Tanya Lisle

Creative on a health break

Author: Tanya

  • Writing reluctant heroes

    Writing reluctant heroes

    If you have read any of my books, you know I love a reluctant hero. There’s something about someone who did not want to save the day slowly coming to terms with the idea that they have to and accepting that for the greater good just hits me right.

    But how do you construct a character and a story like that? Well, here’s some things I like to do:

    They are uniquely qualified to deal with the problem

    One of the major questions that comes up in these kinds of stories is the question of “Why me?” If someone else can take over, then the question of why someone else doesn’t do it who is just as capable comes into play and it lessens that internal conflict. So make a character who has a specific skillset that makes them invaluable ((White Noise, Looking Glass Saga, City Without Heroes)) and removes that option for them to not be involved.

    They have some insight into what they are really being asked to do

    The character can see what the problem is, but ideally they also understand what it really being asked of them. Because problems initially introduced in stories ((Or my stories, anyway)) are rarely the truth of the matter, the character should have some insight into ((Cloned Evil)) or otherwise discover ((City Without Heroes)) the truth of what they are being asked to do and be, for one reason or another, opposed to it.

    They actively avoid the problem

    If the character can spot the problem and understand why they do not want to resolve it themselves, they should do something to try and avoid interacting with it. ((City Without Heroes, Cloned Evil)) Though these characters may want to do best by the people around them, they view the problem as attempting to pull them into something that is not or should not be their responsibility. ((White Noise))

    Their involvement happens as a result of something they think is unrelated

    For me, I do love watching a character try so hard to avoid getting involved, but accidentally falling into the role of saving the day. Either curiosity ((Looking Glass Saga)) or getting mad at the wrong time ((Cloned Evil)) or just getting close to people who are about to suffer if they do nothing, ((White Noise, City Without Heroes)) something that isn’t necessarily directly related to that thing they are avoiding dragging them back into the plot they were trying to avoid is a lot of fun to both read and write.

    Ultimately, the story is about self actualization and them accepting that they are the hero

    If you’re making one of the central conflicts of the story a hero that does not want to be a hero, I feel like self actualization in the form of accepting the role of hero, either on their terms or someone else’s, is the point of that character arc. Letting them understand that this is a role that they must play, even one they might want to play, and what the terms of filling it are, is just a natural ending of that story.

    Write Your Story: Unlock Your Creative Potential

    Are you ready to embark on a journey into the world of storytelling? Look no further! Introducing Write Your Story, a comprehensive resource designed to fuel your imagination, enhance your storytelling skills, and bring your characters to life. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, or simply someone who loves crafting stories, this workbook is your ultimate companion.

    This Workbook Contains:

    • Story planning spreads
    • Setting and location spreads
    • Character spreads
    • Writing session tracker
  • Wire Wings review

    Wire Wings review

    It’s been so long since I’ve gotten something from a local author to read, but over the holidays last year I got to go to an event with Pulp Literature with a whole bunch of local authors and fill up my TBR! And, of course, I am only just now getting to reading this one.

    We follow Graciela, a young woman in a world where the metaverse is a reality. She spends her time in a virtual world, escaping from a complicated life of tragedy and complicated parental relationships. Her father has developed an AI that exists in the virtual world known as the Waves, and this creation of her father’s, who she has named Thomas, has been following her. While her father wants the AI back, but Gracie is torn between doing as she’s told and treating him like a fully formed person.

    The concept overall is interesting and, while it does have elements of “The digital world is a drug that’s harming our children” that sentiment is largely contained to the older characters. In the context of Graciela, it’s viewed more as a coping mechanism to give her the space to discover herself and give her space to deal with loss and isolation while building confidence.

    I did have a little trouble with the pacing. It’s a bit slow in the middle where she is spending more time in reality, and then everything feels like it happens in the last couple chapters. There were some things I felt could have used more setup and the tell about the truth about Thomas felt like she definitely should have recognized that a lot earlier.

    Overall, though, I really did like the story. It’s a look at what could be through the lens of someone who has not only grown up around the technology, but is using it in a way that makes sense for their own lives. If it sounds interesting, definitely check it out!

    Get it now

  • Do you want downloadable writing worksheets?

    I created the Storyteller’s Workbook and the Worldbuilding Workbook because these are resources I’d made for myself and wanted to share them. They are structured in a way that makes sense for me, at least, to use them to keep track of notes as I’m writing.

    But that might not be how other people use them! I worry that there might be too many worksheets in one section and not enough in another and, well, that it’s just not flexible enough for individual writers and their projects.

    So I wanted pro propose a question to you. Would you want the worksheets in a downloadable PDF so that you could make as many as you needed for each of your projects? Printable in the standard letter and A5? Editable in something like GoodNotes?

    Do you want this? And what would work best for you?

    Write Your Story: Unlock Your Creative Potential

    Are you ready to embark on a journey into the world of storytelling? Look no further! Introducing Write Your Story, a comprehensive resource designed to fuel your imagination, enhance your storytelling skills, and bring your characters to life. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, or simply someone who loves crafting stories, this workbook is your ultimate companion.

    This Workbook Contains:

    • Story planning spreads
    • Setting and location spreads
    • Character spreads
    • Writing session tracker

  • Who Not How review

    My company has been talking about this book lately. About how the leadership teams and leads are all being required to read it, about how it’s so insightful and has so many great takeaways, and so I figured why not. It looked like a quick read.

    For some context, the five questions for the modern entrepreneur or startup or what have you are:

    1. Why is this a thing to do?
    2. Who will want this?
    3. What is the expected outcome need to change?
    4. What needs to happen in order to make this?
    5. How does it happen?

    This book focuses on the the second and fourth question, contextualized appropriately: Who is this for and who will make it happen? It pitches these as the only two question you will need and everything else will fall into place. Mostly because you have now outsourced the other three questions to those two groups, which makes sense in context.

    But I work as a product designer. So this is not remotely unique of a take to me.

    It also insists that none of this is exploitation at one point which… I have no idea what that was about. Did I miss the part where you said not to pay anyone? It felt so strange, like it was bringing up an issue that didn’t exist unless the author was implementing some very shady business practices.

    If you have not read many other business or entrepreneur books from the last decade or so, it’s going to give you some new information. But if you’ve read a bunch, then this is really just a different contextualization and focuses on a different part of the standard process that is preached by these books. So… if that sounds good.

    Get it now

  • One Year to an Organized Work Life review

    Once more I have found my way to the self help type books. I seem to have an addiction. Perhaps I’m getting to the point where they are going to actually do something. But hey, this one is supposed to focus on organization, and I do love planning and strategies to organize things, so let’s check it out!

    This book is, as implied, a year long guide to help you get yourself in order. It’s broken down into advice by month and making slow, incremental changes to what you’re doing in order to create habits that stick and keep you on top of your work. And, surprisingly, your personal life! There is quite an emphasis on also working on your home life, and making sure you are able to take breaks, stay healthy, and generally disconnect outside of work. Which is fantastic!

    One thing that threw me several times, though, was just how dated the book feels. There’s specific references to PDAs and electric pencil sharpeners that feels jarring at this point. It also feels very specific to a traditional corporate setting given the inclusion of gift giving in an office setting and the need to network in order to advance in your career.

    Overall, though, it is a surprisingly good read! The high level advice is pretty solid, even if the specifics might be industry specific, and the delivery of making it a slow progression over a year rather than all at once is good for foundational work. If you’re looking for some guidance on how to get your life in general organized, work and all, this might be a good starting point.

    Get it now

  • 4 types of editing phases

    If you have written a story and you’d like to improve it, either just so that your story is even better or because you’d like to do something with it like publish it, editing is something you are going to consider. Editing can come in a lot of different forms and phases, and here are four examples of them.

    Structural edit

    For some people, this looks like a rewrite. This phase focuses on the structure of the story, including things like the themes and pacing. This is where you can look at the story as a whole and decide if all of the events that happen in it are necessary, in the place that you want them to be, and if all the characters you have in the story need to be there.

    This phase typically involves large, overarching changes that will affect the narrative and get the story into a state where the story you’re telling is the one that you want to tell. It’s more high level and ensuring that you have the beginning, middle, and end in the places you want them to be, and that everything is appropriately introduced and wrapped up.

    Other people

    Getting another set of eyes on your work is a fantastic way to make sure your story is reading the same way to you as it is to everyone else. Having another person read your story at different points in the process means that they can bring their insight and make suggestions on how to improve your story. This can range from large structural changes, to catching where something is inconsistent, to maybe even just picking out places where you spelled a name wrong.

    This may take the form of beta readers or an editor, depending on what your intent is with this pass. Be sure to pick the right people for this phase based on what you want to get out of it.

    Line edit

    Line edits are a very detail-oriented type of edit. This is intended to make sure that all of your spelling and grammar are correct. This phase will check to make sure the details of the prose are correct, from placement of commas to ellipses, to ensuring dashes and em-dashes are being used correctly.

    This phase may be supplemented with something like ProWritingAid or Grammarly, which are both programs that will check your prose to ensure that it is grammatically correct.

    Read aloud

    Hearing your story read out loud is a great way to find small things that you might have missed in other editing rounds. Bringing it off of the page means that you will gain a different perspective on your work and it can help you to catch where things are phrased strangely, or where you maybe made other errors like missing when you changed a character’s name.

    You can read this yourself, have someone else read it to you, or even get a text-to-speech program to do it! So long as you are hearing your words, that’s all you need.

    What other editing phases do you use?

    Write Your Story: Unlock Your Creative Potential

    Are you ready to embark on a journey into the world of storytelling? Look no further! Introducing Write Your Story, a comprehensive resource designed to fuel your imagination, enhance your storytelling skills, and bring your characters to life. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, or simply someone who loves crafting stories, this workbook is your ultimate companion.

    This Workbook Contains:

    • Story planning spreads
    • Setting and location spreads
    • Character spreads
    • Writing session tracker

  • Labyrinth Lost review

    I feel like someone told me about this book a while ago, but I cannot remember who or how long ago. I have a vague recollection of someone mentioning this book in the same conversation as something about Cemetery Boys, at least, so when I saw it I figured it was probably worth checking out!

    The book follows Alex, the middle of three sisters and a bruja who has been actively supressing her magic because it terrifies her. She wants nothing to do with it, but once her family finds out that her magic has appeared, she uses her death day celebration as an opportunity to try and get rid of it. This plan backfires and she ends up having to go through the portal into Los Lagos, a sort of purgatory, to try and rescue her family with Nova, a brujo with a mysterious past, and Rishi, her crush with no connection to this world.

    Now, I will admit that I may have had trouble with this book as I read it while I was sick with Covid, but I had trouble keeping track of things. I disagreed with which parts were interesting, and the things that it lingered on had me a little bored. I wasn’t sure what made Alex special or why only she was, and there is a lot of longing looks in the love subplot that were losing me when I wanted some more foundational information about what was happening.

    There was also random animal murder? Apparently everyone is just okay with stabbing a parakeet.

    The plot progressed pretty briskly, though, and some of the concepts were pretty interesting. I did like the world of Los Lagos, though I never fully understood it ((There was some religious stuff in there, I think? Which would explain why, I am very bad at understanding that kind of thing)) and enjoyed the overall story of trying to rescue her family.

    Overall, not bad! It certainly got me through a rough patch, and it’s an interesting concept. If you’re looking for a YA read, this might be something to check out.

    Get it now

  • Should I write a standalone or a series?

    One thing that people have trouble with when they start a project is whether they want to make their story into a series or a stand alone. There’s a lot to consider, from the size of the story you want to tell to what you ultimately want to do with it when you’re done.

    Definitions

    What is a standalone?

    A standalone novel is a single novel with a beginning, middle, and end of a story. If you read just this one book, you could be satisfied that you knew everything about the story that you needed to know. All the major mysteries and plots wrap up, though there may be a few dangling questions at the end.

    What is a series?

    A series is multiple books that tell a story. Usually each individual book contains a beginning, middle, and end, but the story from book to book may feel somewhat incomplete. These stories usually have an overarching plot that does not get wrapped up until the final book and the story does not have a satisfying conclusion until the reader has gotten through all volumes.

    Which should I write?

    That depends on your story! There’s a lot of considerations when it comes to determining how to tell your story, even down to how many volumes it could be. Some things to think about are:

    How complicated is your story?

    The more complicated a story is, the more likely it is you will want to tell it as a series. If you have a lot of subplots or character perspectives that you would like to explore, then you may want to make the story longer so that you have the time to go into everything.

    How long is the draft?

    Sometimes it’s just a matter of sheer length. If your book is really long, it might be best to cut it up into smaller pieces, just so that your audience can take a rest and not be so intimidated by the sheer size of the book you’ve created.

    Do you have multiple endings?

    In a series, there tend to be individual book arcs as well as the overarching plot. If you have several end points where a number of plots are resolved, those might be good points in which you can split your work into a series. If you do not have these break points, then it is probably best to keep everything together.

    What do you want to do with it?

    The publishing question. Do you want to publish it and if so, do you want to do so traditionally or indie?

    Traditional houses are currently leaning towards taking standalone novels, sometimes standalone novels with series potential. So if you have a standalone, that might be a good route.

    If you are going to indie or self publishing route, series tend to do better in that market.

    What I did

    I am a series writer. I have tried to write standalone novels, but it just doesn’t work out very well for me and I end up writing more. White Noise was supposed to be one book that turned into a trilogy a few years. City Without Heroes hit that point in the middle where it just didn’t feel write keeping that as one book.

    But ultimately, it is your story and up to you. So which are you writing?

    Write Your Story: Unlock Your Creative Potential

    Are you ready to embark on a journey into the world of storytelling? Look no further! Introducing Write Your Story, a comprehensive resource designed to fuel your imagination, enhance your storytelling skills, and bring your characters to life. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, or simply someone who loves crafting stories, this workbook is your ultimate companion.

    This Workbook Contains:

    • Story planning spreads
    • Setting and location spreads
    • Character spreads
    • Writing session tracker

  • You Will Get Through This Night review

    You know how I keep saying I’m not going to read any more self help style books? I think at this point we all knew that wasn’t going to stick for very long, given the number of times I’ve gone back to them. And well, here’s another one!

    You Will Get Through This Night is interesting in that it feels like a very practical guide being told through the lens of someone who has been through it. Rather than framing it as “This is the thing that works, always do this” it’s more along the lines of “This is what worked for me and why” which is messaging that I’m more aligned with.

    It is also filled with a lot more of the practical tools to help, split up in a more practical way (Based on stage of crisis you are currently in) which I think is useful for readers who might be looking for some guidance in dark moments. Once you are through one phase, you can move on to the next and the next, and I think it’s just generally much more practical than most of the other books of this sort that I’ve read so far, as it focuses very much on the reader and their needs over the author enforcing their authority on the subject matter.

    Overall, it was an interesting read. If you deal with depression or other mental health issues, it might be interesting for you as well.

    Get it now

  • City of Ember review

    I’ve had this book sitting in my to check out list for my library for a while, and I have finally gotten around to it! The story of an underground post apocalyptic city on the verge of collapse just felt weirdly right for the moment.

    The book follows Lina, a young woman who has been given a job in the City of Ember, a place that has been having issues of late. The crops are starting to fail, the large storage of food is running out, and the power is going out, which is an issue when you live underground. But Lina’s friend, Doon, is starting to learn more about the inner workings of the city and Lina has uncovered a mysterious note that might be the way for them to leave the only place anyone living in the city has ever known.

    Apparently this was a movie, which makes a weird amount of sense because it is written like it wanted a screen adaptation for a Disney movie and it was paced pretty similarly. I wasn’t quite sure how old the characters were for most of the book, but they read like they were twelve or thirteen, even though you later learn that they are much older. The motivations are uncomplicated and things are pretty straight forward, with very clear lines between good and evil.

    The universe is still pretty interesting, though. The idea of an underground city and the things that would be put in place to maintain it for a finite amount of time was done very well, and the idea that the people who created it left behind such a flimsy method to tell people how to when the time comes is…. well, I’m in tech, I can believe it. It’s ridiculous, but I believe it.

    Overall, it was cute. The characters read younger than they are, so it’s honestly better to pretend they are younger and think of it as a family movie. I don’t know how it stacks up to the movie, but it is a fun book.

    Get it now