Writing Unleashed with Laura M. Harkins

Today’s post comes to you a bit late due to some electricity issues in my neighborhood. The strong wind, I’m sure, is the culprit. Anyhow… The inclusion of weather in your writing helps tell a story. The reader can better visualize the setting with details of the sun peaking through the lime green leafs of the maple tree. Let your reader know it just rained by showing your characters walking through puddles on the sidewalks. Using weather grabs the reader’s attention and brings them into a realistic story. Weather behaves as the antagonist in nature versus character stories. The weather, albeit hurricanes, tornados or snowstorms, acts as the conflict the character must overcome by the end of the story. You can also use weather as a literary technique. Kathy Temean (link below) talks about different ways weather symbolizes character feelings. In Shakespeare’s play King Lear, a storm begins as King Lear begins to lose his mind. The storm mirrors the intensity King Lear feels. Te...

fanpop.com When you write you want to grab and hold your reader’s attention.  How can you accomplish this?  Maybe add a romance.    Just about every novel contains a love story.  Make the romance between two teenagers and you might be on to something.      The unknown territory and innocence of young love creates a feeling empathized by all readers.   Intensify the attraction by adding complications of unrequited love and life or death situations.   Throw in a few supernatural beings (i.e., vampires, shape-shifters and human/vampire hybrids) for a delicious twist and you have Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling  Breaking Dawn , the fourth and last novel of the YA series, Twilight . Are we really suckers for love?   No.   Well, maybe.   But you can attribute the novel’s bewitching power to conflict .   The drama provides the driving force.   As a reader you find yourself unable to stop reading in hopes o...