1) Holidays

If you’re working with a short time-jump, holidays can be a great marker to show how much time has passed. Let’s say, for example, you’re working within a year of your character’s life. Let’s say your story opens with the ball dropping on New Years’ and you want to jump between this moment and the following fall the next year.

Create a birthday in September that your character is preparing for so that the reader can know where they’ve jumped to in time. Or simply have the characters discussing that Halloween is coming up and what their plans are. Having a significant event on the day that you pick the story back up will also help answer questions as to why this is where the story resumes.

2) Physical Appearance

Another way to clearly show your readers a passage of time has occurred is through changes in the various characters’ appearances. For example, perhaps your protagonist got a haircut or started dressing with a different style or got a piercing. Perhaps one of their friends has lost weight or started dressing more extravagantly. These noticeable physical changes indicate to the reader that enough time has passed for appearances to alter to a significant degree.

3) School or Work

Where a character is with their school or career is also an excellent indicator of the passage of time. We go through life entering into different modes of school and then different jobs so switching up your character’s current circumstances would make sense if years pass over the time jump you’re creating. Perhaps they’ve finally finished school and entered the workforce or maybe they left the job they worked in the beginning of your story for something new.

4) Location

As time passes we oftentimes change our locations as well by moving around. This could come in many forms though depending on your character and their circumstances. The change here could be as simple as a character moving to a new apartment or buying a home. It could be that they move to a new city than they were previously located in the story. Or it could even come in the form of your character suddenly being more worldly, having traveled a lot during the time that is being skipped over.

5) Friends and Relationships

Friendships and relationships will also change as time goes on over the years. This can mean some friendships slip away and a character that your protagonist was previously close with is no longer their friend. It could mean the nature of the relationship has changed as well. For example, a friend has a baby and now your protagonist doesn’t see them as often. It could also mean the reverse and a previously strained relationship could have been reconciled over this time. They could even have some new friends that the reader hasn’t met before, though you’ll have to provide believable circumstances as to how these friendships formed.

6) Personality, Habits, Mannerisms

People’s personalities also deeply change as time progresses. Think back on who you were ten years ago and you’re likely very different from the person you are today. This will happen to your characters as well. Consider the length of the time jump you’re attempting to write first. If it’s only a year your character likely won’t be unrecognizably different, but if it’s something drastic like five years we will see more dramatic changes. Consider the events that happen between the two moments in time and how those moments will change your protagonist. How will they shape their personality, habits, hobbies, and mannerisms for the remainder of the story?

The post Show Don’t Tell: Time appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

1) Choose your audience

As we examined previously, one of the first steps to writing a cookbook is choosing your theme. Cookbook writers make the mistake of trying to make their cookbook as ‘general’ or easily accessible to anyone as possible. The problem with this method is a cookbook that is for ‘everyone’ is just going to get lost in the mix. A famous chef could pull off a more general theme because they already have name recognition, but generally readers in this genre are looking for cookbooks that match with specific needs they have. Maybe they’re a vegan but they’re looking for less complex quick recipes or they’re a Mom looking for some date night dishes that feel fancy but don’t take too much time. Cornering the market on more specific needs may feel like it’s limiting your audience, but it’s actually assuring that you gain a loyal following.

2) Skill Level

The next aspect to consider when writing your cookbook is your reader’s skill level. Do you want to make a cookbook for master chefs who want to challenge themselves? Or perhaps a book for people wanting to teach themselves how to cook from the… oven up? Putting yourself in the minds of your readers is a very important step in creating a cookbook that is a perfect match for your target audience. If you’d like to include recipes for an array of cooking skill levels you can, but keep in mind it may be helpful to break these up into sections in the table of contents. This way when a reader opens your book, they can flip right to the recipes they can handle.

3) Shopping

Another important thing to keep in mind when considering your audience is where they’ll be shopping. Some cookbook recipes are more regional, looking to attempt to bring recipes from the south all across the country or something of the like. If you’re attempting a cookbook like this, you’ll need to keep in mind that people in other states or other parts of the world may be shopping at entirely different stores than you do. This means there may be some specific ingredients that will be more difficult to find for them than it would be for you locally. So, as you’re writing, it’s important to research the ingredients you’re including and, if need be, including possible substitutes for that ingredient if it will be difficult to find in other areas of the world.

4) Budget

Money, money, money, must be…. yummy? Not quite, but budget is important to consider as well. If you’re writing a book of recipes that happen to be super simple with inexpensive ingredients, taking ‘on a budget’ onto your title will definitely draw more readers to your work. If your recipes are more complex and could be expensive, it may be helpful to consider adding little footnotes giving people who are on a budget tips on how to find less expensive versions of certain ingredients. This will end up making your recipes accessible for both readers who want something more high-end and something more budget-conscious.

5) Time

Finally, when putting yourself in the minds of your food fanatics, consider their time. How much time will they need to set aside to cook these recipes? An hour? Two hours? If your recipes tend to take longer, who will have time to cook longer recipes each day? Stay-at-home parents? Retirees? Considering the time needed for recipes could simply allow you to narrow down a possible target audience to tack onto your book title. Quick Recipes for Moms on the Go, A Stay-at-Home Parent’s Guide to Nutrition-Packed Meals– narrowing down the target audience using time will allow your book to pop up in those specific searches.

If you’d like to allow your book to be more accessible to people with varying degrees of cooking time, consider adding longer or shorter recipes to give your readers an array of options. Similarly to the skill level, this could be another manner to arrange your recipes in your table of contents. This way, your readers can easily flip to a recipe they have time for instead of having to spend an hour flipping through your book that they could’ve spent cooking their new favorite meal.

The post Writing For Your Audience: Cookbooks appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

You’ve entered a flashback, of course.

Writing flashbacks can be an incredibly difficult art. Flashbacks often become an unwelcome crutch for novice writers, serving as the sole medium through which we find out about our protagonist’s past. But, in actuality, a flashback scene is only meant to be used in extremely specific circumstances. For those struggling to find that happy balance between past and present, here are some tips to help:

1) Do you really need a flashback?

Although you, as the writer, will have very clear pictures of the various events and memories leading up to your protagonist’s present circumstances, that doesn’t always mean they should be included in your story. Novels and short stories that rely heavily on flashbacks are widely considered weak and ineffective. This is because of one of the main pitfalls of using flashbacks: the events have already happened. A strong story focuses on the present circumstances of a character and the conflict that lies in their circumstances. There is no immediate sense of urgency or suspense inherent to something that happened years prior to the present events in which the reader is invested.

Therefore, a flashback is only to be used in cases where the reader is gaining something from living out a memory that they wouldn’t be able to gain through exposition. Allow us to give a few examples. Let’s say you want to detail that your protagonist had a loving relationship with his deceased mother through the memory of them having a conversation while watching a film together. The day you’re choosing isn’t an emotional/dramatic or life-changing scene for your protagonist, it’s merely to illustrate the nature of their relationship. In this case, we recommend summarizing the events of that memory rather than jumping into a flashback.

On the other hand, when a memory is emotional or depicts a crucial moment that largely or wholly informs the person that your protagonist is in the present…this is the only case where a flashback should be used. Let’s say your protagonist once saw their sister drown in a lake at a young age. You can’t very well summarize an event or scene like this. Not only would that be jarring to read, but it wouldn’t do justice to the full emotional impact of the event and how it informs your protagonist and their decisions in the present tense.

So, when you’re considering whether a flashback is needed, ask yourself – Do the events in this memory have a huge life-long impact on my protagonist? Do they largely or wholly inform their decisions in the present tense? If your answer is ‘no,’ don’t use a flashback.

2) Focus on ‘the now’ and build suspense

As stated previously, the main focus of your novel or short story should be on the action in the present tense. Therefore, possibly the worst thing you could do is to start your story with a flashback scene. Not only will that confuse the reader as to what ‘the now’ of the story is, but they also have no context for the flashback. A flashback is meant to provide an explanation for specific character traits or flaws. You must spend time establishing your character thoroughly first, making your reader wonder why the character is a certain way, in order for the flashback to have any sort of payoff.

Writers often make the mistake of thinking the reader needs to immediately understand everything about their protagonist- their past, who they are, why they are the way they are, etc. But this isn’t the case at all. Although you should quickly establish who your character is now, your reader doesn’t immediately need to know who they were. In fact, creating a sense of suspense and mystery around your character’s past will make your pivotal flashback scenes even more effective. Though flashbacks don’t have any immediate sense of urgency, by building up to them, you create that sense of urgency that they inherently lack. A pro-tip for creating this is to pepper in little parts or flashes of the memory throughout the story leading up to the flashback. For example, let’s say the memory has something to do with a bar. Perhaps your character smells a certain kind of alcohol in the present and then hears the voice of one of their friends in their head (a friend from the memory). This will keep the reader intrigued, wondering when these scattered details will be explained.

3) Use external triggers

Transitioning in and out of a flashback is an extremely difficult art and must be handled with great care. One of the biggest mistakes writers make with these transitions is to give no context to them. These memories that the reader is witnessing can’t come out of absolutely nowhere. Like everything else in your story, they must be informed (in some way) by the present action of the story. So it must feel like we’re seeing this memory because the protagonist is reliving it.

The best way to smooth the initial transition in and out of the flashback is to use external triggers. For example, as previously stated, perhaps the protagonist smells a certain type of alcohol that transports him into his memory. Or maybe she sees a woman in a red coat that looks exactly like her sister. They need to have a reason for being sucked back in time in this very vivid sense.

And, just like they need a reason to go back, they need one to come back to the present. So perhaps a horn honking, a door slamming, or someone calling their name. Think about moments where you’ve slipped into daydreams and what external forces have pulled you back to reality.

4) Don’t confuse your readers

When you’re transitioning into a flashback, the last thing you want is for a reader to be unable to tell you’ve gone back in time. This is such a clear indication of an amateur writer and will likely lose you a lot of readers (out of pure frustration). To avoid confusion, it’s important to quickly alert your reader as to the shift in time, where we’ve shifted to, where in space we are, and who is present that matters to the story. One great example of this technique in action comes from the novel Sleeping Dogs by Thomas Perry:

All his old habits came back automatically. At a glance he assessed [everyone’s] posture and hands. Was there a man whose fingers curled in a little tremor when their eyes met, a woman whose hand moved to rest inside her handbag? He knew all the practical moves and involuntary gestures, and he scanned everyone, granting no exceptions. He and Eddie had done a job like this one when he was no more than twelve. Eddie had dressed him for baseball, and had even bought him a new glove to carry folded under his arm. When they had come upon the man in the crowd, he hadn’t even seen them; his eyes were too occupied in studying the crowd for danger to waste a moment on a little kid and his father walking home from a sandlot game. As they passed the man …

Another helpful transition technique that Perry utilizes here is using verb tense changes to alert the reader of the shift. The transition is easier for those who are writing their story in present tense, but for those who chose past tense conveying a shift in time back further can be more challenging. We recommend using Perry’s technique of switching from past tense to past perfect to ease the initial transition in and out of the flashback. In the present, he’s using phrases like ‘he knew’ and ‘he scanned’. But, in his initial transition, he begins using phrases like, ‘had done’ and ‘had bought’.

5) Focus on the details

It’s also important to keep in mind, when you shift to the past, that the details should change. If this is a childhood memory, your protagonist should be experiencing the scenes using clearly more infantile observation skills. If this is a drastic jump in time, include details that are relevant to the time period to which we’ve shifted. Even if you’re writing a fantasy book, you must consider how the society/world at large is different in this flashback as opposed to the present. If this flashback is depicting an event that changed the protagonist’s personality drastically, show the reader how they were different before the event occurred.

6) Keep it brief and infrequent

In the circumstances where it’s necessary to use a flashback, make sure they’re brief and only include important information. So, for example, let’s say this is the sister drowning scenario. The flashback shouldn’t begin earlier in the day with our protagonist hanging out with her sister if nothing important occurred then. Begin, instead, with the lake scene or the girls walking to the lake.

But, ultimately, we really can’t stress enough how infrequent your flashback scenes should be. Focus on the present and use these as a tool if and only if the reader witnessing the events of the flashback is crucial to understanding the protagonist and their decisions in ‘the now’ of the book. Otherwise, give your flashbacks the dreaded ax.

The post How to Write a Flashback Scene appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.