When "The End" Is In Sight

I've been working on a project that (in theory) should be done by now. In practice, however, life and the occasional plot tangent -- not to mention, one really cool but unpredictable character -- have conspired to keep me from writing "The End." Yet.

I continue to live in great hopes that “The End” will come, however. Since I’ve been doing a lot of pushing to get to “The End” lately, some thoughts on finishing a project seemed in order:

You Can’t Reach A Goal You Don’t Have
If you begin a work without a clear understanding of where you want it to end up, chances are it will never be finished.

For one thing, you will never know whether or not the project is actually done. Furthermore, without a clear end goal, there is nothing to help you stay focused, and your characters are left to fend for themselves. When that happens, they tend to end up just muddling about, playing things safe and refusing to get into any sort of interesting trouble.

Enjoy Playing God
As a project winds to a close, you get to ask yourself all sorts of God-like questions.

• Is there enough conflict?
• Can anything more be done to escalate a character’s dramatic journey?
• Do all events make sense, or do they appear contrived?
• Is the original purpose / theme / motif well-served?
• Are the characters real to you, or could they be more rounded?

Once the project is in its final stages of creation, it is important to ask these questions and others like them. If you ask them before “The End” is visible, however, often the creative process gives way to premature editing, which can lead to a real loss of inspiration.

Knowing that you have a complete version of the project to fall back on can free you up to explore various creative options and – hopefully – improve the work.

Revisit the Past
I generally find that my characters develop more distinctive voices and personalities as a project progresses. Once I’ve spent several weeks with them, I generally know their likes and dislikes, their speech rhythms and pet words. While I may “know” some of these things at the outset, they often seem arbitrary or contrived.

As I near “The End” – especially when I’m fighting to make each scene worthy of inclusion – I find it helpful to take an occasional break and re-read several of the opening pages. I sometimes find character traits I’d forgotten about. More often than not, I discover my characters saying things that are no longer consistent with who they have become.

Remember Your Audience
Never forget that the two most important parts of any project are its beginning and end. That is what the audience is most likely to remember. The beginning must drive the entire project and hold the audience’s attention. The end must be inescapable, unmistakable, plausible, and satisfying. Ideally, your audience won’t be able to predict it, but when it comes, they won’t be able to imagine a better means of closure.

Botching the ending lets your characters and your audience down. So spend the time it takes to get it right. Agonize over it. Make sure your loose ends are tied up. Make sure your characters remain consistent. Make sure you’ve explained everything that is necessary.

If you wish, leave the door open for another installment. But don’t spend so much time being clever, trying to hint at the start of a series or franchise, that you fluff the end. Give your audience what they want – a reason to read / hear / see the project over and over again.

With any luck, I’ll finish the project soon.  I will #Write2theEnd.  To all of you who are currently on a similar journey: take heart! Keep writing! The End is in sight!

Wishes for Wannabe & Working Writers

In May, I posted a list of Stuff That Would Be Cool if it Happened. Since then, sadly, neither Mr. McAvoy nor Mr. Pattinson have contacted me, I have not gone into outer space, and I have not been cast as either a movie rider or chosen to voice an animated character. But I continue to live in great hopes...

Today is my birthday. It's not one that ends in "5" or "0," so it's not one that engenders depressing reflection on such topics as "What Am I Doing With My Life?" and "Why Haven't I Accomplished All I Wanted To Do By Now?"

It's just a birthday.  I'll be spending a portion of it teaching the first in a series of 4 Writers Workshops at the Bridgman Library in Southwest Michigan. 

Birthdays are often associated with both gifts and wishes.  Which got me thinking about another list.  So, I present to the Birthday Fairy, my Wishes for Writers everywhere. I wish you:

• Sleepless nights and days of distraction.  Nothing compares to the joy of having a work in progress be so compelling that it consumes your thoughts and your dreams.  The combination of creative energy and laser-like focuses of brilliance can fuel a writer for long, long periods of time that must be spent in the Real World.
• A kind, beneficent, forgiving muse.
• Thick skin to deflect the barbs of criticism and the poleaxes of rejection. They have killed and wounded many a worthy writer.  Don't let them get to you.
• A certain supportive someone.  Whether you discover your support in your spouse, your sister, or on Twitter, here's hoping you have at least one person in your life who loves every word you commit to the page.
• A tough but fair beta reader. May you find someone who is willing to not only read your work and comment on it, but who can identify flaws and suggest ways to make it better. Most beta readers don't come gift-wrapped, but they should. They are a writer's secret weapon against rejection.
• Enough rejection to keep you humble.
• Enough acceptance to keep you writing.
• Enough fans and readers to keep you sane.
• Enough critics to keep you trying harder.
• Time to read.
• Time to write.
• Time to experience life so you can write even more authentic and compelling material.
• Finally, I wish you a heaping helping, lifetime supply of perseverance. Keep on keeping on. No matter how many distractions life slings at you.  No matter how many speed bumps and detours you discover on your road to publication. No matter how many birthdays the Birthday Fairy lays on you.  Keep writing.  Keep creating.  Keep believing that it will happen...

...Deep breath...

~Candles blown out~

I Plot, Therefore I Am...

...Much More Likely to Get Where I Want To Go

I am an ardent fan of outlining my work before I start writing it. In the current writers' vernacular, most would consider me a "plotter" rather than a "pantser." (This is not to be confused with the urban slang word pantser used to describe a person who pulls down the already sagging pants of a gangsta wannabe currently displaying a generous portion of his underthings to the world.)

For a lengthy but interesting treatise that gives equal time to the merits of both camps, check out Cindy Myers' "Plotter or Pantser" post. In essence, it all boils down to two things:

A plotter plans things out in advance.

A pantser starts writing and flies by the seat of his or her... You get it.

I have tried writing sans outline with only a general idea of where I wanted to end up. I even finished the book. I now have 85,000 words that I refuse to inflict on anyone. They are destined to sit on my hard drive indefinitely, because what the book needs is for me to apply one or both of the following Plans to it and beat it into shape. Which will require pulling threads of stories that don't work right, re-structuring major characters, and editing with an eye toward structure and salability. All of which sounds like more work than I feel like doing at the moment. And so, anarchy & chaos continue to reign supreme in that particular project.

I don't look at an outline as a "fill in the blanks" novel-writing tool, though I know several authors that do, and that works for them.

(A side note: when I write non-fiction books, I make a detailed table of contents, expand it as much as possible, and list questions that must be answered for the reader by the end of each chapter. That, then, becomes my working outline and writing the book is very much like a fill-in-the-blanks kind of project. The process works well for me for non-fiction, but it takes all the fun out of fiction writing, in my opinion.)

When writing fiction, I operate under the assumption that in order to ultimately work, a story needs to have a framework that holds it in place.

Furthermore, each major character that populates the work not only propels the plot forward, but also has his or her own story line that continues even when the character isn't Center Stage.

Therefore, though it sounds stuffy, boring, and the very antithesis of the creative process, I rely on an outline to keep my story structure in place. It frees me to focus on the minutiae of building sentences and crafting nifty vignettes within the story without losing sight of the Point.

In other words, having an outline gives me a road map from beginning to end. It allows me to take interesting short side trips to explore points of interest along the way, but ensures that I don't stray too far off track.

Plotting Plan 1: Use Tried & True as a Launching Pad.

I am a huge fan of using the Hero's Journey (or a variation therof) as a "cheat" for outlining my story. The reason for this is that, at its core, the Hero's Journey encompasses and embodies what humans have come to expect from a story. It provides a useful, endlessly adaptable framework on which to hang our writing.

[If you're not intimately familiar with what I'm talking about, the Hero's Journey Wikipedia page is invaluable for brainstorming and outlining. The content on the top of the page explains the basics of the structure. But toward the middle of the page there are Other Formulations that offer alternatives and structural nuances.

Devotees of Joseph Campbell may insist that there is so much more to the Hero's Journey than Wikipedia. Well, duh. But when outlining a story, I'm not doing an English major's graduate thesis. I'm just looking for landmarks so I can plan my hero's journey.]

I don't see using the Hero's Journey as writing with a formula. I consider it more like following tried and true guidelines to tell my tale. The structure can be mutated into myriad story possibilities, but if my story utilizes any of the 17 stages (not all stages are present in all stories -- even in the illustrative source material), then I feel it should do so in the correct sequence.

That's how I use the Hero's Journey as my outline. I take my premise / story / idea and write out the gist of what happens. Then I compare it to the accepted Hero's Journey models and see which fits best. That enables me to make an informed decision about what portions to combine or leave out all together. I can also see potential errors in structure from the beginning.

I'll fill in the basic story details following the Hero's Journey as quickly as possible so I can get writing. If I get a *brilliant* idea for something new halfway through my story, I'll hold it up to the Hero's Journey lens to see if it helps or hinders my original vision / intent.

A further note: I also use a modified version of the Hero's Journey to plot individual character arcs within the larger story. Again, I find it invaluable in keeping me on track, in forcing me to put my characters into difficult situations, and in making sure that stuff happens without me charging off tilting at plot windmills.

Plotting Plan 2: Story Beats / Screenwriting 101

A second tool I use for outlining and staying on track is a slightly modified screenwriting story beat sheet.

I LOVE this, by the way. It is absolutely invaluable for figuring out all the plot twists and major character arcs before delving into the deep story.

Since a screenplay is no more than 110 pages long and each scene is approximately 2 - 3 pages, that means the meat of the story must be told in 45 - 50 bite-sized pieces. There are a million screenwriting books out there, each trying to tell you both how to both play by the rules and how to break them, but the fact remains that the Western movie-going public has specific expectations for their stories.

I use a grid of 1-inch squares to plan the beats of my scripts. (Truth be told, my grid is an old calendar. A month & a half, with 1 day allotted to each scene / beat = completed story outline.)

The 45 square grid helps me visualize my whole story. It shows me where my pace is too slow, illuminates gaps in my original logic, and forces me to solidify my subplots.

When I know where the major encounters of my story are, how my main character moves from Point A to Point B, what trials (s)he encounters and how they are surmounted, who the antagonist is, and how things are ultimately resolved for maximum impact to both character and audience, then I can get writing.

Sometimes I'll write the screenplay, if I want to focus on the visual elements of the story. Other times, I'll write the novel, if I want to explore the inner lives of my characters. Either way, knowing my 50 major landmarks along the way keeps me from digressing into tangents and keeps my stories from dissolving into anarchy or chaos.

I've found that, contrary to expectations, working from either a Hero's Journey outline OR a story-beat grid does not leave me uninspired. I generally do both the Hero's Journey work AND a story beat plan before beginning.

Then, each chapter or scene begins with what's already mapped out on my grid. It completely alleviates the blank-page syndrome. It breaks my writing up in bite-sized, easily attackable pieces, and tells me what needs to be done to move the story on.

I follow the outline / story beat grid for the first draft. Then I embellish and explore short new paths for various characters on the second draft. After that, it's just a case of a solid edit and the thing is done!

Plotting my story before I begin is the best exercise I've found to determine whether or not I have a story worth telling. It also helps keep me on track so I can eventually #Write2TheEnd, instead of leaving my characters with their pants down.

What about you? Are you a Plotter or a Pantser? What are your favorite tried-and-true plotting tools? Or, do you just wing it? Share your insight or pants-losing stories with me!

Slaying the Dragon of Authorial Intrusion

or, The Devil is in Zac Efron's Details

I recently had the extreme misfortune of seeing a film in which everything that can go wrong with both writing and directing came together in a glorious, ghastly, gooey mess and intended to write a post on the Charlie St. Cloud Drinking Game.

(For those wondering, the Game includes such rules as:

*  Take a drink every time a character calls a friend or family member by name, and

*  Drink every time Charlie repeats himself... Repeats himself.)

But that will have to wait.  For one thing, it promotes rapid inebriation -- something I really don't condone.  For another, while searching for the answer to "How did Burr Steers ever get allowed to direct Zac Efron after the execrable 17 Again?" I ran across an article Andrew Goldman wrote for the September 2010 issue of Details Magazine.

Now, Mr. Goldman is an accomplished writer who has a long and rich publishing history with such powerhouse publications as New York Magazine and ELLE.  Details has featured his articles on Matt Damon and Ashton Kutcher.  In the world of celebrity interviewing, he's a seasoned White Knight who knows what he's doing.

As I read the article, I was reminded anew that even White Knights must beware of dragons.  And when battling the Dragon of Authorial Intrusion even the best of wordslingers can get singed.

The article reads less like an interview for a slick, glossy, well-paying magazine and more like a blog post.  Though he's supposed to be writing about cover-boy Efron, the author refers to himself 4 times in the opening paragraph.  A few column-inches later, he actually uses the term "retard-o" as a pejorative adjective.

In the opening salvo, it's as if the Writing Knight gets enveloped in the steam of some hot air.

The valiant writer re-enters the fray, but it shortly becomes obvious that this dragon will prevail.  How else can one explain this description of Zac contracting poison oak?:

Maybe he also saw, down there on the rocks, the desiccated dreams of all the "real deal" actors who never panned out. All he needed to do was clear one little poison-oak bush directly below. No problem. He leaped. And the second before he hit the freezing water, he felt an ever-so-slight whoosh tickling his back and hands as the bush branches transferred enough of the dread urushiol oil to eventually spread over every part of his body—even his much-squealed-over teen-idol dick.

Score one for the dragon.  With "desiccated dreams" and "much-squealed-over" body parts, the writer's interest in his subject is completely overshadowed by his wink-wink, nudge-nudge interest in himself.

The battle continues, but it ain't pretty.

The writer squanders every opportunity to use his words to showcase his talent at interviewing.  But he never passes up a chance to impose his personal views.  It's as if he begrudges Zac for being his assignment and takes pains to illustrate his beliefs that he would make a far more interesting interview.  (Perhaps he would. That's not the point.)

Nothing shouts "Authorial Intrusion" louder than a writer proffering an opinion about something with which the writer can not have any personal experience.

It's like single people offering marital advice.  Or a childless person waxing eloquent on child-rearing.  Or a dog offering tips on choosing kitty litter.

In any case, the very next paragraph contains this gem:

Whether you're the type who watches "High School Musical" and starts feeling so tingly that you think you've finally gotten your period...

... and it becomes clear that this particular Writing Knight will not slay his dragon at any time in the immediate future.

Yuck.  Just -- yuck.

I'm trying to imagine an incidence when it would be appropriate for a man of a certain age to opine about how an adolescent girl would feel when getting her period.  (Though anyone who thinks the adjective "tingly" applies should be marinated in the aforementioned urushiol oil. But I digress...)  I'm sure an incidence must exist.  I'm equally sure it's not when writing a feature article that ostensibly focuses on a star.

When writing, the devil is in the details.  If you're writing about you, then, by all means, state your opinion often and with great vigor.  If, however, you are not the featured subject, then prepare to engage the Dragon of Authorial Intrusion.  Be willing to fight him for every word.

The battle is yours if the reader falls in love with your subject instead of falling over your prose.

Not everyone can write.  That's why we need the Writing Knights. And it's why we mourn when they fall prey to their own dragons.

Leather Windows: Why Genre Matters

I facilitate a weekly Writing Practicum, where a core group of dedicated writers workshop their projects. 

One of our members is a very talented writer who specializes in BDSM erotica.  The rest of the group -- including me -- are, to put it mildly, "vanillas."  We are simply not equipped to intelligently comment on the parts of her writing that make it fall into either the BDSM or erotica genre.  We don't read it.  And we certainly don't "get it."

We're very good at discussing character, plot, motivation, clarity, structure, and execution.  But when it comes to the specialized genre-specific stuff, we implode.  We ask what must be very stupid questions.  We try gamely, but it's abundantly clear that we're not the target audience.

The experience has taught me a valuable lesson:  if this is what happens when I as a reader hit an unfamiliar genre, imagine a what happens when I put an agent in the same position.  Agents know what they want.  They tend to be very specific in their guidelines.  I would be a fool to ignore them.

On any given day, one or more agents that I follow on Twitter will post his or her query stats for the day / week / month / year.  A typical post will read:

"Number of queries received this week: 367
Number of queriers who have clearly never read agency submission guidelines: 275
Number of queries for genres I don't represent: 73
Number of partials requested: 2
Number of offers of representation: 0"

Now, while on the surface this may make querying look like the most futile exercise ever devised (and don't get me wrong: on many days I would subscribe to this theory), the numbers actually contain a message of hope instead of despair.

First, it should be obvious that refusing to read and follow submission guidelines is the quickest way for a writer to garner another form rejection to add to his or her collection. 

Guidelines tell writers how to help their submissions make it through the agent's e-mail gatekeeper (usually an intern who began as a fresh-faced naif eager to find the Next Great Novel, but who now fights falling down the slippery slope of cynicism on a daily basis from being forced to read queries from writers who flagrantly flaunt the rules).  The guidelines exist for a reason.  Disregard them at your own peril.


But I digress.  For it is the second stat that I want to focus upon.

When querying an agent, it is imperative that the manuscript in question have a clearly defined genre.

[A Short Tangential Digression for the Vocabulary Impaired:

For those who think that I am putting on airs talking in French, rest assured, genre is a perfectly good and necessary word in English.  Think of it as "shelving space."  It's the category that encompasses your book and all other books of a similar type.  The two largest genres are fiction (made up stuff) and non-fiction (true stuff).  Which should make it immediately obvious why agents and publishers point their fingers and laugh aloud at people who describe their book as a "fiction novel."  It's like calling your Hyundai an "automobile car."

The big genres have smaller sub-genres.  Fantasy, steampunk, romance, historical, mystery, western, science-fiction -- these are examples of fiction genres.  Further classification can be done by age or specialty (there are many sub-genres of mysteries, for instance), but you get the point.]

At this point, you may be thinking:

"Why is it so important for my book to fit into one of the genres my dream agent represents?  I've seen his sales stats, and they're impressive.  He could sell BP oil in the Gulf states!  So he says he's looking for YA fantasy & sci-fi.  I bet he's sick & tired of magic & quests.  I'll send him my adult crime thriller.  No doubt he'll leap at the chance to read something gritty and new.  All he needs to do is see my work, then he'll recognize my brilliance and sign me."

If so, you should reach up and slap yourself senseless before reading any further.  Go on.  I'll wait...

Imagine an artisan who makes stained glass windows.  He's well known for his windows.   Those building churches are willing to do business with him because they know they can trust his workmanship. 

The artisan is constantly looking for new glass suppliers, searching for those who can provide him with the saturated colors that make his windows a thing of beauty.  If you have gorgeous glass, he's happy to consider using it.  But if you have leather -- even if it's the softest, most supple leather on the planet -- the artisan has no use for it.  Trying to sell it to him will only waste his time.

One reason an agent specifies a preferred genre is because of the professional working relationships that agent has formed within the industry.  She may be on a first-name basis with every editor and publisher whose imprint publishes romances.  So she'd be the ideal person to shop around a well-written romance novel. 

But if you send her a similarly well-written memoir, even if she loves it, she may not be the one to try to sell it.  No one in her professional contacts publishes memoirs.  She has never worked with the editors who specialize in such things.  She doesn't have relationships with them.  Accepting your project would set herself up for an uphill climb.  It would be like making windows from leather.

Do yourself, your potential agent, and your manuscript a favor.  Know what genre your project falls into.  Then only shop it around to people who work in that genre.  You'll bypass the "wrong genre" line entirely. 

Assuming you've also read & followed the submission guidelines, you'll have broken through the masses of inappropriate submissions.  Those two simple steps will enable you to distinguish yourself from the hundreds of other hopefuls.  You may now offer the agent your beautiful glass.  The others are just collecting rejections on their world-class leather.

The Ink-Stained Lens

A friend of mine was once turned down for personal health insurance.  When she asked why, she was informed that it was because of her profession.

She is a writer, you see. 

When she pressed for further information on the refusal, she was told: "Writers are a high insurance risk. They are prone to alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide."

I privately suspected that writers are at a higher risk for not paying insurance premiums, but refrained from saying so.  It was more fun to listen to her rant.

Regardless of our insurability shortcomings, it's no secret that we writers are an odd amalgamation of ego and insecurity, hubris and fear. 

A writer can read a two-page, mostly glowing review, and fixate on the one sentence that suggests the reviewer wasn't completely enthralled with every aspect of the project.  This fixation can last for days, leading to binge chocolating, spousal arguments, and planned career changes.  ("Maybe I should just go flip burgers.  No one calls a burger-flipper's third act "shoddy with lazy pacing.")

A writer can also read a short, terse form rejection and feel compelled to respond to the industry professional in question with a lengthy diatribe, posturing like a bantam rooster before a peacock and destroying not only his chances of ever working with that pro, but also ruining potential professional relations with every publishing insider that pro knows.

We writers see the world through an ink-stained lens.
 

Take, for instance, the movie "Ask the Dust," which is billed as a tragedy. 

In the movie I saw, the eternally delicious Colin Farrell plays a struggling writer with an editor who's an unfailing cheerleader and who sends him a sizeable amount of money as an advance to write his book.  The editor is the only stable relationship sweet, naive Colin has.  His scheming, manipulative, selfish girlfriend only distracts him from his work.  She dies at the end.  So what? He gets a book deal!

In the final scene, he stands at her grave, reading to her excerpts from his recently published book.

Ask any writer, and they'll tell you: this is a feel-good flick, no two ways about it.  Someone believed in a beginning writer.  Someone took a chance on him.  Someone told him he was talented.  And -- most importantly -- he got paid!

Last night, I watched "Serious Moonlight," which I missed when it screened at the Austin Film Festival & have been intending to catch ever since.  

I enjoyed the film far more than I should have, not because I have any intention of duct-taping my husband to the toilet... no, no, but because it is so similar in tone to "Jobe's Pride," a darkly comedic suburban-noir I've written. 

The whole way through the movie, my Inner Writer's Voice kept whispering, "See?! The genre does exist!"

Through my ink-stained lens, that's enough vindication to keep sending out submissions and queries.  And to keep me from submitting that Mc Donald's application for a bit longer.

Through my ink-stained lens I see inspiration and possibilities when the world's windshield shows only unrelenting reality.

The industry calls the stuff we write "spec" and "slush" -- both of which sound vaguely like epithets.    I defy you to name any other legal, legitimate profession that regularly employs words like "unsolicited," "query," and "submission" in its practice.  And yet we keep on.

There is an old joke that goes:

Q:  How does a book get published?

A:  Someone forgets to say "no."

If you need a "yes" in your life right now, here it is:  YES.

Should you keep writing, even though you don't have an agent?  YES

Should you tell people you're a writer, even though you haven't yet been published?  YES

Should you pick yourself up, dust off your manuscript, and submit it to someone else, even though your dream publisher passed on it?  YES

Should you continue working, reading, writing, and revising, struggling with the words and the language in order to get the story out?

YES.  Oh, YES.

To all creatives who are struggling with the should-I-flip-burgers conundrum, I offer my ink-stained lenses.  Feel free to borrow them as long as you need.  And when you're done, pass them on to someone who needs them.  Then, keep on keeping on until someone says "yes."

Walking a While in My World

A week ago, my family attended the Silver Leaf Renaissance Faire in Battle Creek, MI. The day we attended, the temperature was bake-a-biscuit-in-the-sun 100-something, and the humidity was the rough equivalent of God's left armpit.  What better weather to lace oneself into a leather corset and spend the day outside?

I went intending to spend a fun afternoon with my family and friend.  And it was, indeed, a lovely day.  However, since I'm currently working on a novel set in medieval England, I found it impossible not to do research.  Because a writer's brain never turns off.

Now, I know that ren faires are hardly authentic.  I know my family was nowhere near authentically clad.  And at no time did I ever seriously think that I was in the Middle Ages.  But that didn't stop me from finding out stuff about my characters that I might not have known otherwise.

I have been treading ancient roads in my mind for months.  However, after only 10 minutes of immersing myself in the "reality" of my characters' lives, I discovered several things.  Among them:

 *  In the absence of 21st century clothing and technology, dirt and sweat and dust and noise should be much more pervasive in my book than than they currently are.

* Shop keepers have probably not changed in 10 centuries.  Some went to great lengths to sell me stuff I didn't want or need.  Others bent my ear telling personal stories I'd rather not have heard.  Even if my characters inhabit the pages of history -- even if they shop in strange shops and eat odd things -- their interactions with others will likely mirror interpersonal actions of today. 

Note to self: don't allow characters to become two-dimensional drones that are defined only by their jobs and the role they must play within my story.  Breathe realistic life into them at every opportunity.

*  When two knights joust, the combined weight of 2 horses, men & armor is over 2 1/2 tons.  You can literally feel the ground shake as they run at each other. 

Furthermore, the actual match takes very little time at all.  Two horses rushing at each other at a gallop closes the gap between them much faster than you'd think.


*  Hand-to-hand combat involves a lot of grunting. Plus, metal hitting metal is really loud.

* A lack of sound amplification means the crowd has to be very quiet in order to hear what an announcer or performer has to say.  Missed words are quickly whispered to those standing behind one.  Much is lost in the translation.

*  Humanity does not change.  Lovers quarrel, babies cry, kids whine, old folks grumble.  Some crave the limelight; others shun it.  Some go for laughs; some for applause.  Some think quickly on their feet; others work to keep up.  Some people readily stop and listen to a trio of singers, enjoy the music, and throw the musicians a token of their appreciation.  Others dicker and dither trying to retain every cent they started with.  If I want to make my foreign world and time accessible to my readers, I must remember to make my reader as much a part of it as possible.

I returned home energized -- filled with ways to make my story more compelling.

Whatever you are writing, I encourage you to find a way to become a minor character for an hour or a day.  See the world through a fringe player's eyes.  Take notes as if you were traveling in a foreign country.  Then incorporate your new insight into your story.  And watch your writing come alive!