Usually when people refer to the three H’s they mean “Hands, Head, and Heart.”

 “He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi

For me the three H’s are head, heart, and humor. In my opinion, the best books, movies, fictional characters, and people in real life have all three. Writing the three H’s is all about knowing your characters. Some of my favorite authors skip the humor (it’s hard to write), but there is usually a scattering of humor in the most serious novels. They need head, heart, plus lots of good character, story, plot, and background detail to keep me interested without humor.

When I think about using your head, it includes logic, creativity, curiosity, planning, digging into your memory, feeding the desire to learn, and on and on and on… Some people are better at some aspects than others, but they all keep life interesting. If you keep your mind active, at least you won’t get bored.

Heart means reaching outside ourselves to others. We need interests in people, animals, the environment, or something that lessens our own problems. We need to pay attention to what’s happening to others. Nothing makes you feel better than working to improve a situation or a life. If we are too self-involved, too busy worrying about our own problems, we don’t have time to see what we can do for the people and world around us.

Humor to me is simple. If you can’t laugh at yourself, the world will get you down. You don’t need to be joking and laughing all the time, just be able to see the humor in everyday life. People said my mother didn’t have a sense of humor, but I thought she had a superior one. She may not have “gotten the joke” or understood what was funny about a silly movie or a TV sitcom, but she had a subtle sense of humor. She could laugh at life and she could induce that ‘roll on the floor out of control’ laughter in her children.

I googled the three H’s and found others. One site talked about creating music and listed honesty, humanity, and hooks. I guess that could apply to writing, too. There are other important ones, health, hope, and happiness. We can work at having good health, but we don’t always have a choice when it leaves us. I’ve known people with serious health problems who are still lively, interested, involved, connected to others, and living fuller lives than some who are perfectly healthy. Hope and happiness are positive attitudes that should follow if we use head, heart, and humor appropriately.