The Inner Turmoil of Your Characters

by S. Dionne Moore

We all have an inner demon, that one area of our life or tragic event of our past that we struggle to overcome. This inner demon doesn’t have to be something terrible; it can be something as simple as pride or a tendency toward selfishness. For many of us it’s more than one thing. Some people wear their inner demons for all to see, or talk about them ad nauseaum. On the flip side, there are those who are reticent to speak of their struggles or who hide them well. In our stories, inner turmoil is an essential element to creating a realistic hero or heroine, and how each character shows or doesn’t show their inner turmoil makes for some great characterization.

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Prequel to The Remnant, by Author Monte Wolverton

The Remnant by Monte Wolverton

By Monte Wolverton

On a sweltering noon in late September of 2062, Bob Day was walking south along the narrow 2nd St. NW in Washington D.C. He was on a lunch break from his job at a small Capitol Hill publisher. He had skipped breakfast that morning and he was ravenous—seriously drooling for a California Chicken Club at Hamilton’s Bar and Grill. Bob rationalized that the avocado would certainly cancel out the bacon. Not that there had been any California avocados for the last 40 years. Now they all came from Mexico or Central America—the world’s breadbasket.

Bob was well aware of the big international standoff that had been going on for a week—something about a Russian-backed coup in Mexico City, and the Pope (who was staying there in the Western Vatican) being under house arrest. The U.S. wanted the Russians out. Other nations had taken sides. Powerful warcraft with armed particle beam weapons were cruising around the skies. It all sounded nuts to Bob, and the D.C. culture made even the most earnest person jaded about such crises. And anyway, skilled diplomats and politicians were surely negotiating some kind of truce—possibly within a few blocks.

Bob pushed open the old oak door of Hamilton’s, stepped into the cool air and claimed a table. He ordered a sandwich and a Widmer Hefeweizen (still made in Oregon, but from Mexican hops, wheat and barley). While he waited, he got involved in a holovideo of an ongoing soccer game floating in the center of the room. Coup notwithstanding, Ciudad Juárez was pummeling Atlanta.

His food and drink finally came. Darn—he had let time get away from him, and he still had 50 pages to edit this afternoon. He wolfed down the Chicken Club and quaffed the beer, scanned his ID tat for the 52 dollar tab and walked out the door. This time he decided to walk south around the block and take 1st St. back to his office.

As usual, a view of the brilliant Capitol dome in the midday sun gave Bob a twinge of pride. Funny thing was, when he looked skyward, he saw what seemed to be two suns. One was the normal sun, high in the southern sky. The other was a pinpoint of rapidly intensifying light directly overhead. Then the air began to shimmer. Cars careened off the street. Pedestrians fell limp in their tracks, and with a wave of searing heat that seemed to catch the very air on fire, the capitol dome began to vaporize.

Bob’ mouth opened but no sound came out. He barely had a chance to experience horror, sadness and pain as everything, including Bob, turned to powder. Next thing he knew, he was in some kind of different place.

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New Book Sneak Peek by Monte Wolverton (Click to Tweet)

Author Monte Wolverton

Monte Wolverton is an author, illustrator and syndicated editorial cartoonist. His 2014 novel, Chasing 120, won an Illumination book award. He serves on the boards of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and Plain Truth Ministries, where he is also as associate editor and contributing writer. His work has appeared frequently in MAD magazine and more recently in Washington (DC) Monthly magazine. He participated in the 2014 St.-Just-le-Martel Editorial Cartoon Festival in France, and in 2015 was invited to serve as a judge for the prestigious Xaimen International Animation Festival in China. He is an ordained minister and holds an MA from Goddard College in Vermont. Wolverton resides in his native southwest Washington State with his wife Kaye.

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Unlocking the Passion

by Author S. Dionne Moore

Almost twenty-one years ago, my daughter was born. The light of my life. As every first-time mother will tell you, she was perfect. A gift. Except, she was born too early. At one pound and fifteen ounces, her condition was fragile at best. We spent seventy-five days in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) as she struggled to breathe, much less suck and swallow, a reflex natural to full-term babies. 

Good days were always tinged with sorrow, and bad days sometimes became the stuff of nightmares. Those times when you entered NICU and saw an empty bed where an infant had been the night before, your emotions rolled between grief for the parents, relief that it wasn't your child, then guilt over your relief. 

When the day came that we brought our baby home, it was glorious. We were filled with joy. We willingly dragged along the heart rate monitor just to have her out of NICU, and a chance for normalcy. Granted, our days were filled with more worry than most new parents, more concerns about our child's growth and development, but the question of life and death had at least been settled.
In the midst of all this I came to the slow realization that I needed an outlet for the coiled knot of hope and fear that had become my constant companion. A hobby that I enjoyed. I turned to writing. A hobby I had not dabbled in since my teenage years. 

I started small. The Preemie Experience was my heartfelt tribute to mothers of premature infants, and the culmination of experiences of other young mothers with whom I swapped stories during our stay in NICU. In that day, Geocities was the way to publish a blog on the Web, and that's what I did with my tribute. To my surprise, I was contacted by an editor who was compiling stories from other parents. She asked if she could use my article as the prologue for her book, Living Miracles: Stories of Hope from Parents of Premature Babies. It was a thrilling moment, and one that made me reconsider old story ideas I had developed in my teens, with a mind to writing a book. 

Brides of Wyoming

My new journey to write fiction began with a lot of learning. Mastering the rules of writing, the best ways to help your publisher market your book, and all about developing story, conflict and characters. After a few years of conferences and meeting with editors and agents, I received feedback from a professional encouraging me to use my sassy, mature, secondary character as a heroine. LaTisha Barnhart was born. Within a year I had finaled in a writing contest with the opening chapter of a cozy mystery in which LaTisha held the starring role. It was for this book, Murder on the Bunions, that I received my first contract.

My journey in writing continues in the form of my newest release, Brides of Wyoming (11/1/2016), an anthology of three romances featuring heroines who must overcome physical and emotional dangers to learn to live and love to the fullest. And as my daughter turns twenty-one and studies for a degree to become a Paralegal, I have to stop and smile. It's amazing how terrible circumstances can unlock an unrealized passion that brings such joy and dimension to our hearts and minds. And my daughter? She has become a beautiful young woman with a sharp mind a quick smile. She is my heart. My joy. My gift.

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I needed an outlet for the hope and fear that had become my constant companion.~ S. Dionne Moore (Click to Tweet)

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S. Dionne Moore

S. Dionne Moore resides in the historically rich Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, where she indulges her pleasure for history and vacillates between the need to write and the desire to play. Brides of Wyoming is her newest release from Barbour Publishing. 

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