Alana Cash – Developing Your Writing Style

Developing Your Writing Style

by Alana Cash

The number one way to develop writing confidence and style is to accept that rewriting is part of the process of developing not only a story, but a writing style.  This is true because sometimes when you sit down to write and get those first few words on paper, you are just priming the pump – you keep going until things click and you feel you are in the story.  When you get the story down, you can go back and edit out whatever isn’t strong.

When I was teaching, I read my students’ stories aloud in front of the group and then offered some suggestions for rewrites (this was the advanced class).  As I read the stories, I got a feel for the student’s writing style through the cadence of the words.  I could also tell when they had added phrases or descriptions that didn’t fit with the story, but they might have unconsciously picked up something from a bestselling novel or a writer that they admired.  These phrases or descriptions might sound beautiful, but didn’t move their story along and detracted from it.

I always spoke about the strengths in any story before I made any sort of suggestions.  I remember one student saying, “This is the second writing class I’ve taken and you’re telling me I’m still making mistakes.”  First of all, editing a story doesn’t mean there are mistakes.  It means there are ways to strengthen the story – the characters, the plot, the sensibility that the writer wants to get across.  Second, mastering the art of writing is a not a two-class process.

When I originally wrote “Frying Your Burger” (the novella in HOW YOU LEAVE TEXAS) it was over 300 pages long.  Over time, I cut characters and some extraneous little scenes.  Those scenes might have been funny, but I wanted a distilled, lean story that carried Nicky [the protagonist] from denial of a family secret to divulging it.  As she did that, her choices in men changed substantially.  What sensibility I wanted to impart is that if we lie to ourselves, we’ll find ourselves involved with people who lie to us.

As the story became more refined, I became more satisfied with it and felt more confident to share it.

A exercise for developing a writing style is to share your work in a group. Writers generally work alone and it’s easy to deny lumpy places in a story where you’ve overwritten or places where you got off track.  But when you hear your story read out loud (whether by yourself or someone else), you can’t deny the places where the rhythm is off or where the language suddenly became overly descriptive or too barren or you just went off on a tangent.  A story needs balance and you’ll hear where your story tips.  You can ask for suggestions, but don’t try to please every critic.  Know the goal of your story – what you want your reader to know and feel from reading it – and pay attention to the suggestions that you believe will get you there.

All this sounds easy for me to say, but it takes time.  Writing is a mastery process.  I don’t know any “born writers.”  You can’t buy a writing style any more than you can buy the ability to run a marathon.  Writing talent develops over time.  And developing a real talent and confidence in that talent takes passion.

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Genre –  Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Blog http://howyoulovetexas.blogspot.com/

Carla Woody – How to Tap the Creative Genius of Walt Disney

How to Tap the Creative Genius of Walt Disney

by Carla Woody

When you’re writing, you definitely need to tap your creative juices as an ally…and I’m going to give you a tool to do so. It’s a creativity strategy, actually the process that Walt Disney used so successfully. He was able to transform his ideas into an entertainment empire—and touch people around the world. His legacy still does.

He called his process “imagineering.”
NLP developer Robert Dilts studied how Disney did what he did. I’m going to share his findings with you. One of Disney’s animators summed it up like this: “There were actually three different Walts: the Dreamer, the Realist and the Critic.” In other words, he had three different thinking styles. Each one involved a different perspective.

The Dreamer’s job is to think up possibilities. This is the part of you that brainstorms and daydreams. The Dreamer’s best location for the job is in dreamland where nothing is censored. Even though something may seem irrelevant, a piece of an idea may grow legs. So the Dreamer sets the stage by creating this framework: If I could wave a magic wand and have everything I want…what would it be? What would I create?

The Realist’s job is to turn dreams into reality—to ground ideas—by defining the structure. The Realist is essentially a planner who answers these questions: How can I extract the core element of the dream? How does the idea break down into themes? How do the themes break down into piece parts within a theme? How can I convert this data into steps and a plan that is realistic?

The Critic’s job is to play devil’s advocate and to look at what could go wrong. The Critic stands at a distance, scrutinizes and asks these kinds of questions: If this happens…then what? How are others going to react? How does it make me feel? Is it worth it? Can I improve it?

People get into trouble when they don’t incorporate all three thinking styles, or if the process overlaps. If the Dreamer doesn’t work with the Realist, then ideas are just ideas; or consider how quickly the Critic can shut down the Dreamer if he comes in prematurely and trods all over the idea. You’ve probably seen this happen in a group or experienced it yourself. But when the Realist can take the ideas of the Dreamer and put them into form…THEN the Critic can help evaluate and refine the outcome by asking questions back to the Dreamer and Realist AFTER they’ve completed their initial run.

It’s important to guide the process in such a way that you use appropriate language and questions as I noted. Imagine if the Critic said: That won’t work! Why are you doing that? You’re a fool!

Here’s a case in point: Some years back I used the Disney process with a client. He was having a very difficult time dreaming at all. With some encouragement he was finally able to dream…and then broke down in tears with relief. He said that about ten years prior he’d made some risky business moves and ended up with losing his business. His inner Critic became vicious. His Dreamer went into hiding, torn to shreds. It was through this process we did together that his Dreamer re-emerged…AND his Critic learned how to be a viable part of the team.

So this is the process to use in your writing project so that it hangs together well:
1) Allow the Dreamer to dream without interference;
2) Next, have the Realist take the ideas and see which can be put into actual form and sequence;
3) Finally, invite the Critic in to evaluate, to ask questions that will bring clarification from the Dreamer and further analysis from the Realist.

Of course, you can use what I’ve written here as guidelines for any aspect of your life, not just writing. I’ve adapted the content from my mentoring program
Navigating Your Lifepath, which guides folks on how to live through their deeply held values—and thrive.

I invite you to try on Walt Disney’s creativity strategy. Let me know how it works for you in the comments below!

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Genre –  Fiction / Coming of Age / Historical

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.kenosis.net/

Garry Rogers – The True Beauty of Book Covers

The True Beauty of Book Covers

by Garry Rogers

I only recently began to question the old line, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”  Having never really given the subject any thought, I always assumed that the sole purpose of a book cover was to attract buyers.  I thought of it as an advertising gimmick that served a commercial purpose and had nothing to do with the quality of the story.  I felt that plain covers might be more honest and desirable.

When I completed my first novel, “Corr Syl the Warrior,” my attitude changed.  I was concerned that since I had no reputation at all, there might be no readers.  I was confident that some readers would like the story, but I was suddenly concerned that those readers might never stumble upon the book.  I decided that I needed a snazzy cover.

The only thing I knew about eBook cover design was that the fonts had to be legible at thumbnail sizes.  Other than that, I assumed a book-cover designer would create something attractive that would appeal to potential buyers.  I checked a few websites for examples, and chose a designer that had made some science fiction covers.  I provided a one-paragraph book description and a few pictures, and sat back to see what she would produce.

The designer did a great job with what I gave her.  She proposed a few options, suggested colors and fonts, and ended up doing a beautiful job.  Along the way, I thought more about book covers and realized that I had missed an opportunity.  I began looking closely at the covers on the books on my shelves and I realized that book covers could play a significant role in telling a story.

With shapes, colors, and text, a cover could set a mood and it could illustrate important story elements.  An author could use the cover to foreshadow important events within the story.  I realized that the cover could also help define characters, give a real glimpse of a setting, and give clues to the story theme.

The first book I read to myself, “Tarzan the Terrible,” has gone through numerous printings since its publication in 1921.  And it has had at least 20 different covers.  The covers range from simple text to images that seem unrelated to the story, and to images that illustrate important scenes and the story theme.

As a child, I often wondered what the image on the cover was.  I imagined several possibilities, and finally settled on one.  I think it depicts a particular scene in the story.  I could be wrong.  If you think you know what the image is, add a comment to the post on my website.

Book covers can be more than mere advertising, or even works of art.  They can be beautiful, informative, and suggestive all at once.  A cover designer might achieve all that, but a designer working together with the book’s author is more likely to take full advantage of the opportunity the cover provides.  If the author can describe what the cover could show, a good designer can probably put it together.

So, can you tell a book by its cover?  YES, if the author takes the time to help with its composition.

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Genre –  Science Fiction

Rating – PG

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Website http://garryrogers.com/

Michel Sauret – The Unfair Criticism of Self-Published Authors

The unfair criticism of self-published authors

by Michel Sauret

I typically hate when people use the word “unfair” in their argument. It has a childish tone, that of someone who isn’t able to deal with reality and resorts to complaining about it instead.

But when it comes to books, self-published authors really do get some unfair treatment.

Immediately, book-reviewers, journalists, editors, libraries and even some readers will jump to the conclusion that unless a book was pulbished through the traditional route, it must suck.

What other artists get that sort of treatment just because they’re unrepresented?

I try to compare self-publishing to things that I know… About three years ago, my wife, Heather, and I started our own photography business. We called it One Way Street Production because of our faith in Christ. We invested our own money (we didn’t go into any debt or borrow money from anyone) to buy camera equipment, computers and editing software, which totaled thousands of dollars. We launched a website that we control and update ourselves directly.

We were a self-started business. Our company name was our own. We worked directly for the clients who hired us, not some third-party representative whose existence validated our work.

Families and brides who wanted to hire a photographer came to our website and judged our work based on its own merit, not based on who represented us. We didn’t need anyone’s permission to take photos. We simply had to produce quality work and make sure our clients were happy.

And yet, in book publishing, most people still believe you must earn someone else’s permission to publish your book. They say, “You have to go through the gate keepers, otherwise you’re no good.”

A few months ago, my sister, Marta, who is also my publicist, helped me set up a workshop on self-publishing at a local college. The professor who helped her organize the event was generous, understanding and very supportive. Marta and that professor posted flyers around the college campus in the weeks and days leading up to the workshop.

The night of the workshop, Marta was setting up the room about an hour ahead of schedule. I wasn’t there yet, but she told me how another professor from that college had come to the room to tell her how much he disagreed with this workshop.

He called self-publishing illegitimate. He called it a crock. He called it no good.

That professor was a coward. That’s what I call him.

He went to my sister to complain about my workshop instead of coming to me directly. After the workshop, I left him a note with my email and phone number inviting him to talk to me, and I still haven’t heard from him.

Not only was that professor a coward, but he was wrong about all of his accusations.

The reality is that self-published authors are gaining ground in the book industry. More and more indie authors are gaining the attention of publishers who originally rejected their books. There have even been self-published authors who hit the New York Times, Amazon & USA Today beste-seller lists!

Up until recent years, the world of book publishing did hold a different standard. There were gate-keepers in the book publishing world more so than in other artistic pathways.

In order to be published, you had to first go through an agent (no publishing house with any sort of reputation would dare to accept a manuscript directly from an author!), then the agent had to go through the publisher, then the publisher had to go through their accountants (in other words, it wasn’t enough for a book to be good, it had to sell!), and then finally the book reached the public!

A whole slew of independent publishing houses (small presses) bypassed that formula and often accept submissions directly from the author, but self-publishing has defied even that principle!

Self-publishing allows authors to skip the agent, the publisher, the editor, even their accountants and go straight to the public.

Self-publishing took the door ram straight through the gate and rushed into the castle uninivited. For that, this form of publishing has left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.

And because we’ve barged into the party uninvited, some have resorted to cowardly name-calling and unfair criticism.

My take, read first, judge second.

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Genre – Short Stories / Literary Fiction

Rating – PG13

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David Jester – 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Becoming a Published Author

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Becoming a Published Author

by David Jester

1. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be. There’s so much work involved that I never accounted for. Endless amounts of editing, rewriting, publishing, marketing and designing, and that’s before I do any actual writing. I want to keep on publishing as many books as I can and ideally want to average 1 per month for the first year. I know I can write enough to fulfill that quota, but it’s not easy to find the time to write.

2. The reviews are hard to take in the beginning. I understand that nothing can be to everyone’s taste, but it’s still hard when those first bad reviews come. The pain eases over time, but as writing is a very solitary job and you’re very temperamental when you start out, they’re hard to accept.

The worst ones are the nonsensical ones. One of my first bad reviews (under my other alias) was from a woman who read another review which mentioned that my book had a lot of swearing in it. She then decided to write a review which ‘warned’ everyone else that the book had ‘foul language’ and told them that was the reason she wouldn’t buy it, let alone read it.

3. It’s lonely and stressful. There is a lot of work and a lot of long hours with only you to shoulder the burden. There’s also a great deal of doubt involved. If you’re not worried that your next book won’t sell, then you’re worried that your current book will stop selling.

4. No one cares.

When I first published my memoir I was worried that people who knew me would want to ask questions about it. There was a lot of stuff in there that I never told anyone, so the thought of them hounding me was the main reason I decided to use an alias in the first place. I shifted 400 copies of that book and expected the topic to be raised not only by my family, but by strangers.

The truth is: no one gives a shit. I have since sold another 30k copies of that book and the questions never came.

When I was a struggling writer, lapping up rejection slips like a melancholic dog, it seemed everyone wanted to talk about it. They all wanted to know how the writing was going, was I any nearer to getting published? Blah blah blah. I hated talking about it. Now that I’m finally published; now that I’m doing well; now that I’m finally happy with them talking about it and asking questions about it, no one mentions it.

5. It’s fun. Despite everything that I’ve just said, despite the long hours, the solitude and the endless doubt and worry, I really love what I do.

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Genre – Horror

Rating – PG13

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Richard Stephenson – “Independent Author” – An Oxymoron

“Independent Author” – An Oxymoron

by Richard Stephenson

That phrase for me is the textbook definition of an oxymoron, like “Act Naturally” or “Jumbo Shrimp”.  I understand that the term was coined to mean independent of the Big Six publishing houses.  The meaning of the term should stop right there and should never be used in any other sense.

I started writing “Collapse” back in March.  I wasn’t even sure I was going to write a novel when I sat down in front of my iMac.  I just wanted to see if I could do it.  I spit out a few chapters and eventually made an outline.  I let my wife and best friend read it and they were impressed.  They encouraged me to keep writing and told me I had talent.  After the first seven chapters I was excited to get the word out and decided to release a sneak peek.  I dumped each chapter into an online grammar check website and made a lot of corrections thinking it was polished and ready for distribution.

Holy cow was I wrong!

I got a lot of feedback from friends and family about how much they enjoyed the story, a few told me that it had some typos and grammar issues.  They also added that it didn’t take away from the story, but the mistakes were there.  About a week later I did a Google search of my novel to see if any interest was growing and found my way into a forum on a book lover’s website.  They tore me to pieces.  After highlighting a few glaring mistakes on the first page, I took the time to slow down and investigate.  Sure enough, the first page had two pretty big grammar mistakes.  I slowly and carefully read the first chapter to find more and more mistakes.  Just hold on a second, I proclaimed, what about the online grammar checks I did?  Surely they caught everything, right?  Nope.  Not even close.  It was clear that I needed help, lots and lots of help.  It was time to find an editor.

I took down the sneak peek and received a gift from God.  It turned out that I knew a retired high school English teacher and didn’t even know it.  My sister-in-law’s mother-in-law had been very excited about the news that I was writing a novel.  I simply thought that she was a supportive fan.  She always replied to my Facebook posts and shared the news on her’s.  She kindly offered to edit out the mistakes from my sneak peek and she did a fantastic job.  She informed me that in her spare time, she edits for friends and family (books, magazine articles, etc.)  Within a few days, the sneak peek was back up   I asked Susan if she would be willing to look at the chapters as I finished them and she enthusiastically said yes.  She stuck with me to the end and polished my manuscript into what it is today.

With an editor on board, I realized I still needed help.  I needed proof readers to give me input on the story. The story made perfect sense to me seeing as how I was the one writing it.  I had to make sure that it would make sense to the average reader.  My proof readers were there to point out when the story starting getting confusing.  They also pointed out contradictions and factual errors that I didn’t catch.  The most memorable one was during Chief Harris’s introductory chapter.  I wrote that one of the hurricanes he weathered, Hurricane Ike (one that I weathered myself) was a Category 5 storm.  Well, it was pointed out to me that Ike was not a 5, he was a 3.  You would think that the memorable event of a raging hurricane passing over me at 4am would ensure I would get that detail right.  That mistake was one of many I made during the creation of “Collapse”.  If I didn’t have proof readers to help me out, the book would have a lot of embarrassing errors.

Once I decided on a release date for my novel, I knew that the book needed a cover.  While I like to think I have a talent for writing, I know without a doubt that I have absolutely no artistic skills whatsoever.  While I am quite the computer nerd, I have no talent with graphic design programs.  Play “Draw Something” with me on your iPhone and see for yourself, I’m a horrible artist.  I was fortunate enough to have interacted with a wonderful artist on Twitter.  Laura Wright LaRoche at www.llpix.com did a fantastic job.  After exchanging a few emails detailing exactly what I wanted, she sent me the design in just a couple of days.  I only wanted a a few minor changes and got this masterpiece.

My advice to any aspiring independent author, get help.  You’re going to need it.

Buy now @ Amazon

Genre – Dystopian

Rating – R

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Blog http://rastephensonauthor.blogspot.com/

Lisa Regan – Who Inspired Finding Claire Fletcher

Who Inspired Finding Claire Fletcher

by Lisa Regan

When I was eleven years old, Jacob Wetterling was abducted from a small Minnesota town.  If you don’t know the story, Jacob, his brother and a friend were riding their bikes home from a local store where they had gone to rent a movie. A masked man with a gun stopped them.  He chose Jacob and told the other boys to run.  Jacob’s brother and friend ran home to alert their babysitter to what had happened.  Jacob was never seen again.

I remember the news coverage like it was yesterday.  It was one of those that-could-have-happened-to-me moments in my very young life. I was the same age as Jacob and I used to ride my bicycle all over my neighborhood without supervision.  Decades passed and I never forgot Jacob or his mother Patty, who galvanized her community and still runs the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center which provides all kinds of resources for families and communities in terms of protecting children. I used that website when I needed reference materials to help me start talking to my own child about sensitive issues like strangers and good secret/bad secret.

All my life I wondered what happened to Jacob.  His body was never recovered.  Is he still alive?  Every few years a story would appear on the national news, reminding us that he might still be out there somewhere.  I would study the age progression photo and wonder if someone, somewhere, had run into him and not even known it!

I wondered what happens to these kids who are abducted but never heard from again?  Finding Claire Fletcher is my fictional exploration of that.  I started writing it years before abducted children like Elizabeth Smart, Shawn Hornbeck and Jaycee Lee Dugard were recovered.  Of course in my novel, the abducted child is a girl and she is a teenager.  I did many things with the plot to make the book more entertaining but essentially it came out of my what-if questions surrounding abducted children and that obsession began with Jacob Wetterling.

“Readers should drop what they’re reading and pick up a copy of Finding Claire Fletcher.”  -Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author

“A powerful, emotionally-charged story by a debut author you’ll want to keep an eye on!” -J.C. Martin, author of Oracle

Newly divorced and with his career in jeopardy, Detective Connor Parks takes solace in the arms of a beautiful woman he meets at a bar. The next morning, Claire Fletcher is gone, leaving nothing behind but an address and a decade-old mystery. The address leads to the Fletcher family home where Claire’s siblings inform Connor that their fifteen-year-old sister was abducted from a city street ten years ago and is presumed dead.

During those ten years, Claire endured the cruel torture and depravity of the man who abducted her. Paralyzed by fear and too ashamed to return to her family, Claire is resigned to her life as Lynn, the identity her abductor forced upon her. Every time she attempts escape or betrays him in the smallest way, someone dies. Even now, her clandestine run-in with Connor Parks may have put his life at risk, as well as the lives of her family.

Connor is convinced that not only is Claire Fletcher alive, but that she is also the woman he met at the bar. Driven to see her again, he begins his own investigation, off the clock and without the police department’s consent. He is determined to find her and unravel the mystery of her abduction and odd reemergence. But finding Claire Fletcher proves more dangerous than he anticipates. In fact, it may be deadly.

5-Stars! “. . .heart wrenching, suspense ridden, and eye opening.”  -Amy Castellano, Chic Book Chick

5-Stars! “Her characters are strong and believable and they will fill you with emotions that will rock you.” -My Cozie Corner Book Reviews

5- Stars! “. . .This was a fantastic novel and I am looking forward to many, many more in the future.”  -Alex J. Clatch, Amazon Reviewer

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Psychological Thriller / Crime Fiction

Rating – R

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Website http://www.lisaregan.com/

SD O’Donell – Five Tips for Developing Character in Thrillers

Five Tips for Developing Character in Thrillers

by SD O’Donnell

No matter how well written, background narrative stops a story’s momentum. For a slower paced story, that isn’t fatal. For a fast-paced thriller, too much can cause a reader to shut the book and never open it again.

It isn’t that mystery/thriller readers don’t care about character development. In fact, the better they know a character, the more they care about what happens to them. That adds tension and suspense. But too often that under-the-skin, behind-the-curtains information ends up being disclosed through a lengthy mental core dump. A person talks to a therapist or friend. Or reveals details through inner dialogue.

The challenge for mystery and thriller writers is to share the depth of their characters while keeping those pages turning. Here are five lessons I’ve learned about describing character while also advancing the story:

1. Restrict backstory to what is needed at the time.Do you have a spot in your story with four paragraphs of backstory? Ask yourself how much is really essential at that point. Be honest. Maybe it’s important later. If so, put it in later, when it’s really needed. By supplying your backstory in short, pertinent bursts, you don’t stop the story flow.
2. Trust the reader to infer, read between the lines.This was probably the hardest for me. I’m passionate about my characters and I want to make certain the reader knows and loves them (or hates them) as well as I do. So, I need to share, right? Not always. Readers will draw their own conclusions, based on their own experiences, if you let them. And the best part of letting them? They feel closer to the character because they’ve invested in them.
3. Give them the salient point and leave it at that.At one spot in Deadly Memories, I turned a full page of background description about why my main character stopped working as detective into one sentence: “It amazed him how easy it was to give up the job when the time came.” I originally gave all the details as to why he thought it would be hard and why it turned out not to be. Do the readers need to know those details? Not really. The personal connection that I want them to feel about his quitting depends more on how much they’ve connected to him so far in the storytelling than the cut-and-dried specifics.
4. Whenever possible, skip the conversational recap and write the scene.This might seem counter-intuitive. I’m advising you to turn one page of narrative into a three page scene for the purpose of keeping the story flowing? Yes. The difference is, when you’re telling the story, the reader is involved. When you’re writing description, they’re waiting to get back to the story. Three pages can be better than one, if the three pages fully engages the reader.
5. Analyze the purpose of each chapter and scene. Then combine them when possible.Each scene and chapter should have a reason, a purpose that furthers the story or imparts information the reader needs. Take a close look at that purpose. Does it really need a full scene or chapter to get across? Maybe some of those purposes can be achieved together. If so, suddenly 25 pages can become only 15, without really giving up anything. How? Because 10 of those pages were spent in setting and action that only served the purpose of achieving your objective. With only one setting and group of actions, the same information is shared with less. That keeps those pages turning.

Yes, it hurts to take out material, especially if you’ve written it well. Most of us can rationalize keeping anything we’re attached to. But for the sake of your audience, if you’re writing a mystery or thriller, you need to stay focused on the goal: Keep the action moving forward and that keeps the pages turning.

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Genre – Murder / Thriller

Rating – PG13 (some foul language, a few short love scenes)

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Madeleine McLaughlin – Why Writing Is A Form Of Personal Therapy

Why Writing Is A Form Of Personal Therapy

by Madeleine McLaughlin

We all have inner thoughts and emotions, a lot of them socially unacceptable. To me, that’s why writing can also be considered therapy. It can be a way, for some people, of not actually becoming sick with thoughts that can’t be stopped. Writing about those thoughts that circle around in your head gets them out and done. Putting your fears down and having other people like what you did with them can be cathartic.

When other people see your fears and agree that they’re afraid of those things, too, it means you’re not alone in the world. You’re not crazy (which is one of the biggest fears) you’re normal. It can work both ways, too. Take the subject of mental illness since I mentioned crazy.

The writer can either develop a character who is considered crazy or she can develop one who is afraid of crazy. Both can be sympathetic. And there’s bound to be a lot of people who agree with both sides.

Which is another reason writing is therapeutic. The writer can play. The writer can try on characters. The loose girls you remember from school can be great characters. And the writer doesn’t have to be loose herself. Any thoughts she had about them can be written down and made palatable. She can sympathize with them or even demonize them. It’s all fair and once it’s on paper, it’s out of your system. We all know of someone who carries around childhood memories, unable to rid themselves of the emotional power of them.

The writer has a great way to rid herself of that power. Or else they can work with the power of their emotions and write one kind of book. For instance, if they happen to have been traumatized by bad experiences in church and need to harp on the inconsistencies of religion. They can do that by making a pastor into ‘the bad guy’ or they can just lay out their point of view about hypocrisy.

Also, the writer can control their ‘therapy’. Unlike a real therapy session where the therapist takes control and tries to lead their patients to some conclusion about the world, the writer can decide what to do with her emotions. How to undo their power over her. She doesn’t have to be told that she’s being too aggressive or too passive, for that matter.

The writer can kill a character when it’s necessary, or keep them alive to have a moment of enlightenment. She can be as aggressive or passive as she wants. And at the end, no matter what the action or plot, when a writer has put that last word on the page, she feels almost spiritual. Emotional satisfaction no matter the outcome.

A lot of people would love to have that.

When Kevin learns of his mountain town’s evil past, he must struggle to understand his father’s part in it and how it affects himself.

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Genre – Horror

Rating – PG

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Four Paws – 10 Thing You Don’t Know About Amber Jerome-Norrgard

10 Thing You Don’t Know About Amber Jerome~Norrgard

1.)    Caffeine has no effect on me, other than waking me up first thing in the morning. I can drink five cups of coffee and go right to sleep.

2.)    I so impressed the choir director at my family’s church when I was thirteen with my singing ability that he disregarded the age requirement of fifteen years of age to let me perform with the group at the 10 a.m. mass each Sunday.

3.)    Once my youngest child leaves for college, I’m taking six months to drive randomly, using a coin flip to determine which way I’m going on the high way. It might turn out that I’ll just be going in circles for six months. Or it might turn out that I’ll have one hell of an excellent adventure at fifty-one years old.

4.)    If not for the gift of a Kindle, I never would have become active on Twitter. And if I hadn’t of become active on Twitter, I never would have met Barry Crowther, the man responsible for kicking my ass into the Indie Author Arena.

5.)    I’m right handed but can only snap with my left hand.

6.)    TweepNation with Amber and Dionne, my weekly podcast, started out as a joke between Dionne Lister and myself. We had no idea that it would turn into anything we’d continue doing past a few weeks. I love it when that happens!

7.)    I wrote and published my first erotica short story as a joke. I had no idea it would lead me to a whole new genre of writing.

8.)    I make myself take Saturdays off and hang out with friends. And even though I always have a blast, still, I miss my writing terribly when I’m not doing it and can’t wait to get back to it.

9.)    I originally planned on attending college to get my degree to be a dental hygienist. Almost twenty years after graduating high school, I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

10.) My dad’s side of the family is huge, and we’re all very close and overly involved in one another’s lives. I have forty first cousins alone on my dad’s side. That’s right: 4-0. And we’re loud. And bossy. And nosy. But it was like being raised with forty brothers and sisters, not to mention aunts and uncles that were more like mother and fathers.

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Genre – Literature / Fiction Poetry Anthologies

Rating – PG

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Molly D. Campbell – Defining Moments

Defining Moments

by Molly D. Campbell

I am an amiable reader. I start out every book with hope in my heart. Sometimes, I am lucky, and I know by the end of the first paragraph that I am going to be very sad when I finish the last. Some books reveal themselves as complete trash, but by the end of the first page, I am hooked anyway.  And, yes, in other cases, I have read the first paragraph and shut the book forever.

But what really gets my dander up is a literary convention of questionable worth, and yet even great writers use it. It’s that sentence that sets up the plot for some sort of twist, and the author phones it in by saying something like:

“The phone rang. Winifred’s life was about to change.”

It seems to me that this writer must have been at the end of a very busy day in which the dog got sick on the carpet, her children fought and managed to poke each other in the eye, or she got a call from the school about lice, that made her so tired that it just took too much energy to move the plot along using paragraphs. Thus the telltale phone call.

Or even worse is the convention some writers seem to love–in which the character, by a sudden divine insight, simply knows that from this moment forward, he or she will simply never be the same:

“Veronica, stalled in traffic, sighed. I will never get to the meeting on time. She glanced in the rearview mirror to check her lipstick. She saw him in the car behind her, and knew that at that second, her whole life would not be the same again.”

Really? I am a person of the Boomer generation. So I am getting old and am somewhat wise. I have lived a vivid life. But there was only ONE defining moment in my life, and that was due to a tragic accident of fate: my husband had a massive stroke. And on that occasion, my life did indeed turn on a dime. But I didn’t have an inkling about it beforehand. And other than that huge life changer, nothing else in 62 years!

But the average (and I mean average) novel is full of these pivotal moments. The ringing phone introduces many of them. But there are other popular ones: a stranger boards the bus, and whammo, Persephone is never the same again. Or another favorite: “When the choir began to sing, Elspeth’s heart turned, and for the first time, she saw the meaning behind the words. When she walked out of the Church, she was in God’s hands.”

I could go on forever, but here is just one more. I might just use this one in a book sometime:

“Percival sat in the library, turning the pages of “The Marquis de Sade,” his cheeks burning, an uncomfortable disarray in his lap. Suddenly, a shadow was cast across his book. ‘You are in my light, Percival growled, looking up.’ Lance, in red cashmere vest and brown nubby cords, his auburn hair falling over one searingly green eye, gazed down upon Percy. At that moment, Percy knew he was in love with men.”

So where does this plotting “shorthand” come from? I think it is either because we, as a generation, watch way too much television and movies than are good for us. Every plot has to wrap up fast and neat in no longer than a couple of hours. Or maybe it’s the microwave mentality, in which if we have to wait more than a minute or so for an outcome, we get mad. It’s a pet peeve, I suppose. I write short stories, of course. So the plot turns awfully quick in those. And essays, which I also write, don’t ever seem to require the significantly ringing phone.

But wait. There is a tingling in my fingertips. Could it be the harbinger of something? Will this column be the one that catapults me to fame? I may never be the same after this.

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Genre - Fiction / Short Stories

Rating – PG13

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Website http://mollydcampbell.com/

Sarah Martinez – Do You Write to Titillate the Reader?

Do you write to titillate the reader? 

by Sarah Martinez

I did not put the sex in to arouse the reader, though if there is a side effect, I have no problem with that. I actually think that means I have done my job right. If a writer describes smoking, or eating or any other physical activity so well that I feel a craving or hunger, I would say the writer did a good job describing a human experience. So why is that different for sex writing?  I wanted to make a point by including the sex scenes the way that I did. What is being aroused as a state of being? Is this any better or worse than craving a cigarette or experiencing thirst or hunger? I don’t think so. Sex, as an experience can be so many things; traumatic, routine, transformative, intoxicating, and for me, that range is what makes writing about sex well worth the effort it takes to do it right.

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Genre – Literary Erotica

Rating – X

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Website http://www.mywildskies.com/

Tomica Scavina – How to Make Your Characters Believable?

How to make your characters believable?

by Tomica Scavina

Everything we do present us in a certain way. Buying a red scarf, speaking in a flat tone of voice, entrusting a secret to a dog instead of a husband… Sometimes we know and sometimes we don’t know why we’re doing these things, but these whys do exist.

Maybe I bought a red scarf because I am fighting the feeling of being invisible? Maybe my voice is flat because I had a role of peacemaker in my family? Maybe entrusting a secret to my dog has more to do with my inability to trust, then with my husband’s inability to hear and understand me?

To be believable, characters also have to have their whys. It doesn’t mean that we need to explain all of these causes and consequences directly. That would be pretty boring. It means that if we spend some time thinking about past experiences that have caused our characters’ actions, somewhere in between the lines will emerge that feeling that the character is a real person with its unique life experience.

Show us their vulnerability and how they’re dealing with it

Our characters need us to think about them often. There are so many questions to think of, especially about their vulnerability and the way they’re dealing with it. If you know someone’s soft spot and if you know how he’s dealing with it, then you can say you know this person well. It is a sign of a close relationship. Here are some sample questions that can inspire you to think about it.

What makes her vulnerable? How does she act when she’s hurt? Does she run away and climb the trees in the forest or clean the floor and talk aloud to herself? And what about him? What hurts him the most? When he’s hurt, does he shout and break the stapler or watch the snowflakes melting on the tip of his finger, thinking how no one will ever understand his poetry? Does she binge eat when her boss tells her that her colleague will go to that conference in Italy or have a few bears and furiously play darts? Does he buy a cat when his wife leaves him or does he buy some pleasure from a prostitute?

Showing your character’s vulnerability and the way they deal with it is what makes them human. This step must not be overlooked.

Show us their everyday intimate moments

Everyday life is rich with little things that we don’t notice because we’re so used to it. For example, while I’m writing this post, right next to my monitor there is a little, wooden house hanging on the wall. The roof is covered with snow (white paint) and the whole house, colored in dark purple, is a bit narrow. I love it. And if I were a character, the fact that I love it would create a certain atmosphere around me.

The little things like this are very important. And again, there are so many questions that we can ask ourselves about it. Here are some examples.

Does he wear pajama with a flower or square pattern? Does she think about whitening her teeth while brushing them? When he’s scratching his head, always in the same spot, does he think about his arrogant son or a trip to Hawaii? Is he pouring coffee always to the very top of a cup because he’s too lazy to add more coffee later or because he’s a perfectionist? Is she procrastinating cleaning her windows because her mother was over controlling about tidiness or because she doesn’t want to see things clearly?

There are these whys again. There is always something to think of… And the thinking pays off. Besides the benefit of characters becoming more believable, there is a personal benefit for those writers who treat their writing more seriously: knowing your characters well helps you know better yourself through them.

 

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Genre – Psychological Thriller

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.tomicascavina.com/

Lee Strauss – Can You Learn to Write?

 

Can You Learn to Write?

by Lee Strauss

Is writing a gift you are born with? Do some people just have a natural way with words and phrases, the ability to spin a yarn, beyond the average person? Or, is writing something that can be learned, like any skill or passion?

My answer is yes.

To both.

Some people are naturally gifted with the extraordinary ability to play with words in a way that make people sit up and notice. This can’t be denied, and hopefully all those gifted people understand the blessing they possess.

Others have a keen interest in the craft that develops into a passion. Their initial efforts are, to be kind, below par, but if they have the tenacity to study and practice, they can become better—even good.

While cleaning out my office one day I came across a file that had an old, old manuscript in it. I started reading: It was scary and fascinating.

Here’s the critique: I flipped flopped between past and present tense like crazy. I didn’t know when to capitalize the word, “mom” or when not to capitalize the “h” or “s” in he/she said. I barely knew how to use a comma or an apostrophe. I couldn’t spell. I rushed the plot and the pacing and I was way too melodramatic.

But it wasn’t boring. I had believable characters and good story premise. There was a nugget of talent there, but it was buried very, very deep.

So what happened to me? I studied the craft. Hard. And I practiced. I wrote lots of stories and screenplays that will never see the light of day.

Was that wasted effort? No. That was school. My very own, self-structured, years long class on creative writing.

I know I’m a better writer today than I was all those years ago when I decided I wanted to write. I learned how.

Have you ever gone back and re-read early manuscripts—like the first ones you ever dared to write? Are you a learner or a natural?

Eternal Life is To Die For

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Genre – YA SciFi / Romance

Rating – PG13

What doesn’t kill you…

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Genre – YA SciFi / Romance

Rating – PG13

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RW Peake – Why Book Covers are So Important

Why Book Covers are So Important

by RW Peake

We live in an increasingly visual age, and nowhere is the visual more important than on the Internet. Stop to think about how many purely text-based websites are out there; now ask yourself how many of you are regular visitors to that site? And on the Internet, when browsing for books, the impact that a great cover can’t be underestimated. I am one of the lucky people to have a GREAT cover. For my very first book, as a complete unknown at that who had never established any kind of presence as a writer, I stumbled onto what is the equivalent of the winning ticket to the lottery, in the form of my cover artist.

I had been messing around trying to come up with my own cover, and while I’m not completely untalented when it comes to the visual arts, what I had created was………….okay. Barely okay. When I was showing it to the woman who was not only my professor for a Creative Writing class I was taking, but became my de facto editor for the first part of the first book, her reaction was polite, but hardly enthusiastic. Instead, she suggested that I talk to a friend of hers, and of all the lucky accidents that have happened to make this book successful, this was the happiest and the luckiest. From the very first cover that Marina Shipova showed me, to the version that is now the cover of my book, I immediately knew that I had hit paydirt. And that has been borne out by the reaction to the cover, which I used as a springboard to go from 45 books sold in my first month, to more than 600 the next. It’s true that the cover might draw readers to your book but it’s the words that keep them there, if you think of your cover as your storefront, where you are displaying a taste of the wares inside, I think you will be well served.

A good cover should be not only pleasing to the eye in terms of the color scheme, it should be evocative of its topic and theme. My first cover, in terms of these two aspects, is deceptively simple. In essence, it’s just the face of my main character. But given that my book is about war, it’s the “thousand yard stare” of a young man who is clearly haunted by all that he’s seen that has struck a chord with the readers. As soon as I started getting feedback about how powerful my cover was, I made two instant decisions. The first was a no-brainer, and that was to retain Marina as the artist for all of my books. The second was to tell part of my story through the cover, using the same character, but endowing him with all that comes with his advancement, both in his professional life and his personal life. His face shows the passing time, and his body bears more of the scars that are an occupational hazard for a Centurion of Rome. The third cover, which is under development, will continue with this same theme. And I expect it to be as well received as the first two.

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Genre – Historical Fiction

Rating – PG13

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Blog http://blog.rwpeake.com/

NS Wikarski – How to Create a Great Work Area

How to Create a Great Work Area for Inspiration (Using Feline Accessories)

by NS Wikarski

“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.” -Mark Twain

Writing, as everybody knows, is a solitary occupation. An individual sits alone in a room frowning intently at a blank screen while waiting for inspiration to strike. It stands to reason that if you can make your surroundings do the heavy lifting of inspiring you, it will cut down dramatically on the length of time you have to spend staring vacantly into space and muttering to yourself.

An inspiring work area is very much a matter of individual taste. Since I, myself, enjoy nature, I try to work in a room with a spectacular view. Eight months out of the year, I toil away in my sunroom which happily faces onto a woodsy paradise of cedar groves and cherry orchards. The other four months, when I’m forced to flee the arctic tundra that I call home, I rent a beach house on the Gulf of Mexico. My deck overlooks the ocean. As I once told a friend, “If a person can’t get inspired to write in an atmosphere like this, then that person can’t write period!”

However, I should add that these natural settings, stimulating as they are, still lack the one essential decorative element to beckon a writer’s inner muse. This decorative element is quite cheap (the cost of a can of tuna), portable (can be stuffed inside a carrier and taken anywhere) and tends to center the imagination in a way that nothing else can. I refer, of course, to Felis Catus or the not-so-humble house cat.

The affinity between cats and writers has been noted so often that it has become a cliché. I’ll rattle off a short list of authors, all of whom were uncommonly attached to their felines: Edward Gorey, T. S. Eliot, Jack Kerouac, Jean Cocteau, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Joyce Carol Oates, Doris Lessing, Patricia Highsmith, Ray Bradbury and, of course, Ernest Hemingway. The descendants of Hemingway’s six-toed cat lounge about the grounds of his museum in Key West to this day.

Lest any dog fanciers reading this post take umbrage, don’t get me wrong. I love animals on principle and dogs make wonderful companions. However, I feel about dogs the way most grandparents feel about their grandchildren. It’s great to play with them, pet them and spoil them all day long but come night fall, I feel compelled to hand them back to their primary caregivers and say, “Take them home. I’m exhausted.”

Cats do not drain one’s energy with their hyperactivity because they have spent millennia learning how to sleep twenty hours a day without excuse or apology. In contrast, most writers with any talent suffer from fevered brains. It’s a blessing to be able to spin a story out of nothing at all but it’s also a curse when imagination kicks into hyperdrive and the inside of one’s head feels like the large Hadron collider at Cern. That’s where cats make their contribution to the creative process. It can be highly therapeutic for a mentally overstimulated author simply to watch a cat sleep. As I write this, I raise my head from the keyboard long enough to regard my feline companions draped languidly over their favorite pieces of furniture. One of them blinks at me in lazy self-possession as if to say, “Chill. It’s all good.” That single gaze imparts an immediate sense of calm. He’s right. It is.

My sympathies to any writers out there who are allergic to pet dander. You simply can’t be any good as an author without a cat in your work space.

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Genre – Archaeology Thriller

Rating – PG13

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