Every now and then we run across a great article … and we print it out and keep it.  Writing is writing – and whether you are writing YA, suspense or historical – good writing is the bottom line.

I’m ‘paying forward’ Aaron Shepard’s article on ‘What Makes a Good Story?’    Rita

 

What Makes a Good Story?

Tips for Young Authors - By Aaron Shepard

Copyright © 1998 Aaron Shepard. May be freely copied and shared for any noncommercial purpose as long as no text is altered or omitted.

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Good writers often break rules—but they know they’re doing it! Here are some good rules to know.

Theme

A theme is something important the story tries to tell us—something that might help us in our own lives. Not every story has a theme, but it’s best if it does.

Don’t get too preachy. Let the theme grow out of the story, so readers feel they’ve learned it for themselves. You shouldn’t have to say what the moral is.

Plot

Plot is most often about a conflict or struggle that the main character goes through. The conflict can be with another character, or with the way things are, or with something inside the character, like needs or feelings.

The main character should win or lose at least partly on their own, and not just be rescued by someone or something else. Most often, the character learns or grows as they try to solve their problem. What the character learns is the theme.

The conflict should get more and more tense or exciting. The tension should reach a high point or “climax” near the end of the story, then ease off.

The basic steps of a plot are: conflict begins, things go right, things go WRONG, final victory (or defeat), and wrap-up. The right-wrong steps can repeat.

A novel can have several conflicts, but a short story should have only one.

Story Structure

At the beginning, jump right into the action. At the end, wind up the story quickly.

Decide about writing the story either in “first person” or in “third person.” Third-person pronouns are “he,” “she,” and “it”—so writing in third person means telling a story as if it’s all about other people. The first-person pronoun is “I”—so writing in first person means telling a story as if it happened to you.

Even if you write in third person, try to tell the story through the eyes of just one character—most likely the main character. Don’t tell anything that the character wouldn’t know. This is called “point of view.” If you must tell something else, create a whole separate section with the point of view of another character.

Decide about writing either in “present tense” or in “past tense.” Writing in past tense means writing as if the story already happened. That is how most stories are written. Writing in present tense means writing as if the story is happening right now. Stick to one tense or the other!

Characters

Before you start writing, know your characters well.

Your main character should be someone readers can feel something in common with, or at least care about.

You don’t have to describe a character completely. It’s enough to say one or two things about how a character looks or moves or speaks.

A main character should have at least one flaw or weakness. Perfect characters are not very interesting. They’re also harder to feel something in common with or care about. And they don’t have anything to learn. In the same way, there should be at least one thing good about a “bad guy.”

Setting

Set your story in a place and time that will be interesting or familiar.

Style and Tone

Use language that feels right for your story.

Wherever you can, use actions and speech to let readers know what’s happening. Show, don’t tell.

Give speech in direct quotes like “Go away!” instead of indirect quotes like “She told him to go away.”

You don’t have to write fancy to write well. It almost never hurts to use simple words and simple sentences. That way, your writing is easy to read and understand.

Always use the best possible word—the one that is closest to your meaning, sounds best, and creates the clearest image. If you can’t think of the right one, use a thesaurus.

Carefully check each word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph. Is it the best you can write? Is it in the right place? Do you need it at all? If not, take it out!

July New Releases from BWL Publishing Inc.

An exciting mix of historical Australia, West Texas Mysteries and Science Fiction for your July reading pleasure.  Visit our BWL Publishing Inc. website and click the covers to purchase from your favorite bookstores.

My New 19th Century BFFs

                                                       Click here to purchase
                                                       Click here for Eileen O'Finlan's website

I’ve been making new friends as I research and write the sequel to Kelegeen. My latest BFFs are two prominent 19th century ladies – Catharine E. Beecher and Lydia Maria Child. Both wrote prolifically on several subjects, but for my purposes it’s their works on domestic science and cookery that are of particular interest.                                                          Catharine E. Beecher                            1869 Edition of The American Woman's Home or Domestic Science                                     by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe Readers may not realize how much goes into the research of historical novels. Sure the author has to know the general history of the time – what was happening politically, economically, internationally, etc., but often even more important is knowledge of how people lived their everyday lives.  What did they eat and how did they prepare it? What did they wear? Did they purchase their clothing or make their own? How did they address one another? How did they celebrate holidays? What items did they have in their homes and, for that matter, what kind of homes did they live in? And just how much is that ubiquitous 19th century unit of measure, a hogshead? (64 gallons as it turns out). The questions go on and on.  Fortunately, the answers can be found in books written in or near the time period (in my case 1850s New England). Specifically, I’ve been enjoying The American Woman’s Home or Domestic Science co-authored by Catharine E. Beecher and her younger half-sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame and The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child. Both Beecher and Child wrote with self-assurance and the occasional strong opinion.  Besides learning all about home economics of the 19th century, the reader also absorbs insights into the thinking of these women and their contemporaries. Though some entries seem quaint, others have had a “hey, that’s a good idea” effect on me.  I wish I could meet these two exceptional ladies, but as that is impossible, I’m happy to settle for getting to know them through the writings they’ve left behind.

Nova Scotia Ghosts

Ghost Stores – how true are they?

 Although the stories of women are scarce, there is an unlimited supply of ghost stories for the Maritime Provinces. They comprise a collection of forerunners, apparitions, and other-worldly events. Forerunners foretell a death. They include:

 

• three knocks on the door with no one outside
• visions of a relative seen in the night
• ghostly figures following you on the road
• non-existent figures are seen in a rear-view mirror
• footsteps heard on the stairs with no one there
• footprints are seen on a floor where no one has walked
• the sound of a vehicle arriving but no one is there

Usually, forerunners are followed by the death of a family member or friend often before that person has reached a ripe old age.

For two real ghost stories of this generation, told to me by a reliable source, visit my blog on A Plethora of Ghosts

Stories of ghostly events and their outcomes are available in many books. 

 (The Books are linked to Amazon.ca if you would like the book.)

 The most famous eastern story collector is Helen Creighton whose books, Bluenose Ghosts, are well known.

 I've also shivered to the Ghost Stories of authors like Vernon Oickle.

 

mahriegreid.com

The Sea Kill or Cure by Rosemary Morris

To explore more of Rosemary's work please click on the cover.

In September 1804, Jane Austen, wrote to her sister, Cassandra, from Weymouth, “I continue quite well in proof of which I have bathed again this morning.”
Dr Richard Russell had developed the ‘sea water’ cure and made swimming in the sea and drinking the water fashionable. The doctor’s description of the sea was ‘a vast medicated bath’ which patients could benefit from.
In 1783 when the Prince of Wales was twenty-one, he visited Brighthelmstone, later called Brighton, and from then on visited the seaside resort every year. Society followed the pleasure-loving prince to the seaside where they enjoyed sea-air and swam.
Clean sea-air provided relief from smoke from coal fires which polluted cities. Due to poor diet deficient in fruit and vegetables and lack of personal hygiene, chronic constipation, gout, skin diseases, and other health problems were rife. Drinking sea water either killed, cured or had no effect on patients.
In my novel Friday’s Child, the heroine, Lady Margaret declares the spa water in Cheltenham tastes disgusting. However, for hundreds of years, drinking the waters had purged those who drank them, and in Dr Robert Wittie’s pamphlet published in 1667 he also mentioned the benefits derived from sea water.
Spa water was bottled and sold. Subsequently sea water, to which crabs’ eyes, tar and sponges were sometimes added, was bottled and marketed. Mixed with milk, patients drank a lot.
As a child I shuddered when my mother dosed me with milk of magnesia but, looking back, I would prefer her noxious medicine to that sea water and its additives. I doubt even spoonful of sugar would have helped me to swallow the foul-tasting medicine.
In my novel Wednesday’s Child, Amelia, the heroine protests when Dr Cray breaks the news that her grandmother is suffering from a fatal tumour in her stomach. Amelia protests. “But, before you examined my grandmother, on Doctor Sutton’s instructions she has been bled, blistered and purged, besides drinking seawater with roasted crabs’ eyes, and bathing in the sea, all of which he assured us would cure her.”
In common with the fictional characters, Cray and Sutton, many doctors in seaside towns made their fortunes from those seeking cures.
At the thought of drinking sea water every day, I am grateful for conventional treatment and after reading this I am sure you will agree.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books one to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child and Thursday’s Child. Friday’s Child. (The novels are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Wild Bill or Buffalo Bill by Katherine Pym

Buy Here

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From L-R: Wild Bill, Texas Jack, Buffalo Bill

I get these two mixed up. Even as they are different, they look sort of alike, maybe because of their long hair and similar beards. They both lived life to extreme, and they were friends.

Nine years difference in their ages, their lives paralleled in many ways. The two Bills were born in the same neck of the woods; James Butler Hickok (Wild Bill) in Illinois in 1837, and William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) in Iowa in 1846.

Both came from religious families, Wild Bill-Baptist; Buffalo Bill-Quaker. Both families disagreed with slavery. Wild Bill’s parents worked in the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape from the South. Buffalo Bill’s father was stabbed to death during an anti-slavery rally.

Both Bills rode for the Pony Express (at different times), and fought on the same side during the Civil War, where Wild Bill and Custer became fast friends. During the Indian Wars, Buffalo Bill guided a wagon train with Custer.

Both worked for the same stagecoach company in Fort Leavenworth, KS. During one trip, the stagecoach broke down, and Wild Bill, waiting for the repair crew, slept in the bushes while the passengers remained in the coach. During the night, Wild Bill was attacked by a bear. The passengers found him the next morning critically wounded, the bear dead with a stab wound.  

Our daring Bills performed in the same stage play where they showed their prowess shooting at targets, thrilling the audience. 

After the Civil War his life and Wild Bill's found separate paths, although they were lifelong friends.

Wild Bill Hickok

Captain Jack Crawford summed up Wild Bill as one fraught with faults but carried a gentleness about him until riled by insults. He was a good friend and generous to a flaw, but he had no qualms killing a man who did him an injustice. Toward the end of his life, Wild Bill spent most of his time wandering saloons, & playing cards.

He usually sat in a far corner with his back to the wall, but on one particular day, someone sat in his usual seat. Wild Bill reluctantly found a chair at the corner table, and sat with his back to the door.  That’s where Jack McCall found him, and shot him point blank in the back of the head.

Buried in Deadwood SD, everyone who knew Wild Bill mourned his death. He was only 39 years of age.

Buffalo Bill Cody

Charismatic Buffalo Bill’s moniker came when he worked for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, hired to provide buffalo meat for the workers. Over a period of 18 months, he killed more than 4000 buffalo.

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill):

"Cody and another hunter, Bill Comstock, competed in an eight-hour buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name [Buffalo Bill], which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48."

Buffalo Bill was a restless man and entrepreneur. He went on to tour with his Wild West Show in Europe and America, where most of the audience knew the names of his headliners, both American Indians and gunslingers. They showed the world how crazy was the wild west. It ran successfully until its final show in 1906. 

Buffalo Bill died in 1917 while visiting his sister in Denver, CO. He requested to be buried on a mountain overlooking the Great Plains, but rumor has it his body was spirited away and now rests in the hills above Cody, WY. He was 70 years old.

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Many thanks to:

Wikipedia, & Wiki Commons, Public Domain

https://www.codyyellowstone.org/yellowstone-travel-blog/top-10-things-you-dont-know-about-buffalo-bill/

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-buffalobill/

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-billhickok-hough/