I Use Pinterest and other media to keep my writing on track

Sharing what works for me ~ I'm by no means an expert!

If you’ve been having one of those days where your screen is blank screen and there’s something reproachful about the way the cursor is blinking, then maybe I’ve got something to offer. Sometimes, despite having an idea that’s bursting to become a short story or a book, I struggle to translate the nebulous ideas into words. That’s when I turn to more visual tools to nurture my inspiration.

Writer’s Mood Board

Maybe you’re more familiar with suspect/crime boards from detective shows or think of a mood board as a tool an interior designer would use for a room scheme: I’m all clued up with the ‘tech’ because I’m a regular user of Pinterest. Writers can utilise ‘boards’ as a quick and effective way to spark ideas and maintain consistency with our descriptions of characters and locations.

What my characters look like

Find a picture that captures the essence of your central character. Mine looks like Johnny Depp, but his eyes are icy blue like Piers Brosnan: Placing some lovely blue eyes next to an image of Johhny D. assists whenever I’m describing that character.

Consider his body type, how he moves: Does his lip quirk, or his eyes crinkle when he smiles? Repeat this process for other ‘players’ in your story. An image(s) on which to focus aids consistency and avoids slip-ups. A reader will notice you described one character’s green eyes at the outset, then later referred to their dark brown orbs.

Setting for your story

Even if I imagine my setting as a place from my personal experience, it helps to collect images: a restaurant, a cottage by the sea, a beaten-up old truck, a desolate, rocky region, or the school library. Gathering pictures that depict these places will ‘take you there’ when you look at them and write. Authenticity will shine through your descriptions, allowing the reader to visualise the setting. This is a great help if you’re world building: Try using an AI drawing programme to create the scene that is in your mind.

If I’m writing a novel or a serial, rather than a short story, I make multiple mood boards, or more elaborate versions. My characters may have family, friends, pets, and work colleagues who feature, and the action may happen in more than one place, so I create ‘sub-boards’ to hold their data. How deep you dive into this is entirely your call.

Tip: The writer needs to know these things for the reality to leak into their story, but beware of giving the reader more details than are necessary to move the story along.

One benefit of creating these boards is evident when I take a break from crafting my story. On my return, a review of the mood board swiftly and effectively snaps me back in the zone.

Create a Mood

Building a collage of images can help to evoke the mood and emotions flavouring your piece of writing. Pick 2–3 colours, because science says colour conveys emotion. Exhibit A: the appearance of a book cover or film artwork is no random thing, it is designed to imply the genre of the story within. [My example: most vampire books have a background of black with accents of red and white.]

Seek out pictures that portray the emotion your story should evoke; terror, tranquility, passion, or mischief. It only has to work for you, nobody else sees this mood board. Find an image(s) that conveys the tone you want running through your piece of fiction, to you, pin that to your mood board.

It feels like fun, but you’re working

Working on your board is an excellent thing to do when feeling stuck with actual writing. While creating mood board(s), you are constantly thinking about the interlocking elements of your story, without pressuring yourself to write. The muse is a fickle creature and rarely performs well under pressure. Coming off task a little to create a board allows your muse space to join up the dots, before you challenge yourself to write words.

Any time I get stuck with my plot, I gaze at my mood board — it frequently helps me move forward with my work in progress.

Image on Pixabay — chau_cn

Injecting Authenticity into Characters

Friends and Family

All but the most narcissistic person would be horrified to find themselves portrayed word for word in your fiction, but I see no harm in stealing elements from family and friends to imbue my characters with real traits. Is your brother-in-law quick with a witty response? Does your boss trail off in mid-sentence, having been assaulted with a new idea? Do you know a girl who pouts and preens, always putting herself first? I come from a rowdy, leg-pulling family, so a lot of that banter emerges in my ‘close relationship’ dialogue.

It doesn’t have to be humans: Combine the attributes of a pet’s personality into a character. Give  a boyfriend a dog’s loyalty or a describe a woman in terms of the feline grace and craftiness of a Siamese cat

Steal from Pop Culture

When building a player in a story who feels real to you, ‘channelling’ a pop star is equally effective, or a character from a film or show you’ve watched. I recently needed to write about college-age kids at a party (ahem - my party days were decades ago). It helped to take inspiration from actors in a YA show. I could ‘study’ how they interacted, and I transferred how they talked, bouncing insults off each other and flirting, onto three similar players in my scene. Feedback from my readers was great, they could ‘see/hear’ them too; I’m satisfied that the authenticity of my visualisation transferred into my words.

Match like Miss Marple

Miss Marple [a fictional sleuth created by Agatha Christie] is famous for her ability to solve murders faster than the police force. How does she do it? She cross-references the personalities and motivations of the murder suspects with the inhabitants of her village; people she knows like the back of her hand. I ape Marple by shaping the cheating fictional wife using the pattern of a boss who made my working life hell. I might base a romantic hero on the best bits of a smouldering love interest from my youth. Perhaps you have a friend who doesn’t realise she’s beautiful both inside and out — why not immortalise her as the protagonist who kicks ass in your tale?

When you can truly know the characters as you write, they will jump off the page for your readers too.

Find their Voice

A character’s voice is important. Think how the voice sounds: deep, resonant, squeaky, breathy, with a stutter, sonorous, quiet, [deliberate and snarky, like Professor Snape in the Harry Potter series]. Voice is another trait where shaping your character to the template of a real person helps to make it vivid. The voice you bestow can add mood: A huge beefy character with a squeaky voice appears comical, a stony-faced villain who speaks in a whisper doubles the menace.

Just as importantly, decide how they say things. Will they speak fast, with sibilance, or have a catchphrase? Maybe they refer to everyone as ‘love’ or ‘buster’. Perhaps they overuse people’s names, or start many sentences the same way, e.g. “In my humble opinion, “ or, “Here’s the thing.”

The latter option is a verbal tag and becomes particularly useful when writing a scene that’s purely dialogue. Speech can bounce between your characters like a ball in a tennis match but, if Character A has a distinctive tag, it eliminates the need for attribution (he said, she asked, etc.)

Actor Bruce Willis reportedly had a stutter as a child. He makes great use of pauses in his delivery to centre him so that his words come out right. Fans of the Bridgerton novels (now a Netflix show) may recall the Duke of Hastings employs the same trick to conceal his stutter. It gives him the appearance of deep thought and smouldering insouciance.

Tip: Be sparing when using accents in your writing. If you are trying to convey a sexy Scottish burr, the confused syntax of a non-English speaker, or the dropped consonants of a Cockney sparrow, less is more. Writing it how it sounds (phonetically) can be taxing for a reader to process, especially one who is unfamiliar with the reality of the accent and cannot hear it in their head.

After sharing how creating mood boards and visualising character attributes, such as appearance and speech can help keep my writing consistent, you may be interested in subscribing. My work in progress ‘Meredith’s Tender Awakening’ a Regency Romance Novella is available on my Ream channel. I have free subscriptions to gift if you leave me a comment.