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Member Spotlight: Tiffany Thomas!

June 26, 2021 By Trina Boice 1 Comment

Tiffany Thomas lives in Houston, Texas.

What are some names of the books or other media you have created?

I am a blogger. My blog is called “Saving Talents.” Part of the blog’s purpose is to provide free daily devotionals for children that go along with the “Come, Follow Me” program. I also blog about anything that could be useful for someone trying to live a Christ-centered life, which ranges from words of inspiration to finances to recipes. I also have Crohn’s disease, so sometimes I write about dealing with chronic illness.

What inspired you to become a creator of media?

I began homeschooling my children and wanted something about the gospel I could teach them. A month after beginning, “Come Follow Me” was announced, I knew that would be the perfect fit. I saw so many other parents feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility of it, though, so I decided to offer my content for free for others to use.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

I love hearing from other parents about how the devotionals have made a difference in their home. It’s so rewarding to feel like I am helping not only my own children, but other children as well.

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given in your creative journey?

“You can’t please everyone.” Everyone has different tastes and preferences about what they read or use or see. Sometimes, that feedback is helpful, but other times, that feedback is simply an opinion that may or may not fit with your goals. It’s okay to choose to not apply someone’s input about work.

What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Find a circle of support. Blogging is an extremely difficult and competitive field. Not only are you writing, but you also have to learn the technology and keep up with changing social media and search engines in order to have success. Having a pod or group of other bloggers who aren’t competitive and are willing to help one another makes all the difference.

What keeps you inspired in your daily creative work?

Honestly, it’s the gospel and my testimony. I see on a daily basis how much better my life is because of the knowledge I have about Heavenly Father and His love for me. My relationship with the Savior has lightened many burdens, and I want to pass that on to others who may also be struggling with the burdens that come with this life.

What would you like others to know about you or your creative process?

Blogging is so much more work than just sitting down and writing an article. I have learned so much about data analysis, graphic design, and more. It has forced me to leave my comfort zone and be diligent in my efforts if I want to reach as many people as possible.

In what ways do you feel you have been able to be a voice for good in your creative pursuits?

Being a blogger lets me reach a variety of people all around the world that I normally wouldn’t come in contact with. Not only do the devotionals help other young parents bring the gospel into their children’s lives in deliberate ways, but I also can help those who are looking for ways to follow the Savior more closely. Whether that’s in their personal development or their struggles with a chronic illness diagnosis or parenting or homeschooling, hopefully, my experiences have helped ease the path for others who are in similar circumstances.

If you want your spotlight to link to your website or any of your social media platforms, include the URLs here.

https://savingtalents.com/

Showing Versus Telling to Write Compelling Dialogue

June 2, 2021 By Emma Heggem Leave a Comment

By Emma Heggem

To write a good conversation, you first need to be picky about what conversations make it into your book. A conversation that doesn’t affect the story, no matter how dynamic, realistic, and well-written, will feel like an unnecessary aside. Dialogue takes up a lot more space than narrating a conversation would. It needs to earn that space by showing readers something important. Characters need to learn valuable information through the conversation, whether that’s the password to their bank account or the state of another human being’s emotions. The things that are talked about must change the story or the character by being known.

There are some things that come across particularly well by being shown to readers in a conversation. One example is relationships. Readers don’t like to be told about a relationship between two characters. They want to feel the connection for themselves, which means that it is very important to show relationships and show them changing over the course of the book. Downtime or relationship-changing moments for characters, including dialogue, can help readers feel the bond between the characters and be invested in the relationship. This is true whether the relationship is improving or declining. Inter-character conflict is just as important to show as characters falling in love.

Decisions can also work well as dialogue conversations. Inner monologues can get tiring to read and can drift into angst or get repetitive. Real people mull over the same thing again and again when making a decision, but characters need to avoid boring their readers. One way to show them pondering a decision without sitting inside their head and going in circles is to have them talk their decision through with another person. This pushes them forward and forces them to move through each part of the decision and then move on. When the character weighing the decision gets bogged down, their friends or listeners can express the same frustration the readers will be feeling and cut them off.

Another excellent use of dialogue is to provide the reader with an active and dynamic account of events that your point-of-view character wasn’t present for. This can help tone down unnecessary telling in your novel. The characters who were present can retell the story, be asked questions, and even be unreliable when it suits your needs. That’s much more interesting than a factual summary of important events.

Speaking of things your point-of-view character doesn’t know, dialogue is a great way to show readers the emotional state of your other characters without necessarily cluing your POV character in. Is one of your characters keeping a huge secret? Is a side character madly in love with your oblivious main character? By showing the conversations directly to the reader, you allow the reader to pick up on things that the point-of-view character doesn’t notice. This can help fill in the blanks and explain complex side-character motivations without having to switch POV.

As with most forms of showing, dialogue takes up more time and space than narration does. Choosing which conversations to show your readers is a very important step towards making sure that the conversation will be compelling. Don’t waste time with dialogue that isn’t going to strengthen your story. Focus on the moments that readers truly need to hear (read) about and you will end up having a much easier time keeping them interested and invested.

Happy writing!

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Emma Heggem is the managing editor with Future House Publishing. She specializes in content editing sci-fi and fantasy novels. She has worked with authors from around the world to prepare their manuscripts for publication. When she’s not editing, she attends writers conferences to take pitches, give critiques, and talk to aspiring writers about the mysterious world of publishing. Emma graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English language and a minor in editing.

Podcasting: Why You Should Think About Trying It

March 24, 2021 By LDSPMA Leave a Comment

By Ashley Fontes

Years ago, I started a children’s yoga blog. I had my blog name and a good website address. I wrote innovative content, I had my target audience, I made videos, I offered free content. Eventually, I even wrote on guest blogs. I was doing everything everyone was telling me to do to get my name out there, and still, I was not getting more than 50 hits a month.

What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I break into the market?

Trying a New Tactic

I couldn’t figure it out, but then last year I found this little gem that made me think: “As of this writing, there are over 500 million blogs available on the Internet. By contrast, Google claims to have indexed two million podcasts, and in 2018, Apple claimed that there were 525,000 active podcasts. Would you rather try to be noticeable in a room of 500 people, or a room with two?”

I did some more researching to see if podcasts would really make that big of a difference. Again, this is what I found:

75% of the US population is familiar with the term “podcasting”
55% (155 million) of the US population has listened to a podcast
16 million people in the US are “avid podcast fans”

With such a surprisingly large potential audience waiting, I had to try this out.

I rebranded everything I owned to one name. I made sure all of my social media accounts pointed to my website and blog and that I owned the simplest domain for my new brand. Then I started my podcast, Read and Yoga. Same brand, same content, same audience, just a different platform.

A podcast set up with microphone and computer.

The Results

In two months, I had 100 downloads on my podcast. While 100 downloads in two months didn’t mean instant podcaster celebrity status for me, it came with great side effects:

I went from 50 unique visits a month on my website to 150 unique visits to my website.
Since there are only 15 podcasters in my genre, I don’t have as much competition to get my content noticed in that sphere.
I have been featured as a guest on two other podcasts, with a third coming up next month. And my podcast has received a shoutout from one of the top podcasters in my genre. These opportunities have drawn new readers and listeners to my blog and podcast from those podcasters’ audiences.
My social media page has grown faster in the last two months than in the last two years.

The steps for starting a podcast are very similar to starting a blog . . . and there is no one saying you can’t have both. My podcast allows me to reach my audience where they are in ways that my blog can’t. While my blog talks mostly to caregivers and teachers, my podcast can reach straight out to yogis.

You can find the same benefits from starting your own podcast! Reach people where they are, and don’t be afraid to change.

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Ashley Fontes graduated from Brigham Young University (Provo) with a BA in Humanities. She continued exploring her love for cultures by becoming a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, instructing both children and adults. While raising a family, writing, and teaching yoga, she has been active in the Deaf community, and in 2018 she co-founded a non-profit organization, ASL Junction.

Website: www.readandyoga.com