Monthly Archives: July 2026

How Fiction Writers Exploit the Mind-Body Connection

You texted the wrong person—you blush—you feel embarrassed. A snake slithers toward you—you lurch backward and hyperventilate—you feel afraid. You scored a soccer goal—you pump your fist—you feel elated.

Images created with the help of ChatGPT

In Science

Note the order: stimulus—physical response—emotion. It’s as if your body knows, in advance, how you’re about to feel. According to scientists, it does.

Your body reacts first, before your brain feels an emotion. How can your body react so fast and your brain lag so far behind? If our mighty brain distinguishes us from other animals, why that slow response?

Rather than a bug in the system, think of it as a feature. Our species evolved to prioritize readiness over reflection, survival over sentiment. This post by Christine Walter and this post by the Eastside Counseling Center discuss the phenomenon in more detail.

In Fiction

Knowing this human characteristic, how do fiction writers exploit it? How can you use it in your stories?

In books, characters often respond to a stimulus—an event or spoken dialogue. A given character’s body reacts in an instant, most often in an appropriate and unconscious way. That physical reaction may or may not be noticeable to other characters. A moment later, the character feels one or more emotions.

For Point-of-View characters, the writer may (or may not) state the emotion felt. For non-POV characters, the writer must convey their emotions in a second-hand way—by physical actions, tone of voice, word choice, etc.

Sabyasachi Roy expressed these ideas well in this post.

Show, Don’t Tell

A writer may omit naming the emotion, allowing the reader to infer it. Often, the bodily reaction suffices to inform the reader what the character is feeling. Flared nostrils, bared teeth, and flinty eyes convey enough without having to state the character’s anger.

Not only does showing the body reaction make it unnecessary to tell the emotion, it makes for superior story-telling. Readers want to feel emotions along with the characters. Show readers the tingling of a spine, the gasp, the shallow sigh. Don’t just tell us the character felt scared, awed, or nostalgic. In fact, avoid naming emotions at all—allow readers to feel them.

The Emotion Thesaurus

While writing, I struggle to think of the appropriate bodily reactions for a given emotion, especially if I’m not feeling it myself. The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi rescues me every time. This valuable resource provides lists of physical signals for seventy-five emotions. Look up the feeling and peruse the list of bodily reactions. A given character won’t display all the physical signals on the list, so select one or two appropriate ones. You needn’t describe the bodily reaction the same way the thesaurus does. Choose your own words. The book serves as a catalyst for your creativity.

Leaning back in my chair, hands clasped behind my head, smiling as I review this post, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 19, 2026Permalink Leave a comment

Stories in the Stars

As humans, we can make up stories about anything. Take stars, for instance.

image generated using ChatGPT

Sky Patterns

Put yourself in the place of your prehistoric ancestors. To them, the stars looked distant, mysterious, and chaotically random. In trying to make sense of it all, they noticed patterns in the chaos, as we do with clouds and other random displays. However, the star patterns recurred, night after night. Unlike many things on Earth, the star patterns persisted, unchanged.

These reliable, repeating sky pictures demonstrated seasonal changes—never in shape, but only in their position in the sky. As they drifted with the seasons, the shapes, or constellations, became associated with seasonal human activities—planting, harvesting, hunting, etc. Over centuries and millennia, our ancestors passed down not only knowledge of the constellations and their relevance to human activities, but also stories to aid in remembering it all. As civilizations grew more complex, so did the stories.

Pleiades

Pleiades image from Wikipedia

Something about the Pleiades star cluster attracted the notice of multiple ancient civilizations, including the Celts, the Maori, the Achaemenid Empire, the Arabs, the Chinese, the Quechua, the Mayans, the Aztec, the Sioux, the Kiowa, the Cherokee, and the ancient Hindus. The Greeks named the cluster the Pleiades, meaning “to sail,” as the sailing season coincided with its appearance. Later they referred to the cluster as the Seven Sisters. The Japanese called the group “subaru,” meaning “to cluster together.” We see it stylized today on a familiar automobile company logo.

The Greeks

Many constellation stories come to us from the ancient Greeks. Often, in their tales, a deity from their pantheon of gods would honor (or punish) some person or animal by placing them in the heavens. Aphrodite and Eros fled from a monster by transforming into a pair of fish we know as Pisces.

A prince of Troy named Ganymede attracted the eye of Zeus, who made him the cup-bearer on Mount Olympus. We know that one as Aquarius.

When Perseus slayed a sea-monster, the monster became the constellation Cetus.

Reckless driving inspired the meandering constellation of Eridanus. One day, Phaethon took over the task of driving the sky-chariot from his father, the sun-god Helios. Unable to steer it, Phaethon lost control and burned great chunks of the Earth. Zeus struck him dead, and the winding constellation represents the crooked path he took.

Constellations Today

Since the advent of telescopes, we’ve learned what stars are, and we no longer believe gods arranged them in pictures we’d recognize. However, astronomers still use constellations as handy references for naming stars, as well as for locating galaxies and other cosmic phenomena.

SoonerCon

Last month—along with Charles Dane Clark, Gypsy Jess, and Dr. Dara Fogel—I spoke on a panel at SoonerCon titled, “Stars and the Sea: Constellations in Myths and Legend.” That experience inspired this blogpost.

Charles Dane Clark, me, Gypsy Jess, and Dr. Dara Fogel at SoonerCon

Wheels of Heaven

I can’t resist mentioning a story I wrote, since it pertains to this topic. In “Wheels of Heaven,” an arrogant Roman astrologer finds the Greek Antikythera Mechanism. He uses it to determine the positions of celestial bodies, speeding up his process of making astrological predictions. On the voyage back to Rome, he meets a sailor who dismisses astrology. When the sailor’s prediction is right, and every one of the astrologer’s is wrong, he must question his most basic beliefs. At present, the book remains unavailable while the publisher updates their website.

Bunk and Hokum

As I said, few people today believe the constellations of the zodiac have any control or influence over our lives. The fault, dear reader, is not in our stars, and I can prove it. I was born under the constellation Aquarius. As everyone knows, no linkage exists between water or water-bearing and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 12, 2026Permalink 2 Comments

Author Interview—William Bernhardt

At Soonercon last month, I met many authors. One of them, William Bernhardt, has led a jam-packed life. I’d find it easier to list the things he hasn’t done. Reading his bio makes me want to get off the couch and swim the Atlantic just to say I’ve done something he hasn’t. (Note to self—check if he’s done that, too.) I’m guessing he has to update his bio every week just to keep it current. Here’s this week’s version:

Bio

William Bernhardt is the #1 bestselling author of over sixty books, including the nonfiction book The Superman Wars and the Daniel Pike legal thriller series (The Last Chance Lawyer). His previous works include the historical novels The Florentine Poet and Nemesis, The Final Case of Eliot Ness, three books of poetry, children’s and young adult books, and several books on fiction writing. In addition, Bernhardt hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), an annual writing cruise, small-group writing retreats, a magazine, plus a free e-newsletter and podcast. He is also the president of Bernhardt Books.

Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given “in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large.” He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award over twenty times in four different categories and has won the award three times. In 2019, he received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award.

In addition to his novels and poetry, Bernhardt has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and crossword puzzles for The New York Times. He is also a Jeopardy! champion (2013). He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, kayaking, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet.

OSU has called Bernhardt “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.” When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”

Interview

Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you? 

William Bernhardt: I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was seven, or so my mother says, and since she’s my mother (age 97), I think we have to take her word for it. Once I realized people were writing those books I loved, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. The problem was, being a kid in a small town in Oklahoma with no writers, figuring out how to accomplish that!

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?

W.B.: Superman comics, for starters. Comics led to science fiction, like The Martian Chronicles and Slaughterhouse-Five. Comics also led to Shakespeare and ancient lit classics—many of which are basically superhero stories.

P.S.: When I add up all the things you claim to have done, I conclude you are either 200 years old, more than one person, or never sleep. Which is it? If none of those, how to you manage your time?

W.B.: Ha! I hope I get 200 years, but that may be a stretch. I do prefer to stay busy. Keeps me out of trouble. I get up early in the morning and work through the day, first writing, then dealing with other matters. I think I was born with a fortunate gene. Where some people might think, Wouldn’t that be nice?, I always think, How can I make that happen?

P.S.: Your recent book, The Superman Wars (love the cover, by the way), isn’t fiction, but provides a cautionary account of the intellectual property rights to the Superman character. What is the major point of the book and what should writers learn from it?

W.B.: (I love the cover too. I told them I wanted a book anyone could hold without embarrassment, no Zap! Zowie! Pow! or any of that. I thought they did a terrific job.)

This is a cautionary tale I hope all creatives will read. The vultures are still out there, more than happy to take advantage of writers and artists and internet content creators. We still have corporate sharks, plus vanity presses and AI scams and many other threats to the ability of artists to benefit from their work. Protect yourself! Connect with other writers (even if you aren’t the most social person in the world). Get the knowledge you need to succeed. And never sign anything without getting an expert opinion!

P.S.: You’ve been described as Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man, and as a polymath (or a practitioner of Crichtonism, a word I just learned today, named for James Crichton [1560-1582]). Why such varied interests, when most people are satisfied with expertise in one area?

W.B.: Look, we get one life and it isn’t that long. Probably as a result of voracious reading, I have a lot of interests, so I never get bored. And I don’t want to spend my entire life doing the same thing over and over. I practiced law for ten years. That was enough. I wrote a lot of thrillers. But after several of those, I thought it was time for new challenges. As I started researching this book, I realized there was so much more to it than most people, even in the comics world, realize.

P.S.: Do your varied non-writing interests (gardening, cooking, games and puzzles, surfing, hiking, scuba diving, kayaking, caving) interfere with your writing, or supplement it in some way? Do these activities find their way into your novels?

W.B.: The truth is, you can only write so many hours a day. Usually by mid-afternoon, it’s time to do something else. Like prep for WriterCon, the writers conference I co-host, or Bernhardt Books, my small publishing company. I don’t know if that works its way into my books—but my love of comics has over and over again. And we do take vacations. In May I spent a week roaming around New Mexico with my daughter Alice, hiking and rock climbing (nothing dangerous) and exploring caves. I consider myself fortunate to have built a life that allows me to do so many things I enjoy.

P.S.: What is WriterCon, and why did you start it?

W.B.: WriterCon is my annual writers conference, every Labor Day weekend in OKC (September 4-7 this year) and 2026 is our 20th anniversary! We have over 60 speakers, writers, agents, publishers, and others in the industry offering writing tips, publishing advice, marketing angles—whatever people need. We have contests and lots of chances for consultations with pros. I may be biased, but I think it has become one of the leading conferences in the country. Every year I see attendees get agents or publishing deals, which makes me very happy. I started this as a way of giving back. I remember what it was like being a punk kid in a small Oklahoma who wanted to be a writer—but with no clue how to make that happen. I hope WriterCon is making it a little easier for the next generation.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

W.B.: Writing is hard, and nothing is ever going to make it easier (including AI), so I just accept it. My first drafts are always terrible (or so I think), but I will revise and revise until it starts looking like something. I don’t think there is an easy part, but I enjoyed all the research I did for The Superman Wars, even though it ultimately took more than twice as long as I anticipated. I ultimately traveled to eight different states, combed through twelve archived library collections, interviewed more than fifty people and read hundreds of books, periodicals, and unpublished manuscripts. I was able to interview the members of Jerry Siegel’s family, his daughter Laura and her sons Michael and James, who have been reluctant to talk in the past. I even visited Jerry’s childhood home!

P.S.: Tell us about Ben Kincaid, the main character of your nineteen-novel series beginning with Primary Justice. What is he like, and what sets him apart from other lawyer protagonists?

W.B.: He’s Clark Kent with a briefcase. He’s smart, persistent, and wants to help—but he’s also socially awkward, insecure, and needs a partner to fill his vacancies. Christina is his Lois Lane. I’ve started a 20th book in the series but set it aside when I became obsessed with the Jerry Siegel story.

P.S.: You appeared on the TV show Jeopardy! and performed well. Tell us about that experience.

W.B.: That was a blast! I’ve been watching Jeopardy, usually with my mother, since I was four. When they started doing online tests around 2010 I took it and got a callback, then went to New Orleans for an audition, then was asked onto the show. I learned how important speed and buzzer control are. Everyone there was smart, but some people, including me, struggled with the buzzer. During our rehearsal, I didn’t get a single chance to answer a question. The producer actually came up to me and whispered, Bill are you trying to ring in? Yes, of course I am! but I wasn’t as quick as I wished (I was the oldest person in the green room by almost 20 years, not that I consider that an excuse). Anyway, once the questions got tougher, I managed to get in enough correct responses to become a Jeopardy champion.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

W.B.: My next book will be The Batman Wars, and I’ll bet you can guess the subject. Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson and…that other guy. You know, the one who took all the credit. This is a story that is much less well known, and perhaps even more heartbreaking, than the Siegel story.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring authors?

William Bernhardt: Keep writing! Learn as much as you can, but the most important thing is to write. Listen to the WriterCon podcast (it’s free). Put in your 10,000 hours. The more you do the better you’ll get. Then come to WriterCon, learn what you need to know about the business, pitch an agent or publisher. It will happen eventually, if you keep writing and don’t quit!

Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, William. Great advice from the man who’s done (nearly) everything.  

Web Presence

As befits a guy who’s been everywhere, you can find William Bernhardt everywhere online. That includes his website, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and Threads. You can buy The Superman Wars here, learn about, and sign up for, WriterCon here, and subscribe to William’s newsletter here.

July 3, 2026Permalink Leave a comment