“Write about what you know and care deeply about. When one puts one’s self on paper — that is what is called good writing.” ~Joel Chandler Harris
 
I’m no expert but I do know that when you write a book and/or character, a lot of research has to go into it to make it believable. For example, one author I spoke to recently used firearms in her book so she took shooting lessons. This is what we, as responsible writers, do – strive for authenticity.  More so, this is what we wake in the morning itching to do…
 
Researching is one of my favorite aspects of writing, it makes me giddy inside.
 
For my first novel - which now lives under the bed - my main character was a thief named Lizzy.
 
When Lizzy learned how to lock pick I learned how to lock pick. I watched youtube videos for hours and hours and because I didn’t have a lock picking set (yet) I made my first picks out of paper clips. I then proceeded to pick every lock in my house. Within a week I could pick the deadbolt on my front door with a paper clip (actually 2 paper clips as one is used as the tension wrench) in under 30 seconds. No, this did not make me feel safe but it did make me feel quite accomplished. That’s when I realized I’ve always been a lock picker. It started when I was a wee tot and would pick the bathroom locks with broken off Q-tips, the cardboard ones, not the plastic ones. I didn’t understand the mechanism of a lock (tumblers and the shear line) then but I still had the innate ability to do it. Maybe it’s because I spent many hours locked in my room, true story. Or maybe it’s because when I set my mind to do something I do it. Persistence-are-us. Who knows why? It doesn’t really matter.
 
What matters is throwing yourself headlong into that research. Almost as if you’re an actor and you’re method acting. You become your character. Lock picking can even be a metaphor for whatever it is you need to learn in order for your character to be believable and well rounded. You could go into your story and character development giving them a skill you have already mastered, one you’ve always wanted to learn or one you knew as a child but forgot somewhere along the way.
 
What I’ve learned from writing thus far is that a majority of it crawls up from the deepest, darkest hidden parts of ourselves, clawing and scratching its way to the surface, staining the blank pages of our lives.

​By Chloe Adler

Sometimes writing is like being in a trance. How else can it be explained? When people have experiences, like taking the kids to the zoo for the first time or falling in love; we remember them. We may even remember what our lover was wearing the first time we laid eyes on him or her. We may remember how they wore their hair, what jewelry they had on and even what they said. The emotions we felt and some of their physical aspects are burned into our memories like a hot poker or more apropos, like a brand.
 
For me, writing is the opposite of that. Many times I write a scene, a chapter or even an entire novel and then I re-read it and have no recollection of writing it. I noticed this strange phenomenon starting with my first novel a few years back.
 
Last month I was re-reading a scene I’d written a week or two earlier. As I was reading it I actually gasped and said aloud… “He’s adopted?” The two writers in my writer’s group looked up quizzically because they both knew I was reading my own work. Then they laughed.
 
I asked, “Do you guys ever forget what you write?”
They responded with, “Sure sometimes, but not key elements like that.”
 
In my defense even though I’d plotted this book, I’ve allowed myself a lot of leeway. I may know the GMC (goal, motivation, conflict) going into each scene but I may not know how that’s achieved until it happens. So in this particular scene my secondary character, the hero, suddenly announced that he was adopted. This happened close to the end of the second act, not at the beginning of the manuscript. And thus, I had forgotten and was shocked to re-discover the bump. Plus, so much about his character and choices earlier in the book suddenly made sense.
 
Even more recently I was writing a scene, the one before “the black moment” and during it I got really bored. I don’t have to point out that this is not a good sign. I stopped writing and thought about it for a few days. Suddenly a quick fix came to me but I didn’t think out the details. Instead I sat down to write and the details blossomed beneath my fingertips. I still have no idea how the correct words “came to me”. Maybe that’s called “being in the zone”.
 
Pay attention to that - those moments when it feels like you’re reading someone else’s book even though you wrote it. That’s a delicious place to be.

​By Chloe Adler

I like to hone my eavesdropping skills, in the spirit of work. Really. Each of our fictional characters speak in a different voice. Therefore, listening to others is a great way to see how people talk outside of your immediate community for um… character development.
 
Whereas one character may sound like a grumbly religious naysayer, another may have the vocal inflections and vocabulary of a “valley girl”. Each character not only uses different verbiage, most don’t speak alike in inflection or tone. I pondered this fact of good character development for some time before I decided the best way for me personally to get the “hang” of that was to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations in order to keep all of my characters from sounding exactly like me.
 
It began innocently enough. I was renting a room in a young girls house (via airbnb.com). I've used  airbnb.com exclusively for traveling since 2011 and have had some amazing experiences as well as meeting lifelong friends. I was renting a room from a very sweet 20-year-old college girl. At about 8:30 or 9pm she asked if it would be okay with me if she invited some girl friends over to talk quietly in the living room. I agreed without realizing what that really meant. By 10pm there was a ruckus of loud, giggling girls talking about boys, sex, frat parties, make-up, other girls and more. I couldn’t focus on my own writing so I started writing down what they were saying instead. I also started texting tidbits to my friends because some of what I heard was not only difficult to believe, it was priceless. I learned more in that hour about 20 year old girls than I thought possible. And although I too was once 20, things have changed and more importantly, you forget. I won’t repeat most of what they said since it was personal and not for an under 18 audience but I will spill my two of my favorite lines, spoken by my host.
 
1.“I prefer to date 25 year old guys because they… well, they just know everything!
2. "And not just about sex, they actually know everything!”
 
I had to sit on the bed in the room I was renting with my hands firmly clamped over my mouth for much of their conversations.
 
I have a weekly writer’s group at a local café and last time I was there I ended up sitting next to two very loud 39 year olds who were upset and vocal about coming up on 40. Their conversation was not only extremely loud, so loud I couldn’t get any writing of my own done, it was informative. I had to open up an entirely new document. I use evernote for all my notes because it synchs to every computer, handheld and laptop you own, even the free version. I started typing, word for word, everything they were saying. Exciting personal tidbits aside I learned about orthorexia, an eating disorder where the person develops an unhealthy obsession about eating only healthy foods. I also learned about one woman’s struggle with her child’s video game obsession and how grateful she is to have her child engaged with the family again after completely cutting video gaming out of his life. “It’s an addiction,” she said, “like anything else and he went through a period of withdrawal and depression.”
 
As you can see eavesdropping provides:

• Entertainment value.
• Character development.
• Learning new things from a group of people you would never hang out with otherwise.

 
What have you learned this week from listening in on other people’s conversations?

​By Chloe Adler