characters, and I don’t plot from that perspective, but eventually, when all the wrinkles are ironed out, I tend to have a lot of parallels. Some are more obvious than others.

When I first started working on my Natchez Trace Novel series, I had no clue that the three brothers would end up symbolizing the three men in The Prodigal Son. When my editor needed to know the spiritual thread that connected the series, I started looking at my notes and discovered this aspect staring me in the face. It was there all the time… I just hadn’t seen it.

In The Road to Magnolia Glen, Quinn sacrifices his own desires for freedom from familial responsibility when he takes on the responsibility of three additional people. This type sacrifice is rampant in fiction and readers are drawn to characters who sacrifice their own goals for others, especially when the hero sacrifices his own goals for the heroine.

The examples above relate to characters, but there’s also a parallel to my actual plots in many cases. Once I realized that Connor, Quinn, and Caleb symbolized the father, the elder brother, and the prodigal son, I was able to dig deeper into how each would act and react to situations regarding each other. I wouldn’t say that this aspect of the stories bled over into the romances or even the current situation each man found himself in, but they brought their past with them, and knowing the family dynamics helped me flesh them out and stay in character.

The hardest character for me to nail down in The Crossing at Cypress Creek was Alanah’s uncle. I was well into the first draft before I figured out what kind of man Uncle Jude was. And when I did, he ended up mirroring a Biblical character. Some readers have picked up on Jude’s alter-ego, while others haven’t. So, I guess it was a little more subtle than I thought. But knowing who he was based on made writing him much easier, but in some ways, much harder. Because the Biblical Jonah has always been a conundrum to me. I never could understand why he did what he did. Maybe I still don’t really understand, but fleshing out Uncle Jude in my own way in the 18th century gave me a bit more insight into the Biblical Jonah.

By Pieter Lastman - IAFT8IfCTfplRQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24208288

And then there’s the external plot points that need to be implemented when trying to “rewrite” something from the Biblical stories.

In Stealing Jake, Jake has to face his greatest fear when he’s trapped in a mine after an explosion…for the second time in his life. He rises to the occasion and turns into the darkness of the mine to rescue others. The phrase “for such a time as this” rings over and over in his head. I don’t rehash the story of Esther, or even mention her name, but just using the phrase clued many readers in to the similarities of the situation.

And then there was my latest conundrum. What do you do when you need a whale, but your story is landlocked? I struggled with this aspect of The Crossing at Cypress Creek for weeks. Once I knew who Uncle Jude was modeled after, I really, really wanted him to have a “whale” moment. But the how kept eluding me. I brainstormed with writer friends, landing on one idea after another before discarding them all as not feasible. Then, I finally found a solution that worked. It wasn’t a whale, but close enough. I put Uncle Jude in a dark, dank root cellar. Injured, trapped, and going in and out of consciousness, I had him in his “whale” and he came to an understanding with God.

Sometimes the whale eludes us until right at the time we need it most. But if we keep searching, keep writing, and keep plotting, we’ll finally find that whale.

As a writer, where’s your whale? What parallels can you think of in your characters or plots with Biblical stories? As a reader, have you read books where characters or plots made you think of a story from the Bible or even Greek mythology?

www.pamhillman.com

Puzzling Out a Story One Piece at a Time

by Pam Hillman

Each story idea starts with one tiny little puzzle piece. Just one.

A word, a photo of days gone by, a scent, a location, an event. Before my Natchez Trace Novel series became the full-fledged series that it is now, it was just a single thought to write about an indentured servant, which became the premise for the first book in the series, The Promise of Breeze Hill.

One idea. One Nugget. What might that be? It might be a character who can’t walk away, but then later doesn’t want to walk away, which, ironically, seems to fit all my heroic heroes. (Hmm, am I sensing a theme?) And, since I like to put a bit of a twist on my stories, I wanted the hero to be the one who was the indentured servant.

And to make matters worse, I indentured the poor guy to the heroine, but something in his past makes this a really bad thing. I just kept tightening the ropes on him. I also wanted my indentured servant to be an alpha male, with a take-charge attitude. More thinking outside the box turned Connor into a man who has already served a forced seven year indenture, but willingly indentures himself to pay for his four younger brothers' passage from Ireland.

What would make Connor so adverse to be under the thumb of a woman...something more than just be an alpha male in a time period when women had little say in how things were run? What baggage and problems can I throw at Isabella Bartholomew? And what power (big grin) can I give her? What can push them apart, but draw them together? On and on and on, the pieces just keep falling in to place.

And it all started with the germ of an idea to write about an indentured servant.

Oddly enough, or really not so odd, The Road to Magnolia Glen, the second book in the series started the same way. The good news was that I had an overarching series "theme" by this time. All I had to do was make Connor's younger brother a man who'd had to tend to his family back in Ireland for many years and he felt like he'd missed out on life.

Knowing that was not much more than picking out all the edge pieces to a jigsaw puzzle and putting the "frame" together. I mean, it's pretty easy to find the edges, but a lot harder to drill down and match up all the interior pieces. AND... here's the thing... we don't have a picture to go by. We're working blind, piece by piece.

But us authors are brave and determined if nothing else. And sometimes we carve a few pieces and make them fit. Ahem.

I built Quinn and Kiera's story the same way I built Connor and Isabella's, one piece at a time. I have a hero who, while he loves his brothers, (thinks he) wants to shuck his responsibilities and strike out on his own; a heroine who's doing everything in her power to keep her sisters together. One piece leads to another, and, well... their lives change.

Do you enjoy puzzles? Try this one on for size. :)



The groundwork for Caleb O'Shea, the hero in The Crossing at Cypress Creek (Spring/Summer 2019) was laid in the first two books, but it was almost as vague as the gray backgrounds in the puzzles above. Caleb the black sheep prodigal of the family. All I really knew was that he had to show up in Natchez and he had to be really tough. I knew nothing about Alanah Adams (I didn't even know her name) until I turned in book #2 and turned my attention to book #3. But I love Alanah.

And the women they are bound to protect with their lives: Isabella, Kiera, and Alanah? Each had to fit the heroes and they do. I'm not sure if they chose each other or if I did all that matchmaking by myself. I'm just glad all three couples ended up perfectly matched!

Let's talk. Authors, what's the first thing you come up with for a story? Is it the big picture, like the edge piece, a corner, or some obscure little thing that readers might not pick up on until the end of the book/series. Would you say you approach a jigsaw puzzle the same way you approach planning your books.

Readers, what catches your attention in a story first? Also, do you enjoy jigsaw puzzles? Where do you start with those? Do you pick out all the border pieces, or start with a focal point, like bright colors or a red barn or fall trees?

www.pamhillman.com

Plotting is a Strange Animal

Melanie Dickerson here.

One of the things I get asked about most often from young writers is plotting. Even though they may not know they’re asking me about plotting. For example, they may tell me that they have started a novel but they’re stuck and don’t know what to write next. Or they may ask me, “How do you finish a book? I always get about 50 pages into it and then I never seem to be able to finish.” And even more common is, “Where do you get your ideas?”

In these cases, the problem is usually that they don’t have enough plot. So if you know you need a plot, where can you get one? Or if you have a partial plot, where do you get the rest?

Plotting is a strange animal. Some of us outline meticulously, and others get a few vague ideas for a story and just start writing. But either way, you have to have a plot. So it’s important to know the basics of what makes up a good story. It’s important to know the essential elements. It’s important to read about how other writers come up with their plots. And it’s important to figure out what methods work best for you.

When a young writer asks me for advice, I will usually send them my list of writerly websites, with Seekerville and the Seekerville archives at the very top. I also give them a list of several books on writing for them to read, such as Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. This is what I did, I read how other writers do it. I tried to learn as much as I could about story and characterization and plot. And I went to workshops at conferences and took notes.

I have 15 published novels but I still like to get tips on plotting, even though I’m a pantser who hates outlining. I sometimes say I don’t do a whole lot of plotting, but that’s not really true. I have to plot. I just don’t like to plot in too much detail too far in advance. I’d rather plot as I go along and keep the ideas percolating in my head. But however you plot, it’s good to figure out what works best for you.

And it’s also good to acquire some plotting tools.

One tool I’ve used with several of my books is Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. It’s a fill-in-the-blank workbook that is a companion to the book by the same name. It can help you come up with ways to make your plot more interesting.

These days I have a Plotting Worksheet that I made for myself. I fill it out before I start writing. The first part is basically the GMC chart from Debra Dixon’s book Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, or GMC, which is a classic and should be read by every fiction writer. I focus on one of the main characters and I write down an external goal, a motivation for that goal, and the conflict for that goal. Then I do the same thing for the other main character. You might also find it helpful to write down the GMC for the villain as well, but you definitely should have one for the villain.

Missy has a great post about GMC here.

The rest of the worksheet are a series of blanks that I do for each of the main characters. These are mostly questions about the characters’ past, and I got these from a workshop taught by Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck. (So I did actually go to at least one workshop while I was at a writers conference, instead of only socializing my friends!)

I would love to tell you all the questions I ask myself about my characters, but that would seem like I was giving away Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck’s information, almost like plagiarism. So I suggest you check out their materials. Susan May Warren’swebsite  has a section of her website Writing/Teaching, and you can explore there, but she also has a separate website here with her My Book Therapy information called Learn How to Write a Novel.  She and her team have workshops that they teach, writerly services where they teach you one-on-one, and they have books. Some of their services are expensive, of course, since they’re teaching one-on-one and you’re getting their focused attention. So if you can’t afford that, don’t despair. I didn’t shell out a lot of money in the beginning, either. I read books from my library. I bought books on writing. And I read the great blogs out there that are chock full of free articles.

I will tell you some of the questions I ask about my characters. I try to come up with their greatest fear, the lie the heroine believes about herself, her biggest strength and her biggest flaw. Her deep wound she acquired from her childhood. If you can come up with this stuff about your characters, it will help you with plot, because plot and characterization go hand in hand. Think about it. If you know your character’s worst moment from their past, or their biggest fear, you can use that to create tension and conflict and create something for your character to overcome, something the villain can use against them. Before you know it, you’re coming up with scenes in your head.

Something else your plot needs is a Beginning, Middle, and End. It needs a trajectory. What is the big “inciting incident” that starts your story, that thrusts your character into conflict or on a journey? For the middle, you have to ask yourself, What is going to keep the tension and conflict going? How can I make things worse for them in the middle? What is a good plot twist that ramps up the conflict? Where are my characters going, and what do they have to go through and learn before they can get there? And of course, you need to figure out the ending, preferably before you get too far into the story. What does Happily Ever After look like for my characters? And if you don’t write HEA endings, then how are you going to tie up all the loose ends and bring closure for your characters?

Another plotting guru who has tons of resources and books on writing is James Scott Bell. You can check out his website where he has a section For Writers.

Okay, let me know if that’s helpful. You at least have a TON of possible resources now. And if you’re willing to share, tell me how you plot, what resources have helped you, and how you get ideas for your plot, or what your plotting process is. One commenter will win an e-copy of my new book Magnolia Summer.

Magnolia Summer

From New York Times Bestselling author Melanie Dickerson comes a story of romance, heroism, and secret identity. Will this Deep South Zorro succeed in saving his sleepy Southern town? 

Truett Beverly returned to Bethel Springs, Alabama, after finishing medical school. Fighting a secret war with a corrupt lawman wasn’t in his plans, but when Sheriff Suggs threatens his childhood friend, Truett dons a cape and hood and becomes the Hooded Horseman, placing him squarely in the sheriff’s crosshairs. 

Celia Wilcox arrives in Bethel Springs in June of 1880. She’s come from Nashville to help her sister care for their younger siblings. She hopes only to be on the small farm for the summer, just until her mother recovers from the shock of Celia’s father’s death. She must return to Nashville in order to fulfill her dream of opening her own dress shop. 

Celia catches Truett’s eye from the moment she steps off the train. He finds himself wanting to impress her, but she flatly refuses to flirt with him or to fall for his—if he does say so himself—considerable charm. Truth is, Celia’s attraction to Dr. Truett Beverly terrifies her. What will happen when Sheriff Suggs discovers Truett is the Hooded Horseman? Will Celia's greatest fears come true? Or will she be able to prevent the sheriff from carrying out one last lynching?