Jeff Elkins is the author of twelve novels and leads the writing team for an innovative technology company that simulates difficult conversations for professionals to practice. In the Fall of 2020, Jeff began a new business, DialogueDoctor.com, that helps writers defeat mono-mouth by coaching them to build engaging characters and write realistic dialogue that will pull readers into their work and keep them reading over multiple books. Jeff lives outside of Baltimore in the United States with his wife and five kids.
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Transcript
Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.
[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #215 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. So thrilled that you are here, extras super-duper thrilled because today we are talking to Jeff Elkins and Jeff is an old friend. He comes to me from the Writer’s Well, when J Thorn and I were doing that show and he’s just been around and part of my writing community for a long time. And he listened with horror as I was answering questions the other day on the mini podcast. And I was talking about how to make different voices of characters sound unique, which is something that I always add later in revision. He has a system of doing that and I am so excited to share this with you. It kind of blew my mind. It is truly unique, truly his, I know that you are going to get so much out of listening to it. I basically couldn’t wait to get off the phone with him in order to start implementing it into my work. And yeah, so look forward to that. That’s going to be Jeff coming up here in a minute. [00:01:24] If you ever watch me on the YouTube video that goes up only a few of you do that most of you listened to this in podcast form, but hopefully you will notice, even if you’re just on the podcast, that this sounds a little bit better. I have upgraded my recording studio here. And I actually have a mic that is much better. I was using a Samson meteor mic and I have moved up in the world. I’m actually using a pop filter and a shock mount and all of those things, which I have always known I should be using. And hopefully this will increase your listening audio pleasure. Let’s see what’s going, going on around here, writing wise, I had a migraine, so I had a couple of days off there. I am recovering have recovered, but I want to say that I did use some of my downtime while I had the migraine to think is when I’m on migraine, when I’m having a migraine I’m on a bunch of drugs and it does kind of free my mind to think about things and make connections that I possibly wouldn’t have before migraines are unique in that they are not just in the brain. They’re the whole body, the whole body is reacting to the migraine. Many people’s stomachs are involved, but for me also involved non drug dependent is the way I think I am able to kind of get back to this 30,000-foot view into a book. And think about it. So actually use some of the time, not a lot of the time because then my brain would drift away in pain but when I was able to, I was really thinking about the structure of this book that I am first drafting. I want to make that really clear. I am first drafting, so it is nothing but a hot mess. [00:03:08] However, it’s going to be a book. That’s really something I am reveling in knowing right now that no matter how messy it is, it’s going to be a book someday because I know how to revise, no matter how messy your book is, no matter how messy your writing is, even if you don’t know how to revise yet, you can learn. It is a learnable process and it’s just super exciting. And I’m still, now that I’m back at the page, feeling better, I’m still just throwing crappy words out and one of my students said just this morning in RachaelSaysWrite she said, there is a level of freedom that comes with that knowledge. That means you can just screw around on the page. Have a good time, leave sentences incompletely paragraphs hanging, jumped from chapter to chapter, add characters, kill the characters off in the next scene because they weren’t a good idea in the first place, knowing that you can remove them entirely or add them even further when you get to revision. That knowledge of that freedom is so fun and wonderful. So I hope that if you were playing with first drafting, you are remembering that you can fix anything, anything, anything, anything. So I am doing that. [00:04:27] Another thing that I’m doing, it will be almost back by the time this airs. So I feel comfortable saying this. I am tomorrow going away by myself. A friend of mine owns a beach house in one of those fancy, fancy beach areas. And she doesn’t look right at the water, but it’s a one-minute walk to the water, basically around this little corner and I’m going there for four days alone. 100% alone. My wife is going to be here taking care of the sick dog and the other dog and the two cats and I am going away. And yes, I have guilt about this. However, she knows she’s also allowed to go away whenever she wants and can do so. And I pointed out to her when these plans were made. I said, do you realize that when I’m gone, you are going to be alone too. And she just brightened because neither of us have been alone since March. You might understand this, it seems like there’s this, it’s not easy for anybody. The people who are alone are very, very, very alone. And I cannot imagine what that is like. And then the people who are together are very, very, very freaking together. And I need to be not together for a while. My wife and I have both always very much enjoyed and valued our alone time in really big ways. Like we are very comfortable saying, I need you to leave the house because I have not had alone time in, you know, four days. I need you to go somewhere, go to the movies, go to the store, go to the cafe. And we can’t do that anymore. We haven’t been able to do that since March, so I’m going to be alone. And I think I’m going to work. I am planning on getting a lot of words. Oftentimes when I go away kind of vacation like this or any other kind of time when I leave town, which I haven’t done since February. I don’t write. I failed to write. I, what I, what I really succeed in doing is lying around and reading and thinking and jotting notes and journaling and drinking tea and walking along the cliff and going down to the beach. [00:06:26] But this time I’m bringing my office smart and I’m just going to play at having fun. And I’m also going to give myself grace if nothing gets done, because that is more of my typical emo, but I, I’m just going to feel my way into it. Speaking of feeling my way into things, I will let you know that one of the motivations for getting this new recording equipment is that I have a new podcast just call me J Thorn. Now my new podcast is called You’re Already Ready and it is really tiny, short bites of pieces that I’m putting up. Basically I am reinstituting my blog. I am writing some things that I’m thinking, and I’m going to put them out in this little 5 to 7-minute podcast, 3 to 5 times a week. That is my goal. So go give that a try. I know it’s find-able on iTunes or whatever it’s called now. I, iTunes podcasts or wherever, Apple podcasts may be on Google play podcasts. It’s kind of hard to find it is available and it’s there but it’s hard to get to, Stitcher I know it’s available. I think it’s already available at Spotify. So you can check that out. You either search for my name or search for You’re Already Ready and let me know what you think. There’s about five episodes up right now, and it is not written, written. It’s not made for writers. It’s made for creative people. [00:08:10] However, you know, everything that I talk about in the back of my mind, I am talking about writing. I’m talking to you. I just did an episode on my beloved glitter boots. And, you know, it’s things like that. I’m talking about the move to New Zealand. It is more scripted because these are writings are basically many essays that I’m putting on the blog and then reading for the podcast. So it is my professional voice rather than this show, which is always unscripted and always a little bit chaotic because of it. So give it a try and tell me what you think. And yeah, I just wanted to let you know about that. I’ll bring it up again in the future when I know that everybody can reach it and find it, but do give that a try if you’re interested. [00:08:53] Now, let us please jump into talking to Jeff about dialogue and voices, please let him blow your mind the way that he did mine. And you should go sign up for his stuff and get his information and get his little tips and tools. And I know I already have, and I’m already putting them to use, like I said, so wherever you are, happy writing. I hope you get a little bit of crappy work done knowing that you can change it later. Or if you’re revising, I hope that you are just reveling in that feeling of making pages and chapters and books better. Please find me where I am on the internet and tell me how you’re doing. You know, I love to hear and we will talk soon my friends. [00:09:35] Do you wonder why you’re not getting your creative work done? Do you make a plan to write and then fail to follow through? Again? Well, my sweet friend, maybe you’d get a lot out of my Patreon. Each month, I write an essay on living your creative life as a creative person, which is way different than living as a person who’ve been just Netflix 20 hours a week and I have lived both of those ways, so I know. You can get each essay and access to the whole back catalog of them for just a dollar a month. Which is an amount that really truly helps support me at this here writing desk. If you pledge the $3 level, you’ll get motivating texts for me that you can respond to. And if you pledge at the $5 a month level, you get to ask me questions about your creative life, that I’ll answer in the mini episodes. So basically I’m your mini coach. Go to patreon.com/Rachael (R A C H A E L) to get these perks and more and thank you so much.Rachael Herron: [00:10:36] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show. Jeff Elkins. Hello, Jeff.
Jeff Elkins: [00:10:40] Hey, I’m so excited to be here.
Rachael Herron: [00:10:42] We’re laughing because if you’re watching on the YouTube, I just got a little mini person behind him, waving and I, and I hear there’s like, 73 others running around?
Jeff Elkins: [00:10:51] Yeah. There’s some, well, and some of them aren’t so many, the 17-year old is ever six feet tall. So he’s, he’s, he’s not so many anymore
Rachael Herron: [00:10:59] No, his, his head will be actually be out of the shot. Yes.
Jeff Elkins: [00:11:02] Yeah. That’s right. If he comes behind me, you’ll just see his torso. Yeah. He’s but yeah, I have five kids. The oldest is 17. The youngest is six. And so they’re,
Rachael Herron: [00:11:13] Your hands are very, very full. Okay. Speaking of those full hands, let me give you a little bio.
Jeff Elkins: [00:11:17] Okay.
Rachael Herron: [00:11:18] To lead into that, Jeff Elkins is the author of 12 novels and leads the writing team for an innovative technology company that simulates difficult conversations for professionals to practice. In the fall of 2020, Jeff began a new business, dialoguedoctor.com that helps writers defeat mono-mouth by coaching them to build engaging characters and write realistic dialogue that will pull readers into their own work and keep them reading over multiple books. Jeff lives outside of Baltimore in the United States with his wife and 73 children, like I said. Well, you and I have been friends for a long time. We’ve been, you were one of our favorite listeners on the Writer’s Well.
Jeff Elkins: [00:12:00] Yeah, I’ve been, I mean you, so to be honest, we say friends, the truth is I’ve been following your work for a really long time. And you’ve had a dramatic impact on my writing, especially my motivation to write. So yeah, I listened on the Writer’s Well, and, was really, really started listening to the Writer’s Well in like a downtime. Where I was really struggling to like, figure out what I was doing and like finding my voice and I kind of cycled through those. I think everybody does. It’s just like so down. And so discovering the Writer’s Well, with you and J had a huge and actually when you were pedal to the metal. Had a huge impact on, on just hearing somebody be honest about what this is, what this life is so that was great. And then started following your podcast and started following the Writer’s Well, and now I’m a Patreon member of yours and anybody who’s listening to this who isn’t a Patreon member is super missing out because the articles you write are fantastic.
Rachael Herron: [00:13:00] Thank you
Jeff Elkins: [00:13:01] And, yeah, people should definitely get on your picture on a medium
Rachael Herron: [00:13:05] You know, I love, love, love writing those. And I did not pay him to say that, but the thing about you Jeff is that, in the same way that I’m on us, on the show, and the same way that J and I were always honest on the Writer’s Well, you’ve always been honest with us in your comments. And I do feel like we’re friends. I feel like I know your life over the course of years. You, you don’t. You don’t paint it all with a happy picture. You actually would tell us what was the problem and what was going on and what you were struggling with. And that meant a great deal to us. It really did.
Jeff Elkins: [00:13:35] See I learned a long time ago that I’m terrible at hiding anything. I’m really bad at it. Like I’m just,
Rachael Herron: [00:13:41] Have a poker face
Jeff Elkins: [00:13:42] I have zero poker face. I’m an open book all the time. And so I finally got to a place where it’s like, I just need to embrace this and just like go extreme vulnerability at all times. It’s like, you know, why hide or like, you know, try to sneak away from what’s going on. If, if, if masks look ridiculous on me, why put one on, in the first place? Right. Like, so
Rachael Herron: [00:14:04] Exactly. Exactly. Although I trust you’re wearing your mask. When you’re out-
Jeff Elkins: [00:14:10] When I’m out, oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, there’s no really cleaning up the physical appearance over here. So masks actually help. I was telling Wendy yesterday. My wife is Wendy. I was telling her yesterday. I was like, I probably just going to wear a mask forever. Because, like
Rachael Herron: [00:14:24] I love it.
Jeff Elkins: [00:14:25] I love it
Rachael Herron: [00:14:26] I can have resting bitch face, like I don’t just half smile anybody. It’s the best. But the other thing about that whole vulnerability thing is that people sense in often, what’s the word for this, non-authenticity in authenticity, a mile away, and they run away and they sense vulnerability and truth and lean in to listen.
Jeff Elkins: [00:14:50] Yeah, I think, you know, growing up in minority communities and just having a passion to be around, to be an ally to minorities, which is part of a big passion of mine is that like, I, I want people to feel safe around me at all times. Right. Like I never wanted anybody to feel like, I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know what he feels about something. And so I’m just kind of all out there at all times and also try to lead with you know, a humble apology, right? So
Rachael Herron: [00:15:28] I love starting out with the humble apology, but like when we were emailing, I noticed that you had black lives matter in your email signature.
Jeff Elkins: [00:15:33] Yes
Rachael Herron: [00:15:34] And I freaking love that, and that would have, that would have made me wants you on the show. And I’m the one who asked you to come on the show. So this is fantastic. Let’s talk about the, your writing process because you work, I’m assuming with the innovative technology company you’re working full time, right?
Jeff Elkins: [00:15:50] I do work full time. Yeah. And it’s a really complicated job. Yeah. I’ve written 12 books in the last six years.
Rachael Herron: [00:15:58] Plus you have this new business, how- where
Jeff Elkins: [00:15:59] Cause I’ve been in business,
Rachael Herron: [00:16:00] You get the writing done. How?
Jeff Elkins: [00:16:02] That’s a great question. So how and where, where I get the writing done is right here. So I, I work off of the laptop and you know, my work day starts at 7:30 and it ends at about 4, 4:30. That’s my like professional job. The job is all consuming. It’s not something that I can like half ass. You know, I have a team of five writers that I work with and train and lead and, and the simulations we build are non-linear. Which means that we have to write conversations so that the person, our simulations talking to, you can say anything they want at any time, which is,
Rachael Herron: [00:16:47] it sounds like the worst game of choose your own adventure ever
Jeff Elkins: [00:16:50] We talk about it as like, when we’re hiring people and they’re asking like, what is writing is like? It’s like creating a three-dimensional crossword puzzle.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:57] That’s sounds awesome.
Jeff Elkins: [00:16:58] Where you’re just like, if you took crossword puzzles and like stack them up and then you had to be able to go like any way, that’s kind of what I do during the day. What’s fantastic about that is that as writers we’re professional mimics. So, we sit with professionals, in a ton of fields from like working with the military, to working with social workers, to working with therapists, who are like trying to learn cognitive behavioral therapy to like, you know, working with, today I was working with a suicide prevention crisis counselors, right. Like we’re just- we’re always working with different people and we come with empty hands and we sit down in front of them and then we’re like, you know, our job is to duplicate the conversations you have in real life. So that’s why we say we’re professional mimics cause we’re sitting down and we’re, we’re duplicating what other people do. So that’s my day job. It’s all consuming. It’s, it’s, it’s a big it’s you know, a lot and I don’t really, you know, with five kids I’m I. I get up early, I get up at five, but I read in the mornings I do, I have a couple like meditative readings I do, and then I do my own meditation for like five minutes, 10 minutes, if I’m lucky and then, you know, the six-year-olds up by six. So there’s no, like
Rachael Herron: [00:18:19] So this is not your writing time?
Jeff Elkins: [00:18:20] No. There’s no like 5:00 AM writing time, like 5:00 AM or I, I love, I I’ve had periods where I’m like, I’m part of the Twitter 5:00 AM writer’s club and I’ll do it for like a week. And then at like 5:20, the six-year-old heard me downstairs and he’s like in my lap and I’m like, I’m still writing. You know. It’s just not, I finally got to the place where it’s like, it’s just not worth the emotional energy it takes to make that happen. So I’m a night writer. So I see, you know, how I write, I wait for everybody to go to bed, which is bedtime usually starts around here about, 8:30. Like we have a cascading bedtime because I have cascading kids.
Rachael Herron: [00:18:59] Oh I would start it at like four.
Jeff Elkins: [00:19:01] Yeah. I do too. There are days like I’m like, Hey, is it, is it bedtime yet? Like, can we start now? Yeah. And we do start the process. Cause like that time is a process, so especially for little kids. So we start the process at like 6 and there’s like, you know, bags and then reading books to them. Like we read to the younger kids every night, the older kids have like you know, qualified reading time. Like they have to read for 30 minutes before they go to sleep, so we have like,
Rachael Herron: [00:19:28] I love that
Jeff Elkins: [00:19:29] Yeah, there’s a routine every, I mean, with a big family in a tiny house there, you have to have routines. So yeah. So around 8:30, the house is quiet. The teenagers and Wendy and I are the only people left awake. And so that’s when I get to write so I usually write, I try to spend my rule is two hours on the business.
Rachael Herron: [00:19:53] You can get so much done in two hours.
Jeff Elkins: [00:19:56] Oh, it’s crazy. Yeah. Like, and some nights I’m like, okay, tonight I’m not writing a new chapter. Tonight, I’m just working on, you know, my black matter or tonight
Rachael Herron: [00:20:09] Or it’s focus time
Jeff Elkins: [00:20:10] Yeah. But I’m, I’m doing that for two hours. For me, I have to block out distractions. So I create a Spotify playlist every month. That’s like, this is my writing playlist. So I just turned that on. And I focus for, I try to get two hours in. Sometimes I can get like two and a half and then I’m trying to shut it down by 11:30. So I can be in bed by midnight,
Rachael Herron: [00:20:32] Yeah because you need some sleep
Jeff Elkins: [00:20:34] Back up again. Yeah,
Rachael Herron: [00:20:35] yeah.
Jeff Elkins: [00:20:36] Yeah. So that’s my process. And it’s just about like, you know, there, it’s about understanding that I’m sacrificing things that I might enjoy in order to have the life I want to have. So like I’m not, I don’t watch a ton of like, I don’t sit down at night and watch TV. I don’t sit down at night and like cuddle up in front of a book I read before I go to sleep mostly because I demand that my children do it, so I have to do it too.
Rachael Herron: [00:21:05] It’s the best way to go to sleep.
Jeff Elkins: [00:21:06] Yeah. But so for me, it’s just about like building a routine and like working that routine every night and giving myself a lot of grace, right. Like, I, I remember I got really dark a couple years ago when I got on this obsession of like, I have to write a book a month.
Rachael Herron: [00:21:25] Oh, that’ll kill you.
Jeff Elkins: [00:21:27] Yeah. And I tried really hard. Yeah. I was building a series and I was like, okay, I can’t write a book a month, but maybe I can like stock up a series and then publish a book a month. And I got the first two published. I was like, I’m going to publish the first two while I write the third one. And I got, I was like, I’ve used all of the writing. I published diversity books. I like marketing the first two books. Like I don’t have any writing time left to finish the third one. And so I just kind of had to surrender like this isn’t the kind of writer, I don’t have the bandwidth to be that kind of writer. I would love to be that kind of writer, but I can’t do it.
Rachael Herron: [00:21:59] I love it. Like, you know, I’ve, I’ve mentioned this before, but what Joanna Penn says is like, when she realized she couldn’t be a book a month, it gave her the permission to like, just say, okay, I’m not that I’m never going to be that, I don’t have to be that. Like you every like clockwork. It just happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I get that bug again. Like, could I do a book a month? Could I do a book even every two months and, you know, get on that train. And then I realized I don’t want to.
Jeff Elkins: [00:22:24] Yeah. I’ve also gotten to the place where I’m like that writing fast experiment taught me that I need space between books I need at least two months,
Rachael Herron: [00:22:36] you have to know your process.
Jeff Elkins: [00:22:41] Yeah. The process, I work on a book, obsessive Lily, like I’ll get a bug in my head and you know, a lot of times writing books for me and I’m, I’m starting to understand this because I took Becca Steins’ Strengths for
Rachael Herron: [00:22:56] The Clifton Strengths. Yeah.
Jeff Elkins: [00:22:57] Clifton Strengths that you had talked about on a show. I had broke down when I took it. But so as a strategic individualist, restorative person, solving problems is a huge deal for me
Rachael Herron: [00:23:11] Solving problems. But not only with that strategic piece, you, you do it intuitively and you don’t even know how you do it.
Jeff Elkins: [00:23:18] Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:23:19] You arrive at the solution because your intuition is telling you your strategic is so high. That’s awesome.
Jeff Elkins: [00:23:22] Yeah. So if we get into that, like how I write a book, I created a problem for the book, I put up a spreadsheet of beats that I have to fill. So like the beats are kind of like part of the puzzle I have to build and then I puzzle it out from there. So it’s and that really drives me because I can’t stop until I finished that first draft.
Rachael Herron: [00:23:49] It seems like that’s- it seems like you have all, but even before you did the Clifton strengths you’ve already geared your writing life and even your professional life to really suit those strengths that you have.
Jeff Elkins: [00:23:59] Yeah. And I’m, I’m a huge proponent of self-understanding of like coming to know yourself understand. So the Clifton strengths is, was great for me because it’s, you know, kind of feeding that it’s giving me more language to talk about myself and not like, you know, so just to say, like, I think people get into these like personality tests and stuff and find them limiting like, Oh, I’m this, so I can’t do these things.
Rachael Herron: [00:24:24] Right.
Jeff Elkins: [00:24:25] So just as an encouragement, like that’s not what it’s about. It’s about giving yourself language to understand who you are so that you can then come around strategies that are going to work for you. So,
Rachael Herron: [00:24:36] Exactly, yeah.
Jeff Elkins: [00:24:37] So like I have, and I’ll move from one to the other, like I had my, I had a Myers-Briggs obsession for a while, just learning about like, okay, what is it about me that’s unique? So that I can play to that. And then I, you know, my wife and I both are really big into the Enneagram.
Rachael Herron: [00:24:55] I haven’t done that yet.
Jeff Elkins: [00:24:56] We studied. It’s fun. It’s, it’s interesting Yeah, it’s good.
Rachael Herron: [00:25:03] And only today, especially for, I wanted to do art for characters. I’ve heard of people playing with using Enneagram to, to, to prompt that. Has your wife done the Clifton strengths yet?
Jeff Elkins: [00:25:12] She hasn’t no,
Rachael Herron: [00:25:13] Okay so, I’m
Jeff Elkins: [00:25:14] She just does the Enneagram
Rachael Herron: [00:25:16] I’m a number three achiever, which explains a lot of me. Like I have super, super low discipline it’s in the thirties or something, but my achiever is what gets everything done along with my strategic. But you know, my wife, we learned that she is number 34 achiever. Like the very last is the tumor and that just explains the dishes. Right. It explains 16 years of marriage of dishes like, and now I’m able to let it go. Like I understand
Jeff Elkins: [00:25:41] That’s awesome. That Enneagram did that for me and Wendy. It was because we were, and it was really about understanding our kids. Like we were looking for a way our tee- our kids became teenagers. And we were noticing like, man, you know, the 17 year olds a lot like me and the 15 year olds a lot like Wendy, but in different ways. And then we’ve, we’ve got this 13-year old, that’s all his own self. And so we were like, we need some kind of language to help process, help them process what’s going on. So it was a family where you read, one of the Enneagram books. I can’t remember which one is which one it is off the top of my head. And it was, we like would read it. We’d read like a chapter in the car and it was funny we’d be reading it and like one kids would start laughing. They’d be like, yeah, that’s me. So it talks about like the inner life and what’s happening interior. So it’s a really nice partner, I think to the Clifton strengths find
Rachael Herron: [00:26:45] my next obsession.
Jeff Elkins: [00:26:47] Now Enneagram, doesn’t tell you how to fix it.
Rachael Herron: [00:26:50] That’s the thing that really does.
Jeff Elkins: [00:26:52] Yeah. Clifton strengths is all about like, here’s what you should be doing, like here’s how you should be focusing and then working to like better improve yourself as a leader in a, in a, in a creative. And, but especially with what Becca is doing, like the whole, like, let’s use your strengths as a writer,
Rachael Herron: [00:27:09] Use the strengths and let go of all the stuff that doesn’t work for you. I can let go of discipline. I don’t need that. Cause I can use my other core strengths to do that.
Jeff Elkins: [00:27:17] Yeah. Whereas the Enneagram is really about the self-understanding and I find it as a great tool of like self-forgiveness, so
Rachael Herron: [00:27:27] I could always use more of that.
Jeff Elkins: [00:27:29] Yeah. And it’s really great in like understanding the people around you. The key is like, so with all of these personality traps, there’s the thing of like, I’m going to label people now that I have my like number system, I want to start walking around being like, she’s a seven, she’s a six and that’s not really helpful. So like the heat of the Enneagram is for like, like I do some marriage couple counseling and used to do a lot more of it, but we’d have them take the Enneagram so that they could have language to explain to one another what’s going on inside of them. And so that way, like you can understand the people in your life a little bit better. If you all have this lang- this shared language to discuss like what’s happening. So like my son and I are both extremely anxious. We’re just very anxious people, which equates to a six on the Enneagram where we fear everything. Because of trauma I had as a kid, I tend to run it fear, whereas he tends to hide. So doing, like talking what about personalities as a family really helped us because it was one of those things where I can like, you know, he was applying for colleges and he was stalling. And so he’d sit down at his laptop and I could see him like trying to write his college essay. She didn’t like it. So
Rachael Herron: [00:28:46] Couldn’t do it, yeah
Jeff Elkins: [00:28:47] That, and so I’d asked him, I’d like, who’s in charge right now? Are you in charge of your anxiety in charge? Like who’s, who’s winning at the moment. Is fear winning or are you winning? And like, you know, you know, he’s got like high anxiety and charge. All right. Well, so like tell your anxiety, you got some stuff to do today. Right? Like get, get to work. So it’s that kind of like, just getting that like common language, I think is really great.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:12] I love that you did that with your family. And everybody loves to talk about and think about themselves and share that.
Jeff Elkins: [00:29:18] Oh, of course. Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:19] You know, everyone loves you.
Jeff Elkins: [00:29:20] I’m the center of the world. Of course I loved it. I want to take tests to find out what my personality is.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:27] Speaking of Jeff being the center of the world right now. What is your biggest challenge in writing? And what’s your biggest joy?
Jeff Elkins: [00:29:33] Oh man. So my biggest challenge is crippling self-doubt that I use as an excuse to sabotage my own writing.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:45] I laugh, but it’s not funny.
Jeff Elkins: [00:29:46] No, like it’s, I mean, it’s funny, but it’s also very
Rachael Herron: [00:29:49] That is not funny. Yeah.
Jeff Elkins: [00:29:50] Yeah. It’s also seriously apparent. So I have, I really do. I, I have monstrous self-doubt, so that like I kind of approach things with the idea of like, I’m going to fail and I have for a long time and like, you know, I’ve been in therapy. I understand why I do it and understanding why it is not, it’s not always helpful. And part of the reason it’s a struggle is because I use it as a crutch. So like, I, I wrote 10 books before I marketed anything at all. I never paid for an ad. I never like put them in like a Bookshare or like a newsletter share swamp or anything. Cause I’d write it. And I’d be like, nobody’s going to like this. And I just like throw it out in the world and be like, well, it’s done. Nobody’s going to like it. I don’t have to even think about it anymore. I can move on to the next one. So, and like people would people still, I still do this. People are like, which book is your best book? Like where can I start with your books? And I’ll be like the next one. Everything was crap. The next one’s my best one. The next one’s my best one. So there is some optimism to that, that’s like helpful because I keep striving forward to the next thing, but there’s also like, it really has hurt my writing career because like, you know, I wrote six books before I ever even considered engaging the writing community.
Rachael Herron: [00:31:14] Wow
Jeff Elkins: [00:31:15] I just assumed. Yeah. I just assumed like, okay, I’m going to be outcast. So in an assumption of like, I’m not going to be accepted, I was like, well, then I’m not going to try. So like, I’m not going to, I would like listen to podcasts and I would read on my own, but the whole idea of like networking, meeting other authors, for me, it wasn’t about being shy. Cause I’m not shy. For me, it was about like, they’re not going to like me. So I’m just not going to. And part of that comes
Rachael Herron: [00:31:45] It’s easier if you don’t
Jeff Elkins: [00:31:46] It’s so much easier, so much easier not to try. And part of that comes with that strategic thinking of mine, is that like I’m solving a problem that doesn’t exist before it even happens
Rachael Herron: [00:31:55] That’s the problem, right, I’ve got the solution right here.
Jeff Elkins: [00:31:57] Yeah. The problem is nobody likes me. So the solution is, do this all by yourself. Yeah. So, yeah, so that’s been the most destructive thing for my writing. I still, I started marketing my books in 2019. So in the fall of 2019.
Rachael Herron: [00:32:18] Good for you
Jeff Elkins: [00:32:19] I just started
Rachael Herron: [00:32:20] For the person who’s listening, who feels exactly the same way that you do, what is one piece of advice that you would give them?
Jeff Elkins: [00:32:27] That’s tough. So, it’s hard because there’s a balance you have to strike between accepting the truth of the moment and at the same time, recognizing that that is everyone’s truth. So like the truth of the moment is that like, yes, your books probably aren’t Ernest Hemingway. Right like, let’s just accept that. And they’re like, yeah, you are likely, never going to be John Grisham. Right. Like, let’s just put that. Yeah. You can start, you can follow all the right steps, right? Like you can do everything Stephen King did. And the chances of you making it to the NFL of writing and being the Peyton Manning quarterback of writing are less than 0.001%. So just go ahead and accept that. Deli-
Rachael Herron: [00:33:17] And that coin has that other side
Jeff Elkins: [00:33:19] The coin has that other side. And that like, that’s true of all of us, right? Like we’re all out here. And when you go to like network and you’re like, nobody’s going to like me, just to understand that everyone in that room feels that way. Everyone in that room is like, I don’t want to be here, no one’s gonna like me.
Rachael Herron: [00:33:34] No, one’s going to like me. I also wrote the worst book. They’re all better than I am. Yeah, no, everyone is feeling that way.
Jeff Elkins: [00:33:40] Yeah. And I would say part of what has helped me and what has been really good for me is taking the focus off of myself and off of my own work and really starting to think of my, and this is what made the shift for me in 2019 was starting to think of my work as something I’m doing to help other people.
Rachael Herron: [00:33:59] Yes! That whole idea of writing being altruistic, putting our writing out there being a service or giving for others or doing it
Jeff Elkins: [00:34:06] Yeah. And I think a book I’d recommend people struggling with self-doubt, read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, where she personifies the creative force as the muse. That’s like bringing you a story. She’s even got a weird story in that book about like, she rejected a story the muse gave her and then like her best friend, actually, like caller was like, I’m going to write this story.
Rachael Herron: [00:34:31] And it’s the weirdest, it’s like a, you know, no one would believe that they’re going to go to the Amazon and do this exact thing, but
Jeff Elkins: [00:34:38] It’s so crazy. Yeah. But understanding that like, you know, whatever your spiritual background is, understanding that like, what you are giving to the world in the story is a gift that you have received outside of yourself, and that you are really just the agent of transfer that is been given the privilege of bringing that gift to the people that you are, that are going to read it. And so like yeah. And then understanding that marketing is not a self-obsession, because that’s part of what, like drove me away from it was that like, Oh, I don’t like myself, so I don’t want to talk about myself. Like, I don’t like who I, I don’t like who I am. I don’t like who, I don’t like my own writing. Like I ride it and I’m like, Oh, it’s garbage. Like, I just don’t, I don’t like what I do. So, but coming to understand that, like marketing isn’t actually about me saying, I like this, marketing is about me taking this gift I was given that I’m intended to give to others and then doing everything I possibly can to get that into the hands with the person that needs that
Rachael Herron: [00:35:47] Of the right person. Right? Not of every, not of every person. None of the thing that drives me crazy is when people market their books, that this is right for everyone. Of course it’s not.
Jeff Elkins: [00:35:54] Yeah. No way. No.
Rachael Herron: [00:35:55] Your ideal reader, you have to find them.
Jeff Elkins: [00:35:59] Yeah. Yeah. I would say there’s no book that’s for everybody. Like I’ve read books that like, you know, my wife who I’m the closest person to, she reads it and she loves it. I read it. I tell you, I like most books. I read it and I’m like, I don’t like this at all
Rachael Herron: [00:36:15] You look at any book on Amazon, your very favorite book in the whole world and look at the one stars.
Jeff Elkins: [00:36:18] Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:19] Yeah. I love that. What is your, what is your biggest joy when it comes to writing?
Jeff Elkins: [00:36:23] I love seeing people come back to with story.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:24] Yeah,
Jeff Elkins: [00:36:25] That’s my biggest joy. I love hearing that something I wrote gave someone an emotional scape from whatever they’re dealing with. I love hearing that, like something I wrote helps somebody process something, right? Like I love hearing that you know, it’s this, and this is a weird thing that I do not recommend without taking some pretty massive steps, but I write minority characters because when I started writing, I was like, you know, there’s just enough CIS white men in the world as, as heroes. Like we just don’t need any more.
Rachael Herron: [00:37:00] Thank you.
Jeff Elkins: [00:37:00] It’s like, you know, let’s, let’s tell some other stories. It demands a lot of extra work. Like my, my, the series that I just finished has a two female detectives and the lead detective is African-American woman. So, you know, I, I know a bunch of African-American women, I’m friends with a bunch of African-American women. I got a team of 20 of them together. And for the first book, everything she said for the first 25,000 words, they had to approve, right? Like they had to be like, yes, this is, and then just like spending time with them, listening to them and like, okay, is this true to who you are? And like coming with a learner’s approach before I could create that protagonist. And then even when I got to like the second book where like, okay, now I’m, you know, a hundred thousand words into this protagonist, getting them to read the second book to be like, Please, you know, read this again and trying to not reading it to like, approve of what I’ve done, but asking them to read it coming as a learner to be like, am I getting this right? So like in the book I’m working on right now, which is a little bit of a kind of personal memoir, a fictionalized memoir of my struggle with kind of my evangelical upbringing. I have a homosexual couple in the book. And so, you know, going to some of my friends that are part of the community and the LGBTQ community and asking them like, “Hey, how does, how does this feel? Am I doing this, right?” Like, is this, how do I change this to make this more authentic and honoring of the community so that these characters represent who they’re supposed to represent in the world. So for me being able to do that and having somebody who tends to feel underrepresented, suddenly feel represented. That brings me a ton of joy. Like that makes me really, really happy when I write it. So I think it’s about finding, and that’s not, I know that’s not for everybody. Like that’s a kind of personal calling, but I think finding that kind of thing, that like turns your writing into this gift for a specific group of people.
Rachael Herron: [00:39:14] Well, and what I love, what you’re saying about this too, is that you’re not doing it because it’s the in thing, because it’s, you know, because people are talking about this right now, you’re doing it for the right reason, with the right motivation and listening to the marginalized communities that you’re attempting to represent.
Jeff Elkins: [00:39:29] Yeah. And you know, it really, this is just a funny story, but it really hit me when I was working on my first book and my first fiction book, which is called Mankind and the Monsters, and I was really kind of just like playing with the plot in my head and like trying to decide, I, I had never written anything six, six, seven years ago, I guess it was, I had never written any fiction at all. And so I was just kind of like, how does this work? And kind of like thinking it through. And it was right when the Marvel movies were coming out real big. And I remember I’d taken my, my family makes it a point that we live amongst people who aren’t like us. Like, that’s a really important part of the culture we’re building as a family. So like, my son was in a primarily African-American elementary school. And so we were going to the movies and he had like some of his friends with him who were all African-American and I watched them like, obsess over this movie poster free Black Panther, where like everybody on the Avengers posters are white and they’re like debating which Avengers character they’re going to be. And I’m like, man, none of those really represent them at all. Like it’s you know, you’ve got the billionaire Ironman and then you’ve got the like, you know, like kind of like a military, you know, white guy and Hawkeye, and then you’ve got the, like, you know, white woman assassin, and then you’ve got the white scientist and then you’ve got the you know, Norse God. And it’s like, all right. So it’s great that they can find themselves in these characters still, but this is messed up. Like, this is, this is wrong. So that’s when I was like, okay, this needs to be- this is, if I’m going to do this thing, this has to be part of what I do.
Rachael Herron: [00:41:13] And we do need to point out too that then I’ve said this on the show many times, but you have to be careful and you have to go into it consciously and delicately
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:21] Oh as a learner yeah
Rachael Herron: [00:41:22] Yeah and, and you, I trust to do this.
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:25] Well, it’s a lot. I don’t trust me to do this. That’s part of the reason-
Rachael Herron: [00:41:27] Well that’s good.
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:28] That’s the reason it works
Rachael Herron: [00:41:29] Keep that up
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:30] If you, if you trust yourself to do this stop,
Rachael Herron: [00:41:35] No, I’m serious. That’s a really great point. If you think it’ll be great at it, you are not the person to
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:39] Don’t do it. Don’t do it
Rachael Herron: [00:41:43] That’s amazing.
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:44] Don’t do it, you’re gonna screw it up. Don’t do it.
Rachael Herron: [00:41:45] Let’s move forward into the craft tip because this is where I’m really anxious.
Jeff Elkins: [00:41:50] Yeah. Sorry, I’ll blabber all day.
Rachael Herron: [00:41:52] No, I’m, I’m, I’m guiding us. That’s perfect. So you are the dialogue master and you very kindly, you kindly reached out to me after I did
Jeff Elkins: [00:42:04] that makes me really uncomfortable. Okay, so
Rachael Herron: [00:42:07] I recently did the mini episode where I, somebody asks me like, how do you differentiate the voices of characters. And my answer was I don’t in a first draft. I just don’t bother,
Jeff Elkins: [00:42:19] Which hurt my heart. I was like, Oh, no, no!
Rachael Herron: [00:42:23] So I would like you, I would like you to try to convince me to do it a different way because it works for me. And I do differentiate them later. But how do you do, talk us through a little bit of your process? The dialogue doctor.
Jeff Elkins: [00:42:33] Yeah. So I started the dialogue doctor last fall, really, J Thorn grabbed me and was like, Hey, you know, we’re talking about my writing career. Like, where’s this going? And it landed on like, this is a way I can help other people, like, this is something I can do to give back to the author community that’s like given me so much. So
Rachael Herron: [00:42:54] He was so excited about it. He told me on the side. He’s gonna do this so yeah. You know he really, really believed in it
Jeff Elkins: [00:43:01] And so what I’m doing, before we get into what it is. So what I’m doing is I’m taking what I’ve been doing for the last six years in the simulation world where taking the skills I’ve learned as this professional mimic who writes simulations and has to create different voices, from all different walks of life and worlds and applying that to fiction. So it’s, it’s, I’m taking these tools we use to build these simulations and adapting them for fiction writers. So, let’s talk about the problem first just to define it well. Though, though what I am affectionately calling your problem is mono-mouth. Which means all of my characters sound the same
Rachael Herron: [00:43:44] Yes. All of mind do. Always. First draft. Yeah
Jeff Elkins: [00:43:45] Yeah. First draft. And so the goal is, how can I spend like 30 minutes to an hour max before I start writing a book to set myself up for a stronger first draft so that my characters won’t all sound the same.
Rachael Herron: [00:44:01] Yes please, tell me more
Jeff Elkins: [00:44:03] Yeah. So that when I edit, I’m not just editing. I’m not having to rewrite characters, I’m just tweaking. So the other by-product of this that is really exciting is that if you can get different sounding voices, it will actually enable your plot. So, if you can build characters that sound different and that compliment and contrast each other strategically, you can set up the twists and turns in your plot just with their voice, right?
Rachael Herron: [00:44:35] Wow
Jeff Elkins: [00:44:36] Like we can design character voices that don’t just make your first draft smoother, we can design character voices that establish a plot you want to create the character experience
Rachael Herron: [00:44:47] That sounds impossible and like it’s stressing me out.
Jeff Elkins: [00:44:49] I’m sorry, okay, so let’s talk about how you do it. Step number one is totally understand- is understanding what character voice is right. Cause I find that a lot of people don’t even get what that is. So I want you to pick a picture of Daisy, right? Like the white, the white flower with petals around it and the, like the yellow center and I call this the dialogue Daisy, because I feel like the illustration works well. So if we were to go underground and look at the roots of the Daisy, we’re going to find character, sorry, we’re going to find character backstory. We’re going to find the character’s place in culture, we’re gonna find the character’s place in power dynamics, and we’re going to find the character’s like genetics and like, you know, genetic history. Now I find that when I talk to writers about character voice, usually that’s what they’re thinking character voices. They’re like the character voices, the character’s backstory. They’re like, look, I’ve developed character voice. I have an entire file of this character’s bin. I can tell you what this character is doing where they’re two years old. That’s not the character voice, that’s their back story. But those are like the roots that builds your character voice.
Rachael Herron: [00:45:55] That makes sense.
Jeff Elkins: [00:45:56] So having those things like dwelling on those things, isn’t bad. But it’s actually not necessary. You don’t even need to do that. Now I want you to move up from the roots, but what it does is it creates a good foundation for the character voice. I would recommend if you’re trying to do this fast and dirty, if you’re writing a book a month and you have one hour to do this, I would say, do that for your protagonist and maybe your main antagonist and not your, when I say may name the antagonist, I don’t mean like, if we’re talking a Lord of the rings, I don’t mean Sauron the eye in the sky. That’s not your main antagonist, right? Like if your protagonist is Frodo, the Hobbit that’s taking the ring to burn it. Your antagonist is Gollum because that’s the antagonist that he’s going to spend enough, like the massive amount of time with, that’s the antagonist, that’s going to talk the most. So we’re talking about like which antagonist. So I would do it for your protagonist and your antagonist and no other characters.
Rachael Herron: [00:46:53] Love it. I’m all about fast and dirty. Yes.
Jeff Elkins: [00:46:56] Yeah so fast and dirty, right. Like the more characters you do it for the, the kind of richer your palette will be. If we think of like our characters, this is the colors we paint with, the more you do it the more the richer those colors can be, but you don’t need it. Right. If you’re fast and dirty character background, you know, understanding your character’s place and culture for the protagonist, the antagonist, and then move on. Out of those roots, stem the character’s personality. So when we think about backstory, let’s say you’re writing a character that has trauma, right? Like this character has come from an abusive family life. Their personality is the expression of how they’ve responded to that trauma. Right? So maybe they came out of that trauma as super resilient, right? Maybe they came out of that trauma as super sensitive and compassionate. Right? Like, so right now, and when I’m like doing the dishes and like cooking dinner, I’m watching the, I’m watching the TV show, Supernatural and it has two brothers, Sam and Dean, right? Sam and Dean, same character, character background, right? Like horrible life, fathers’ demon hunter trained them to be demon hunters. Personalities are radically different, right? Like Sam is, is at least in the early, I’m only in season 3. So I’m sure he changes later. Early Sam is like very compassionate you know, struggles with the idea of what he does, is always looking for the best in others, right? Like, so this is Sam’s personality. He likes to connect with people. He does, he wants a normal life. He doesn’t want to do this forever. Dean on the other hand is like accepting what his father taught him, where Sam is rejecting it. Dean is accepting it and his personality is hard and cynical and he loves the hunt. And this is what he wants to do.
Rachael Herron: [00:48:45] What a great illustration. That’s awesome.
Jeff Elkins: [00:48:47] Oh, good. Thanks. So from those roots can grow very different stems. So it’s just important that we recognize that like, yeah, that character personality, the backs, the question we have about character personality when we’re looking at the stem is like, so how did they respond to what’s going on in their past? And how did they, how are they responding to what’s happening right now? Right? Like, cause it doesn’t have to be past backstory. It can be present story as well. Right like, so you know, I, I love the movie Juno. And so Juno is a character, is responding to this moment of teenage pregnancy with an extreme chill. Right. Like embracing it for all it is, right. Like not every stem is going to do that. Right. Like that’s, that’s this beautiful kind of like picture of how Juno’s responding to that moment. Right? Like, so sometimes the stem is like, so all that to say character personality is what you do have to do. Right. Like, you do have to talk about your chara- you do have to think about your character’s personality
Rachael Herron: [00:50:02] Coming from those roots
Jeff Elkins: [00:50:03] Coming from those roots and growing up, how much time you spend on the roots is up to you, but you’ve got to grow it up. Then we get to the flower and the flower is the actual character voice. So, what I do when I get to my character personality is I will write down my character personality. I actually have a chart. I use the, I used to this called the Character Wheel. And you can just, you can go to DialogueDoctor.com and get a copy of it. It’s free. You just go grab it. So it’s an Excel sheet and the first column has character backstory. The second column has character personality. The third column has character notes, and then I do three columns, sometimes five. And in the middle of those columns, I have character voice. And what I’m doing with character voices, I’m taking that character personality, which may be full of sentences, right? Like loves to engage with people you know, likes to is helpful, enjoys helping others,
Rachael Herron: [00:50:57] Shy at parties
Jeff Elkins: [00:50:58] Shy at parties, right? Like whatever phrases you want to have, you want to find, and this is the hard part. You want to find four to five adjectives that are going to define that character.
Rachael Herron: [00:51:12] I’m loving this. This is freaking me out. Keep going
Jeff Elkins: [00:51:14] Yes so when you’re looking at your flower, right? Like that person would just have started shy at parties, but loves other people, loves to help. We might say like open, protective, uses lots.
Rachael Herron: [00:51:32] Nurturing
Jeff Elkins: [00:51:33] Yeah. Nurturing, right? Like, and then we want to have some sentences that kind of describe the language they’re going to use. Uses lots of words in one-on-one conversations, but becomes silent in groups. Right. Asks a lot of questions, doesn’t make declaratory statements
Rachael Herron: [00:51:50] Really, really seems to listen more than speak.
Jeff Elkins: [00:51:54] Yeah. And you don’t want more than like two to three of those per character.
Rachael Herron: [00:51:59] Okay.
Jeff Elkins: [00:52:00] You want like four
Rachael Herron: [00:52:01] Cause it would be, I would be confusing.
Jeff Elkins: [00:52:02] Yeah. It gets overwhelming, right? Like this is something you’re supposed to glance put on your wall glance at it and be like got it. Right. So. And you can pair different things with it if it’s helpful. So a lot of times after I build the voice, I’ll, you know, you can find a picture that you want to put with it that matches that voice. The key is build the voice first. And then put the picture to it, right?
Rachael Herron: [00:52:28] What’s your, what picture do you use, I want to use flower pictures. I’m a deep of flowers. I want you know, I want to be the Japanese anemone, you know?
Jeff Elkins: [00:52:38] Yeah. So I’ve used, I use all kinds of things for one book I did colors. I was like, this character is blue, this character’s pink. This character was orange. Now I tell you that in those colors mean nothing to you, the keys, they meant something to me.
Rachael Herron: [00:52:52] Right. We’re all going to, you’re going to take something different away from that.
Jeff Elkins: [00:52:53] Yeah. I could just look up at my like, and so what I do, I create my character wheel. I fill out all of my characters that I think are going to talk a lot. To, for a standard book, you want your protagonist, you want like major allies. So if we’re thinking Harry Potter. Do you want Harry’s voice? You want Hermione and Ron’s voice you want, Malfoy’s voice, in the later books you want Voldemort, but in the first books who cares, right? Like, so
Rachael Herron: [00:53:18] Dumbledore, we need Dumbledore,
Jeff Elkins: [00:53:20] Dumbledore, you need the characters, they’re going to talk a lot. Right? Like, and so getting those, getting those voices arranged in your chart is, is going to set you off on the right foot. And again, three characters. Like, so I’ll do this with people. Like they can hit me up on the site, schedule a session and I’ll actually help you get your book launched. We’ll take an hour. We’ll get your first five characters done.
Rachael Herron: [00:53:43] Oh my gosh. That’s, when you said that thing about the plot and how it can actually affect plot and how the book moves. I can actually understand now how that work
Jeff Elkins: [00:53:52] Yeah. Right. Like, so let’s talk about Harry, right? Like, cause everybody knows Harry Potter. So let’s talk about Harry. Harry’s voice solemn. Right. Like, and we’re talking first book, solemn, outcast, easily frustrated, has something to prove. Right? Lots of declaratory statements never backs down in a fight, Harry Potter, right? Like shit, Harry Potter, you put, so the question is like, we want Harry to mature. And the question Harry is faced with as a character, is who is he becoming? Is he becoming Dumbledore or is he becoming Voldemort? Right? Like, and we have these two voices that we put next to him
Rachael Herron: [00:54:35] and we can elect those voices. Yeah
Jeff Elkins: [00:54:35] Yeah. So Voldemort is the future Harry, if Harry goes bad, right. Like the sullen is exaggerated to bitter and angry. The feeling of an outcast is exaggerated to like this dark revolutionary who’s like trying to take things over. The never backs down from a fight is exaggerated to starting all of the fights. Right? Like, so we’re just getting an exaggeration of Harry’s voice in that way. In the other way, Dumbledore also, right. Like, this is an exaggeration of maturity of Harry’s voice in the other direction, right? Like Dumbledore also never backs down from a fight. Although he lies about it
Rachael Herron: [00:55:13] Also declarative statements, because he’s the boss.
Jeff Elkins: [00:55:15] He’s the boss, right? Like Harry’s clearly future boss. The question is like which direction is Harry Balsam? Now we have to put people around Harry that are going to challenge him to become Dumbledore. And not Baltimore. So what does Harry need? Harry needs a community builder. He needs somebody who loves family. He needs somebody who’s like looking for somebody to attach to. So contrasting Harry’s like isolationists sullen nature with Ron. Though there’s not a solid bone in his body. Right? Like, everything’s fun. But so they contrast, but they also compliment because you need your allies to like line up with each other. So Ron and Harry both feel like outcasts. They both feel like they have something to prove. They both have this aspect of their voice that they’re like not backing down from a fight. Ron’s the third bro- the fourth brother in a large family, right? Like, so he’s got Harry’s like, I have to prove who my older brother knows who he is. My older twins know who they are. I have to prove who I am. And I’m trying to figure that out. Right. And so complementing and contrasting to push Harry in a specific way.
Rachael Herron: [00:56:27] I can see how
Jeff Elkins: [00:56:28] Even Hermione
Rachael Herron: [00:56:29] Oh, yeah, go on with her mind.
Jeff Elkins: [00:56:30] Yeah so well here we go with Hermione who has the discipline, the determination and the grit that Harry needs to adopt in order to become Dumbledore, the like, appreciation for hard work. Studious nature, right? Like you can see that like all of this is missing from Harry’s personality. And if you take Ron and Hermione and smash them together, you get what you want Harry to become.
Rachael Herron: [00:56:54] And I could see how, if you’ve got this chart before you, and you’re thinking about these gaps, cause I really like a chart. I like to see where gaps are
Jeff Elkins: [00:57:01] Yeah. Lay it out
Rachael Herron: [00:57:02] Yeah and I can also see how this would be useful and not only our first draft, I’m going to go grab this immediately, as soon as we hang up, because I’m actually right after this, I’ve got to do some rejiggering of this book. I need it like in the next 10 minutes, because I’m going to get out of this next call. I’m not even kidding. But I can see how this would be useful in the first draft, but also really useful in subsequent drafts too. As you get more and more, you learn more, more about these characters, but I’m assuming also, and something I want to just mention really quickly is we’re running out of time. Is that that voice of the main character will, will it change a little bit by the end of the
Jeff Elkins: [00:57:40] You’re my favorite cause you ask many questions. Now, your picture of the flower, right? You got the big yellow part in the middle. We’ve only been talking about the yellow part around the yellow part of the pedals. So I want you to think about how you as a person, how you change when you talk, when you’re afraid, you sound different. And when you’re excited, when you’re excited, you sound different than when you’re confused. Now you always sound like you, but your voice is modulating based on the circumstances,
Rachael Herron: [00:58:13] So it the tone of voice that’s what we’re talking about now.
Jeff Elkins: [00:58:16] Yeah. And what we’re actually saying is that like there’s aspects of your voice that are going to be exaggerated in some circumstances and muted and others. So let’s go back to that original illustration we had a vulnerable and open and comforting, right? Like when that person’s stressed at well, we had protective in there too, when that person’s stressed, the protective side of their voice is going to increase. They’re going to talk less; they’re going to guard themselves more. Their questions are going to become more outward, focused, and less reflective, right? Like, and all we’re going to do is we’re it’s because we’re in the same flower, we’re just extending into one of the pedals. Right. We’re just going to push into the protective pedal. And then, but when they’re in a moment of intimacy, like let’s say you’re writing a romance and they get to that moment where they’re finally revealing their true nature, right? Their vulnerability is going to increase in that protectiveness is going to diminish.
Rachael Herron: [00:59:14] That gives me goosebumps. This is so freaking useful. I-
Jeff Elkins: [00:59:19] Yeah that’s the goal
Rachael Herron: [00:59:20] Detest heaps, but like, I go, that sounds good, but I don’t know how to use it. This sounds like an incredibly useful thing that I, I want to, I’m not kidding. Please send it to me.
Jeff Elkins: [00:59:33] So, let’s take it. Let’s take it. Give me 30 seconds to take it to the next level for you.
Rachael Herron: [00:59:37] Yes please.
Jeff Elkins: [00:59:38] When you’re writing a series
Rachael Herron: [00:59:39] Yes
Jeff Elkins: [00:59:40] like Harry Potter, you write your character wheel for the first book, right? And then you write your petals. And what I do is when I start the chart. You’ll see if you go to my site and download it, the top chart just says different emotional state. And then you think through what you’re going to do. And you’re like, okay, I know they’re going to encounter these emotional states. And this is a living document. So like, as you write, if you, if you’ve got a new chara- you’re like, oh my gosh, I want to put them in a car chase. Right? Like, and now they’re scared out of their mind, but I don’t have that on my chart. Great. Put up another column, scared out of their minds. How does their voice sound, right? So it’s a living document. You’re, you can constantly expand it and grow it away, but your character is supposed to mature. So by the end of your book, you’ve got all of these things up there. And then what I do is I look at one of the petals and I’m like, this is their main voice now. Through this book, they’ve become more protective. Like it was a sad, tragic book. There were a lot of
Rachael Herron: [01:00:40] Most of the antagonist can go, that’s a great, cause a lot of people struggle, a lot of people struggle with like the antagonist can only progress so far. They will never step into their inner essence, because we don’t allow them to, but they can step into the, the deepest part of this particular petal that you choose.
Jeff Elkins: [01:00:57] Yeah. And then the kind of like higher level of this, even like the 301 level course, after you think of, after you start thinking about like, Okay from book to book, how’s my character changing. Right? Cause part of what I love about using this tool is it forces me to consider how my character should change through the book. I’m starting at this voice and I’m ending at this voice. And that’s how this like that’s one of the things I find useful about this character wheel tool is that it forces me to consider character change when I start writing, when I’m plotting out the character, I’m thinking, okay, who are they going to be at the end? Right. Like, and of course my strategic brain, I’m like, okay, now how do I solve the puzzle to get them from where they are to where they’re going to be. But so, and then it forces you to think like, okay, what, who do I need around them? Well, I like to help them become that person. And then for the antagonist you want, who is enough like them, but going in the different direction?
Rachael Herron: [01:01:52] Go down, I’m thinking about the down escalator instead of
Jeff Elkins: [01:01:54] The down escalator. So you think of like that Batman and Joker. Right. Like really the same person, but like both are weirdos in strange costumes that are causing havoc in the middle of the night. Right. Like it’s just one of them has decided that he’s going to be good about it. And his, the expression of his voice is the opposite of the other. Right. Like, so the Joker’s gone totally bat crazy. And his voice sounds nutty. Right? Whereas Batman’s voice is super reserved and he never says anything, but what they share in common is that they’re really the same personality type in person. The expression of it is just different.
Rachael Herron: [01:02:34] And we want them by the end of it. Well, we don’t care about the joker, but we want Batman or whoever our main protagonist is by the end, I, I’m just really moved by this whole analogy that you use
Jeff Elkins: [01:02:45] Well, the reason and the reason we love the joker is because he’s constantly telling Batman we’re the same
Rachael Herron: [01:02:53] We’re the same. Exactly
Jeff Elkins: [01:02:54] We’re the same,
Rachael Herron: [01:02:55] The worst thing he can say.
Jeff Elkins: [01:02:54] Yeah. And he’s constantly pushing Batman to do the things that he does yeah.
Rachael Herron: [01:03:02] But where we want them to end is, is, I was thinking about like with my best friends or with my most loved people. That’s the point at which I don’t have to think about my voice at all. My voice, just my voice.
Jeff Elkins: [01:03:14] Just your voice.
Rachael Herron: [01:03:15] And it’s the most, it’s the deepest part of myself that I don’t have to worry about and we want to get our characters there.
Jeff Elkins: [01:03:20] Yeah. And this is about just creating sheets to help you.
Rachael Herron: [01:03:23] Yes
Jeff Elkins: [01:03:24] Like that’s all it is. It’s creating sheets to help you get it done so that you don’t have to rewrite a whole first draft. Right. Like it’s taking an hour to like, figure out, like to sit and plot, like, okay, I’m going to plan out my character’s voices to enable faster writing, to enable faster
Rachael Herron: [01:03:41] Today.
Jeff Elkins: [01:03:42] I love it
Rachael Herron: [01:03:44] We’re not even going to get to the other questions and I don’t care because you’ve like, literally solve so many problems. And when my students now say, how do you write voice? I’m like, Oh, I got a podcast for it.
Jeff Elkins: [01:03:56] Oh yeah. I do this thing.
Rachael Herron: [01:03:58] Go to DialogueDoctor.com right now. And so we can find you a dialogue doctor, where else can we find you and your books?
Jeff Elkins: [01:04:06] Oh, my books are wide. So I, you know, well, some of them are wide. Some of them were just on Amazon. You can definitely find me on Amazon. I don’t really have a good author website, so I’m not going to bump it like, but you know, you can find me on DialogueDoctor.com there’s a podcast I’m new to it. So I think I’m about to do my 20th episode.
Rachael Herron: [01:04:27] What’s it called?
Jeff Elkins: [01:04:28] I feel like it will be a dialogue doctor podcast. So go look up the dialogue doctor podcast,
Rachael Herron: [01:04:33] Are you writing a book on this?
Jeff Elkins: [01:04:34] Yes, I’m writing a book on this. It’ll come out in April.
Rachael Herron: [01:04:37] Oh, fabulous.
Jeff Elkins: [01:04:38] Which is great. I’m excited about that. And in the book, so the thing that we haven’t talked about is like manipulating the emotional flow of your characters in every scene and in every, and in the story as a whole, now that you know how to like modular voices, manipulating the most emotional flow so that you can manipulate how your reader feels through the whole book. So that like
Rachael Herron: [01:04:58] Exactly what we want to do.
Jeff Elkins: [01:04:59] Yeah. Thinking about like, how do I want my reader to feel from the beginning to the end and like manipulating that by, by modulating your character, voices to just grab your reader by the heart and like make them feel what the protagonist is feeling. So that’s what the book is
Rachael Herron: [01:05:14] I need your book ASAP. As soon as possible. Do ping me when it is available. And I’ll go ahead and put it in the, you know, in the show center. The show of the week it comes out. Cause I want to work with nobody. Oh, hold on one second for me. All my alarms are going off cause I’m about to start a class. So you have 30 seconds to wrap up
Jeff Elkins: [01:05:34] 30 seconds to wrap up. So if you can’t pay for a session with me, listen to the podcast because I just do sessions on the podcast. So you can get what I do for free. Just go listen to the podcast.
Rachael Herron: [01:05:44] You’re frickin’ awesome.
Jeff Elkins: [01:05:45] All right. I’m going to send you that chart. Thanks for having me on.
Rachael Herron: [01:05:47] No, you are really, really awesome. And it has been wonderful to spend this time with you.
Jeff Elkins: [01:05:50] Yeah, it’s a huge honor. Like I said, you’ve had a huge impact.
Rachael Herron: [01:05:54] No the honor is mine. You’ve just changed like my book writing process.
Jeff Elkins: [01:05:56] Yes! Victory is mine. That’s what brings me joy. This brings me joy.
Rachael Herron: [01:06:02] All right. Take care of you.
Jeff Elkins: [01:06:03] Bye. Rachael,
Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/
Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.
Join me.
❤️ Let me help you do the work of your heart. ❤️
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