Word for Words Blog for Writers from Adele Annesi

Use Negation to Engage Readers and Increase Buy-in

2026-04-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

Negation goes a step beyond just enough.
Savvy writers know how to give just enough details, just enough interaction, in a scene to reveal something of the characters and what the scene means to the overall story. Negation goes a step further. It calls attention to what the people in that scene chose not to say, not to do. Rather than satisfy the reader’s curiosity, negation piques it.

Here’s an example.

You’re picking up your Starbucks mobile order. The person beside you is well-dressed, a hand-tooled leather briefcase slung over their shoulder. Their leather shoes match the case. Not someone you usually see in Starbucks. The person turns, looks you over. Suddenly, you’re hyperaware that you rushed from the house in stained sweats, a weathered cap over your uncombed hair. The well-dressed stranger must be judging you. “You don’t happen to know where Social Services is,” they say. You’re so surprised at the question you can’t answer. “No worries,” the person supplies. “I’ll find it.” They grab their order, turn, give you a knowing smile and leave.

What's a person to think?
At first, you thought you were being weighed in the scales and found wanting. Now you don’t know what to think. Was the other person in need? Was it a pickup line? Did they ask about social services because you look like you’re in need? Because you look honest? In this instance, you’re not likely to ever have your questions answered. But you’ll remember the moment.

Negation is like suspense.
Like suspense, negation focuses on the meticulous doling out of information through details that are concrete, sensory and thematic, germane to the story. But negation’s emphasis is on how and when to withhold those details. As writer-observers, we’re interested in what we see and hear. Yet, we’re often even more interested in what we didn’t see or hear because now we have to fill in the blanks. Putting readers in this position engages their attention and enhances buy-in for your story.

Here's how to make the best use of negation.

Think of a real situation where you were left wondering about someone you encountered.
Describe the scene—where and when it happened, who was in it, why it’s of interest.
Look back over the scene and list the questions that arise.
Review your questions and try to answer each.
Where in the scene do you feel like you suddenly get a sense of what the scene is really about? Why?

For your writing project, keep a list of questions you introduce, and when and how you’ll answer those questions. If you can’t think of a real-life situation for this exercise, make one up or use a scene from your project, and follow the same guidelines.

Life’s most intriguing moments are often ambiguous.
We turn them over and over in memory to figure out what happened and what it meant. It’s in this liminal space of uncertainty that we often find the real depth and meaning of a scene. This also gives us room to explore what these moments can mean for the story as a whole.

Happy writing!

If you have a writing topic you’d like me to cover, email a.annesi@sbcglobal.net.

Adele Annesi is an award-winning writer, editor and instructor. Her bestselling cultural heritage novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). Adele coauthored and coedited Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Savor Successes and Serendipity in 2025

2026-01-27T12:35:00.000-08:00

The new year is often a time for writers to reflect on the year before and what we accomplished. Yet, we sometimes dread looking back because we didn’t achieve all we hoped or planned. Still, we’ve had successes, planned and unplanned, and probably more than we realize. This guide to looking back can help writers note and evaluate their achievements, and replicate them (and more) in the new year.

Organic Grower Agraria Guerrieri
Est. 1800
Marche Region, Italy

Kudos to You
It takes time and thought to identify our accomplishments, not just what they were but why they happened. This is especially true when we try something new. Whether you set the same yearly goals or add spice to your plans, it’s important to pinpoint what you did, familiar and new, what worked and why.

If you’re a goal-setter or want to be, here are questions to ask to record and celebrate successes, including the unexpected:

What were your most significant goals and accomplishments for 2025?
Separate the list into planned and unplanned accomplishments.
Next to each item, note why it’s important to you.
What successes did you achieve in areas that were new to you?
What were the outcomes of all your accomplishments?
What happened that made them successes?
What unexpected outcomes resulted from your set goals?
What enabled you to reach your goals and their results?
Answer these two question for the unexpected.
Whether or not your successes were planned, note how you might replicate them going forward.

Serendipity
Unexpected successes, especially in areas new to us, are bonuses. Yet, we need to pay attention to what comes out of the blue so that we know what happened, why it was a success and how it came about. We also need to record the outcomes of our experiences.

Here are questions to ask to savor and make the most of serendipity:

What were your unexpected accomplishments?
What makes you consider them successes?
What were their outcomes?
What surprised you most about these successes and their results?
How might you replicate these going forward?

To enhance the savor of success, use whatever forms of recordkeeping you most enjoy, including voice recordings and photos. Pictures really do paint a thousand words. They also motivate us and ignite our imagination through memory. And don’t forget to update your bio, CV and online presence. In doing so, you’ll derive even more pleasure from seeing the rewards of your hard work and the unexpected.

Whatever method we use to record our accomplishments, let’s savor success, planned and unplanned, and recalibrate the shortfalls. It’s a great way to set the stage for the rest of 2026.

Happy writing and very happy New Year!

Adele Annesi is an award-winning writer, editor, instructor and poet. Her five-star cultural heritage novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press). She coauthored and coedited Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University. Also a vocal performer, Adele has the podcast Adele Annesi on Writing.

Use Place to Gain Inspiration and Insight

2025-11-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

After six years, I returned to Italy in October. The trip gave me time with family and a break from the routine. It also provided something Bob Dylan noted in his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One—experience. And from experience comes inspiration.

Like my dad, whose lifelong love affair with Italy was partly the subject of What She Takes Away, my first novel, autumn is my favorite season. Falling leaves, the smell of woodsmoke, the angle of the light are pleasures. Even more so when a writer experiences them elsewhere.

This autumn my elsewhere was Lake Como. The change of venue sparked my imagination and my writing, A change can spark yours, too. Before airport security lines and delayed flights, I was inspired by travel. Going someplace new, even revisiting the familiar, made me feel my life was going somewhere and that my writing was, too.

Over the years, the need for caution and contingencies eclipsed the value of these benefits. When I thought about travel, especially overseas, all I could see was trouble. So what was different this time, and what were the benefits?

This year I planned the Italy trip a step at a time and accepted that my efforts and their outcome wouldn’t look as they had before. Freed from the burdens of perfection and predictability, I flew out of JFK (on time) to Milan. Rail construction en route from the airport to Como forced a track change and a mile walk to a connecting station. As a result, I got exercise, met new people and became adept at using scheduling apps. All new experiences, all new opportunities.

I’ve been to Como twice before. The last time, forty years ago. Since the novel I’m writing now is set there, I needed to know the Como of today. I also needed more of the story. And that’s what I got. Equipped with the fresh perspective that comes with being in a different place, I recognized gaps in the current storyline and holes in the characters’ backstories. But I didn’t just see what was missing, I saw what could be.

Casting off the inherent boundaries of the world left behind—even comfort, predictability and safety—the writer is free to explore and discover. This opens us to new opportunities. That’s where real growth lies, in our work, our lives, ourselves as writers.

Tip: Writers don’t have to go far to write great stories, but new venues open the mind. To broaden your perspective, try writing in a new place or somewhere you haven’t been in a while. If possible, spend a few days there. Don’t just use the time to write. Try living the time and jotting down experiences and insights as they arise. You’ll be surprised at how a place sparks the ability to see beyond place to what can be.

Reference
To sharpen travel memories for later use, use a blank journal, preferably pocket-sized, to jot down insights, experiences, memories and ideas longhand.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi is a curator for the Ridgefield Independent Film Festival. Her bestselling cultural heritage novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press). Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Use Escalation to Transform Story

2025-10-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

At some point most of us benefit from a writing coach. Mine is Pete Nelson, author of the novel I Thought You Were Dead. One point Pete often makes about developing a novel is this. The king died and then the queen died is a statement. The king died and then the queen died of grief is a story. Here, escalation happens in the reason for the queen’s death.

George Saunders, author of the novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the essential reference work for writers A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, makes the further point that escalation doesn’t just make a story but transforms it.

In Swim, Saunders says that a fundamental element of storytelling is really this two-part move. First, the writer creates an expectation. The classic example is: Once upon a time ... Second, the writer meets that expectation. But in the case of escalation, instead of fulfilling the expectation in one deft move and essentially ending the story, the writer creates a series of expectations, for example, through a pattern. Saunders’ illustration of this is the short story “The Darling,” by Anton Chekhov.

In “The Darling,” a woman meets and marries a man then takes on his personality. When her husband leaves or dies, she goes on to marry the next man. With each successive marriage, she takes on the personality of the new husband, but each time with a slight alteration. Once the writer sets a pattern like this, the reader expects the pattern to reappear. When it does, with a shift or an adjustment, readers are further engaged by the change because they see meaning in it. Which is what the writer intends.

When readers grasp a pattern, they don’t just anticipate the pattern. They wait for something to happen that disrupts it, either by challenging the pattern or by showing its consequences. Thus, what transforms an anecdote into a story is escalation. When readers feel escalation happening, they actually feel events becoming story and watch for a complication that will propel the story to rising action, climax and falling action.

Now we know that escalation transforms story and why. Our next question is, how can I get my story to make this transformation? If you feel trapped writing and writing but your story’s action isn't rising, add this sentence to that place in the work: Then something happened that changed everything forever. Now ask yourself what that is and write it.

But what happens when there’s more than one “something”? How do we choose? A great way to find out is to mine the story we have. Our work is already about something. It already has a theme, maybe more than one, and that’s where we find the possibilities for the kind of changes we need. When this happens, our pulse quickens. Then, inevitably, questions arise, questions we may fear answering.

As John Updike said, it’s in the story you’re afraid to tell yourself that you find the real story. And that’s the one to write.

Reference
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders

Happy writing!

Advantages of Indie Conference: Writing With Great Independent Publishers a Success

2025-08-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to all who attended Advantages of Indie Conference: Writing With Great Independent Publishers!

Due to the resounding success of the conference, we will present an expanded event on Saturday, September 12, 2026.

Check back with us to learn more.

Date: Saturday, September 13
Time: 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Venue: Ridgefield Library
Address: 400 Main Street, Ridgefield CT
Phone: 203.438.2282
Registration: Free at Advantages of Indie: Writing With Great Independent Publishers

Join us Saturday, September 13, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Ridgefield Library in Ridgefield, Connecticut, for the inaugural Advantages of Indie Conference: Writing for Great Independent Publishers.

This free event features morning and afternoon sessions with outstanding independent presses: Woodhall Press of Connecticut and Bordighera Press of New York.

The conference begins with a keynote on traditional and indie publishing with David Legere, editorial director for the FalconGuides and Globe Pequot imprints of Globe Pequot Press and CEO of Woodhall Press, followed by a panel discussion with Legere and Woodhall authors on the inner workings of the editorial process.

The afternoon session features a roundtable discussion with representatives of Bordighera Press, a cultural heritage imprint of the Calandra Institute of Queens College CUNY, on the soup-to-nuts submissions and publishing process.

Both sessions include opportunities for audience Q&A, networking, and author book sales and signings.

Publishing areas include:

Essay
Fiction
Memoir
Nonfiction
Poetry

The event is free but requires registration. To register, click on Advantages of Indie: Writing With Great Independent Publishers.

For questions, email Adele Annesi a.annesi@sbcglobal.net or Lucy Handley lthandley@ridgefieldlibrary.org.

Authors and publishers will have books available for signing, purchase and discussion. A full event schedule is below. We look forward to seeing you!

Conference Schedule
Attendee sign-in
9:45 a.m.
Morning Schedule
10:00 a.m. – Introduction: Indie author Adele Annesi
10:15 a.m. – Keynote: David Legere, CEO Woodhall Press
10:45 a.m. – Break
11:00 a.m. – Moderated Woodhall publisher/author panel with audience Q&A
11:45 a.m. – Networking with publisher and authors plus author book sales and signings
Lunch Break
12:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. – Break for lunch at area eateries
Afternoon Schedule
1:30 p.m. – Introduction: Indie author Adele Annesi

Bordighera Press

1:45 p.m. – Moderated roundtable with Bordighera Press and attendee Q&A
2:30 p.m. – Networking with publishers and authors plus author book sales and signings
3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Reception with publishers, representatives, authors and attendees

Author of New Children's Book Melds Joy and Learning in Unique Format

2025-04-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Emerging children’s book author Laran Woods has a new all-in-one children's book/workbook geared toward children in second grade. Published by Dorrance, a longstanding publishing services company, The Carousel Kids reflects Woods' imagination, love for learning, and longtime experience as a teacher of children in grades K-12.

Here, Woods speaks about her writing and publishing journey.

What is your teaching background?
I was a K-12 teacher and administrator for more than twenty years, and my mother was an elementary-school teacher for twenty-five years.

I specialized in teaching French, German and Spanish, and my mother, special education. Most of my experience was in Grades 8 and 9, while my mother’s experience was with second grade.

What is it about storytelling that appeals to you?
Because stories make learning effective, and because children engage so well with storytelling, my mother came up with the idea of creating a workbook showing children from all ethnicities in the primary grades enjoying learning while using different animals, both magical and real as a vehicle. Since I was an only child, I spent a lot of my childhood entertaining myself by telling imaginative stories.

How did your new children's book come into being?
I wrote the story for The Carousel Kids and contributed to the activities. My father, who was both a multilinguist and Liberal Arts graduate, wrote poetry after retiring from the FBI. He also served briefly as a high school French teacher before moving on to the FBI. He helped my mother write the poem and the lyrics for the song for my all-in-one story and workbook. In summary, this book was a family project.

What were your main obstacles to writing The Carousel Kids, and how did you overcome them?
My primary obstacles were my extensive vocabulary and complex sentence structure. The way I addressed these so that elementary-age children can understand and enjoy the stories I have written was twofold.

For The Carousel Kids, I had my mother help me edit. For the next book, I included a dictionary at the end of the story. I also paid an artist to do the artwork. Even so, it is easier, I think, to write a children’s story than it is to write an adult novel.

What drew you to writing this book in particular?
As much as I would like to say that I mostly write to delight children, I must honestly admit that I do it because I have a passion for the craft of telling fanciful tales. I include the workbook to help children become good enough readers to comprehend what I write and, thereby, like it too.

What is your next project?
I have another book and workbook coming out next year where I share one of my girlhood stories, one that I originated about my dogs and cats, along with workbook activities designed to build vocabulary. The future book/workbook is best-suited for Grades 4 and 5 and possibly Grade 6 due to the level of word sophistication.

The Carousel Kids is available from Amazon.

Laran Woods is a bilingual French and English consumer relations representative for J.M. Smucker. She previously worked for PepsiCo in the same role. Woods’ specialty is educating children and adults. She inherited her talent for learning foreign languages from her father. Her passion is writing and telling imaginative stories for children. Her next book is due out in 2026, from Dorrance Publishers.

Memoir Writing – More Than One Life

2025-02-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

This month I’m honored to have as a guest distinguished author Gail Ingis.

Formerly, a student of mine at Westport Writers’ Workshop, Gail is an accomplished raconteur, including of historical fiction. Here she tells about writing More Than One Life: A Memoir, on her many successful careers and her foray into ballroom dancing at age 80 and winning the waltz competition at 81. Aspiring and established memoirists and writers of all genres will appreciate Gail’s clear, candid and captivating style, not to mention her inspiring story.

What prompted you to write a memoir?
My journey into ballroom dancing at 80 sparked endless curiosity. People would ask, “How did you start? Why now? How did you win first prize in a dance competition?” But it wasn’t just dancing. Throughout my life, I’ve had successful careers in art, design, teaching, and writing. Friends and acquaintances often wondered how I navigated these transitions and achieved so many milestones. Many encouraged me with the same advice: “Write about your life.” Eventually, I realized my story could inspire others to embrace new adventures, regardless of age.

In what ways was writing a memoir different for you from writing a novel?
Writing a memoir required a different vulnerability. In fiction, I could create characters and control their outcomes, but a memoir demanded honesty and reflection. It was cathartic and challenging to revisit personal memories, especially moments of struggle and loss. In contrast, fiction allowed me to weave stories freely, whereas the memoir required careful balancing of truth, perspective, and storytelling. Capturing my own voice authentically—without embellishment—was both freeing and demanding in a way fiction never was.

What was the primary obstacle you encountered, and how did you address it?
Memory can be a tricky thing. I never kept journals or diaries, so recalling specific events and timelines was challenging. However, once I started writing, one memory would spark another, unlocking doors I hadn’t opened in years. I also struggled with self-doubt, questioning whether my story was worth telling. To overcome that, I reminded myself why I started: to inspire others. I focused on writing honestly and leaned into my natural storytelling voice, allowing the narrative to unfold organically.

What did you find most rewarding about the project and why?
The most rewarding part was recognizing the full tapestry of my life—the joys, the challenges, and the resilience that carried me through. Seeing how each chapter of my life, from founding a school to gliding across a ballroom floor woven together, was deeply fulfilling. Knowing that my story might encourage someone else to take a leap into something new, regardless of age or circumstance, made every moment of writing worthwhile.

What else would you like to add, particularly for fiction writers interested in writing a memoir?
For fiction writers transitioning to memoir, remember that your storytelling skills are invaluable. Use them to bring your experiences to life, but stay grounded in truth. Be honest, even when it’s uncomfortable—that’s where the real connection with readers happens. Also, don’t worry if your memories feel fragmented at first. Start writing, and you’ll be surprised how the pieces come together. Most importantly, give yourself grace. It isn’t easy to turn inward and reflect, but it’s gratifying.

Gail Ingis is an artist, interior designer, teacher, and author with a lifelong passion for storytelling. Her latest work, a memoir, chronicles her extraordinary journey through multiple successful careers and her adventurous leap into ballroom dancing at 80, culminating in winning first place in a dance competition at 81. Gail brings humor, heart, and vibrant energy to every page, inspiring readers to embrace life’s possibilities at any age.

Gail's memoir is More Than One Life: A Memoir.

Churn: Keep the Waters of Story Roiling

2025-01-17T11:54:00.000-08:00

I’m reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, by George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo. In this must-have reference work, Saunders asks a key question and answers it. “Why do we keep reading a story? Because we want to. Why do we want to? We read a bit of text and an expectation arises. We could understand a story as simply a series of such expectation/resolution moments.” What Saunders is saying isn’t rocket science, but it takes work to achieve these results. One way to do that is to raise the reader’s expectation in every scene.

Scenes are the building blocks of story, and there are almost as many types of scenes as there are scenes. These include to provide backstory, a beginning, characterization, a complication, description, dialogue, an ending, a foreshadow of a coming complication, plot movement, a reversal, setting, or a transition. Great scenes serve more than one purpose. One might even say that if a scene doesn’t have a purpose, it shouldn’t be there. And one thing every scene must accomplish is to cause the reader to expect something and at some point to provide it.

This doesn’t mean every scene should be like a holiday gift box, nicely filled and neatly tied with a bow. What it does mean is that when the writer sets a scene, she literally sets the reader up to expect something. Here’s an example:

Two people who were once lovers meet after many years. Will they fall in love again? Are they free to do so? If not, will they succumb anyway? That’s the initial setting of the scene. Add to this context and stakes. The lovers are married to other people, people they love and care for and with whom they have built a life, a home, a family. Will they risk all for a moment or more than a moment? If so, what would prompt such a decision?

It's getting at the why of a scene that makes it plausible, relatable and viable. By setting a scene like the one above, the writer sets the reader up to expect an outcome. Whether the reader can guess the result or not, it’s the working out of the resolution that makes the reader keep reading. One way to do this is to add an element of discovery to the scene, thus to the story.

In this case, the lovers meet, decide to act on their feelings and learn—what? What will the lovers learn that will give the story depth and memorability?

The answer could be as simple as you can’t go home again. Or it could be the realization that the two lovers are still deeply in love with each other and made a tragic mistake getting involved with other people, people they care for but are not the right match for them and never were. It’s the reunion that spotlights this reality. Thus begins the next exploration. What will the lovers do now that they realize the truth? Thus, the expectation/resolution cycle continues.

Still, it’s possible to get the cycle wrong. One common mistake is when the writer contrives a scene primarily as a way to get from Point A to Point B. Instead, the writer must approach each scene and each aspect of the scene organically, in a way that feels both inevitable and innovative. How can the writer achieve both?

Here are four key questions to ask:

What is each lover afraid will happen if they act on their feelings?
What is each afraid to discover?
What is each afraid will happen if they don’t act on what they feel?
What do they fear discovering then?

To make the most of those questions, also answer why for each.

Of the four questions, perhaps the most important is: What is the writer afraid will happen to these people, their families and lives, and the overall story if such a decision is made?

The underlying impetus for each question is fear. This doesn’t mean every story must be a psychological thriller. Rather, it means that fear puts its finger on the pulse of the beating heart of the characters and their stories. Tell me what you’re afraid of, and I’ll tell you what matters most to you. We ask “fear” questions to get at the emotions and longings that often lie buried because we fear what will happen if we let them out. It's this approach, the churn and roil of story, that moves the story forward by discovery, among the characters and within the writer.

Tip: Watch for scenes that are too much alike. In this situation, select the more important scene, not necessarily the most well-written, but the one that best reveals the heart of the story and the characters in it.

Reference
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, by George Saunders

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s novel of autofiction and cultural heritage is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). She co-authored Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA and was managing editor of Southern Literary Review. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Make It Great, But Make It Plausible

2024-12-18T10:38:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite flying films is Top Gun. I first saw the movie with my brother, Skip, a graduate of Bainbridge Academy and a submariner in the US Navy. As we watched the aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings, I asked him how something that big can float. “You can float anything as long as you displace the weight,” he answered. What’s true in physics is true in fiction. It’s called plausibility.

Emerging and established writers alike face the challenges of how to float something big—whether characters or stakes or storylines. Here are ways to employ craft elements to support plausibility:

Beginning: A story with a big start makes a tacit promise to the reader. To keep that promise, follow through on what you present at the beginning. Even if your beginning is a red herring, don’t wait until the last page to support it.
Characters: Big characters should be realistic, even if only in the world of your story. To achieve realism, get to know your characters inside and out.
Conflict: Conflicts and complications can be big in size and scope, meaning you don’t necessarily need a dire medical diagnosis to have a big story. The complexity of a conflict, the degree to which it impacts the characters and story, is just as far-reaching.
Dialogue: To deepen dialogue, use subtext. Be deliberate in crafting not only what the characters say but what they mean. You can also have almost as many conversations as characters in a scene, with each saying what they want to get across so that you’re advancing story and developing the characters at the same time.
Ending: If your story has a big start, it needs a suitably satisfying ending. One way to do this is to bring your discoveries and those of the characters to bear on the conclusion. And don’t forget to surprise readers. It’s the mint on the reading pillow.
Plot: One way to support a complex plot is with subplots and a braided narrative. Subplots add intrigue; a braided narrative, with more than one point of view, adds depth and breadth.
Reversal: Reversals often represent a major shift in the direction of a story and the lives of its characters. Some of the most poignant are when what a character most fears happens. Just treat the reversal in a way that’s sensitive not sensational. Let the reader provide the emotion.
Scene: A scene should be developed sufficiently to convey the reason it’s there. To accomplish this, edit each scene once for each character who appears in it, and count setting as a character. It’s fine to include the unexpected in a scene, as long as the unforeseen element doesn’t feel as if it was dropped in as an afterthought or a way to prop up the story.
Setting: Vast settings can appeal not only for what they are but for what they represent. The key is to have the description match the scale. This doesn’t necessarily mean using bigger words, but precise words that are appropriate to the theme. If you’re writing genre fiction, use the right terminology without being technical in your description.
Stakes: Regardless of degree, stakes must matter to the overall story and the characters. Most important, readers must know why the stakes matter. As a note, the why element may change over the course of the story. Some stakes that were important at the start may be less so at the end.
Story: Family saga, fantasy, historical fiction, sci-fi and cli-fi genres naturally lead to big stories. But such tales need depth to float. In these instances, world-building is critical. And the key to world-building is detail that is concrete and thematic to support what the story is about.
Suspense: This great staple of storytelling works for any genre or writing style. The key is knowing what to offer the reader and what to withhold, along with when and to what degree. Don’t withhold critical information that keeps the reader from engaging with the story or give too much away upfront, a delicate balance that’s easier to achieve after the first draft.
Theme: Big themes are like big stakes. Generally, the bigger the better. But even a cosmic theme must be worked out in the individual characters’ lives and the story’s day-to-day. Otherwise, the result is theory, not theme.

These days it won’t do to say, “I get to that in Chapter 3.” Plausibility must make its entrance from the start and build throughout a story. One way to achieve this is the daisy chain approach. Before you begin writing, review what you last wrote. You’ll discover that the final work is clearer and more believable. Readers will find the same.

Reference

The First Five Pages, by Noah Lukeman: Although this work should be retitled The First Five Sentences, it’s still a classic comprehensive guide to all the essential facets of good writing.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s SPD bestselling novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press). She co-authored Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA and was managing editor of Southern Literary Review. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Telling a Good Story Takes Spontaneity

2024-10-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Last month we said telling a good story requires preparation. While that’s true, telling a good story also takes spontaneity. My dad still makes for a good example. Not only was he a custom men’s tailor who prepared each day’s work the night before but he could also decide to take us to Italy at the drop of a tailor’s ham. So besides being spontaneous, he was a risk-taker. Writers should be both, too.

Spontaneity can mean doing something spur of the moment or trying something new or different without overthinking it. This is where the writer’s instinct and willingness to explore the unfamiliar come into play. We’ve all had those ah-ha moments for a new story, a twist or turn in our current narrative, having a character do something seemingly out of character, or following the story down an unfamiliar path of setting or events.

These adventures can be fun and inspiring, but there’s a price tag attached to the approach. Taking the road less traveled takes time, energy and the risk of one or more wrong turns. But even rabbit trails can offer writers and readers a new perspective, like a detour along a scenic road. Two common questions about being spontaneous are:

How do I get rolling?
How do I know if the path I’ve chosen or the decision I’ve made is the right one?

Here are considerations for both of these queries.

First, to make spontaneity worthwhile, ask yourself these questions:

What aspect of your story needs a bit of novelty or adventure?
Where would you, your storyline or one of your characters benefit from taking a risk?
What aspect of your story have you considered exploring but avoided, and what’s holding you back and why?

As you may have guessed, even spontaneity can take a bit of planning or at least some forethought. But once you’ve primed the pump, don’t overthink it. If writing a new story or scene is daunting, which it often is, give yourself a writing time limit. If an hour is too long, try half an hour or 20 minutes. And rather than contemplate what you’re writing as you’re writing it, just write. When you’re done, read what you’ve written. Before making substantive changes, set it aside, possibly until the following writing session. That way you won’t destroy what spontaneity can do for you—open doors to new places.

The next question is how do I know if what I’ve written works?

Two key elements in answering this query are time and distance:

Rather than edit what you’ve written the same day you’ve written it, wait until at least your next writing session. Even then, before you edit, read what you’ve written to find what shows up as unexpected. Writers who are more planners than pantsers will be tempted to start fixing. Resist the temptation. Instead, embrace the new and see what benefits the unexpected can bring to your story and your writing.
Once you’ve had a chance to embrace the new, consider how and where what you’ve written could fit into your project. Could it be part of what you’re already working on, or is it something entirely new. To answer this question, assess whether what you’ve created is substantive enough on its own—whether it has enough scope or the potential for scope. In other words, is there enough there, there?

Sometimes what we’ve created on the fly doesn’t work in its entirety but has elements that could work quite well. For example, you might find a gem of a phrase or a germ of a new narrative thread or character. Either way, just because you can’t use your effort in its entirety doesn’t mean it isn’t beneficial. Even if you don’t use any aspect of what you’ve created exactly as you’ve created it, the fun and freedom of free writing can be liberating. And if you write for a living or with that kind of dedication, this type of exercise can put the joy back into your labor.

I usually tell the writers I work with and who attend my workshops that for every principle we set forth, for every craft element technique we discuss, there is at least one equal and opposite possibility. The key is knowing the elements and how they work. Even then it’s possible to be clueless about what certain craft elements do and still write a great story or one with great potential. That’s the fun and freedom of writing because it’s where discovery happens.

Reference:

For a great how-to reference on craft in any genre, see Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers (Now Write! Series), by Laurie Lamson (Editor). Regardless of what genre(s) you write in, you’ll find these insights and exercises fun and freeing.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s SPD bestselling novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). She co-authored Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA and was managing editor of Southern Literary Review. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Telling a Good Story Takes Preparation

2024-09-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

My father often said, “Preparation is everything.” He was a custom men’s tailor who each night prepared the next day’s work and each morning made sure all was in order. Preparation gave him a sense of what was needed before the need arose. Some writers are equally fastidious in planning their work; others are pantsers, flying by the seat of their pants. In reality, all of us are both, and that’s important in storytelling. But, first, a bit about preparation.

There’s more than one way to prepare to write. Some writers have rituals that help them diffuse the nervous energy that often attends a writing effort. Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway often ended his writing time before finishing a scene so that he would know where to start the next day. When he was stuck for a way to begin a day’s work, he often went back and edited the prior day’s effort.

One definition of preparation is the action or process of making something ready, or getting ready for an event or undertaking. And writing is certainly an undertaking. To help us begin, we can ask questions of the work and of ourselves as writers. The following queries are most helpful for developing scenes:

Clarity: What aspects of the scene need clarity, whether due to imprecise prose or an incomplete rendering of the scene’s real purpose in the story? There’s nothing wrong with leaving something, or even a lot, to the reader’s imagination, as long as it’s intentional and not due to the writer’s oversight.
Dialogue: What part of the dialogue should be overt or spoken aloud, and what should be part of the characters’ interiority? Rendering part of a dialogue as what’s going on within the character gives the character and scene layers and subtext, and shares something with the reader that the other characters may not yet know.
Questions: What questions arise from the scene that need to be addressed, whether in the scene or later in the story? If the missing information should be filled in later, we can make a note to ourselves. Whether we fill in the gaps now or later on, we should decide how to present the information, for example, by a person or another medium, such as a news report.
Repetition: What recurrences appear in the scene? This query relates to whether the redundancy is helpful, as in for emphasis, or is a case of the writer saying the same thing more than once with no rationale for the duplication.
Revelations: How should a flash of insight, an epiphany or a revelation be disclosed? Sometimes straightforward is best—through a direct narrative statement. Other times the revelation of something new and important can be enhanced by putting it in the mouth of a character we wouldn’t expect to deliver the insight. Still other times the insight can come from within the character, for example, through a trigger, an aspect of setting, a memory or a lesson learned. One way to decide is to match the importance of the revelation to the extent of the surprise, and to consider whether the character needs to own the moment or whether it’s better coming from someone or something else.
Tightening: Where does the scene need to be edited? More words don’t necessarily equal better writing. Sometimes they obscure rather than clarify a point.
Viewpoint: Have I considered the scene from the viewpoint of each character in it, including the setting? Doing so gives a scene balance and texture.

We ask these and other questions to find out what’s needed before it becomes clear to the reader but missed by us. Think of telling a story as inviting friends to share a meal on a special occasion. No matter what form the gathering takes—informal, buffet or sit-down dinner—it’s best to prepare the food and venue in advance. This engenders trust from our guests and gives us a chance to spend time with them. That’s what readers look for in a story—a place to go where a satisfying experience awaits.

References

If you haven’t seen the film Genius, on the friendship and writing relationship between editor par excellence Max Perkins and author Thomas Wolfe, it’s definitely worth seeing.
If you haven’t read Look Homeward, Angel, Wolfe’s masterwork, it’s worth reading or rereading for the sheer experience of the prose.

Happy writing!

Keep Me in Suspense, Please!

2024-08-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Some years ago I was working as a marketing communications manager for a small IT company when the handwriting was on the wall for a merger and layoffs. This happened around the time I wanted to switch gears and go into writing. (I had no idea then that the next step along my career path would be to work for Scholastic during their Harry Potter heyday.)

While crafting an exit strategy and career transition, I read writing magazines cover to cover and decided I should attend a writing conference. I chose Wesleyan Writers Conference because it was nearby and because of their stellar offerings. When I was accepted, conference manager Anne Greene wrote on the acceptance letter, “I hope you can attend.” Never underestimate what a kind word can do for a struggling writer. I took encouragement and set off.

That year one of Wesleyan’s workshop leaders was acclaimed novelist Madison Smart Bell, now an agent with Ayesha Pande and the author of Narrative Design, a delightfully complex book on story structure. One of Bell’s first questions was, “Do you think suspense is necessary in storytelling?” Bell posited the question to a group of people interested in the craft and art of literary fiction, so his question initially met with silence. But the unspoken answer was that suspense was more of a ploy writers used to buoy a story that didn’t have much else going for it. Over the ensuing days, Bell proved that suspense is essential in all good writing.

However much we want to avoid being on tenterhooks in real life, we like it in stories. It’s safer there. But suspense is important for another reason, one that relates to how we define the word. The dictionary definition is “a feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen”. For storytelling, we could also say that suspense is the intentional withholding and revealing of key elements—information, an event, a change in a character—to create a richer, more gratifying story that is elevated by the very technique we might otherwise relegate to lesser works.

Although we might agree that suspense is necessary to story, we don’t always know how to achieve suspense that works effectively. To use this craft element well, we can ask these questions:

Who in our story will do the work of revealing and withholding?
What form will the reveal and concealment take?
Where in the story should we hold back, and where should we reveal?
When in a scene do we withhold and reveal?
Why is the revelation being withheld or shown?
How much do we reveal and withhold?

While suspense doesn’t equal surprise, one outcome of effective suspense is surprise. A great example appears in Career of Evil, an upmarket crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, writing under the pen name Robert Galbraith. We might figure out who done it or even why before the story ends, but there’s still a surprise at the close. Here’s how the writer used suspense in this instance:

Who: The main character and perpetrator share the reveal, which further solidifies the main character’s reputation as a private investigator.
What: The perpetrator appears as a reliable character who is anything but.
Where: The writer showed the perpetrator early on but in disguise.
When: The ultimate reveal is at the very end of the novel.
Why the revelation is withheld or shown: In this case, the writer both showed the person and kept them hidden. Not even the person closest to the perpetrator had any idea who the individual really was.
How much information is given: Just enough information is provided for the reveal to make sense and not make the reader feel cheated, as when a character comes out of nowhere to claim responsibility.

Leave it to a writer of such consummate skill as Rowling to provide a contemporary example of suspense. And did you notice that I hinted early on at the person I would use as the example without saying so? It’s always good to practice what one posits.

Tip: Effective suspense takes practice. Create a short scene between two people, one with a secret, one who suspects there’s a secret but isn’t sure what it is or who knows it. Use the above questions to render the scene more than one way before deciding how to present it.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s SPD bestselling novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). She also coauthored Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA and was managing editor of Southern Literary Review. Adele received her MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University. Her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

How to Prepare for Publication and Improve Your Writing

2024-07-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

I recently did a seminar on how to prepare a project for publication in today’s volatile climate that offered the unexpected bonus of helping writers improve their skills.

No matter what we write or how long we’ve been writing, it’s hard to get into someone else’s head while we’re crafting and completing a project. But as we begin the submission process, we can get into the mindset of the industry professionals who will consider our work and improve our writing at the same time.

Here’s an overview of what publishing professionals look for in our writing:

Agents seek fresh concepts and the ability to articulate those concepts—in our unique voice. They also look for a polished, fully realized project with enough scope to be full-length. And they require the ability to follow submission guidelines, which will help us, too.
Editors have the same criteria as agents. They also seek projects that complement but don’t duplicate their current projects.
Publishers have the same criteria as agents and editors, but they also look for writers whose works can build an audience and carry the promise of more to come.
Marketers seek writers with staying power but also crave high-concept works. This doesn’t mean the work is superficial, only that it can be presented in a clear, concise and impactful way.

So how can writers improve their writing as they research and work with each category of industry professional?

When querying agents, don’t assume your final version is your final version. While following the submission guidelines, study what the agent is asking for. Loglines, queries, synopses, chapter outlines and marketing proposals are genres in themselves, so treat each item with the same care as you would your manuscript. And don’t send anything without first sending it to yourself. Instead of submitting your materials to all your first-tier agents (or other professionals, if you’re going directly to a publisher) in the first round, stagger your submissions and study the responses. If you don’t receive any, review your materials. In today’s publishing climate, a lack of responses doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done something wrong, only that you’ll likely find ways to improve the quality of what you’re sending.

Consider researching editors who work with your type of project. Find out which writers they work with and what their projects are. Select one that is similar to yours and see where yours differs. This can help you hone that difference to make your project stand out. While doing so, see how the differentiator impacts the project as a whole.

Despite industry volatility, publishers still seek writers with longtail promise. No publisher wants to invest time, energy and finances developing an author only to lose them after the first book. If this sounds like the onboarding phase of starting a new job, it is. Consider what seeds you can plant in your current work that might bear fruit as a sequel or series.

The high concept stories many marketers crave don’t have to be superficial and can use the same techniques as filmmakers, regardless of genre. Here are the seven key elements for fiction and nonfiction, respectively:

Characters / people
Conflict / challenges
Dialogue / conversations or interviews
Plot / events
Scenes / situations
Theme / topic
World-building / location

Additional techniques you can use to prepare your project and hone your writing include beta readers, critique groups, editors, events with a critique element, excerpts, mentors, readings, time and distance. Regardless of what project you’re working on or which publishing route you choose, there’s still no second chance to make a first impression so let’s make that first impression a good one.

If you’d like the full handout from the Page to Publication seminar, including industry resources, or a PDF of the book club study guide of my bestselling novel What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023), on the warp and weft of artistry, ambition and family in bella Italia, email Word for Words.

For more on writing, check out my podcast Adele Annesi on Writing.

The Advantages of Indie

2024-06-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Ridgefield Independent Film Festival (RIFF), now in its ninth consecutive year. I’m a community curator, or screener, for the festival, but this was my first year attending the full event, where it was a delight to meet film afficionados, actors and filmmakers. One particular highlight was the filmmakers’ panel, on the perks and pitfalls of independent filmmaking. As it turns out, these intrepid creatives have a lot in common with writers working with independent presses.

As you might guess, or know firsthand, independent publishing has its disadvantages, including the marketing and distribution of authors’ books. These stark realities became even more evident when on March 28 Small Press Distribution, one of the last remaining independent book distributors in the US, suddenly announced its closure. Thankfully, organizations like the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses stepped in to help independent presses (and authors) get the information they needed to help fill the void left by SPD.

To hear our RIFF filmmakers tell it, they face similar issues. Obstacles range from raising money to securing production staff and equipment, to finding venues, locations and the right actors to play the parts. And all of this is happening while most filmmakers are also writing, directing and producing their own original material. If the challenges of independent filmmaking sound familiar, they should. Writers working with independent publishers face similar obstacles, including marketing their work and getting (and keeping) it before the public. Indie filmmakers face these hurdles, too, underscoring the importance of film festivals like RIFF and book festivals like those of the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association.

So why do indie creatives still put themselves through such wringers?

In the case of indie authors, some have tried the traditional route and either found no room for their work or found the terms set by traditional publishing too stringent. But now, given today’s publishing climate, more authors are making the indie route their first choice. (If you haven’t seen the Oscar-nominated film American Fiction, I’d suggest it.) Indie authors feel they have the talent, stories and entrepreneurial spirit needed to face such efforts. Moreover, they like the freedom of working with independent publishers, who often have the same mindset.

Of all the benefits of an independent route, RIFF filmmakers cited storytelling as the main reason why they feel indie works best. They have stories they believe should be told and feel that, in the end (and the beginning), they’re the best ones to tell those stories. The flip side of the indie coin is that these filmmakers also like collaboration. They enjoy working with editors, sound experts and other industry professionals, because each of these people brings their unique expertise to the table to help shape the filmmakers’ vision for their projects. In essence, indie artists like creative control and have the independent spirit needed to make the most of being in the driver’s seat.

Of course, this isn’t true of everyone in the arts. Many writers, for example, still prefer literary agents to provide a liaison with publishers, help with contracts and help with shaping their projects. And many authors enjoy the prestige of having an agent and a traditional publishing house. But one advantage of today’s often chaotic publishing industry is that authors can decide to change direction, from traditional to indie to hybrid to self-publishing. These choices and their timing no longer depend solely on what works best for the agent or publisher, but also on what works best for the author at that particular stage of their life and vocation.

All things considered, whether for film or publishing, a little independence can go a long way.

For more on the Ridgefield Independent Film Festival, click on RIFF. For more on the closure of Small Press Distribution, click on Publishers Weekly. For more on the Connecticut Writers and Publishers Association, click on CAPA.

Happy writing!

Write Poetry to Stretch Your Creativity

2024-04-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Novelist and short story writer Connie Keller talks about how shifting gears and headspace toward writing poetry expands the writer’s creative muscles and broadens the mind.

Q. As a novelist and short story writer, how have you worked with poetry?
My favorite poetry focuses on images. On seeing something common in a new way. For me, poetry restores the wonder in an object or person I’ve taken for granted. In my work, I use poetic images to deepen the emotion of my writing. Specifically, I use metaphor and simile to add pathos to an object or a situation that could easily be overlooked. Poetic images become a way to show, not tell.

Q. What was the impetus for switching gears in writing this poem?
I’d finished writing a novel and taken a two-month break. But I still felt burned out. A friend who is a poet told me about winter garden poetry. While winter garden poetry was new to me, bringing poetry into the public view was not. The city of Winston-Salem, where I live, began a Poetry in Plain Sight program in 2013 where poetry is displayed in public places. Streets, businesses, even the sides of buses—and I love seeing literary art there.

We often see sculpture in public places, but written art is rarely on view, and you only find it in books and journals. But there’s a movement to put poetry in public spaces, and in the case of a winter garden, poetry is encased in ice and put along a garden walkway where passersby can see it. On a larger scale, the Library of Congress has paired with the National Parks Service to bring famous American poetry into seven of our National Parks.

Q. What was the inspiration for your poem?
Several winters ago, I was taking a walk next to the woods and the bare tree limbs crisscrossing the sky caught my attention. It was as if the sky had turned the branches into lace. I fell in love with that image and planned to use the image in my novel. But I never found a place for it. When I sat down to work on a poem, I remembered the image.

Q. How is writing poetry similar to or different from writing fiction?
I write upmarket fiction, which gives me the opportunity to use words in beautiful ways. But poetry gave me an opportunity to explore an image deeply. Like looking into the facets of a jewel.

Q. What other projects are you working on?
I recently finished a novel, and it’s with my literary agent. I’m pondering another poem. And I’m taking notes on a new novel, which means I’m exploring the characters, the setting, and the plot. From that, I sketch scenes.

Q. What else would you like writers and readers to know?
If it has been a long time since you wrote a poem, or maybe you’ve never written a poem—try it. If it seems too intimidating or new, it might be helpful to have limits. For example, write a poem about an image you’ve had in your head for a while. Or, go on a walk and write a poem about something you saw on your walk. Or, find a literary journal that has a themed issue, and write a poem based on that theme. Remember, you’re writing the poem for the joy of it—to stretch the creative muscles in your mind.

Novelist and short story writer Connie Keller is represented by Chris Bucci of Aevitas Creative Management and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in English from the University of California. Her background includes a variety of experience, from cytogenetic technician to subject indexer to Latin teacher. Connie lives in the Piedmont of North Carolina with her husband and wages a losing war against the deer who always find a way to eat her flowers and vegetables. For more on Connie, visit her Merry Heart blog.

Never the Same Place—Or Person—Twice"

2024-03-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was listening to Saturday Cinema, with radio host Lynne Warfel. In advance of the Oscars, Warfel was featuring academy-award winning films and scores, including The Way We Were, a 1973 film starring Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand as two very different people who share time together. Listening to the theme song and reflecting on the poignancy of the music and film, I was reminded of Marcel Proust’s 1900s novel A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, which literally means in search of times lost. All of us return to places we’ve been and people we’ve known, often in search of the past, and many of us write about characters who, in real time or via flashback, are returning for the same reason. How can writers make the most of a scene or story that features a return?

Most of us like returning to places we’ve enjoyed and people we’ve enjoyed being with. Sometimes we go back because we have to. Since the same is true of our characters, here are questions to consider when writing of a return:

What or who is the person returning to and why?
Are they looking forward to the reunion? Why or why not?
Once they arrive, what are their first impressions? What are these based on?
How will their impressions evolve as time goes by and reality sets in?
What about the place or person is different or the same and why?
What’s different about your character and why?
Do others in the story realize this? How and why?
What are the effects of these realizations on the characters and overall story?
How will the return change the character and others in the work?
What was the character hoping to find?
Did they find it? Why or why not?
What are the disappointments in the return?
What are the benefits and surprises?

If you’re having trouble envisioning the differences in the place or people between then and now, put the people in a scene together, either in an iconic setting or one that’s off the beaten path. Also give them time alone to realize what is different, and why and how this effects everyone’s lives.

To add spice, consider disruptors that would reveal who these people are today and how the place has changed. For example, if you visit Italy, you’re likely to encounter a transit strike—rail, taxi or both. What happens to your main character then? What do they reveal about themselves as they handle the unexpected?

Situations like this also reveal the character to the character. For example, your main character may take a schedule disruption in stride now, but when the person they’re waiting for is late to dinner, they may unravel, wondering why the person is late and what this says about their relationship. How does the character respond when they realize they’re not as cool under this sort of pressure as they once were?

On some level, we know we can’t go back and find the same person or place we left. Yet, returning yields discoveries about the place and the people, and when faced with the effects of time and change, our characters may respond in ways we don’t expect. Instead of censoring them, let the scene play out, and see where it takes you. Times and people past may be lost in one sense, but we can discover a trove of treasures by searching for them all the same.

Try Before You Trust: To All Gentlewomen and Other Maids in Love - Historical Fiction by Constance Briones

2024-02-16T12:34:00.000-08:00

Try Before You Trust: To All Gentlewomen and Other Maids in Love (Historium Press, 2023), by Constance Briones, is an insightful work of historical fiction that captures the best of the genre. Here is an interview with the author on her writing journey with this novel.

What made you choose this particular topic?
I discovered the protagonist of my novel, Isabella Whitney, while researching my Master’s thesis on literacy and women in England during the sixteenth century. Whitney is credited as the first English woman believed to have written original secular poetry for publication in the mid-sixteenth century. I admired her gusty character. She dared to write poems exploring love relations between men and women at a time when religious translations were the only acceptable writing endeavor for women.

Whitney was in her late teens when her first volume of poetry concerning men-women relations was published. The Copy of a Letter (1567), with its adjoining poem, The Admonition of the Author to all young Gentlewomen and all other maids being in Love, were love poems written in the personae of a jilted lover. Whitney presented an unconventional woman’s perspective of how unfairly men treat women in love, which played a role in the debates on women’s nature in the sixteenth century. Her choice to defy the conventions of her day, both in her thinking and actions, impressed me. And I couldn’t help but think she would make a most engaging literary heroine. Another primary consideration for going the fiction route rather than writing a biography is the scant information about Whitney’s life, leading me to tell the story of her journey from maidservant to unemployed domestic to her early success as a poet through historical fiction.

What were your greatest writing challenges and why?
Getting as close as I could to historically authentic language and striking a balance between including too much history or too little history in the story.

How did you address these?
My story takes place in Elizabethan England, so I realized early on that I couldn’t write dialogue as if I were Shakespeare, fearing it would turn people off. So, to promote a better understanding of dialogue, I opted for authenticity, rather than absolute accuracy, to give the reader a taste of the historical language of the period. If I wasn’t sure about a word or a phrase, I used the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which has a word history section. I also read historical fiction by well-known authors such as Allison Weir and Philippa Gregory, who frequently write stories set in 16th-century England.

Since I taught history and am more comfortable with nonfiction writing, my biggest fear has been that my novel would begin to read more like a history book than a story. I followed the advice given to me: to use a combination of narrative exposition, dialogue, and internal thought to convey historical background. And to include it only when it felt pertinent to the story.

What did you enjoy most about writing the novel and why?
I enjoyed building scenes where the reader sees and hears what’s happening, like watching a movie. It was an engaging endeavor to consider the actions and dialogue of my characters in pivotal scenes, contemplating what I would have them do and say that would reveal their true character.

What other projects do you have planned?
I’m researching a possible second historical fiction novel based on the early life of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, the only Southern white women ever to become leading abolitionists. It has long fascinated me that these two sisters from a wealthy family in South Carolina united to oppose the institution of slavery, which was the economic backbone of the South.

What else would you like to add for readers and writers to know?
As a writer edging toward the goal of publication, I found a beta reader service very helpful. The History Quill in London offers a beta readers service, which gave me feedback on my manuscript from a team of real historical fiction readers I didn’t know. The History Quill handpicked the readers based on a questionnaire I completed. The feedback I received was detailed, honest, and very insightful. I appreciate that The History Quill carefully vets their beta readers and ensures that they are a good fit for the story, which means the feedback is of good quality.

Additionally, I had to develop patience in querying agents. Many didn’t respond and said upfront not to expect a response if they were not interested, while others responded quickly with a standard rejection letter. Then, after weeks and even months of waiting, when I least expected it, a few took the time to craft a personal response. I appreciated those who gave praise and encouragement to continue writing. Seeing a small wave of humanity within the money-driven objective of the publishing world made me feel encouraged.

Constance Briones has a Master's in Woman's History and seeks to highlight little-known stories of women in history. She is a contributing writer to Historical Times magazine, and when not writing lends her time as an educational docent for her town's historical society. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and sibling Maine coon cats, Thor and Percy. For more, visit Try Before You Trust: To All Gentlewomen and Other Maids in Love.

The Best Stories Are Yours: Experience and Autofiction

2024-01-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

Writers are often asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” Answers to the question vary, but one common response is—experience.

Memoirists and fiction writers have a lot in common. Besides the fact that most writers now work in both genres, we share a foundation best described by memoirist Vivian Gornick in The Situation and the Story. “Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance … the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say [about the circumstance].”

No fiction genre captures this better than autofiction.

Short for autobiographical fiction, autofiction draws a lot from the writer’s life, especially critical events, turning points, discoveries and lessons. But since autofiction writers aren’t replicating our entire life to create the story, we have more in common with memoirists than autobiographers. We have situations to explore, and we usually have a lot to say about them.

Here are three key features of autofiction:

Names: The names in our stories may be real, including the name of the protagonist.
Parallels: There are key similarities between the writer’s life and that of the protagonist. The protagonist may even be a writer, and the story may explore the role of writing in the character’s (writer’s) life.
Uncertainty: In a genre that already blurs reality, there’s an organic tension over what’s real and what isn’t. This engages the reader in thinking deeply about the work and the protagonist’s (writer’s) life.

Here are three examples of autofiction and why the authors chose this genre:

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019): This work by Ocean Vuong is a letter from a son to a mother that discloses a family history rooted in Vietnam; the story serves as a window into aspects of the son’s life his mother never knew. Normally, our parents (mothers especially, in some cultures) tell us our family history and secrets. This work reverses that tradition.
Every Day Is for the Thief (2015): This bestselling first novel, in diaristic form, by acclaimed Nigerian-American Teju Cole, depicts a young man’s journey to Nigeria to discover his roots. Discovering one’s heritage often generates epiphany, as we suddenly recognize ourselves, for better or worse.
A Death in the Family (2013): One of The Guardian's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, this novel series by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard examines childhood, family and grief. Even without knowing the details of the stories, the order of the trilogy is telling.

If you’re interested in mining your life to develop a work of fiction, try the dreamstorming technique described in From Where You Dream, by Robert Olen Butler. Here is Butler's general principle:

Go to your writing space, and give yourself time to remember, to watch yourself move through your life. The journey doesn’t have to be linear or chronological.
As you recall your life, note critical events, turning points, discoveries and lessons, and why they might figure into your story.

In each case, there is a situation and a corresponding emotional experience that makes the situation memorable, even worth writing about. These are the insights, the wisdom, the thing the writer has come to say about that event. Only you can tell that story.

Resources:

Elements of Fiction, by Walter Mosley: How to master essential fiction elements.
From Where You Dream, by Robert Olen Butler: How to use dreamstorming to reveal story and develop scenes.
Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin: A craft guide to sailing the sea of story.
The Elements of Story, by Francis Flaherty: Nonfiction techniques that work for fiction.
The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick: How to compose and explore the events of life.

When Story Speaks: The All-Important Development Draft

2023-12-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

It's impossible to build a house without a plan, and most architects need more than one to achieve the results their clients envision. The same is true for writers. No one can accomplish everything—story arc, character development, smooth prose—in just one try.

When writers say they wrote a story in one sitting, they usually mean they did little or no revision while putting the initial concept on the page. While this is a great feeling, a strong first or early draft is still just a beginning. The all-important second or development draft is when the real story starts.

While a story or novel may undergo any number of revisions, there are three basic types of drafts: rough, development and final. The main goal of a rough draft is to capture the concepts emerging from the writer’s imagination while creative fires burn hottest. The main goal of a final draft is polish. The development draft’s main goals are exploration and discovery. Here’s why these goals are important and how to achieve them.

Many writers assume their initial story is the story they’ll end up with. But seeing story this way eliminates opportunities because writers don’t know to look for them. Like experienced hikers, skilled writers keep their minds, eyes and efforts open. Stories can offer up gems if we’re looking for them.

Step 1 — Mindset: Assume the story you’ve written isn’t the final version. Also assume there are discoveries to be made, large and small. To that end, think through your story and list which aspects you’d like to examine for opportunities.
Step 2 — Explore: When hikers travel new terrain, they’re looking to learn the surroundings. In familiar territory, they’re looking for what’s different. It’s never the same river twice. Writers can take the same approach by asking one simple question of their main and even secondary characters. What secrets are you still keeping, from others, from yourself, from me as the writer?
Step 3 — Observe: Practiced hikers know that all areas vary by season, time of day and weather so watchful travelers pay attention to changes in landscape and wildlife. Apart from the fact that vigilance could save their lives, they’re alert to changes because variations enhance the hiking experience.

Writers can take a similar approach by asking these questions of their stories:

What do I notice now that I didn’t before? How will this impact the overall story and the people in it?
How might I incorporate these changes to advance plot and develop character at the same time.

When we’re open to opportunities, actively seeking them and turning over rocks to find where they’re hiding, we’re usually (pleasantly) surprised at what we discover. If this means we need to expand the story or flesh out the characters, we may need to trim or remove other aspects.

Just as hikers want to avoid excess baggage, so do we. So do readers. Whether growing our narratives or reducing them, we can’t assume that a strong first or early draft means we’re done. Instead, we can assume the opposite. The strongest drafts often yield the most precious gems.

Happy writing!

The Role of Research in the Art of Fiction & Novel Writing

2023-10-28T13:38:00.002-07:00

One reason I started writing fiction was to avoid research. It wasn’t long before I realized that research is an essential tool and skill required for all writing, including and perhaps especially novel writing.

But what is the role of research in fiction, particularly the art of it?

One problem most, if not all, fiction writers and novelists encounter is how to depict a difficult scene where what is happening is illegal, immoral, offensive. How does the writer present the reality, its causes, and its effects, especially when research only underscores that what is happening is wrong?

One role of research is to inform the reality, the verisimilitude, of a scene, a story, the characters. Why are they doing what they’re doing? Where and how did their current actions originate? What caused them? What will their outcome be? But what happens when research only serves to underscore that the scene we are depicting will be difficult, even off-putting, for the audience?

One option might be to discard research altogether and simply write the scene. But when research is viewed as subordinate to and supportive of fiction, particularly the novel, it can do more for the writer than simply provide information. In order to create fiction, even long-form fiction at the level of art, research can inform the writer, the story and the characters. But research must not dictate the characters or the story. Nor should research dictate art.

Rather, one intention of art is to reflect the reality of the world and to elevate and underscore the truth of that reality, in all its beauty and ugliness.

As the Japanese filmmaker and painter Akira Kurosawa has said, “To be an artist means to search, to find and look at these realities. To be an artist means to never look away.”

A difficult subject or story, or difficult characters, are not sufficient cause in themselves to discard their darker side. For one role of art is to say, “This is what is.”

This does not mean that the writer, the artist, should pander to the senses, the desire for stimulation. What it does mean is making use of both light and darkness in our stories and the people in them, as painters such as Caravaggio and Vermeer have done.

The necessary outcome of the use of light and shadow back to back, the chiaroscuro effect, is precisely that we cannot see the extent of darkness unless light is right alongside it, nor can we see the extent of light unless darkness is right alongside it.

World-Building Your Story: Four Key Components

2023-09-06T10:47:00.002-07:00

Our world has a lot going on. No surprise there. But stepping back, we could say that our very big (or very small) world has four main components—people, place, period, populace. Depending on the genres we write in, these may not look anything like what we see on earth, but we still need to fully develop each part, for ourselves and our readers.

People
While we’re using the word people here, fiction can comprise any type of living being. One writer created a story world where flowers were the life representatives. Ask these questions when creating and developing the beings in your story:

What types of beings will inhabit my story world?
Which characteristics will they share and which will differentiate them?
What does “life” mean in my story and to those in it?
How will my characters depend on each other and themselves?
To what degree will those in my story change, evolve, grow, die, remain the same?
What effects will these realities have on them and their world?
How will I address ethnicity, race, diversity, and how does this connect to what my story is about?

Place
Where your story happens can be cosmic and epic, small as a mouse hole, visible or invisible, or anything in between. Here’s what to consider about the place(s) where your story happens:

Where is my story set? Is it urban, suburban, rural, a combination?
How well do I know the setting(s)?
What research do I need to do, and where can I go to find approximations of my setting?
Why have I chosen these places, and how will they impact the story and those in it?
How does place fit the theme of my story, what the story is about?
Does it fit the scope or size of the story?
Does the setting serve as a metaphor for the theme?
What is the landscape of my story; what does/do the location(s) look like?
How will I connect place with those who inhabit it?

Period
On the surface, the choice of when the story is set seems simple. The three basics are past, present, future. But there’s a lot to consider here, too, such as:

Will I choose only one of these or work with more than one?
Why am I making these choices?
How will the time(s) when the story is set effect the characters and plot?
How well do I know this era?
If I’m not familiar with it or am constructing one from scratch, what do I need to learn to accurately depict it?
What does this period look like, meaning the architecture?

Populace
In this case, populace means society and culture. Of all the components, this is perhaps the most intricate and the one most shaped by and responsible for shaping the others. Key components of society include education, freedom, maturity, customs, traditions, languages, values, governance, styles of dress, art, and how wisdom and information are passed along. Here are considerations when building this very important aspect of your story world:

What place does education have in my story world, and how does it impact life in my story?
How free is the culture, and will this element improve or decline? How is freedom defined in this story?
How advanced is the culture, and will it evolve or devolve?
What are the story’s customs and traditions, and how do these impact those in my story?
Which languages are spoken, and to what degree do these connect people, separate them, both?
What are the culture’s values, and where do they come from? Will they change? If so, how? And what effects will this have on the story and people?
What style of governance does my story world have, and how does this impact life and story?
What are the styles of dress and art, and how do these reflect those in my story and their values?
How are wisdom and information passed along, for example, in oral tradition, advanced technology, written form? What do these forms look like?

Answering Tough Questions
The aspects of our world are many and complex. The four main categories of world-building—people, place, period, populace—and the questions surrounding them are meant to stir our imagination as writers so that we create detailed, believable story worlds that captive readers and make us better, deeper writers.

Tips
To personalize and deepen your mapping strategy, add questions of your own. When making choices, ask yourself why you’re making them. The answers to this question, possibly more than any other, will help get you where you want to go.

Resource: Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin, a guide to sailing the sea of story.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi is an award-winning writer, editor and teacher. Her new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). Adele was managing editor of Southern Literary Review and has taught writing for Westport Writers’ Workshop. She received her MFA from Fairfield University. Adele’s long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Her website is Adele Annesi. For questions, email Word for Words.

I Can See Clearly Now: Patterns in Long-Form Fiction

2023-07-10T11:00:00.005-07:00

Sometimes writers don’t think much about the form a story will take because stories often seem to take on a shape of their own. But writers of long-form fiction should be aware that all stories have a shape, or pattern, and that they can craft and mold that pattern to suit their vision for the work. First, what do we mean by “pattern”?

In the classic reference work Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster refers to pattern as the shape a longer work takes because of the choices the characters make. Here’s an easily recognizable pattern.

Our characters meet, their lives converge, then their lives ebb and recede, with each going their own way. Whether or not we or our readers stop to note the pattern, it draws us in because it's recognizable, and familiar patterns enable us to feel comfortable with the story and the characters, as if we’re traveling a familiar road but with a new group of friends (or enemies).

Then there’s the story pattern Forster calls the "grand chain," where characters appear in short bursts then return for short bursts. Having our characters strut and fret their brief moments on the stage then repeat the action works well in humoristic pieces, where tone and timing are key.

No matter which pattern we writers create, we need to be aware of the following:

Whether or not a story’s pattern is familiar, every story has one. Many stories have more than one.
One way to know what our story’s pattern is and how we can discern it is to read the work and mark each major decision the main character(s) make, then track the results or effects of these decisions, asking these questions:

Do the choices draw the characters closer to each other or disperse them?
Do the choices strengthen reader engagement or distance it?
Which of these effects do we want? Which work best for the story?

Patterns can be shaped. For instance, maybe our characters make a lot choices early in the story but few later on. In a case like this, readers may engage with the work early on and lose interest.

One way to avoid this is to recalibrate our characters’ choices and where they make them. Think of your car or cell’s GPS. Choosing a route that differs from the GPS’s instructions can alter your entire journey.

Patterns make a difference—to the characters, the story, the reader, everything. To get a sense of this, we need to give our stories time and distance then come back and read them through, asking:

Where does my story sag (low interest), lag (lose pacing), pick up speed (mover faster, maybe too fast)?
To correct these common problems, consider what different choice(s) your character(s) could make at these crucial junctures and how the choices impact the rest of the story.

Patterns appeal to our aesthetic sense because they provide symmetry and enable us to discern the story as a whole. While we writers continually make decisions about what our characters do, the place to rethink our choices and theirs is in revision. Here, we can do what Nathalie Goldberg referred to Writing Down the Bones as “re-seeing” the work and making organic adjustments that enhance the story, maybe even raise the stakes.

So in the classic pattern noted above, what if instead of having the characters meet, converge and go their separate ways the writer decides that the characters never meet. Instead, the main character spends their life seeking the object of their desire. If the story is about someone with selfish motives, thwarting their efforts and showing how the character responds can reveal (show versus tell) just how self-centered they were in the first place. A classic film with this theme is All About Eve.

So how do writers work with pattern in long-form fiction? Consider these questions:

Have you planned your story’s pattern or simply plotted the story?
At which points in the story do your characters make life-altering decisions?
What happens to the characters and the story as a result of these choices?
How can you tighten the story to strengthen the pattern, for example, by eliminating an unnecessary character or plot thread?

Whether or not we writers plan our story patterns, we certainly have a plan for our stories. The key is knowing that patterns exist and how to shape those patterns for what we want to achieve. Like us, our characters make decisions, then their decisions make them—and more.

For questions, email Word for Words.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi is an award-winning writer, editor and teacher. Her new novel is What She Takes Away (New York: Bordighera Press, 2023). Adele was managing editor of Southern Literary Review and received her MFA from Fairfield University. She teaches for Westport Writers’ Workshop. Her website is Adele Annesi.

Yearning and an Impetus for Art

2023-06-12T08:31:00.003-07:00

Fiction and nonfiction writers frequently push the boundaries of creativity, even those set by Pulitzer Prize-winning writers like Robert Olen Butler, author of From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. Yet, Butler offers practical methods for going from craft to art, especially with the oft-missing element of yearning.

Some form of desire exists in most stories, real and imagined. But depictions of what a person or character desires often fall short because they’re rendered through unartistic forms, such as abstractions, analyses, generalizations, interpretations and summaries. These have their place in writing, but not so much in storytelling, where there are better ways to go from heart to art.

Yearning, per se, isn’t story, but it often drives story, or good stories anyway. When readers are invited inside a character, they start caring about what that person wants and whether she’ll get it. And the deeper the yearning (more in type than intensity) the more artful the story and the higher the stakes. So how does a story reach these goals?

Butler offers the example of James Joyce, who used "epiphany" to refer to the moment in a story when its essence appears. Butler suggests that stories actually have two epiphanies—one at the climax (the type of epiphany Joyce referred to) and one that should happen near the story’s start. Cluing the reader in to what the main subject of the work yearns for adds interest and momentum. And it can raise the stakes. Given these realities, here are two considerations:

A person may yearn for one thing at the start of a story or novel and find out by the end that he has grown enough to want more; whether or not he gets it is another aspect of the story. The reverse may also be true.
A character may start with specific desires, peruse them and get exactly what she wants. There is also the possibility of desire within desire, similar to what in journalism is called the "real story." So what a person may seem to want or thinks she wants isn’t what she really wants, and her journey of realization becomes part of the storyline.

Both of these considerations involve discovery and generate natural opportunities for conflict, the lifeblood of story, real or imagined. And the stronger the yearning, and the tougher the obstacles, the more tension and conflict.

One way to raise the stakes in a story and the level of writing is to reveal and explore a person’s intangible longings—for example, for respect, a sense of self as distinct from others, for recognition, permanence or legacy, a place in the world or in the heart of someone else.

Examining these deeper desires in a book or novel opens the door to artful writing. For this, Butler advocates tilling the soil of the writer's imagination and past experience. This allows events, turning points and discoveries—as well as imaginings—to emerge from the compost of memory or from sheer imagination into the light of day before they’re dismissed by the writer's internal editor or shaped by craft before they’re fully realized.

This is where Butler's “dreamstorming” technique comes into play. Here, Butler suggests that writers find a writing space away from distractions and let their minds wander within the context of the story. Instead of immediately stopping to write what emerges, Butler recommends that writers keep pen and paper handy and only jot down a word or phrase to describe what comes to mind so as not to stem the flow of what they’re remembering or imagining.

Later, writers can amplify their notes and recollections into scenes without worrying about what each scene means to the overall work. These revelations usually come in draft two anyway. This is where the writer sees a character's real yearning and can portray it more artfully because the writer’s vision of who the person is and what she wants is clearer. "The point of revision is to find meaning," Butler notes.

Revision also enables writers to recognize and remove the vagaries of abstraction and generalizations, as well as those enemies of story—analyses, interpretations and summaries—in favor letting the people in the story reveal who they are and what they really want, whether they get it all or not.

Happy writing!

Write to Remember, Discover and Learn

2023-05-10T11:47:00.006-07:00

Sometimes we write to remember. Sometimes as we write and remember, we discover.

A writer often intuits when a character in a novel isn't fully realized. And since characters are like actors in that there are no small characters, only insufficient depictions, it’s important to make sure all characters, especially main characters, are their fullest selves. With a little imagination and strategizing, writers can glimpse more of who characters are and render them more fully.

One way to flesh out a scantily drawn character is to put the person in two scenes back to back, the first facing a tough situation alone, then next with others who know the circumstances.

How the character acts and reacts, what they think and feel, in both settings reveals them. You don’t have to retain this order in the final version of the story; it’s more of an exercise to open the character to the writer and, ultimately, to the reader.

This approach also helps the writer determine which aspects and how much of the character to show through what happens internally and how much is better shown through how they act outwardly.

Striking a balance between internality and externality is important. Showing what’s happening to a person on the inside gives the reader insight into the character, sometimes even before the character reaches the same awareness.

When writers face the unknown in developing a story or someone in that story, they can think back to when they were in a similar situation and ask themselves these questions:

How did they react?
What did they reveal about themselves when alone?
What did they reveal when faced with the reality that someone else knew?

Answering these more personal questions gives the writer a place to begin. From there, they can ask themselves how the character is similar and how the person is different.

If the writer decides to incorporate these personal experiences into their fiction, they may find the task difficult. One way to accomplish this is to write quickly through the memories and moments.

In situations like these, writers are free to break the rules, for example, in these ways.

Tell the story instead of showing it, and use awkward sentence structures.
If you’re writing in first person and feel too close to the story, try writing what the character is thinking and feeling in third person.
If you feel too far removed from the character or are writing in third person, try first person.
To more fully realize scenes, add stage directions. You can remove the scaffolding later.

Once you’ve gone through these steps, put the work aside for a few days. Then, go back and chip away the plaster and dismantle the framework.

You’ll usually find clearer characters, scenes and even settings. And if the story has some basis in fact that is hard to write about, time and distance will help.

Realize, too, that there really is no such thing as going back to the past, even one’s own. It’s never the same river twice. Your story is going someplace new, with new people.

Remember also that the same principals apply in stories as in life. New relationships, especially deep ones, are hard to form. And they take work. And time. And, oftentimes, they're awkward.

Lessons like these harken to William Zinsser's Writing to Learn. In this classic, Zinsser addresses how writing helps people learn difficult subjects. The more clearly a writer can speak to a topic or depict a person or story the more clearly the writer reveals these elements to herself and her readers.

We writers often know when a character isn't fully realized and sometimes tell ourselves they’re only a small character who’s not en scene very often. But these are missed opportunities to enable characters to be their fullest selves.

We owe readers our best. We owe it to ourselves as writers, too.

Happy writing!

Adele Annesi’s new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, May 2023).

The Subtle Persuasion of Poetry in Prose

2023-04-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

“I'm a failed poet,” wrote twentieth-century novelist and short-story writer William Faulkner, author of Light in August and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. Faulkner also said it might be true that all novelists start out wanting to write poetry and when they find they can't, they try the short story. Then failing that, they finally try writing novels. Regardless of a writer’s interest or genre, there’s much to learn from the precision, imagery and persuasiveness of poetry.

Like most people, writers don't have a lot of spare time, and when they do, they may not naturally gravitate toward poetry because they have other projects that take precedence. And for the writer immersed in prose, a poem can feel too much like an alien landscape, an inaccessible world. Yet, poems often have an elemental, Edenic quality that invites readers in and bids them stay a while.

On particularly harried days, writers can find the clean, spare language of poetry to be a balm. Yet, poems can also provide lessons and examples. For instance, one evocative noun can replace a string of adjectives and create a clear picture that opens the door of story for readers. A writer who makes deliberate word choices says, in essence, "I want you to know what this is about, who the people in this story are."

This isn't the same as giving away the entire premise or plot upfront. Instead, it creates an atmosphere of trust that engages readers and encourages them to read on.

Poets often say that poetry is all about imagery. At first blush, may sound like poets craft their pieces only for the senses, not for substance. But when an image accurately conveys what the poet intended, substance is implied.

The corollary for the writer is a well-grounded scene that reveals character and advances plot, preferably both at once. Even misleading scenes, when done intentionally and well, have their place. Where would mysteries and thrillers and thrillers be without them?

One surprising aspect of poetry that's just as useful to prose writers is the artful ability to persuade. Small, subtle words like "so" and "for" and "since", unobtrusive in their commonality, are woven into a poem’s fabric to draw the reader to the poet's perspective. From there, the message conveyed through language is conjured by words that rise gently from the page to form a picture in the reader's mind.

And for poets and prose writers alike, if there is no image, there is no scene, and if there is no scene there is no story.

Often accused of being inaccessible, poetry isn't always understandable. Neither are people, or life. Yet, even when understanding doesn't arise, images still appear, with the intentionality of the chosen words giving those images substance.

Whether we read or write poems, prose or both, less is often more, and in such simplicity one often finds rest.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
"Auguries of Innocence," William Blake

Happy writing! Adele Annesi is an award-winning author, editor and teacher. For questions on writing, email Adele Annesi. Adele’s new novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press)