Posts Tagged With: writing

Mistakes bother you—but create EXCELLENT plots

Posted on March 11, 2026 by christinedesmetauthor

If you look up “mistakes in writing” or similar wording you’ll find hundreds of articles about how to avoid mistakes such as a meandering plot, or too many long paragraphs, or how to delete clutter, and so on.

Now consider how mistakes create the best characters and plots.

Mistakes are handy as part of plot action and characterization. If you can’t figure out how to start your book, or how to conjure the next chapter or scene, have your character make a mistake.

The mistake should have a good measure of consequence.

Characters might have a good plot goal, but if they come off bland, consider having your character make a big—even huge—mistake.

In my March 2026 emailed newsletter I reviewed the great novel I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney. It’s about an obituary writer who makes small mistakes that lead him into a big mistake—he accidentally publishes an obit about himself. Everybody thinks he’s dead. From there, chaos ensues; he makes other mistakes.

The big mistake creates the novel’s Inciting Incident.

Mistakes create mysteries, scenes, plots, reversals of fortune.

Mistakes create funny and serious issues that pull in readers. How will the character get out of the mistake? In Kenney’s novel it’s not easy. A mere apology won’t cut it with his editor and fellow journalists and even some friends. Life changes in big, serious ways.

Mistakes compel the character TO DO SOMETHING.

That’s the trick with using mistakes to create plot and character: the mistake has to be serious enough to make the character REACT.

After a mistake, the character should engage in a plan to FIX things (or AVOID things for a time). That plan is the PLOT. (See how the mistake may write the novel for you?)

A good character also has some level of remorse.

Mistakes make good characters reach out for help, and reach more deeply within themselves.

Starting with a BIG MISTAKE automatically leads the character (and the writer) into finding the FATAL FLAW of the character (usually by the Midpoint Crisis).

Any character that makes a big mistake ultimately has to ask: Why? Why did I do that? Those questions bring in other characters, actions, and plot turns.

Working with a MISTAKE might help you write your entire novel or short story. Perhaps you’ve been stalled. Or you’ve started with actions that don’t matter. Now introduce a mistake and watch what unfolds.

Can a series of small mistakes work the same way? Anything is possible. Creativity is boundless. The danger with “many small mistakes” is that “sameness” will come into the prose, a predictability. Vary the heft of the mistakes so readers feel SURPRISE.

Make your character’s big mistake or a series of small mistakes (your creative choice of course) DRIVE their change and growth:

Why did the mistake happen?

What is it your character didn’t know about themself?

What are they learning from that mistake?

If you haven’t used mistakes in a concerted way, don’t make the mistake of ignoring the fine tool of “MAKING A MISTAKE.”

Land and soil—your sure-fire way to pull in readers

Posted on January 8, 2026 by christinedesmetauthor

Land speaks to our heart, our emotions. Soil itself crushed in hands or felt by bare feet speaks volumes to a character’s soul.

If you’re not getting traction with your novel or other project, look at your setting. It may offer you gifts.

Do you have the usual house, apartment, café, bakery, coffee shop, mountain cabin, or romantic cove?

We writers so easily construct those things but forget we exist in and on a landscape, on landforms, on soil that has history and a sense of magic with it.

Author and college instructor James W. Hall and his students analyzed bestselling books. Many centered around “land”:

Capturing land and lost Eden.
Fresh beginnings in virginal wilderness.
Struggling to return to the land.
A contaminated land.

We humans care deeply about land and soil, even specific types of soil and landforms. But do your character care? What is that relationship? Readers care.

Recall the importance of land in Gone With the Wind, and Pulitzer winner Lonesome Dove—about the last great cattle drive. More recently James and Demon Copperhead showed characters wrestling with difficult relationships with land they worked on or wanted to run from.

There are several popular mystery/suspense series that feature tracking dogs and rangers at national parks. They explore mysterious and interesting landforms. They give us facts about soil, the history of mountains, the plants and animals living there and such. Readers love learning, but this goes beyond that. We feel something special about the mountain itself, the soil itself. Wise writers bring that into the equation to please readers (including agents, editors, publishers, reviewers).

Land can have barriers—a river your character needs to cross and can’t but thought was beautiful just yesterday. Do a “setup” for that “payoff.”

Land and soil can provide a big moment in your plot paradigm/diagram. Consider the Midpoint Crisis literal landmark in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, by William Goldman. Outlaws climb a mountain, struggling against loose soil and rocks, barely ahead of the posse. Robert Redford and Paul Newman arrive at a cliff—high above a river. Their choice: surrender or chance jumping several hundred feet into the river, which will probably kill them.

Characters working land are considered noble. We love a farmer trying their best. Stories of the Dust Bowl or disasters with land break our heart. If you have a character beta readers or agents aren’t liking, get that character’s hands dirty.

Land and soil matter to readers because our lives depend on healthy, fruitful land. This is elemental stuff.

Around the world readers have land and soil in common. This aspect can expand your readership perhaps.

When writing about land and soil, be specific. What kind is it? Name? Texture? Landforms came about how? Different soils have names.

Soil and terrain resonate with readers. Wine and cheese from different world regions or the next county taste differently because of “terroir” or “gout de terroir,” a French term for the taste of the soil.

In memoirs, read Marc Hamer’s bestseller How to Catch a Mole and subsequent memoirs about tending a rich woman’s garden called Spring Rain and Seed to Dust. Working in soil became a metaphor for the man’s ups and downs in life.

Sometimes a novel can be just about the suspense of a landform. Consider the volcano in the famous Robert Harris novel, Pompeii. The geologist—who knew the “personality” of the soil and landform—couldn’t convince others of what was unfolding.

Popular nonfiction journalism books tackle “land” a lot, such as Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Classic, older regional books have loyal readership, too, and will give you ideas, such as The Land Remembers by Ben Logan.

Soil reacts to how we treat it; experts consider soil “alive.” Soil is truly a “character.”

Did you know every U.S. state and territory has an “official soil”? Lists and info about soil anywhere in the world are online.

So, instead of your cop meeting somebody at the clichéd coffee shop, what if they meet in the city park where the cop volunteers to weed flowers with children, get their hand dirty? What do they name their soil? Find in the soil?

What do YOU love about land and soil? Use that to enhance plot, characters, setting, and your unique voice.

Categories: Quick and Easy Writing Fixes | Tags: Books, fiction, nature, writing | Leave a comment

Attach “attachments” to attract readers

Posted on August 13, 2025 by christinedesmetauthor

Attachment (dictionary meaning): anything added or attached; affectionate regard or devotion.

In storytelling an “attachment” means things you add to a character to make them not only distinct but to possibly take away and thus challenge them.

An attachment is part of the plotting exercise, and can also be used in the sales wording for the novel’s back cover or inside jacket.

The attachment—when messed with—is also a handy tool to force change in a character and the trajectory of the story.

Attachments can entertain effectively. They draw in readers.

Example of attachments: In the classic movie The Wizard of Oz the girl Dorothy has an aunt as her advisor/protector (attachment) who is lost when Dorothy is whisked up in the tornado. After she’s in Oz, Dorothy gains three helpful friends (attachments) but almost loses them, and later the Wicked Witch wants to take Dorothy’s dog (attachment from the start) and the new mysterious, magical ruby shoes (attached at a significant plot point). Dorothy is forced to change and grow when those attachments are threatened. We feel for her emotionally.

Attachments help us care about a character, even laugh, as in the dogs, cats, and other pets attached to protagonists in mystery novels and more. Those attachments show up on the cover on purpose—they draw readers.

A bland character might have few or no attachments, but can be improved when you add or change the attachments.

Attachments are planned and planted by wise authors.

A plot may sprout from characters with attachments. A plot may also be improved by revising with a new attachment.

Introduce a supportive best friend early, for example, who leaves before or at the Midpoint Crisis so we can see the protagonist shine on their own. The attachment was necessary in order for readers to witness your character suddenly cope without a buddy. We empathize with the loss of a friend or “going it alone.”

Effective stories strip away or mess with a character’s attachment(s) in order to make the character DESPERATE enough to make decisions, take ACTION, and GROW.

If a character or plot is too shallow or “thin,” add an attachment early on, revise, and see where it takes you.

If critique buddies aren’t connecting with your manuscript, experiment with an attachment or two.

If the publishing and producing worlds aren’t connecting with your character, think about how attachments can bring in needed layering—and fun for the audience. Superman got a dog, after all, in a recent movie.

Attachments are superb when they have “weight.”

Example: Saying a character lives in a two-story house doesn’t have weight. You can’t sell that. Yawn for page one of your novel. Instead, what if your character reveals they saved for years to buy a historic house built by a famous mobster or poet? And they’ve lovingly restored it to its former beauty. Now the house has “weight” for readers. Losing that attachment would mean something to the character and readers.

How would you sell that scenario to an interviewer? Just give us the attachment info: “After lovingly restoring a former mobster’s house for years, Fred discovers…(you fill in the blank).”

Dorothy in Oz had 1) a dog, 2) ruby shoes literally attached, and 3) various friends/mentors who helped her journey. We rooted for those attachments.

What are one to three significant things your character might be attached to that you can use to improve characterization and plot?

Attachments help you create a character that grows and a plot that wins readers.

Categories: Quick and Easy Writing Fixes | Tags: fiction, writing, writing-tips | Leave a comment

Quick Fix: Find a character’s “strength anchors”

Posted on June 2, 2025 by christinedesmetauthor

Effective characters deal in inner and outer strengths; the strengths ANCHOR a character’s abilities, actions, reactions, and emotional growth.

At least 5 types of strengths are in our toolbox: Emotional (love, sympathy, etc.), Intellectual (ability to reason, learned qualities), Spiritual (connection to soul or inner refinement/pursuit), Physical (muscles, etc.), and Practical (habits or skills developed for repetitive chores or safety, etc.).

Strength Anchors

We writers spend a lot of time figuring out a character’s “Fatal Flaw” and what’s behind it but a good strength (or more) is needed to overcome the Fatal Flaw.

What I call “STRENGTH ANCHORS” create characters we want to follow.

An anchor is not a quick cliché, but a cliché can be turned into a good anchor if the writer explores it within the story.

Also, characters are not just one strength and one weakness (though one Fatal Flaw is enough for any story).

Think about the array of strengths your character might possess, and which one is needed most and when. Which one must ascend from being a minor strength to become a major one? Perhaps that one should be hinted at in the opening pages. Rudolph the reindeer, for example, showed us his shining beacon of a nose in the opening of the classic annual Christmas TV movie, but he was told it was a weakness and hid it. Then, in the end it finally became a major strength.

On page one readers have to relate somehow to your character. We often try to present trouble and show the “weakness” starting out. An alternative is to show a strength that matters to your plot later. Maybe it’s a strength that only we witness at first. Oh how fun it is for readers to share a secret with your character! That’s a hook.

What is your character’s method or power to RESIST strain, stress, and stupid stuff? That resistance is pretty much the dictionary definition of “strength.”

Donald Maass in Writing the Breakout Novel notes strengths create COMPELLING characters. “The characters will not engross readers unless they are out of the ordinary.”

In Story Fix, Larry Brooks suggests writing a better “ticking clock” to test your character. Panicked characters often reveal unusual or interesting strengths.

In The Plot Thickens, Noah Lukeman notes a writer should create STRONG CIRCUMSTANCES for a character to react to. Good examples are usually found in award-winning books.

Here’s a trick: Create a stronger character using what I call “STACKING” of strengths. If we say things commonly occur in “threes,” try it for strengths to round out a character. “Stacking” makes characters surprising and interesting. No character has just one strength anchoring them.

Consider 12 ways to create “strength anchors” that matter:

– What did they learn from a past action?

– Pride fueled by a good memory of an event or accomplishment?

– Admiration for somebody and how they act?

– A meaningful symbol (the flag etc.)?

– A skill they have or decide to acquire? What motivates that?

– Do they experience an unexpected result after an action taken?

– Does another character leave a legacy your character wants to follow?

– What about an animal adding dimension?

– Perhaps they draw a special strength from nature? The land? Space?

– Strength from history and knowledge? A feeling of owing the past?

– Does a religion or belief system bring strength?

– What about a strength from the character’s younger years? Was that strength forgotten until now? Why?

Readers talk about strong characters. Get them talking about yours.

Categories: Quick and Easy Writing Fixes | Tags: writing, writing-tips | Leave a comment

Passion (by any definition) wins over gatekeepers & readers

Posted on May 12, 2025 by christinedesmetauthor

Literary agents, editors, producers, and readers look for “passion” in writing.

Agents rejecting a submission often say, “I just wasn’t passionate enough about your material.”

Solution? Take “passion” seriously. It means having a deep respect for something or someone, and also writing and storytelling.

Passion is evident from page one onward in bestsellers such as The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, or James by Percival Everett, or in nonfiction such as Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Many authors in your favorite genre write with true passion. What sets them apart? Vigor!

“Vigor” occurs by working on one more draft, whether it’s Draft 2 or 10. Vigor in verb choices, better action, and more meaningful dialogue and characterizations win over readers and agents every time.

Vigor means the author is vigorous in weeding out mistakes. No matter how skilled you are, it’s wise to hire a line editor before sending material into the world and especially before publishing it yourself.

Sloppiness cancels out vigor and passion.

The dictionary notes passion can be an “extravagant or strong fondness or enthusiasm for anything.”

How and why might we be enthused about your characters on page one? What’s fresh? And authentic? If your opener is ordinary or derivative of other books, change it and find your voice. Be you. Dredge into your own experiences, your childhood, your schooling or travels, or go exploring now and enjoy research.

Passion has its own type of special effects. A character’s personality must come through instantly.

Passion shows a character’s conviction about something but this is NOT about preaching, which can kill a manuscript.

We like characters that believe strongly in something or someone, even if they are wrong at first. Passion—however misguided—makes them interesting and sets up a mystery or at least a big quandary.

For an easy page-one rewrite, answer this: What is it YOU (in memoir) or CHARACTER (in a novel) believe in strongly? Don’t save truths for the big middle blowup or the end. Passion makes us pay attention. Be evocative or provocative. Surprise us. (For examples read the opening pages of the books I mentioned.)

Another passion exercise: Add a talent or expand your character’s talent.

Readers are interested in skills and talents or the lack thereof because we relate. The more relatable, the easier your sale. Let’s say your character never played guitar in your first draft. You never played guitar. Do a little research. Now have your character grousing on page one about their guitar lesson. How would that change things? A reader or agent will pay attention to your fresh, honest stuff.

It’s always fun in early pages to mess with a simple passion. Push it. Write outside your usual “box” or “lane.” Does your character love plants to excess? Have a neighbor’s dog break in and ruin them all, preferably within the first three pages. The literary agent will likely continue reading.

Can a passion turn into an obsession for a character? Yes. A positive can turn into a negative, depending on type of character and conditions. In general, “passion” is positive while obsession is more negative. But a character can be passionate about one thing and obsessed by another and still be loved, funny, strong or whatever you make them. Try the combo!

If writing with “passion” feels awkward, try starting with “enthusiasm.” Enthusiastic characters are more willing to act and speak with passion.

Passion will elevate your writing in an instant. Get passionate.

Categories: Quick and Easy Writing Fixes, Uncategorized | Tags: book-review, Books, fiction, writing, writing-tips | Leave a comment