LDSPMA

Empowering Latter-day Saints to spread light and truth by connecting them at the intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill

Writing

Theme: The Deeper Truth Within Your Story

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By Josi Kilpack

What Is Theme and Why Does It Matter?

Theme can be a difficult concept to pin down and is often explained as “what the story is about.” It’s a fair enough definition except that it can confuse theme with the subject or genre. For instance, it’s easy to say your romance novel is about love or your mystery novel is about justice. That’s true, but those are not the deeper truth, which is how I define theme. Theme is what stays with the reader after the story ends; it’s what makes them look at how that deeper truth plays out in their own life or understanding of the world.

For writers, especially those starting out, theme can be a difficult concept to grasp because theme is abstract, vague and, to an extent, subjective, as opposed to concrete concepts like character, plot, rising action, or resolution. The writer could write to a theme that a reader may not see. Or the reader might see a theme that wasn’t the writer’s intention. The disparity of interpretation can make the writer ask after the point of caring about theme at all when there are so many other—easier to understand—concepts that require our attention. The reason theme matters, however, is because writing from the place of deeper truth on the part of the writer leads to a place of deeper truth on the part of the reader. Even if the theme does not translate exactly, the depth does. To write without theme is to write without the depth that leads to the resonance of your story. 

An Idea for How to Develop Deeper Truth

That deeper truth comes from you, the writer, in that it reflects your own values or curiosity or expansion. While the author is the one to determine theme, it is usually expressed through the main character—what she does and says and wants and works toward. The first part of developing theme, therefore, is to ask what belief you want to either explore or expand on in your story; what is the deeper truth you want to tell? 

One way to do this is to brainstorm early in the development of your story. There are a hundred ways to do this, and I encourage you to try a variety of methods before choosing what works for you. For me, the method that works best so far is doing word bubble diagrams, something I learned back in elementary school. So let’s say I’ve decided to write a story with the theme “Beauty for Ashes,” which is a theme I’ve used many times in my stories. I take a blank piece of paper and write that in the center of the page, then circle it. Now I’m going to ask myself what thoughts are sparked with that phrase. I draw lines coming out from that nucleus phrase and write what comes to mind.

For the sake of our example, let’s go with a center cluster that looks like this: God, overcoming hardship, delayed understanding, personal growth. I circle all those things and use them as a new nucleus to expand upon with thoughts that I associate with those words. Let’s take the “delayed understanding” angle. I draw new lines out from it that include the following associations: tragic loss, faith, overcoming hopelessness, purpose of trial. I sit back and see that “faith” connects with “God,” so I make a line between them. I also notice that “purpose of trial” relates to “personal growth” and draw a line between them. Those are interesting connections. I already know I want the main character to be a man who loses everything—like Job did. I add “Job” to “faith,” though I could have added it to “God” too, but I’m developing this “delayed understanding” angle. I think about what I know about Job and draw lines out from that new place: faithful, rich to poor to rich, lost literally everything. I look at that last part—lost literally everything: status, friends, children, wife, home, health. 

As you can see, it’s not pretty, but it’s effective. My thoughts about how to tell a “Beauty for Ashes” story is tightening in my mind. I’m going to work this exercise until I have run out of ideas to explore. I might start new pages with “Job” as the center idea or maybe “rich to poor to rich” and see where it takes me. What I’ll find is that my brainstorming is going to come back to some specific concepts. The man I have already envisioned as my main character is going to fill out and become more real. I’m going to better understand where he came from and where I want him to go. I might determine a different theme or a more focused theme, but it will likely be some version of “Beauty for Ashes.” While I’m doing this, I’m looking for a buzz inside myself, that’s how I recognize truth (it might be different for you), a sort of electric excitement as pieces come together. The entire process might take twenty minutes and one piece of paper, or might be a few hours and several papers—it’s different for each story depending on how much mining goes into finding that deeper truth. 

The Process Continues

Once I feel like I know the theme, I put it aside and start writing the story. I might need to sit back after writing a particular scene to see if it’s reflecting my theme as well as it could, but for the most part I am done with the “work” on theme. The theme might change as the story develops, meaning I might have thought I was writing “Beauty for Ashes,” but I’m actually writing “Strength Comes from Overcoming Struggle,” which is similar but a little different. I might need to go back and test that new theme in each scene to make sure it’s still consistent, but that’s all part of the process. Change is okay if it leads to a better reflection of deeper truth.

An example of changing theme is my novel As Wide as the Sky. This is a women’s fiction novel about a woman whose son has been executed for a mass shooting he committed a few years before the story starts. She goes on a journey to find the owner of a class ring she found in her son’s belongings while trying to make sense of her complicated feelings. Throughout the initial writing, I thought the story’s theme was “There is Life after Tragedy.” The story was all told through the main character’s point of view, until I encountered a character named Coach Miller. He was an old man who had recently lost his wife, and I wrote his chapter in his point of view in order to better connect with him, planning to change it back to the main characters’ point of view later on. Through that chapter I realized how stuck he was in his sadness and how well his mourning both connected with and contrasted against my main character’s loss. I couldn’t make this a duel POV story since Coach Miller was featured in such a small portion, but I let the chapter sit in his POV while I moved forward. Then I wrote another chapter in another POV character—a love interest—who was stuck in the regret of having abandoned his family years earlier. Three characters, all of them stuck. One because her son became someone she both loved and hated, one because he’d made a huge mistake he couldn’t fix, and one because the natural order of things had taken his sweetheart. Stuck for different reasons, but all of them grieving. Grief was a deeper truth for the story I had not seen until the story was almost finished. In trying to better understand these three characters, I studied up on the cycles of grief and ended up adding additional POV characters earlier in the story to reflect the different stages of grief and how people can become “stuck” in any of them. This adjustment to the theme hopefully allowed more readers to see themselves in my story and see a bigger picture of what grief looks like in its different stages. Writing and revising toward the new theme of grief also helped me to explore the deeper truth of grief as I have experienced it in my own life. Not all of my books have such a strong sense of theme, but it was cool to see how it played out in this experience and has left me with the reminder to make sure I do the work to find the deeper truth in each book.

It Won’t Be Easy, But …

Like all aspects of writing fiction, the recognition of theme is easier for some than others. Just as some writers have a natural ability for setting, some find uncovering theme to be a more organic practice. But in the same way that a writer who struggles with setting must exert the extra effort necessary to grasp it, determining theme may take some practice for those of us who don’t come to it naturally. It won’t be easy, but then no one said that writing was easy. If it were, everyone would do it. ☺ 

Practice. Read how other writers determine and include theme in their stories. Look for it in the books you read. Find that deeper truth and write it.

21 Books to Help You Learn Your Craft

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By LDSPMA

As I have done research for this newsletter, registered for multiple writers’ workshops, and prepared to help at the LDSPMA annual conference this month, I have been reminded how important it is to “learn your craft,” as Josi S. Kilpack put it in our Advice from the Experts article.

But what exactly does that mean? Different people might tell you different things, and it might look different for every profession, but for me it means learning about and participating in every area of what you do. As an aspiring writer, I am doing everything I can to learn grammar rules, what makes a good story, how other writers have succeeded and what I can do to overcome my greatest weakness— marketing. For an attorney, it might mean staying abreast of current legal issues and rulings as well as familiarizing oneself with past case law. For a firefighter, it might mean learning how to maintain the equipment and staying physically fit. To be honest, I am not sure what it would look like for each of you, but one of our board members might.

Below is a list of books that have helped a few of our LDSPMA board members learn their crafts. I encourage you to take a look and maybe add one or two (or three) of these wonderful books to your “must read in the near future” list. If you are interested in what profession each member of our board hails from, be sure to check out their bios on our website.

Happy reading!

From Suzy Bills

  • The Chicago Manual of Style
  • The Wealthy Freelancer, by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage, and Ed Gandia

From Marianna Richardson

  • Writing That Works: How to Communicate Effectively in Business, by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson
  • News to Me: Finding and Writing Colorful Feature Stories, by Barry Newman
  • What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell

From Steve Piersanti

  • Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest, by Berret-Koehler
  • Cumorah, by Hugh Nibley
  • Leadership and the New Science, by Margaret Wheatley

From Barry Rellaford

  • The Speed of Trust, by Stephen M. R. Covey
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
  • The Book of Mormon
  • Bonds That Make Us Free, by C. Terry Warner
  • Life Reimagined, by Richard Leider

From LoriAnne Spear

  • Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder
  • Write Your Novel From the Middle, by James Scott Bell
  • The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton

From Devan Jensen

  • The Chicago Manual of Style
  • The Copyeditor’s Handbook, by Amy Einsohn
  • The Handbook of Good English, by Edward Johnson
  • Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizop
  • Writing on the Job, by John Brereton and Margaret A. Mansfield

Advice from the Experts: Josi S. Kilpack (Author, Wife, Mother)

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By LDSPMA

I think the most wonderful thing a “successful someone” (be they writer, editor or filmmaker) can do is pass on their knowledge to those wanting to follow in their footsteps. If they can somehow help those following them to internalize their teachings and become what they were meant to be, well, that is not only wonderful but truly miraculous.

I think that’s why I started this series of articles. I wanted to see if I could introduce a few of you to someone who could help you become who you were meant to be—someone you could look up to, learn from, and possibly even connect with. What I didn’t realize is how so many of the people I interviewed on your behalf would help me. With that in mind, I would like to introduce you to Josi S. Kilpack.

Josi is wife to Lee (who manages a geriatric psych hospital in Salt Lake City), mother to four children—one of whom just returned from a mission—and, of course, a writer. Some of my favorite things I discovered about Josi during our interview are her love for watching the same movies over and over again, the way she is constantly challenging herself to be better writer, and her determination to use failures as an opportunity to learn how to succeed.

I hope some of the things Josi shares below will not only help you learn to succeed but be a miracle in your life:

  • “I dream of having a typical writing day . . . but instead, I look at the day and schedule a chunk of time . . . when [the writing] is going well, the house is falling behind. When it is not, I’m playing catch up.”
  • “[Writing well] is really about figuring out what works for you and trying to repeat it. I get a lot done when I have the ideas and the time at the same time, so I try really hard to brainstorm while I am doing other things and then write it down when I have the time.”
  • “Every time I start a new [novel], I have this fear that it will be my last book. It drives me crazy. I can tell myself logically that I said it every other time and it hasn’t been true. [I tell myself] it isn’t true this time either and . . . just keep going.”
  • “Tell yourself, ‘The only real competition is with myself.’”
  • “Look for ways to challenge [your]self . . . to write a different type of story or character or to write from a different point of view. Constantly . . . look for ways to stretch. . . . That challenge just against myself keeps me going in the right direction.”
  • “Get a few friends around you that tell you, ‘You are wonderful.’”
  • “Every journey, every author is different.”
  • “I am too stupid to be discouraged, but the friends I have made who understand who I am and what I love has been the greatest gift. Creat[e] that community and let . . . them support [you], and support them in their successes and failures.”
  • “Opportunities come because you take advantage of other opportunities.”
  • “Learn your craft. Make sure you are creating a good product. Learn about your industry. There is so much to know.”
  • “Being excited about your book is natural. You wouldn’t put the time into it if you didn’t think you had something to offer, but a lot of time that excitement is what keeps you from doing what you need to do. Do yourself a favor and learn what makes a good book cover, learn to edit, and understand what the steps [to success] are. If you don’t, after you get those first few rejections you will be discouraged and stop.”
  • “You [learn your craft at] conferences, through blogs, by meeting authors and talking to them, by learning from other people’s experiences. I don’t think you can be successful without those, but a lot of people skip that.”
  • “Marketing is not easy, and most authors hate it. We are introverted and like to make up our own worlds not go out into the world we live in, but you have to do it these days. . . . If I am asked to do something, I say yes as often as possible. Articles, book signings, speaking at firesides . . . I say yes. Figure out what you are comfortable doing and then do it.”
  • “Most of my story development comes from developing a character—what they want, what they are willing to do, and what they are not willing to do to get what they want. Then, putting them with another character and what they want is where a story comes from.”
  • “People are fascinating. . . . When I get stuck, I go back to my characters. [I am usually stuck] because I have taken my character in a direction that is not authentic to who they are.”
  • “If it is hard it doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong. It is just hard.”
  • “I don’t really think balance exists . . . whenever I am looking for balance, I am beating myself up because there is no balance. I have been trying to balance this for fifteen years, and I have still never achieved it.”
  • “What is the most important thing to you? . . . In any given moment it might be [different]. . .. For me [life] is a juggling act. What can I throw into the air so I can catch another something? And, honestly, sometimes it all drops. But if you are honest with everyone around you and with yourself, you can pick it all back up. There is a lot of guilt that goes along with this, but I look at it and say if I did it right the first time, I wouldn’t learn anything. . . . They are not eggs; they are bouncy balls. You still have to chase them. You still swear and get mad, but they don’t break, and you just get better at juggling as you go along. ”
  • “It is good for my kids to see that I am passionate about something. It is good for them to see that I am a person and not just a mommy. It is good for them to see that while I love them to bits, [they are] not the entirety of my existence. I don’t want them to give up who they are individually because of the roles they take on.”
  • “I have been doing this for a long time. I have raised my kids through it, and life has gone on along with my writing, but it is mostly my story that has been written through all of it. My writing was the vehicle that helped me grow. It has written my story. I would love people to be mindful that their [own] story is being written while they are writing.”

Advice from the Experts: Liz Adair (Wife, Mother, Mentor, Author)

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By Lessa Harding

Once again, I find myself wishing I could take a poll when introducing the expert of the month. I would love to hear who your favorite authors are and why. I would love to hear whom you look up to, who your heroes are, and how you would react if you met one of them.

A few months ago, a friend recounted the first time she met her favorite author. My friend talked about going weak in the knees, not being able to form coherent thoughts, and stumbling over her words as she attempted to ask the author questions. I giggled as my friend said she had a “writer’s crush” on the author.

I have to admit that this month’s article was extremely difficult for me to write because of my writer’s crush on our expert. Liz Adair is one of my favorite authors, and I admire the depth that her characters have, the wit and humor they display, and her ability to write a story that both entertains and captivates. I also admire her as a person.

The first time I met Liz, I experienced what other aspiring authors experience when they’re lucky enough to meet Liz: the overwhelming feeling that I could do anything I wanted to do. One of the writers she has mentored described the experience by saying that Liz “helped me see that I have something to offer and encouraged me to grow beyond myself.” Another confided that Liz “made me feel like a real writer for the first time ever.” And another said, “She breathed into me a belief that I could write books.”

Liz has written 10 novels and 3 novellas, has received the Whitney Outstanding Achievement Award for mentoring writers, has owned and operated a bakery, and has helped found more writers’ groups and conferences than I can count, including the American Night Writers Association’s Northwest Writers Retreat and the Kanab Writers Conference. But the thing I admire the most is the effect she has had on the lives of people she has met along the way, including her husband of 58 years and her 7 children. I love this description of Liz given by someone who has known her for over 10 years: “Liz . . .  becomes your true friend and just loves you. If she can share something she’s learned along the way, she does. She rarely asks for anything in return, [but] those who walk . . . the path with her . . . are forever changed. Liz makes you want to be a better person and to achieve great things by just being Liz.”

As you read the following insights she shared for this article, I hope some of the encouragement and confidence Liz exudes will leap off the paper and help you walk your own path.

  • You don’t need a rigid writing schedule. “I have no typical day of writing. I have things that have to get done, things that may get done, and writing. I try to write after doing the things that have to get done. I’m more of a mosey-along writer. I stop and smell a lot of roses.”
  • Associate with other writers. Her “tip for those trying to publish for the first time [is to] hang out with writers.”
  • Need ideas about writing rituals? Here’s Liz’s: “[My] process is to sit down “process is to sit down with a pencil and notebook and block out the plot points in each chapter. Then I sit at the computer and write about a half a page about each chapter. After that, I begin the first draft and grind it out to the end.”
  • “I’ve learned a lot about three-dimensional villains from watching Turkish films.”
  • If you want to publish but haven’t yet, “start learning the craft now. You’ll be so much further ahead when the barriers that are keeping you from doing it are no longer there.”
  • On writer’s block: “I think fallow times are useful in the creative process. When I’m ready to write again, I’ll know it. That’s why self-publishing suits me so much better than working with a traditional publisher. I don’t have to force anything.”
  • On rejection: “I think time and perspective are the only things that help.”
  • “Let others read and critique [your] writing. I mean, hard critiques. I belong to a critique group that has met for two hours a week for a dozen years now, and we pull no punches. It has made me a much better writer than if they loved everything I sent to them.”
  • Her personal motto: “‘Pull up your socks.’ I had that as a personal motto long before compression stockings became a part of my daily routine.”
  • “Writing is its own reward.”
  • “Write! Write! Write!”

Novellas: Why You Should Be Writing Them

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By Heather B. Moore

The Basics

What is a novella? According to Jack Smith in the Writer magazine, a novella “combines the compression of the short story with the sprawl of the short novel, and many writers as well as readers find this attractive.”

How long is a novella? Novellas range from 20,000 to 40,000 words. Anything above 50,000 words is considered a short novel. Anything under 20,000 words is considered a novelette. Under 7,000 words is a short story.

Why novellas? Before the advent of digital publishing, novellas were a hard sell because print runs would be very small and profit returns would be slim. In fact, Chuck Sambuchino recommended in a Writer’s Digest article that if you’d written a novella, you should expand it to a novel before pitching to an agent or publisher. And to those who weren’t published yet, Sambuchino said, “My best candid advice is to finish this novella and stick it in a drawer.”

Times have changed. Oh, yes. Now, novellas can be published as e-books and achieve success.

The Benefits

The fact that esteemed publisher Covenant Communication is holding the Story Catcher novella contest is a good indicator that traditional publishers have now included novellas in their publishing lineups.

If you’re unpublished, writing a novella is a great way to learn the craft of fiction with a shorter body of work.

If you’re published, adding novellas to your lineup is a great way to give your readers a shorter work to read and enjoy (and purchase, of course) in between your novel releases.

A novella can be a story about one of your secondary characters—a character who maybe doesn’t need a full novel, yet your readers are asking for more information about that character. Writing a novella is also a great way to test out a new genre. Perhaps you write historical fiction and want to try writing a mystery or contemporary romance. Start with a novella to see how things go.

Novellas are also an excellent way to experiment with writing in a different point of view. For example, maybe all of your works are third-person narrative, and you want to try writing in first person. Or perhaps you’ve written a romance novel in the heroine’s point of view; as a bonus, you could write the same story in novella form from the hero’s point of view.

Your publisher might invite you to contribute to an anthology in order to cross-promote your work with other writers in your genre. You will be given a general theme to write to and will be asked to adhere to a word-count limit. In this way, writing a novella becomes a marketing tool to gain new readers, as well as a way to keep your publishing career relevant with more frequent releases.

How to Write a Novella

How to write a novella? Many novelists struggle with writing a shorter version of their full-length novel. In that same vein, writing a 20,000 word novella compared to a 40,000 word novella requires a different strategy.

Below, I’ve included tips on crafting your novella in a way that will satisfy the reader and help you stick to an appropriate word count. Keep in mind that if your readers are used to full-length books from you, you’ll need to be doubly sure they will be happy with your shorter works as well. You don’t want them throwing your book, or their e-reader, across the room in frustration. Yes, they can pine a little and wish the book was longer because your characters and storytelling are wonderful, but you want the reader to feel a sense of completion and satisfaction at the end of the story.

  1. Your main characters should already know each other. You’ll catch the reader up on their established relationship, but it will save you word count if you’re not starting a relationship from scratch.
  2. You need fewer influential characters—both primary and secondary. You might include the main character’s father or sister, but you won’t have scenes involving all six siblings, two aunts, and a grandmother. Or your detective might interact mostly with his partner, not with the entire police force.
  3. In full-length novels, it’s important to avoid info dumps at all costs and to develop scenes fully. In novellas, you’ll need small info dumps strategically placed so that the story can move forward at a faster pace.
  4. Your story timeline needs to be shorter. Instead of covering months or perhaps a year or more, as you would in your full-length novel, you’ll cover a few weeks in your novella.
  5. Your plot should be simpler than in a novel. This doesn’t mean your story should be one-dimensional. In a mystery, perhaps only the final couple clues need to be found. In a romance, the heroine is at the point in her life that she’s ready to settle down but has to overcome one complication, not five or six. In a fantasy, you’ll create a world that is relatively easy to set up and is streamlined.
  6. Your novella should have only one—or maybe two—viewpoints.
  7. Novellas should have shorter chapters. Crafting 5- to 6-page chapters will move the pacing along much faster than 10- to 12-page chapters will.
  8. You should scale down the conflicts so they can be solved by the main character or through a single circumstance.
  9. You should craft smaller-scale events. In a mystery novella, the murder event should include one person and one incident, instead of a series of murders. In a historical romance, the romance should quickly fit into the plot arc; the hero shouldn’t need to first run off to war for two years. A fantasy should stick to a specific location and shorter timeframe rather than include epic battles or characters going on a year-long quest.
  10. Your novella’s solution needs to be satisfactory. For example, in a historical romance novel, a typical arc might involve the relationship between the hero and heroine developing into confessed love and a possible marriage proposal. In a novella, the relationship might reach its pinnacle at the first kiss, with a promise of more.

Best of luck with your future novellas:

Check out some of Heather B. Moore’s novellas and novels:

Her next book is Deborah: Prophetess of God, coming in September 2019.

Works Cited

Chuck Sambuchino, “How Long Is a Novella? And How Do You Query Agents for Them?,” Writer’s Digest, November 18, 2008, https://www.writersdigest.com/publishing-insights/how-long-is-a-novella-and-how-do-you-query-agents-for-them.

Jack Smith, “The Novella: Stepping Stone to Success or Waste of Time?,” The Writer, October 4, 2017, https://www.writermag.com/improve-your-writing/fiction/novella/.

Advice from the Experts: Marianna Richardson (Author, Professor, Wife, Mother)

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By Lessa Harding

We all have moments that change our lives. For many of us, those moments are perfectly ordinary, yet somehow they shape the people we become. It could be a random exchange with a stranger on the street, an innocent comment from a child, or a sunrise after a long night. For me, it was a conversation I had with my stake president when I was 16 years old. We talked after a fireside, and while I can’t remember what the fireside was about or which building’s Relief Society room we were in, I can tell you that he asked me what I wanted to do with my life. As the opinionated daughter of a successful attorney, I boldly declared my resolution to pursue a career in law, changing the world one amicus brief at a time and spending any extra time traveling the world.

My stake president smiled broadly and somehow managed to turn the conversation to family. He asked if I wanted one. My answer was a very blunt no. Again, the stake president smiled, and then he told me about his wife and her life as a mother who was also attending school in the evenings. I later met his wife and was amazed to come to know a woman besides my own mother who loved being a mother and still pursued other dreams. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just my mom telling me that life doesn’t end when you have children. My stake president and his wife were telling me the same thing. The conversation with my stake president was my first introduction to Marianna Richardson, and it stuck with me as I became friends with her daughters, went to prom with her son, and babysat her grandkids. She’s one of the many women who showed me how important and fulfilling family is. The lesson she taught me is one of the reasons that made interviewing Marianna so much fun!

Marianna is married to Steve Richardson. She’s the mother of 12 children and author/coauthor of five books, including a fictionalized story from her family’s history, a book about C. S. Lewis, and a compilation of lessons her nine daughters learned while growing up with each other. Marianna is also an adjunct professor at BYU, where she teaches advanced writing for business and is the chief editor for the Marriott Student Review. She has a master’s degree from John’s Hopkins University and an doctorate degree from Seattle Pacific University. She’s working on her MBA and will be attending law school at BYU in the fall.

My favorite quote from Marianna during our interview is no surprise given our history. When I asked her how she balanced having a family and a career, she said: “The key is time. I didn’t do it all at once. I was an at-home mom for 40 years… The biggest frustration I see with a lot of women is they [think they] have to do it all now. . . . You don’t.”

I hope the other advice Marianna shared helps you as much as her advice has helped me!

  • “[You] have to go back to the basics of writing before [you] can talk about the beauty of language. If you don’t know the basics, you can’t do the other stuff.”
  • “I do feel that if you really want to become a good writer, you don’t need to just read, but read out loud so you are not only reading it but hearing it. Read out loud, have those experiences in language, . . . listen to the cadence. There is a difference.”
  • Self-publishing requires self-promotion. “You really do need to promote as a part-time job.”
  • “I think in order for a writer to become successful, you . . . need to stick with one genre. That is one of the business problems I have had. I like to write about too many different things. . . . You can’t have a following if you don’t stick with one genre.”
  • “Experiential learning is how you really learn.”
  • “It’s not that most people are not good writers; they just don’t understand the positive writing process. Writing . . . shouldn’t be a lonely experience. Yes, you write, but then you talk to a friend about it and have them read it and discuss how to make it better. . . . Don’t write the night before it’s due. If that is how you write, no wonder you hate it . . . . [In a] real writing process, you write it, you leave it, . . . you have other people read it and give you feedback, then you write it again. . . . [After that,] you have other people read it and do it again.”
  • “I feel strongly and firmly that every woman has to have their own outlet, something that means something to them, some sort of intellectual stimulation. Quilting, creating works of art, or cooking. For me, it was education.”
  • “[Some] women who have stayed home with their children . . . come out the other end [and] think they are done. I feel like now is the time to have your career. You don’t have to say ‘I am too old’ [or] ‘I can’t.’ I think that is totally wrong. If you want to get that graduate degree, go get it. . . . Don’t think you’re done at 60.”
  • “Keep trying. Every great writer has the huge stack of rejection letters. But I think that is just a good understanding of life. I don’t care what you want to do or what you want to be; you need to learn how to handle rejection. Have that long-term view. . . . You can’t let those things get you down.”
  • “Be patient. It is so easy to get frustrated. . . . It might take 10–20 years, and people don’t want to hear that. Be patient.”
  • Personal motto: “Wahoo, the gospel is true!”

10 Common Mistakes Your Editor Wants You to Fix

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By Lessa Harding

By a show of hands, how many of you still have emotional scars caused by the red pen your English teacher used to grade your writing assignments? Come on, raise your hands. I’m definitely raising my hand. Fifteen years after graduating from high school, I still appreciate it when a professor uses a blue pen instead of a red one. I’ve always struggled with where to use commas, how to use modifiers, and how to properly cite sources. So, to help us all out, I asked Suzy Bills and Marianna Richardson, who teach editing and writing courses at BYU, to list some of the most common mistakes they see in university writing assignments and professional publications. Here’s what they shared:

Mistake 1: Using a comma after a conjunction when it links two dependent clauses

Rule: If or, and, or but links two phrases that couldn’t be complete sentences on their own, then don’t use a comma before the linking word.

Example: I went to the store and then went to the park.

Mistake 2: Following for example or for instance with and so forth

Rule: When a list starts with for example or for instance (or e.g.,), the list should not end with and so forth (or etc.) because for example and for instance indicate a finite number of examples will be listed, whereas and so forth indicates the list isn’t finite.

Example: For example, you can use red, orange, blue, and green.

Mistake 3: Using unclear and weak pronouns

Rule: Beware of weak pronouns (e.g., it, there, this) since they can cause confusion in meaning or can lead to being wordy or using the passive voice.

Examples:

  • The Book of Mormon focuses on Jesus; this emphasis changed how I live. (Not: The Book of Mormon focuses on Jesus; this changed how I live.)
  • Some people don’t like to run. (Not: There are some people who don’t like to run.)

Mistake 4: Misplacing modifiers

Rule: The modifier should be placed right before the word it modifies. Pay particular attention to the word only.

Examples:

  • Only Steve likes the team when it wins. (Meaning: No one but Steve likes the team when it wins.)
  • Steve likes the team only when it wins. (Meaning: Steve doesn’t like the team when it loses.)

Mistake 5: Using i.e. instead of e.g.

Rule: i.e. means “that is” or “in other words,” whereas e.g. means “for example.”

Examples:

  • Please, wear nice clothes (i.e., a suit and tie).
  • Beware of weak pronouns (e.g., it, there, this).

Mistake 6: Using that instead of which

Rule: Use that when what follows is essential to the meaning being conveyed in the sentence. Use which when what follows isn’t essential to the meaning being conveyed.

Examples:

  • I went to the beach, which is my favorite vacation spot. (Meaning: Beaches in general are my favorite vacation spot.)
  • I went to the beach that is my favorite vacation spot. (Meaning: One specific beach is my favorite vacation spot.)

Mistake 7: Using lead instead of led

Rule: Led is the past tense of the verb lead. The noun lead refers to a metal. People often confuse the verb led with the noun lead because the words have the same pronunciation.

Example: I led him away from the statues, which was made of lead.

Mistake 8: Using less instead of fewer

Rule: Use less when the object you are referring to is uncountable. Use fewer when the object is countable.

Example: I have less water and fewer pieces of candy than you.

Mistake 9: Using who instead of whom

Rule: Use who as the subject of a sentence. Use whom as the object of a verb or preposition.

Examples:

  • Who spilled this milk and didn’t clean it up?
  • To whom did you address the letter?

Mistake 10: Using a hyphen instead of an em dash

Rule: Use a hyphen to join two words together. Use an em dash to set off a statement that is parenthetical or that signifies a break in idea or sentence structure.

Examples:

  • I love my mother-in-law.
  • You think you have to go to the party—the biggest event of the year.

In case you want even more guidance, here are some resources suggested by Suzy, Marianna, and a few of our readers:

  • HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, by Bryan A. Garner
  • The Chicago Manual of Style, by the University of Chicago Press
  • Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams
  • Chicago Style Workouts, available at https://cmosshoptalk.com/chicago-style-workouts/

Happy writing!

Advice from the Experts: Terry Deighton (Author, Wife, Mother)

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By Lessa Harding

One thing few people know about me is that I have pointed ears. I remember coming home from school crying because the kids in my class teased me about my ears. When I started reading fantasy novels and role playing with my daddy as a teenager, I thought my pointed ears were cool. On occasion, I even used dark eyeshadow to accentuate the pointiness and I styled my hair to draw attention to my ears. Who am I kidding? I did that through my 20s.

I secretly loved my ears, even when I was teased about them as a kid. I was certain I was really an elf princess with auburn hair to match the color of the Redwoods and with green eyes to match the leaves. My ears made me the heroine in many an imaginative story. I was drawn back into this reverie about my ears as I got to know author Terry Deighton.

After speaking with Terry, I can’t help but wonder how many of us have envisioned ourselves as the courageous hero who saves the day and changes the world. The thing about a courageous hero, though, is you can’t be one unless there is conflict or fear that has to be overcome. WWI hero Eddie Rickenbacker said that “courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.”

Terry is a quiet hero who loves reading, crafting, watching television, and talking with her family. Her friend Ann Acton, author of The Miracle Maker, describes Terry as a “grammar goddess,” but Terry describes herself as an introvert who “always wanted to write books that would affect readers the way [she] has been affected by [her own] reading.” Terry also fully admits to having to work to develop the thick skin—and, I would add, the courage—required to send her work into the wide world of publishing. Terry told me that “the hardest thing I’ve had to learn is not to be hurt by criticism. It’s important to let it sit until it doesn’t hurt anymore and then look at it objectively and see how you can revise your writing to make it better.”

Terry is the author of three Christmas novellas and a five-book middle-grade series called Tweaks. Her blog describes her series as having “a dash of science, a splash of humor, and a generous portion of character development.” Having read the books, I fully agree with that description and the 4-star and higher ratings her books have received on Goodreads. I’m pretty sure Terry is one of those amazing heroes who “is doing what [she] is afraid to do.” I hope her advice helps you find the courage you need to be a hero too:

  • “Try to get an agent, but if that doesn’t happen in a reasonable amount of time, give self-publishing a try. You don’t have to choose one or the other.”
  • You may wish you could just “write your books, publish them, and send them out on their own. Unfortunately, they just sit if you do that. . . . All authors have to do a lot of marketing, so understanding social media and setting up Amazon ads is important.”
  • “Write when and where inspiration strikes.”
  • In terms of balancing family and work, “you have to decide what is most important and organize your time according to those priorities. Give up what isn’t important so you have time for both family and writing.”
  • “Don’t set arbitrary deadlines for yourself, and don’t compare your output to anyone else’s.”
  • “Use rejection to fuel the desire to write better, to learn the craft, to find your niche.”
  • “Above all, don’t give up. [Giving up] won’t make you happy. If you are a writer, you have to write. Write for yourself, and publish when it seems right.”