Freelance Writer and Social Worker

Where Do Characters Come From?

Nonfiction and editing are my bread and butter. They help pay rent on the apartment and keep the car insured. But I have been spending some more of my time playing around with fiction. That means coming up with characters who interact in the worlds that I create. Where do these people come from? A conglomeration of places.

1. They're real people I've met. If you're a writer, you've got to be careful with this one. Live people often don't feel flattered by their fictional counterparts. I handle this by taking just a piece of the person I know and completing the character in another way.

For instance, in my book, Visiting Grandma, Danny's neglectful mother has a serious drinking and drug problem. In that way, she reminds me of the mother of a classmate of mine when I was in sixth grade, but so many other details between the two women are different, I doubt my friends mother would recognize herself.

2. They're real historical people. If you're writing about a famous person, especially one who no longer shares the planet with us, it's okay to make him or her recognizable. But even then you have degrees of freedom. Just look at what the Showtime Series The Tudors did with their lean, mean Henry VIII.

I also think it pays to remember that not everyone was seen in the same way by his or her contemporaries. Will your Mark Twain be the toast of American literature, for instance, or will he be the villainous knave whose books Louisa May Alcott wanted banned?

3. They're good ole me. I show up a lot in my characters, both the good and the bad. My viewpoint, my feelings, my preferences, my strengths, and my weaknesses help fuel my creations. Again, though, I don't want my readers to be able to look up at me scornfully and say, "Oh, that's just you." So I cut and paste and add and subtract and come up with a character with some of my quirks and some of his or her own.

Years ago, for instance, my work appeared in an erotic anthology under a pseudonym. The main character sets the events rolling by trying to rescue a young man from his abusive Top. That's something I would have done in a heartbeat, but in so many other ways this character and I were completely different. For instance, I'm female, not currently partnered, and not into the BDSM scene.

4. They're literary devices. Vampires. Werewolves. Fairy Tale Characters. Soldiers. Parents. The Beautiful Popular Girl. The Shy Genius. Pick almost any stereotype you want, and you'll find hundreds of characters to guide you on your path.

Of course, they won't all be exactly the same. The hellish vampire in Dracula is very different than the sparkling vampires in the Twilight Saga or the longing to be human vampire in Interview with the Vampire.  The idea is to pick out one or two common characteristics (e.g., light is a no-no) and then use your imagination to come up with the rest.

When I wrote "James aka Janie," for instance, one of the main characters is a bitchy, popular girl, but in the end she uses her personality in a positive way to help her transgendered friend.

5. Imagination. Imagination is what brings all the elements together for an unforgettable character. For example, if I were writing a story about Alexander the Great, I might incorporate parts of real life veterans I've known. I might read up on the history of Alexander. I might insert myself into the story by thinking about how I feel after a victory or a crushing defeat. I might look at the stereotypes of the ways gay warriors have been portrayed in history. Finally, I would let my imagination combine these elements and add many more. The result, I would hope, would be an interesting, well-rounded character with a fascinating story to tell.

11 Tips for Conducting a Terrific Phone Interview

This year, I've started writing a few articles for magazines and journals. I got lucky on the first few--the editors were perfectly happy with emailed questions and answers. Then came the day when an editor requested I call a source and interview her.

Great, I thought. Now what? Somehow I had survived more than eleven years in the writing business with only rare phone contact with my sources.

I was sure I was going to make a complete ass of myself, but I didn't. Furthermore, the editor was right. The quotes I got from that phone call were far better than anything I could have pulled from a politely-worded email.

Since then, I've done many phone interviews with different types of experts. In doing so, I've stumbled upon a few secrets I wish I had known the first time I picked up the phone and nervously made my first call to conduct an interview.

1. Record the Call...If Your Subject Agrees

I love recording phone calls. They allow me to listen to the subject rather than scribbling incomprehensible notes to myself. The recording also gives me some piece of mind, in case there is ever a dispute about what was or wasn't said. Of course, I always ask before I turn on the recorder. Not one subject has ever refused consent once I explained that the recordings were for my own personal use and that I would delete them after the article ran.

Writers and Secondary Trauma

I've spent the last two weeks hard at work on an article about military sexual trauma (MST). One day, I conducted three intense interviews in a span of less than two hours.

After the last interview, I put away my MST folder and pulled out a folder for a different project that needed my attention.

And I froze. I could not make the transition.

Dealing with managing a writing career and bipolar disorder has given me a fairly vocal inner editor/drill sergeant, but that day not even she could get me going.

Finally, I turned off the computer and wandered over to my couch to watch television. But it wasn't the comforting sounds of a sitcom I heard--I kept remembering the anxious, close-to-tears voice of one of the women I'd interviewed.

Then it hit me what had happened. I was going through what mental health professionals call "secondary trauma." Secondary trauma occurs when you empathize with a traumatized person or group so much that you begin to take on symptoms of their pain and trauma. It's a little like the old joke about men experiencing sympathetic labor pains, but when it actually happens, it's not so funny.

I had learned about secondary trauma the hard way. During my years as an emergency room social worker, I'd often come home in tears over things my clients had experienced.

With the help of my supervisor, who saw what was going on and warned me that I was at risk for burning out, I had developed a set of rituals to help me leave my work at the hospital. Eventually, I learned how to be intensely, empathetically present with my clients during the minutes or hours when our lives intersected and how to release them fully when it was time for us to part ways.

5 Important Lessons I Learned Writing for Content Mills

Over the years, content mills have gotten a bad reputation, and it's not all undeserved. They pay rock-bottom prices. Much of the material they publish is inaccurate or just plain incomprehensible, they stifle any glimmer of creativity shown by their writers, and they value quantity over quality.

That said, I'm not ready to grab a torch and lead the townspeople to burn down the nearest content mill. I actually started my writing career working for content mills. They have helped pay off my student loans, sent me on more than one fabulous vacation, and helped me keep my utilities on when cash was short.

Although they're no longer my bread and butter, I'll still zip over to one of the mills and churn out a few articles if business is slow.

I would also be remiss if I did not give content mills credit for five of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a writer.

1. Writing quickly. I used to be a slow writer who agonized over making each word perfect, but when you're racing a six hour deadline, it doesn't take long to replace perfect with "eh...good enough." Now I always pound out my first draft as fast as possible, often within a matter of minutes. Of course, my first draft is not my last draft, and revisions can be a painstaking process, but at least I've learned how to get my initial thoughts down on paper where I can play with them and reword them to my heart's delight.

2. Writing plainly. When you document in a medical chart, you say a patient "ambulates." When you write for a content mill, you say she "walks." I once got into an argument with an editor about whether or not I had used a word correctly. "I found it in the dictionary," I emailed. He shot back, "You don't understand. Our readers don't want to have to go to the dictionary." Point taken. I made the revisions he requested.

How Many Hats Do You Wear?

When you go to work in the corporate world, you're usually given a copy of your job description the moment you set foot in the door on your first day. You know immediately what is expected of you and how your performance will be judged. You also have a high degree of confidence that if you do the work assigned to you, you will receive a steady paycheck.

Unfortunately, freelance writers don't have a cut-and-dried list of duties. In fact, many of us get into trouble because we neglect a task that we weren't even aware we should have been doing.

Just for fun one day, I decided to sit down and figure how many jobs are actually encompassed in the term "freelance writer." The number was...well...interesting.

My Favorite Resources for Online Research

Normally, I think research is part of the fun of writing an article or ebook. It's fun to come up with obscure resources. When I have a deadline looming, however, and I need to get facts now, there are a few websites I know I can count on for basic support and information.

Here are my top six:

1. Google. Everyone has a favorite search engine. Google happens to be mine. Yes, the sheer number of responses to a keyword search can be overwhelming, but I'd always rather have too much information at my disposal than too little. Google also performs searches at lightning speed and usually orders the results intelligently enough that I can find the information I'm looking for on the first page. I also like it that if I can't find the information I'm looking for, Google will suggest different keywords to try.