Lies, Murder and Mistaken Identity in Justice

 Take a look inside Jade Varden's Justice, a book about lies, mistaken identity and murder...

 

The red BMW was waiting for me as if it had always been mine. I tried, again, to call Aaron and my parents on their cell phones, but when no one answered I threw the car into gear and left the von Shelton estate.

I saw the car parked in front of the blue house almost as soon as I turned onto Sutton Street. By the time I crookedly parked the BMW behind it and stumbled out, the tears were pouring freely down my face. I stood at the front door sobbing and fumbling with my keys for nearly five minutes before I managed to get the door open, and by that time I couldn’t find the breath to call out.

It wasn’t necessary. “Rain!” I heard the startled whisper as I stood near the door catching my breath. The sound of my own name brought a fresh rush of tears to my eyes.

“Aunt Ronnie.” She had me swept into her embrace a moment later, and I laid my head against her shoulder. I didn’t realize how badly I needed a hug until I felt her familiar arms around me.

“Oh, Rain,” she squeezed  me, and for several minutes we stood there and cried together. Finally she pulled away, wiping tears off her cheeks. “Honey, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. And Aaron. And my…and…everybody.”

“Rain,” her brown eyes, so much like my mother’s, were filled with pain as she reached out to brush a stray curl behind my ear. “You can’t be here.”

“But you haven’t been answering my calls! I had to come here.”

“Oh, Rain,” she turned away, bowing her head to hide behind a black curtain of hair. “I can’t take your calls. I can’t talk to you, and neither can Aaron. Not right now.”

“What? But Aunt Ronnie-”

“It’s not me, Rain, it’s the lawyer.” She held up her hands defensively.

“Rain? Rain!”

My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I couldn’t catch it to speak. “Aaron!”

He appeared at the top of the stairs. Aunt Ronnie stepped before me, blocking my view of him just as he came into sight. “No. Aaron, back upstairs. Do you want to make things worse than they already are? Rain, you’ve got to go.” She put her hands on my shoulders and bodily turned me toward the door. “Aaron, upstairs!”

I’d heard her use that firm tone only once before, when I was six. I’d found the birth control pills in her purse and thought they were candy. Aaron was no longer rushing down the stairs, and I had no choice but to let her physically push me out the front door.

“Aunt Ronnie,”  I turned and seized her hand, my eyes boring into hers. “Just tell me why they did it. Just tell me they aren’t terrible people.” I didn’t even know how important it was to me until that moment, that horrible moment when I saw my entire childhood being pulled away from me on the front porch of that blue house on Sutton Street. If the parents who raised me were capable of committing such a terrible crime…then what did that make me? The desperation in my eyes made Ronnie look away; I saw her swallow several times before any words came out of her throat.

“I can only tell you to ask Violet von Shelton. She knows the answers to your questions. I can’t talk to you. I’m so sorry, Rain.” The door closed to punctuate her statement, and I was left standing alone on what used to be my own front porch. I slipped my key ring out of my purse, the one with my house keys and the keys to my Corvair, and placed it on the welcome mat.

There was nothing left to do but climb into the BMW and go back to the von Shelton mansion. It was the only thing like a home I had left…and apparently, it was the place with all the answers.

 

Justice is available at Amazon, Smashwords and everywhere books are sold!

How Common Are Sociopaths, Really?

You find them all the time in books, lurking around. They are charming, they are sexy, they are dangerous. The hot but scary sociopath has become a common story trope. But how common is this person in life? Do you stand any chance of really knowing a sociopath…and has pop media made this way more of a thing than it actually is?

Devil's Snare

In story, the sociopath is often highly attractive, intriguing, alluring and mysterious. They are here to draw in the hero, to weave a sexy spell and ultimately, to be bested by the hero. Outsmarted and outmatched at last.

It was probably quite titillating once upon a time, but now it has become rather shopworn. Some writers combat this by trying to do something new with their sociopath. Often, a twist is employed where no one, even the reader, knows if this person is really a sociopath.

And from a statistics standpoint, probably not.

What About Your Friends?

Everyone has pretty much met someone they suspect of being a sociopath. If you want to get down to it, millions of people are sociopaths, psychopaths or have some other antisocial personality disorder. However, there are billions of people on the planet. Only about 1 to 4 percent of the entire world population can fit into one of these classifications. That's an extremely small amount of people.

At best, you will encounter a sociopath, psychopath or someone with an antisocial personality disorder at a ratio of 1:100, being very generous about it. Lots of people do not actually know, really know, 100 different people well. The chances of actually meeting and knowing a sociopath are very small…certainly, a lot smaller than all the stories out there that heavily feature such personality types would have you believe.

Fixing the Trope

People with personality types like sociopaths and psychopaths definitely make for compelling storytelling. But they don’t make for very realistic storytelling. Most readers, the vast majority of them in fact, never have and never will encounter one of these personality types.

Most people are not so easy to pinpoint. Often, people don't fit into a diagnosis or personality type. The best characters are highly fleshed out and have many different traits, both positive and others that are less so. Sometimes, it's best to avoid trying to make characters fit a specific disorder and simply write them more like real people...who continue to defy all logic and easy labeling.

Characters don't need to fit a trope or a type, because most human beings don't.

The Simp Best Friend

He's always there to wipe the tears off the heroine's cheeks, the backup date when the dream date falls through, the ear she can tell all her secrets to. He's hot in a low key way and there is no question that he's hopelessly in love with the main female character, who is utterly clueless to his affection. He's the simp best friend and…he kinda sucks. There may be no good way to put him in your story. Maybe he doesn't belong at all.

 

 

 Nice Guys Finish Last

He's in the friend zone but he's hopelessly in love with said friend, a girl who is typically under the spell of a much cooler guy. He listens to her, he notices everything about her and for reasons, he doesn't make a move until well after the aforementioned dreamboat cool guy breaks her heart.

On the surface, this all seems pretty romantic. He finally makes his move right at the end of the story and just like that, the girl suddenly sees him for the first time. They kiss at last. What a happy ending.

Except that it's not. Because this character trope is super stale and honestly, unattractive. In the real world, the platonic best friend is very rarely a super hot, totally sweet and slavishly devoted would-be romantic interest. This is something that is far more common in fiction than in life.

So…should this tired trope be retired altogether? Is it time to blacklist this guy from stories or what?

Fixing the Trope 

The simp best friend has become a super common trope in stories, and that means it’s predictable. To make your story feel less boring, some a new way to use this trope. Flip expectations by finding some new way to use this character.

It’s okay to use common story tropes, but if you use them in a new way readers will appreciate it. They’ll think they know what’s coming. If you can surprise them with what actually happens, they’ll love it. Readers like having their expectations subverted. Try it and find out how much better the story becomes when you take those common tropes and change them all around.

What is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

She's free spirited. She's smart and interesting. She's damaged, but you can fix her.erent. She's the manic pixie dream girl...and she's in stories all the time.

Is the manic pixie dream girl anything like a real person? Should you be making an effort to erase her from your stories?
 

Holly Golightly

Kate Hudson's Penny Lane in "Almost Famous," Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," Helena Bonham Carter in "Fight Club." They're all sexy, they all have a dark side and they're all fearless when it comes to being themselves. These are classic manic pixie dream girls but if you want a true prototype of this common character trope, look to Audrey Hepburn.

Hollywood goddess Audrey Hepburn arguably played a manic pixie dream girl in nearly every movie she appeared in and perhaps even originated this story trope on screen. No one quite captures the ceaseless drive to be happy that continues to fail due to the character's own dark undertones quite like Hepburn.

The character that embodies this trope the best is undoubtedly Holly Golightly, who fought endlessly to be herself, even when she had no idea who that self really was. She was driven toward finding happiness with a desperation that seamlessly transitioned between hopefulness and hopelessness in the blink of an eye, always at odds with the darker shades of her own mind and the cruel, cruel world surrounding her.

 Supporting Act

The problem with the trope is this: since Hepburn's Holly Golightly first appeared onscreen in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (and first, in Truman Capote's book of the same name), few stories have managed to give this character any real character.

She often breezes into the life of the male protagonist the story is actually about, spreading her wings and sprinkling little bon mots in his ears, shaking up his complacent world to become an ideal, a concept of what life could be if only he was as wild and free and unguarded as this fascinating creature.

And that…is usually as far as it goes. The manic pixie dream girl more often than not is a fantasy ideal who rarely gets to have much of a backstory unless it somehow endears her even more the the male who is falling in love not with her, but with the lifestyle she represents.

She appears as a two-dimensional sketch of a human being who is only there to break the guy out of his shell. Will he win her heart? With her, it doesn't matter. She can snatch the prize away as easily as it is won…and so the romantic dance continues. The source of her darkness is rarely explored and the reality of who she is remains a mystery. The mystery is a huge part of her appeal, so why spoil it by making her a real person?

Fixing the Trope

In good writing, in good stories, there shouldn't be any two-dimensional characters. The manic pixie dream girl can start out as this mysterious and free loving entity…but she can't stay that way. Every real person has hopes and dreams, past traumas, motivations and desires, painful memories. Every character has these things, too. Or at least, they should.

Some people resemble specific character tropes…at first. But everyone is more complex than their surface. The way to beat any trope is to reveal what's behind the character's mask. The audience sees Holly's mask slip and this is why she feels real. Show what lies behind the surface of your tropes and your characters will feel real, too.

Write What You Know?

When you tell people you are a writer, or that you want to be, you will invariably hear a piece of advice that all non-writers love to share: write what you know. 

So, what does that mean and are you doing it?

What Do You Know?

Though this little bit of advice is well-intentioned, hearing that you should write what you know is extremely discouraging.

What if you want to write about a fantasy world that exists far from planet Earth, or dive into a time that is long, long past? What if you have never worn a corset or held a sword or gone into battle behind the yoke of a starship flying across the galaxy? Does every story you write have to be set yesterday in a suburb or a city that millions of people already know? What if your character wants to eat truffles…and you've never tasted one?

Write what you know is a pretty impossible thing, when you really think about it.

But there's good news. This trite and usually unwanted phrase, "write what you know," does not mean what many people think it means. 

What Should You Write?

First, don't ever let anyone tell you what to write. While feedback is nice and most people genuinely want to help, ignore them. Every writer has to find their own voice and their own story to write. No one can really help you with that.

Second, you know what it is to be a human. You've had a crush, fallen in love, experienced heartbreak. Even if you've never had a passion-fueled affair or drove to Vegas in a convertible, you've loved TV or movie characters. You've experienced the grief of loss. You did and didn't get your way. Maybe you loved and adored a movie icon. Maybe you cried when a favorite character died.

These feelings are universal to the human experience, whether you're falling in love with someone on a screen from the safety of your couch or you're hurtling across a desert landscape in a Bronze Age chariot.

You still know love. You know grief. You know joy and pain. And for what you don't know, like how fast a chariot can move, there is research. Plenty of people have described the taste of truffles or the heat of a desert sun in painful detail.

The thing that makes stories great is not how many explosions there are, how many fantastical creatures you can shove into it, how often the main character performs a spell. It's in the human experience that the story tells.

And you definitely have experience with being a human. You know what it is to be human. So all you really need to do is write human characters. Wherever they go, whatever they eat, whoever they love, infuse them with what you know about being a human. Give them flaws. Watch them fall down. See how they overcome these struggles, how they find love, how they manage hate. Whether that story takes place in the suburbs or on an alien planet, that is a story people will like reading.

What Should You Read Next?

 Everyone has a list of books they want to read and every reader has their favorite books. But when you read a lot, eventually you'll finish this mental list. And when that happens, you might not know what to read next. One website has decided to answer this age-old question.

Discovering Books

 

Shepherd is all about book lists. If you want to know what to read next based on author recommendations, types of books, books by certain authors any all kinds of different categories, this is where you need to be. For example if you love books about time travel, you can find recommendations for specific books that fall into this category and even find out what makes certain books so readable.

I recently did a list for Shepherd about switching places, a theme that Deck of Lies readers know very well. Go check it out and go find out more about all the books you're going to want to read soon.

Writing 101: What the H is a Mary Sue?

The dues ex machina. Foreshadowing. Using an allegory. The Roman a clef. Some literary terms sound so cool, you want to figure out what they are just to use them. And then...there's the Mary Sue. Who is this character and how is this a literary thing?

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Mary Sue is a name that many critics will use, often with a bit of a sneering tone. But she sounds kind of sweet and innocent, so what's so bad about her that critics always seem to dismiss this as a literary device altogether?

The Mary Sue is a specific character trope, meaning it's a frequent and somewhat static characterization that appears in fiction of all kinds, be it on stage, on screen or on the page. And despite the name, a Mary Sue character can be of either gender, both genders or have no gender at all.

So what makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue? For starters, they are ridiculously lucky. And unlike most of us mere mortals, they emerge from the worst of situations generally unscathed. They are often very positive in nature, though this is not a requirement, and often characterized as somewhat clueless, though this isn't necessary either.

Mary Sue's big claim to fame is saving the day. When all hope is lost and the other, and generally more competent, characters are facing certain doom, Mary Sue saves the day...and always by sheer luck. Mary Sue does not succeed by being smart or solving a problem, but through some happy accident or some wild twist of fate. This victory feels unearned and this makes the payoff of the victory fall flat. This is why the Mary Sue character so annoys the critics.

A character who lucks into a solution does not typically garner a lot of admiration from those of us observing the story, because they have done nothing to earn the victory they achieve. They just got lucky. And for many, this rings false. Critics may dismiss the character entirely as lazy storytelling and they kind of have a point.

However, when done well, the Mary Sue can be a highly likable character who does serve to drive the plot forward. Mary Sues have appeared successfully in many stories. The Mary Sue trope itself comes from “Star Trek” fan fiction and Mary Sue types still frequently appear in “Trek” stories of all types. Many lead characters in stories display Mary Sue qualities.

Tropes are tropes because they do work. And sometimes, people can become a Mary Sue even in life. Pure dumb luck does happen in reality and so, it must also happen in stories.

Writing 101: So What the Heck is an Allegory?

When critics talk about books, they tend to throw around all sorts of important-sounding words and phrases, like “allegory” It’s a big, fancy word and it’s almost always said in some sort of reverential way. Many of the greatest stories are given that label, allegory. So...what the heck is it?

 

Defining the Allegory

 In the proper definition of the literary term, an allegory is any story, poem or another work of art that has a hidden meaning. Usually, that meaning is political, religious or somehow moral in nature. But that's just the problem with an allegory. There's a fine line between a real allegory and an interpretation.

One of the most well-known allegorical stories, they say, is “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis. It’s all one big metaphor for the life and subsequent death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, perhaps the most famous literary figure of them all. Critics say the book has extremely clear references to the Biblical story of Jesus of Nazareth, heralded as a savior for mankind during the Bronze Age. Critics have even said that the stone table in the first installment of "Chronicles of Narnia" represents the stone tablets that Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai. And "Aslan's country" is, of course, Heaven.

Unless you don't want it to be. Because like any other critical review of any work of art of any type, the most significant meaning is what you get out of it...and not what all the critics and experts say about it. No one can know what hidden meanings an author hides in their work except for the author themselves. And if the author gives the readers every single answer and reveals every single hidden meaning, then what's the point of reading the book?

An allegory is just one more of many literary terms that are often used to break down and analyze books. It's just one more thing that people use to try and figure out the author's "real" meaning in any story. Only the author can decide what meanings they’re trying to put into their stories and only the readers can figure out what they find inside that story.

But it’s always good to know what the term means. That will make it easier for you as an author to roll your eyes when critics try to tell you what your stories are secretly all about.

Writing 101:Writing Comedy

Being funny is a huge asset in writing. People remember what's funny. They react. If you can make someone laugh, you can make your stories much more enjoyable. But is funny something you can learn? How did comedic writing start...and how can you master it?

Ha Ha Ha

The first stories were not funny. The earliest stories ever found were epic, lengthy tales full of tragedy and trials. The first plays ever performed, way back in ancient Greece, were tragic tales. But then one ancient Greek decided he didn't want to make people cry. He wanted to make them laugh.

Aeschylus is considered to be the father of comedy because he was the first playwright to write a comedy. It was in ancient Athens, the city famous for building the Parthenon and inventing democracy. It was classical Greece, a time of learning and enlightenment. Great philosophers and mathematicians walked the streets here. It was in this great city of the ages that Aeschylus invented the idea of comedy.

And he did it with a lot of dick jokes. It's true. In that great city of Athens where walked the greats like Plato, Euclid and Socrates, the first-ever comedies were ribald plays full of sexual innuendo with actors who walked around on stage wearing enormous strap-ons.

The ancient Athenians loved it. Aeschylus became wildly popular and his plays were soon used as inspiration by other comedy writers. In fact, dick jokes and sexual innuendo still carry the comedy genre more than 2,000 years later.

Comedy doesn't need to be sophisticated. It doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to be funny. Aeschylus succeeded at writing comedy because he simply wrote what made him laugh. He liked ribald comedy full of sex jokes and huge fake penises. And it turns out, the very fancy and sophisticated and enlightened Athenians loved it, too.

Many writers fail at writing funny because they are trying to be funny. They spend a lot of time thinking about comedy, about what's funny, about making people laugh. You don't need to do that. Sometimes, a basic penis joke will work wonders. Don't try to be funny. Just write in a way that makes you laugh and others will, too. Whether they're laughing with you or at you, they're still laughing.

Writing comedy is only as hard as you make it. The whole point of comedy is that you shouldn't have to think too hard to get the joke. So go ahead and include that dick joke in your next story. After all, it was good enough for the ancient Greeks.

Writing 101: It's All Greek to Me

Star-crossed lovers, destined to never be together. Revenge that becomes twisted and ugly, turning back around to go the other way. The mother who kills out of jealousy and rage when her husband takes a younger woman. If you think you've come up with a plot so twisted, so dark, so gory and tragic that no one can top it, guess again. Whatever you write, the Greeks probably wrote it first.

 

Been There, Done That

 

Incest. Debauchery. Infidelity. Murder. Self-mutilation. Patricide. Matricide. Whatever it's called when you kill your own son. It's not a new show on HBO. It's your basic Greek tragedy.

Most modern storytelling was shaped by those early Greeks, who went on to inspire Shakespeare, James Joyce and countless others. The Greeks took their characters into Hell, sometimes literally, and saw them ripped apart by plot twists, sudden reveals and betrayals of all kinds.

 

If you're looking for new story inspiration, try turning to some of the oldest stories ever written down. All the plots have already been covered, all the twists already sprung and lots of the good ideas have already been explored. But you can still put a new twist and a modern take on all these old stories and make something completely your own. Many, many writers have turned to the old stories to create new ones. 

Writing 101: Epic Stories

The oldest recorded story is an epic tale of adventure. It's fraught with passion, death, battle and love. It's a tale of a heroic journey. And in this regard, it's pretty much like every other epic story. 

The ancients loved their epic adventure tales. Hercules, Gilgamesh, Beowulf and their ilk continue to capture the imagination and inspire new retellings of their stories. But when it comes to modern storytelling, is writing an epic an epically bad idea?

The Long, Long, Long Tale Of…

Epic tales, whether they come from the ancient Middle East or J.R.R. Tolkien, tend to have some elements in common. There is usually a hero who is often tested, and frequently. There are dragons to slay, unusually metaphorical but sometimes actual (looking at you, Beowulf). Action, adventure, romance, good versus evil...you get the idea.

But epic tales often have yet one more thing in common: they’re long. Like super long. Like the fourth Harry Potter book long. And if there’s one thing traditional publishers don’t like so much, it’s publishing super long books.

Self-publishing is a perfect way to get your epic story out there without worry about rejection from traditional publishing houses. The success of stories like the Harry Potter and Game of Thrones series proves that super long, epic tales still capture the public's imagination. There is still an appetite for these adventure tales that are packed with plot, characters, failures and triumph. 

Unleash your long tales and tell epic stories, because the modern writer has one huge advantage over all those who have come before: you can publish whatever type of story you want on your own and put your work out there for millions and even billions to read. So when it comes to publishing houses...luckily, you don't really have to worry about pleasing them at all.

Writing 101: Hitting Them Over the Head

There's a well known episode of "Star Trek" that depicts a conflict on a planet that is being visited by the crew of the starship Enterprise. The people on the planet are embroiled in war. One group of people has bright, white skin on the left side of their bodies and black skin on the right side. The second group has white skin on the right side and black on the left. Because of this, they are gripped in bitter war. And as we know, "Star Trek" aired in the 1960s, during time of great racial strife. And this is what we call hitting readers (or viewers) over the head with a metaphor.

  

Also known as being heavy-handed, hitting your readers over the head with your point is a sure way to get that point across. But is it also a sure way to annoy your readers?

Beating a Dead Horse

There are lots of metaphors for overstating a point, even when it's a plot point in a story. That's because it's a thing that many people don't like.

However, re-stating a plot point is a truly time-honored tradition in storytelling. The oldest stories ever told were not written down, they were passed along orally, spoken aloud into groups. In order to make sure specific information is stuck in listeners’ minds, storytellers would repeat the same information over and over again. This style of storytelling can still be seen as a lingering tradition in many of the oldest written stories. Homer's "Odyssey," for example, is repetitive on several points.

 

There are tens of thousands of words in the average book and certain information will stick with some readers and not with others. If you want to make sure that they retain specific points of information, repetition is the best way to make that happen. However, you can be repetitive without being boring.

 

You can present the same information over and over again but in different ways, using different words. If it is important to know that a character is a coward, for example, show the readers a cowardly act committed by this character. You can also show the reader the character's thoughts about the event afterwards and in this fashion, show the cowardly action again in a slightly different way. There are many ways to give the readers the same information. You can also do it through dialogue by having a character relate a story to another character and have the character repeat the tale, using somewhat different words, to yet another character. 

You can also use an extremely transparent metaphor, such as the one used in the "Star Trek" episode mentioned above, to make sure a point sticks out. When the point is thinly-hidden like this, you won't need to use repetition to get the point across. Readers may roll their eyes, but you as the writer don't have to worry that they won't "get it." They will.

Sometimes, hitting readers over the head may be a necessary evil. But if you do it well and craft a story that readers love, they won't mind.

Writing 101: Reading the Classics

Classic literature. This is a phrase that everyone has heard and most everyone can name at least one story that's considered a classic. They're the biggies, the books you have to read in school, the authors who are studied and regarded as something beyond regular writers. But honestly...who's got the time to read them all?

That's Classic

Outside of school and the occasional Hollywood blockbuster, classic literature doesn't get discussed much. However, classic stories are actually everywhere. Many authors, books and TV shows borrow from the classics, borrowing the plots, characters and settings to re-work them for a modern audience.

This has happened way more times than anyone can list and way more times than you realize. That adorable love story with Renee Zellweger. That suspenseful TV show about the wronged woman seeking revenge. From the fun rom coms to the dramatic films about frenemies, cases of mistaken identity and children switched at birth, many of these seemingly fresh pieces of entertainment are based on stories that are decades, centuries, even millennia old already.

With even a cursory look at Greek literature, you may come to realize that there are no new plots. They wrote some of the most salacious stories and they truly ran the gamut when it comes to human emotion. The themes, plots and morals found in classic literature can't be beat. This is why so many authors use them to create new stories. This has been done throughout history, with everyone from Virgil to Dante to Shakespeare to Helen Fielding borrowing from the classics. 

Studying from the classics and even borrowing from them from time to time can be a great way to write a new beloved story. If all the plots have already been written, won't you be forced to repeat them anyway? Greek myths, Sumerian legends and writers like Dickens provide lots of rich plots, great settings and strong characters that are truly timeless. Re-working these classic themes and stories into new material is a time-honored tradition. For many writers, it can be a great way to deal with writer's block as well. Once you've got the main themes and characters already in front of you, the rest is a lot easier.

Writing 101: Writing About Race

The issue of race, or more specifically racism, is everywhere right now. Well, actually, it's always been here -- but there are times when it gets talked about and it's felt more keenly than other times. And in this particular moment in history, racism and race are being talked about everywhere. For writers, this begs the question do you talk about race in your books? And when you do bring up race, are you doing it the right way?

Amtec Photos / Flickr

Race and Writing

Have you ever read a book where all the main characters are described with specific features -- brown hair, blonde hair, green eyes -- but only one, or maybe two, characters are ever described with a specific skin tone color? This actually happens all the time in books...though you may not have really noticed it before. 

When one character is singled out for being Black, or Hispanic, or by any color at all, it suddenly becomes glaring if none of the other characters are described by their skin tone. It suddenly makes every other character presumably white, and it suddenly means your book is operating under the presumption that white is such a dominant race, it's only worth pointing out if someone is non-white. Which may not even be true -- perhaps all the characters in your book are Black. 

So, how should writers be handling race?  It's up to every writer to decide how to mention the issue, or whether or not to mention it at all. But for the sake of sensitivity and equality, there are probably two options that stand out as the best. One option is to mention every character's skin tone and include this when their physical appearance is described in the book. Another is to describe skin tone for none of the characters. Hemingway did not describe the appearance of his characters or even mention what they looked like, which certainly didn't harm his stories at all. So don't think your books will somehow be lacking if you fail to include this information about appearance.

Ultimately, of course, every word on the page should be of the author's own choosing. Don't write it if you don't feel good about it. Include it if you think it's important. And if your book is about race or if race is an issue in your book, then you'll want to note this detail about your characters because it's a central theme of the story. But if the goal is to move toward a place where race isn't an issue, maybe the right move is to leave this detail ambiguous. 

Race is a tough subject to tackle. It's tough to talk about and it's tough to write about. But that's okay. Authors will help set the tone for the discussion and help the world move forward so that maybe, race won't be such a polarizing issue in the future.

Writing 101: Palette vs Pallet vs Palate

Homonym pairs are bad enough. When you've got three words that sound alike but have different spellings and different meanings, you may want to just give up and forget that the words palette, palate and pallet exist at all. But they do. And even though it may be difficult to learn which one to use when, you still want to have these words in your writing toolkit...because your language can never be limited.

Palette

A palette is a range of colors. It's also that thing an artist uses when they're creating a painting, like Bob Ross and his famous big palette. Think of an artist and their palette when you think of this word. Think of all the colors on the palette. If you're writing about the colors of the rainbow or the way the sky looks during sunset, you're going to be using the artistic word palette to describe it.

Palate

Do you have a good palate for flavor? Have you ever eaten a fancy, multi-course meal and been given a dish to cleanse your palate? The palate is the roof of your mouth. That's why it's so often used with references to cuisine. Palate refers to taste or to the mouth itself.

Pallet

A pallet is a frame, usually made of wood, that's used to carry and transport items. They're found often in the construction industry.

Writing 101: Do You Know Your Characters?

You know how they say that every villain is the hero of his or her own story? Well, every single character in your stories is the main character of their own story. And as an author, you have to have a pretty good idea of what their story is like. You need to know every single character in your story. You have to know who they are and why they are who they are. So...how do you do it?

Knowing Your Characters

Authors have an intimate knowledge of their main characters. Their thoughts, their backstory, their hopes and dreams. But as an author, you should have this information for all of your characters. Every character in your story, no matter how minor, matters in their own story. You need to know what drives them and what makes them who they are. Otherwise, the actions your characters take and the words they say may not make any sense.

It helps to create a character sheet to remember essential facts about each character in your story, like what their names are and what they look like. While you're jotting down quick notes about hair and eye color, include essential elements of their personality as well. Keep your notes as short and to the point as possible. You don't want to read for 40 minutes every time you want to write a chapter.

If you don't know every character inside and out, you can't write every character in a believable way. Know why each character does what they do and says what they say and you'll be creating a well-crafted, well-written story. Because if you don't know your characters, none of your readers can know them, either.

Writing 101: Gray vs. Grey

They say that life, like writing, is full of shades of gray. Or...are they shades of grey? Why is this word spelled two different ways? What's the difference between the spellings? Are you sure you've been using the right one? It's time to settle the debate between gray and grey once and for all.

Shades of Gray Grey

There are many word pairs in the English language, words that sound the same or look the same but have different meanings. Do gray and grey fit into this group? 

The simple answer is no, they don't. By any spelling, grey/gray means the same thing. This word, whether it has an e or an a, always refers to the color that's created when you mix black and white together. In any shading, gray is grey.

The only exception to this rule is brand names. Earl Grey tea, for example, is always spelled with an e. Canada's national bird, the Gray Jay, is always spelled with an a. 

So why do two spellings of the same word exist? Grey with an e is more commonly used in British English, which is spoken in England. Gray with an a is used more commonly in American English. If you're an American writer, it's more proper for you to use gray spelled with an a. While it may not seem like a big deal, some editors can be sticklers about this.

Always use the right spelling of every word you want to use, even when the difference is small. After all, there has to be some reason there are two spellings of the word gray/grey -- even if it's only to give us something to talk about!

Writing 101: Stationary vs. Stationery

The moment you use the wrong word in your writing, you make yourself look like you have no idea what you're doing. The trouble is, it's really, really easy to use the wrong word. The English language is stuffed with word pairs that sound alike and may even be spelled similarly, but they have two different meanings. Knowing how to use these words properly is something every writer has to learn...because there are lots of readers who already know the difference.

A or E?

So when it comes to stationary and stationery, which word is the right word for the sentence you're trying to write? They sound exactly the same and they're spelled exactly the same, with just one letter's difference. But that one letter changes absolutely everything.

Stationary with an A means that something is immobile and unmoving. A stationary object is sitting still. Think of it as pushing a heavy object. What sound might you make while you're doing that?

Correct: "aaaaaa!!" To remember that stationary means not moving, think of yourself screaming "aaaaaa" while trying to push a heavy object.

Stationery with an E refers to pretty paper, envelopes and mailing supplies. In the digital world, this word is becoming less and less common. So think of stationery with an e this way: email replaced mail. Stationery with an E is paper mail, which no one uses because of email.

You may come up with your own tricks to remember the difference between the two words. Whatever helps you remember will work, as long as you remember the difference. Using the wrong word will hit a sour note with every reader and every editor, so do your best to avoid it by always using the right word.

Language is always evolving and changing, but the differences between word pairs is stationary and set -- so when you're writing out that nice letter on stationery, make sure you're choosing the right word!

Writing 101: Let's Talk About Reptition

There are very few hard rules in writing, rules that cannot be bent or broken in any way. Many writers have taken great delight in breaking the so-called rules of good writing, to much success. But even in the art of writing, there is one thing you should never, ever do. Do you know what it is? Because I just broke that rule to make a very important point.

No matter what, you should never repeat the same word twice. No, not even when it's separated by punctuation. It's never okay and it's always going to make you look like a bad writer.

Getting Repetitive

There are rules in writing. You must capitalize names and the first word of sentences. You must end sentences with some kind of punctuation. Every writer knows the basic rules. But there's another you must always follow because it always looks bad if you get it wrong.

Don't repeat words. Never at any point should the same word appear back-to-back, not even when there's a period between them. We already covered the importance of never saying "that that" on this blog, but it's worth talking about the importance of avoiding all word repetition. Every editor will cringe, every reader will flinch and every time you do it, you will look like you don't actually know what you are you doing!

Sentences can always be re-worked. Words can always be moved around. Everything can always be changed. And if you've got the same word appearing back-to-back for any reason and in any way, change it!

This is a rule of writing that must always be observed. Whether it's a name, a special word or anything else you're using, don't repeat. Stick to that rule and all your writing will be better for it.

Writing 101: Conspiracy Theories

Have you heard that the Earth is actually flat? How about the one where the government tried to train cats to be secret spies? Maybe you heard a story about the battleship that disappeared out of one harbor and reappeared, moments later, hundreds of miles away.

There's just something compelling about wild conspiracy theories. And that means you can probably create some pretty compelling writing when you use conspiracy theories in your stories.

Spinning a Yarn

There's nothing people like more than a good story. But what makes a story good? Sometimes, it's something that's so far out there it's impossible to believe. And what's so wrong with that? 

There's been a lot of good storytelling based on outlandish, outrageous conspiracy theories. So why can't you tell a really good story based around a conspiracy theory?

Try going out on that limb and try writing a story built around a wild conspiracy theory. Maybe in your story, the theory is true. Maybe in your story, a main character merely believes it's true. It's your story. Let inspiration guide you in any direction is goes and see what happens. Sometimes, writing is about just letting go.

Maybe there's a theory you heard before that you never forgot. Maybe you've got one of your own. Either way, conspiracy theories make a great basis for any story. So if you're low on ideas and looking for something to write, try starting with something that's just too ridiculous to be real. Because usually, those stories end up being easier to believe and even more interesting than all the fairy tales ever written.

Writing 101: Finding Inspiration in the Worst Scenarios

With everything going on in the world today, it's pretty hard to think about writing a story. How do you write about happiness, love, good health and other positive factors when it seems like the world is totally falling apart? It's hard to put aside the fear and the worry. It's hard to ignore those terrible headlines and the numbers of deaths that just keep getting bigger and bigger. 

So don't ignore it. Use it. If you're finding it difficult to work on your writing projects, put them aside for a little bit and start channeling all your feelings about coronavirus into a brand-new story. Writers find inspiration even in the worst scenarios and turn them into entertainment. After all...doesn't everyone deserve some entertainment right now?

Get Inspired

I once said that a writer's task is not to live life. It's to observe it happening to others. Right now is the absolute perfect time to write. You can't go anywhere. You can't see anyone. You can't do anything right now except for writing. Which, let's face it, is a great way to socially distance yourself from everything. So, remove yourself from the equation. Get out of your head. Take a break from the fear.

And write about it. 

Find inspiration even in the horrors of the world. Make them more horrible. Make them better. Make them whatever you want. Because you're a writer, and that's what we do. After all, if a society of people walking around in masks doesn't inspire some kind of frightening dystopian epic, what the heck does? 

Take the bad things and put them on the page. Because there, you can control them. There, you can determine the outcome. You can make things as horrific as you like or as wonderful as you hope. You decide who lives, who dies, who gets sick and who doesn't. 

Take the fear and the worry and make it work for you by writing it. Because writers find inspiration even in the worst things and turn them into incredible, amazing stories.

Writing 101: Should You Be Using Grammarly?

If you haven't already heard of Grammarly, where have you been? This is a browser app that advertises heavily and has managed to spread through the online writing community like wildfire. So as an author...should you be using it?

Built-In Grammar Help

If I'm being honest, I'd make lots more mistakes if it wasn't for built-in spellchecking. Sometimes, I feel when I make a mistake and ignore it because I know the spellcheck will pick it up. But does that mean using apps and built-in help is always a good idea for writers? Take a look at the light side and the dark side of using Grammarly.

The Grammarly extension catches much more than your standard auto spellchecker. It highlights many ore grammar errors than Google Drive, Word or any of the other popular word processing programs. It can even help you with punctuation. Once you've got the extension installed and enabled, you can simply forget about it and do all the writing you want. The extension will catch all sorts of errors.

Simply by highlighting basic grammar and punctuation issues, Grammarly can be a big help when you go back and proofread that first draft. However, like every other similar program, Grammarly isn't always totally right.

Sometimes, you might need to bend or break the rules just a little to make a point or create a certain feeling in the reader. Lots of authors have played with the basic rules -- or ignored them altogether -- in order to make the prose flow more beautifully. So you can't simply make every single correction that Grammarly suggests. 

Grammarly has become so popular that some editors now require professional writers to use it as a standard practice. It's a useful tool that any writer or author can use to catch errors but it also shouldn't dictate how you craft your prose. As always, use our judgment and rely on your own sense of writing style above all else.

Writing 101: Re-Writing the Rules

There are certain things that every fan knows about zombies, vampires and werewolves. You probably have some ideas about what elves are supposed to be. Everybody knows what a hobbit should look like. And if you imagine a dragon, it's probably going to breathe fire at some point. There are certain creatures and creations that have their own lore and mythology. But here's the thing: some writer made all that junk up. So if you're going to include a mythical creature or human-like thing in one of your books...who says you can't re-write all the rules?

Sparkly Vampires

There are certain accepted "facts" about mythical creatures and beings. For instance, everyone knows that sunlight kills vampires. But here's the deal: vampires are made up! Vampires were the invention of a writer. Doesn't that mean that new generations of writers can re-write those rules?

After all, it has been done before. In the uber-popular "Twilight" series of books, author Stephenie Meyer made up a whole new set of rules. Her vampires didn't die in the sunlight, they sparkled. And while purists poo-pooed at this idea, it's hard to argue with the success of 100 million copies sold and five feature-length films. 

So should your hobbits be tall? Should your trolls be sexy? Should your zombies break the most well-known rule of them all...and actually talk? Yes! If you want to write it, write it. As an author, you're always allowed to re-write rules, make up your own lore and go ahead and create brand-new traditions. After all, dragons exist only in stories. So who says that your dragons can't be as different and unique as you want them to be?

Sometimes, re-writing all those "rules" of lore works really well. The secret is to be committed and to be fearless. After all, it's your story. You make the rules.

Writing 101: Killing Your Darlings

"Kill your darlings" is common advice that people who don't write give to writers. What does this expression mean...and should you be following it?

There's a lot of different advice out there for writers. Apparently, just about everybody knows how you should be writing your novels. "Kill your darlings" is one extremely common expression that's told to writers all the time. Basically, it means that you should kill off your favorite characters.

Killing Characters

The philosophy behind it is that the plot will make a bigger impact on readers when you kill off your favorites, because your favorite characters will be the audience's favorites, too. 

It's true that the death of a character should create a visceral reaction in readers. You want them to feel it. You even want them to cry...at least a little. But when it comes to writing, nothing is ever as easy as a cute little motto or a pat piece of advice.

Killing Them Softly

Because "kill your darlings" can be done badly, too. And the trouble is, by now everyone's heard this advice. Even non-writers have heard this incredibly common expression and they know what it means. Readers are savvy to all the tricks that writers attempt to pull off. If you work too hard to make a character likable, you might as well just name the character Hi I'm Going to Die. 

You never want readers to sense the plot that's coming. You want to keep them guessing, shake them up, twist them and shock them. And if you create some super-lovable character that they're patently supposed to like, it's pretty guaranteed that they won't like that character. When the clear "darling" dies, readers will turn the page with hardly even a sigh.

Die, Die My Darling

There are some "right" ways to kill your darlings without spoiling your own plot. With an audience of sophisticated readers who won't fall for a simple trope like "kill your darlings," you're going to need to be a bit more clever.

• You can always make a character so darling to readers, they think you'd never kill them off. Don't just make them like the character. Make them adore the character. Once the audience thinks that person is definitely safe, drop the hammer...so to speak. 
• Make them darling later. Turn the idea upside-down by making readers like a character only after death. This way, the death will continue to resonate with readers as they learn how likable an already-deceased character truly was. When they read the book a second time, the death will be even more powerful than it was to them on the first read.
• Kill someone who seems really important. Killing a character who feels like a main character can be shocking and devastating when it's handled the right way. Your main character's love interest or best friend, for example, can become a shocking death on the page. Kill a character that seems like a solid, integral part of the story.

It's every writer's task to find a way to twist plots and take old tropes and turn them into something new. You can follow the standard advice of killing your darlings...but try to do it in a way they won't see coming, or it won't have the effect you want.