Writing a story can feel like trying to find your way through a maze. It’s confusing. You run into a lot of dead ends. But we don’t expect to solve a maze in one try. We solve it step by step, with lots of going backwards. Don’t walk away from a good idea. Don’t ever talk yourself out of writing a story because you can’t figure out how it fits into the market or your career or the world. If it feels good, if you are drawn toward it, then write it. Find your way through it. You will reach the end eventually. Which part of the maze are you in right now? How can you reorient? Where is it leading you?

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Is Wildwood too scary for kids?

This week, a film called Wildwood released. It’s a stop motion animation about a thirteen year old girl named Prue who ventures into a forbidden, enchanted forest to rescue her infant brother Mac, who has been abducted by a murder of crows. In the days since the film released, there has been a backlash of adults (and I suspect bots) warning parents not to take their children to this movie because it’s too scary.

It is rated as PG-13, after all.

Most of my favorite dark fantasies from childhood (The Last Unicorn, The Secret of Nimh, The NeverEnding Story, Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Rescuers) were rated G or PG—but there’s a good reason why.

The PG-13 rating did not exist when 5 out of 6 of these movies were released.

The Motion Picture Association introduced PG-13 in July 1984. Almost all of them would receive a higher rating today due to how the MPA views the themes of 1980s dark fantasies, which typically get a PG-13 rating now. The G would be PG and the PG would be PG-13, so Wildwood is comparable to these films.

It seems we have conveniently forgotten just how scary some of our favorite childhood films were. Not to mention books! A Monster Calls is one of the scariest, most devastating stories I’ve ever read and we give it to fourth graders.

Why?

Children need safe spaces to explore scary things

While we genuinely hope none of our children will end up facing the Swamp of Sadness that we visited in The Never-Ending Story, the film gives them the opportunity to consider the lengths they would go to to save a dear friend.

When we contemplate loss, we learn to value life. Insulating children from every loss and hardship does not protect them. It leaves them defenseless in a world where loss is guaranteed.

The films I watched as a child scared me, made me cry, and remain some of my favorites of all time. It’s normal to have death and fear in children’s stories, especially fantasies and fairytales. It’s certainly part of what led to me becoming a writer and creating my own.

Scary topics I have written about in my books:

• pediatric cancer

• loss of a parent

• domestic abuse

• tragic accidents

• sexual harassment

• the woods at night

• getting lost in NYC

• peer pressure

• near death experiences

• pets dying

• being abandoned

• self harm

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Telling children scary stories is a skill

The reason I can write about so many scary things and not traumatize the heck out of my young readers is that writing for children is a SKILL.

We are very aware that we are writing for people whose minds are opening up to the wonders and worries of the world, people whose hearts are tender and souls soft. We create fiction that allows them to explore traumatic concepts WITHOUT being traumatized.

How?

Often, a children’s story will cut away from the most violent imagery or show that imagery in a visual style that is not realistic. Why? They don’t need to see it to get the point. We don’t need to overwhelm their senses and hearts. We don’t need to harm them with it, so we don’t!

Even in horror stories for children, if you look at the writing craft at a scene level, you’ll see careful choices about how the action and imagery is depicted. We protect young readers while supporting their exploration of the realities of life.

We also always offer hope. The real world may seem devoid of hope at times, but children’s fiction leans into it. We buoy their hearts and encourage their resilience.

We empathize with them, we recognize them, and we honor their experiences.

Even the literary voice used to tell a children’s story is very intentional, crafted with care at the sentence and word level to protect them from unnecessary harm. We spend a LOT of time on this in revisions and copy edits.

For this reason, children’s fiction is some of the most well-crafted work out there.

The scary parts I’m writing about next

As I work on my upcoming middle grade fantasy series, I’m exploring topics I haven’t been able to confront in my realistic fiction. Usually, there aren’t many deaths in a contemporary story because death in real life is heavier to process than death that is viewed through the lens of an alternate world.

This is why there’s more violence and death on the screen in Wildwood. When you’re in a fantastical setting that is not your real world, there is emotional distance from the action. It doesn’t hit the same way. It is safer. This is why we could watch characters die in The Dark Crystal without being scarred for life.

In my new books, I’m exploring:

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I’m back on deadline for the first time in years, and I find myself spinning a bit. It’s easy to try to jump ahead, to push too hard, even when it’s completely unnecessary. This is when I need to stop the most. To just BE. To take things in, to witness the magic all around me, and allow the flow to carry me downstream rather than fighting it. Here are a few moments of woodland from me to you. If you can take ten minutes to stop and let the world surprise you today, do it. I’ll be doing the same.

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Don’t judge the size of your potatoes

Please bear with me for an analogy about sweet potatoes. This year, I grew sweet potatoes for the first time. I was meant to get them in the ground by early June, but my slips took forever to start. You don’t plant a sweet potato to grow more sweet potatoes. You make the potato sprout and then plant those sprouts, which are called slips. My slips took foreverrrr to sprout, so I got them in the ground in late July.

Two months later, this is what I harvested:

When I first broke the soil, I was slightly disappointed that my potatoes were the size of fingerlings. Then I asked myself: what was my goal here?

To grow sweet potatoes for the first time.

And I DID THAT.

Are they huge potatoes? No. Are they edible? Absolutely. They’ll be delicious roasted with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. And pulling them out of the ground made me happy. I don’t really care that they’re small. They grew! And that’s success.

Your definition of success will change over time

Next year, my goal is to start earlier and grow larger potatoes. I will take everything I learned from this year’s project and attempt to improve upon it. ANY improvement will be a success.

Which is a great illustration of how your definition of success will change over time.

When I started out writing, I wanted to get an agent and a traditional book deal because that was the only way I could afford to become an author. I needed someone to pay me to write books or I would not be able to pursue it as a career. It took three years and three manuscripts written during nap time while caring for my two young children to get there.

But after my first book came out, my definition of success changed a bit.

Suddenly, I felt compelled to attend lots of conferences and festivals. I spent a lot of time putting in proposals and chasing opportunities to promote my books. I was very fortunate to attend a lot of great events, but they came with a downside: exhaustion.

I am not good at traveling. I get stressed and don’t sleep well in hotel rooms. Flying dehydrates me and gives me headaches. It takes two to three days of lying around in my pajamas to recover from traveling for an event.

Sure, it was WONDERFUL to meet so many young readers around the country, but it came at a steep price for me. And I wasn’t getting paid for that work, either.

Be honest with yourself about what makes you happy

In recent years, I’ve focused on local book festivals that I can drive to in one day. I select events that are in areas I want to visit, places with beautiful settings and cool rocks. Because that’s what actually makes me happy.

Will I travel farther again for book events? Yes, most likely. But if I never get on a plane for a book event again, I will not feel like a failure because the part that actually makes me happy is meeting readers, and I can do that in ways that suit me better.

Going to a local book festival is success for me.

Options to consider as you define success in writing

For me, success remains being paid to write my books. This gives me a North Star for my writing career. I can’t accept book deals that don’t pay for my time and I do not compromise on that.

That doesn’t mean I can support myself on my book income alone. Usually, I can’t. That’s why I work as a writing coach and a book editor. That’s also why I monetize my newsletter and sell prints of my notebook sketches. All of these income streams combine to support me, and as long as I can do that, I am succeeding.

As you define success in writing for yourself, consider these questions:

• Do you need to be paid up front for your work or can you invest and wait for returns? Traditional publishing tends to pay more up front and self publishing requires some capital investment but can potentially pay out at a higher rate.

• Do you want to sell huge numbers of books or is it enough to see your work in print? As a traditionally pubbed author I can’t set sale prices or run promotions, so I don’t make sales numbers part of my definition of success but you absolutely can if that’s what serves you. If you just want to see your words in print, there are many ways to achieve that. Not everyone wants to deal with the stresses of pursuing a career as an author, and that’s okay!

• What are your goals right now and which goals should wait for the future? Your definition of success will evolve with time so be careful not to pressure yourself with goals that do not align with your current stage of the publishing journey.

• What brings you joy? It takes some trial and error to figure this out, but your only obligation is to pay attention to what truly serves you and what does not and make your choices accordingly. Success comes in many forms.

Book news!

And now, an update on my latest book deal for my paid subscribers!

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As I dive deeper into writing my new fantasy series, I’m reminded of why we should take heart in the face of AI’s relentless onslaught of the arts: it can’t do what we do. It can’t create stories that speak to another human’s soul because it cannot understand the inward significance of words. AI doesn’t feel and it doesn’t think. It cannot answer the question: “So what?” That’s what I always ask myself when I’m creating a new story: So what? Why do these events MATTER? What is really happening here? What am I questioning with this story? AI can mimic what’s already been written, but it can’t create stories driven by the deepest questions of the human soul. Only WE can so that. How can you be more delightfully, weirdly, imperfectly human in your art?

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Using a planting matrix to create

One of the tools I use to make sense of gardening is called a planting matrix. The one below is from Prairie Up, which offers a lot of great advice on how to plant a native garden. When you plant in a matrix, you create a structure by repeating one plant throughout the area. Often this plant is a ground cover or a native grass. This unifies the garden and suppresses weeds. It also helps stabilize moisture levels and provides a framework to plant other species.

What’s cool about a planting matrix is how that underlying structure brings order to the area. That makes it easier to place the other plants in little repeating clusters. Sometimes those secondary plants have to be rearranged because the height or light level isn’t right for that part of the garden, but that’s something that’s hard to predict without growing for a season.

Books are pretty much the same process for me.

I create the framework for my story from my character’s growth arc, using that repeated touchstone to suppress tangents that do not fit my story and providing a concrete framework that the plot must fit into to feel cohesive.

Character as the foundation of story

My character provides the underlying structure for my stories. They start the story one way and end it having grown and changed. This is one of the first things I figure out about a story: who my character is and how they change.

These are the prompts I use to create a character’s arc:

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As I write the first full draft of my middle grade fantasy, I’m working out how the themes reflect in every part of the story—especially the characters. My main character is a person without magic in a magical world, and she thinks that means she’s not special. Exploring the other character’s relationships to magic in this world reveals commonalities and clashes, which gives me fodder for plot points. Keeping theme in the back of my mind as I write brings cohesiveness to the story, but I keep my touch light, allowing my subconscious to make these choices rather than guiding with too much intention. We don’t want the story to feel contrived, but rather centered on a theme we are exploring. How can your theme reflect in all the parts of your story?

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The numbers on sexual harassment in middle school

When I started writing this book, I didn’t even know the numbers on sexual harassment in middle school. Did you know that 48% of middle schoolers experience sexual harassment? In 2017, a report from the American Association of University Women found that nearly half of students in grades 7-12 reported harassment, while only 21% of schools reported incidents.

This massive discrepancy indicates we are not doing enough to acknowledge the incidents that happen to students. It is important that we name sexual harassment when we see it. That’s why I wrote Crushed. Books like this one offer a safe place to discuss sensitive topics such as social media, consent, and healthy boundaries. This book has had less reach than my others because of our collective reluctance to confront these topics, but I will not stop talking about them.

Some books are banned softly

Book banning has devastated children’s literature over the past decade. Across America, private interest groups have targeted books that feature diverse characters or were written by diverse authors, often slinging baseless accusations to get these books removed from the shelves.

According to data from the American Library Association, 72% of book censorship demands are initiated by pressure groups, government entities, elected officials, board members, and administrators. Individual parents account for roughly 16% of these attempts, and library users account for just 5%.

So most of the banning you see is politically motivated. It’s not coming from readers or parents. It’s coming from individuals who have a vested interest in controlling what is available for others to read. But that’s not where book banning stops.

Some books are just quietly not ordered.

They are banned softly. Instead of the typical four copies, the library only orders one. Or they don’t order at all. This is happening to marginalized children’s books more than any others, but it also impacts books that talk about topics that make adults uncomfortable. I knew this was a risk when I wrote Crushed, but I wrote it anyway.

And guess what? My sales plummeted.

The impact of censorship on authors

Authors rely on their sales records to secure new books deals. Even though we are not the ones producing or selling the book (which is a product that the publisher owns), we are still held accountable for the sales track for our books.

When your sales dip, it’s much harder to get another contract. That lack of sales can be used against you in negotiations to get you to accept a low ball advance. Negotiations get gross really fast. It doesn’t matter if many of your books have sold well. Having one that dips and doesn’t maintain that trend WILL be used against you.

For many marginalized authors, this potentially means the end of their career. That’s what has happened to a lot of my writer friends over the past year and a half. Publishing has pulled waaaaay back on investing in authors in favor of what they believe will benefit their bottom line. Not that ANYONE knows which books will sell and which won’t—and therein lies the bullshit.

Best sellers are made with investment. When you don’t invest in a book and it fails, that’s not on the author. But that failure is used as an excuse to cull the list to what they deem a “safe” investment: typically straight white people like me.

That’s probably why I still have the opportunity to even try for another book deal right now, which is gross. I want us all to be published based on the merit of our work, but that’s not how this industry works. They publish what they think will SELL, not what they think is GOOD. And with a majority straight white publishing industry, they’re going to gravitate toward people and work they personally relate to.

Hope for the future

Despite the lagging sales for Crushed, which was given a Gold Standard designation by the Junior Library Guild, I am forging ahead with new projects. Unfortunately, the market for realistic middle grade fiction is so poor right now that I can’t sell a book about any of those topics for the time being, but I am still writing truth in the stories I’m working on now.

I know there may be consequences for doing so, but I am in a position of privilege and the least I can do is use it for good. I am grateful for the educators, librarians, and parents who have supported Crushed. I know that they, too, may face consequences for doing so. But these are the lives our young readers a living, and we have a moral duty to be honest about it. Knowledge is power. And middle schoolers need to read about consent. If you have a young reader in your life, please give them this book.

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I like to start each work session with a task I can complete in under 10 minutes. This starter task is easy to finish and takes just long enough to get me into creative flow. After ten minutes, my brain is locked into focus and I get a nice little blast of completion from that first task before I shift my focus to a bigger task I have in mind for the day. I try to pick starter tasks that are super fun, like cutting up paper notes or color coding a list. It’s a trick to get myself working with ease and joy, and it never fails me. What 10-minute task could you start with today? Be sure it’s do-able in ten!

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Remove constraints early on

It’s tempting to try to organize your thoughts early in your writing process, but trying to make decisions while you are in the midst of expansion into new ideas can shut down your creative flow. For years, I tried to stay organized WHILE I brainstormed, and it just made me tire and work slowly. I was constraining myself unnecessarily. That urge to organize is a good one, but it needs to be done at the right time.

Early work on a book is not that time for me.

When I let myself have free range and follow my ideas with no concern other than collecting and documenting them, I get more done. Is it chaos? Often. But are the ideas better? Very much.

When we’re in the midst of creating, we need to surround ourselves with YES energy. YES, that’s a great idea. YES, it might work that way. YES, there is a solution. All of that YES energy propels you forward through the maelstrom of your ideas and trusting your future self to handle organizing it all frees you from constraints.

Use intuitive processes as you work

I was the kind of kid who hoarded art supplies. My parents were nice enough to get me a lot of beautiful markers and pencils and sketchpads. Years later, I found many of them virtually untouched in my closet. It made me sad for little Mel. I wish she had just torn through those supplies with reckless abandon.

I’ve encountered the same hesitation to waste materials holding me back at times when I’m writing. I worry about wasting paper and fret over burned-out pens, often continuing to write with one that’s hurting my fingers because it’s so nearly dead. I’ve tried using the computer more instead, and it’s just not the same for me.

I need to use the processes that are intuitive to my brain without restriction. Every time I allow myself to have this freedom, I am more productive. I’ve also found ways to compromise with those parts of myself by using scrap paper and asking my local Buy Nothing group for paper people would otherwise trash. This allows me to think the way that’s easiest for me without fretting quite as much.

Make it fun

If you’re struggling with any part of the creative process, ask yourself how you can make it more fun. For me, that usually means adding markers, tape, and scissors to whatever I’m doing. Sometimes it means voice notes to myself, which are very effective and often comical. Basically, if I notice myself hating what I’m doing, I ask myself how I could switch up my environment, materials, or method to spark joy.

This is especially useful when you are organizing a bunch of early ideas into an actual story. How I make that process fun:

• I let myself spread out and make piles that are fun to build as I get the work done.

• I add colors that make me smile and make it easier to locate what I need

• I allow myself to cross out things I don’t need or leave little comments when I agree or disagree with my past self. This takes the pressure out of decisions and lets them be an ongoing conversation.

• I use exclamation points, underlines, and circles to indicate important breakthroughs. There is something ingrained in my psyche from childhood that seeing a star means I did good, and I can give that to myself.

• I get a real dopamine blast from COMPLETION so I break my process into the smallest parts so I can finish them in a session. It’s helpful to note when something is a problem to solve NOW and when it should wait for LATER.

• I leave the mess. When I had little kids, I made myself clean everything up every time I worked but now that my space is safe for mess, I don’t clean up after myself. This work is important and it deserves to be present in my living space. It is beautiful to look at and leaving it out brings me joy.

Try different systems

It can take a while to figure out what works for you, so let yourself try different systems to organize your ideas into a draft. Some people like spreadsheets. Some like mood boards. Some like very detailed outlines. Some prefer to let go and write with periodic check-ins to stay on track. Anything goes!

Your needs might also change over time, so stay open to trying things you didn’t like in the past. I work on paper to organize my notes but I also use Word to create an outline of those notes. I mark those notes those with word “SCENE” to come back to later.

When I’m done organizing my notes, I copy the scene ideas into a Word doc and put them in rough order. This results in a loose outline that I can expand into chapters. I allow myself to write those scenes and chapters completely out of order, something I didn’t like early on. These days, it’s more satisfying to write the scene I’m most excited about at any given moment. It will all get revised later, anyway. Might as well take the easiest path forward. Eventually, this process leads to a finished draft.

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I love reading books on writing craft and creativity. Even if I don’t always understand what I’m reading (which is often the case on a first read), there are inevitably light bulbs going off as I sink into another person’s thought process on creating things. This shelf in my library holds some of my favorite sources of inspiration, though I have tarnished on Anne Lamott. Here are the books I’ve gone back to over the years:

Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

Just Write: Here’s How! by Walter Dean Meyers

The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald J. Maass

No Mistakes by Keiko Agena

Second Sight by Cheryl Klein

What are your favorite books on writing and creativity? I’m always looking for recs!

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This week, I’m embarking on a new draft and I’m feeling all the nerves that come along with that endeavor. It’s so easy to doubt, question, hesitate, but in that gap between thinking and doing the best ideas are lost. I love textile artist Sarah Campbell’s quote here, which she talks about in this video from the Fashion and Textile Museum, which speaks to ALLOWING yourself to capture ideas without prejudice. She makes loads of tiny sketches which she refers to as “little maps of work,” and I love that sentiment. We build a little map of the work, and then we expand on it, nurture it, allow it to grow in whatever chaotic fashion and in the end, we have a completed piece. It is scary and uncertain to enter into this process but that is how we take ourselves by surprise and create the unknown, the precious, the new.

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Find the candy and focus on it

Every endeavor has parts we love and parts we don’t love. And because we are diligent, hard working creatives, we push ourselves to do the parts we don’t love—but that can work against you.

Sometimes, the parts you don’t like are also the parts your audience won’t like.

Looking back over old projects, I see how I let industry expectations get in my way sometimes. I pushed myself to change my stories from what I really wanted to what I thought other people wanted. And usually, that led to me abandoning the project or stuffing it in a digital drawer and forgetting it.

Now that I’m older and (somewhat) wiser, I’ve learned that it’s far better to cut the parts you don’t like and lean HARD into what you love. The parts we love are like a piece of candy in a sea of boringness. Always add candy to every scene you write. MAKE YOUR BOOK 100% CANDY.

THAT creates a story other people will devour, too.

How do you add candy to your scene?

Start by noticing the textures and techniques you love in your own writing. Also note it in other people’s writing, but most importantly in your own.

Do you love sassy dialogue?

THEN WRITE IT. LOTS OF IT!

Do so much of what you love that your whole story becomes your favorite part of the story. Do it with intention and purpose. Every time you drift into doldrums, ask yourself: How can I make this candy?

If you’re bored writing something, the reader is going to be ten times as bored reading it. If you’re electrified and rejuvenated as you write it? Your audience will be ten times as invested. The care & passion DOES transmit across the page. When a writer is infatuated with their own work, you feel that as you read.

Lean into obsession

If you’re trying to find the candy in your work, dive deep into areas of personal interest. What subjects do you enjoy? What special interests do you have?

Write about them!

Unashamedly exploring personal passions at DEPTH brings a level of uniqueness, intensity, and voice to a project that is captivating to a reader. Become obsessed with your own work. Enjoy it at a plot level and at a sentence level. Don’t do what you think other people want or expect—do exactly what makes you happy as though you will be the only one to ever read it. Get weird. GO BIG.

If you’re worried you might embarrass yourself, you’re probably onto something. And operating this way over the long term keeps you passionate, engaged, and truly entertained by your own work, which I find to be the key to longevity in this industry. You have to stay in your joy. So make EVERYTHING you do candy!

And now, some exciting book news for my paid subscribers!

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I came across this remarkable interview with artist and teacher Michael Craig-Martin this week, wherein he talked about how we tend to dismiss our greatest gifts because they come easily to us. We dismiss their specialness because we assume it’s just as easy for others, when it is not. The places where you find ease—in your craft, your ideas, or your skills—is likely where you excel. Don’t undervalue the ease. Recognize it and lean into it. Persist. Build around it. This is your path. Where do you find ease in your work? Where are you pushing yourself to pursue goals that are not in alignment?

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What is a hook?

A hook, quite simply, is a point of interest that catches the reader’s attention. A great hook can come in many forms and can raise an infinite range of questions in the reader’s mind.

What makes a hook great?

Think about your own experiences with books, film, and television. There are many stories we have seen over and over again. Some concepts come across as stale because we’ve seen them so many times and there’s nothing NEW about the way they’re being presented, but others offer a unique, fresh twist that still manages to grab us even if the premise is familiar in some way.

It’s that freshness that you’re after.

ANY concept can be made into a great hook. It just needs a delivery that is as surprising as it is familiar. If you’re raising a familiar question in the reader’s mind—such as: How do we accept death?—you need to approach it from an angle they haven’t considered before, with some element that is captivating in its newness.

Human beings LOVE new things. We LOVE things we don’t understand, things we haven’t seen before, and things that shock or confound us.

For example, the book Remarkable Creatures (which was recently made into an Emmy-winning film starring Sally Field) is built around the question I mentioned above: How do we accept death? The unique twist is that this question is examined from an octopus’s point of view, which is utterly captivating from page one.

We follow the octopus’s journey to the end of its life in parallel to the human characters journeys to accept a death that has shattered their own lives. The premise is familiar, but at the same time powerful in its innovative approach.

Don’t stop at one hook!

The longer I write stories, the more I’m convinced they are not just built around one hook, but a series of hooks like a trail of breadcrumbs that leads the reader deeper and deeper into the matrix of your story.

I don’t just have one over-arching hook—or premise—for my story, I have LAYERS of hooks from the premise to the title to the first sentence. This isn’t a new concept, of course. I’m not the first writer to describe this approach to hooking the reader, but I rarely see it broken down into the specifics from a technical standpoint.

These are the hooks I use in a story to make it a page-turner:

• The premise

• The title

• The first sentence

• The end of the first paragraph

• The end of the first page

• The end of the scene or chapter

• The end of every chapter following

• A big hook (reversal/twist) at the midpoint

Your approach may vary, and if so don’t worry. This is just the pattern of small enticements I’ve noticed that tend to capture my readers and keep them glued to the page, often when they’ve stopped to check out my book at a festival.

The title grabs them. The first line hooks them again, and by the time they get to the end of the page, they are fully immersed in the story and have a hard time stopping. I love seeing that happen. It’s a joyous thing.

The hook in practice

Let’s look at some examples from my recent middle grade novel, Crushed. This middle grade novel is about a girl who investigates her best friend’s sudden change in behavior. That’s the premise, the hook that’s conveyed on the back of the cover and the interior flap summary. It raises the kind of questions young readers are interested in: a sudden change of behavior in a best friend. That’s alarming.

What makes it a little different is the setup: the main character investigates the change. This tells the reader they’re going to get a mystery, and anyone who likes mysteries is hooked by that element and curious about just how she does that because they’ve likely felt the urge to figure out what’s going on with their own friends.

To me, a good hook isn’t trying to CONVINCE a reader to read your book. It’s just communicating what the experience of reading the book with be like, accurately, concisely, and with a point of interest that they relate to. Sometimes, your hook will not appeal to a reader, and that’s okay! Not every book is for every reader!

Once I grab my reader with the premise, they flip to the opening page which you see here. The first line, “Eve’s coming back today” provides a second immediate hook connected to the premise. The reader wonders: Where’s Eve coming back from? What happened? Why has she been away?

They know this relates to the premise of a sudden change, so there is immediate suspense waiting to find this best friend and see what’s happening.

As we read on, the opening paragraph ends with, “but so far, she hasn’t shown up yet.” You can see how this bookends the opening sentence. It’s the second half of what’s happening: Eve’s coming back, but she hasn’t shown up yet. Suddenly, we’re wondering if she really will. Where is she? What’s the hold up?

We feel the same anxiety building that Sophie does as she waits for Eve. Sophie searches but can’t find her, and by the end of the first page, she’s checking her messages and acknowledging that her mother would have CALLED if something had happened…this escalates the question of what the heck happened to Eve.

It’s something bad. We can tell.

And now we really have to keep reading.

Don’t leave an opportunity to hook the reader unattended

As you craft your opening lines, think about the way you’re delivering the story. Are there opportunities to strategically place information so you hook the reader even more?

Remember, hooks come in many forms. My example focuses on hooks that dig into and expand the central story question right away because young readers need an extremely quick pace to keep reading. Adult readers have a little more patience, and you can hook them with all kinds of small curiosities. Anything that raises a question encourages them to stay for the answer—just make sure you give them some answers in a timely fashion. Don’t pile on too many big question marks in a row or you may lose them. Instead, look for those layers that build a sense of deepening curiosity.

What would keep YOU reading? That’s where your answers lie.

Paid subscribers, if you’re working on a hook for a story, feel free to share it in the comments or reply to this email to share it privately with me. I’m happy to give you feedback on any of the hook-y bits you’re working on right now.

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“The Artist’s Inventory” is a journaling practice built on punk-rocker Patti Smith's work. This is a delightful reflective tool for self-examination, as the questions are provoking and emotionally resonant. The inventory consists of the following four poignant questions with my answers in italics:

• What am I making a life around? Making stuff

• What am I hungry for that is not food, praise, or escape? Getting lost in my projects

• Where am I waiting for permission? Waiting for the financial security to stop hustling and being so careful and efficient with my time

• What part of me is still barefoot, still young, still carrying the first notebook? The dreamer who wants to wander and make messes and be wild

I think these questions help you strip away external concerns and connect with your authentic artistic core. A great way to end the practice is with ONE micro-promise for the rest of the day. It must be specific and easy to achieve. (For example: I’m giving myself thirty minutes of unstructured, phone-free time to wander this afternoon). If you give it a try, I’d love to hear your responses to any of these prompts in the comments.

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I have lots of people reading my work and giving me feedback as I wait to see which project will move forward next. No matter what genre I’m writing, the feedback I get most often is that my characters feel very real. I think that’s because I’m honest about how people operate. And the truth is, people lie. A lot. And so should your characters.

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The function of the lie

How do you build a character that feels REAL to readers? The key is diving deep into your character’s flaws, because our flaws are what make us relatable. It’s easy to want to write a character who is idealized. Someone you look up to. Someone you protect. But that doesn’t allow us to get to know your character. We only know someone’s true character at their lowest moments, so if your character isn’t disclosing those moments to the reader, the reader feels shut out. A character who makes no missteps will not come across as a real person because no one is perfect.

The three types of lies your character should tell

Everyone lies, and in many different ways. Your character lies to others, themselves, and the reader. Each of those layers of self deception are not only catnip to the reader, but rich opportunities to develop your plot. When plot choices are built on character design, they feel logical to the reader. I’ve found this careful interweaving of character design and external plot is integral to a story that feels real.

The lies they tell others

There are many reasons a character lies to others, just as there are many reasons we lie in real life. Sometimes it’s to avoid discomfort. Other times it’s to protect someone. They might lie intentionally to gain power or advantage. They may lie for fun.

In my third book, A Perfect Mistake, the main character is a boy named Max who has ADHD and struggles with making mistakes. He fudges the truth, avoids, and deflects to avoid the consequences of those mistakes. We can all relate to him because we all experience those urges. Sharing those moments with the reader allows them to know Max and care for him, because he also shares how deeply these choices burden him and how much he aspires to do the right thing even when it’s hard.

The lies they tell themselves

Characters struggle with self-deception just as much as we do. They may be lying to themselves because of past trauma or to maintain their self image. They often believe a lie about themselves that isn’t true—a tragic flaw the story forces them to confront.

In my latest book, Crushed, Sophie Valentine is a seventh-grade girl whose best friend seems to be ditching her. Sophie is desperate to reconnect because she believes that if she doesn’t have this one friend, she will be friendless. She believes the lie that she is undesirable as a friend. Her desperation is embarrassing and heart-breaking to read, but it’s real, and readers love waiting to see how she overcomes it.

The lies they tell the reader

Now this is where fiction gets interesting. Because you are telling readers a story, you are in complete control of when and how certain lies are revealed to the reader. And sometimes, your character is intentionally holding back or misleading them.

In my second novel, Every Missing Piece, the main character is a girl named Maddy whose father died in an accident, making her hyper-vigilant about safety. On the opening page, she makes an assertion that she immediately admits is false. This cues the reader into the notion that Maddy isn’t always being honest with them, which allowed me to play with the timing of when certain truths are revealed.

The combined effect

The substance of who you are and what you stand for shows during moments of abject failure, challenge, and ethical conundrum. We let our readers see our characters struggle so they can root for them to prevail. When your character reveals their lies to the reader, it makes the reader CARE. And the key to keeping a reader absolutely hooked to your story is making them care about it, and your character.

Let me help you with your character!

For my paid subscribers, let me know if you have any questions in the comments and feel free to share what you’re working on! I’ll help you figure out any sticky points, or feel free to reply to this email for private feedback.

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Zen master and author Thích Nhất Hạnh illustrates the concept of “interbeing” with this beautiful example of how everything is interconnected. Everything that exists relies on the rest of the universe to manifest. Just as there is a whole cosmos within a sheet of paper, there is a whole cosmos within you. It is a good reminder to slow down and mindfully observe ourselves and our connections to the world around us. This allows us to set aside the anxieties, doubts, and fears of the creative process and focus on our art. What experiences of interbeing have been meaningful for you?

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If you enjoy this post, please share it with friends! Or feel free to click the ❤️ button so more people can discover Mel’s Notebook on Substack. Thank you!!! 🙏

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This installment of Mel’s Notebook is emailed to paid subscribers every Thursday. Become a paid subscriber for deep dives into my notebooks, writing practices, and personal projects. Subscribe today for exclusive content to inspire your creativity. ❤️

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Remind yourself of what you love

The first thing I do when I decide to kick around new ideas is revisit the art that captivates me. We all have certain books we’ve reread many times, favorite movies, and TV shows we would happily binge again on a rainy day. There are paintings we never get tired of looking at and songs that set our souls alight. We’re drawn to those pieces of art for a reason. There is something in them that speaks to us, and often it’s something we’re interested in interrogating for ourselves.

A favorite technique of mine for generating new ideas is looking at the art that speaks to me and asking myself, If I made this, how would it be different?

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