by K.M. Weiland

The antagonist is usually a physical entity, something standing in the way of our protagonists’ ability to achieve their physical goals and perhaps even threatening our protagonists’ lives or their physical well-being.

Consequently, it can be easy to forget that antagonists are just as important in driving your character’s personal arc as they are the plot’s conflict.

The Two Halves of Story: Outer and Inner

Every story is made up of two integral halves:
1. The protagonist’s pursuit of his outer goal, which is the physical aspect of the story (i.e., the stuff we see happening).
2. The protagonist’s pursuit (willing or not) of his inner goal, which is the emotional and spiritual aspect of the story (i.e., the stuff happening on an intangible plane).

Some stories will emphasize one of these halves over the other, but the best stories balance them.

How the Antagonist Drives the Plot

On the external or physical plane, your antagonist is an obviously essential player. He’s the obstacle that creates conflict. Your character makes a move; your antagonist makes a countermove. Bing bang boom.

That one’s a no-brainer. Even if your antagonist is non-human, it will be a force opposing your protagonist and forcing him to keep coming up with new ways to overcome the problems that lie between him and the ultimate conquest of his story goal.

It can be easy to forget that antagonists are just as important in driving your character’s personal arc as they are the plot’s conflict.

How the Antagonist Drives the Character Arc

Equally important is the antagonist’s affect on your protagonist’s inner journey. This, however, is often something we overlook. When we construct our character’s arcs (if we consciously construct them), we’re too often inclined to create traumas and troubles that have no direct connection to the antagonist.

Maybe George is trying to get a job in the circus and is opposed by the circus owner’s son, who happens to be courting the girl George is in love with. Sounds like a decent plot with a plausibly motivated antagonist. But if we’ve decided that George’s character arc is about proving his worth to his apathetic father (and thereby to himself), then we’ve created a character arc that has no direct relationship to the antagonist. Sure, the circus owner’s son will probably prod George along in his discovery of his self-worth, but that’s only tangentially affecting the character arc.

Two Ways the Antagonist Ties Together Plot and Character Arc

The best way to create an antagonist who is just as organic to the character’s inner arc as he is to the outer conflict is to do it on purpose, right from the start. Before you ever begin writing, take a moment to consider your story’s outer conflict and your character’s inner conflict. Does one grow from the other? If not, how can you craft the one to better reflect the other?

In George’s case, we might want to consider either switching out the antagonist to better inform his character arc, or changing the character arc to better reflect the antagonist’s mode of attack.

Equally important is the antagonist’s affect on your protagonist’s inner journey.

Choosing an Antagonist Integral to the Character Arc

If we’re sold on keeping the character arc as is, we might find a better catalyst for inspiring George to find his own self-worth by forcing him to do direct battle with the father he’s trying to impress. Maybe his father is the owner of the circus and is the one bent on keeping George out of the family business, because he doesn’t believe good ol’ George is up to the challenge.

Choosing a Character Arc Born of the Antagonist’s Attack

If, however, we decide we like the outer conflict with the circus-owner’s-son-slash-rival-lover better than we do George’s current character arc, we might get rid of the judgmental father altogether and focus instead on a weakness that is directly challenged by the circus owner’s son. Perhaps George’s new arc is still about self-worth, but now that self-worth centers on his belief that he’s not worthy of the girl he loves.

Sometimes we can employ more than one antagonist to create different forces of opposition (e.g., the dad drives the inner arc, while the circus owner’s son drives the outer conflict). But consolidating the power of your main antagonist into a catalyst for both halves of your story is a powerful way to bring cohesion to both plot and theme.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

Make no mistake. This is a tough wire on which to balance. Give readers too much juice, and they’ll not only grow bored, they may also feel as if you are dumping info on them or condescending to them from your toplofty summit of superior knowledge. But give them too little info, and they’ll not only suffer confusion, they may still end up resenting you for condescension.

How does that work anyway? How can you condescend to readers by not dumping info or flaunting your knowledge? This is where we run right smack into the problem of exclusive dialogue.

What is exclusive dialogue?

Think of exclusive dialogue as an inside joke. You and your characters know what’s being talked about—but your poor readers are left out in the cold. In the First Five Pages, agent Noah Lukeman uses the analogy of the odd man out at a party:

iA good example of exclusive dialogue: you feel shut out as a reader, as if you’ve crashed someone’s private party and no one has any intention of filling you in. Note the plethora of cryptic and personal references, the clipped speech. This type of dialogue is sure to make the reader angry, [since] it seems as if the writer is blatantly disregarding him.

Most of us have probably found ourselves in a real-life situation like that. We stand there, grinning bravely, nodding along, trying to project an understanding of what the other people are conversing about. Meanwhile, they go right on talking over our heads, making no effort to include our obviously willing selves in their conversation.

Can you say awkward?

That’s how your readers feel when you let your characters ramble on in enigmatic sentences that hint at something juicy and interesting without including the reader.

Think of exclusive dialogue as an inside joke.

An example of exclusive dialogue

“Did you get the thing—the you know?” “Yeah, I got it.” “How’s it look?” “Oh, you know.”

Did you get any of that? Does it make you want to read on—or does it just annoy you? If readers are left dangling like this, without any further context, they’re going to feel as if you’re taunting them with what you know and they don’t.

Does exclusive dialogue ever work?

Occasionally, you can get away with using cryptic dialogue as a hook, such as Trinity’s conversation with Cypher at the beginning of The Matrix or the phone call overhead by Barbara Stanwyck’s bed-ridden character in Sorry, Wrong Number. But these instances must always be used with care. You rarely want POV characters knowing something your readers don’t. Instead, you want to create an intimacy between your readers and your character, in order to heighten your readers’ vicarious experience of the story. Exclusive dialogue creates distance between your readers and your character—and makes it that much harder for readers to identify with the story or suspend their disbelief.

The best use of exclusive dialogue will always be instances in which your POV character is just as clueless as your reader. In these instances, the mystery of the dialogue becomes a focus within the plot—instead of just a cheap gimmick to try to hook the readers’ curiosity.

They’re going to feel as if you’re taunting them with what you know and they don’t.

How can you remedy exclusive dialogue?

The answer to this one is easy: make the dialogue inclusive. Instead of writing dialogue that is purposefully vague or obscure, spell things out. Specificity will almost always bring more power—and more reader curiosity—than will vague rumblings anyway. You want readers to be curious enough to ask specific questions. In order for them to do that, they first have to be given enough specific facts to allow them to frame those questions.

We might rewrite our original example like this:

“Did you get the puppy for Jamie?” “Yeah, I got him a mastiff.” “How’s it look?” “Like I should have gotten him a Pomeranian instead.”

Before, we had no idea what the characters were talking about, who they were, what they were up to, or why we should care. Now, we have enough specific facts to understand exactly what’s going on. Now, we can actually participate in the story, instead of just looking on as an outsider.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

Basically, this technique allows you to show, by way of contrast, what your character is doing. If he’s not smiling, he’s probably frowning. Readers aren’t likely to be confused. So what’s the big problem here?

The Problem With Non-Action in a Scene

Take a look at the following sentences:

Mark didn’t look at Shannon.

Shannon didn’t think about Mark while dancing with Geraldo.

Geraldo was surprised chills didn’t run up his spine.

All we know here is what these characters aren’t doing. In essence, we’ve created a vacuum of action. They aren’t doing anything. Or rather, they are doing something, but readers have no idea what that something might be.

When we place the emphasis on non-actions, we’re failing to tell readers what they should be visualizing. If we fail to give them any further clues to help them see what the characters are doing, then readers are left with a great big blank.

They are doing something, but readers have no idea what that something might be.

The Power of Positive Action in a Scene

When we focus on what our characters are doing, rather than what they’re not, we’re able to paint specific pictures for our readers. Consider our rewritten examples:

Mark kept his gaze on the torn Valentine Shannon handed back to him, so he wouldn’t have to see Shannon dancing with Geraldo.

Shannon sighed ecstatically. What a divine dancer Geraldo was.

Geraldo was surprised how calm he felt.

The focus on what is happening gives readers something to grab onto with their imaginations. More than that, it fills in that non-action vacuum with further insights into the characters’ emotions, reactions, and purposes.

We’re able to paint specific pictures for our readers.

The Exception: When You Should Choose Non-Actions for a Scene

Although we’re generally going to want to focus on what our characters are doing, thinking, or feeling, this is far from being a hard and fast rule. Sometimes what our characters aren’t doing will end up being what is most important.

You may decide that saying “Mark didn’t look at Shannon” speaks volumes more to his state of mind than any positive action on his part. It’s not as visceral, since it doesn’t allow readers to see through Mark’s eyes and visualize whatever he’s looking at in Shannon’s stead. But it’s certainly pithier.

Pairing non-actions with positive actions can often be repetitive. If we say Mark is looking at the torn Valentine, then we know he can’t possibly be looking at Shannon. But sometimes we can get a little more mileage out of our descriptions with a clever pairing. If you want the emphasis to be on Mark’s efforts to avert his eyes—but you also want to give readers something positive to visualize—you can piece the two together:

Mark didn’t look at Shannon dancing with Geraldo. He fingered the ragged edge of the Valentine she had torn and shoved back in his face.

Bottom line: Keep readers focused on what’s happening—except when what’s not happening is legitimately more important to their understanding and experience of your story.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

“No conflict, no story” is a rule of fiction familiar to even the noobiest of noob writers. We’re told to pack in the conflict. Make sure there’s conflict on every page. When the story feels slow, just add a little more conflict. Conflict, conflict, conflict — it’s the fiction fix-all.

But is it?

Turns out conflict isn’t the wonder drug we may have thought. For example, let’s consider that last bit of advice: “When the story feels slow, just add a little more conflict.” On the surface, it’s pretty good advice. But, if we dig a little deeper, we’re going to find it’s also pretty problematic.

Turns out conflict isn’t the wonder drug we may have thought.

Your Story’s Conflict Is Broken

Why? Because conflict is only interesting or compelling within the context of the plot. In other words, conflict, just for the sake of conflict, is not only just as boring as zero conflict, it’s also much more difficult for readers to swallow whole. Dwight V. Swain, in his canonical Techniques of the Selling Writer, explains:

[Your reader] demands that your character’s efforts have meaning. They must be the consequences of prior development and the product of intelligence and direction. So, unless you’ve planted proper motivation, he’ll resent it if your boxer, for no apparent reason, slugs a cop or stomps the arena doorman. Nor will he be satisfied, for that matter, if a gang of young hoodlums chooses this particular moment to pelt your vanquished warrior with rotten eggs, not even knowing who he is.

So there goes that random argument about which of our characters was supposed to buy eggs. In the context of our save-the-world-from-a-nuclear-holocaust thriller, an argument about eggs is going to be pointless. Likely, we’re only sticking it in there because we don’t know what else to write. The story has stalled, and we don’t know what’s supposed to happen in the next scene. But something has to happen in this scene and it had better include conflict. Enter the eggs argument. Often, this is yet another symptom of the meandering or goal-less character.

Creating Meaningful Story Conflict

If some types of conflict don’t cut it, how do you know which types are acceptable? Generally, of course, you’re looking for conflict that makes sense within the scope of the plot. You’re looking for conflict that flows from the plot. But how do you know when conflict flows from the plot?

It all comes down to character. And not just character personality, but, much more specifically, character motivations, goals, and reactions. The kind of conflict that drives stories is that which arises from a direct opposition to the protagonist’s goals.

If the presence of eggs in the protagonist’s refrigerator has no effect on his story or scene goals, then the egg conflict has no place in the story. On the other hand, if the absence of those eggs is going to spell doom (or perhaps just delay) for his dreams, that’s the kind of conflict I want to read about.

Often, this is yet another symptom of the meandering or goal-less character.

Subtle or Sidelong Story Conflict

While we’re at it, let’s also note that this integral conflict we’re talking about doesn’t always have to be overt. It could be the eggs in the above argument won’t have any direct impact on the characters, but the argument about the eggs might be symbolic of a deeper, unstated conflict between the characters—one which will present inherent obstacles.

On its surface, conflict is a very uncomplicated mechanism (two people arguing—how complicated is that?). But we must always understand what’s driving the conflict in every scene. What’s causing it? What changes will it cause in future scenes? Answer just these two questions, and before you know it, you’ll have a cohesive and compelling plot on your hands.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

Usually, it’s a very comfortable rut. All our characters are down there with us, keeping us company, cooking up tea, playing chess, and just generally having a happy ol’ time. Life isn’t very difficult, since we never have to force ourselves to reach higher or stretch farther. We get to sit in our comfy swivel chairs and watch our stories replay themselves, with slight variations, over and over again, like TV Land marathons.

Actually, you say, that doesn’t sound so bad. What’s the big problem here?

Well, I’ll tell you. The problem, in a word, is: stagnation. And where stagnation lives, art dies.

We get to sit in our comfy swivel chairs and watch our stories replay themselves

As Writer’s Digest editor Jessica Strawser pointed out in her February 2011 Editor’s Letter:

…the best writers are the ones who never stop trying to get better—the ones who set their egos aside, no matter how successful they are, and challenge themselves to push the limits of what they can achieve.

Whether they consciously realize it or not, most writers have one particular story they’re meant to tell, and they tell it over and over again all their lives.

For example, Charles Dickens’s body of work represents a deep concern for the poor and indebted, and my own fiction often carries a theme of redemption through self-sacrifice. It’s important to recognize and understand this inevitable repetition—but it’s also important to understand that these repeating themes are no excuse not to be forever pushing the boundaries of our craft.

It’s important to recognize and understand this inevitable repetition.

Novelist Joe Meno, in an interview with Mart Castle, explained the difference:

The thing I love about [Dave Eggers and Denis Johnson] is their willingness to try and reinvent themselves from book to book, especially Johnson, who’s written crime/noir books, science-fiction-inspired books, books about drug experiences, spy-influenced material. I’d hate it if someone read one of my books and thought, this is exactly like the last thing he wrote. … It’s a goal I have, writing books with very different styles and tones.

Thanks to laziness and fear—and often oblivion—it’s much too easy to fall into comfortable patterns that eventually descend into blatant repetition. So how do we know when we’re teetering on the edge of a rut? Following are some signs:

1. You find yourself reusing familiar phrases.

2. You write stories that fit only into one particular niche.

3. Your stories return to the same thematic arc over and over.

4. Your writing is no longer challenging.

5. You never experiment with POV, tense, or style.

6. Your characters are all the same person (except maybe they have different hair colors).

7. Your stories all begin and end in basically the same way.

8. You’ve stopped studying the craft.

One or two of these symptoms aren’t necessarily indicative of a problem. But if you find yourself nodding your head at three or more, it may be time to take action and evaluate how you can push yourself out of your comfort zone and make your next story an exciting new adventure—for both you and your readers.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

If we sift foreshadowing down to its simplest form, we could say that it prepares readers for what will happen later in the story.

At first glance, this may seem counter-intuitive. Why would we want readers to know what’s going to happen later in the story? If they know how the book turns out, they’ll have no reason to read on.

True enough. So let me reiterate. The point of foreshadowing is to prepare readers for what happens later in the story. Not tell them, just prepare them.

Foreshadowing’s great strength lies in its ability to create a cohesive and plausible story. If readers understand that it’s possible that someone in your story may be murdered, they won’t be completely shocked when the sidekick gets axed down the road. If, however, you failed to properly foreshadow this unhappy event, readers would be jarred. They would feel you had cheated them out of the story they thought they were reading. They would think you had, in essence, lied to them so you could trick them with this big shocker.

Readers and viewers don’t like to be cheated, lied to, or tricked. And that’s where foreshadowing comes into play.

The point of foreshadowing is to prepare readers for what happens later in the story.

Foreshadowing, Part 1: The Plant

We can break foreshadowing down into two parts. The first is the plant. This is the part where you hint to readers that something surprising and/or important is going to happen later in the book.

If the bad guy is going to kidnap the good guy’s son, your plant might be the moment when your hero notices a creepy dude hanging around the playground. If your heroine is going to be left standing at the altar, your plant might be her fiancé’s ambivalence toward the wedding preparations.

Depending on what you’re foreshadowing, the plant can be blatant or subtle. Subtle is almost always better, since you don’t want to give away your plot twists. But, at the same time, your hints have to be obvious enough that readers will remember them later on.

Usually, the earlier you can foreshadow an event, the stronger and more cohesive an effect you will create. The bigger the event, the more important it is to foreshadow it early. As editor Jeff Gerke puts it in The First 50 Pages:

“Basically, you need to let us in on the rules. If the climax of your book is going to consist of getting into a time machine and jumping away to safety, we had better have known in the first fifty pages that time travel is possible in the world of your story.”

Subtle is almost always better.

Foreshadowing, Part 2: The Payoff

Once you’ve got your plant in place, all that’s left is to bring the payoff on stage. If you planted hints about kidnapping, jilting, or time travelling, this is the part where you now get to let these important scenes play out.

As long as you’ve done your job right with the plant, you probably won’t even need to reference your hints from earlier. In fact, you’re likely to create a more solid effect by letting readers put the pieces together themselves.

But you’ll also find moments, usually of smaller events that were given less obvious plants, that will benefit from a quick reference to the original hint (e.g., “George, you big meanie! Now I understand why you wouldn’t choose between the scarlet and the crimson for the bridesmaids’ dresses!”)

The most important thing to remember about the payoff is that it always needs to happen. If you plant hints, pay them off. Just as readers will be confused by an unforeshadowed plot twist, they’ll also be frustrated by foreshadowing that excites them and then leads nowhere.

If you plant hints, pay them off.

Foreshadowing vs. Telegraphing

The trick to good foreshadowing is preparing your readers on a subconscious level for what’s coming without allowing them to guess the ins and outs of the plot twist. You don’t want your hints to be so obvious that they remove all suspense. In her October 2012 Writer’s Digest article “Making the Ordinary Menacing: 5 Ways,” Hallie Ephron calls this “telegraphing”:

“When you insert a hint of what’s to come, look at it critically and decide whether it’s something the reader will glide right by but remember later with an Aha! That’s foreshadowing. If instead the reader groans and guesses what’s coming, you’ve telegraphed.”

Some clever readers will undoubtedly be able to interpret your hints, no matter how cagey you are. But if you can fool most of the readers most of the time, you can’t ask for more than that.

Foreshadowing vs. Foreboding

Foreboding—that skin-prickling feeling that something horrible is going to happen—can be a useful facet of foreshadowing. By itself, foreboding isn’t specific enough to be foreshadowing.

Unlike the plants used for foreshadowing, foreboding is just an ambiguous aura of suspense. Jordan E. Rosenfeld describes it in Make a Scene:

“Foreshadowing … hints at actual plot events to come, [but] foreboding is purely about mood-setting. It heightens the feeling of tension in a scene but doesn’t necessarily indicate that something bad really will happen.”

Foreboding is useful in setting readers’ emotions on edge without giving them any blatant hints. But when it comes time to foreshadow important events, always back up your foreboding by planting some specific clues.

Most authors have so intrinsic an understanding of foreshadowing that they plant it and pay it off without even fully realizing that’s what they’re doing. But the better you understand the technique, the better you can wield it. Using this basic approach to foreshadowing, you can strengthen your story and your readers’ experience of it.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Photo Credits: Stock XChng, Graphic Stock, K.M. Weiland

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by K.M. Weiland

“What is this deuced deus ex machina?” you ask. “It’s all Greek to me,” you say.

Well, actually, it’s Latin. If I wanted to get technical, I could explain that the phrase literally translates “god from a machine” and was originally a reference to the “god” (played by an actor lowered onto the stage on a “machine”) who descended at the end of the Greek and Roman plays to solve all the mortal characters’ problems and put everything in order for a happy ending. However, for our 21st-century English purposes, we could just say it translates “don’t do this in your story” and be just as accurate.

At first glance, deus ex machina—the idea of all the plot problems being fixed in one fell swoop—might seem like a pretty good idea. But the only thing deus ex machina is guaranteed to fix is your readers’ low opinion of your story. This plot device might have worked for the ancient Greeks and Romans (although Aristotle might—and did—argue that point), but for modern authors it presents a number of difficulties.

The only thing deus ex machina is guaranteed to fix is your readers’ low opinion.

It robs cohesiveness by introducing a new element at the eleventh hour. To reach full potential, every piece of your story must be part of a consistent whole. If the cavalry has no place in your western, the climax in which it charges in to save the pioneers won’t seem logical or resonant.

It frustrates readers by taking the power out of the characters’ hands. Readers want to see the characters put under excruciating pressure, so they can then observe their reactions and, usually, their tenacity, skill, and courage in escaping and triumphing. When the damsel tied to the railway tracks is saved at the last minute by a handsome stranger, the heroine herself becomes a non-factor.

It endangers suspension of disbelief through unlikely coincidences. Miracles may occasionally happen in real life, but in fiction they tend to make readers scoff. When your characters escape their mafia debts by winning the lottery or being adopted by a little old lady millionaire, the result is both unsatisfying and difficult to believe.

It cheats readers by eliminating proper foreshadowing. In order to achieve resonance, stories need to provide all the puzzle pieces to the reader by the time he reaches the climax. The foreshadowing found in the character’s previous struggles will lead us up to the moment when he uses the lessons learned in those struggles to overcome this ultimate challenge. When he suddenly develops magical powers at the last moment, his escape from danger won’t be satisfying because it’s too different from the one readers expected.

Stories need to provide all the puzzle pieces to the reader by the time he reaches the climax.

It disappoints readers by removing characters from danger too soon. After waiting for 300 pages to reach the climax, readers want to see the characters sweat. They want to see them pushed to the very brink of their physical, mental, and moral endurance—and then rise up from their own ashes to conquer both inner and outer demons. When the avenging angel swoops in to save the characters, the result is anticlimactic. Instead of thrilling readers, your ending is more likely to have them heaving your book across the room.

Deus ex machina comes in many different shapes, but once you learn how to look for it, you can squish it on sight and save your readers from wanting to think up uncomplimentary Latin translations.

-K.M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.

Photo Credits: Stock XChng, K.M. Weiland

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au