Called to Adventure ~ Dorothy Love

Called to Adventure: One Writer’s Journey through Plots, Proposals and Publication

By Dorothy Love

Author and screenwriter Christopher Vogler has identified a set of useful elements for developing plots. As I’ve used these elements over the years, expanding some, deleting others, I’ve become aware of the parallels between my characters’ journeys and my own.

Below are some of the elements Vogler discusses at length in the two volumes of his books The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters (Michael Wiese Productions). Thinking about these elements helped me to flesh out my stories. Maybe they’ll help you, too.

The Ordinary World. Where do your characters normally live? City, small town, fantasy island? What are their lives normally like? Routine? Boring? Challenging? What parts of their ordinary worlds do they love? What parts do they wish were different?

For many years my ordinary world was Dallas, Texas and the world of academia. I was good at it, but I didn’t always love it. Something was missing.

The Call to Adventure. There is your character, blissfully minding his own business, going about his ordinary world, when something happens that draws him out of it. Someone dies. Someone is kidnapped. A fortune is won or lost. And your character, no longer content with his ordinary world, must do something about it. The call to adventure establishes the stakes of the game and answers the question: what does your character have to win or lose?  

My call to adventure came when my husband changed jobs and moved us from Texas to Iowa. I was not at all happy about the move. “You want to write,” he said. “Here’s your chance.”

The Refusal of the Call Your character thinks, “Whoa, this is scary. I’m facing the terrors of the unknown. I’m not sure I can undertake this dangerous journey even with so much at stake.”

I was terrified to take the leap of faith required to actually write a novel and submit it for publication. What if I failed? I imagined a group of black-clad editors in some Manhattan high rise late at night wading through the slush pile and howling with laughter in all the wrong places as they read my story.

In developing your plot, you must create some other influence that comes into play that overcomes your protagonist’s fear. That other influence is often a mentor. Mine was Peggy Moss Fielding, a fabulous writing teacher who convinced me I had what it took to write and publish a novel.  

The Meeting with the Mentor. Feeling unsure and at the same time longing to fulfill the quest, your character seeks guidance from someone older and wiser. Indiana Jones seeks out his father and fellow scientist. Dorothy seeks the Wizard of Oz... The mentor gives advice, guidance, or maybe even special equipment necessary to fulfill the quest. Now, because so much is at stake, your character commits to the quest.

With Peggy’s instruction and encouragement I committed to my goal.

These elements combine to form Act 1 of your novel. In Act 2, your main character meets:

Tests, Allies and Enemies. In which your protagonist begins to understand the rules of the new world into which he has been cast. Think again of Dorothy on the road to Oz, or of the enemies and allies that gather at Rick’s Café Americain in the movie Casablanca. Armed with new knowledge and in the company of his allies, your protagonist approaches the place where the treasure may be found. In the stories of King Arthur, this place is the Chapel Perilous, wherein rests the Holy Grail. What is the Holy Grail for your protagonist?

For me, it was seeing my book on the shelves at Barnes and Noble. But first I had to learn the vocabulary of publishing, the rules for submitting, the roles of agents and editors. And most importantly, the shape of a successful story.

The Supreme Ordeal. This is the black moment for your protagonist, when it seems all is lost, and death, either real or metaphorical, is a real possibility. This is the moment Peggy called “the huddled ball of misery” moment. Every story needs such a moment, when the protagonist and his goals are in jeopardy, success seems hopeless and things simply can’t any worse.  

For five years I experienced that huddled ball of misery moment, that profound sense of failure, each time a rejected manuscript was returned to me. I went through a couple of periods during which I wrote nonfiction and gave up the quest for publication as a novelist.

Now we enter Act 3:

The Reward in which the hero takes possession of the treasure, which might be a physical object, but might also be new knowledge, new understanding. Perhaps this is the point in which your hero and heroine declare their love for one another. Or your character experiences a renewed faith.

My reward came in the form of “the call” in which an editor at a small New York publishing house offered to publish my first novel.

The Return with the Elixir. Your protagonist returns with a special treasure or lesson from the Other World. The elixir might be love, or freedom, or wisdom, or faith. In Billie Letts’ novel Where The Heart Is, the protagonist, Novalee Nation realizes that one lie can change a person’s life and that truth can lead to finding the love she thought was beyond her. She realizes that she has more control over her life than she thought, and that she doesn’t have to remain a victim of fate.

For me, the elixir was the knowledge that with study and practice and determination I could in face write, revise, submit, and sell a novel. My sixteenth novel, Carolina Gold came out in December, and I’ve just turned in my next one to be published in 2014. May you experience this same elixir. There is nothing else quite like it.

Dorothy Love is the award-winning author of numerous books for adults, preteens and young adults. Her popular Hickory Ridge series, set in her native Tennessee marked her return to her writing roots in historical fiction and introduced readers to her trademark blend of history, mystery and romance. Love’s latest release is Carolina Gold (available December 2013). Her next book, a romantic mystery set in antebellum Savannah, will be published in 2014. She lives in Texas with her husband and their golden retriever and welcomes readers at www.DorothyLovebooks.com and at www.facebook.com/dorothylovebooks.

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Solving Mysteries Through Research ~ by Sally J. Ling

Sally J. Ling, Florida’s History Detective, is an author, speaker, and historian. She writes historical fiction and nonfiction and specializes in little known stories of Florida history.

As a special correspondent, Sally wrote for the Sun Sentinel newspaper for four years and was a contributing journalist for Boca Raton, Gold Coast, Delray Beach, Boca Life, Jupiterand Palm Beacher magazines.

Based upon excerpts from her book Run the Rum In, Sally appeared in two TV documentaries-- “Gangsters” - the National Geographic Channel, and “Prohibition and the South Florida Connection” - WLRN, Miami. She served as associate producer on the latter production.

She has been a guest on South Florida PBS TV and radio stations, guest presenter at the Lifelong Learning Society at Florida Atlantic University and Future Authors of America, and guest speaker at numerous historical societies, libraries, organizations, and schools. 

Sally lives with her husband, Chuck, and her cat, Kitty, and splits her time between Deerfield Beach, Florida, and Wolf Laurel, North Carolina.

Research is Like a Mystery Waiting to be Solved

Sally J. Ling

As a child, I loved putting jigsaw puzzles together. My two sisters and I would spend hours hunched over the card table, fitting the borders together first then finding just the right pieces to make the 1,000-piece puzzle resemble the picture on the box. The hunt for each piece was exciting, like trying to solve some mystery. Perhaps that is why I so like doing research for my books today.

Whether I’m writing historical nonfiction about a fascinating part of Florida history or a novel, I always approach my research as though it’s a mystery waiting to be solved. It keeps me motivated, and I never know where the smallest piece of information will take me. Consider the case of the missing child.

While researching the 1948 Boca Raton, Florida, double homicide of the prominent Italian sculptor and his wife, Leno and Louise Lazzari, I noticed in the police deposition that Margie, the woman who found the bodies, stated that when she came to live at her current home in West Palm Beach in 1934 there were five Constiglioni children. The 1930 Census Report I held in my hand, however, listed six children. One child was missing. Though the missing child wasn’t really central to the account of the homicides, the questions who, what, when, where, and why became an itch that needed to be scratched.

Through genealogical records, I discovered that it was Gloria, the fifth Constiglioni child, who was missing. The mystery became more intriguing when the police report from the homicide stated that in 1932 Gloria’s mother Theresa was committed to the state’s mental hospital. My nose said that the two incidents were connected, that something horrific had happened that sent the mother over the edge. But what?

After obtaining the child’s death certificate from the state, part of the mystery was solved. The four-year-old child accidently caught her clothes on fire while playing with matches. She was severely burned in the incident and died in the hospital two days later. Now I had partial proof of what I suspected—there was a horrendous incident. But . . .  was this really what sent poor Theresa to the mental institution? After all, she didn’t enter the hospital until two years after the child’s death; and, even though I had the deposition, police and census reports, and death certificate, I couldn’t just go on my hunch. I still needed concrete proof of a direct connection between the two incidents. That came just days later.

Solid research is the foundation of any good book, whether fiction or nonfiction. It makes the story believable, it gives the author credibility, and in a novel, provides enough truth to allow the mingling of fiction with fact to draw the reader in and make the entire story credible. In my latest biblical novel The Cloak, several readers actually asked me if the story was real. If the reader cannot separate fact from fiction, the author has accomplished his or her goal and received the ultimate compliment.

Gloria’s mystery was solved when, through a combination of research and luck, I found two of her sisters. At ages 88 and 92, they were able to confirm my hunch and provide the rest of the story. Their mother was so distraught by the unfortunate death of Gloria she literally lost her mind. Her admittance card from the Florida State Hospital stated she was “chronically insane.”* There was my proof.

As I mentioned, you never know where your research will lead. It was because of Gloria’s mystery and the fact that Theresa wound up in the Florida State Hospital that my latest nonfiction book, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, was born. It is the first book to give a complete history of the mental facility at Chatahoochee, Florida, after more than 135 years of existence.

So, you see, research really is like a mystery waiting to be solved.

*This is not a standard term used in today’s mental health field.

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Researchng History ~ Melanie Dobson

Melanie Dobson has written twelve contemporary and historical novels. In 2011, two of her historical novels won Carol Awards:  Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa (for historical romance) and The Silent Order (for romantic suspense). This fall her latest novel, Where the Trail Ends, will launch American Tapestries, a historical romance series based on significant events that have shaped our country.Melanie and her husband, Jon, enjoy exploring their home state of Oregon with their two daughters. When Melanie isn't writing or playing with her family, she enjoys exploring ghost towns and cemeteries, line dancing, and reading historical fiction. To learn more about Melanie and her books as well as more information about her research trips, please visit 

Researching a Historical Novel

By Melanie Dobson

My favorite part of writing a historical novel isn’t the actual writing. It’s the research.  I love exploring old houses and museums, tracking down experts, and reading diaries. With each discovery of information, my story begins to take shape. There are five specific ways that I research to both develop my plotlines and add authenticity to my historical novels.

Visit the Location

My first historical novel was about a Quaker woman who ran an Underground Railroad station so I spent days exploring hidden places that had once been used to harbor runaway slaves. In one home, I climbed the secret staircase hidden in a closet and crept over the exposed nails and boards to the room where the Quaker homeowners once hid runaways. At night I stepped out into the surrounding forest, when the cloud cover masked the stars and the only sound was the hoot of an owl. My heart raced as I wondered what a runaway slave might have felt like in that horrible blackness, pursued by a slave hunter and his dogs. How would she find a safe place to hide for the night? While the terrain and photo features on mapping websites help tremendously with geographical details, it is invaluable for me to experience my main setting as well so I know a bit of what my main characters would have seen, heard, and smelled.

Interview Experts and Locals

Because I’ve written both historical and contemporary fiction, I’ve interviewed experts about everything from how to sell stolen goods online to the technicalities of delivering mail in the late 1800s. I’ve spent hours interviewing about the inner workings of the Mafia, what it was like to grow up in a religious cult, and how a family could travel for six months across our country in a wagon. I’m always surprised by something I discover during these interviews, something I hadn’t been able to uncover in the books I’d read.

The most important interview I ever did was with an Amana woman named Emilie. I asked her a simple question—what were Amana women passionate about in the 19^th century? The answer to that question—friendship—shaped my entire novel.

Explore Museums and Landmarks

Living farms, museums, and historical villages like Williamsburg or Old Salem offer a unique and educational window to the past. I learned how to run a printing press in Ohio’s Roscoe Village, cook on the open hearth at a National Historic Landmark in Indiana, and drive an Amish buggy at a museum in Walnut Creek. Many of these museums and historic landmarks will give private tours to writers, and the friendly tour guides are often a seemingly endless source of information.

Invade the Library

One of my books was inspired by a beautiful mansion in Ohio that had been built before the Civil War. I couldn’t find information about this house, but the town’s librarian unearthed a research paper written sixty years ago that included pictures of the mansion, historical detail, and folklore about a secret tunnel that ran—and maybe still runs—underneath. This one paper gave me the information I needed for the details of my fictional house and helped form my plot.

Newspapers, magazines, diaries, archived research papers, and of course, books provide basics like how people dressed and what they ate during a specific era as well as more abstract concepts like how they approached life and what world events shaped their thinking.

Surf the Web

How did writers write before the Internet? I ask myself this question almost daily as I search for specific words or facts online. One of the most effective ways I’ve been able to use the Internet is to establish contacts where I can get additional information about a difficult research topic. In one novel, for example, I needed specifics on how a telephone would work in 1890, but I couldn’t seem to find this info anywhere. Then I found someone online who sold phones from this era, and we dialogued via email until I had my answers. Without him, I’d probably still be wondering.

It’s hard for me to stop researching, but after a month or two of work, I finally organize what I’ve discovered and input it into Scrivener. Then I use this research to begin writing my story.

Love Finds You in Mackinac Island, Michigan is Melanie’s latest novel.

As the Gilded Age comes to a close, Elena Bissette’s family has lost most of its fortune. The Bissettes still own a home on fashionable Mackinac Island, and they spend summers there in hopes of introducing Elena to a wealthy suitor. Quickly tiring of the extravagant balls at the Grand Hotel, she spends her days walking along the island’s rugged coastline. There she meets Chase, a handsome laborer who invites her to watch the ships from an abandoned lighthouse. The two begin to meet there in secret, hoping to solve a mystery buried in the pages of a tattered diary. As Elena falls in love with Chase, her mother relentlessly contrives to introduce her to Chester Darrington, the island's most eligible bachelor. Marriage to the elusive millionaire would solve the Bissettes' financial woes, and Elena is torn between duty and love. 

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