by Jenna | May 9, 2017 | Guest Posts
And we're back! It's time for the next installment of our "Author Insights" series. In this series, I'm introducing you to writers who've taken their writing all the way to the finish line of publication, and they share their "lessons learned" with you. There's nothing quite like learning from a writer who has made to the other side.
Plus, if you leave a comment at the end of the post before Friday, May 12th at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, you'll be entered to win an autographed copy of the author's book in a random drawing. Please note that you must be located in the United States to win.
Meet Elaine La Joie, author of The Empath as Archetype
I'm thrilled to introduce you to Elaine La Joie. Elaine and I have worked together in various ways over the past 15 years since we first met after attending the same coach training program. Elaine has gone on to become not only a coach but is now also a shaman, who specializes in working with empaths. Elaine has chosen the self-publishing path and has put out five books, now bundled into one in the The Empath as Archetype. Her books are particularly valuable for sensitives and empaths who find themselves stuck in challenging relationship situations. Being a shaman and an expert in the Enneagram Four, Elaine always brings a higher view of relationship interactions I find illuminating and freeing.
I asked Elaine to share her insights about writing her books with us.
Elaine La Joie on Writing The Empath as Archetype
I had wanted to write ever since I was a child, but I always thought I’d write fiction. However, after coaching empaths for a few years I found myself writing non-fiction.
At first I wrote short essays for my blog about topics that came up during client sessions that I thought most empaths would appreciate.
Then, as I expanded my knowledge base from plain coaching to the Enneagram to shamanic energy work, I found myself explaining these concepts to new clients, which took too much time away from diving into the healing work, so I decided to write a guide that clients could read before they started working with me.
Structuring a Complicated, Massive Topic
However, the book I imagined was complicated. I was bringing together topics from the Enneagram, shamanic energy work, and archetypes, and then writing specifically for the empath archetype. It was overwhelming.
Instead of writing I found myself spending time thinking about how to arrange this massive treatise, which led to frustration and procrastination. I solved this by going back to observing my clients and what we needed to unravel and work on first before major progress could be made.
This helped me see the three disparate topics my clients needed to understand before they could achieve deep healing and shift their ingrained patterns, and I organized my work accordingly. I wrote three books about the archetypal drama triangle, which is particularly problematic for the sensitive empath, shamanic energy work, and the enneagram archetype of the empath. I published these on my website.
Navigating Expanding My Reach with Amazon
Once I had self-published the books on my site, I had a few sales, mostly from new clients and others curious about my work. The feedback was good, but small. I kept writing, this time shifting to major case studies with the assumption that the reader had absorbed the concepts in the first three little books.
Because I wanted to expand my reach, I started looking into how to upload my books to Amazon. Luckily by the time I was ready to publish on Amazon, they had made the process relatively straightforward and free with both their digital system (Kindle) and their softcover publisher (CreateSpace).
But I noticed that I was procrastinating again—the thought of having my books reviewed by the general public was for the most part scary and unappealing.
Making Peace With the Possibility of Bad Reviews
My books were written for a very specific audience, an empath who wants to change his or her life. A non-empath would not understand these books. An empath that was interested but not ready to look at the shadow work required to heal themselves would most definitely find my books upsetting. They might leave rotten reviews. In many ways I felt like I was setting myself up to be misunderstood and misrepresented.
At the same time, I knew this work would be helpful to that segment of the population of empaths who were ready to dive in and do the deep healing work.
So, I had to prepare to get bad reviews. I made two shifts with my thinking that helped tremendously:
- I made a conscious decision not to take any reviews personally and to trust the work would reach the audience for whom it was intended. Because I am an empath, and empaths tend to take everything personally, I had to remind myself that my feelings in the moment would pass; I should honor my feelings, but not take them too seriously, even the happy feelings around good reviews. This helped me be both less attached to good reviews and less fearful of bad reviews.
- I reminded myself that personal work for anyone is very difficult, and that it is a common human behavior to shoot the messenger. My work is all about being the messenger for people who are hurting and wanting to heal themselves. In doing one-on-one work with clients, it is relatively easy to match my client and maintain a relationship that works for both of us, but every once in a while a client tries to shoot the messenger. It doesn't happen often because we have built up a relationship of acceptance and trust, but when it does, I don't take it personally because I understand the nature of healing work and the role of the shaman. Once I started thinking of my writing as working one-on-one with my favorite clients as my audience, it was easier and less scary to move forward. However, because I wasn’t really working one-on-one with each reader, it was guaranteed that I would be shot down at least one time out of ten.
Luckily for me, most of my readers so far have wanted to do the work, so most of my reviews on Amazon have been very good. Many empaths can be shy, so I receive much more positive feedback through emails than through reviews, which is also heartening. There are awful reviews as well, such as one from a reader who gave my last book one star after starting with it first instead of last. This person did not to read the other books, but gave them all one star reviews anyway. This was both amusing and upsetting at the same time, but in the grand scheme of things, the work is out there, and people can take it or leave it, just as they take or leave one-on-one session work.
Overall my writing experience has been a very good one. I have been very lucky to have a niche in which to write. I also entered self-publishing right when the process became easy and straight forward.
As it turned out, the literal process of self-publishing was easy—the hardest step was moving past my fears and putting the work out there.
About The Empath as Archetype
The Empath as Archetype contains the first five volumes of The Empath as Archetype series by Elaine La Joie, including:
- The Empath and the Archetypal Drama Triangle
- The Empath and Shamanic Energy Work
- Motivations of the Empath
- The Empath and Shadow Work
- The Empath and the Fan-Hero Family System
These books, written over seven years, are a compilation of case studies of Elaine's clients, and are now available in this collected edition.
Elaine begins with the Archetypal Drama Triangle, explaining the most common archetypal system humans can be caught in, but gives examples particular to empaths. She moves on to describing shamanic techniques including Soul Retrieval and Underworld Work, used in her practice to help her clients heal wounds common to empaths. Next comes a description of the most typical blindspots and faulty beliefs for empaths as described by the Enneagram Type Four and how to change to more productive beliefs and behaviors. In the final two volumes she explains particularly troublesome relationships in which empaths can become entangled, including the common family system that can produce the narcissistic personality.
The Empath as Archetype is available on Amazon.com.*
About Elaine
Elaine La Joie, shaman and certified life coach, has worked with empaths and highly sensitive intuitives for more than ten years. During that time she has helped empaths understand themselves and their relationships while using shamanic energy healing to resolve past traumas, including severe abuse. These books offer empaths insight into their relationship and into the hidden motivations of themselves and others so that they can understand their loved ones and create the lives they truly desire.
Please visit Elaine’s website at https://secure.clearreflectioncoaching.com for more resources for empaths.
Enter to Win an Autographed Copy of The Empath as Archetype
Elaine has graciously offered to give away three autographed copies of her book to my readers. Leave a comment on the blog about one of your own writing lessons or something you learned from Elaine's insights before Friday, May 12th at 5 p.m. Pacific Time and you'll be entered in the random drawing. Please note, you must be located in the United States to win.
* This is an affiliate link, which means my Called to Write business receives a small commission from any purchases you make using this link, and which I deeply appreciate.
by Jenna | Oct 9, 2013 | Writing Articles
Today's article is a guest post by story and Enneagram expert Jeff Lyons of StoryGeeks.com. His article touches on a often overlooked aspect of story development that many writers miss and their story structure suffers as a result: their main character's "moral problem".
Jeff will be teaching us more about how to identify a character's moral problem in his upcoming workshop here in Berkeley, California (I'm co-hosting) on October 26 and 27 on his method of Rapid Story Development. We'd love to have you join us if you'd like to learn more.
Now here's Jeff's article:
The problem is moral
Hands down, the most important and most overlooked story structure element all writers either miss altogether or bungle is the moral problem. This pesky problem is not just a nice perk -- it is a make-it-or-break-it story structure component of any good story.
The moral problem is the hole in the heart of your protagonist. He or she starts off the story in some pickle, some predicament of their own making, ideally brought about by the very moral problem to which they are oblivious. This problem is making them act badly in the world. They are hurting people emotionally, mentally, and maybe even physically due to this lack. It’s the hurting of others that make it a moral issue, and not just a psychological one (the distinction is about hurting others versus hurting oneself). The character needs to learn some lesson about how to live in the world so that they no longer hurt others; some lesson that elevates them (hopefully, but not always) to be a better person. They learn that life lesson that makes them moral again.
Good stories have protagonists with this hole in their heart. And the best stories rip out the protagonist’s heart and then somehow heal it again, before the heart gets put back inside (I’m speaking metaphorically, of course -- unless this is a Clive Barker horror story).
How to find the moral problem
So, the question becomes: how does a writer figure out how to find one of these heart-holes? How do you assure that your protagonist has a meaningful moral problem and an equally meaningful growth-moment at the end of the story where they see the error of their evil ways? Some writers have a natural gift for this and flawed and tortured protagonists come to them as gracefully as flight to an eagle. For others (i.e., most of us) the process of finding a good moral problem is more like trying to find a taxi on a rainy night.
The good news, however, is that there is a tool that any writer can use to help them crack this problem, regardless of their natural gifts. That tool is called the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a powerful archetypal system that describes the nine core personality drives underlying all human behavior. Each of the nine drives is rooted in thoughts, feelings and actions that largely determine how we interact with the world, for good or ill. Everyone has an Enneagram type -- including fictional characters and stories themselves. Writers have used this tool for many decades to develop multi-dimensional characters, but it can also be used as a story development too, when coupled with story structure principles. It is this relationship between the Enneagram and story structure that gives writers a doorway to finding the most dramatically powerful moral problem for their protagonist.
What's your character's poison?
Let’s take an example and walk through the problem as a point of illustration:
You just wrote the movie The Verdict. Frank, the protagonist, is a ambulance-chasing, alcoholic lawyer who is constantly looking for the next sucker to scam into hiring him. You know he’s a drunk. You know he’s in pain. But what’s his moral problem? Is his alcoholism the moral problem? Alcohol hurts lots of people. Is his pain the moral problem? If so, what’s the pain? How do you figure out which it is? Writers spend lots of time caught up in this maze of questions and confusion.
Enneagram to the rescue. Each of the nine Enneagram personality styles has something called a "poison". This poison is the hole in the heart. It is the thing that poisons everything they do, everything they feel, everything they think. So, what’s poisoning Frank? Certainly alcohol is, but that’s mostly just hurting him. It’s not hurting other people. What he’s doing that’s hurting others is that he is using them. He sees people as targets, not people. So, we have the answer, right? He’s using people. That’s the moral problem, right? No, not quite. That’s what he’s doing; that’s not why he’s doing it. The moral problem is the motivation, the thing causing the using.
The Enneagram poison can help you quickly answer this question and find the real moral problem. Of the nine personality styles, the 3rd style ("The Achiever") is the one who has the poison of secretly feeling that they have no personal worth or value. This fits Frank’s actions to a tee. For him, people have no value; they’re things to be used. He ultimately feels this because deep down he believes he has no value or worth himself and therefore no one else has value either. Over the course of the movie he learns that, indeed, not only do people matter, but that he himself matters and he can make a difference in the world.
And so not only does the Enneagram technique of looking for the poison explain the motivation behind the protagonist's immoral behavior, it also points to the final self-revelation at the end of the story, where the hero or heroine realizes how to heal the hole in their heart. In this case, Frank realizes he has value and so do other people. He is able to make a new choice as a result.
Moral problem and story structure
As a writer, having this key piece of information -- a clear moral problem -- is critical for you to not only address your main character's development and arc, but also to guide you on how best to structure your story so that key story beats, like the inciting incident, low point, and final climax, are all driven by the engine of the protagonist's moral problem.
This is a deep subject, but a critical one for any writer. The moral problem can make or break your story, and the Enneagram can help you rapidly navigate the difficult questions that might otherwise hang you up and drag out the development process.
If you'd like to learn more, join us in Berkeley on October 26 & 27. Early registration ends TOMORROW, Thursday, October 10. Find more and register here: http://RapidStoryDevelopment.com
Your turn
As always, we love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Warmly,
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Thanks for reading.
by Jenna | Oct 2, 2013 | Writing Articles
In the third and final session of my interview series with Enneagram and story development expert Jeff Lyons (recordings no longer available), we talked about "Bridging the Gap from Motivation to Structure With the Enneagram." Today's post is a recap of what we discussed.
His process for "bridging the gap" from premise line to character to story is quite fascinating, and he illustrated it using a breakdown of The Great Gatsby according to the Enneagram.
Bridging the gap
Here's an overview of the process:
- Step 1. Write out your premise line and log line.
(See the last post for more on premise line development.)
- Step 2. Define the moral problem that best illustrates the story's premise line.
(In Gatsby, Nick focuses on trying to fit in and be liked, he isn't being his truest self, which is a form of lying.)
- Step 3. Look for the Enneagram type that best represents the motivations (not behaviors) of someone with that moral shortfall.
(Nick most aligns with the Enneagram type 9.)
- Step 4. Study the integration and disintegration points for that type to identify what the character is capable of and what they're greatest opponent might be.
(Points 3 and 6, respectively.)
- Step 5. Explore the entertaining moral argument possibilities between those two types.
(Can you succeed and achieve without giving up your soul?)
- Step 6. Brainstorm about the communication styles, "pinches", and blind spots of each of those two types.
(Nick has various challenges that Gatsby can poke at and wreak havoc with.)
- Step 7. Map your story using these Enneagram components and correlate them with the visible structure components we discussed last time.
(This includes the protagonist, moral problem, chain of desire, focal relationship, opposition, plot & momentum (midpoint complication, low point, and final conflict), and evolution/de-evolution and is the more complex step where the story is broken down into a greater level of detail).
Your turn
Have you considered using the Enneagram in your story development? Will you consider using it in the future? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Warmly,
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Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis
by Jenna | Oct 1, 2013 | Writing Articles
In the second class of my interview series with Enneagram and story development expert Jeff Lyons (recordings no longer available), we talked about "The Critical Importance of Premise Line Development." Today's post is a recap of what we learned.
Jeff started off by talking about the importance of being clear about what you're writing is about a situation or a story:
- A story is about a person on a journey of change, where they are trying to achieve a goal or attain a desire and have a revelation about themselves at the end. Stories include relationships, because, as Jeff says, "Stories are conversations, not monologues."
- A situation, on the other hand, is usually some kind of problem or predicament with a solution that tests a protagonist's problem-solving skills but doesn't reveal character. Few, if any, subplots, twists, or complications are required to solve the problem, and it ends in the same emotional emotional space it began in. Standard genre beats may still evident but not the deeper underpinnings of story structure.
While Jeff doesn't suggest that story is better than situation or vice versa, he says that they require different building blocks to successfully deliver them. A story will rely on deeper story structure components, while a situation will rely on entertainment value, great set pieces, and good dialogue, but won't reveal character or be driven by a moral problem or theme.
And what is story structure?
Jeff defines story structure differently than the way most of us have learned to think of it. Most of us think of things like inciting incidents, turning points, mid-points, climaxes, and resolutions as story structure. Jeff describes these as "story beats" and says that most writing systems that purport to be about structure are actually focused on these typical beats and are missing the deeper, natural structure implied by both premise development and character motivation.
Getting from idea to premise line
When a story idea first arrives, it often comes as an "undifferentiated mass". It's a collection of swirling notions and intuitive instincts that don't translate yet into a clear organized story structure.
Jeff uses premise line development as a tool to begin to decipher the fuzzy, abstract ideas into a more concrete, contained story -- the nascent beginnings of story structure. He compares it to stepping down electricity from the power plant into a useable form in a residential setting. It has to go through transformers to make it available at a functional level. The premise line is the first step in translating from that vague mass of ideas into something resembling a story.
The way that he does this is by using seven core elements to begin to tease out the components of the story and shape them, including:
- Character -- do you have a sense of a character who will be central to the story?
- Constriction -- what happens that pushes the character off the line they're on at the beginning of the story?
- Desire -- what does this character want? At this point, we're not talking about something specific or tangible, that comes later, but rather a sense of a core desire or motivating force.
- Relationship -- who is this character in relationship with? (Again, stories are conversations.)
- Resistance -- what is the push back or opposition that stops the main character from getting what they want?
- Adventure and/or Chaos -- what is the adventure or chaotic experience the character has that leads them to the epiphany at the end?
- Change -- this is the dramatic epiphany the end -- how the character changes as a result of their experiences.
Moving from premise line to visible structure
Once you've identified your premise line, you can then move to a more "visible structure" for the story. This is a process of taking what you've started with and beginning to develop and flesh out the pieces of the story more deliberately. At this stage of the process, you'll make the following shifts:
- The character becomes the protagonist.
- The constriction becomes the moral problem of the protagonist. (This informs the inciting incident.)
- The character's desire becomes a chain of desire (a sequence of goals or desires all related back to the character's core desire).
- The relationship becomes the focal relationship for the story, the person the protagonist experiences the journey with.
- The resistance becomes the central opposition. At the outset and premise level, you may just have a sense of an opposing force. At this stage it would become personal, dramatic, and/or personified.
- The adventure/chaos becomes the plot and momentum of the story through the second act. (This is the part of the story that includes the typical story beats, like midpoint, low point, and climax).
- The change is the evolution or de-evolution of the protagonist.
Bridging the gap using the Enneagram
In order to make the transition from that undifferentiated mass of the original idea to the more visible structure of the premise line all the way into a visible, clear structure, Jeff uses the Enneagram to help identify the specifics for each one of these elements, such as:
- The best protagonist for the story, based on the personal change the story is designed to illustrate.
- The best opposition or antagonist for the story, designed to help provoke the protagonist into that change.
- Brainstorming and understanding the protagonist's core desire based on their Enneagram type, to design a chain of desires that the character seeks that drives the story forward.
- The best allies or focal relationships for the protagonist.
- The best likely inciting incidents, turning points, midpoints, low points, and battles/climaxes that will stimulate your specific character and/or be driven by him/her to the final outcome of the story.
The Enneagram doesn't tell us the ONLY options for each of these, but rather suggests the best form for each of these elements. Then as the writer, it's up to you to begin to craft the specific story details to deliver that. (Form follow function, after all.)
For instance, at the broadest level, an Enneagram Three seeks approval from the outside as a way of validating themselves, but what they really need is to have their own sense of value and sense of self. So a story about a Three would be designed to play out that journey in a visual, visible metaphor organized around the ideas of approval-seeking as the constriction, taking an action that would cause a loss or challenge based on that approval-seeking as an inciting incident, to a low point where the Three finally realizes they are sacrificing themselves on the altar of approval and giving up everything to do so, all the way to a climactic moment where the Three stops looking outside themselves for approval and decides to find it within.
At a more specific level of story detail, those ideas could play out with a businessman who will never say no to a contract, trying to please everyone and perform by juggling and obfuscation, but he finally says yes to too many projects and the house of cards he's built around himself comes crashing down. He would then realize he needs to choose projects and work that HE values, and by so doing, recognize his OWN inherent value. It's HIM that makes the projects successful, not the game he's playing.
And of course, we can get even more specific from there, as well as fleshing out the details of his supporting relationships and opposition.
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by Jenna | Sep 27, 2013 | Science Fiction, ScriptMag Articles
Here's a new article over on ScriptMag, an interview with storyteller Jeff Lyons about the Enneagram and sci-fi.
As a sci-fi screenwriter, I’m interested in more than just big tent pole movies. I want to write and see sci-fi stories with heart, stories that make me feel, stories that reveal character. I’ve always been a huge fan of Firefly and Serenity for that reason, and Joss Whedon continued to impress me particularly… [read more at ScriptMag]
Image by Comfreak from Pixabay
