Starting a Law Firm | Helping Each Other Out

I can't believe I didn't think of this before, but now that I have, I might as well bring it up. Last night I got an email from a guy in Chicago that had recently started a law firm. He'd been reading this blog and wrote me to let me know he thought the information was good. Then he did something I've been waiting for people to do for a long time - he asked me if I'd be willing to do a link exchange with him. He admitted that his site was new and not very strong, but offered nonetheless.

This is exactly the type of go get em attitude you need to be successful in today's competitive legal market place. In fact, I do the same thing all the time (my goal is to ask for three a day, but I rarely meet that goal). The reason is simple - it's cheap, it's easy, and it is just about the most effective means law firm internet marketing there is.

I wrote him back immediately and told him I'd love to do a link exchange with him. I told him the keywords I'd like to have (Seattle DUI attorney) and told him where to point the link and then asked him where I should point his. He put my link up quickly and then got back to me. This is where he made a minor mistake that I wanted to point out to everyone.

When he gave me his link it was something like "Chicago lawyers." Although this isn't a terrible link to have to your site if you can get it, when you are dictating the keywords you need to be much more specific about what you want. For example, if he were a divorce lawyer, he should ask for Chicago divorce lawyer. If he were a criminal attorney, he should ask for Chicago criminal attorney. Think about what your potential clients will by typing in to search for you and that is what you want your keywords to be. Most people search specifically.

To conclude, if anyone else is interested in exchanging links, let me know. I have several blogs that I can put your information on and will gladly do so in exchange for a link from you. We can all help each other out and you can start exponentially increasing your exposure to potential clients.

Setting: The Best Way to Get Emotion into Your Stories

Author Annie Kelleher sent me a great question about setting in her upcoming mystery (she’s a well-published writer) set in the Florida Keys.

“I’ve tried to be more mindful of adding in atmosphere,” she wrote me, “to heighten the sense of being in Key West, but one of the things that struck me when I visited the Keys was how familiar they seemed, how much like the Jersey Shore town I was born and raised in: the landscape, marshy and swampy and riddled with bays and inlets in South Jersey, has long encouraged all sorts of the same activities that take place in the Keys.

“Even the architecture is similar,” she said, “and the tourist trade and the activities are all alike. How do I give the reader a sense of Key West while showing that, for my character, it feels so familiar?"

Setting Brings Out the Emotion

Setting is what brings emotion to the reader. Dramatic action creates momentum, makes your book a page turner. Good characters well depicted and vivid on the page, linger in our memories long after the book is finished. But setting, the way you frame your story in physical time and space, generates the emotion. Seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it? But it's true. Just check it out in one of your favorite books--notice where the setting it, and what emotion is conveyed there.

Even if you know a setting well, your reader won't. Even if the character knows the setting, from growing up there or visiting, your reader won't. So place us in space, time, weather conditions, hot and sultry or cool and breezy. Place us in the intense greens of summer or the black-and-white landscape of winter. Place us in the time of day, letting us experience the light slanting across the floor or the way the night wind rattles the windows.

You can even mention the familiarity of it to the character, let us into that aspect. But we haven’t been there. Just like we’re not inside the writer’s head, we’re not yet inside the character’s either. So place us there, via how the character notices where she is, how it impacts her, what she sees and what she ignores.

You can’t skip this step. Or else we won’t feel your story.

Why Setting Delivers Emotion

I worked for several years with a promising new novelist who was coming from a nonfiction background and trying to learn setting. In nonfiction, setting is used effectively in the anecdotes that illustrate ideas, theories, or methods—you’ve probably noticed the small stories that accompany a diet book or a book on repairing communication in your relationship.

But setting is not primary in nonfiction. In fiction it is.

This new novelist was stumped with setting. At first he thought it was just plug and play: rather stiff (his words) descriptions of breezes, sunlight, and birds injected into a scene willy-nilly. I asked him why these setting details were placed just then in his scene, and he couldn’t tell me. He was just trying to check “setting” off his writerly to do list.

I explained that setting details must make sense with the moment when they are used. When his character, Jules, was struggling with a big decision, he might notice something in the setting that mirrored uncertainty. Not the clichéd dark and stormy night, but a small detail like a sweater buttoned the wrong way on an old man he’s talking to. Or shoes scattered in the front hall. A smoking pan on the stove.

The idea was to use the setting to echo the character’s emotion.

If Jules just thinks about his decision, it stays in his mind—and doesn’t reach the reader’s gut. If the setting, an objective part of the story, reflects Jules's indecision, the setting emphasizes what we’re supposed to be receiving from the scene.

A small example. It really helped the writer.

When Is Setting Too Much

You choose your placement of setting details. Nobody rushing to a hospital will notice many setting details. Maybe two or three short bursts pass by, but not long paragraphs of it.

Keep setting to where there’s a turning point, emotionally. Keep outer drama where you need momentum.

Setting slows, drama speeds the pace.

This Week’s Writing Exercise

Use the following checklist to help yourself enhance setting in a section of your writing where you want the reader to really get a punch of emotion. Choose three items and slip them in—not long sections but short (five to ten words) phrases.

1. What does the narrator smell at this moment?

2. What does the narrator feel on their skin at this moment? (air temperature, etc.)

3. What does the narrator hear close up? In the distance?

4. What three objects are in the room?

5. What’s the time of day—morning, afternoon, late evening, night? How can the narrator tell via the setting (without a clock)?

PS Be sure to visit Annie Kelleher's blog at http://anniekelleher.blogspot.com/.

Starting a Law Firm | Yodle Update

I haven't written about Yodle and starting a law firm in a while so I thought I'd give you an update on the progress it's been getting me. If you don't remember, I hired Yodle to do an adwords campaign for me. Adwords, generally, is the process of getting ads up in the search engines for your services. When search something in Google, they are the ads that appear at the very top and down the right hand side of the page.

If you remember, my campaign was geared toward Seattle DUI attorney and related keywords. And it wasn't working out so well. It seemed like people were seeing the pages, they just weren't clicking on the ads. Because there weren't that many clicks, I really wasn't spending that much money (I don't think I spent my entire monthly budget of $1,000 once) so it wasn't terrible, but it just wasn't producing.

One thing I learned about Yodle through this process was their dedication to customer service. I had numerous meetings with several people and we addressed such things as the text of the ad, the call to action on my website, and the ability to have someone answering the phone at all times (so no calls were missed). Despite our best efforts, there really wasn't much progress.

So, here's my two cents on adwords. Like I suspected, they aren't that effective, standing alone. They should be used as a secondary marketing mechanism to get more eyeballs to see your firm information. What I mean is, it's important to utilize these ads almost like a billboard or a sign on a truck. You don't necessarily need to have people calling the number directly because of that ad, but you want to create some top of mind awareness for your firm.

Because of this, I've decided to reign in my law firm adwords campaign for a couple of months while I focus on getting my name up top on the search engine rankings and the local rankings. Once this happens (which should be soon), then I can begin another adwords campaign for my Seattle DUI practice. This will, at times, give me three positions on the first page of Google. People subconsciously start to associate that with trust, and more people start calling.

It's important to always be thinking about how to get new clients into your office and tinker with what you have to make it better. There is always someone out there trying to get your prospective client, so you can't just rest on your laurels.

Let Me Know What You Think!

Visit a chapter-in-progress from my forthcoming writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, at
http://www.loft.org/for-writers/a-view-from-the-loft/315-how-a-book-journey-beginsand-why-it-helps-to-have-a-map.

Miss deadlines

Have everything happen suddenly

(With thanks to Elmore Leonard)

Suddenly, the room went deathly quiet. Then, just as suddenly, the doctor spoke.

‘I’m suddenly not so sure about this,’ he said, suddenly. Just as he was saying this, he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. He span round just in time to see the sudden arrival of an unexpected figure. It was the soldier from the day before, suddenly limping in with blood on his hands. Suddenly, the doctor understood what had happened.

‘I feel suddenly... cold...’ the soldier suddenly whispered before suddenly collapsing. With quick, sudden movements of his expert but suddenly shaking hands, the doctor suddenly began to tend to the man’s wounds.

‘Nurse,’ he suddenly barked, ‘I need bandages and morphine. And make it sudden.’ Before he could suddenly save him, though, the soldier was suddenly dying in his arms. The doctor suddenly leaned in to hear his sudden last words.

‘Tell my wife...’ the soldier suddenly rasped, his breathing suddenly urgent and sudden. ‘Tell my wife... I suddenly... love her.’

Write with half an eye on the market

The Darknight Academy for witches, wizards, troubled vampires and tragically abused children was just waking up when the screaming started. Secret Agent Sam Glowingly sprang athletically from his bed and immediately reached for his pistol. He had been undercover for three weeks now and this was the first sign of trouble, unless you counted the theft of the Holy Grail the previous week, which he didn’t.

‘McSleet. Wake up,’ he hissed. His grizzled, cynical, alcoholic yet oddly sympathetic Scottish colleague mumbled an unintelligible curse at him and went back to sleep. Fine, thought Glowingly. He would just have to tackle this one alone, with only his gun and his mysterious otherworldly powers to help him. He knew he could do it. He had faced seemingly impossible odds before, like that time his wife had been forced to choose which of their two daughters to donate a kidney to, even though the girls were twins and one of them (but they weren't sure which one) had accidentally killed their younger brother in a shocking yet poetically haunting accident at the old lake.

Starting a Law Firm | Staying Motivated

I'm still really knew at my life as the owner of a DUI defense law firm. In fact, I'm still in my first year. The reality is, though, that starting a law firm, as fun as it is over the long run, is from day to day a pretty big grinder. Sure, I get to cash the checks, I get to make the important business decisions, and I get to take on as clients the people I want, but it is still possible to get bogged down in the day to day monotony of work.

And being a Seattle DUI attorney and owning a law firm provide a lot of work to get monotonous. So, how do I get through the monotony? How do I continue pushing forward and making things work? There are a couple of ways.

First, and I think this applies to any business owner, there is always the fear in the back of your mind that business is going to some day dry up and disappear forever. This fear, while stressful at times, is an important motivator in the grand scheme of things. For example, it's got me writing this post at 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday (as much as I love helping you all out, this helps me too).

Second, a lot of responsibility comes with being a Seattle DUI lawyer. People are relying on me to help them out of sticky situations. And I don't want to let them down. They push me to continue looking through the breath test databases for errors, to continue sifting through their police reports with a fine toothed comb, and to continue to negotiate with the vigor that gets results.

Third, and finally, I stay motivated by recognizing that I've got a lot of goals. I've got short term goals, which I try to meet every day. I've medium term goals, which I try to meet every month. And I've got long term goals, which stretch to the end of this year and beyond. The only way to reach any of these goals is to get started today pursuing them. Sometimes that means doing boring stuff. But it makes it so much easier when you are reaching and exceeding those goals you've laid out for yourself.

If you are starting a law firm and aren't sure if you have what it takes, don't think about all the things that can go wrong. Think about whether or not you have the guts and the drive to make things turn out right for you. It's no secret that you get out of life what you make of it. And there is opportunity out there to be grasped. All you have to do is jump out there and grab it.

Allow your day job to inform your prose style

(With thanks to Andrew Trumper)

1. All of a sudden, there was

     (a.) a resounding crash,

     (b.) the sound of breaking glass

     (c.) and then an eerie silence.

2. I glanced nervously at Mary.

3. ‘Did you hear that?’

     (a.) I said.

4. Mary [hereafter referred to as “the love interest”]

     (a.) nodded

     (b.) and whispered

          (i) ‘What was it?

          (ii) It sounded like a window;

          (iii) will you go and check?’

5. I listened to the silence [see 1.c, above] for a moment.

6. ‘I’ll be right back,’

     (a.) I said.

Take yourself too seriously

Graeme stared pensively into the blackness beyond the back door. In the shadowy night, he fancied he could sense the presence of countless ghosts, thousands upon thousands of memories given form in the darkness. Each of them represented a moment in someone’s life, a decision made, a path chosen, a whole alternative life lost forever to the void of the unknown. He pictured seven billion people walking the paths of the world, constantly and unknowingly shedding these potentialities like spectral snake-skins.

‘What price the path unwalked?’ he whispered to himself. ‘What cost the life unlived?’

‘What are you mumbling about?’ said Sandra from the other side of the kitchen. ‘Have you not taken the bin out yet?’

Envision, Think, Dream, Refine: The Four Steps to Manifesting

The process of manifesting a published book, whether seen from the starting gate or halfway to the finish line, demands a lot of trust. We often don't know how to get over the blocks and open stretches ahead of us. We hope that we are good enough writers with a good enough idea to make it to publication.

What if you knew there were four measurable steps that successful book writers pass through? Four steps that are far from magic, that don't demand unusual talent, that only ask for your belief and persistence to follow them. And if followed, result in a finished manuscript?

I came across these four steps by trial and error. And desperation. And getting lost and frustrated and overwhelmed by my book projects time and again.

But I'm a systems lover (as well as a creative person). And after successfully publishing thirteen books in three genres, I suspected a system might exist that could help book writers overcome the overwhelm.

I began looking for anything that dependably brought a book to the finish line. Looking in my own writing notebooks to see what I'd done with my own books, interviewing other published writers, reading writing articles and craft guides. What actually made the book journey successful? Was there any common experience between book writers, in any genre, who published their dreams?

Successful Book Writers Use Visioning
Most writers said they spent a lot of time, before they wrote much, just visioning the book. For some this didn't take place on paper. Others took notes while musing over their book idea, jotting down ideas and images that came through the creative right brain. Others discussed their ideas with friends and writing buddies, testing the waters (and this worked as long as the energy was not dissipated by the talking).

But more than just jotting notes or talking, writers who succeeded with this step actually "saw" the book in their imaginations. Some said they saw the book as a completed manuscript, a stack of papers on their desk. Others saw it in published form, on a bookshelf. In this step, the successful writers infused the journey ahead with confidence and belief in their project.

It's an ancient principle: As above, so below. As you vision, so shall it be. It's the basis for visualization, used in professions from sports to business.

No surprise that successful book writers use it too.

I love the visioning step of manifesting a book because it's so intensely internal and delightfully creative. I spend time visiting bookstores, seeing what else is out there, imagining my book and how it will be different and unique and speak to the readers' need. I also love drafting a mock cover of my book--complete with wished-for testimonials by famous writers. Collage is great in this step (scroll down to see book collages from other writers in my post two weeks ago). I also love writing a visioning statement for my book, asking myself, What's this book about?

Step Two: Thinking It Out
Successful authors often move directly from a solid vision to the action step of thinking. Once the book is alive and breathing inside, then it's time to plan the journey.

Planning feels very "uncreative" to many writers. But books take planning, because they are so large. Many writers spoke about planning including their research tasks, character sketches, drafts of scenes (also called "islands" or "freewrites"), or interviews.

For me, a writing notebook is necessary now. I use it to freewrite often, get deep into the idea of the book, try out ideas on paper. While visioning can be done completely internally, planning begins to externalize the process of manifesting a book. My goal during the planning step is to get my book thought out on paper, and create as much written material as possible so I have plenty of choices later.

This step can take months, even years, depending on how much time a writer devotes to the book.

Dreaming the Form
There's a moment when the material grows so plentiful, it must become organized or insanity might result! When a writer has so much written, then dreaming the form takes over. This is a fun step, as the book starts to look like a real manuscript.

I use storyboarding now, to pick and place, arrange and rearrange, until I have a good structure and can use that to cut and paste together a first draft. I'm looking for something that is still rough, but something that looks a bit like a book--it flows, it makes me proud or at least hopeful.

Few published writers omit this step. Many note that it's the place where manuscripts can feel like impossible journeys. Sometimes this third step feels like slogging through thick sand. But if the writer is persistant, the manuscript comes together.

Dreaming is about structuring, accepting the need to organize the material you've generated so that it makes sense to someone outside your writing world. The reader is very important in the dreaming stage--that's why I call it "dreaming." It's as if you are finally creating a world that can be entered fully and populated with witnesses who are also able to enjoy your story.

Finally, Refining
Many published writers love this last step, refining. I think it's the make-or-break moment for books. If a writer has no love, skill, or tolerance for refining, the book doesn't usually make it to publication.

Because refining can take up to 50 percent of the book journey, it helps to reach out for help during this step. I get feedback from writing colleagues and good readers, even hired editors, to help me see with fresh eyes.

Working as a Whole
These four steps are not separate from each other. Often, they weave together as the writer journeys forward. For instance, we revisit our visioning as the book shifts, as new ideas are explored midway through. It's normal that creative work doesn't travel a straight path. But it's also helpful to know approximately where you are in the journey at any one time.

That way you have a sort of map which can orient you if you get overwhelmed, frustrated, or just plain lost.

This week, take a look at your manuscript or writing project as a whole. Think about where you are with these four steps.

If you'd like, get out your writing notebook and dialogue with your book on paper. Ask it where it thinks you are. Write some notes to yourself about your next steps.

PS If you live in the Minneapolis-St Paul area, I'll be teaching this four-part process at my workshop, "How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book." It's a two-day, very hands-on event held in the beautiful writing classrooms of the Loft Literary Center on Friday and Saturday, March 26-27. For more information, visit www.loft.org or my website (look under Writing Classes) at www.marycarrollmoore.com.

Receptive Listening--How to Get to Know Your "Players"

We stand with our players, the souls who populate our writing, and we think we know them pretty well as we write our books. But do we? What if we're not really listening deeply enough to know the story behind their stories?

A reader from New York sent this wonderful comment:

"I was reading about one of my favorite subjects, something called Narrative Medicine. This is where doctors learn to listen receptively to their patients and frame their illnesses like a story. That means going beyond the clinical and getting into the whole person.

"And it struck me as curious that the techniques used in attentive listening, that docs are supposed to use to uncover their patients' stories, work because [these techniques] uncover what patients usually don't tell their docs. Thus the idea.... why not apply that to fiction?

"Listen receptively to your characters to learn what they haven't told you. Receptive listening leads to the truth."

Learning to Be a Better Listener to Be a Better Writer
How do you listen better in real life?

How do you use the same skills to listen better in your writing?

In real life, a good listener puts all attention on the person speaking, looks the person in the eyes, reads body language for what's not being said, even repeats back to them what's being said so they know we're listening well.

Most importantly, a good listener lets go of what they think they already know about this person--to be delightfully surprised, to let the speaker have the freedom to change.

In writing, we use similar skills. Full attention, repeating back, looking deeply. But most importantly, getting past our own reactions or beliefs about our stories and the players in those stories.

A challenge for many of us writers. We know who these people are--maybe we grew up with them, if we're writing memoir. We can predict every eyebrow twitch.

Fiction writers get equally stubborn about "knowing" their characters. "She'd never do that!" my students exclaim, when I ask about an idea to up the stakes in their novels.

But our current view is often limited, gives the person no freedom to change, and occupies only one perspective. So this week, try opening your perspective on your players, using the simple question I wonder...

This Week's Writing Exercise
1. Pick somebody in your writing you'd like to get to know better.
2. Make a list of 10 things this person would never do.
3. Pick one item on the list. Set a kitchen timer for 15 minutes. Begin writing to answer this question: I wonder what would happen if this person did this? Let receptive listening begin.

Remember this is just an exercise; you don't have to include this in your story. In fact, you may not for many reasons. But it will very likely let you get a new perspective on the player who has been hiding behind what you think you already know about him or her, and you'll hopefully be surprised at what you hear.

Make your similes very accurate

(With thanks to Marc Templin)

He sat across the table from me, grinning like an interlocutor. His smile was like a row of teeth between his fleshy lips. His fingers, steepled into a upwards triangle of fingers that resembled nothing so much as some steepled fingers, jutted into the air between us like some jutting fingers.

‘So,’ he said, his voice as low and calm as a low, calm voice, ‘do we have a deal?’

‘Um...’ I said, hesitating like a hesitant person. ‘I can’t really...’ The truth was, I was terrified. My stomach was turning over like the stomach of someone who is very nervous about a deal they are making which they aren’t sure they should be making and that uncertainty is causing them to feel a bit sick.

Starting a Law Firm | Hiring Staff

Right now I'm about 8 months into starting a law firm. It's been a great experience. I'm making a little money (let me stress a little), I'm helping people stay out of trouble (that's what Seattle DUI lawyers do, after all), and I'm having a great time of it. But I can sense myself getting busier and busier and I'm having a hard time determining when I will be busy enough to need someone to help.

There are a couple of things holding me back. First, I don't want to hire someone to help me out until I definitely need someone to help. I'd hate to bring someone on and then have to pay them while they sit around and twiddle their thumbs waiting for me to give them something to do. I have a feeling, though, that once I had someone come on and became comfortable delegating tasks it would free up a lot of time to do the lawyering I need to do.

And second, there is always that fear out there that business will dry up completely, I'll have all of these obligations to my new staff member, and I won't be able to meet them. Though I am doing well month to month, I don't yet have the feeling that a continuous cycle of work has been started that won't ever end. The idea of having a slow month or two still lingers in the back of my mind.

For me, though, there are some alternatives to hiring a full time staff member that I plan on exploring. First, there are first and second year law school students around that work for cheap (and are even subsidized by the school) to come and do exactly the things I need done. Second, there are third year law students that can get a temporary license to practice law and make routine court appearances for me if necessary. And last, but not least, there are an abundance of college students around that can in if necessary.

The downside to these options is the lack of stability over time. I want to give people the same experience every time they call us or work with us. To do that takes some training of staff. Every time someone leaves that means I have to train a new person. I just need to weight that against the benefit of less overhead.

I guess this is just another one of the steps that goes into starting a law firm. I probably won't be making a decision on this for a couple of months, but when I do, I'll be sure to let you know.

SCI-FI WEEK #5: Neglect to mention important details

The Mhal-Evol’Unt warbirds wheeled round to face Captain Dash Gallant’s small spacefighter. He could see the ion disruptor projection turrets glowing as they came online. He only had seconds before they fired. Fumblebot burbled a panicky stream of beeps. The ship’s ComSys panel crackled with static as the alien weapons began to warp the surrounding space.

‘Captain Gallant,’ came Colonel Daringman’s faint voice. ‘Report in. Are you there, Dash?’ Ignoring the Colonel’s urgent question, Dash narrowed his eyes at the warbirds and licked his lips.

‘Just a little closer,’ he muttered to himself. Fumblebot trilled a warning. The ship started to shake. ‘Closer...’ Dash whispered. Around him, alarms were blaring. He closed his eyes. ‘Here goes nothing,’ he said, flicking an innocuous-looking red switch above his head.

When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, the first thing he noticed was how empty the space in front of him was. Where there had been three Mhal-Evol’Unt warbirds, there was now nothing but a few glittering particles of spacedust.

‘Dash,’ said Colonel Daringman over the ComSys, ‘what the grakhl happened out there?’ Captain Gallant paused before answering.

‘I used the prototype Temporal Gluon Disruptor that Fumblebot fitted just before we left. Those Mhal-Evol’Unt dhuvfuts are probably in the heart of a dying star in the year five billion by now. I know you said it was dangerous, untested technology and I wasn’t to use it, but I didn’t have a lot of choice.’ For a few seconds, the ComSys panel was silent.

‘Dammit, Gallant,’ said Colonel Daringman eventually, ’that’s why you’re the best man we’ve got. But next time, check with me before you risk destroying the entire universe, okay?’

‘Yes sir,’ said Dash Gallant, grinning inside his helmet.

SCI-FI WEEK #4: Wear your influences on your sleeve

Captain Gallant wiped the sweat from his brow and grimly set his ship’s phase-guns to ‘kill.’

‘This is it, Fumblebot,’ he muttered to his loveable robot sidekick. Fumblebot replied with a series of whistles and beeps that were unintelligible to anyone else, but Dash Gallant seemed to understand.

‘That’s right, Fumble, old pal,’ he laughed. ‘It looks like we’ll be breaking the Star Corps Prime Instruction again. Still, better to be out here, where you can see your enemies clearly, than back at base, wondering who’s a Zyclon agent and who’s not.’
Just then, three Mhal-Evol’Unt warbirds dropped out of hyperwarp. Dash felt the adrenaline pumping through his body. He tried to breathe deeply, remembering what his mysterious Space-Zen master had taught him. Then, having attained a steely clarity, he was ready.

‘May the power be with us,’ he said.

SCI-FI WEEK #3: Give your characters evocative names

Colonel Braverly Daringman swung himself athletically into the command chair and engaged his neural-jack connection.

‘Lieutenant Trepidala,’ he barked. ‘Status report.’ The lieutenant tapped frantically at the screen in front of him.

‘Um,’ he stuttered. ‘It’s... the reading isn’t...’ Mars-born Nervosa Trepidala had been a lieutenant in the Star Corps for ten years, but had only recently been transferred to Fleet H, and with it, active service.

‘For Krajk’s sake!’ snapped Daringman impatiently. ‘Patch me through to the fighter wing.’ White noise filled Daringman’s ears. Then, through the roar, a faint voice.

‘This is Captain Dash Gallant reporting in. The perimeter has been breached. Repeat: Mhal-Evol’Unt forces have breached the perimeter.’

‘Then Krajk-Khul help us all,’ whispered Colonel Daringman.

SCI-FI WEEK #2: Explain everything

With the sound of the alarm ringing in his ears, Colonel Daringman leapt from his seat, taking full advantage of the reduced gravity environment of Fleet Ship H546-X, a 0.8G inertia field generated by the constant rotary movement of the ship’s internal shell which was separated from the blastproof exterior by an atom-thin layer of vacuum and electromagnetic repulsor fields, and ran down the corridor. He was in the aft section of the ship, where the living quarters were located, and it would take him several minutes to reach the command pod located at the ship’s fore (a location chosen for optimal visibility through the quantum-shielded plexipanels in the event of a failure of the ship’s short-range reconnaissance feedback systems).

‘Grakhl!’ he cursed, breathing heavily and tasting the now-familiar tang of the ship’s recycled and subtly ionised air, which was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen, but also contained trace amounts of argon in order to prevent malfunctions of the infinitesimally small nanobots which also swarmed in its invisible flow.

SCI-FI WEEK #1: Replace real-life items with fictional alternatives

Lifting his vibro-fork to his mouth, Colonel Daringman watched the exquisite spectacle of planet-rise through the plexi-viewport. He took a bite of his lightly marinated nutribeef simsteak.

‘Needs more NaCl-based SupaFlav flavour enhancer,’ he muttered to himself. The meal had been prepared to his exacting standards by the ship’s Cyber Hospitality Electro-Famulus, but there was always room for improvements to the AI’s food preparation algorithms. He made a subconscious neural-jack-formatted mental note to update the C.H.E.F. unit’s programming.

Just then, the A.A.A. (Audio Alert Alarm) began emitting the high-pitched ringing noise known as “spidiffling.”

‘Zakradav grakhl!’ swore the Colonel.

Remedies for Writer's Block--How I've Been Using My Storyboard to Break Through

How you open your book determines whether it's read. What's opening your story right now? Is it compelling? Exciting, like a flower about to burst into bloom?

This week my on-going book-writing classes at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY, are working on this question. We're studying Act 1 of our books, asking ourselves if the opening chapter of Act 1 is strong enough.

I like working with the three-act structure in books, because it makes the hugely unweildy manuscript more manageable. But it means doing a storyboard. If you've been reading this blog for the past weeks, you know my love-hate affair with storyboards. They force a writer to structure the story, to know what it's about. And the opening chapter stares you straight in the face.

But the beauty of a storyboard is this: It is fluid, compared to an outline. Parts move around as you learn. Writers in my classes will bring in their storyboards this week and we'll rearrange stuff. Maybe chapter 5 will become chapter 1. Maybe the other way around.


Inner Story Comes Through in a Storyboard
Storyboards also reveal that serendipitous inner story. Inner story is the surprise element that emerges when we're not looking, and it's directly responsible for theme, voice, and elegance of manuscript--those memorable bits that delight both writer and reader. Inner story explores meaning versus event. Inner story can't be forced, and in my experience, outlines tend to make the book's structure rigid and hard to change, much as we want to.

Storyboards are very successful because they are organic. They evolve. But you still have to decide what you're really writing about. That's the other beautiful aspect of storyboards. They make us choose.

Choosing Act 1 Elements
Your storyboard of Act 1 should contain certain elements. If you look at three-act plays, at books that use a three-part structure, you'll see some very important elements in these opening chapters. From my study of Act 1, I've compiled a little list:


1. Act 1 needs an opening that's strong enough to launch the rest of the book. It delivers the main question or quest of your book and make us want to read on.

2. Act 1 also benefits from some parallel action or discussion or moment in its final chapter (say, chapter 7 or chapter 18). In other words, whatever you start in chapter 1 gets echoed in the final chapter of Act 1. This creates a very satisfying loop for the reader: we believe the writer is truly on the ball, because we recap what we've covered so far. Not in obvious ways, just as a parallel moment. For instance, letters received in chapter 1 of Act 1 could be revisited and then burned in the final chapter of Act 1.

3. This final chapter of Act 1 must launch more trouble, a bigger question, to propel us to Act 2.

4. It's helpful, especially if the book has multiple locations, time periods, or points of view in Act 1, to create a strong thread that runs through all of these, to hold all the chapters together. For instance, a recurring object in all chapters, or a metaphor or symbol.


This Week's Writing Exercise
Line up seven Post-It notes on your desk. Close your eyes and drift into the creative imagination. Of all the ideas you have for your book so far, what's the strongest possible opening? Jot it on the first Post-It. Close your eyes and consider what possible ending for Act 1 would echo that first chapter idea. Jot it on the last Post-It.

Now go back to your outline, storyboard, or book notes. Compare what you just came up with and the ideas you originally had for opening your book. Which is strongest?

See if you can fill in the remaining Post-Its. Add more if needed. Then look at your storyboard. Sometimes this exercise results in surprising openings. And the storyboard changes. Make those changes--see how they feel this week. Do new doors open for you? Does writer's block disappear?

Have your characters see themselves in mirrors

Joe Stockley gave himself a wry grin as he passed the full-length mirror in the hallway. He was a striking figure, well clear of six foot in height and made to seem even taller by the exquisitely tailored morning suit he had thrown on effortlessly yet perfectly that morning. His eyes twinkled with the playful intelligence of cynical wisdom which informed his every action. The grin he gave himself was one of quiet recognition rather than vanity, for self-regard was a vice he had studiously avoided in his quest for perfection.

Meanwhile, Joe’s wife Angelica waited for him patiently at their regular restaurant table, idly turning a highly-polished spoon over and over in her hands. As the light flashed off it, she caught a glimpse of her own face, breathtakingly beautiful even with the distorted reflection the curved surface of the spoon offered her. Her deep brown eyes shone with the light of compassion which had emanated from her for as long as anyone could remember, bathing all who met her in the glow of her kindness and love. With the slightest motion of her hand, she summoned a waiter.

Antonio, who had been admiring Angelica from a discreet distance, did his best to glide effortlessly as he approached the table. Looking up, he met his customer’s eyes and was about to speak when he saw himself reflected in their soft radiance. He was in his late thirties, athletic in build and outwardly self-assured. The slight creases around his eyes betrayed a lifetime of both tears and laughter. Reflected in them, he could faintly make out the darkened window of the restaurant, which in turn reflected an image of himself standing at the table holding his notepad and highly polished pen. In fact, so highly polished was the pen...

Rely on paralipsis to avoid difficult subjects

As a biographer, my role is not to justify every decision made by the man who is the subject of my work. Please do not misunderstand – it is my intention that this biography be a complete and accurate account of the great man’s life, but I see no need to reopen old wounds in the process.

For this reason, I shall not be mentioning, even in passing, the allegations of financial wrongdoing, perjury, fraud, bribery, coercion or blackmail which have been the subject of so much baseless speculation over the last few years. Nor will you find within these pages any references to organised crime, let alone the particular Mafia figures to whom my subject has no proven links. Additionally, in the chapters concerning his perfectly innocent family holiday in Eastern Europe, I will make no mention of either his first wife or her mysterious absence from the return flight. Finally, at no point in this book will I be using the word “treason”, either literally or in a metaphorical sense. This is for legal reasons which I will also not be discussing.

I hope this clears up any confusion – happy reading!

Embrace anachronism

‘Prithee, sir, dost thou feel okay?’ the servant-boy enquired gently.

‘Contrariwise,’ replied Lord Featherston. ‘I am beset by a fever most perplexing, the sensation of which is like to being zapped by lasers.’

‘Lasers?’ enquired the page.

‘Aye,’ said the gentleman. ‘Lasers as might be found on a Martian spaceship, should such a thing be present.’ He let out a pained sigh. ‘But what is to be done? The only physician in these parts of any repute is all of a day’s ride away, and the NHS drop-in centre near the supermarket is shut also.’

‘Alas, it is so,’ confirmed the servant, preparing the digital thermometer. ‘Mayhap a bleeding would calm this fever.’

’That may be the case,’ sighed Lord Featherston. ‘Would that we had a bleeding cup, fresh leeches or broadband access to WebMD.’