Write On SC

In consuming a ridiculous amount of romance fiction, I (Kasie) have come across my share of absurd body part descriptions. So I thought we haven’t ever really talked about how to talk about body parts on this show. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk:

Basic biology versus nuanced inference

When, where and how to flex that vocabulary

Body parts as vehicles for metaphor (i.e. broken heart)

What to leave to imagination and what to make explicit.

But first, if you haven’t yet registered for the upcoming Women in Publishing event what are you waiting for? This is your chance to bewith dozens of book publishing professionals, authors, writers, designers, publishers, editors, you name it and they’ll be there. Here’s a link to register.

From the website: 

The Women in Publishing Summit exists to empower, support, and elevate women and nonbinary individuals across the entire publishing industry—from idea to bookshelf and beyond.

We provide education, resources, and a dynamic, inclusive community that fosters equity, access, and success for everyone involved in the creation, production, launch, and marketing of books.

Whether you’re a writer, editor, designer, marketer, publisher, or service provider, we’re here to help you thrive and make a greater impact through books—all while collaborating with one another.

Okay, so that’s said and I recommend attending. Alexa does a GREAT job with events.

Let’s talk body parts. I found some other writers who have written about body parts here are some links:

Because physical description is the first time we use body parts in our work. We want to give the reader a sense of who this person is. We can default to drivers license stats: eye color, hair color, height and weight. 

And some people say start early – like as soon as the character is introduced, give the reader a sense of who they are by describing their appearance. But it shouldn’t be an info dump. A couple of well-selected details can give you a good sense of the space a person occupies.

Frankenstein’s monster: A massive figure filled my bedroom doorway. He had to angle his shoulders and stoop his head just to fit through… Black, uneven stitches zigzagged across mottled skin…

So should you use similes? Like this and as that? Should you include endearing details like a sprinkle of freckles across the nose and cheeks or a crooked sort of smile that looked mischievous?

Here’s 15 great character descriptions by famous authors.

The risk of not enough detail is that every character looks the same or the person is just kind of faceless or character-less. But the risk of too much detail is that your reader is trying hard to imagine just the person you had in mind instead of letting the character work out his specifics himself.

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The last time we had a show near Valentine’s Day, it was the day after and we did Episode 299 “Love for Love’s Sake” exploring the trappings of a love story. So we’ll start there.

Love stories are universal because they are so versatile. In our previous episode, we went through the types of love per This linkwhich explains it this way: “the comprehensive feeling for the entire cosmos.” From the same link, other types of love:

If it’s a love story, it might also be a non-romantic love that takes center stage. For example:

But a romance is not a love story and vice versa. So here’s some compare and contrast so we can differentiate between the two:

Both love stories and romance explore emotional intimacy and will likely also include physical intimacy. Both can elicit strong emotional reactions from readers. Love stories can be the primary plot, but are more often subplots. 

In contrast, romance stories put the love story at the center. It is the plot. How the characters interact with one another, the obstacles they overcome, and how they meet the challenges to come together are the plot. Romance has genre conventions, expectations that writers must meet not only to satisfy readers, but also to be considered a romance at all. For example, romance novels have a Happily Ever After ending. Always. No exceptions.

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So last week Hollie joined us to talk about motifs which turned into a plot device conversation and we decided we could use of more that. So here it is, Part 2 if you will of Plot Devices to get us started this year. Turns out, we haven’t done plot devices before. We’ve done literary devices (Episode 125) but not plot devices.

What do we mean by “plot device”? A plot device is any tool used to advance the story. They can be objects, people, secrets, the weather. Anything that disrupts the story as-is and turns it toward where it needs to be.

Common examples include the “MacGuffin” (an object everyone wants), the “Red Herring” (a false clue), a “Deus Ex Machina” (a sudden, contrived resolution), or a “Time Bomb” (a ticking clock scenario). (link)

What are some “literary” plot devices?

Here’s a comprehensive list of 50+ plot devices. I figured we could just work the list.

This link has some good takes on plot devices as does this one. The second one actually gets into how to use them.

I like this list:

Last week we gave you these hints for making the plot device work. So here they are again: (link and link):

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This morning we’re joined by Hollie, a musician and contributor to the show, who had something to add to our conversation on motifs.

The idea came from an article explaining how composers use motifs to advance the plot in musical theater. That got me (Kasie) wondering about other plot-advancement devices in literature that function in similar ways. Thanks, as always, to Gemini AI for curating the internet’s vast resources on this topic.

A motif is a recurring element in a story—such as an image, object, sound, word, or situation—that holds symbolic significance and points toward a deeper, central theme. Unlike a one-time symbol, a motif must appear multiple times to create a pattern that unites different parts of the narrative. (link)

How motifs advance the plot (link and link):

Other ways it helps in a story (link):

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The appeal of the apocalypse. Seems like everyone takes a stab at writing about the end times. What does it look like in your imagination?

Let’s remember that a lot, a LOT of what we have now was once imagined by writers. For example, Fahrenheit 451 predicted headphones, Frankenstein imagined transplants, Isaac Asimov predicted the rise of computers (link). Apple watches, self-driving cars, even video chatting were all predicted by writers who imagined a better way of doing everything.

They may not have had the science or engineering to make it happen, but writers certainly started the process by envisioning and then describing the technology that would come to be.

Okay, so then if writers are imagining dystopia, does that mean it’s inevitable? And why wouldn’t they spend more time focusing on utopia instead?

For the truly literary, there’s this list of Booker Prize dystopian fiction, many of which will have gone without your commercial-fiction sniff.  It does crown Margaret Atwood the reigning monarch of dystopian fiction after The Handmaid’s Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, were made into a TV series. 

This Wikipedia list probably better matches the ones that come to mind immediately:

Gulliver’s Travels

The Time Machine

Brave New World (Huxley)

Anthem (Rand)

1984 (Orwell)

Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)

Lord of the Flies

Minority Report

A Clockwork Orange

The Stand

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Giver

Cloud Atlas

The Road

The Hunger Games

The Maze Runner

Ready Player One

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Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions for your writing life? What’s the purpose of it and why should we do it?

There are ancient origins for new year’s resolutions including the Babylonians in 2000 b.c. making promises to the gods at the new year to return borrowed items and pay off debts. How many of those promises do you suppose were kept?

In medieval times, knights renewed their oaths of loyalty at the new year. They also promised to uphold virtues and values.

These days, new year’s resolutions are usually not religious, or related to your employer. They’re usually about secular stuff like health and fitness, wellness and mental clarity.

So what makes a good resolution? And is it different from a goal? Yes, new year’s resolutions are typically a change of behavior: drink less, eat less, workout more, read more. And the goal is a measurable plan for how to succeed in that behavior change.

So you might resolve to write more short stories in 2026. The goal would be to write at least 30 short stories. Then you might plan to write every day for at least 30 minutes to achieve the goal. Writing every day, as long as you’re focusing on the short stories, will certainly achieve the behavior change to meet your resolution. 

So what kinds of resolutions do writers usually make? It’s almost always about productivity. We did this topic last year with a plan we built for ourselves. We used categories for those goals, like I do with my students every semester: family, professional, personal, financial. How did we do? 

We also did it back in 2021, so let’s see how far we’ve come since then. That one used the AFI framework, a tool for business planning, to help writers think of their careers as businesses.

I also did this goal setting thing with Alexa Bigwarfe, my publisher, back in 2020. Boy did those goals go awry.

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What is an anti-hero? This topic is so old, the show notes still introduce who we are to the audience. Wow. Episode 43 way back in 2019 was the only episode we have dedicated to the Anti-Hero. Notes there are not AI-generated, but these notes totally are:

An anti-hero is a central character who lacks conventional heroic qualities like altruism, morality, or idealism, often driven by selfish motives, flaws, or questionable methods, yet the audience still roots for them because their goals might be relatable or they’re simply more compelling than traditional heroes, examples include Walter White (Breaking Bad), Deadpool, Han Solo, and Fleabag. They operate in moral gray areas, using dark or brutal tactics for understandable, sometimes even good, ends, creating compelling tension. (link & link & link)

Some types of anti-heroes (link & link):

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It’s been a while since we covered the dozen uses for the Fool (Episode 181) so there are some new notes and updated links for it but the concept remains.

Per Gemini AI:

the Fool is an archetype, often a jester or simpleton, who uses humor, feigned madness, or childlike simplicity to speak uncomfortable truths, challenge norms, offer wisdom, and provide commentary, acting as a mirror for society and powerful figures, as seen in Shakespeare’s King Lear, where the Fool guides Lear through his downfall by bluntly pointing out his foolishness. They serve as both comedic relief and profound commentators, revealing deeper meanings through their seemingly nonsensical words or actions, and can represent vulnerability, childlike innocence, or a “holy fool” figure who embodies spiritual wisdom. (Link and Link)

Key Characteristics:

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Heather has been with us before. She visited back on Episode 261: Edit Like a Pro. Here are some details about Heather: Heather Harris-Bergevin is an author whose business, Barrow Editing, is based in Columbia, South Carolina. She, her three children, two cats, and a happy pitbull spend most of their time fighting entropy. Her own poetry books are published with By Common Consent Press, and she has an upcoming children’s picture book with Lucky Rabbit Press, based in Columbia, SC.