LDSPMA

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

LDS writers

LDSPMA Member Spotlight: Mattea Gygi

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Mattea Gygi is currently a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and serves on the LDSPMA Student Chapter on campus.

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

I currently write for TechBuzz news, a Utah Tech online newspaper. I write about emerging and growing tech companies in Utah.

What inspired you to become a creator of media?

I love words and the way they can be used to teach others. Words have helped me expand my view of the world and I hope to create content that also expands minds and encourages learning.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

My career has been insanely short as I am still in college, but a highlight of my career was creating, planning, and writing a series of articles about Polynesian entrepreneurs and founders in Utah tech.

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

Simple is elegant.

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

Writing is hard, so I applaud you. I am not very experienced, but I have learned that there are many people in this field HAPPY to mentor and help you along the way—so find them and let them take you far.

What keeps you inspired in your daily creative work?

I love words, as I said earlier, and working with words and trying to arrange them in the best possible outcome makes me happy and is very satisfying to me.

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

I love food and have found food to be a great motivator and defeater of writer’s block.

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

I love that my publication focuses on unbiased, true news. We write to inform, not to persuade, and I think that kind of writing is really needed in the tech space. If anything, we are positive in our portrayal of businesses, but overall we always tell the truth.

Member Spotlight: Elizabeth Hubbard!

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

  • Fight On! World War II and Cold War Experiences of Lt. Commander John R. “Jack” Hubbard USNR
  • The Search Never Ends: Musings of John R. “Jack” Hubbard
  • Adventures With A Historian: The Life and Times of John R. “Jack” Hubbard

What inspired you to become a creator of media?

It was an accident. I spent many years proofreading books my father wrote. In 2011, in an effort to maintain my sanity while recovering from major surgery, I worked side by side with my dad as he put his brother’s memoirs, letters, and notes into a manuscript for publication. I began by fact-checking everything I could because I quickly realized that my uncle’s story was as much a global history lesson as it was his personal story. I conducted extensive research to answer questions that arose during the compilation of the manuscript, then incorporated my findings into the book.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

The highlight has been the encouragement and assistance received from David McCullough, Congressman Michael Burgess, and the University of Southern California.

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

It is better to push back a release date than not verify that your facts are accurate, your grammar is correct, and your typos have been eliminated. Don’t be afraid to include photos, illustrations, maps, etc. if they add interest and/or understanding to the story but don’t use them just to fill up space.

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

If you are writing nonfiction, make sure you document all sources and give credit where credit is due. Don’t be afraid to make cold calls to obtain more information and understanding.

What keeps you inspired in your daily creative work?

I’m inspired by looking at the mountain of source materials in cardboard boxes that sits in my office. To me, it’s too valuable to throw into the dumpster.

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

I was surprised at the reaction of immediate and extended family members. Deep feelings ranging from anger and resentment to awe and wonder arose from the four corners of the world. As a result, we took out certain sections, deleted some names, and re-worded embarrassing or compromising sections to protect the innocent without compromising the integrity of the story.

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

We were able to make the Amazon Best Sellers list without using profanity to tell war and espionage stories.

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

http://www.punaluudata.com

Showing Versus Telling to Write Compelling Dialogue

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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.

What Is LDSPMA Really About?

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By Michael I. Judson

Years ago, I worked for Novell, a company that, at one time, was the world leader in computer networking software. You might think the way the company got so big was by focusing on beating out all its competitors, but our mission statement was just the opposite. It was: “To grow the networking industry faster than it would without us.”

That mission statement seemed counterintuitive at first. Why spend time and resources helping everyone else in the industry when we had our own company’s success to look after? But over time, the wisdom of that approach began to manifest itself. You see, personal computers were relatively new at the time, and networking them together was a novel concept, so we needed help to create awareness and demand for products in our industry.

Without the infrastructure of the industry, our leaders knew the company would never succeed, so we developed our own trade show and aggressively invited other companies to participate. We sponsored training and professional certification programs, started our own industry magazine, and published newsletters for resellers and dealers. And we sought out mutually beneficial partnerships with other technology companies.

So, what has all of this got to do with the Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association? Of course, we are not out to dominate some “industry.” Rather, we want to bring the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as we can through the creative works of gifted writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and more. And the best way to do this is by helping everyone who has a similar desire, to reach their goals—including organizations that may look a bit like ours.

Borrowing a well-known metaphor, we want to be a part of the “rising tide” that helps to “lift all boats.” Yes, we want to succeed as an organization; otherwise, why exist? By collaborating with other organizations and individuals with a similar vision, we can help to inspire more creativity, develop more opportunities for sharing ideas and creative works, and establish more connections with more people who share a passion for spreading praiseworthy works to a sometimes dark and dreary world.

Announcing . . .

With that as a backdrop, we are thrilled to announce a partnership with the American Night Writers Association (ANWA), which will begin with LDSPMA and ANWA each promoting the other’s annual conferences.

ANWA is a professional organization for writers and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose purpose is to encourage, assist, educate, and motivate Church members to write, and, if they desire, to publish their works.
Learn more about ANWA at their website or on Facebook or Instagram, and watch for additional announcements from LDSPMA about partnerships and sponsorships to help us serve and inspire more Latter-day Saints who are interested in publishing and media.
And if you are part of an organization that shares our vision and would like to explore partnership or sponsorship opportunities with LDSPMA, please contact me at [email protected].

Mike Judson is a professional communicator, author, and the LDSPMA Director of Development.