It’s Friday, welcome back to Help from My Friends! I’m delighted to share with you USA Today Bestselling Author Lois Winston’s view of writer’s block. I thought I’d heard everything in this writers’ world, but to learn characters could form a union? Well, at least Lois’s did. Read on! ~ Donnell
Literary Brick Walls
By Lois Winston
USA Today Bestselling Author Lois Winston
With apologies to Richard Castle, there are two kinds of people who sit around listening to the voices in their heads –those with a serious medical condition and mystery writers. I’m in the group that doesn’t talk back out loud. At least most of the time.
Authors often complain about the “sagging middle,” that section of the book where suddenly nothing is working the way you want it to. It’s like hitting a brick wall but a brick wall that you know is just around the corner. You’ve hit it before, in your last book. And the one before that. And the one before that. And every book you’ve ever written. It doesn’t matter that you know the wall is coming up. You still speed ahead at 100 miles per hour (or in the case of writers, 100 words per minute) until BOOM!
And suddenly you’re staring at a blinking curser for hours. And hours. And hours. And sometimes those hours turn into days. And your characters start laughing at you because they knew that wall was coming. And they knew that you knew the wall was coming because THE WALL ALWAYS COMES.
What is that brick wall? It’s when my characters won’t do what I want them to do. They absolutely refuse to take part in the next scene—or any scene—until I agree to see things their way. When I don’t, they start taunting me that I’m taking the easy way out. They demand more conflict, another red herring, or one more plot twist. They keep me up at night, forcing me to think outside-the-box. They bombard me with “what ifs?”, pressing me to look at my story from their point of view. I argue, it’s my book. They disagree. We may never resolve that standoff.
There are two types of writers, those who plot and those who write by the seat of their pants. I’m basically a “pantser” who does the bare minimum of plotting. I know how a book will begin and how it will end (usually), but I’m not someone who can plot out every scene in every chapter before I write that first sentence. I’ve tried writing that way, but I’ve found when I know everything that’s going to happen in a story before it happens, writing loses its joy and becomes a boring chore—like cleaning the bathroom. You know you have to do it, but you’d rather do anything else than scrub that toilet bowl.
My brick wall ringleader is Anastasia Pollack, the amateur sleuth of the eponymous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. We’ve been living a symbiotic relationship for ten novels and three novellas now. Anastasia first entered my life years ago, back when I was writing romance. One day an editor told my agent she was looking for a cozy mystery series featuring a crafter. With my background as a designer in the consumer crafts industry, my agent thought I’d be the ideal candidate to write such a series. I’d never considered writing a mystery, but I had written romantic suspense. So, I thought I’d give it a try. Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, debuted in January 2011. Since then, Anastasia and I have become inseparable.
Anastasia is an extremely demanding protagonist. If she doesn’t like something I’ve written, she erects that brick wall, coercing me to listen to her. You see, the problem with those voices in my head is that they’re unionized. If one refuses to budge, they all line up in solidarity, effectively shutting down my muse. Not listening to them means continuing to stare at that blinking cursor, which is the bane of any writer’s existence. So, it behooves me to pay attention when the voices in my head threaten to go on strike.
If I complain and put my own foot down? Anastasia’s standard line is, “You know you’ll thank me in the end.” And you know what? Darned if she isn’t right. Every time. Someday I may learn my lesson and stop arguing with her.
Of course, as usual, Anastasia and I tussled over her latest adventure, Stitch, Bake, Die!, which is now available for preorder.
About the Book: Stitch, Bake, Die!
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 10
With massive debt, a communist mother-in-law, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and a photojournalist boyfriend who may or may not be a spy, crafts editor Anastasia Pollack already juggles too much in her life. So she’s not thrilled when her magazine volunteers her to present workshops and judge a needlework contest at the inaugural conference of the New Jersey chapter of the Stitch and Bake Society, a national organization of retired professional women. At least her best friend and cooking editor Cloris McWerther has also been roped into similar duties for the culinary side of the 3-day event taking place on the grounds of the exclusive Beckwith Chateau Country Club.
The sweet little old ladies Anastasia is expecting to meet are definitely old, and some of them are little, but all are anything but sweet. She’s stepped into a vipers’ den that starts with bribery and ends with murder. When an ice storm forces Anastasia and Cloris to spend the night at the Chateau, Anastasia discovers evidence of insurance scams, medical fraud, an opioid ring, long-buried family secrets, and a bevy of suspects.
Can she piece together the various clues before she becomes the killer’s next target?
Crafting tips included.
Buy Links
Paperback (coming soon)
Kindle https://amzn.to/3ylMivw
Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/stitch-bake-die/id1582066729
Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/stitch-bake-die
~*~
About the Author: USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.
Website: www.loiswinston.com
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Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/anasleuth
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anasleuth
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/722763.Lois_Winston
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-winston
It’s always so fun to host you, Lois. I have to say your muse was on fire with Stich, Bake, Die. Wonderful plot and so many craft and baking tips in this one! So glad I learned never to bake with hardened butter!
Thanks, Donnell! Always a pleasure to stop by to visit with you. (Hard butter for pie crusts only!)
Another good one, Lois! A problem most of us face.
Thanks, Marilyn! Glad you enjoyed it.
No wonder my voices aren’t talking. I think they’ve joined the same union!
Great post, Lois.
Waving hello, Donnell.
Great to see you, Barbara!
Love the humor in Lois Winston’s post on this blog, Donnell!
My brain is overflowing with ideas about how to fix my muddled middles. Pantsers don’t have it easy, do they? Still waiting for the fun…
Beth, the fun comes when after all you hard work, all those characters finally cooperate, the pieces fit together, and you have a workable novel. That’s not only fun but so rewarding! To everyone, thanks for stopping by.
Characters – sigh – they can be soooo fickle. Could that be because they know how much we need them and forget that they also need us?
Barbara, those characters of ours can be quite militant when they don’t get their own way.
Thanks for stopping by, Beth! The humor in my writing keeps me sane. 😉
This post is a hoot. Thanks for sharing, Lois!
You may have something there, Carolyn. Without us, those characters wouldn’t exist.
Thanks, Alyssa! Glad you enjoyed it.