So what we have learned…

… applies to our lives today …

If you get that reference, give yourself a cookie.

Yesterday, I attended the ACFW North Denver Chapter meeting for the first time. I had been meaning to check them out and after a quick google of an author that I picked up at Mardel’s, I realized he would be speaking at the meeting. Score two for Eisley!

Then the snow started… blasted all. I was worried about the roads, tried not to get overworked about them, hoped that they would be dry and the majority of the rush hour traffic would have dissipated by the time I needed to head out. Because if you live in Denver, you don’t want to be anywhere near I-25 between 4-6pm… Just not a fun situation. Couple that with snow.. Yah, No thanks.

However, resolve burned in my blood, so I pushed away my fears and set out for my twenty mile commute uphill, both ways, in the snow ice and nasty rush hour traffic.

*ahem* The roads were dry, the traffic gone and I only went uphill one way… Hmmm. Score another for Eisley!

Recount of the score Eisley:3 — Everything else:Zero!

We arrived early (I brought DD10 with me because she loves Fantasy/Fiction and is actually already starting a couple novels… *sniff* makes me so proud… Plus she had an American Girl book she was dying to check out) and found where we needed to be quite easily in the blowing snow. DD escaped the old folks for the children’s section or Borders and we all settled into our seats for Robert Liparulo’s talk.

He spoke about the emotions you evoke in your novels and even though he is a Thriller writer, he still squeezes some tears and emotion from his readers. In fact, it’s his goal.

Then he went on to say how important it was to make your character’s do mundane human things in your text. Why? Why, should we care that our MC takes a break to eat, sleep, bath, yawn, rub his forehead… etc? Because when you are in a fictitious place, you need something your reader can relate too.

I didn’t realize this was actually something authors tried for… I do it in my novels but that is because the characters are real people to me as I write… they have to take breaks, sleep, eat, bath, laugh, cry. They ARE human when they walk through my mind and if they didn’t take these human breaks, I would go insane. Maybe literally so.

Case and point, when my beta readers for THE RINGS OF TIME first started coming back, about half of them mentioned a scene in which Emma, the MC (the one who was thrust into another world) experiences Mandorian blackberries. She thinks they are awesome and taste just like blackberries on earth, her favorite fruit. When she asks Prince Aaron what they call these luscious little black fruits he simply replies… blackberries! Then they talk about the qualities of the weed type bush and how it’s the same on earth.

This scene apparently pulled the HUMAN out of Emma like no other. She was in a new world but experiencing something very human, which the reader could relate to.

There was another scene I received emails about… when she pockets the coin, thinking it as an excellent souvenir. Lots of people would do the same thing after finding it on the ground. So, the relational aspect is there, knowing that had the tables been turned the reader would have done the same thing thus throwing the monkey wrench into the story (the coin is pivotal).

Score 5,000 points for THE RINGS OF TIME… which means, Score for Eisley.

Total score:5,003…. Everything else: ZERO!

The moral of this post, make sure your characters are real and your reader can relate. It makes all the difference in the world. Because when a reader can relate to your characters, in any way shape and form, it’s pretty cool… you have made a reader for life.

People will never remember your name, your face or even your book title… but they will remember the way you made them feel.

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