Category Archives: #writetip

Writing a Novel is Like Building a Chicken Coop

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I spent the last nine days on vacation. Well, a “staycation” filled with manual labor in severe heat and humidity. Yes, I’m getting too old for this crap, but there is a silver lining — I never need to build another chicken coop! We built this one to withstand anything New England weather can throw at us.

As I’ve mentioned a time or two, I’m a mother to 17 chickens (among other furred, feathered, or skinned kids). In my last update, I had six adult hens and 11 female chicks, who lived in a temporary nursery coop in my house. When they grew big enough to transition into another temporary coop inside the barn, we knew we only had about three weeks before they needed to be integrated into the adult flock.

As an overprotective mom, it’s nerve-wracking and emotional to release the apron strings (they may have stayed in the house two extra weeks because of this), but the babies needed to learn the ins and outs of chicken society and hierarchy on their own. It’s something their father and I can’t provide. They must learn these life lessons from older and bigger flock members.

Thankfully, the flock leader is Flo, an angelic white brahma with a visible glowing aura.

click to enlarge

Ever seen anything like her? We haven’t, nor do we know why she glows.

Who else would be queen? Flo’s been a born leader since she was two days old. She’s strict — no one messes with Flo — and loving and fair. No unnecessary bullying allowed, but a good, hard peck here and there to keep the younglings in line is part of life. You might remember Biff, her 2nd in command and the muscle for the flock, from this post.

Though the adults have a coop inside the barn, they only had a temporary pen set up in the yard. We did this on purpose until the babies could integrate into the flock, or the adults might’ve gotten overly territorial. This way, everyone could experience their new space together.

The day after the building supplies arrived, we used our vacation to build this monstrous 10’ x 8’ x 8’ coop, with a chicken door that allows them entry into the barn to egg in private. We also keep an extra 5 gallons of water in the barn to keep it cool from the summer heat.

Building a chicken coop and writing a novel both require us to balance high-level creativity with rigid, technical constraints. Both are parallel journeys of messy, structural creation. And I’m not the only one to draw that parallel…

Author William Faulkner famously connected the two:

“Writing a novel is like building a chicken coop in a high wind—you grab any board you find and nail it down fast.”

Before laying out the 4×4 wood foundation, we needed flat, level ground to support the walls and roof.

Some writers create an outline, others might only have a beginning, middle, and an end. Some might not even have that. Your writing process doesn’t matter, if you ensure the story has a solid foundation to support the plot.

We dug trenches and buried wire to protect our flock from predators.

A novel needs tight boundaries to keep out plot-destroying distractions, like irrelevant subplots and tangents that threaten to kill the story’s momentum. 

Posts and beams support the roof and walls of the coop.

Major plot points support the story.

Rather than run posts 16 inches apart like you would for a house, we spaced them out to create an aviary style coop. To achieve this, we needed to run horizontal beams as well.

Rather than characters running straight from the start to the end, writers add setbacks, conflict, tension, character growth, and subplots.

Some coop builders install drop trays or “poop shelves” under roosting bars because chickens create an immense amount of waste. The dirt floor in our coop works the same way.

See the parallel to a “shitty first draft”?

Though I don’t buy into the argument that every first draft sucks, most writers embrace the reality that early drafts can be messy, disorganized, or in need of a rewrite. The editing process is the literary equivalent of raking the coop floor to keep a clean environment.

Once we built the frame and roof, we wrapped the coop with vinyl-coated, metal poultry mesh. Which is so much easier to work with than chicken wire. We still need to paint, tuck the roof under the edges, and add natural branches for extra roosts. They love their new digs!

Writers need to edit, polish the imagery, adjust the cadence, and fix grammatical errors until the prose feels smooth and deliberate.

*Please disregard the mess around the coop. It’s a work in progress.

The one-foot pitch of the roof is intentional for snow to slide off the side, rather than land in the walkway.

 

What IS That Smell?

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We all know how distinct odors can enhance a scene. What does buttery popcorn evoke in you? What about freshly baked apples? Or steamed lobster? Or a campfire?

Those are all wonderful smells that make us feel happy, excited, or content. However, fiction shouldn’t only include pleasant or comforting scenes, or the narrative feels fake. Real life isn’t all rose petals (another great smell). So, why do some writers shy away from rank or offensive odors?

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions or will.”

— Patrick Süskind, author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

I’m one of those strange people who love the smell of blood. When I read “a metallic” or “irony” stench, it doesn’t elicit a shocked or fearful response in me. You know what does elicit a visceral response? Stress sweat.

Stress sweat has a very distinctive smell, which only occurs during times of “flight or fight.”

I heard a reference to it recently in a movie. One character said to another, “Why does stress sweat stink worse than regular sweat?” And I thought, huh, they’re right. Why does it smell worse?

Down the research rabbit hole, I dove. What I discovered blew my mind. Now, I’m sharing it with you because, y’know, that’s what writers do. Perhaps you can use some of this research to add realism to your story.

Stress Sweat

Stress sweat has a unique pungent odor because it’s produced by the apocrine glands (located in the armpits and groin), rather than the standard eccrine glands used for heat regulation. Triggered by adrenaline, this sweat is thicker, milky, and rich in proteins and lipids (fats). Skin bacteria feed on these nutrients, and produce volatile, odorous compounds.

The Science of Sweat

When we are hot or exercising, our body uses eccrine glands to cool down. This sweat is 99% water and salt, with almost no odor. However, psychological stress triggers our “fight or flight” response, which releases hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones activate the apocrine glands, located in areas with high concentrations of hair follicles, like underarms and groin.

The resulting stress sweat stands out due to the following reasons:

  • Nutrient-Rich Fluid: Unlike watery exercise sweat, apocrine glands secrete a thick, milky fluid packed with proteins, lipids (fats), and fatty acids.
  • The Bacterial Feast: The bacteria naturally living on your skin thrive on these fats and proteins. As the bacteria consume and break down these nutrients, they produce volatile organic compounds that emit a sharp, foul odor.
  • Massive Volume Increase: When our body enters “fight or flight” mode, our underarms can secrete roughly 30 times more sweat than when we are at rest. This creates excess food for the bacteria, which intensifies a sudden concentration of body odor.

Several factors, including sex, genetics, age, and diet can influence the type of odor that an individual emits. In fact, it has been suggested that, like a fingerprint, every individual’s body odor is unique and may be partly determined by genetics.

Ever lost a loved one and clung to their pillow, hoping and praying their scent would never fade?

Men have larger sweat glands and generally produce more sweat than women.

Fun Fact: Deodorants contain chemicals that kill skin flora and block production of stinky byproducts. Antiperspirants reduce the amount of sweat by clogging sweat glands. Many contain aluminum chloride, which creates a gel-like substance that forms a plug at the sweat ducts in the skin.

Biological Triggers for Other Offensive Body Odors

Sickness/Infection Odor (Volatile Organic Compounds)

Diseases change body chemistry. Diabetic ketoacidosis smells like rotting apples. Liver failure smells musty or fishy. Infected wounds smell sweet and sickeningly fruity due to specific bacteria. For some reason, I can detect the infection smell quite early. Not sure why I’m sensitive to it, but I’ve helped more than one animal before the infection spread enough to be noticeable. Maybe that’s my superpower. 🙂

In early stages, humans cannot detect the smell of cancer, but dogs can…

Dogs have up to 300 million scent receptors compared to humans’ 5 or 6 million, allowing them to detect scents in parts per trillion. They detect cancer by smelling specific Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) released by bodily tissues when cancer alters the body’s metabolism and cellular chemistry.

Often, what people detect as a “cancer smell” is actually a side effect of chemotherapy. Patients receiving treatment may excrete chemical byproducts through their skin and fluids, leading to odors described as metallic, like burnt hair, or like ammonia/chlorine.

Starvation/Dehydration Breath (Ketones & Decreased Saliva)

When someone’s saliva dries up, anaerobic bacteria multiply, causing a dead, sulfurous breath. If they enter starvation, their body burns fat for fuel. This creates chemical or metallic acetone breath.

Plants & Animals

Flowers produce fragrances as an evolutionary strategy to attract pollinators and ensure reproduction, and many species of insects, fish, and mammals emit peculiar odors to attract mates. In fact, male brown lemmings can tell whether a female has ever mated simply by her odor.

The Evolutionary Purpose

Scientists believe stress sweat served an evolutionary function. In early human history, stress sweat acted as a chemo-signal to warn others of danger. Studies have shown when humans smell the stress sweat of others, their brains automatically become more alert and are more likely to perceive neutral cues as potential threats.

Chemical Signaling (Olfactory Communication)

Humans evolved to unconsciously detect the chemical composition of fear and anxiety. When others detect these specific odors, it triggers increased alertness and vigilance in their own brains, warning them of unseen dangers.

Enhanced Grip for Survival

Sweating on the palms and soles is an evolutionary adaptation intended to dampen the skin, which improves friction and grip when we need to run, climb, or fight for our lives.

Predator Deterrence

Some evolutionary biologists theorize that putting off a sharp, unappealing scent when terrified may have helped startle or deter predators evaluating the vulnerability of prey.

I found more information on how the aging body’s chemistry changes (i.e., the smell of nursing homes), but I had to stop before this post turned into a book.

For fun, what’s your favorite smell? What smell churns your stomach acids? Are there any smells you’re overly sensitive to?

Brave or TSTL?

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Is Your Character Brave or TSTL (Too Stupid to Live)?

We’ve all seen it on TV or in a mystery/suspense novel. We may have even done it. You know — cue the dark music with a serial killer on the loose…the heroine hears a noise in the basement, opens the door, and the dark stairwell lures her down the steps… all the while you’re yelling, “Don’t go down the stairs!”

The thing is, authors want to show that their character is brave. I get that. I really do. But that’s not the way to do it, trust me—I know. Before I was published, I entered my first book in a prestigious writing contest that offered feedback. My heroine knew she had a stalker, had even just received a threatening note from him, but she still parked her car and walked a quarter mile in the dark to her mailbox where she was attacked before she made it back to the house. One of the judges wrote in the margin: TSTL—she knew there was a probability her stalker was out there and she stupidly put herself in danger. It was a painful lesson, but it drove home the point.

Granted, there are times when the author needs that heroine to go down those basement steps when everyone is yelling for her to slam the door and run. The thing is, you have to give your character a VERY good reason to go against all that is sane. She could be a police officer responding to a call, but even police officers wait for backup. Most of the time.

It’s all in the way you set it up.

If you want your character do something that seems insane, give him a reason the reader will understand and even urge him to hurry and do—like saving a baby or adult or even a pet. People run into burning buildings all the time to save someone, so just make sure the reason they act against their own best interest is compelling and maybe the only option open.

Here are a few scenarios I’ve seen:

  • The heroine gets angry with the hero and runs out of his presences into the dark even though she’s just learned she’s being stalked.
  • After being afraid of heights through the whole book, the hero can suddenly climb a fire escape and jump from building to building.
  • The heroine goes to a bad part of the city to find her brother even though she knows there’s a gang war going on.
  • In a historical, the heroine needs water to finish a meal and in spite of being warned not to go to the creek alone, thinks this one time won’t hurt.

So how to fix it:

In each of the cases, a slight variation could make what the character did reasonable.

  • What if instead of getting angry with the hero, he’s hurt, and she has to go for help or he’ll die?
  • Instead of having the hero be afraid of heights the whole book, have him slowly overcome his fear so that when he has to climb the fire escape and jump from building to building, he still has to overcome his fear, but because he’s been making headway with it, he bravely tries.
  • Instead of the heroine going into the city alone, the hero can accompany her, but they get separated, and she has to face the gang members alone, but at least she didn’t go into it alone.
  • Instead of needing water to finish a meal, set the story up so that a medical need requires the water—like a baby being born or someone has been wounded and the water is needed to cleanse the wound—that will make going to the creek understandable and the character a hero.

Readers will suspend disbelief or temporarily allow themselves to believe something is true even though it seems impossible as long as the author lays the foundation for the impossibility. It’s up to the author to set up the action in the story so that when your character does something brave, the reader doesn’t wonder if he’s too stupid to live.

Ok, TKZers, what would make you run into a burning building that’s only smoking so far.

What Is One’s Shadow Self?

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I’ve been researching one’s Shadow Self for a different site, but it’s such an intriguing topic, I thought I’d share what I learned with you, as well.

First, let’s rewind to how I landed on this topic.

The other night, I was listening to 100 Sleepy Facts About Psychology on the Sleepy Science Channel to fall asleep. Might as well learn a few things while sleeping, right? Many facts slip by me — first and foremost, my objective is to sleep — but my unconscious mind is taking notes. You never know what might resurface in the WIP.

On this particular night, I caught the narrator veer into a segment about how writers’ minds differ from others. I love brain science, evident by this post, and this one, and here, as well. Many people can’t access the unconscious mind without guidance or psychological help, but writers tap into it all the time while in the zone. It’s how we write scenes that we have no memory of writing.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this scenario…

After the first draft is complete — before or after the manuscript cools to create critical distance — you return to page one and read till the end to assess continuity. And 9.99 times out of 10, you’ll come across at least a few scenes that you don’t recall writing. If you’re a writer who regularly accesses “the zone,” you might find entire chapters that feel unfamiliar, like someone else wrote those parts.

Ever notice a recurrent theme, crime, or character type across an author’s entire body of work? The writer might not even be aware of the similarities. Consciously or not, they’re re-probing these areas to make sense of them. When our unconscious mind takes over, it’s often our most authentic writing. Hence why we often strive to reach the zone.

One’s Shadow Self lives in this space between our conscious and unconscious mind, and the zone helps us access it. Most people try to suppress their Shadow Self. Writers explore it to help us craft villains, characters we would hate in real life, and/or the ugly side of humanity.

Readers can also access their Shadow Self; they’re more self-aware than non-readers.

Fiction provides a safe, liminal space to confront repressed emotions, fears, and taboo subjects. If a reader is engaged in a storyline that evokes strong emotional reactions, like anger, envy, jealously, greed, etc., the book acts as a mirror to reveal hidden parts of the reader’s personality — parts they may not be aware of till the author forces them to face their Shadow Self.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung introduced the term Shadow Self. Rodney Luster, PhD at Psychology Today said, “His perspective, however, may have taken inspiration from Austrian Neurologist Sigmund Freud, who had explored this aspect of the unconscious mind and used words like shadow, melancholia and projection to depict how people might act on repressed issues.” Luster also added:

In Jung’s disposition, he believed the shadow aspect of our self as “a thing a person has no wish to be” (Perry, 2015). He also described it as the part of our psyche containing the hidden aspects of our personality that we reject or hide from others, even ourselves. These hidden aspects often include our impulses, desires, and personal qualities that society may deem socially negative or unacceptable (Jung, 1953). Essentially then, the shadow-self is considered by many to be the darker, looming side of our personality that we are less willing to engage or recognize (Lonngi, 2024).

Shadow Theory, also coined by Jung, defines the “shadow” as the unconscious, repressed, or unacknowledged aspects of personality — both negative (anger, greed) and positive (creativity, passion) — that the conscious ego rejects. These hidden traits are often projected onto others and, if unintegrated, can dictate behavior.

Light and darkness reside within us all.

Jungian expert Robert A. Johnson, author of Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, added more clarification about one’s Shadow Self:

It is possible to project from the shadow the very best of oneself onto another person or situation. Our hero-worshiping capacity is pure shadow; in this case, our finest qualities are refused and laid on another. It is hard to understand, but we often refuse to bear our noble traits and instead find a shadow substitute for them…Our own healing proceeds from that overlap of what we call good and evil, light and dark. It is not that the light element alone does the healing; the place where light and dark begin to touch is where miracles arise.

So, TKZers, have you heard the term “shadow self”? If so, are you able to access it while writing?

Character Arc Secrets: The Four Beat Formula

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Character Arc Structure: 1. Act 1 through Act 2a: Living the Lie. Mid-Point Illumination and Commitment. 2. Act 2b: Trial by Fire. Skill, Courage, Consistency. 3. Act 3: Proof Under Maximum Pressure. thepitchmaster.com

If your story’s middle sometimes feels like a long, suspiciously quiet hallway…good news: the midpoint is where the lights flip on and the music changes. This is the hinge that turns a character’s inner journey from their Lie to the Truth, and it fuels the entire back half of your plot.

Characters have three things pushing them through the story:

  • The lie they believe about themselves or the world.
  • What they want. Their want is often a plot goal like money or power.
  • Their true want. What they need to be the best version of themselves or.

All three things make up their character arc.

But the midpoint is where your protagonist moves from operating from his lie to his true want. He thinks and acts differently from that point. This midpoint shift can be confusing because it sounds like the character arc is finished halfway through the story.

The midpoint isn’t the end of the character arc—it’s the turning of the arc. Before midpoint, your protagonist is run by his lie. At the midpoint, something forces a reframe. He glimpses his true want and pivots his intentions and strategy. But knowing his truth and living it under pressure are not the same thing.

Think of the character arc in four beats:

Acts 1 → Act 2A: Living the Lie. They chase goals with lie-based tactics. These work short-term but generate deeper costs.

Midpoint: Illumination & Commitment. A revelation/defeat/victory reframes reality. The hero consciously commits to a new approach that aligns with his true want. This is the cognitive and directional switch: new plan, new tactics, new why.

Act 2B: Trial by Fire (Skill, Courage, Consistency). The world now tests that commitment. The hero practices what he needs but doesn’t stay there. He wins some, backslides some, and pays rising costs. Enemies adapt. Consequences tighten.

Act 3: Proof under Maximum Pressure. After the ​Dark Night of the Soul​, the hero must operate from what he needs when it’s hardest. The climactic choice is the final exam: no help, no safety net, high stakes. Here is the arc complete.

So: midpoint = conversion; climax = consecration. Midpoint says, “I know what I need; I’ll act on it.” Climax says, “I’ll pay the price to become the best version of myself.”

Why Have the Turn at the Midpoint?

Story fuel: A mid-story pivot prevents the saggy middle. The protagonist shifts from reactive to proactive with a new plan, which launches fresh complications.

Meaningful escalation: If the hero didn’t change until the end, the climax would be a speech, not a decision. The midpoint gives time to test, fail, adapt, so the finale feels earned.

How it Plays

Romance: Midpoint: one lover risks honest vulnerability (her need), leading to deeper connection and scarier stakes. Act 2B tests that honesty. ​All is Lost​ beat tempts a retreat to self-protection (lie). Climax: they choose openness even when it could cost the relationship.

Thriller: Midpoint: hero rejects “ends justify the means,” and switches to a lawful strategy. Act 2B: slower, riskier progress; allies doubt; villain presses. Climax: hero refuses the illegal shortcut that would guarantee victory—and still wins because others now trust/help.

Diagnosis Your Midpoint

Make sure the scene delivers these five functions:

1. Revelation: New information reframes the core conflict.

2. Intention flip: The protagonist makes a clear choice to pursue a Truth-aligned plan.

3. Strategy change: Tactics visibly change (different allies, methods, rules).

4. Stakes reset: Costs and consequences increase because the Truth is harder.

5. Point-of-no-return: The new course ends the old one.

And for Act 2B (after the midpoint)

Aim for: practice → pushback → price.

  • Practice: shows competence growing, not perfected.
  • Pushback: antagonistic forces adapt; the world hits harder.
  • Price: the want demands sacrifice (time, status, safety, love).

Common pitfalls

  • Premature perfection: If the hero stops struggling after the midpoint, the arc feels finished. Keep the cost of living the truth rising.
  • Vague pivot: If the new plan isn’t concrete, the audience won’t feel the turn. Put the change onstage.
  • External-only change: Tie each plot beat to belief consequences. Otherwise, the midpoint reads like a plot twist, not an inner turn.

Worksheet

  • Midpoint event: What fact or loss makes the lie untenable?
  • Midpoint vow (one sentence of dialogue or thought): “From now on, I’ll ______.” You don’t have to have the character say their vow, which can sound on the nose. Instead, make sure the shift is obvious in the way your character speaks and acts.
  • New tactics: List 2–3 Truth-aligned actions the hero tries next.
  • Backslide temptations: Name 2 moments that lure them back to the Lie.
  • Climactic proof: What single risk would only make sense if they fully believe the Truth?

Wrap Up

Give your protagonist the mid-book “aha,” then make them earn it—one tested choice at a time. When the climax arrives, their final decision won’t just sound true; it will prove who they’ve become under pressure. That’s how you banish the saggy middle and deliver a finale that lands with heart, heat, and holy-cow satisfaction.

Dive Deeper

​How to Build Better Characters: Start with Their Biggest Lie

​Secrets of Story Structure: ​Third Act Structure​

What Writers Can Learn From Nursing a Sick Chicken

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When we love something, like writing, or somebody, be it a friend, partner, or pet, we persevere through good times and bad. Quitting is not an option.

Last week, as I mentioned in my previous post, I moved my six adult chickens from Massachusetts, where I had a coop at a friend’s house, to my yard in New Hampshire. During the hour-plus drive, one of my chickens — Biffy, an unfortunate pet name that stuck — was accidentally smothered by two of her sisters. When I lifted her from the crate, I thought for sure she was dead. Though she bounced back, they’d injured her crop.

Biffy

For those unfamiliar with bird anatomy, the crop is above the right-side of the breast. Food and water travel down the throat to the crop where it’s processed before dumping into the stomach.

About 24-36 hours later, I noticed Biffy seemed off. She sat alone in the coop while the others enjoyed the yard. She wasn’t eating and felt cold to the touch.

Uh-oh, is she dying?

I researched everything from accidental smothering to her cold body temperature. An impacted crop seemed to be the general consensus. When I felt her crop, it felt like a golf ball. Not good. In fact, it’s often a death sentence. I refused to except that, so I learned how to perform crop massages to break up the food that had hardened into a mass.

Several times a day, I marched outside to massage her. And soon, she recovered. But because her body had gone into shock from the move (hence, the cold body temp), she then became egg-bound. Another death sentence diagnosis.

Everyone told me she would die. Some suggested to mercy kill her, that it’s the kind thing to do. No, dammit, I’m a writer. I don’t quit. And I’m certainly not giving up on her.

So, I set up a hospital coop in my house. Again, I knew nothing about how to help her, but I researched everything I could find.

  • Epson salt baths to relax her stomach muscles.
  • A crushed Tums to give her the calcium she lost by not eating.
  • Olive oil on her vent or cloaca, where eggs come out.
  • Honey water to give her an energy boost.
  • Greek yogurt mixed with chick food to create an oatmeal-like mush.
  • Lots of love, patience, and understanding.

For four straight days, I did all the above several times per day. Still hadn’t laid the egg but it had moved into laying position. When I didn’t find an egg the following day, I crawled inside her hospital coop and stared deep into her eyes. “Tell me what to do, Biffy.”

And somehow, I knew she missed her flock.

Carrying her out to her regular coop was one of the hardest things I did. An injured chicken could get stomped to death. Survival of the fittest, and all that.

When I checked on her later that day, I found her hiding behind a straw bale, though her flock wasn’t harming her. I’d sneak in to administer the same treatment, except the baths. If the others caught me, they might retaliate against her for getting all of Mom’s attention. In between rounds, I ensured everyone felt special, but I still feared the worst.

Another three grueling days past. The egg moved even closer to her vent — so close yet so far!

Most chickens would have died a week ago. Not Biffy. She has the heart of a lion and the endurance of a cheetah. On day 8 or 9 (I lost track), I walked around the corner to the coop — Biffy was in the yard with her flock! Behind the bale of straw, I found two eggs. Not only did she pass the stuck egg but laid another.

Two weeks after she was almost smothered to death in that crate, she’s egging every day, eating, drinking, playing, roosting at night with the others, and has re-earned her #2 spot in the flock hierarchy.

What can writers learn from this?

  • Keen observation
  • The necessity of isolation for growth
  • Pacing

The Power of Micro-Observation

Chickens are prey animals. They instinctively mask their illnesses until they are critically ill. Chicken moms and dads learn to look for subtle cues: a drooping wing, a change in posture, or a loss of appetite.

Writer Lesson: Think of it as building subtext and writing characters whose internal pain is revealed through micro-actions rather than exposition.

The Importance of Quarantine

The first priority with a sick chicken is to remove her from the flock to prevent her from being pecked or stomped to death.

Writer Lesson: We can draw a parallel to our own creative process… we must detach from friends, family, and online activities to write. With an early draft or a deeply personable project, step away from the noise of critiques to give it the critical distance needed to develop it later through clearer eyes.

Prioritize the Essentials

When nursing a sick bird, basic hydration and warmth take precedence over complex medical interventions.

Writer Lesson: This mirrors the process of editing… strip away the clutter, focus on foundational structure, and ensure the core narrative works before worrying about elaborate prose.

Patience and Managing Expectations

Reviving a sick bird requires time, hourly monitoring, and the harsh realization that not every story has a happy ending.

Writer Lesson: Learn the delicate balance between fighting with a difficult draft and knowing when a concept must be shelved.

Today (written last Friday), I’m moving my 11 chicks outside to their junior coop. By the time this posts, I’ll finally have my house back. Though I love them dearly, it’s time. Yeehaw!

What other lessons can writers learn from my and Biffy’s story?

Why You Should Write at the Car Wash

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A car between two giant spinning brushes and a car wash

A couple of days ago I went to the car wash. To pass the time, I brought a hard copy of my latest project, which I was hand editing. I was there for an hour and was insanely productive. With the comfortable chair and their rocking soundtrack that was a mix of classic country, 70s rock, and 90s alternative, it was a magical creative experience.

It reminded me of a story from a few years ago about novelist Amy Daws who cured her writer’s block by writing in the waiting room of her local tire store. She became the unofficial mascot of the store with her own reserved seat. And she wrote a book, Wait With Me, about a writer who likes to write in the waiting room of a tire store and finds love there.

My time at the car wash prompted a creative habit I had forgotten. I like writing with noise. . Keep a list of habits that work for you so when your life changes, you don’t forget. It’s also good to have creative habits in rotation. When you get tired of sitting at your desk, go to the car wash.

Sometimes when you are searching for inspiration, try changing location.

Have you ever wondered why so many people like to write at coffee shops? There is actually science behind it. There is a noise sweet spot between too loud to be distracting and just loud enough to help you focus. Having noise that your brain has to work to block out actually makes you more creative.

There’s even an app called Coffitivity that mimics the noise of a coffee shop. I used it when I had to write at an office job that was library level quiet.

Some people use music as their ambient noise. Lots of writers like to have playlists for each project that evoke the mood and the theme of the story they’re working on.

What is your favorite kind of noise to work with?

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Your Antagonist’s Response to Fear

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When we think of fear as a response, we often think of the protagonist. Well-rounded villain’s also feel fear. Rarely discussed but equally important. Please help me welcome back our friend, Becca Puglisi, to discuss just that. And look — a new book in the Emotional Thesaurus series! This series rocks. IMO, it belongs on every writer’s bookshelf. Welcome, Becca!

When we talk about debilitating fears in storytelling, the focus is mostly on how it impacts the protagonist. We build stories around their fear—the way it binds and constricts them, how they gradually become aware of it, and their journey to eventually facing and defeating it. This process is essentially a change arc, and it applies to most protagonists.

But we don’t often talk about fear’s impact on antagonists. And we should, because fear is also limiting, motivating, and transformative for these characters.

What’s interesting, though, is the antagonist’s relationship with and response to fear isn’t like a protagonist’s at all. Villains and other adversaries will claim they’re impervious to fear, but this just isn’t true. Everyone feels fear, and characters who deny it are wearing a mask that shows them as strong, powerful, and in control. It’s often their refusal to remove that mask that ultimately leads to their undoing.

So let’s look at how protagonists and antagonists differ in their treatment of this universal emotion.

The Protagonist’s Fear Arc

These characters are often aware of their greatest fear because it’s kept close via emotional shielding, like a thick cloak they pull around themselves. The material is heavy and restrictive but functions as a constant reminder that threats are always near and something to be wary of.

At some point in the story, though, the protagonist’s shoulders begin to ache. They feel encumbered and overheated. They’re limited by the cloak’s weight, forced to give up opportunities too difficult or risky to tackle in their state.

One day it hits them that they’re unhappy, and if they didn’t have this burden, they might feel lighter and find it easier to get around. It’s not easy, but they make the choice to let the cloak fall, even though it exposes them. They understand that while life contains danger and emotional risk, letting go of fear leads to freedom, self-empowerment, and joy.

The fear pattern for protagonists: Fear starts as protection, but the character soon learns it’s also limiting. Deep unhappiness from unmet needs forces awareness. The character chooses to be vulnerable and cast aside fear so growth can occur.

The Antagonist’s Fear Arc

For antagonists, much is the same. The weight of their fear is just as heavy, and they wear the cloak for the same reason their counterparts do. But when their unhappiness surfaces, they become resentful and angry that what they want is out of reach. Rather than remove their cloak, they cinch it tighter and continue to manipulate situations, control people, and steal power to achieve their goals. Their inability to let go of their fear and accept emotional risk as a part of life ultimately destroys them.

The fear pattern for antagonists: Fear begins as protection, but it also limits. Unhappiness and unmet needs spark resentment. The character clings to fear for a sense of control, but it makes them weaker and imprisons them, resulting in failure.

This is how fear causes an antagonist to perceive events and people differently than a protagonist, leading to vastly disparate actions and choices. We see this at work when we compare the hero and villain from Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (spoilers ahead).

In 1947, banker Andy Dufresne is framed for his wife’s murder and lands in Shawshank State Prison. Everyone and everything there is controlled by Samuel Norton, a corrupt religious fanatic who believes harsh discipline is the way to inmate salvation. The irony is that the warden uses his position to commit a host of crimes. He takes a shine to Andy for his banking and accounting knowledge and uses him to embezzle money and commit tax fraud. As warden, he’s the king, and his greatest fear is losing his power and control.

Andy is determined to prove his innocence, but he’s repeatedly victimized in the brutal prison system. He earns protection when the warden realizes what Andy can do for him, but this means trading one form of pain for another, since Andy’s fate now depends on protecting the warden and hiding his criminal activities. Along the way, Andy’s greatest fear develops: becoming institutionalized and losing all sense of himself and the will to fight for his innocence.

Andy and the warden handle their fear in different ways. Andy pushes against fear by holding onto hope that he will eventually be free. He finds small joys to sustain him—reading, carving, building a library for the inmates, encouraging higher education, and planning his escape. The warden feeds his own fear by using intimidation and violence to run the prison and force Andy to help hide his crimes. From his position of authority, he consolidates power and deploys cruelty, even murder, to neutralize threats.

Andy is innocent, and the warden knows it. But once he declares that he’ll never let Andy go, Andy knows it’s time to “get busy living or get busy dying.” If he doesn’t escape, he’ll never leave Shawshank, and his hope will die with him.

Andy uses the tunnel he’s been digging for over a decade to get away, but not before stealing the warden’s ledger. Once free, he sends evidence of the warden’s activities to the authorities, who come for him at Shawshank. Rather than face accountability for his crimes, the warden ends his life.

These two characters are bookends, one using the fear of hopelessness to push him to risk everything and gain freedom, and the other using a fear of exposure to push him to do anything to hoard power and control. Fear impacts both characters the same way, but they respond to it differently.

Common Antagonistic Responses to Fear

Just like every protagonist is unique, the same is true of villains, which means they each will react to fear in their own way. Here are some ways an antagonist driven by a deep fear may respond.

· Never becoming aware of it

· Actively refusing to acknowledge it

· Accepting it as something beneficial that should be nurtured

· Using unacceptable or unethical methods to keep their biggest fear from being realized

· Redefining their moral code as needed to keep their worst fear from happening

· Weaponizing other people’s fears against them

A hero is only as strong as the antagonist standing in their way. To make that adversary truly formidable, ask yourself: What’s motivating them? Why do they do the things they do? How will they respond to fear in general but also when confronted with a deeply personal fear? The answers to questions like these will help you build an antagonist who is powerful and authentic, requiring the hero to be strong enough to face and overcome them.

For more information about the universal nature of fear and its individual impact on characters, check out The Fear Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to What Holds Characters Back.

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and best-selling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other resources for writers. Her books have sold over 1.4 million copies and are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online resource for authors that’s home to the Character Builder and Storyteller’s Roadmap tools.

Five Tips to Keep Track of Characters Behind the Scenes

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by Debbie Burke

Crime fiction has multiple story lines. Readers see the story on the page, but important events also unfold behind the scenes that the reader may not see. TKZ’s own Jim Bell has a terrific term for this, “the Shadow Story.”

The shadow story follows the antagonist’s actions to thwart the hero. The hero (and the reader) may not be aware of what’s happening offstage as the villain lurks in the shadows, scheming and wreaking havoc.

That’s why the author must always keep track of antagonists and/or villains. (For this post, I’m using the terms somewhat interchangeably).

Stories require conflict. Antagonists cause conflict. Therefore, antagonists are as necessary, if not more so, than heroes.

If you lose track of your villain, you’ve lost the story’s primary cause of disruption and distress.

Here are five tips to monitor what antagonists are doing offscreen.

  1. Create two documents, parallel stories with one for the hero, one for the villain.

The hero’s story is what the reader sees on the page.

The shadow story tracks the villain offstage. This may or may not ever be visible to the reader.

In traditional whodunnit mysteries, the villain is hidden and not revealed until the end. The point of view is often limited to the hero’s, either first person or close third person. The parallel shadow story will not be shown on the page. Rather it is a working document for the author’s eyes only.

In suspense and thrillers, the reader may know or quickly learn the villain’s identity. With a known villain, the shadow story can be visible on the page in parallel with the “onscreen” story. Multiple points of view can include the villain’s. That’s how I write my thriller series, with POVs alternating among several characters.

  1. Track your shadow character with a baby cam or your phone. An imaginary baby cam keeps a constant watch on your villain. The locator dot on the phone screen blinks along the street map to follow the villain’s movements.
  2. Think of two TVs side by side. One is showing the hero’s channel. The other plays the villain’s channel. The timeframe is the same, but the locations are different. Flip back and forth between them.

    Photo credit: Annette Dawm, Pexels

4. Use a calendar or appointment book. Log the day, time, and location for each character in each scene.

Screenshot

In time-critical scenes, like a bomb ticking, you may need to detail the action minute by minute, or even second by second.

5. Use index cards or sticky notes in different colors (blue for hero, yellow for villain, green for secondary characters, etc.). Write a short summary of each scene (time, place, characters present, what happens) on the appropriate color card or sticky.

Another alternative is a white board using different color markers.

When the draft is complete, lay the cards out on a table. Kay DiBianca puts her stickies on closet doors in her office.

Study the color pattern. This visual review points out potential problems. Are there too many scenes in a row in one color? Do you need to rearrange the order to improve pacing or balance the characters?

Are there missing scenes? Or scenes that could be cut without hurting the story’s forward momentum?

 

Our creative brains all work differently. To keep track of multiple characters and story lines, some writers prefer programs like Scrivener (which Jim Bell uses), Memory Map, Wave Maker, and Fantasy Calendar.

I’m more visual and tactile-oriented so it’s easier for me to stay organized with physical appointment books, calendars, and index cards.

The method doesn’t matter as long as the author always stays aware of what the antagonist is doing in the shadow story.

Because that’s the wellspring of your story’s conflict.

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TKZers: How do you monitor characters in the shadows? Do you use time-tracking programs? Low tech tools like calendars and index cards? Or another method? Comments welcome below.

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Today’s post is based on The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.

“Debbie Burke has filled a critical gap in writing craft instruction. We needed a book of solid advice for creating compelling, three-dimensional villains. This is it.” – James Scott Bell

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When You’re Happy and You Know It

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By Elaine Viets

 

What made you happy in the last 24 hours? What about the last three months?

OK, I’ll go first.

A surprise gift of orchids from a friend. And the silly antics of my cat Vanessa. Both made me happy in the last 24 hours. They’re pictured below.

In the last three months, the weekly phone calls from my cousin Lisa made me happy.

These questions are important not only for our well-being, but to understand how  writers create our characters. I read about happiness in a recent article in The Pudding, and if you don’t subscribe to this free newsletter, you’re definitely missing out on happiness.

Writer Alvin Chang’s Pudding article “mapped out 100,000 moments collected as part of a research project on what makes people happy. From sensory pleasure and serendipity to leisure and personal growth, he identified the major themes that emerge when we think about our most cherished moments.”

Here are few that may make you smile, especially the first one:

“My boss was away on business which made my workday very enjoyable and left me with a smile on my face all day.” Female, 36, married, parent

“I went to see my Grandma at the nursing home.” Male, 26, single

“My husband was ignoring me and I laid in bed thinking of funny words with the word ‘sass’ in them to describe him (like Sasquatch) – it amused me greatly.” Female, 26, parent

“I got to leave work early on Friday.” Female, 53, single, parent

“I took a day off to enjoy a nice day.” Male, 38, mot a parent

“Enjoyed a Hardboys Peach Country hard cider.” Male, 32, single, not a parent

“I made progress on some household projects.” Female, 22, married, not a parent

“I was able to stay home and work, while my brother-in-law picked up the kids from school by switching his schedule.” Female, 37, married, parent

Scientists used to believe that happiness was U-shaped. “We are happy when we’re young, less happy when we’re middle-aged and then happy again when we’re old.”

Chang mentioned a research article by Arthur Stone that surveyed people between 18 and 85. It said, “Stress and anger steeply declined from the early 20s, worry was elevated through middle age and then declined, and sadness was essentially flat.”

But hold on . . . that U-shape may no longer be true. Another story says, “Pooling Global Minds data across 44 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, over the period 2020–2025 we confirm that ill-being is no longer hump-shaped in age but now decreases in age.”

So the middle-age slump is out. The twenties are a rough time. The reason for this is sad: “the deterioration in young people’s mental health both absolutely and relative to older people.”

Once you get through your difficult 20s, your chances of happiness increase.

When Harvard researchers followed people for their entire lives, Alvin Chang wrote, “they found that good relationships were the most important thing for happy, healthy lives.” We need a “meaningful life with a sense of purpose.”

That makes sense. Except social media and smart phones have made us addicted to screens from a young age. “It’s taken a toll on how much time we spend with each other.”

Alvin Chang included a “happy map” with his article. Check it out here. https://pudding.cool/2026/02/happy-map/ he  says it’s “a mirror of the broken world we’ve built, as seen through our most cherished moments.”

What makes your characters happy?

Now in paperback: Sex and Death on the Beach, my new Florida beach mystery, is now in paperback. If you read it and like it, you’ll make me happy. https://tinyurl.com/3ut3chuu