Tag Archives: Writing Tip

You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story

Writer Inspiration, , , , , ,

You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story. Stories give shape and form to life. Stories lend wholeness to your imperfect vision of your experience. Telling your writer’s life story will do all of that for you. The tale of your emotional writing journey deserves to be told – first to yourself.

Begin Your Writer’s Life Story. Get started now. Open a new document. Title it “My Writer’ s Life Story.” Write the first sentence. The rest will follow. We are each of us butterflies with a single wing until we become whole by embracing ourselves – and our stories.

A Powerful Story Begins with a Character We Care About. The character we care about in your writer’s life story is You. This is your personal writer’s narrative. Whatever your challenges may have been – in your writing life and beyond – you are the major reason you are still here and still creating today.

You Struggled to Hang On to Your Creativity. You battled to overcome your challenges. Sometimes you needed help. We all do. Sometimes you got the help you required. But mostly your champion was You. What does that mean? It means You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story.

Joy Write. What is the toughest challenge you ever faced as a writer? What was the worst part of it? When and where? Who was involved? What happened? How did it make you feel? Write it back to life in your writer’s journal. Emotions may arise. Keep on writing. Straight from your heart.

You May Not Think of Yourself as a Hero. You must change your mind about that. Upgrade your attitude. Tell your writer’s life story. The story with you at its center as your main character. You are the prime mover of your creative destiny.

You May Not Think of Yourself as Luminous. But you are the person in your life – especially your writer’s life – who kindled the spark that set your imagination on fire. That fire blazes still because You did not allow it to die. You are definitely your hero. And this is your heroic writer’s journey.

What Does It Mean to Say You Are Heroic? It means you persevere. Despite the difficulties of your writer’s life – and we all have them – you try your best to shield your creative spark from the storm. Those storms may overwhelm you at times. We all experience that.

What is Your Writer’s Struggle and Triumph Truth? You struggle to beat back the tempest. Sometimes you succeed. Sometimes not. But you keep on trying. You keep on feeding the flame. That is your triumph. Share snippets of your hero’s tale on social media. Use the hashtag #MyWritersStory.

You are a Human Hero Not a Superhero. You would just as soon let the struggles pass on by. But something must be done or your precious writer’s life could be lost. Your creative blaze could be extinguished. So – you respond to the challenge you face. You step up. You act. You employ as much strength as you can muster.

You Do the Best You Can in Your Circumstances. You defend your dream. There is emotional power in that. There is emotional power in writer’s stories. Whatever your outcome may be – You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story. Say it out loud and proud. Mean it with all your heart.

My Writer’s Life Story is Sometimes a Screwball Comedy. I am the screwball hero. Take for example the time I turned down one of the best literary agents in New York City. She offered to represent me and my entire psyche spun into panic mode. I longed to run away.

Even the Imagined Proximity of Success Terrified Me. “I’m not ready!” I told Ms. Super Agent this at a fancy lunch in a fancy midtown Manhattan restaurant. My sushi went warm while I floundered through a writing identity crisis. Too long later I realized what a fool I was. I had even paid for the lunch.

Yet – I am Still a Writer. Which often bewilders me. The only explanation I can come up with is the grace of God. I staggered from midtown that day to our stoop on West 50th Street and hunkered down there in defeat. Then – Suddenly…. Any anecdote worth telling must have a Suddenly moment.

Suddenly Something Wonderful Happened. He sprinkled grace over me and somehow it turned to resilience. The next morning I got up and continued writing. This is a writer’s redemption story. That next morning – after ignominious defeat – I became the hero of my writer’s life story.

Joy Write. Ignominious means deserving of or causing shame. Have you ever cringed through an embarrassing incident in your writer’s life? Share your story in the Comments section of this post or contact me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Do not forget to include how this episode proves that You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story

You are the Prime Subject of Your Creative History. Virginia Woolf agrees. “Every secret of a writer’s mind, every experience of her life, every quality of her being, is written large in her heart.” Every experience of our storytelling life is written in your heart and mine and the heart of every writer.

Immortalize Those Scenes on the Page. Make them vivid. The secrets of your adventure in creativity are ready to be revealed. Stop seeing yourself as “just a writer.” You are the main character of an epic adventure. Write with that in mind. You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story.

Tell Your Writer’s Life Story is a Four-Part Series. This post is Part I – You Are the Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story. Part II – Explode Into Your Writer’s Life Story. Part III – Cast Your Writer’s Life Story. Part IV – Structure Your Writer’s Life Story. Stay Tuned.

FYI – More Joy Write Prompts for You as Hero of Your Writer’s Life Story.

  • Imagine you are being awarded a commendation for reaching this heroic moment of your writer’s life. Write the speech the presenter will give. Make clear that you deserve this award. Describe specifically how you earned it. Consider writing a short story that dramatizes this event. Feel free to fictionalize if you are inspired to do so.
  • The first Joy Write prompt in the above article was about the toughest challenge you have encountered in your writer’s life story. You persevered beyond that challenge. Tell your writer’s journal what you gained from that perseverance.
  • Recall a time when you turned a dark moment to light in your writer’s life. What was the nature of the darkness? How, specifically, did you bring light to the situation? Write an article that tells this inspiring story. Submit the article to an online writer’s publication or your local writer’s group newsletter. Your writer colleagues need to read such hopeful tales.
  • How does it feel to think of yourself as a hero in your writer’s life? Share those feelings with me in an email to aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I would love to know about your emotional experience with adopting this empowered point of view. I look forward to hearing from you.
  • Share this post with a writer friend. Encourage her to think of herself as the hero of her writer’s life story. Document your conversation as an audio or video recording. Share that recording with your critique partners or another writers’ group.
  • What wisdom have you gained by recognizing yourself as the hero of your writer’s life story? Brainstorm ways to share that wisdom with other writers and creative people. Which option most appeals to you. Act on it. Email aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Tell me what happens.

Keep on Writing whatever may occur. Alice Orr. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells.

Joy Write with Alice. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Follow Alice on Substack — https://aliceorr.substack.com/.

Read Alice’s Novel. A Time of Fear & Loving. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Experience Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

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Seashells to Story Pages – Joy Writing

Writer Motivation, , , ,

Seashells to Story Pages – Joy Writing. Make Summertime Writing Time. Summer is collecting season. We collect sea shells at the seashore. We collect bargains at yard sales. We collect flowers in golden fields.

We also Collect Experiences. Each summer experience has a story at its center. Collect summer experiences. Collect Your Summer Stories.

Summer Up Your Imagination. Try this Creative Writing Inspiration. Describe a perfect summer day – sunrise to sunset. Gift your current story hero with this perfect day. She will love you for it.

Brainstorm Ways to Turn her Very Right Day Very Wrong. Struggling heroes make your readers worry about what will happen in your story. Strong storytelling is all about trouble and struggle. Make your hero struggle.

Embrace Your Sultry Summer Side. Summer Storytelling Ideas languish all around you. Sharpen your awareness. Keep Yourself Creative. Keep your stories steamy. Here is a Sultry Summer Creative Writing Exercise.

A Slow, Deep River Slides toward Roaring Rapids. Wild weather threatens. A treacherous storm approaches. Our pulses quicken. We hear the thunder crash. We watch lightning split the darkened sky. Strong storytelling is all about danger.

This Tumult is an Unwelcome Surprise for Your Hero. Her sunny summer mood tangles into dread as the wind thrashes. Her day is drenched and drowned by the downpour and whipped into frenzy by powerful gusts. Like Sally Field in Places in the Heart.

Suddenly Your Hero is in Real Peril. To make matters worse her enemy appears. They clash in their own stormy confrontation. Your hero must save herself. Write a Startling Summer Scene about this confrontation.

Supersize Your  Summer Story Energy. Be resourceful. Turn up the temperature. Then turn it up some more. Give everything a bolder boost. Strong storytelling is all about plunging your hero into hot water.

Her Life Drama is Intensified by Danger. Whatever happens in your hero’s life vaults her threat voltage to maximum amps. What specific events and shocks set her summer simmer blazing?  Seashells to Story Pages – Joy Writing.

Immerse Yourself in Summer Sensations. The sights. The sounds. The scents. This is Writer’s Inspiration Season. Inspire yourself. Splurge your senses. Bring your hero’s most vital self to its most heightened life. Like Scarlett in Gone with the Wind.

Transport Your Hero to a Secret Summer Spot. Something magical happens there. Or something horrible happens there. Kindle your Storytelling Imagination. The flames of story heat mount higher. Write what their glow illuminates for you.

Story Up Some Simple Summer Pleasures. An unexpected event occurs at a summer fair or festival or on what your hero thought would be a quiet day. Her heroic quest in your story is impeded by this event – drastically so.

Maybe Your Hero is Walking along a Deserted Shoreline. She finds a mysterious message in a bottle. What does it say? What does it compel her to do? What peril does it propel her into? You are Collecting Summer Experiences. Collect hers.

Celebrate Your Summer Memories. Summon forth Summer Journal Ideas from your personal past. Luxuriate in Summer Nostalgia Writing. Resurrect a summer friendship that changed your life. How did it begin? Where did it lead?

Lend Your Summer Friendship Memory to Your Story’s Hero. Let it change her life like it changed yours. Or – revisit the most unforgettable thing that ever happened to you in summertime. Visit it upon your hero. She will not forget it either.

Summertime is Company Time – Good Company. Who was your happy summer company? The person you would most like to spend your summer with?

Summertime is Company Time – Bad Company. What was the worst summer encounter you ever endured? Why specifically was it so terrible? Introduce these good and bad visitors to each other.

Your Favorite Summer Friend Becomes Your Story Hero. She meets your terrible summer encounter person. Make this an electrified clash of characters. Capture their powered-up collision in an intense  scene.

Suss Out Some Summer Secrets. Strangers possess strange secrets. Sit yourself down in an outdoor café. Set yourself in nosey parker mode. Ask yourself whom among these people is hiding a sinister secret. What is that secret? What makes it sinister?

Send Your Wicked Imagination Soaring. Observe what happens and Record it in your Writer’s Journal. It’s okay for writers to eavesdrop. You are not being rude. You are Studying People for Your Stories. This is Your Writing Work.

Sizzle Up a Summer Romance. You are still in a public place. Still Observing and Recording. Ask yourself whom among all of this humanity would your story hero fall in love with. Imagine them as summer lovers.

Make Sparks Fly Between Them. Why are they drawn to each other? What could drive them apart? How will they reunite – or not? Summer Romance Writing. Satisfy yourself superbly. You will love writing about love.

Make Summer Writing Your Storytelling Sunshine Time. Some think of summer as a lazy interlude. But you have done good work here. Your imagination has flown and flourished. You have set your story pages on fire with summer heat.

Your Writer’s Journal is Full and Flush. Lots of strong material for future storytelling. You have gathered Summer Story Starters. You have added to your Summer Collection of Story Ideas. You have fed Your Writer Self a fine picnic.

Meanwhile Enjoy the Season. Find a yard sale. Seek out the sea shore. Pick yourself some posies. Relax on a lakeside evening. But never neglect your Storyteller’s Journey. Make summertime writing time. Seashells to Story Pages – Joy Writing.

FYI – More Summer Writing Prompts and Exercises.

  1. Imagine a summer tradition for your hero’s fictional family. An annual gathering event. How does it bring them closer together? How does it drive them apart?
  2. Your hero is spending the summer in an unfamiliar place. How does the change affect her? What happens to her there? How does she react to those events?
  3. A summer road trip goes terribly wrong, for your hero and others. What challenges do these travelers face? How do they overcome these challenges – or not?
  4. Your hero has a summer job or assignment that she hates. What happens? What does she learn from this experience? How does this experience change her life in your story?
  5. A summer heat wave leads to unexpected adventures for your hero. What are they? How do they affect her? How do they affect your story?
  6. It is a hot, humid summer night, and your hero cannot sleep. When she gets up to seek some relief, something dramatic happens. Tell the story of that happening.
  7. Your heroine jumps into cold water on a very hot day. When she does that, something startling happens. What is this startling occurrence? What happens to her after that?
  8. Your hero attends an elegant and special summer meal. What makes this meal so special? What food is served? Who is there? How does your hero interact with the other guests?
  9. Invent a legend or ghost story. Have your hero tell it on a stormy summer night. What happens after that? How does what happens relate to the story your hero told?
  10. Create a summer writing prompt or exercise of your own. Send it to me in the Comments section following this post. I cannot wait to read it, write it, share it.

Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur.  https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells.

Joy Write with Alice. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Follow Alice’s Substack at https://aliceorr.substack.com/

Experience Joy Reading. Alice’s Summer Novel. A Year of Summer Shadows. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2. Available HERE.

Amazon.com/authors/aliceorr

Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows. “A must-read for lovers of romantic suspense.”
“Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Another fast-paced Alice Orr thriller involving murder, family secrets, friendships and plot twists against the backdrop of a slow-building yet intense love story.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows is of my favorite books.”

Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/

https://bsky.app/profile/aliceorr.bsky.social/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

Family Fuels Fiction – Joy Writing

Storytelling, , ,

Family Fuels Fiction – Joy Writing. Pat Conroy is one of my favorite storytellers. He said this. “One of the greatest gifts you can be given as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family.”

Let’s Modify That. One of the greatest gifts you can be given as a writer is to be born into a conflicted family with family secrets. In my experience that statement encompasses just about all of us.

My Family is Conflicted. Sometimes explosive. My family harbors secrets.  Your family is most likely conflicted too. Your family may harbor secrets. Do you have a family story – funny or dramatic or painful – that you have always wanted to write about?

Joy Writing Prompt. Write a scene where a long-held and protected family secret is revealed at a holiday gathering. How does each family member react? Whose version seems most true or untrue? Include compelling scene elements – action, dialogue, description, tension.

Conflict is the Essence of Strong Storytelling. I prefer to refer to Conflict as Struggle in this context. Struggle is the essence of strong storytelling. Ergo. Look homeward angels. Family is where the fodder is. This storytelling fodder is waiting for you to turn it into story magic.

Families Bristle with Serious Struggle. My family. Your family. Everybody’s family. Take a moment right now for this exercise. Make a list of the intense struggles you have heard about or witnessed or participated in from your family history. Each is a story throbbing to be told.

A Family Memory Patchwork. How do separate members piece that patchwork together? An incident occurs in your shared past. Am important incident. Maybe a traumatic one. The details sear your consciousness. You compare notes.

Memory Details may Differ.  Have you ever compared memories of a family event or incident with another person in your family? How did your recollections coincide? How did they differ?

Joy Writing Prompt. Select a family event – a wedding or funeral or birthday gathering. Describe the event from the point of view, and in the individual voices, of three different family members. How do their memories of the event compare and contrast?

Test This Premise Further. Grab your list of intense family struggles. Choose one. The more fraught and traumatic the better. List the family members involved in that struggle. Which do you think would agree with your recollection of the incident? Which do you suspect would disagree? Family Fuels Fiction – Joy Writing.

Discrepancies Can Be Benign. Like they usually were with my late brother Michael and me. We would tease each other and make jokes. But only with the not-so-touchy bits. Nostalgia rather than gut wrench. The dreaded stories we mostly did not mention.

Dreaded Stories are Danger Zones. We tiptoed around them like quicksand. One wrong step and we could be sucked down with no hope of rescue. Rescue from what? Rescue from the collision of my version of reality and his and from the powerful confrontation that might erupt between us as a result.

Joy Writing Prompt. Write a family story that no one wants to talk about. In your story, someone brings up this episode that has previously been silenced. What happens when this revelation occurs? What emotions and conflicts arise? Be specific and detailed.

Every Family has Dreaded Stories. Your personal list of family struggles is a catalog of danger zones in your history. Each struggle is a bed of quicksand. Each is a collision of points of view waiting to happen. Each is a potentially bloody battleground. All possess story power.

This is Fertile Ground for the Storyteller in You. Who in your family do you tiptoe around for fear of your colliding truths? What conflagrations have you barely survived when one of those toes slipped into the memory mine field? Which would make the most dramatic story? Which family member’s perspective would be most challenging for you to write?

Joy Writing Prompt. Two siblings remember a childhood incident very differently. Write a dialogue where they argue about what really happened in that incident. Reveal their emotions by way of their manner of speaking.

Family Fueled Storytelling is About Emotional Truth. You have your emotional truth. Other people have theirs. Each truth is valid for that person. Have you written stories about real people and events? How did you handle emotional truth – yours and theirs?

Intensify the Story You are Writing Now.  Hot emotions. Cold hearts. Hotter clashes. Colder calculators. You have encountered all of these somewhere in your life. Slide them into your story. Use them to bring your characters and your scenes to life on your pages.

This is Toxic Territory in Real Life. Tell these stories as fiction. Reimagine all of the physical details. Personal descriptions. Locations. Times and dates. Anything identifiable. Retain the emotions. They are where your intense, powerful, dramatic story material really resides

Joy Writing Prompt. Write an intense, powerful, dramatic scene where a family member leaves home under difficult circumstances. What is said? What is left unsaid? How, specifically, does the family cope with their absence?

Alice Orr Books Site Banner

Struggle Boils through My Own Stories. Through roiling Riverton, tempestuous families collide and conflict. How much of that has been inspired by real-life experience? Let me just say this. I agree with Pat Conroy about complicated families. I am grateful for the gift to my writer self. Family Fuels Fiction – Joy Writing.

FYI – More Family Fueled Writing Prompts and Exercises.

  1. Make a list of the most intense struggles and conflicts you have witnessed or experienced in your family. Choose one and write a brief summary of the event from your own perspective. Write a paragraph (or more) from the perspective of another involved family member (or more).
  2. Choose a family member you know well. Invent a fictional character inspired by them. Change name, appearance, and circumstances but keep their core emotional struggle.
  3. Write a conversation between two of your family members who are tiptoeing around a “danger zone” topic. Focus on subtext. What are they not saying? What emotions simmer beneath the surface?
  4. Write a short piece where each paragraph is a different member of your family’s recollection of the same event. Let the discrepancies and overlaps create tension and reveal character.
  5. Choose a strong emotion that you personally associate with a specific family memory – anger, joy, grief, jealousy, etc. Write a fictional scene that captures this strong emotion. Include characters who will best populate this scene and a setting that will best accomodate it.
  6. Create a lifelong creativity writing prompt or exercise of your own. Send it to me in the Comments section following this post. I cannot wait to read it, write it, share it.
  7. Create a family fueled writing prompt or exercise of your own. Send it to me in the Comments section following this post. I cannot wait to read it, write it, share it.

You possess storytelling magic. Keep on writing whatever may occur.  Alice Orr.  https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Alice Orr. Teacher. Storyteller. Former Editor and Literary Agent. Author of 15 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir, and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells.

Visit Alice’s Joy Writing Blog. Whether you consider yourself a writer or not you have storytelling magic in you. Learn to shine in the light of that magic and make it your own at https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Follow Alice on Substack — https://aliceorr.substack.com/

Alice’s Novel. A Time of Fear & Loving. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5. Experience Joy Reading. Available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “The best one yet!”

Alice’s Suspense Novel Series. Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. Five intense stories of love and death and intrigue. Available HERE.

Praise for Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series. “Romance and suspense at its best.” “I highly recommend this page-turner series.” “Twists and turns, strong characters, suspense and passionate love.” “The writing is exquisite.”

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know? About your writer experience. About telling your stories. Ask your question as a comment following this post.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/

https://bsky.app/profile/aliceorr.bsky.social/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/