Five Ways Writing is Like Dieting

Pam here. How many of us have set a New Year’s resolution to lose weight at some point or another? Or simply started a new health plan just to feel better in general? It’s amazing how much writing can be like dieting. And I’ve come up with FIVE ways the two are similar. Let’s compare…

1) Make Healthy Choices - We know that certain foods are more healthy than others, and even some healthy choices don’t agree with everyone. Find out what works for your writing. Are you a pantster or a plotter? Do you prefer writing all the way through or polishing as you go? Do you write one thousand words a day or throw everything but the contents of your fridge on the page in a month-long marathon writing session? Once you figure out the plan that works for you and the writing plan that you can see yourself sticking to for life, you’re on your way to a healthy writing career.

2) Start Over Every Three Hours - One of the selling points of a healthy lifestyle is not to beat yourself up if you cheat or go off your eating plan once or twice. The problem comes when you throw in the towel and one or two slip-ups become a month-long binge of unhealthy eating. It’s the same with writing. You slip up. You get behind. The story isn’t working. It happens to all of us. But don’t beat yourself up and let that slip-up turn in to long-term failure. Start over. I don’t necessarily mean start your project over, but start your PLAN over. Tired? Discouraged? The writing is like slogging through quicksand? You’ve hit a brick wall? Everything will look better in three hours, or after a good night’s sleep. Sometimes all it takes is a quick power walk to reset everything. Don’t give up. Take a deep breath and put Tip #1 into action.

And this leads directly into comparison #3….

3) Plan Ahead - The biggest mistake and what usually leads to going off-track is not keeping on-plan staples to prepare healthy meals and snacks on hand. I confess that I put off grocery shopping as long as possible, and this has sabotaged my healthy eating kick more than once. Eventually, with not a single fresh vegetable in the house, I’ll give in and do the marathon 3-5 hour shopping trip to restock the fridge, freezer, and pantry. The same is true in our writing. The more prepared we are, the better our writing sessions will flow. For some, this might mean a 20 page synopsis, detailed character charts complete with photos; for others, just reading what you wrote the day before and honing in on the emotions and moving forward works. Regardless, there is some planning taking place, whether it’s in your head or on paper. Stick to the plan.

4) Exercise - A bit of exercise is healthy for our bodies and our brain. It gets the heart pumping, increases our metabolism, and clears the brain. My exercise the last few years has been bending and lifting weights (grand babies), as well as sweeping, moping, and vacuuming twice a week since we had a crawler much of that time. Now that all the grands are walking, so I spend my time keeping up with them three times a week. I call that a win-win. As far as writing, we get a two-fer here. Physical exercise is good for both our health and to get our brain cells pumping. No brainer there! So take a break from the computer and chase some kids, or just take a brisk walk to recharge.

5) Seasons of Stress - One of the biggest pitfalls of any diet plan seems to be stress. A dedicated stress-eater can devour an entire carton of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream in one sitting. Me? Give me a large (the biggest they make, baby!) bag of Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream chips and a container of French Onion dip and I can kick stress to the curb big time. This is the reason chips and dip are banned at my house. Sigh.

Recognize that there will be seasons that stress your writing plan to the max. Just like the “Calgon Take Me Away” commercials from yesteryear, we’re bombarded with life on a daily basis. Kids, spouses, elder care, day jobs in addition to writing, housework, shopping, cooking, (should I dare mention that April 15th is looming?). Add in a winter cold or flu that lingers for six weeks, or a sick child, an audit, a wedding, or car wreck, or any number of life-altering but totally unexpected stress inducing events and suddenly your well-planned writing schedule has gone the way of the empty Ben & Jerry’s ice cream container.

Don’t let a season of stress completely do you in. Deal with what you have to deal with even if you have to put writing on the back burner for a while. But when the dust settles, when the sick child is all better, when the audit is done, take a deep breath and start over.

Make healthy choices. Start over. Plan ahead. Exercise. Don't Stress.

And that, my Seeker friends, is a recipe for success whether you're writing or dieting.

Visit Pam at www.pamhillman.com

How to “Go There” and Not Lose Your Readers: Writing Difficult Topics in Fiction by guest blogger Felicia Ferguson

 

Happy Friday, Seeker villagers! Carrie here, with a wonderful post from author Felicia Ferguson on writing those difficult topics in fiction. Felicia is an award-winning fiction & nonfiction writer; in fact, her novel The Choices She Made just won the silver medal in Illumination Book Awards’s General Fiction category! Welcome, Felicia :)

How to “Go There” and Not Lose Your Readers: Writing Difficult Topics in Fiction

By Felicia Ferguson

The Christian life isn’t all sunshine and roses—sometimes it can be even more challenging after we’ve decided to walk with God. How do we authors craft authentic stories of the Christian life that don’t sugarcoat the struggle, but do keep the reader turning pages and the focus on God’s love?

I believe we start by making and keeping five promises to our readers.

When a reader picks up a book, nine times out of ten they want to be entertained, to escape into another world for a while. But if you’re going to write about difficult subjects well, then I’ve discovered there are five promises which must be kept for the reader to ultimately feel satisfied by the book.

First, readers will expect an emotional journey. Difficult topics like sexual assault or mental health issues are rife with heady and heavy emotions to probe. But addressing them should not be an avenue to push an agenda. If what you’re really hoping to do is preach to them about their own bad choices and tell them you have the right answer that will fix everything, please put down your pen or step away from the keyboard. Message-driven fiction is manipulative and not authentic. No matter how you personally feel about a topic, focus on the characters and their experiences. Take readers on an emotional journey and let them decide what to take away from it. Besides, preaching is telling rather than showing, and we all know telling in fiction is not a good thing!

How do you avoid preaching but still provide emotional impact for readers? That’s where the second promise comes in. Your character will use practical methods to resolve whatever trauma/tragedy/heartbreak they’ve experienced. Whether in first or third person, writing in deep point of view is perfect for amping up emotional impact. I liken deep POV to the first-person-shooter video games where the player is completely in one character’s head. They see only what he sees, hear only what he hears. Reality is almost fully enmeshed with the virtual world.

In my book, The Choices She Made, my main character became pregnant after a sexual assault at seventeen. Thirteen years later, she begins experiencing panic attacks as circumstances revive memories she dissociated from and buried. As part of the story, she uses grounding techniques, turns to God and scripture, and leans on her family and her counselor for help to confront terrifying situations. All of these are techniques readers could use, if they needed them. In her adult timeline, I use deep first-person point of view. Readers feel what she feels and see what she sees. This experience allows readers to not only witness a model for HOW the techniques should be used but also experience using them for themselves. And in the end, they’ve not only been entertained, but they possibly learned something too.

The third promise an author needs to make and keep is being true to the character’s emotions as she faces her past woundings. If you’re going to do the hard work of researching and building an authentic trauma, heartbreak, or tragedy, then don’t shortchange the character or the reader on the emotions that result from them. If you don’t know how the character would feel, then ask someone who does. I have never been pregnant, so I asked my writers’ critique group members who have been to describe what my character would feel during different stages of her pregnancy. If your character has panic attacks, dissociations, or any other trauma-induced experiences, find out what they feel like. Fudging on or glossing over the internal sensations will irritate people who do experience them and could lead to negative reviews.

The fourth promise goes hand-in-hand with the third: you will NOT miraculously make everything better for the character nor will they out-of-the-blue decide to take an action they’ve fought for roughly 200 pages. A deus ex machina may make it easier on you as the author, but miraculous resolutions in fiction do no one any good. Readers need to see how the character moves through her healing process—or at least starts out on the road toward healing. In showing this, readers can appreciate how difficult or even scary that process can be, which creates empathy—and is a perfect take-away.

Finally, by the time they reach the end of the book, readers have invested hours and possibly days with this character. If you’ve done your job well and they’ve bonded with her, they’re going to want and, in reality, need to have hope she will heal. Leaving the reader with hope is the fifth promise to make and keep. Writing from a Christian worldview is all about hope so make sure hope is woven in. It will be not only believable, but will encourage the reader. And who couldn’t use a little encouragement these days?

~*~*~*~*~

Felicia Ferguson achieved master's degrees in Healthcare Administration and Speech-Language Pathology, but has known she wanted to be a writer since the fifth grade. An award-winning fiction and non-fiction freelance writer, she writes strong female characters who work through their baggage and don’t just repack it. The Choices She Made, her first contemporary women’s novel with End Game Press, released in 2022 and recently won the silver medal in Illumination Book Awards’s General Fiction category! When Secrets Come Calling will release in 2024 also with End Game Press. When she’s not glued to her laptop, Felicia enjoys hiking, meandering with her twelve-year-old Frenchie, and looking forward to the next story.

Connect with Felicia at her website (and sign up for her quarterly newsletter), Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

What about you, dear writers? What is your takeaway from Felicia's great post? Which of her five promises resonates with you most?