Writers, Have You Heard? Angela and Becca have ANOTHER Thesaurus + Giveaway

Congratulations to Erin Ellison who won WOOD, WIRE and WINGS from last week's blog. For those of you who didn't win--you'll get a second chance when I feature Kirsten Larson's publication journey in an upcoming blog.

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As many of you know, I am a HUGE fan of One Stop for Writers  and Writers Helping Writers, the brainchild of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. (Click here for my behind-the-scenes interview with them.)

You might have thought that seven thesauri would be enough. But not for them! They realized that your character's choice of occupation speaks volumes about him or her. So, of course, they decided to do something about it. The Occupation Thesaurus is releasing TODAY and boy, does it have a lot to offer!

Let's say you are working on developing your protagonist, antagonist, or an important secondary character. A part of what you want to figure out is what your character does to support herself or her family. Their choice of employment will say a lot about who that person is. Here is the list of jobs detailed in this thesaurus; please click on the link and be impressed with the 124 entries! 

Angela and Becca provided a sneak peak into one of those occupations: firefighter. 

You'll see that each occupation includes training, necessary skills and abilities, useful skills or talents, helpful character traits, sources of friction, people they interact with, how the occupation meets the character's internal needs, how to switch the stereotype, and considerations about why a character would choose that job. Just reading through one entry could give you dozens of ideas for a story as well as insight into your character. 

In addition, amazing writers in our community have put together additional career profiles for you, based on jobs they have done in the past. (Shout out to my friend, Jarm Del Boccio who contributed "Children's author"!) This is a great way to access accurate information so you can better describe the roles and responsibilities that go with a specific job, right? To access this list, GO HERE. 

If you're like me, you might like all this information at your fingertips. If you join One Stop for Writers, then this thesaurus-- along with all seven others is right there--waiting for you to browse, brainstorm, and create.  

If you'd rather purchase a print or digital copy of the book, here is a list of e-tailers who have it.

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate the release of their new book, Writers Helping Writers has a giveaway happening July 20th to July 23rd. You can win some great prizes, including gift certificates that can be spent on writing services within our Writer’s Showcase. Stop by this site to enter! FYI, although I love your comments on my blog, this is Angela and Becca's giveaway. So leaving me a comment won't qualify you for entering their contest. 

A NEW Emotional Thesaurus Book is Coming!

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Angela Ackerman's and Becca Puglisi's blog, Writer's Helping Writers, their Emotional Thesauri, and their incredible online tool, One Stop for Writers. Not only is this dynamic duo dedicated to helping other writers--their materials are excellent. (See their Pinterest board for a simple of their resources.)

Their new book is coming out on February 19!

This is the Amazon blurb:

The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (Second Edition), often hailed as "the gold standard for writers" and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 55 new entries!  

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters' feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.  

If you need inspiration for creating characters' emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don't-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes:  

• Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character's reactions.

• A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them.

• Advice on what should be done before drafting to make sure your characters' emotions will be realistic and consistent.

• Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues.

• And much more!

The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last. Use The Emotion Thesaurus to go deeper to craft compelling descriptions that match each character’s personality and emotional range.

If that's not enough, here's more:

• Euphoria, vindicated, and schadenfreude are just a few of the new entries. You can also browse the Table of Contents to see all 130 emotions in this volume.
• If you already subscribe to One Stop for Writers this thesaurus will be available to you in February.
• Angela and Becca are celebrating their new EMOTION THESAURUS (Second Edition) with FREE EDUCATION! Stop in to grab the link to a recorded webinar on showing emotion: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2019/01/announcing-the-emotion-thesaurus-second-edition/ 
• The instructive portion of the book has more than doubled and includes new material on how to power up dialogue with emotion, use subtext and other techniques to show hidden emotions, what character development is necessary to determine emotional range so actions are authentic to each person's nature, and more.

You can pre-order on Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, and Indiebound. Get read to add it to your stack of Thesauri! 
     
                  

If you preorder, send a screenshot of the order to this special email address and you’ll receive a bonus PDF of entries that Angela and Becca completed but chose not to add to the 2nd edition.

The dynamic duo, Angela and Becca, presented together at
the CARWA workshop in 2016.

One Stop for Writers: The Place to Go!

Congratulations to Clara Gillow Clark who won EMPTY PLACES by Kathy Wiechman.

Illustrators and artists have brushes, pencils, and digital tools. Similarly, writers have their own set of tools: journals, laptops, and a wide array of websites, blogs, and online resources.  

In today's blog I'm featuring my new "go-to" website: One Stop for Writers. The last time I blogged about this fantastic tool created by Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi, and Lee Powell, I hadn't started using it. Today you're going to hear some of Angela's observations about the site, interspersed with examples from my WIP,  HALF-TRUTHS.

What is the inspiration behind One Stop For Writers? 

Becca and I love books, and as writing coaches, we love helping writers. But because our books are part list, anyone with a digital copy has to scroll through many pages to see a single entry. This isn’t ideal.  And, with many more descriptive thesauruses on our blog, nothing was in one place either. This left us frustrated and searching for a way to have everything in one spot. Lee Powell, the creator of Scrivener for Windows, came along at the perfect time, and his passion for helping writers matched our own. Together we created One Stop For Writers, a unique online library of description that also contains an arsenal of tools and information tailored to elevate storytelling. We are all about building stronger writers so more stories get into the hands of readers.

From Carol:

For those of you who are new to my blog, my YA novel is set in Charlotte, NC in 1950 and is written from 2 POV: 15-year-old Lillian (Lillie) Harris, a light-skinned descendent of a slave; and 14-year-old Anna Katherine (Kate) Dinsmore, who just moved in with her wealthy grandparents, along with her siblings and a goat named Eileen. In the course of the book the girls discover they have the same great-grandfather. The girls meet when Lillie gets a job helping Big Momma at the Dinsmores.

In the chapter I was working on today, Lillian is in the Dinsmore kitchen, helping her grandmother (Big Momma) prepare ambrosia for a fancy luncheon for Kate. Earlier I had randomly looked through One Stop's Symbolism and Motif Thesaurus and found this on "Enslavement."

The helpful tip on that page reads: "Symbolism is something that many readers recognize on either a conscious or subconscious level; including it adds a layer of richness to the story. Think about how you can add specific motifs or symbols to your setting that will reinforce the symbolism you are trying to convey. Additionally, symbols woven into the description of your scene can help reinforce your character's emotions and mood. In this way, you’ll be able to do more with less."

Since part of Lillie's struggles revolve around being help which she swore she never would be--I added this paragraph:

The kitchen is quiet except for flies buzzing outside the screen window. I hear Frankie yelling at Eileen. The goat is probably pulling on it’s rope and not wanting to be led around like a dog. Can’t say I blame her. She doesn’t belong in a small field like this. She needs to be somewhere she can romp and play.  

I had already included the texture, taste, and smell of the pineapple which Lillie was cutting and enjoying (although it made her want more), but I wanted to deepen the scene and introduce more conflict. I opened up One Stop, looked through the Setting Thesaurus list under kitchens, and found:

Rotten food! I started thinking how layering something distasteful into this scene might create more conflict. The tip on this page reads: "Settings should always be chosen with care. Consider the emotion you want your viewpoint character to feel and how setting choices, weather elements, and symbolism might build a specific mood in the scene, create tension and conflict, or even raise the stakes." 

I came up with this:

I’m about to ask Big Momma if she knows that she’s working for her half-sister when Missus Dinsmore looks in on us. "What on earth is that smell?” she asks. 

Big Momma sniffs the air. “I don’t smell nothin’ but this lovely ambrosia.” She gestures to the mixing bowl that is almost full of oranges and pineapple.  

Missus Dinsmore crinkles her nose in disgust and looks around the kitchen. “Not that. I smell something rotten.” She opens the back door, lifts the lid of the trash can, and then slams it back down. I’ve been so busy this morning I haven’t had time to haul the can out back.  

Missus Dinsmore storms back inside. “That is disgusting! Lillian, make sure you empty that can before Anna Katherine’s guests arrive!” Missus Dinsmore’s face is as red as the maraschino cherries Big Momma is spooning into the ambrosia.  

Back to Angela:

You’ve been up and running for just over 6 months. What’s the reaction so far? 

We’ve had nothing but good feedback. Hurray! I believe users are finding this site saves them time when it comes to character creation, world building, and sensory description because ideas are a click away. Story Maps is also popular, demystifying structure and character arc while allowing writers to “see” the turning points of their novel visually. And of course the expanded Emotion Thesaurus is a big favorite. It’s nice to not be stuck mid-scene trying to figure out how a character should behave and instead access lists filed with ideas for realistic body language, thoughts and visceral sensations. Writing time is precious, so anything we can do to make sure more of it is spent actually writing, the better! 

From Carol: 

When you check out this valuable resource you'll see why it's appropriately named, One Stop. And when you do, you'll be able to generate a list in your notes index that looks something like this:

These notes help me remember quirks and nonverbal behavior that are characteristic of each person. Inevitably these notes not only help me stay consistent but also prompt further associations. 

In an earlier scene Lillie boards a bus to work right after a confrontation with her best friend, Darla. She is debating about sitting in the white section. I thought about how she was feeling at that instant, looked up Self-loathing in One Stop and related words under Depression and Death. The word hollow jumped out at me and I wrote this:

Someone is coming up behind me. I hear Darla’s voice describing me as high yaller. I could sit here, but should I? 

“Girl, you need to get movin’,” a voice behind me says. I drop my hand and shuffle forward. 

I’m glad someone made the decision for me but I feel as hollow as an empty casket. What am I doing—letting someone else tell me where I belong?  

Back to Angela:

Your first upgrade included the ability to bookmark favorite content, a massive new Setting Thesaurus, and Story Maps, a visual story structure tool. What’s next? 

Deciding what’s next is always the hardest part for the three of us. We have so many ideas! A Scene Map tool and a Timeline tool is coming soon, rounding out the story structure element at One Stop. 

It won’t matter if you are a Plotter or a Pantser, we’ll have helpful story planning tools for every comfort zone! Also, an organizational system is in the works, allowing users to group bookmarks, worksheets, notes, and maps by project. This way people can have multiple stories on the go and keep everything organized. 

Honestly, it’s just a lot of fun dreaming up new ways to help writers and creating tools we believe will help them succeed. 

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I hope this quick look at One Stop will whet your appetite to explore the site yourself. For those of you on Pinterest, Becca and Angela have shared some of their amazing worksheets there. 

Have you tried One Stop? What features do you like best?