July 4, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Seaport at sunset by Claude Lorrain 1682

Artist: Claude Lorrain (1604/1605–1682)

Title:   Seaport at sunset

Genre: landscape painting

Date: 1639

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 1 m (40.5 in); width: 1.3 m (53.9 in)

What I love about this painting:

Wow! Where to start? This is what true genius looks like. The overall scene is masterfully done, one of the best seascapes I have seen. The waters are calm, allowing for goods and passengers to be transferred safely to shore. The sky is that incredible quality that nature sometimes offers us on a summer evening. A haze is rising, and ships are still entering the harbor, waiting for their turn to offload their cargoes and passengers. Waves lap softly at the shore, a gentle rhythm.

Claude shows us a thriving, prosperous seaport under a glorious sunset. In fact, the scenery is so beautiful, it’s easy to overlook the dramas playing out in the foreground. However, we shouldn’t, as that is where the real story he wanted to show us lies.

In the bottom left, a family is seated on an upturned boat. Are they waiting to board a ship? They seem to be musicians, as the man plays a cittern, and a lute rests beside the woman and child, along with a pile of baggage.

To their right, a pair of merchants discuss business with a foreign trader, whose clothing suggests he is from Persia. Are they negotiating the purchase of rare spices? Or are they attempting to sell him something?

In the bottom center, violence has erupted as a pair of ruffians have decided to settle their dispute the old-fashioned way. Sailors on shore leave? Too much to drink? Fighting over a woman? The onlookers are disgusted but do not step in to break it up. Apparently, someone “had it coming.”

To the right of the combatants and knot of friends, a pair of well-dressed men, one seated on an upturned boat and one standing, are clearly waiting for something. Perhaps these people are all waiting to board the same ship.

And finally, on the far right, we have several ships, accompanied by small boats called tenders, which are going to and from them. In the foreground, sailors row tenders to the strand. Will our passengers be rowed out to board their ship? This is a bustling harbor, and it’s clear that berths along the quayside are at a premium. Perhaps, rather than paying for a berth when his cargo consists of passengers rather than goods, this ship’s owner keeps his costs down by bringing supplies on board by tender and ferrying passengers to and from the shore.

Claude’s glorious sunset hints that hope lies beyond the horizon. Are the passengers embarking on a journey to the New World? Perhaps they are going to India, or even to the French colonies in the South Pacific. Wherever they are going, I hope their journey is peaceful and ends well.

About the artist, via Wikipedia:

Claude Lorrain (born Claude Gellée), called le Lorrain in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era originally from the Duchy of Lorraine. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is one of the earliest significant artists, aside from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting. His landscapes often transitioned into the more prestigious genre of history paintings by addition of a few small figures, typically representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology. [1]

To learn more about this artist go to Claude Lorrain – Wikipedia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Seaport at sunset by Claude Lorrain 1682. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:F0087 Louvre Gellee port au soleil couchant- INV4715 rwk.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:F0087_Louvre_Gellee_port_au_soleil_couchant-_INV4715_rwk.jpg&oldid=967103912 (accessed June 27, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Claude Lorrain,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claude_Lorrain&oldid=1298367934 (accessed July 2, 2025).

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June 30, 2025 · 6:00 am

A few of the many things I wish I had known about #writing

I have always thought of myself as a writer. During the 1970s and into the early 1990s, my pen and ink ramblings were poems and random scenes that contained ideas that later evolved into full-fledged short stories.

My typewriter sat beside the hamster cage in the corner of the kitchen (a poor placement choice). While my kids did homework, I pecked away at short stories.

Eventually, I acquired a secondhand computer and began writing a novel. Five years and 225,000 words later, I had a rambling mess on my hands that would never be finished.

I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t figure out how to end it, and it was filled with grammar and punctuation errors. I had no idea how to make it look professional, as I had never heard of “industry standards.” My enthusiasm exceeded my knowledge and ability, and I didn’t know how to rectify the problem.

In 1990, a book that would change my life was featured in the Science Fiction Book Club catalog: “How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy” by Orson Scott Card. The day that book arrived in my mailbox was the day I embarked on my quest to learn everything I could about the craft of writing.

I’m still learning. Since acquiring that book, I have amassed a library on the craft. Some are brilliant, while others are not, but I always learn something.

Diving into the deep end of writing contests and seeking a publisher can be both scary and wonderful. Every experience, good and bad, educates you just a little more. What follows are a few things I wish I had known in 2010 when I was directed to the (now defunct) organization that was NaNoWriMo. and began this journey in earnest.

One: Make a style sheet (also known as a storyboard or bible) as you go.

Build a glossary of words and spellings unique to your story and be sure to list names. I use an Excel spreadsheet, but you can use any tool you like to help you stay consistent with your spelling.

And even though I work at developing a thorough glossary, my editor will find many words to add to it.

Two: Nothing hurts worse than completely losing an entire manuscript. Develop a logical, consistent system for naming your files. Save your document regularly and back up your files to an external thumb drive or to the cloud.

Save each version of your manuscript in its own master file, and give each subfile a different name so you can go back and retrieve bits you may need later. I use a system like this:

  • The master file might be titled: Lauras_Story
  • The subfile might be L_S_V5.docx

That stands for Laura’s Story version five. I work out of Word, so the extension is automatically a docx. Each master file will contain many subfiles before a story or book is published.

Three: Find a local group of writers to meet with and talk about the craft.

Authors need to network with other authors because we need to discuss the craft with someone whose eyes don’t glaze over.

I found a fantastic local group by attending write-ins for NaNoWriMo. The Tuesday Morning Rebel Writers have my back, and I have theirs. Since the pandemic, and with several of our members now on the opposite side of Washington State, we meet weekly via Zoom. We are a group of authors who write in a wide variety of genres.

Yes, we help each other bring new books into the world through beta reading and critiquing. But more than that, we are good, close friends who support each other through life’s twists and turns.

Four: Never stop educating yourself. It requires dedication and a small investment of money, but you can do it.

Learn how to say what you mean with your unique voice and style. A college education may be out of reach, but you can buy books on grammar, style, substance, and writing craft.

Learn about structure and pacing from successful authors. Spend the money to attend conventions and seminars. You will learn so much about the craft of writing, the genre you write in, and the publishing industry as a whole. These are things you can only learn from other authors.

Five: Don’t even consider signing with the slick-talking publisher that contacts you out of the blue.

In 2010, I made my word count and became a firm believer in the principle that was behind the founding concept of NaNoWriMo. If you sit down and write at least 1,667 words every day, you will complete the first draft of your novel in 30 days. If you have a community of like-minded authors to encourage you, you are more likely to succeed. That is what NaNoWriMo was originally intended to be, as Chris Baty envisioned.

I didn’t know that while a novel might have the complete story arc, it isn’t finished.

Here is where experience can be a painful teacher. The year that followed was filled with serious mistakes and naïve bungling.

Legitimate publishers NEVER contact you. You must submit your work to them, and they prefer to work with agented authors. I didn’t know this. I placed my book in the hands of someone who was not qualified to publish. 2011 was filled with low points, ending with a devastating falling out with my publisher. Fortunately, I retained the rights to my work.

Authors are perfect targets for predators. Be smart. Ask yourself how a publisher could possibly want work they haven’t seen? And why should you pay them for “editing” or any other aspect of publishing? And how did they get your email address?

Make use of SFWA’s Writer Beware site. Predator publishers profit from our deep desire to be published. They will charge you for services they don’t provide and publish your work in its raw, unedited form, and you will never see a dime.

Six: even though you’re writing that novel, keep writing short stories, too.

Short stories and micro-fiction are a training ground, a way to hone your skills. Submitting your work to magazines, anthologies, and contests is the best way to get it published. Each story that gets published increases your visibility, and you develop a reputation as a reliable author. I suggest building a backlog of work ranging from 100 to 5,000 words in length. Keep them ready to submit whenever magazines, anthologies, or contests announce a call for submissions.

Remember, every scene and vignette that rolls through your head can be made into something you can use.

Get the Submittable App and start submitting your work, and don’t let rejections stop you. Keep sending that work to new places because someone will want it.

Seven: Never Stop Reading. I say this all the time. Read widely and in all genres. Read critically and apply what you learn about writing, both good and bad, to your work.

These are a few of the many things that I wish I had known when I first started writing professionally but didn’t.

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June 27, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: a closer look at “Forest Landscape” by Jan Brueghel the Elder

Title: Forest landscape

Artist: Jan Brueghel the Elder

Genre: landscape art

Date: between circa 1605 and circa 1610

Medium: oil on oak panel

Dimensions: 40 x 32 cm

What I love about this painting:

Today, we’re taking a closer look at the works of the Flemish artist, Jan Brueghel the Elder. I first featured this painting in July of 2020, and it is one that I love. The scene is peaceful and relaxing, a moment of calm for our turbulent times.

The level of detail down to the leaves and the bark on the trees is amazing, but the rich colors are what attracted me, drawing me in. The heron on the rock seems poised to take flight.  Beyond the heron, on the other side of the creek, a path leads deeper into the forest, calling to us to cross over and see where it leads. The scene is beautiful the way a fantasy is, likely because Brueghel most probably painted it from sketches and memory.

“In his forest landscapes Brueghel depicted heavily wooded glades in which he captured the verdant density, and even mystery, of the forest. Although on occasion inhabited by humans and animals, these forest scenes contain dark recesses, virtually no open sky and no outlet for the eye to penetrate beyond the thick trees.” via Wikipedia. [1]

In many ways, Jan Brueghel’s paradise landscapes paved the way for the great plein air painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. This is most definitely a Mannerist landscape painting, as it is highly romanticized.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder  (1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborator with Peter Paul Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the first three decades of the 17th century.

Brueghel worked in many genres including history paintings, flower still lifes, allegorical and mythological scenes, landscapes and seascapes, hunting pieces, village scenes, battle scenes and scenes of hellfire and the underworld.

He was an important innovator who invented new types of paintings such as flower garland paintings, paradise landscapes, and gallery paintings in the first quarter of the 17th century.

He also created genre paintings that were imitations, pastiches and reworkings of his father’s works, in particular his father’s genre scenes and landscapes with peasants.  Brueghel represented the type of the pictor doctus, the erudite painter whose works are informed by the religious motifs and aspirations of the Catholic Counter-Reformation as well as the scientific revolution with its interest in accurate description and classification.  He was court painter of the Archduke and Duchess Albrecht and Isabella, the governors of the Habsburg Netherlands.

The artist was nicknamed “Velvet” Brueghel, “Flower” Brueghel, and “Paradise” Brueghel. The first is believed to have been given him because of his mastery in the rendering of fabrics. The second nickname is a reference to his specialization in flower still lifes and the last one to his invention of the genre of the paradise landscape. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Forest Landscape by Jan Brueghel the Elder / Public domain Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan Brueghel (I) – Forest landscape.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_Brueghel_(I)_-_Forest_landscape.jpg&oldid=1036257842 (accessed June 26, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Jan Brueghel the Elder,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Brueghel_the_Elder&oldid=1293540600 (accessed June 26, 2025).

 

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June 23, 2025 · 6:00 am

Employing contrast in the architecture of a story #writing

There is a quote from the Buddha that I have found especially true for creating a great story. “There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.”

J.R.R. Tolkien understood this quite clearly. His work was written in a highly literate style that everyone understood a century ago. Reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy requires commitment, and today, fewer readers are willing to undertake it.

Tolkien employs contrasts throughout the length of his stories. He shows the peace and prosperity that Frodo enjoys and then asks him to choose his destiny. Frodo chooses the difficult path. Tolkien takes the hobbit and all the central characters through many personal changes. He forces them to face their fears, gives them reasons to continue, to not give up.

Frodo’s story is about good and evil, war and peace, and the hardships endured in the effort to destroy the One Ring and negate the power of Sauron. So why would ordinary middle-class hobbits living comfortable lives go to so much trouble if Sauron’s evil posed no threat to their peace and prosperity?

They do it because they can see that in the long run, Sauron’s orcs would overrun the Shire and destroy everything good and beautiful.

Lengthwise, the three books aren’t as long as people make them out to be, especially when compared to Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’s long and winding 15-book Wheel of Time series (comprised of 4,410,036 words) or Tad Williams’ epic and highly literate Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series (comprised of 1,121,720 words).

Tolkien’s trilogy totals only 455,175 words, which is considered an optimal length for a debut series in the epic fantasy genre. Fans of epic fantasy like and expect long books with large stories.

Whenever I talk about what we can learn from Tolkien, someone will respond that Tolkien wrote in a style that 21st-century readers find frustrating. Certainly, he used more words than a modern writer would dare to. A 21st century writer would face the slings and arrows of the modern critique group.

But while his style is more wordy than modern taste, his work is still compelling. He still has plenty to say that can resonate with us. In the process, he takes us on a journey with side quests and an epic, wonderful ending that was somehow left out of the movies – the Scouring of the Shire.

Hint: Yes, reading the books requires persistence, but if you want the real story and don’t have the time or patience, the audiobooks, as narrated by Andy Serkis (who played the role of Gollum in the movies), are a must-listen.

With the Ballantine Books paperback edition in 1965, J.R.R. Tolkien brought epic fantasy to my generation of college students. In the 1970’s, in my college town, the graffiti in downtown Olympia read “Frodo Lives.”  Frodo Lives! – Wikipedia

But how did Tolkien’s style of storytelling influence the genre as we know it today? For that, we take a look at Tad Williams’s masterpiece, The Dragonbone Chair. It’s the first book in the fantasy series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It was published in 1988 and hooked me.

Williams takes the fourteen-year-old Simon, a kitchen boy, and Miriamele, a princess, and gives them an epic quest. He brings them together and then forces them down separate paths that eventually rejoin. Along the way, they grow into adulthood, and what they learn about themselves is both bitter and wonderful.

I read The Dragonbone Chair when it first came out in paperback. I loved it so much, I had to re-read it immediately upon finishing.

In both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, we have two of the most enduring works of modern fantasy fiction. Both feature an epic central quest and side quests, all of which must be completed for the protagonists to arrive at the final resolution.

In both series, we have moments of joy and contentment sharply contrasted with events causing terrible deprivation and loss. Each event urges us to keep reading, inspiring the deepest emotions and the desire to find out what happens next.

This use of contrast is fundamental to the fables and sagas that humans have been telling since before the discovery of fire. Contrast is why Tolkien’s work is the foundation upon which modern epic fantasy is built. The way Tad Williams wrote his characters, and his trimmed down prose further modernized the genre, but he kept the tropes of an engaging narrative, epic quests, and diverse fantasy cultures and races.

When the author employs the highs and lows of our human experience to tell their story, the reader empathizes with the characters. They live the story as if they were the protagonist.

And what about contrasts in world-building? It can be shown in subtle ways.

Juxtaposing plenty and poverty in your worldbuilding shows the backstory without requiring an info dump. Contrast and good pacing turns a wall of words into something worth reading.

In our real world, war, famine, and floods are followed by times of relative peace and plenty. The emotions and experiences of people living through all those times are the real stories.

This is not just a concept found in fantasy novels; it’s a part of our human history and our future.

We shouldn’t limit our reading to the old favorites that started us on this writing path. You may not love the novels on the NY Times literary fiction bestseller list, but it’s a good idea to read one or two of them every now and then as a means of educating yourself. We learn the architecture of stories by reading and dissecting novels and short stories written by the masters, both famous and infamous.

What you don’t like is as important as what you enjoy. Why would a book that you dislike be so successful? No matter how much money a publisher throws at them, some books are stinkers.

You don’t need to pay for books you won’t like. Go to the library or to the secondhand bookstore and see what they have from the NYT bestseller list that you would be willing to examine.

Give that book a postmortem.

  • Did the book have a distinct plot arc?
  • Did it have a strong opening that hooked you?
  • Was there originality in the way the characters and situations were presented?
  • Did you like the protagonist and other main characters? Why or why not?
  • Were you able to suspend your disbelief?
  • Did the narrative contain enough contrasts to keep things interesting?
  • By the end of the book, did the characters grow and change within their personal arc? How were they changed?
  • What sort of transitions did the author employ that made you want to turn the page? How can you use that kind of transition in your own work?
  • Did you get a satisfying ending? If not, how could it have been made better?

Reading and dissecting the works of successful authors is a necessary component of any education in the craft of writing.

When you read a book that you like or dislike, think about how you can apply what you learn to your own work.

I say this regularly, but I must repeat it – getting an education about the craft of writing is important. If you have a good library in your town, this sort of education is free, a price that fits my budget perfectly. What I learn from the masters helps me to plan the pacing, helps me balance the emotions and events in my own stories.

 

 

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June 20, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Summer, field of poppies by Claude Monet 1875

Artist: Claude Monet (1840–1926)

Title: Français : L’été. Champ de coquelicots

English: Summer, field of poppies

Deutsch: Sommer. Klatschmohnfeld

Date:   1875

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 60 cm (23.6 in); width: 81 cm (31.8 in)

Collection: Private collection

What I love about this painting:

Claude Monet’s gift for bringing in the beauty of nature shines in this painting. He shows us a warm day in high summer, with fluffy white clouds sailing across blue skies. The wild poppies have taken root in a fallow field, and are mingled in with the tall field-grass. A woman and two children have come to pick wildflowers in the meadow. One can almost hear the buzzing of bees as they go about their business mingling with the occasional birdsong.

I would love to have walked in that field.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Oscar-Claude Monet: 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it.[1] During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of Impressionism’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions of nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting.[2] The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, which was exhibited in 1874 at the First Impressionist Exhibition, initiated by Monet and a number of like-minded artists as an alternative to the Salon.

Monet was raised in Le Havre, Normandy, and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an early age. Although his mother, Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet, supported his ambitions to be a painter, his father, Claude-Adolphe, disapproved and wanted him to pursue a career in business. He was very close to his mother, but she died in January 1857 when he was sixteen years old, and he was sent to live with his childless, widowed but wealthy aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He went on to study at the Académie Suisse, and under the academic history painter Charles Gleyre, where he was a classmate of Auguste Renoir. His early works include landscapes, seascapes, and portraits, but attracted little attention. A key early influence was Eugène Boudin, who introduced him to the concept of plein air painting. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, also in northern France, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water-lily pond.

Monet’s ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. Among the best-known examples are his series of haystacks (1890–1891), paintings of Rouen Cathedral (1892–1894), and the paintings of water lilies in his garden in Giverny, which occupied him for the last 20 years of his life. Frequently exhibited and successful during his lifetime, Monet’s fame and popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when he became one of the world’s most famous painters and a source of inspiration for a burgeoning group of artists. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Claude Monet – L’été – Champ de coquelicots.JPG,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Claude_Monet_-_L%27%C3%A9t%C3%A9_-_Champ_de_coquelicots.JPG&oldid=1017229638 (accessed June 19, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Claude Monet,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claude_Monet&oldid=1295997578 (accessed June 19, 2025).

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June 16, 2025 · 6:00 am

#Writing the Disaster 

Severe weather, fires, famines, and floods are terrible to live through, and many harrowing stories emerge from these experiences. Stories of apocalyptic catastrophes resonate because disaster drives humanity to strive for greater things. Those who survive and rise above it become heroes.

One disaster we may all face at some point is famine driven by climate change. Hunger exists in this world, and famine is an enemy that takes no prisoners.

Food deprivation can have a lasting impact on a person. People can survive on very little, and unfortunately, many do. To go without adequate food for any length of time changes you, makes you determined to never go hungry again. You stockpile preserved foods in times of plenty as a shield against the next famine.

Unfortunately, for some, hunger will lead them to make choices that challenge the accepted morality of those who have no concept of what hunger truly is.

If you are looking for the seeds of a good story, consider the small tragedies people face each day, deeply personal catastrophes. These disasters happen on what seems an unimportant level to people who have resources.

I have used this example before, but it’s a real-life situation, one that may be familiar to you and your community. A young widow is working two part-time jobs and raising her two small children. How would you write her story? Perhaps she lives in an area with no public transportation. She struggles to pay for fuel, but what if her car breaks down? How will she get to work?

All her money goes to fuel, childcare, rent, and utilities. What little she has left after those bills are paid goes to food. She has no resources and no means to pay for car repairs. Without her car, she will lose both jobs. That is a profoundly personal disaster, one from which she and her children might not recover.

But maybe that plot isn’t big enough to inspire you to write a book about it. Perhaps you want to write about a disaster that inspires heroics in the face of widespread devastation. The world itself can provide us with plenty of drama. Wildfires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis – these catastrophes regularly destroy thousands of communities.

courtesy Office360 graphics

Once we have introduced our characters and set the scene, it’s time to bring on the natural disaster. When you begin writing the story, it will be chaotic. Just get the bones of the events down as well as you can and move on. You must get the entire story down while it is fresh.

In the first draft, write each scene as fast as you can, and don’t worry about fine-tuning it because you will come back to it later. The second draft is where you will iron out the rough spots and make things logical.

In the second draft, we take apart the scenes where we have told the story and reword them. We show the events as if we were painting with words. We use power words to inject real, believable emotion into the experience.

The window shatters, and a two-by-four impales itself in the wall beside David amid a shower of glass shards. I stare, dumbstruck, as the wind tears the door from my hand and slams it against the wall.

Verbs in that scene are: stare, impales, shatter, tears, and slams. Show the bones of the event by using verbs with powerful visuals, and the reader’s mind will fill in the rest.

I suggest you open a new document and describe the disaster in great detail. Then save it as background material for that story and walk away from it. Let it rest, and move on to something else. When you return to it, read it aloud and see what you can cut and condense and still have the bones of the action. As always, verbs and power words are action’s best friend.

Droughts often cause famines and worse. To go without water is to die. Thirst is a more immediate pain than hunger. The human animal can survive for up to three weeks without food but only three to four days without water. Rarely, one might survive up to a week.

Even brackish water must taste sweet when one suffers from a lack of potable water. And when one is starving, foods they would consider repugnant under other circumstances will fill their belly.

Look at the continual strife in some third-world countries. You will see how long-term droughts have precipitated widespread famine, leading to civil unrest. Gang wars are fought over the right to own a water source, and these conflicts can erupt into revolution.

We often forget this when we have plenty to eat and never have to worry about whether we will have water in our faucet as long as we can pay the bills. However, if we learned anything from the empty grocery store shelves in 2020 and the subsequent supply chain crisis, it is that our well-fed lives are standing on a one-legged stool.

Once the events of the disaster are on paper the way we want them, we have the opportunity to ratchet up the reader’s emotions by the way we portray the aftermath. Who finds strength through the calamity, and who is broken by it? What roadblocks do they face, and how do they recover?

We must complete the story and provide the reader with some closure by ending with our characters in a place of comparative happiness and security.

Drama, heartache, disaster, and violence are the backdrop against which humanity’s story plays out. The most powerful books in the Western Canon of Great Literature explore both the good and evil of the human experience.

We connect with these stories across the centuries because the fundamental concerns of human life aren’t unique to one society, one technological era, or one point in time. We all want enough food, enough water, and reliable shelter.

When we contrast ease with hardship, we add emotional texture to our narrative. I love a good story featuring courage in the face of personal disasters. Readers like me will think about the story and those characters long after it has ended.

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June 13, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday:The Oude Kerk on the Oude Delft in Delft by Jan van der Heyden 1675

Artist: Jan van der Heyden (1637–1712)

Title: The Oude Kerk on the Oude Delft in Delft

Genre: landscape painting

Date: 1675

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: height: 45 cm (17.7 in); width: 57 cm (22.4 in)

Collection: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design

What I love about this painting:

This scene shows us a fine day in the city of Delft, on the Trekvliet, a shipping canal that has existed since the 13th century. This canal flows past the foundations of the Oude Kerk. Van der Heyden has painted the tower as leaning, which is an accurate depiction. It currently leans two meters from the vertical.

We see the clean and prosperous street, with special attention paid to the architecture. The staffage (people) in this painting were most likely painted by Adriaen van de Velde. He collaborated with Adriaen van de Velde more frequently than Johannes Lingelbach or Eglon van der Neer, although they did sometimes work with him.

Fluffy white clouds sail across the scene. The air is not too warm or too cool. Instead, it is just right. The sky is that lovely shade of blue, the color that says “summer is near and all will be well.”

As a writer of fantasy, I often go to Wikimedia Commons for worldbuilding ideas, depending on the kind of era in which a story is set. If your work is set in a post-renaissance era, this is the kind of street and architecture that will be featured in the richest town. The buildings will be good to look at, made of stone and wood. The street will be paved, and if there is a canal, there will be places for barges and small watercraft to tie up.

About the artist, via Wikipedia:

Jan van der Heyden (5 March 1637, Gorinchem – 28 March 1712, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, glass painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Van der Heyden was one of the first Dutch painters to specialize in townscapes and became one of the leading architectural painters of the Dutch Golden Age. He painted a number of still lifes in the beginning and at the end of his career. 

Jan van der Heyden was also an engineer and inventor who made significant contributions to contemporary firefighting technology. Together with his brother Nicolaes, who was a hydraulic engineer, he invented an improvement of the fire hose in 1672.  He modified the manual fire engine, reorganized the volunteer fire brigade (1685) and wrote and illustrated the first firefighting manual (Brandspuiten-boek). A comprehensive street lighting scheme for Amsterdam, designed and implemented by van der Heyden, remained in operation from 1669 until 1840 and was adopted as a model by many other towns and abroad.

Painting was not the sole occupation and interest of van der Heyden. In fact he never joined Amsterdam’s painters’ guild. Even while his work was in great demand, he did not rely on his art to make a living. His principal source of income was, in fact, not painting. Rather he was employed as engineer, inventor and municipal official. He was clearly greatly preoccupied with the problem of how to fight fires effectively, and, with his brother Nicolaes, devoted much time between 1668 and 1671 to inventing a new, highly successful water pumping mechanism.

He devised streetlamps and the first street-lighting system for Amsterdam and was in 1669 appointed director of street lighting.

In 1673 the two brothers received official appointments to manage the city’s fire-fighting equipment and organisation. The two official appointments were sufficient to ensure the prosperity of the artist

Jan van der Heyden moved in 1680 to the Koestraat near the St. Anthonismarkt. Here he built a new family home and a factory for producing fire equipment. In collaboration with his eldest son Jan, he published in 1690 an illustrated book on firefighting, entitled ‘Beschrijving der nieuwlijks uitgevonden en geoctrojeerde Slangbrandspuiten’ (‘Description of the recently invented and patented hose fire engines’).

Jan van der Heyden died a wealthy man in 1712. His wife survived her husband by only a month. The inventory of the estate made soon after her death include more than 70 of his own paintings. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan van der Heyden – The Oude Kerk on the Oude Delft in Delft.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_van_der_Heyden_-_The_Oude_Kerk_on_the_Oude_Delft_in_Delft.jpg&oldid=1035884888 (accessed June 12, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Jan van der Heyden,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_van_der_Heyden&oldid=1293390184 (accessed June 12, 2025).

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June 9, 2025 · 6:00 am

Beta Reading or Editing? What is the difference? #writing

Last week, we talked about self-editing a manuscript. I shared the process I use to get my work ready for my editor. Even though I go to all that trouble, Irene still finds many places that need attention.

But why isn’t simply following the suggestions raised by beta readers enough? Why go to the trouble of the process as I described it last week AND still have it professionally edited?

First, we need to talk about apples and oranges. Both are fruit and yet they are very different from each other. Beta reading and editing are apples and oranges.

Beta reading is the first look at a manuscript by someone other than the author. I always look for a person who reads for pleasure and can express their thoughts about a story or novel. That person must read and enjoy the genre of that particular story. If they dislike sci-fi, they won’t have good insights to offer about your space opera.

I am fortunate to have excellent friends willing to do this for me. Last week, I received a short story back from two kind friends. Both had good insights as to why I have been unable to sell that story. Stephen and Ceri both provided me with thoughtful and spot-on suggestions.

The first reading by an unbiased eye gives me a view of my story’s overall strengths and weaknesses. The suggestions offered by my circle of friends enable me to make good revisions. My editor can focus on doing her job without being distracted by glaring issues that should have been caught early on.

If you agree to read a raw manuscript for another author, remember that it has NOT been edited.

  • You are reading a first draft. Beta reading is not editing, so don’t overanalyze it. A thousand nit-picky comments at this early stage are not helpful because they clutter things up, obscuring the larger issues.

This manuscript is the child of the author’s soul. Phrase your comments positively, and never be abrupt or accusatory. As a beta reader, you are reading an unfinished project. You are trying to help an author take their manuscript in the direction that they have envisioned.

Why should a beta reader not simply shoot from the hip? I’ve heard some authors say “so-and-so needs to clean things up. He needs to develop a thicker skin,” etc. etc.

That is true, but an author’s ability to make good use of criticism develops gradually as they go out into the professional world.

Kindly worded criticism will help the author and won’t destroy their enjoyment of writing. But harsh criticism shows a lack of understanding on the part of the beta reader. It can generate resentment and a refusal to listen. The traumatized author might never advance beyond the beginning stage.

So, what significant issues must be addressed in the first stage of the revision process? If you are asked to beta read for a fellow author, ask yourself these questions about the overall manuscript:

How does it open? Did the opening hook you? As you read, is there an arc to each scene that keeps you turning the page? Note the page numbers of the places that are confusing.

Setting: Does the setting feel real? Did the author create a sense of time, mood, and atmosphere? Is world-building an organic part of the story?

Characters: Did you understand who the point-of-view character was? Did you know what they were feeling? Were they likable? Did you identify with and care about them? Were there various character types, or did they all seem the same? Were their emotions and motivations clear and relatable?

Dialogue: Did the dialogue and internal narratives advance the plot, or were they opportunities for info dumps? Did the dialogues illuminate the conflict? Did they heighten the tension and add to the suspense? Were the conversations and thoughts distinct to each character, or did they all sound alike?

Plot: Do the characters face a struggle worth writing about? Does the action feel necessary to advance the story? Do the events feel logical, and were you able to suspend your disbelief?

Pacing: How did the momentum feel? Where did the plot bog down and get boring? Did the pacing keep you engaged?

Does the ending surprise and satisfy you? What do you think might happen next?

What about grammar and mechanics? At this point, you can make broad comments regarding grammar and industry practices.  If the author’s work shows they don’t understand basic punctuation standards, suggest they look online for some free and easy articles on grammar. I highly recommend the Purdue OWL® – Purdue OWL® – Purdue University.

Or, if you feel up to it, offer to help them learn a few basics.

Most people have no idea just how difficult sharing your just-completed first draft with anyone is. For that reason, being the first reader of another author’s work is a privilege I don’t take lightly.

Now, we know that the beta reader makes general suggestions to help the author achieve their goals in the second draft.

So, what is editing?

Editing is a process that occurs in the final stage of revision.

The author has completed the manuscript, and it is as clean as they can get it. An editor hasn’t seen the manuscript before. They go over it line by line, pointing out areas that need attention.

  • awkward phrasings,
  • grammatical errors
  • missing quotation marks. etc.

Many things may still need correcting. Sometimes, major structural issues will need to be addressed to improve the pacing. Straightening out all the kinks may take more than one trip through a manuscript.

The various branches of literature have requirements that are unique to them, so there are different kinds of editing.

For academic writing, editing involves carefully reviewing each sentence. Every grammatical error must be resolved, making words and sentences more straightforward, precise, and effective. Weak phrasings are strengthened, nonessential information is weeded out, and important points are clarified.

For novel writing, editing is a stage in which a writer and editor work together to improve a draft by ensuring style and grammatical usage are consistent. The editor does not try to change an author’s voice but does point out errors. If an author’s style breaks convention, the editor ensures that convention is broken consistently from page one to the end of the manuscript. At the same time, strict attention is paid to the overall story arc.

Editors know they are not the author. They will make suggestions, but ultimately, all changes must be approved and implemented by the author.

When you have made the revisions your first reader suggested and feel your book is ready, hire a local, well-recommended editor. You need someone you can work with, a person who wants to help you make your manuscript ready for publication.

You might wonder why you need an editor when you’ve already spent months fine-tuning it. The fact is, no matter how many times we go over our work, our eyes will skip over some things. We are too familiar with our work and see it as it should be, not as it is.

When a reader purchases your book, they won’t be familiar with it. Many readers are savvy and notice what we have overlooked.

On Friday of last week, I received my most recent work-in-progress back from Irene. She combed through all 100,000 words and left me with a treasure trove of suggestions.

Yes, I am an editor, but I can’t identify what is wrong with my own work. My eye wants to skip the less obvious flaws. However, another person will notice and point out what is wrong.

So, between my above-mentioned short story and my forthcoming novel, I have some work ahead of me. But thanks to Stephen, Ceri, and Irene, I now know what needs to be done.

Best of all, it’s the kind of work I love.

Whether we write novels or short stories, we need to have an unbiased eye review it before submitting it to an agent or publication. It’s due diligence, part of the professional process.

 

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June 6, 2025 · 6:00 am

FineArtFriday: Laundry at the River Bank by Eero Järnefelt 1889

Artist: Eero (1863–1937)

Title:   English: Laundry at the River Bank (Suomi: Pyykkiranta)

Date:   1889

Medium:        oil on canvas

Dimensions:   height: 104 cm(40.9 in) width: 134 cm (52.7 in)

Collection:     Private collection

What I love about this painting:

When writers need to know how things were done historically, Wikimedia Commons is a vast resource of paintings and images made during all stages of recorded history.

This is a scene featuring two women on a sunny afternoon in the far north—Finland. They are spending the overcast summer’s day doing the distinctly not-so-glorious task of laundry. Very few artists painted scenes of women at work. So, those of us with modern conveniences have no real idea how labor-intensive women’s work was.

It was hot, heavy work. One had to carry and heat all the water, and once the clothes were washed, they had to be wrung out by hand unless one was fortunate enough to own a wringer/mangle. (Where I live, it’s called a wringer. Elsewhere in the world, it’s a mangle.) Then, it had to be hung on a line or spread out somewhere to dry.

And once the clothes were dry, they had to be ironed. This solid, heavy iron tool was heated on the stove and if one got it a bit too hot it could scorch the clothes. Not hot enough and it wouldn’t smooth away the wrinkles.

Thus, laundry was an all-day job.

Soaps were most often made of animal fats and lye (ashes steeped in water), along with other ingredients to improve the smell. This lye soap was harsh but effective.

In this scene, one woman keeps the water hot, adding wood to the fire. A bucket and ladle sit on the rocks behind her, handy for fetching more water and adding it to the boiler as needed. Certain items of clothing are most likely soaking in the boiling water. Whites were usually boiled.

While the peasants of the time didn’t know about germs, they did know that boiling water made things cleaner and that cleanliness made their families healthier.

My grandmother was born in 1909 in a rural cabin on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. She often pointed out how lucky I was because, prior to getting her first wringer washing machine in 1929, she had to do laundry the hard way. She boiled diapers, Grampa’s shirts, and “women’s things.” In the era before disposable bandages, material intended for use as bandages would also be boiled for at least an hour.

Peasant women were unaware of solar radiation and ultraviolet light. But they did know that diapers dried in the summer sun were less likely to cause a rash than those dried indoors in the winter.

Clearly, Järnefelt knew the amount of work it took to produce a clean shirt and respected the women who made his life easier.

About the artist, via Wikipedia:

Erik “Eero” Nikolai Järnefelt (8 November 1863 – 15 November 1937) was a Finnish painter and art professor. He is best known for his portraits and landscapes of the area around Koli National Park, in the North Karelia region of Finland. He was a medal winner at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 and 1900, taught art at the University of Helsinki and was chairman of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts.

To read more about the artist go to: Eero Järnefelt – Wikipedia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Laundry at the River Bank. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Järnefelt Laundry.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:J%C3%A4rnefelt_Laundry.jpg&oldid=866950564 (accessed June 5, 2025).

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June 2, 2025 · 6:00 am

Self-editing – a 3-step process #writing

Many people in my online community have asked for tips on self-editing. I don’t recommend it, as most people don’t have the tenacity to do a proper job of it. However, it can be done, so we’re revisiting a post from April of 2024 on effective self-editing. I hope this answers some questions!

As an editor, I saw every kind of mistake you can imagine, and before that, as a writer, I made them all. This is why I rely on an editor for my work. Irene sees the flaws that my eye skips over.

WritingCraft_self-editingWhen prepping a novel to send to Irene, I use a three-part method. This requires specific tools that come with Microsoft Word, my word-processing program. I believe these tools are available for Google Docs and every other word-processing program. Unfortunately, I am only familiar with Microsoft’s products as they are what the companies that I worked for used.

What follows are three steps that should eliminate most problems in a manuscript.

Part one: Beta Reading is the first look at a manuscript by someone other than the author. I suggest you don’t omit this step unless you can find no one who understands what you need. A good beta reader is a person who reads for pleasure and can gently express what they think about a story or novel. Also, look for a person who enjoys the genre of that particular story. Your beta reader should ask several questions of this first draft (feel free to give them the following list).

beta read meme 2Part two: Once I have ironed out the rough spots noticed by my beta readers, this second stage is put into action. Yes, on the surface the manuscript looks finished, but it has only just begun the journey.

In Microsoft Word, on the Review Tab, I access the Read Aloud function and begin reading along with the mechanical voice. Yes, the narrator app is annoying and mispronounces words like “read,” which sound different and have different meanings depending on the context. However, this first tool alerts me to areas that were overlooked in the first stage of revisions.

ReviewTabLIRF07032021The most frustrating part is the continual stopping, making corrections, and starting.

I use this function rather than reading it aloud from the monitor, as the computer screen tricks the eye. I tend to see and read aloud what I think should be there rather than what is.

  • I habitually key the word though when I mean through or lighting when I mean lightning. Each is a different word but is only one letter apart. Most (but not all) miss keyed words will leap out when you hear them read aloud.
  • Most (but not all) run-on sentences stand out when you hear them read aloud.
  • Most (but not all) inadvertent repetitions also stand out.
  • Most of the time, hokey phrasing doesn’t sound as good as you thought it was.
  • Most of the time, you hear where you have dropped words because you were keying so fast you skipped over including an article, like “the” or “a” before a noun.

This is a long process that involves a lot of stopping and starting. It takes me well over a week to get through an entire 90,000-word manuscript. I will have trimmed about 3,000 words by the end of this phase. I will have caught many typos and miss keyed words and rewritten many clumsy passages.

But I am not done.

Part three: the manual edit. This is where I make a physical copy and do the work the old-fashioned way.

Everything looks different when printed out, and you will see many things you don’t notice on the computer screen or hear when it is read aloud by the narrator app.

  • Houghton_Typ_805.94.8320_-_Pride_and_Prejudice,_1894,_Hugh_Thomson_-_Protested

    Illustration by Hugh Thomson representing Mr. Collins protesting that he never reads novels.

    Open your manuscript. Make sure the pages are numbered in the upper right-hand corner.

  • Print out the first chapter and either staple it together or use a binder clip. If you drop it, the pages will all be together in the proper order.
  • Turn to the last page. Cover the page with another sheet of paper, leaving only the final paragraph visible.
  • Starting with the final paragraph on the last page, begin reading, working your way forward.
  • With a yellow highlighter, mark each place that needs revising.
  • With a red pen/pencil, make notes in the margins to guide the revisions. (Red is highly visible, so you won’t miss it when you are putting your corrections into the digital manuscript.
  • Put the corrected chapter on a recipe stand next to your computer. Open your manuscript and save it as a new file. (ManuscriptTitle_final_Apr2024.docx.) Begin making the revisions as noted on your hard copy.
  • Do the same for each chapter until you have finished revising the entire manuscript.

I look for info dumps, passive phrasing, and timid words. They are signs that a section needs rewriting to make it visual rather than telling. Clunky phrasing and info dumps are signals telling me what I intend that scene to be but haven’t shown. Showing takes fewer words. Many times, I must cut some of the info and allow the reader to use their imagination.

I will have trimmed another 3,000 to 4,000 more words from my manuscript by the end of this process.

By the time we begin writing, most of us have forgotten whatever grammar we once knew. Editing software is a good tool for this. But editing software operates on algorithms and doesn’t understand context.

to err is human to edit divineI am wary of relying on Grammarly or ProWriting Aid for anything other than alerting you to possible problems. Look at each thing they point out and decide whether to accept their recommendation or not. 

You’ll get into trouble if you assume the AI editing programs are always correct. As I said above, they don’t understand context. Good writing involves technical knowledge of grammar, but voice isn’t about algorithms.

Novels are comprised of many essential components. If one element fails, the story won’t work the way I envision it. I always remember that it’s been months since a beta reader saw the mess I am working on and much has changed. I take a hard look at these aspects:

  • Characterization – are the characters individuals?
  • Dialogue – do people sound natural? Do they sound alike, or are they each unique?
  • Mechanics (grammar/punctuation flaws will be more noticeable when printed out)
  • Pacing—how does it transition from action scene to action scene?
  • Plot – does the story revolve around a genuine problem?
  • Prose – how do my sentences flow? Do they say what I mean?
  • Themes – What underlying thread ties the whole story together? Have I used the theme to its best potential?

Being a linear thinker, this process of making revisions works for me. It can take more than a month, but when I’ve finished, I’ll have a manuscript that won’t be full of avoidable distractions. It will be something I can send to my editor. And because I have done my best work, Irene will be able to focus on finding as much of what I have missed as is humanly possible.

Editors_bookself_25May2018If you read as much as I do (and this includes books published by large Traditional publishers), you know that a few mistakes and typos can and will get through despite their careful editing. So, don’t agonize over what you might have missed. If you’re an indie, you can upload a corrected file.

We are all only human, after all.

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