Posts by: Writers Relief Staff

Author Spotlight: Dwight Hilson

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We’re excited to present the first installment of our newest blog series: Author Spotlight. Our clients are strong writers, so we have the benefit of seeing a lot of great work published—and we want to share it with the world! We’re very proud of our many talented and successful clients, and we know you’ll enjoy reading their work as much as we do.

This week, the spotlight is on Dwight Hilson and his short story, “His Own Best Audience,” published first in The MacGuffin.

Q: What inspired you to write “His Own Best Audience”?

A: My mother passed away during the winter of 2006; we were close but could have been more so, and I knew instinctively she would’ve approved a midlife turn toward personal expression. She died while a music therapist, provided by hospice, played a favorite hymn. The original version of this story was titled “The Music Therapist” and written as part of my application for the master of writing program at Manhattanville College. To this day I know nothing about the young man with guitar and dulcet voice soothingly guiding the ill to their ultimate release, but I wanted to imagine who he would be nonetheless.

Q: How long did it take you to write it?

A: I rewrote the story nearly two years after first thinking it complete, and its acceptance so soon thereafter felt borderline transcendent. After all, it was my mother’s death that inspired me to write through my midlife crisis, and this story, written so much in her memory, I’m sure she would’ve loved.

Excerpt of “His Own Best Audience”:

How would you feel if you never played your favorite song again?

How would you feel if you no longer played your ten favorites? Twenty?

Maybe more songs than you cared to remember?

Stage lights—those damn stage lights: didn’t matter how small the bar or club—full stage, riser, or chair in a corner—didn’t matter, they always had at least one annoying stage light aimed to expose more than just that zit on your forehead.

Tom Garvey hated stage lights, especially when he’d performed earlier in the day; but he refused to wear sunglasses. Oh sure, he could understand why a lot of up-and-comers—even established arena stars—wore them; it just wasn’t his style. Tom felt lucky to stare into a spotlight for three hours a few nights each week, and the folks in this corner of the state deserved to see his eyes—no matter how bloodshot.

The Asheville Saloon had a long row of multicolored stage lights, but Tom liked playing gigs there nonetheless. Great sound system for sure, and the place hosted an appreciative bunch of college kids and mostly young professional types—and they kept the lights low while he set up…

To read the complete work, and for more of Dwight Hilson’s writing, visit his website.

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7 Ways To Turn Visitors Into Fans

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Writers AudienceLet’s say a visitor has come to your author website. Maybe he/she read one of your pieces in a lit mag and wants to learn more about you. Maybe said person is a literary agent who is deciding whether or not you would make a good client. Or maybe said visitor is someone you met on Facebook or someone who was referred to your site by a friend.

The problem is, when your visitors leave your site, they’ll be gone forever—unless you give them a reason to stay connected. Creating an interactive website is key.

First, decide what you want.

Is your goal to offer the equivalent of a poster—a cyber broadsheet of information about you and your writing that readers can pause in front of for a moment and then be on their way, with the understanding that they may or may not be back ever again?

If so, you don’t need to do much besides create and maintain your text.

If you’re hoping to turn one-time visitors into fans who will return again and again, then you’ll need to create some specific Web infrastructure.

 Next, create your site’s interactive elements to support your goal.

Making a website interactive for the sake of making it interactive is nonsensical. You want the interactive features of your site to have functionality for you and a payoff for your visitors.

Here are seven fun ways to make your website interactive in order to convert visitors into fans. 

1. Offer an EASY way for visitors to sign up for your email list. Reassure sheepish visitors by promising that you won’t send junk—only news or helpful information. If possible, specify how frequently your emails will arrive (once every month or every few months?). Also, forget the double opt-in option (when users must click a link sent to their email in order to complete signing up). You can find free email list hosting services as well as paid services with more functionality all over the Web.

2. Include prominent social share buttons. See how our blog makes it easy to Like our page? That’s no accident. Facebook helps us stay in touch with visitors (shameless shout-out to Facebook fans—you guys rock!). Twitter, Google+, and other social share buttons also make it easy to connect via social media. Visitors might not get back to your site again, but at least you’ll see them on your networks!

3. Be clear about what you want your visitors to do. When you ask your visitors to do something in a clear, stand-out way (such as, Like a page or subscribe to a mailing list), you’re making it easy for them to stay in touch with you. They don’t even have to think “How will I stay in touch with this person?” because you’re already there with the answer. So…you’ll want to…

4. Organize your author homepage to direct readers to take action. In other words, what do you want readers to do first? Read your writing? Sign up for your mailing list? Think hard about what you want from your visitors, and make that directive clear on your front page.

5. Integrate your social media feeds into your site. Let’s face it. Much as we’d all love to be updating something on our site every day, that’s not always possible. But you can integrate your Facebook and Twitter feeds into your site so that your latest tweets and posts show up. This means there’s always new content on your site, always something new for visitors to see. You’re more likely to get repeat visitors if you give them a good reason to come back.

6. Consider blogging. The great thing about blogging is that there aren’t any rules about it, especially for creative writers. Write about what you feel passionate about. Then, ask readers to respond. Show that you care about their opinions. Get people talking. Think of your site as a dinner party. As the host of the party, you want your visitors to feel comfortable, to join the conversation, to jump in the pool, to help themselves to the miniquiches. You don’t want them to feel like they’re staring at the wallpaper all night.

7. Make it easy for visitors to contact you. By creating a contact form (like the one on our site), you make it easy for potential fans to connect with you—and you protect your personal email address at the same time. Once a person has contacted you through the form, ask if you can add his/her name to your mailing list.

Writer QuestionsQUESTION: How do you connect with other people online?

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True Story: Perseverance Pays Off

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We’ve got an awesome true story for you, writers.

It starts like this: One of our clients received a literary agent manuscript request recently.

Honestly, this happens a lot in our office. What makes this particular request so inspiring is the backstory.

The writer’s manuscript was originally submitted some time ago. But there were no takers. While some writers might have been discouraged by dozens of rejections, this particular client held her head high.

Years passed. Determined to find a home for her book, she revised her manuscript, came up with a killer new title, and had us revise her query letter. Then, she resubmitted—to agents who hadn’t seen the project and to a few who had.

And—surprise—there’s been significant interest in the book!

Here’s what got it done:

Determination: As writers, we will face seemingly endless rejections to our work. It is our task, however daunting, to remain strong-willed and determined.

Patience: Requests like this don’t appear overnight. Time can be our greatest foe and our greatest ally.

Waiting: This is often the hardest part. Waiting for agents or journals to review our work is the best time to start on new work! Keep those creative juices flowing—and never ever stop.

Hope this will help inspire your day. It inspired ours!

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Will Your Characters’ Love Story Stand The Test Of Time? Take Our Self-Test!

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literary love storiesThis question-and-answer guide is meant to help you gain perspective about how your love story stacks up against the great, memorable love stories of all time.

Copy and paste it into a document (or personal blog post), and write down your answers. If you want, you can copy and paste the questions into our comments section and answer them there!

If you haven’t already, be sure to read our article The ONE Thing All Great Love Stories Have In Common. It may help you when you take this quiz!

1. What is the setting for your love story? (Hint: Ideally, the setting is interesting, unexpected, unusual, or fascinating. Are you using your setting to augment the action of your love story?)　

2. Are your characters’ objectives/desires clear—to the reader, if not to the characters themselves? Why do these characters want to be together? (Hint: Attraction doesn’t always have to be reasonable, but it does have to have reasons.)

3. How will having a successful relationship benefit each character (practically, emotionally, financially, etc.)? (Hint: The more a character stands to gain, the more likely the reader will cheer for the relationship to work out—and the harder they’ll cry if it doesn’t.)　

4. What issues complicate the relationship? What reasons do they have for NOT being together? (Hint: They’d better be good reasons…we’re talking really good. Concrete issues trump vague, hazy notions of “we can’t be together just because I kinda feel that way.” The stronger the reason for the characters to be apart, the more likely the reader will root for them! Take a look at how famous authors complicate their love stories.)　

5. Is there a sense of destiny, serendipity, or some other sense of the inevitable working within your love story—whether your lovers are fated to succeed or fail? (Hint: You need not say flat out that there’s a cosmic current at work; having a strong subtext of destiny is sometimes a stronger choice.)

6. What do your characters stand to lose, or how will they suffer, if the relationship fails? (Hint: If the answer is “they will have broken hearts,” your story might not have enough punch. Why? Because broken hearts are as much a fact of life as cereal for breakfast. At some point, everybody suffers a broken heart—so that in and of itself may not be enough to twist readers’ heartstrings. If you want your love story to resound, your characters will need to suffer more than just a typical broken heart: they’ll need to risk having a life-crushing, soul-altering, “I will join a convent/jump off a bridge/never, ever love again” broken heart).

One final tip: Want to study the great romantic stories more deeply? Think of your favorite, then answer these questions about it. You’ll see how authors raise the stakes for a (potential) broken heart!

Please feel free to share the Writer’s Relief Love Story Self-Test with your writing groups, with other writers on your social networks (click the share buttons below), and with your blog readers.

Writer QuestionsQUESTION: What do you think? Tell us how these questions illuminated your current love story or romantic subplot.

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The One Thing All Great Love Stories Have In Common—And What It Means To Your Writing

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Valentine's DayHooray! It’s that time again!

And no, we’re not actually talking about Lincoln’s birthday. It’s Valentine’s Day—a time when writers think about the important romances in their lives…even the fictional ones!

One way to be sure that YOUR love story will capture the hearts of audiences everywhere is to study famous fictional couples. We looked at some of the most well-known love stories out there in order to see how great authors made memorable love matches.

Here’s what we found: When it comes to literary love stories, there are no half measures. Characters who fall, fall hard. A wishy-washy love story is a forgettable one. Passion is far and away the most vital element of a memorable love story. It’s not enough for a character to merely desire love; it must seem necessary in some way. Passion must be so compelling that love becomes as vital to the characters as air.

There’s no rule book for passion. But read on to see what key ingredients authors use to create stories of great romantic passion.

Jane and Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. This romance for the ages offers tremendous templates for present-day fiction writers: a woman and man who come from very different economic circumstances overcome huge obstacles before they (sort of) live happily ever after. Here, passion is punched up because of class differences (among other things). The fact that these characters can overcome their differences speaks to the depth of their emotions. Also, Brontë tells the story from the viewpoint of one character (the admirable Jane) rather than using an omniscient narrator, which makes the question “What is Rochester hiding?” all the more engaging.

Edward and Bella in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books. Popular contemporary fiction can also offer love stories that capture and hold the public’s attention. Edward is hundreds of years old and ostensibly has met tons of women, but he falls for insecure, boring, and painfully earnest Bella. Their relationship is portrayed as inevitable, destined, and fated—even if it’s not entirely credible. The sense of being “meant for each other” and “part of something larger” can be crucial components of compelling love stories. Passion as destiny is often a big hit.

Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. A couple might seemingly be “meant for each other,” but that doesn’t always mean things will work out. One person can have other relationship obligations, or the couple might be stymied by societal pressures. A big writing lesson Wharton expertly “teaches” is that authors can break the hearts of readers while still leaving them very glad they read the heartbreaking work. In this book, a lifelong passion is never fulfilled and yet it doesn’t die; that’s part of what makes the book so powerful.

Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar in Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain.” This famous short story about two ranch hands shows that fictional love sagas don’t have to star heterosexual characters. It also shows that a secretive romantic relationship is one way to make a short story or novel engrossing. “Forbidden love”—that is, love that’s not approved by the other characters in the story—is a recurring motif in memorable love stories. Passion that can’t fully be expressed causes all kinds of complex emotions in characters and readers too.

Gogol and Maxine, and Gogol and Moushumi, in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. Both of these relationships are far from ideal, but they exemplify some of the romantic experiences of immigrant children in our nation of immigrants. In this 2003 novel, Gogol, the Indian-American son of immigrants, has a serious relationship with the Anglo-American Maxine before marrying fellow Indian-American Moushumi. The contrasts and similarities between two relationships fuel this memorable story. When passion is tangled up in culture, the resulting imbroglio can be complex and meaningful on many levels.

Adam and Cathy Trask in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Of course, there are also some romantic train wrecks in great literature. The Trask marriage is an example of a disastrous one-sided match—with the besotted Adam loving Cathy (at least at first), but the evil Cathy not capable of loving anyone. This is meaty material for the great Steinbeck, or any writer. It’s memorable in part because it delves into the dangers/risks of falling in love.

P.S. Take our Love Story Self-Test to see if your love story (or romantic elements) stacks up to the greats!

Writer QuestionsQUESTION: Tell us some of your favorite fictional couples! And what is it about them that can help writers create their own romantic twosomes?

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