The Other Side of the Story

Real Life Diagnostics: A New Start: Pacing and Hooking Readers in the Opening Scene

2012-05-26T07:43:00.000-04:00

Real Life Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and I diagnose them on the blog. It’s part critique, part example, designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to Real Life Diagnostics, check out the page for guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: Three

This week’s questions:
Is this too slowly paced? Does it hook? And was I able to keep this firmly in Anna's head? (Third person-close)

Market/Genre: Fantasy

Additional Note: There's also a revision of an older post for those curious. An update for the snippet where the girl's parents are killed in the dark right in front of her that was asking about reactions and emotions. It's a great revision, and worth seeing how the author tweaked it.

On to the diagnosis…

Original text:
Anna-Maria jerked her gloved hand upwards and her falcon darted into the empty sky. Guinevere’s wings sliced through the air, climbing higher than a cathedral’s towers. She was so beautiful and strong.

If only I could be the falcon, Anna wished for the thousandth time. Instead, she was rooted to the ground; bound by ties of blood and honor and the hapless fate of a noble daughter.

She turned, watching Guinevere as she circled back towards home. The castle gleamed white against the green hills and blue-green lake. Slender turrets reaching heavenward as if they could invite her mother to return to earth again, if only for an hour.

That’s when she saw them. Three carriages and more than two dozen outriders trotting toward the castle gate along the lake road.

Merda! The guests weren’t to arrive for another three days.

Guinevere had returned, wheeling overhead now, ready to hunt. And curse the plow, Anna hadn’t beaten the bushes for any game. Before she could start forward, a brace of foolish crows flew off out of the woods. She waited to see if Guinevere would spy them.

She finished her turn. Yes, she spotted them. Anna watched, breathless as the falcon dove, hurtling toward the earth and her prey. Her speed was incredible.

The blast of trumpets startled Anna, drawing her gaze back to the castle. The gates opened. They swallowed the carriages and horsemen.

Anna’s heart beat like a blacksmith’s hammer. She was not ready to face her hoard of suitors. Their wandering hands and roving eyes. Harrow them all! Three days early and in carriages? Anna kicked at the grass savagely.

“Would to God that I was born to another life!” She kicked again. “Curse the lot of them!”

My Thoughts in Purple:
Anna-Maria jerked her gloved hand upwards and her falcon darted into the empty sky. Guinevere’s wings sliced through the air, climbing higher than [a] Tiny thing, but this came be ever closer to her POV if you use "the" cathedral, which would also indicate there's a cathedral there (if there's not, then a works fine) cathedral’s towers. [She was so beautiful and strong.] Feels like Anna's thoughts

If only I could be the falcon, Anna wished for the thousandth time. Instead, she was rooted to the ground; bound by ties of blood and honor and the hapless fate of a noble daughter. Feels like Anna's thoughts

[She turned, watching] This pulls away a little Guinevere as she circled back towards home. [The castle gleamed white against the green hills and blue-green lake. Slender turrets reaching heavenward as if they could invite her mother to return to earth again, if only for an hour.] Great description, but it feels a little stuck in. Anna is watching the falcon, wishing she were free, then she's suddenly looking at the castle and thinking about mom. I'd suggest adding in a word or two to further connect this to her emotions in the opening paragraph. This is also a great spot to show who she is as a character and help hook readers. Tug at the heartstrings a little.

[That’s when she saw them.] Feels a little distant. What specifically here catches her eye? Three carriages and more than two dozen outriders trotting toward the castle gate along the lake road.

[Merda! The guests weren’t to arrive for another three days]. Feels like Anna's thoughts

[Guinevere had returned, wheeling overhead now, ready to hunt. And curse the plow, Anna hadn’t beaten the bushes for any game. Before she could start forward, a brace of foolish crows flew off out of the woods. She waited to see if Guinevere would spy them.] This all feels a little told, so perhaps re-think how Anna would see and think this. "She" hadn't beaten the bushes (she'd not think of herself as Anna)

She finished her turn. [Yes, she spotted them.] Feels like Anna's thoughts Anna watched, breathless as the falcon dove, hurtling toward the earth and her prey. Her speed was incredible. I like the falcon, but what does this have to do with the carriages? The narrative focus is a little wide through here, which makes it hard for the reader to know what's important

[The blast of trumpets startled Anna] telling a bit, drawing her gaze back to the castle. The gates opened. They swallowed the carriages and horsemen.

Anna’s heart beat like a blacksmith’s hammer. [She was not ready to face] A teeny bit distant her hoard of suitors. [Their wandering hands and roving eyes. Harrow them all! Three days early and in [carriages?] ] Feels like Anna's thoughts. I especially like the emphasis here as well, like this is something awful. An intriguing bit of world building Anna kicked at the grass [savagely.] stronger without

“Would to God that I was born to another life!” She kicked again. [“Curse the lot of them!”] perhaps cut since she does actually curse multiple times in this.

The questions:
Is this too slowly paced?
It did feel a little slow to me, but tightening the narrative focus will fix that. Right now, Anna's thoughts are a little wild. She's thinking about the falcon, her mother, being a trapped noble girl, the suitors arriving. Her thoughts dart from here to there so it's hard to know what's important and where the scene is headed. I'd suggest tightening everything so it all relates to her being stuck in a jam (the suitors and being forced to marry I assume?). Use the details you have in the scene to build on the problem and stakes so when the carriage arrives, we really feel for this girl and dread what she's going to find. I like the comparison to the falcon, so you might even play more with that to show she's a wild thing who cannot be caged (if that's the case of course).

Does it hook?
Not quite for the same reasons, but I can see that things are about to happen and conflict is about to occur, so it wouldn't take much to turn this into a good hook. The pieces are there, it's just a matter of polish. Use these details to build suspense and a sense of anticipation. She doesn't want to get married, so...? Is she going to do anything about it? Does she have a plan now or is just going to go accept her fate? Even an inkling of action will help hook here.

Was I able to keep this firmly in Anna's head? (Third person-close)
A few places pull away, but it's mostly in her head. One paragraph stood out most:

Guinevere had returned, wheeling overhead now, ready to hunt. And curse the plow, [Anna] hadn’t beaten the bushes for any game. [Before she could start forward,] a brace of foolish crows flew off out of the woods. [She waited to see] if Guinevere would spy them.

This feels outside looking down. The bold words give it that detached feeling, since they describe Anna either from a distance, or explain her motivation. Try reworking it and showing what Anna sees and thinks from inside her eyes looking out. Although this paragraph pulls the narrative focus away, so you might rethink it entirely. I kinda want to see her sic the falcon on the carriage (grin). Maybe have her do something to react to suitors arriving early and what she'll do in response to that. Show her personality some.

Overall, it's not far off and I think a little tweaking will turn this into a fun opening scene. I do see improvement from your last submission. (Maybe we can fix Anna up with Henri?)

Thanks to our brave volunteer for submitting this for me to play with. I hope they–and others–find it helpful. I don’t do a full critique on these, (just as it pertains to the questions) and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions of your own. Just remember that these pieces are works in progress, not polished drafts, so be nice and offer constructive feedback.

Author, We Have a Problem: 4 Tips on Plotting Your Novel

2012-05-24T08:59:00.000-04:00

Plot is just the events that make up your story. The same story can be told a million different ways because the plot can always be different. This is an important distinction, because it allows you the freedom to change your plot without feeling like you're losing your story. A good example here is how I re-wrote Blue Fire five times. The plot changed constantly, the story never did. To use my house analogy: You build a house once, but you redecorate it every year.

The house is story. Decorating is plot.

Some key things to remember when plotting:

1. The goal of plot is to illustrate your story

If your story is about a soldier trying to save his king, then the plot is going to be the steps in which that soldier takes to save his king. Subplots will naturally arise, but even they will illustrate some aspect that ties back to that main storyline. That core conflict or story problem.

I often suggest writing down that one sentence that says what your story is about and taping it to your monitor to remind yourself what the end goal is. When you think up a scene, look at that sentence and ask yourself how it connects to that. It can be subtle, it can be an intermediate step to a bigger goal, but it'll be something that has to happen in order for the core conflict to be resolved. If there's no connection to the main goal, odds are the scene can go. It's not advancing your story.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that it doesn't have to be a direct line connection. If the story goal is to break the king out of prison, all kinds of things can go wrong when trying to break him out. Those smaller obstacles create plot, because they all make it harder for the hero to achieve his goal. The end goal is still the same and that end goal (freeing the king) is what's critical to the story.

2. Never let the plot dictate your story
It can guide it, influence it, enhance it, but it's easy to write a scene that's really cool, but not right for the story. And since you love that scene, you bend over backward to try to make it fit. If you're forcing it, it's not working, no matter how cool or how well written the scene may be. Cut it, save it in another file, but don't let it waylay your story.

Say, for example, while trying to free the king, the hero discovers the warden is corrupt and planning to kill a bunch of wrongly imprisoned political prisoners captured when the king was captured. This is a bad thing, but it has nothing to do with the story goal of saving the king. It might work as a nice inner conflict (the hero has to choose between abandoning the prisoner and saving his king), but to go and actually try to save those prisoners is very likely going to waylay your story and send the plot off on a tangent. Will that scene be cool? Probably. Will it have stakes and goals and everything it needs? Sure. Does it advance the story? Probably not.

Why? Because the stakes don't escalate, and it's basically the same goal with smaller stakes. Saving prisoners he doesn't know or care about is a lot less important that saving the king he adores who is needed by the people.

And that's the tricky part, because it really seems like it should be a great subplot, right? But those prisoners aren't keeping the hero from anything. They're a sad situation to be sure, but leaving them there isn't going to affect his goal of saving the king at all. He doesn't have to free them to free the king. He might want to, might be haunted by it because he didn't, but it's not a plot-advancing goal. It's a delaying goal. It's stuff to delay your hero from achieving his goal instead of something designed to make it harder and raise the stakes of that goal.

However, if you find yourself in a situation like this, where you write something unexpected that looks cool, you can start thinking about ways in which saving those prisoners does directly affect saving the king or a bigger story goal. Maybe the king needs to be the one to save them to gain supporters. Maybe it turns out later one of those prisoners is important to the cause or the king in some way. Instead of sending your hero right at it, it might be a nifty seed to plant that will later be exactly the right problem for the plot.

3. Characters create the plot
Since stories are about characters, characters act and create plot, which in turn illustrates a story. So, characters are where your plot is going to come from. What they do is what's driving your story. They're going to want things, want to avoid thing, want to cover things up. They're not just going to sit there and do nothing. They're going to act in some way. This is a biggie, so I'm going to go into more detail on this over the next few days. It deserves its own post.

4. Plot needs stakes
It's probably more accurate to say characters need stakes, but if there's nothing to lose, the plot won't matter. Something to lose is probably more important that something to gain, crazy as that sounds. It's the struggle that makes the story compelling, the risk that things might go wrong and the hero will fail and have bad stuff happen to them.

Why someone acts is a huge driving force behind plot, and stakes are a big part of that. It's what turns a bunch of scenes into a story, because the events suddenly matter and aren't just characters acting out a script. This also deserves its own post, since characters and stakes are key to a good plot.

Plotting can be challenging because there really is no limit to what you can do. But if you keep your core conflict in mind, it makes it a lot easier to identify what advances your story and what's just more plot.

Are You a Sci Fi/Fantasy/Horror Fan? Then Come on Down to Fandomfest (and see me)

2012-05-24T06:00:00.004-04:00

If you're looking for something fun to do the end of June, consider heading over to Lousiville, KY for Fandomfest. It's a convention within a convention within a convention, consisting of MID AMERICA COMICCON, FANDOMFEST AND FRIGHT NIGHT HORROR WEEKEND AND FILM FESTIVAL. Fandomfest is one of the Largest Multi-Genre Conventions in the region and I'm excited to be part of it this year.

I just got my panel schedule back for the convention, and I'm totally jazzed. I'm on six panels over the weekend, and I love my topics. I'm especially excited about the zombie apocalypse one. I also get to talk writing and books and all the things I find fun. I also get to hang with some author friends like James Tuck and Amber Evans, both who I've done panels with before.

If you go, here's where you'll find me:

Fandomfest
June 28 - July 1, 2012
Louisville, KY
Friday:
5:30pm - Zombie Apocalypse
For those in the know, it is not a matter of “if”, but rather “when”. Yes, the Zombie Apocalypse that is coming! Come and get some insights from writers who have a keen interest in this area. Who knows? Maybe the things they discuss will help you survive the age of the undead!

Panel Features: Taylor Kent, John Hornor Jacobs, G.L. Giles, Rachael Hill, Angelia Sparrow, Janice Hardy

Saturday:
11:30am - World Building Part I: How to Approach It
World building elements are a part of all areas of speculative fiction, not just the genres like Epic Fantasy. But there are always lots of things to think about when designing a new land or world for a story, and this panel will explore the right ways to approach this task.

Panel Features: Scott Sandridge, Janice Hardy, Thomas Paul Barczack, Tracy Chowdhury, Kirk Stevens

1pm - Writing Children's Books
There is a definite art to the craft of writing children’s books, and this panel will help you to understand the process and approach of writing for the youngest of readers.

Panel Features: Janice Hardy, Benny Hamilton, Deborah Smith Ford, J.L. Mulvihill

5:30pm - The Best YA Characters
A panel discussion about the best YA characters. Are there common characteristics? Who do our panelists see as consensus examples? This panel offers an exploration of Young Adult fiction through the kinds of characters that resonate within the genre.

Panel Features: Amber Evans, Janice Hardy, Kathryn Sullivan, A Jacob Sweeny, John Hartness

7pm - World Building in Epic Fantasy Vs. Urban Fantasy: Who Has It Harder?
You might think that the answer is easy, but is it really? Even though urban fantasy tends to take place in worlds like ours, there are a great many challenges in creating those settings. Come and find out about those challenges, and maybe the answer to the question of ‘Who Has it Harder’ will be much harder to address.
Panel Features: Janice Hardy, Ren Garcia, Laura Resnick, M.B. Weston, D.A. Adams

Sunday:
10am - Agents
The world of agents is often a great mystery to newer writers and those seeking one. Our panelists will share their thoughts on agents, in terms of how to identify one that will be effective for you, the relationship between an author and agent, and much more.

Panel Features: Janice Hardy, Laura Resnick, John Hornor Jacobs, Shirley Damsgaard, Lee Martindale, Benny Hamilton

Break it Down: Trimming Words From a Too-Long Manuscript

2012-05-23T06:00:00.004-04:00

Cutting down a large manuscript can be a challenge, and one most writers would like to avoid. Even if you write sparse, odds are you'll face this at some point in your career. I've done several posts on trimming words, but what do you do if you need to cut large amounts of text? Tens of thousands of words instead of a few thousand.

This happened to me recently. My first draft was done, and way too large. During revisions I changed the plot a lot and it got even bigger. My first act was clocking in at 34K words, which meant my novel was going to likely end up about 140K words--about 50K more than it should be. Since I was aiming for the 80-90K word mark, I knew I had to get that first act down to around 20-23K words. Even 25K would be acceptable, as I could trim the rest after I was done.

However with so much to cut, my usual plan of attack was only going to get me so far.

So I broke it down.

I use the three act structure, so my novel was already broken into four parts. Act one (the first 25%), the ramp up in act two to the mid-point, the ramp down in act two from the mid-point (25% up, 25% down), and act three (the last 25%). This is a very standard plot structure, so I knew by keeping my major plot turning points at these key percentages in the novel kept the pacing tight. I knew my first act was too slow and bloated because it was 10K longer than it should be.

Step One
I took my first act and copied it into its own file. That way, I had a running tally of the actual word count, which made it a lot easier to keep track of what I was cutting away. It also let me fiddle all I wanted without having to worry about deleting something permanently.

Step Two
I wrote down the word count for each chapter so I could see where the bloated chapters were. I use the document map function in Word, so I put the word count next to each chapter heading for quick and easy reference. My opening chapter was over 4200 words, so I knew right away that had to come down.

Step Three
I did a little math and determined what my average word count per chapter would be. In this case, it was diving 25K by 18 (number of chapters) and getting roughly 1400 words. (1388 to be exact). Now, just because I had this number didn't mean every chapter had to be 1400 words. But it gave me a target to aim for per chapter. Some chapters were shorter, and that left room for the ones that were longer. This average was just a way to set some target goals. I didn't try to get down (or up) to this every chapter.

It's also helpful to look at various chunks and gauge size that way. For example, break it into half. Since I'm aiming for 25K words, then half of that is 12.5K. Nine chapters could make up that 12.5K, even if some of the individual chapters are over the 1400 word average. (This is where adding up the word counts per chapter really come in handy. I can see how far over that 12.5K I am, and trimming 1K words from 12K isn't that hard)

Step Four
I opened a second file and copied the chapter I was cutting into it. That gave me a word count to watch as I trimmed. It's a lot easier to hit your goal when you can see those words dripping off. I also found that by isolating the chapter, I was able to look at it more objectively. Reading it over and over as I trimmed words made the unnecessary ones jump out.

Step Five
Once a chapter was cut as low as I could (or until it hit that 1400 mark), I copied it back into my act one file, and updated the chapter word count. Then I moved onto the next chapter.

It might sound crazy, but this is the easiest way I've ever found to trim large chunks of words. Seeing the smaller numbers makes it less intimidating. Watching your word count drop from 123,345 to 121,467 doesn't feel like you're making any progress. Seeing it drop from 2156 to 1887 does.

Once I'm down to the 25K per act (which makes the overall novel about 100K), I'll do another pass with my editing lists. Get rid of overused words, unnecessary dialog tags, check for passive verbs and all those lovely red flag words that are often found with trouble spots. At that size, to cut another 10K words I'll only need to trim about 25 words per page, which isn't too hard to do. And if I can't, then I'll feel confident that the novel has a solid pacing even if it is a tad longer than I planned.

How do you approach trimming a large word count? Are you facing any cuts now you aren't sure where to start? Have you ever broken your manuscript into parts?

Guest Author Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali: Four Ways to Take Your Character from Typical to Terrific

2012-05-22T06:00:00.001-04:00

Finding ways to bring your characters to life are always in demand, and I'm happy to welcome Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali to the blog today to share four tips on how she adds life to otherwise normal characters.

Khaalidah was born in Rhode Island, the child of a U.S. Naval officer. She's been married to her husband for more than twenty years and has three amazingly intelligent and artistic children who outstrip her in every way possible. She works as an oncology nurse at a world renowned cancer center in Houston, Texas. Her greatest love, aspiration, and avocation is writing. She's a Muslim and she prays five times a day. She likes video games, anime/comics, reading, walking, Wii boxing, horror movies and zombies, and hanging out with her children. She sews and along with her husband, maintains a pretty spectacular organic garden in her backyard. Her first novel is An Unproductive Woman. You can find her at her website, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Goodreads, and Shelfari.

Take it away Khaalidah...

Do you people watch? I’d venture to say that if you’re a writer, you absolutely do. Do you ever wonder who people are deep down under their power suits or hospital scrubs or blue jeans? I’m not asking if you wonder how they look naked. I’m referring to the people they are beneath the veneer of normalcy.

Decidedly some of us appear more normal than others but who can really say what it means to be normal? Synonyms for normal include: regular, standard, ordinary, common, and dare I say, boring. No one wants to be boring, and neither should the characters we write and read about.

Most people are not what they appear because looks are deceptive, incomplete, and totally overrated. Human beings are dynamic and have incredible depth. They aren’t cardboard cutouts with gloss and color on one side and plain brown paper on the other. Neither should our characters be.

These are four ways to bring your characters to life, in full color, on both sides.

Odd/interesting professions, hobbies, training, or skill sets
Esmeralda is a mousy forty-three year old graying librarian living in a two bedroom flat with three cats and memories of her dead husband. She eats tuna casserole for dinner and knits until she falls asleep. Sheesh! Esme is boring, isn’t she? Make Esme terrific by making her the national parkour champion 1998-2002. Instead of knitting every evening before bed, she tucks her hair into a ball cap and meets the neighborhood kids at the park to teach them how to cat crawl and dash bomb. Cool.

Ethnicities, cultures, and languages
Do you remember the part where I mentioned “cardboard cutouts”? Good. Don’t forget it. We humans are similar in innumerable ways. We are unique in just as many ways. I balk at the wafer thin, suctioned and tucked, dyed and fried replicas that Hollywood and societal expectations have made of our actresses. Lack of cultural diversity is a definite way to ensure that I lose interest in a story. I know a lot of people who feel the same and this is because “cardboard cutouts” are so normal they’re, well, abnormal.

Nevin is a sixteen year old inner city African American male. He lives with his mother, grandmother, and three siblings. He attends high school in a pretty rough neighborhood and his grades are borderline, but his mother and grandmother are insistent that he get an education. His favorite music is rap and…I’ll stop here.

There’s already a ton of interesting potential conflict here, but Nevin is starting to sound like more than a few stories about American teens. Let’s make Nevin’s story less common by making him the son of Attila Soysal, the famous Turkish author who is rarely home due to his many speaking engagements abroad. Nevin can speak and write fluent Turkish and is presently penning his first, but extraordinary, epic fantasy novel in Turkish.

It could happen.

Strange secret or not so secret preferences or desires
There is nothing unique about enjoying a burger and fries, ice cream, blue jeans, a good book, lots of money, cold water on a hot day… These are ordinary desires and there’s nothing wrong with them, but why not surprise your reader?

Miriam Mahmoud is a seventy-six year old who immigrated to the states from Egypt in 1969. Miriam is the mother of five children and grandmother of twelve. She loves baking and gardening and as a result her kitchen table is always adorned with a plate of sticky honeyed baklava and a vase of hand cut yellow roses. Yep, that’s pretty standard grandma description there.

Do I hear you snoring? Hey, wake up!

Let’s make Miriam less standard double time. Miriam has trouble sleeping some nights. Once when she was awake at 2 a.m. she turned on the television in the hopes of catching some news about the political situation back home. Instead of CNN on channel 626, Miriam landed on channel 666 and was mesmerized by what she saw. Hellrasier. Pinhead freaked her out something fierce, but she liked it. She’s been watching horror movies every since. She hasn’t told her kids. They might think she’s abnormal.

Interesting and revealing tidbits from the past
What did you think of Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker? Not bad, eh? Despite his awesome portrayal of the villain, one thing didn’t wash for me. I wanted to know what happened in the past to make The Joker such a sadistic freak. There was no answer, and that felt wrong. Little tidbits from the past make our characters understandable. We don’t need to be able to relate to our characters, or even like them, but we should understand where they’re coming from.

Angelina is a mature and responsible thirty-eight year old wife and mother of two. Her favorite foods are macaroni and cheese, French vanilla ice cream, and cottage cheese with peaches. See a trend here? Despite being an obvious dairyophile, Angelina despises milk. Her husband buys almond milk thinking that would be a healthy substitute, but Angie doesn’t care. She won’t drink it. When Angie’s husband asks why she says, “I know it’s not from an udder, but if the carton says milk and it looks white, I can’t bring myself to partake.” Weird, right? Her husband mentions Angie’s phobia one day while talking to her sister and learns the real reason. Angie hated milk as a kid but her mother, believing milk to be a necessary part of a growing child’s diet, made her drink a huge glass every morning. Bemoaning the cruelty, Angie would pout and whine for a good hour before realizing her mother wouldn’t give in. By then the milk was warm. Ick. Warm milk made her gag, every single time. Ah. Do you understand now?

I've only named four, but there are googoloplex ways to make a typical character terrific. Well, maybe not that many, but you get my point, right?

About An Unproductive Woman

After ten years of marriage, Asabe and Adam remain childless. Fueled by desperation and a long held secret, Adam marries a second wife. Fatima is very young and beautiful, but she has no affection for her new husband. She locks her bedroom door at night and avoids him at all costs. Despite the jealousy and bitterness that can often exist between co-wives, Asabe and Fatima become as close as sisters. Wanting the happiness of her new consort as well as her husband Asabe encourages Fatima to see the good in Adam. With time, Fatima learns to love her husband and becomes pregnant with twins.

As fate would have it, Adam's son is not destined for this world. He dies moments after his birth and Fatima follows closely behind him. Asabe promises Fatima to become a surrogate mother to the twin daughter who survives. On the very same day, Adam's business is destroyed by fire. Desperate to rebuild and to have a son, Adam makes a deal with a wealthy businessman named Abu Kareem. The deal? To marry Sauda, Abu Kareem's spoiled divorced daughter in exchange for the funds necessary to rebuild.

Read An Unproductive Woman to learn how Asabe finds the strength to live with the cunning, deceptive, and willful Sauda, and to learn what secrets Adam has withheld that would explain his unreasonable longing and pursuit of a son at all costs.

Who's There? Introducing Characters in a Scene

2012-05-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

Don't hide your characters

Have you ever walked into a room, thought you were alone, and then realized someone else was there? A little jarring, right? It's unexpected and totally throws you. Well, you can do the same thing to your reader if you forget to let them know there are other characters in the scene besides the narrator.

Readers expect authors to set the scene at the beginning of that scene and provide them with the necessary tools to understand what's going on. One element of that is to let them know who is in the scene.

1. The Narrator
Those first few paragraphs will inform the reader who's head they're in. A first-person narrator will use a personal pronoun, I or my. Third person will use someone's name. You'll also typically see some internalization, especially if third person, to show whose head you're in. If it's third omniscient, there will be hints of the distant narrator and a sense of an outside party telling the tale.

What this tells the reader: Who is telling the story and from what distance they're telling it.

2. The Point of View Character
The reader is looking out of someone eye's in this scene. In many cases the narrator and point of view character will be the same person (third omniscient is one instance where your narrator might be different from your POV). Word choice is critical here, because if the prose dips into telling, it could signal third omniscient when it's really a tight third. Internalization can help you establish your POV and how tight a narrative distance you're at.

What this tells the reader: Whose head they're in and how close to the narrative they are.

3. Other Characters in the Scene
If the POV's best friend is in the room, and you don't mention that until page four, you risk jarring the reader out of the story. Unexpected names after the scene has been introduced often read like something was missed, and you don't want the reader flipping back to see where they missed seeing this character walk in. Mention another person is in the scene right away, even if it's something as simple as "Me and my best bud Todd were headed out for pizza when..." If there are groups of people, toss in a quick note so the reader knows the POV isn't alone. Characters with names signal "they guys are important, so remember them" while nameless folks can be noted but readers know they don't have to remember who they are.

What this tells the reader: How many people are in the scene and if they need to be aware of them or not.

Of course, if the goal is for that character to surprise the POV, then you obviously don't want to mention them. The point is the surprise.

It doesn't take much to let the reader know how many people or characters they're dealing with in a given scene. You don't need paragraphs of description or heavy exposition to get the information across if you're not ready to elaborate, but a word or two will suffice. It's like giving the reader a heads up that someone is coming.

And then they can sit back and enjoy.

How do unexpected character appearances make you feel?

Real Life Diagnostics: Say it Out Loud: Writing Dialog for the Stage

2012-05-19T07:09:00.006-04:00

OWEN

Hi, Robin. Whatcha doin’?

ROBIN

I’m running away.

OWEN

(Inserts a knuckle into his ear to clear it out.)

What? Did I hear you right?

ROBIN

Yep.

OWEN
(Sits down next to her)

Well, then. As your older cousin---

ROBIN

You seem to have forgotten that I’m older than you.

OWEN

By a week! Anyway, as your just plain cousin, I have the responsibility to talk you out of these things.

ROBIN

You’re not talking me out of this.

OWEN

C’mon, Robin. Where d’ya think you’re gonna go?

ROBIN

There were these people. In the woods.

OWEN

You’re crazy. They’re probably outlaws. Or at least cannibals.

ROBIN

At least?

OWEN

Whatever. But you can’t go.

ROBIN

Owen, I can’t stay here any longer.

OWEN
(Quietly)

Your ma wouldn’t have liked you just throwing your life away like this.

ROBIN

Your ma wouldn’t have liked you sleeping on the streets.

OWEN

It’s not like I have a choice!

(Sighs)

Just stay one more day.

ROBIN

All right. One more day.

OWEN
(Stands up.)

Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.

ROBIN

Good night.

(OWEN exits)

My Thoughts in Purple:
SCENE THREE..............................................................................................
(The bakery, nighttime. ROBIN is stuffing her belongings into a basket. OWEN enters, eating an apple.)

OWEN

Hi, Robin. Whatcha doin’?

ROBIN

[I’m] Perhaps cut this, since she's answering his question with what she's doing, not stating what she's doing running away.

OWEN

(Inserts a knuckle into his ear to clear it out.)

[What? Did I hear you right?] This feels a little forced to me. Perhaps just the what, or even why.

ROBIN

Yep.

OWEN

(Sits down next to her)

[Well, then. As your older cousin---] They both know he's her older cousin, so this feels like information through dialog (though if this has been a running joke for them it might feel natural). If someone threw a shocker like this, I'd suspect the first reaction would be "why?"

ROBIN

[You seem to have forgotten that I’m older than you.

OWEN

By a week! Anyway, as your just plain cousin, I have the responsibility to talk you out of these things.

ROBIN

You’re not talking me out of this.] All of this feels a little forced to me as well, and Owen isn't addressing the running away part at all.

OWEN

C’mon, Robin. Where d’ya think you’re gonna go?

ROBIN

There were these people. In the woods.

OWEN

You’re crazy. They’re probably outlaws. Or at least cannibals.

ROBIN

At least?

OWEN

Whatever. [But] Perhaps cut for flow you can’t go.

ROBIN

Owen, I can’t stay here any longer.

OWEN

(Quietly)

[Your ma wouldn’t have liked you just throwing your life away like this.] This feels a little too correct grammar if that makes sense

ROBIN

Your ma wouldn’t have liked you sleeping on the streets.

OWEN

It’s not like I have a choice!

(Sighs)

Just stay one more day.

ROBIN

All right. One more day.

OWEN

(Stands up.)

[Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.] Would he try to reinforce the idea of her staying? "You'll be here, right?" or the like

ROBIN

[Good] Perhaps cut as folks often shorten this, and if she's upset and running away, she'd likely be abbreviating things. She's been pretty curt so far night.

(OWEN exits)

The question:
Does this dialogue sound sincere?
Parts do, parts don't. The thing that strikes me more than anything here is that Owen never addresses why Robin is running away. Maybe this is all knowledge he has going into this scene, but even then I'd expect him to try to talk her out of it by addressing the problem, not just saying she can't go or that he has responsibilities and whatnot. He spends more time trying to convince her that's he's older and has the job of talking her out of this than he does actually trying to talk her out of it.

I'd also expect his responses to focus more on why she's leaving and what he can do to fix her problems, and how he can help (males are typically problem solvers by nature). She'd likely vent about why she can't stay. They'd talk about things that matter to this problem. (unless they're trying to avoid that, but none of the stage direction suggests that's the case here)

It also feels a little too correct in how it's written. People don't speak in proper sentences, and they don't use names very often, if at all. In a book, things are a little different because you can't see who's speaking, but listening to dialog has a different feel.

I'd suggest reading the dialog out loud and seeing where you stumble or it feels awkward to say. Get someone to read the other part and do the scene. I suspect you'll hear where it's not quite working and what is.

Thanks to our brave volunteer for submitting this for me to play with. I hope they–and others–find it helpful. I don’t do a full critique on these, (just as it pertains to the questions) and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions of your own. Just remember that these pieces are works in progress, not polished drafts, so be nice and offer constructive feedback.

The Best Advice on Plotting I've Ever Heard: Two Tips That Will Make Plotting Easier

2012-05-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

But wait, there's more!

I read a few pieces of plotting advice in the last few weeks I wish I'd written. They're nothing new, nothing ground-break, and things countless writers have said before (including me), but the way they're said is sheer genius. They're probably the most applicable and easiest plotting tips I've ever heard.

Of course, me being me instantly thought about ways to apply them to my work and how to break it down into neat little examples. I found no matter how awesome this advice is, it's also kinda easy to be led astray by it if you don't quite get it (like show don't tell).

The first is a link from editor Cheryl Kline, who linked a video from a NY writing class where South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were talking about stories. The advice basically came down to this:

Every scene in your story is connected, and how you connect them will determine whether or not they're moving the story of just showing stuff happening. If you can say "and then" between them, they're not advancing the story. If you can say "but" or "therefore" then something happens that forces a conflict or a decision and the story advances.

While the advice refers to full scenes, I think this can also be used well on an action-by-action basis. It certainly allows you to see exactly how every action your character takes affects the narrative drive.

Let's look at that in practice, shall we?

The first scene of The Shifter is the protagonist, Nya, stealing eggs for breakfast. Using this model, I'd write it down like:

Nya is stealing eggs for breakfast.

Now, the next thing that happens is she gets caught.

Nya is stealing eggs for breakfast, but she gets caught.

Notice the but there? She has a goal, but that goal is thwarted by someone else taking action against her. If this conflict hadn't occurred, it might look like this:

Nya is stealing eggs for breakfast. And then she leaves the chicken ranch and goes to eat her eggs.

Two scenes, both with goals (which we all know a scene needs), but there's no conflict. That but is what signals and pinpoints the conflict. Without that, the plot isn't moving in a way that will hold a reader's interest.

The therefore is the choice the character makes that sets up the next goal and scene. X happens, but Y happens and now they have to do Z.

Let's see this play out a little longer:

Nya is stealing eggs for breakfast, but she gets caught. Therefore, she..
Throws a chicken and runs, but the guard chases her. Therefore, she...
Tries to evade the guard, and then he trips and breaks his ankle.

Wait, what? See that and then in there. This is a moment where the plot can start to unravel, so you want to get a but and therefore in there fast.

Tries to evade the guard, and then he trips and breaks his ankle.
He tells her to run, but she stays behind to heal him. Therefore...
The rancher catches up to them and threatens them with a weapon, but...
Nya shifts pain into the rancher and escapes. But...
She's seen by two boys who will report her to the Healers' League and get her into trouble.

See how the events feed off each other and Nya has to make choices and deal with unexpected things happening?

One thing that struck me as I was playing around with this, is that you really have to think about the goals and conflicts to make this work. Look how easy it would have been to say:

Nya tries to evade the guard, but he trips and breaks his ankle.

Nya tries to act one way, but something else happens. On first glance it works because you have that but in there. Yet the guard tripping in no way impedes Nya's goal of evading him. It actually helps her, so it's not a conflict to her goal. It's not a but. It's her decision to stay and help him that keeps her from evading. It's the therefore that moves the story along after this occurs.

Some Key Things to Remember With This Technique:

When you're identifying your but, make sure what happens is in conflict with the character's goal or action.
When you're identifying your therefore, make sure it's a choice made in response to what has just happened.
If the therefore doesn't work for you, try and so. I found this clicked better for me and made it easier to see the "he does this and so she does that" connections.

He tells her to run, but she stays behind to heal him, and so...
The rancher catches up to them and threatens them with a weapon

This slides nicely into the second post I read: Jami Gold's thoughts on if every scene needed a goal. It's a great breakdown of the scene and structure format, and she says something near the end that really clicked with me.

"When you’re writing, don’t worry about if a section is a scene or sequel. Think cause and effect, sentence-by-sentence, action to reaction, scene to scene, and you’ll never go wrong."

Cause and effect. This is but, therefore in another form. Every action has a cause and an effect, and as long as things are building off each other, you keep the story moving.

I think this is why that and then in the middle of my chicken scene works. The guard tripping doesn't impede Nya's goal, but it causes her to stop and his act of letting her goal affects her. She feels compassion for him, so she helps him, which causes conflict for her goal and ultimate gets her in more trouble. His action causes an effect on her and she acts because of it.

What These Tips Can Do For You
Your plot events will dictate how good your plot is, and even if you follow all the "rules" perfectly, it can still stink. Someone else can break all the rules and the plot is gripping. This is why giving plotting advice is hard because it's so subjective--and why these tips strip away so much of the guesswork.

Because it comes down to cause and effect, but and therefore.

Something happens and the character has to react to how that something affects them. If it doesn't affect them it's pointless to the plot. If it doesn't force a decision, it's probably not moving the story or making the reader care what happens next.

Look at your plot and outline a scene using these techniques. Focus on what your protagonist actually does, not how they feel. Those feelings might be the motivators for the therefore or and so connections, but it won't do much for the plot, because plot is what the character does, not how they feel.

List what they do, what happens, and what they do in response to that. If you find yourself writing a lot of and then, you know you don't have enough conflict and your character's goals aren't being thwarted. You don't actually have a plot, just a series of scenes.

But if you find a lot of but, therefore or and so, then you can rest easy that you have a plot and it's driving the story.

How do your scenes hold up against this? Is there cause and effect in your scenes or are you missing goals or conflicts?

Did I Just Say That? When Characters Say Dumb Things

2012-05-17T07:01:00.000-04:00

There are moments in my life I wish I could take back. The kind where I opened my mouth and inserted my foot right up to my hip bone. They still haunt me even though it's been years and I'll never see those people again (it's worse for the ones I see all the time, ack).

And sometimes, a verbal slip got me into trouble I would have gotten out of if Id just kept my mouth shut.

Characters can say stupid things too.

It's a lot easier for them to come up with the perfect zinger, or to carefully consider their words before they speak, but come on, who really does that every time in real life?

Letting your characters make verbal gaffes is a fun way to mess up a situation that should have been easy. It's also a great way to show flaws or even a darker side they'd prefer to keep hidden. They might:

Give away a secret
Call someone by the wrong name
Tell the truth instead of lie
Lie instead of tell the truth
Say what they think someone wants to hear

Of course, you don't want you character to make a fool of themselves all the time, because then it's hard to take them seriously. Sometimes there's a fine line between ditsy and idiotic. Be wary about letting them slip up too often. (unless, of course, that's the whole point of that character)

They can also be on the receiving end of a gaffe. Bad guys the world over have slipped up and revealed something they shouldn't have, but it also works when the protagonist's friends do it. The wrong comment at the right time might force your protagonist to reexamine something they'd been doing or a belief they'd been firmly entrenched in.

If you need a character's brain to a break so they're not thinking clearly, consider letting them (or someone else) speak out of turn. Having to deal with a verbal slip definitely takes the focus off what they intended to say.

And if you embarrass them enough, they might hold back when they really need to speak up at a critical time later.

Do your characters always say the right thing? Are there any times when a verbal slip would make the scene more interesting?

Crossing Words Off Your List: Making the Most of Editing "What Not to Use" Lists

2012-05-16T06:00:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of lists, especially list of red flag words that typically indicate trouble in a manuscript. Not only are they're great reminders of problem areas, they give me a place to start when I begin revisions. Recently I've read a few good posts about the subject, one on working past wordiness, another on shaping up flabby words, and one on using the search and find feature. They all suggest words to hunt down and kill (paraphrasing here) and they got me thinking.

It can be very easy as a new writer to see these lists and read this advice and think that every instance of every one of these words should be cut from your manuscript.

And that's not the case.

The right word for what you're trying to say is always the right choice, no matter what that word is. Most times, cutting that flabby word or finding that strong noun or active verb is the right choice, but once in a while it's not.

You might want your dialog to feel flat because that's how the character feels.
You might want a detached and passive tone because that works thematically with the passage.
You might even want wordiness if it accomplishes something you can't do any other way.

I'm not saying ignore these lists or this advice, because it's all good stuff, and your work will likely be improved by editing them out. I am saying it's worth spending some time understanding why these lists and these rules are so valuable. Learn to use them well, not just blindly follow the rules.

If you let a rule like, never use auxiliary verbs (those pesky to be verbs) control your writing, you might drive yourself nuts trying to eliminate every occurrence of was and were in your manuscript. Odds are you'll writing will suffer for it, because was is a very useful word. It's just certain times when it can indicate a problem.

Understand what those problem areas are, and you'll be more capable of improving your writing when you do find them.

Now, I find these lists incredibly helpful myself, so I know how easy it is to want to edit when you find one. We all want quantifiable things to improve our writing. But before you cut one, ask yourself:

Is there a better word I can replace the problem word with?
Is there a better way I can edit the line to eliminate that problem word?
Can I cut the line entirely? (often you can)
Am I using the problem word as a crutch because I'm not sure the reader will get what I mean without me saying it? (Often problems words show up when we try to explain what we've already shown)
Is this the best word for the job?

If you find there's just no way you can change it, don't. There's a good chance it's doing its job and it's not as problematic as you think. Adverbs are useful. To be verbs have their place. Qualifiers like just and only can show judgment in ways others words can't.

Just because the word often hangs out with a bad crowd doesn't mean it's bad in and of itself. Think about how you use it and what you could do better if you didn't. It's more important to find the right word than to adhere to a list of "wrong" words.

Are there any words you don't use because everyone says not to? What words are on your "double check" list? Are they any words you struggle with or don't get why they shouldn't be used?

Forge Ahead: Ways to be a More Productive Writer, Part 4

2012-05-15T06:00:00.000-04:00

The urge to fiddle is strong with a lot writers. Even once the book is published we want to go back and edit. But tweaking first draft pages can often hold us back, especially if we're looking at writing we've just done when we want to write something new.

I started off with finding the right time and place to write, then it was all about preparation, and last time, it was stopping in the middle. Today in my "Be a More Productive Writer" series, it's all about forging ahead.

Tip number four on being a more productive writer:

Don't read what you wrote the day before. Or at least not all of it.

I always started my writing session by reading what I'd done the session before. Re-familiarizing myself with the story and the voices. But then I noticed that I was spending a lot of time editing those "quick re-reads" and by the time I got to the writing, a big chunk of my writing time was gone.

So I started just reading the last page or two, if anything at all, and moving forward.

I noticed I got to the actual writing part a lot faster, so I got more done in my allotted time.

This is much easier if you've left yourself a "in the middle" paragraph so you can just pick up where you left off. Even easier if you take those five minutes and plan out your writing session. You can even read the last session's planning summary to remind yourself where you were. (another handy reason to do this)

There will be times when you do need to go back for a specific reason and double check something, but most of the time you can forge ahead and get to work.

This tip's challenge:
Don't re-read more than two pages of your last writing session's work. Dive right in and see how much more you can get done.

As for last tip's challenge... Where did you leave off? Did mid-sentence work better for you or mid-paragraph?

Random Act Of Kindness BLITZ!

2012-05-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

A smile. An encouraging word. A thoughtful gesture. Each day people interact with us, help, and make our day a bit brighter and full. This is especially true in the Writing Community.

Take a second to think about writers you know, like the critique partner who works with you to improve your manuscript. The writing friend who listens, supports and keeps you strong when times are tough. The author who generously offers council, advice
and inspiration when asked.

So many people take the time to make us feel special, don't they? They comment on our blogs, re-tweet our posts, chat with us on forums and wish us Happy Birthday on Facebook.

Kindness ROCKS!

To commemorate the release of their book The Emotion Thesaurus, Becca and Angela at The Bookshelf Muse are hosting a TITANIC Random Act Of Kindness BLITZ. And because I think KINDNESS is contagious, I'm participating too!

My act of kindness goes out to blogger and writer JAMI GOLD. Jami is a wonderful and deserving persons who's always there with great advice, heartfelt posts about her writing struggles, and encouraging words for those walking the same path. Her blog is filled with wonderful writing advice and she's always happy to help out a fellow writer. I'm offering her a 50-page critique to say thank you for everything she's done for the writing community. If you have a minute, please stop in and tell her how awesome she is!

Do you know someone special that you'd like to randomly acknowledge? Don't be shy--come join us and celebrate! Send them an email, give them a shout out, or show your appreciation in another way. Kindness makes the world go round. :)

Becca and Angela have a special RAOK gift waiting for you as well, so hop on over to The Bookshelf Muse to pick it up.

Have you ever participated in or been the recipient of a Random Act Of Kindness? Let me know in the comments!

And the Winner of the Random Critique Contest Is...

2012-05-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

Drum roll please...

Linds!

Congratulations, Linds, the random number generator picked you!

Just send your 1000 words (when ready) to janice (at) janicehardy (dot) com. If there's anything particular you'd like me to address, just let me know.

Next month, I'll choose another random post for another random critique. Oh, and past winners aren't eligible again.

Real Life Diagnostics: New and Lost: Tips on Fixing Immature, Voiceless Writing

2012-05-13T06:00:00.004-04:00

Real Life Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and I diagnose them on the blog. It’s part critique, part example, designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to Real Life Diagnostics, check out the page for guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: Five

This week’s question:
This is my very first WIP. I understand I have a long way to go before I find my voice, but something feels "off" whenever I read my own work. I think my writing is just simply "immature" for lack of a better word to describe it. Are there any specific tips you can offer that can target "immature/voiceless writing?"

Market/Genre: Fantasy

On to the diagnosis…

Original text:
Kline dismounted and swaggered to the unlucky trio. “Look at this one’s bravado. Congratulations, you’ve managed to piss me off twice in one week without dying. Yet. Surrender, and you may live to tell the tale.”

The men horsemen tightened the circle. Swords and spears anxious to lunge forth. Worst of all, Maya couldn’t think of a plan, she was never the one running before. She couldn’t believe she might die now. Sharp points poked her shoulder, and Ana yelped in fright. But Leo was waiting, calculating. Hopefully, it wouldn’t get them killed.

“I have orders to bring the apprentice alive, but not you…” something caught Kline’s attention. “Do I know you?” He stepped closer, to examine Leo’s face.

Before his foot touched the ground, Leo shouted, “Now.” They dove to the ground. His skin beamed silver. He drew in his arms, then snapped them out, sending a ruinous ring of energy from his body. The current exploded over their heads, ripped through the rows of calvary encircling them and smashed the bark off trees, pelting everyone with a rain of splinters. The fearsome wave cleaved men and horses in two, and blasted many off their mounts. Kline ducked in time, but the blinding flash of energy left him dazed for a few seconds.

Enough time to run.

Snatching Leo’s and Ana’s arms, Maya bolted through a sea of writhing bodies. Maya realized her hearing was coming back when she noticed the wails of horses and men sounded in the night. But there were more to the dispatch. Despite Leo’s devastating strike, there must have been twenty, or fifty more men on foot and hoof. Ready to hunt. Ready to kill.

My Thoughts in Purple:
Kline dismounted and swaggered to the unlucky trio. [“Look at this one’s bravado. Congratulations, you’ve managed to piss me off twice in one week without dying. Yet. Surrender, and you may live to tell the tale.”] It might just be the way the text came in, but this dialog feels like it's being said in reference to Kline's swagger. If so, it would be on its own line. If not, whoever is the point of view (POV) character would see Kline swagger toward them, not "the trio."

The men horsemen tightened the circle. Swords and spears anxious to lunge forth. [Worst of all, Maya couldn’t think of a plan, she was never the one running before. She couldn’t believe she might die now.] The way this is phrased makes me think this is her POV. I'm in her head hearing her thoughts. [Sharp points poked her shoulder, and Ana yelped in fright.] But this feels like I'm in Ana's head, and if so, I'm head hopping to another POV character. But it's possible Maya gets poked at the same time she hears Ana yelp. If so, separate the actions so it's clear which event belongs to which character. [But Leo was waiting, calculating. Hopefully, it wouldn’t get them killed.] I don't know which girl thinks this.

“I have orders to bring the apprentice alive, but not you…” [something caught Kline’s attention. ] I'm in his head, which hops POV again “Do I know you?” He stepped closer, [to examine Leo’s face.] This tells motive, and it's something the POV character wouldn't know. They would only see Kline step forward, not know why.

[Before his foot touched the ground, Leo shouted, “Now.” ] telling here. This tells the reader something happens before it actually does, as if someone on the outside knows what's about to happen or has seen this all happen already They dove to the ground. His skin beamed silver. He drew in his arms, then snapped them out, sending a ruinous ring of energy from his body. The current exploded over their heads, ripped through the rows of calvary encircling them and smashed the bark off trees, pelting everyone with a rain of splinters. The fearsome wave cleaved men and horses in two, and blasted many off their mounts. Is this paragraph all Leo seeing this? Whose head am I in here?

[Kline ducked in time, but the blinding flash of energy left him dazed for a few seconds.] Telling here. An outsider who knows what's going on would see Kline duck and know he did it before the blast could hit him, but someone in the middle of this might not even see Kline duck. Or if they did, they'd see him duck and the magic pass over him, or not affect him. Whatever the outward signs of this would be. Unless he acted dazed, they wouldn't know it.

[Enough time to run.] Who thinks this?

Snatching Leo’s and Ana’s arms, Maya bolted through a sea of writhing bodies. [Maya realized her hearing was coming back when she noticed the wails of horses and men sounded in the night.] Telling here. It tells readers what happened and why instead of showing her unable to hear, then slowly being able to hear again and what she does hear. [ But there were more to the dispatch. Despite Leo’s devastating strike, there must have been twenty, or fifty more men on foot and hoof. Ready to hunt. Ready to kill.] Is this what Maya sees?

The question:
Are there any specific tips you can offer that can target "immature/voiceless writing?"
I'm always flattered (and impress by their courage) when first timers send me a page to diagnose. It takes a lot of guts to put your work out there, especially for new writers.

I don't think this is so much an issue of being voiceless as it is just being new to writing. There are things you haven't yet learned and that's making it tough to get the writing to sound the way you want it to. And those two things are issues pretty much every writer struggles to overcome.

Point of view (POV) and show don't tell.

Let's do POV first, as fixing that usually fixes the shown don't tell problem.

Right now, there's no POV character. The story hops from head to head and the reader doesn't know whose perspective this story is being told from. So they feel lost and confused. The story feels ungrounded because there's no one in the driver's seat so to speak.

To fix this, decide which of these three protagonists is the POV for each scene. Don't hop from head to head, but stick to one person and show the scene from their eyes. What do they see? What do they think and feel about what they're seeing? You do a good job with your internalization in some spots of this already:

The men horsemen tightened the circle. Swords and spears anxious to lunge forth. Worst of all, Maya couldn’t think of a plan, she was never the one running before. She couldn’t believe she might die now.

This sounds like Maya thinking, "worst of all..." I feel in her head here, which is good. You're starting to do this, so it shouldn't be hard to shift to doing this all the time. A tighter POV will make it even easier, because you'll know who is doing the looking and the thinking.

As for the telling, that happens when the author is explaining actions and motives and not dramatizing it for the reader. When this happens, it comes across like an outsider poking their head in and explaining what's going on. (like someone explaining the movie during the movie to someone who hasn't seen it yet) Since you're the author, you know what happens and why, but the characters don't. They can only know what they see and experience, so if someone acts, all they can see is the action, not the reason why. For example:

Kline ducked in time, but the blinding flash of energy left him dazed for a few seconds

If Maya is the POV, what would she see? A blast of energy, and Kline ducking. She'll have no idea if it's in time or not. She also won't know he was left dazed for a few seconds unless she was watching him, saw him duck and then stagger or look dazed in some way for her to assume he was dazed. It might look like...

Kline ducked and the flash rolled over him. He staggered to one knee, shaking his head, but jumped to his feet again a moment later.

You could even add in a judgment call from Maya...

Kline ducked and the flash rolled over him. He staggered to one knee, shaking his head as if dazed, but jumped to his feet again a moment later.

The "as if dazed" is what Maya thinks happened to him. She doesn't know, she just sees him act in a way that makes her suspect he's dazed.

I'd suggest focusing on point of view and getting that down. Odds are the telling will disappear as you get more proficient in sticking to a POV and showing the world through that character's eyes. (If not, that's a good next step once you feel good about POV). I've found that a solid grasp of POV fixes just about every basic writing problem out there.

Here are some posts to get you started. These will cover a lot of the things I mentioned here:
Through My Eyes. Or Your Eyes. Or Somebody's Eyes. POV Basics
View to a Skill: Understanding Point of View
Room With a (Point of) View
Stepping Out: A Look at POV Shifts
How Far is Too Far? Far Narrative Distance vs Telling
Thinking to Myself: Internalization 101
And Coming up on the Left, Stuff: Writing Description
I Told You: Mental Signposts That Tell, Not Show
Send up the (Red) Flag: Words That Often Spell Trouble
Don't Tell Me Why: Words That Often Tell, Not Show

For a first novel attempt you're doing fine. There's a lot to learn and you had the writer instincts to tell you something was off. That says a lot that you're able to recognize a problem even if you're not sure yet how to address it. If you work on the fundamentals and build a sold writing foundation, then you'll see improvement and your writing will sound more like you want it to.

Thanks to our brave volunteer for submitting this for me to play with. I hope they–and others–find it helpful. I don’t do a full critique on these, (just as it pertains to the questions) and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions of your own. Just remember that these pieces are works in progress, not polished drafts, so be nice and offer constructive feedback.

Real Life Diagnostics: An Opening Look: Does This Scene Work?

2012-05-12T06:00:00.005-04:00

Real Life Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and I diagnose them on the blog. It’s part critique, part example, designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to Real Life Diagnostics, check out the page for guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: Six

This week’s question:
Does this opening work?

Market/Genre: Young Adult fantasy with mystery theme

On to the diagnosis…

Original text:
The rumour all summer had been of Enemy submarines and submersibles, glimpsed far out in the Gulf. Or, if not seen, certainly heard, during the lengthening autumn nights or when a blanket of fog lay heavy on the coast. Grace Archer wondered if Moonfleet Cove was perhaps a little fanatical about sightings. And all the talk about Enemy spies, she suspected, was equally exaggerated.

“See, I reckon this is where a sub could come in at night,” Ben Jervis was saying, his hands taking in the cold grey Gulf and the deserted shore. It was a misty evening and getting almost too dark to see. Grace had let Ben step out ahead of her on the sloping shingle. He was a slight indistinct outline in the dusk.

“When you see so little, it’s easy to imagine anything.” Grace’s mild comment was hardly loud enough to be heard over the soft tumult of the turning tide, but he heard her.

“It’s not just what people see, though, it’s what they hear!” Ben flung the words over his shoulder, whipping himself with his Youth Brigade beret for emphasis.

“And what have they heard?” She fed him the line with an inward smile.

“All sorts of strange sounds in the darkness!” Ben assured her triumphantly. “Unearthly pinging sounds, and sounds like birds only no birds make such cries. And Bailey from school, his uncle heard sucking and splashing sounds in the middle of the night, and the wake was something else when it came to shore.”

My Thoughts in Purple:
The rumour all summer had been of Enemy submarines and submersibles, glimpsed far out in the Gulf. Or, if not seen, certainly heard, during the lengthening autumn nights or when a blanket of fog lay heavy on the coast. Grace Archer wondered if Moonfleet Cove was perhaps a little fanatical about sightings. And all the talk about Enemy spies, she suspected, was equally exaggerated. The possibility of enemy spies in intriguing.

“See, I reckon this is where a sub could come in at night,” Ben Jervis was saying, his hands taking in the cold grey Gulf and the deserted shore. It was a misty evening and getting almost too dark to see. Grace had let Ben step out ahead of her on the sloping shingle. He was a slight indistinct outline in the dusk. Are they out here to find a sub? What's their goal?

“When you see so little, it’s easy to imagine anything.” Grace’s mild comment was hardly loud enough to be heard over the soft tumult of the turning tide, but he heard her. Could be a good spot to show her thinking about what she might see. You could provide some world building here through her internalization.

“It’s not just what people see, though, it’s what they hear!” [Ben flung the words over his shoulder, whipping himself with his Youth Brigade beret for emphasis.] I don't know what this means. I can't visualize it.

“And what have they heard?” She fed him the line with an inward smile. I get the sense she's teasing, but I'm not in her head enough to know her yet

“All sorts of strange sounds in the darkness!” Ben assured her triumphantly. “Unearthly pinging sounds, and sounds like birds only no birds make such cries. And Bailey from school, his uncle heard sucking and splashing sounds in the middle of the night, [and the wake was something else when it came to shore.”] I don't know what this means

The question:
Does this opening work?
The idea of enemy subs and spies is interesting, though I don't yet know why these two are out looking for them, so there's nothing to draw me into the story quite yet. If I were intrigued by the cover blurb, I'd probably keep reading for another page or two to see where it goes though.

A few things did jump out at me in this. The omniscient narrator made it difficult for me to know who my protagonist is, though I suspect it's Grace since she's mentioned first. But I'm not in anyone's head for long, so I'm not sure which character I should be following. I'd suggest clarifying who the POV is here and maybe getting in a little internalization to ground the reader to this world and what's going on.

Every line of dialog is tagged, and most with a name even though there are only two people speaking. That creates a odd rhythm as you read. This is something that would stop me from reading on. I'd suggest breaking it up and varying the sentence structures so it's not so similar. (speak-description-speak-description) I'd also edit out the names after the first introductions, since it's clear who is speaking each time. If we knew whose head we were in, it would help fix this.

I'm also a little unsure about the genre description. This reads more like historical fiction to me (the dialog and phrasing seems nostalgic) and not fantasy. I suppose it could be a dystopian future fantasy, but that isn't coming across yet. It might not matter so much since a reader will have read a blurb before they start it, but you might consider a few details to give it that fantasy (or dystopian) feel. Internalization would also help here, as you could have the POV think about things in context and do a little world building at the same time.

Being closer in the POV"s head would also allow you to offer the reader a likable character to connect to, which could satisfy them until the plot events pick up.

Overall, it's not a bad start and could be a good hook with a little tweaking. There's already a sense that something is going to happen with the spies, and it wouldn't take much to capitalize on that.

Thanks to our brave volunteer for submitting this for me to play with. I hope they–and others–find it helpful. I don’t do a full critique on these, (just as it pertains to the questions) and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions of your own. Just remember that these pieces are works in progress, not polished drafts, so be nice and offer constructive feedback.

RANDOM CRITIQUE CONTEST!
Leave a comment on this post, and I'll randomly choose someone to win a 1000-word critique from me. No time limit to turn it in. Deadline is 7am EST on May 13th.

Oh, What Now? Fixing a Stalled Scene

2012-05-11T07:00:00.001-04:00

It's no secret I love doing terrible things to my characters. "How can this go wrong?" is one of my favorite writing techniques. But believe it or not, sometimes having things go wrong all the time isn't the best thing for your story. Sometimes it's a good idea to step back and ask...

Am I making the story better, or just creating an obstacle course for my protagonist?

Things going wrong is great, but if nothing is made worse overall (and thus raise the stakes), it might not do anything to advance your story. Look at your manuscript. Do you have passages that are exciting, but you've gotten feedback like, "This is all good stuff, but I feel like the story isn't going anywhere." or "What's the point of all this? It's starting to feel episodic."
If so, you might be causing unnecessary trouble.

Fixing a Stalled Scene

Goal Check
Look at your character's goals. Are they actively trying to do something to solve their big story problem, or is this just one more tiny step in the plot? Steps are good, but too many can send the story off track and make it feel aimless. How many steps removed from the main plot if this scene? If it's more than three or four, you might be too far from the core conflict. Yes, you have a goal driving the scene, but achieving it doesn't actually matter to the bigger story. So the scene flounders.

Conflict Conundrum
What's the conflict in this scene? Is any thing or any one in the way of your protagonist getting what they want? Lack of conflict is another common culprit in scenes that aren't working. Lack of conflict means a lack of stakes, because there no sense that the hero will fail. What can you do to add conflict back into the scene? Who or what can be between the protagonist and their goal?

Raise the Stakes
If the stakes aren't going up even though things are going wrong, that's a big red flag that it's just extra trouble and not a real plot obstacle. How can this problem make the risk higher? Personal risks to the protagonist are usually best, but you can also make things worse for another character if they're important to the protagonist. Look at internal and external goals, and think down the line as well as immediate problems.

Mix and Match
Can this problem be combined with another one that does raise the stakes? Multiple things going wrong at once can make for some gripping scenes, and allows you to layer plot and add depth through inner conflict. One external problem might work well with an internal problem and turn a good scene into a wow scene.

Hack and Slash
Can the scene be cut? Trimming the scene might pick up the pace and get you to the important plot elements faster. If you can't cut the scene, ask why you can't? That will give you an idea of what really matters in that scene, and you can either use that to fix the scene or find a way to combine scenes. Or find a way to make the scene work overall.

There's a difference between making things worse and making bad things happen. If your trouble enhances the overall story, you're on the right track. If all it does is delay the plot, it can probably go. Because the last thing you want, is a reader rolling their eyes and thinking, "Oh, come on."

Do you have any stalled scenes right now? Have you looked at the goals and the stakes? What about the conflict?

Guest Author Diana Bocco: How Short Stories and Novels Are Different

2012-05-10T06:00:00.000-04:00

I'd like to welcome Diana Bocco to the blog today to chat with us about the differences between writing short stories and novels. I'm always impressed with short story writers, because that's a skill that doesn't come naturally to me. I tend to think in 60K word sizes, and writing a short story always takes way more brain power than a novel. But there are a lot of benefits to writing shorts, and I know quite a few writers who have been very successful at it. If you've ever thought about trying a shirt story, Diana has some great tips and things to think about before you dive in.

Diana is a full-time freelance writer, editor and writing coach. She teaches short-story and freelance writing workshops (both group and one-on-one) and is getting ready to launch her own horror magazine. Diana is the author of “How They Did It: 25 bloggers, authors and writers share all their secrets about earning a living and how you can do it too” as well as the horror anthology, “Don’t Turn the Lights On” . An incurable globetrotter, Diana has lived and worked in New York City, Buenos Aires, Siberia, Hanoi and currently resides in Bangkok. You can read more about her and her work on her website.

Take it away Diana...

Many writers who excel at writing short stories have never penned a novel. O. Henry, Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Carver are good examples. The reason? Short stories and novels might seem similar, but they’re actually worlds apart. Probably the biggest challenge for new writers is accepting that short stories are not “a novel in short form.”

An easy way to understand the differences is to think of a short story as a window into a larger story you don’t get to see. It’s like a flash goes off and you get a chance to observe 10 minutes into the life of a character. You might not get a big insight into his background, how he got there and who he is–you just get to see him in that moment in time, in that particular situation.

There are other differences to consider:

The scope of the events in a short story is usually much smaller, focusing on a single climatic event. If you’re going to tell us a story about how a group of friends gets together and goes on a hiking trip, only to get lost and encounter a killer in the woods, you’ll need a novel. A short story, on the other hand, would start with the characters encountering the killer and trying to survive a single attack.

A short story is usually centered on just one character. Sure, you can have supporting characters helping the story develop, but the story is about one particular character in one particular moment on time. If you’re going to talk about how a nuclear attack affects a whole town, you’re going to need a novel to get the story across. However, if you want to show us what happens to a specific character on the 30 minutes after the bombs struck, then you’re looking at a short story. Because there’s only one main character to follow, you’re also looking to a single POV, while novels can alternate POVs successfully.

Short stories usually span a short period of time. Sure, you have the occasional story that jumps months or years ahead, but those are the exception. In general, you get to share the life of the character over the period of an hour or a day, often in a single shot, without interruptions. It’s easier to convey jumps on time in a novel.

Short stories have a single plot line. In order for the suspense to build and the climax to develop well, you can’t distract readers with secondary story lines or unimportant details. On a novel, the opposite is true–you need supporting characters with their own story lines and conflicts to help advance the story and make the reading more interesting.

Perhaps the most important difference is that short stories are less permanent. The events of a novel shape a character so at the end of the story he’s irremediably changed and his life completely altered. A short story doesn’t need to achieve that–in fact, a short story cannot truly achieve that. We can see the beginnings of the change, a spark for the events that’ll come long after the story is over, but there’s much missing that we never get to experience with the character. That doesn’t mean short stories are incomplete–they’re just a different way of looking at the story.

When I was in college, I had a professor who used to say short stories were like a roller coaster. You get there, you jump in, you experience the emotions of the ride, and you’re off. Novels are more like the whole theme park. You ride the roller coaster, but you also get to experience other rides and have some ice cream in between.

Guest Author Juliette Wade: The Structural Rewrite of Death

2012-05-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

Fellow writer Juliette Wade and I were talking about a major rewrite she's planning for one of her books (and one I've been dying for her to finish, I might add), and she had a great epiphany on tacking a rewrite of a written book. I asked her to blog about it for us, and she graciously agreed.

Juliette blogs about language and culture and how that applies to writing over at TalkToYoUniverse, a must for anyone writing about science fiction or fantasy cultures. Her short stories have appeared in Analog Magazine, and I've no doubts that once she finishes this book, you'll see it on the shelves before too long.

Take it away Juliette...

I knew this would be a perfect post for The Other Side of the Story, particularly after I read Janice's post on outlining. I'd like to talk about this novel that I'm rewriting from scratch.

Let me explain what I mean.

Okay, so I wrote this novel. Or, I started to write it. For a long while it was going really great, and then it lost momentum halfway through, and I was never able to finish it. One reason why I never finished it was that even though the scenes were exciting, my readers kept telling me they didn't know where it was going. It was involving, yet somehow lacked a sense of forward drive. I think this was because I only vaguely knew where it was going myself–I knew where the end was supposed to be but I didn't know how to get there. My chapter outline was getting on to sixty-five chapters, and down that road lies insanity.

I don't necessarily have anything against long stories. But tell me if you recognize this: you write a story, it's too long, you go through agonizing over how long it is and try to cut, but the word count creeps downward only a tiny bit at a time until you don't think you can squeeze another word out of the text as it stands.

I've been through this more than once, and what it means for me is that the text as it stands is wrong. Once you've fixed all problems with verbosity and redundancy, and you've gotten down to something as concise and constantly original as possible, you still may not have enough drive to make the story sing. At that point, there's only one way to go any lower:

Structural rewrite of death.

I had tried other ways of increasing the sense of drive. I'd added fights, a death, other stuff. But these were all tangential things, like arrows that pointed outward from the main thrust of the story, arriving out of nowhere to carry it forward just a little, but not really solving the fundamental problem.

What I needed to do was back off and start over.

It's a scary idea. How can you start over? How can you abandon everything you've done?

Well, you are, and you aren't.

In a sense, you are, and it's critical that you do. I personally find that if I go back and look at any of the text I've written, one thing leads to another so naturally that I can't drag myself off of it to consider alternatives. I have to start with an entirely blank page, or the old story sucks me in like quicksand.

In another sense, though, you aren't. Don't open a file, and don't look at your old outline. Now ask yourself what you remember. What parts of the story did you love? Which parts haunt you? Which parts stay in your head when the text itself is gone?

Those are the pieces that are important–they have to be. You remember them precisely because of their importance. So take those pieces and write them down in a blank file. A phrase here or there, in no particular order. "The Eminence dies." "This character gets sick." "A tea party with an influential Cabinet player."

Take those scenes and let them float free of the moorings they had in the last draft of the story. Let them bounce around a little, and see if any of them stick together. "Oh," you may realize, "this scene has to happen before that one." Or, "these two scenes really would work well in immediate sequence." Maybe, "this event changes the entire nature of the story," or, "wouldn't this scene work well as a sort of reply to that one."

The scene that starts the main conflict should probably be your first scene, and the more story arcs it gets started, the better. In my book, it's a scene where the main character goes to a concert and someone drops dead on stage, causing a panic. It actively demonstrates the world; it actively shows the reason behind the atmosphere of fear constantly surrounding the main character; it also gives the main character's parents a reason to come back from a trip to protect him. In the same scene, the main character meets a girl that he'll pursue later, ends up getting entangled in personal tension with his best friend, and has a fight with his brother over what happened that night.

Once you have a scene like that, see if you can keep the arcs moving forward in your head. What kind of immediate consequences could each piece have? Do any of them fit with scenes that you've previously written? I realized, for my book, that there would be an investigation into the death in the first scene that I could use as motivation for another scene I'd written in the previous draft. A scene which, in that draft, had a motivation that seemed quite arbitrary.

The order of the old scenes won't matter. Of course you have to keep logically connected events in order, but you can make the old scenes serve the needs of the new arcs, and create a new outline. You can say to yourself, "this is the scene where everything changes, so it needs to occur just at the point when everyone is least ready for it." I discovered I had a scene where one of my characters had just signed a contract that got him in way over his head, and was wallowing in fear and praying that nothing bad would happen. So, logically, the thing that everyone fears the most, which will make the character's life infinitely more difficult, should happen immediately in answer to his plea. (A very Janice sort of move, in fact!)

I won't say that you need a complete, end-to-end outline before you start writing again. I will say, though, that I want one for myself before I start into this again–so I know that this time I'll make it all the way to the end. The changes I've made to the outline will mean drastic changes to the text. I expect not to retain much of what I'd written before–I'll be using my old draft less like a previous draft than like a dictionary, to look up phrases that I liked, or see how I did one thing or another. When I get finished, it will be the same book–same story, same characters, same main events. But I know it will be shorter, because I won't get lost in tangential and unmotivated stuff I included last time. And I feel in my gut that it will be better, because rather than taking existing text and trying to inject drive into it, I'm making the scenes I have serve the new drive I've envisioned.

I hope some of you may find this technique useful. Thanks very much to Janice for inviting me to post.

Get a Three-Chapter Critique From Me For Pens For Paws

2012-05-08T06:57:00.001-04:00

Just a reminder (and a heads up) that my donation to the Pens for Paws Auction has gone live. If you're interested in bidding on a three-chapter critique from me, pop on over and make them an offer they can't refuse. You have until May 10, 2012, at 11:00 PM EST. There's no time limit for this critique, and you can send it to me when you're ready.

Other cool auctions for today besides mine:
20-Page Critique from Operation Awesome + Amarok Swag
T-shirt from Kimberly Pauley, Author of Cat Girl's Day Off
Signed Cozy Mysteries by Gayle Trent/Amanda Lee
Winter's Frost Necklace by Robyn Chausse
Black/Multi Cat Necklace by John Groth Glass

And there are still yesterday's auctions to bid on as well. The fun continues for the rest of the week.

Pens for Paws Auction
This is to support Fat Kitty City, a no-kill, cage-free cat sanctuary that also rescues dogs. They welcome special needs cats, including those positive for feline AIDS, ferals, elderly kitties, and abandoned and abused animals. Many are adoptable, but some will live out their lives in their sanctuary or join their barn cat program. Volunteers stop by to make everything sparkling clean, or just to give them some love and attention. You can bid on everything from signed ARCS, to critiques, to book swag.

And the Winner is...

2012-05-07T07:07:00.001-04:00

The winner of the giveaway for Donna Galanti's A Human Element is...

Gypsyharper

Congrats, and just e-mail me with your contact information and I'll pass it along to Donna.

ETA: Caught up on comments now, and hope to get back to normal posting this week. Amazing how out of whack your life can get by being away for a while, huh?

Get Your Head in the Game: How Character Moods Affect the Scene

2012-05-07T07:01:00.000-04:00

Knowing where your characters are emotionally is a critical aspect of understanding that character. It's what gives them the depth to make them feel real, and not just two dimensional cut outs. If you've ever gotten a critique back that said "the characters just didn't feel real to me," chances are this emotional level is missing, or it's not as developed as it could be.

No one has just one thing on their mental To-Do List. Think about your own day. You get up, you have things to do, you have things you want to do if you can. You feel a certain way, and that will affect everything else you do and how you do it. Wake up in a bad mood, and all those little things that need doing suddenly become huge irritants in your day. Wake up smiling and happy, and you're doing things you might not have done otherwise.

Characters are no different. Their emotions play a role in what they do and how they do it. And emotions fluctuate. We've all been in bad moods, and had days when we couldn't stop grinning.

Where is their head at?
When you start your scene, think about the head spaces of the characters. Are they happy, sad, angry, scared? They'll have a scene goal telling them what to do, but that's just plot. What are they trying to do from an emotional level? Survive? Fake being happy? Get through the day? Shout to the world how much in love they are?

And not just your protagonist, but all the characters in the room, because they'll react differently based on their moods as well. Ask yourself what kind of mood did they wake up in, and has that mood changed over the course of the day. Their moods will likely be based on what's happened to them recently and what's piling up on their shoulders. Once you know that, it makes it easier to know how they'd react to the stuff you throw at them.

Extra tip: If you have a scene that's not working, try changing the emotional state of your protagonist. How might they approach things if they were in a totally different mood? Try it with the other characters in the scene as well.

They can still do what plot tells them to do, but how they do it might change based on their mood. And that can add a whole new layer to your story.

Do you think about your character's mood when you write their scenes?

Real Life Diagnostics: Your Thoughts? Getting the Right Reaction From Your POV

2012-05-05T08:09:00.001-04:00

Real Life Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and I diagnose them on the blog. It’s part critique, part example, designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to Real Life Diagnostics, check out the page for guidelines.

Submissions currently in the queue: Five

This week’s questions:
Did I get her thoughts right? Is it the right reaction? If not, how can I fix her reaction? Is there enough voice? Did I write the stealthy killing okay?

Market/Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction Satire Literary Fiction

EDIT: Revised snippet at the bottom

On to the diagnosis…

Original text:
I was about to hug Sarah good-bye when the lights went out in the house. Sarah screamed and once again glued herself to my leg. A door opened and closed very slowly. There was a grunt and then, “Jessica? Jessica, where are you?”

My mom is gone? This isn’t right. One angry–or maybe frightened–thought kept circling my mind. What the hell is happening?!

“Whoever you are, leave this house at once! You have no right to be here!” Uncle Locke called into the darkness.

The lights flashed to life, and the most horrifying sight ever to be created was laid down on the floor in front of me. My stomach churned. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Not five feet away, my parents lay lifeless and bloody.

My mom’s white blouse and pale blue jeans stained with her own blood. My dad’s favorite T-shirt and jeans ruined. Obviously carelessly murdered and dropped.

Sarah had let go of my leg, most likely screaming and running to her dad, but I had no way of knowing. My eyes were stuck on the grotesque sight, and my ears weren’t working. Suddenly, I surged forward.

“Mom! Dad! No! This can’t have happened!”

I fell onto my knees beside my parent’s bodies. I laid my head on my dad’s chest, as if I were hoping for a heart beat. It was a ridiculous gesture because their throats were slashed and their stomachs had obtained holes. Uncle Locke grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from them.

“Let go of me!” I thrashed about in his grip. “Let go!”

“Kyrstin!”

I thrashed more, wanting to get back over to them. “I said, let go!”

“Kyrstin! Please, stop!”

Chest heaving, I stopped long enough to realize it wasn’t Uncle Locke calling my name but Sarah. I realized that Sarah was probably just as upset about this as I was.

“Yes, that is the address,” Uncle Locke said into his cell phone which was pinned between his ear and his shoulder since he was holding onto me. “Sorry, but I have to talk to someone. Just get those vehicles here quickly please.” He hung up on the operator.

My Thoughts in Purple:
I was about to hug Sarah good-bye when the lights went out in the house. Sarah screamed and once again glued herself to my leg. [A door opened and closed very slowly.] How does she know it's a door? What exactly does she hear? There was a grunt and then, [“Jessica? Jessica, where are you?”] Who says this? Does she know?

[My mom is gone?] why does she assume this? This isn’t right. One angry–or maybe frightened–thought kept circling my mind. What the hell is happening?! It might just be that I haven't read everything up to this point, but her reaction feels a little rushed her to me. Unless she knows something is wrong, her first thought isn't likely to be that the lights going out mean danger. What does she think is happening here?

“Whoever you are, leave this house at once! You have no right to be here!” Uncle Locke called into the darkness. This could be a good sport for her to react to the thought that someone is in the house and wonder what's going on. Locke has alerted her to the danger.

The lights flashed to life, [and the most horrifying sight ever to be created was laid down on the floor in front of me.] Telling a bit here. Perhaps describe what she sees, then let her realize they're dead? My stomach churned. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Not five feet away, my parents lay lifeless and bloody.

My mom’s white blouse and pale blue jeans stained with her own blood. My dad’s favorite T-shirt and jeans ruined. [Obviously carelessly murdered and dropped.] She sounds too rational and detached here, like she sees these things and instantly knows exactly what happened and describes them.

[Sarah had let go of my leg, most likely screaming and running to her dad, but I had no way of knowing.] Would she even worry about Sarah right now? Or be shocked at what she sees? My eyes were stuck on the grotesque sight, and my ears weren’t working. [Suddenly,] Could cut. Suddenly is a word that almost always feels detached, since people don't think of their actions like this unless they already know what they've done and are describing it after the fact I surged forward.

“Mom! Dad! No! [This can’t have happened!”] This doesn't sound realistic to me. I can see her thinking it, but saying it feels off.

I fell onto my knees beside my parent’s bodies. I laid my head on my dad’s chest, [as if I were hoping for a heart beat.] She'd know why she does this, or she'll just do it. She won't make assumptions as to how her actions look to other people. I can see her searching for a heartbeat or a pulse though, or trying to stop the blood, or doing anything to try and help them It was a ridiculous gesture because their throats were slashed and their stomachs [had obtained] Can't see her using this phrase like this. Also this feels too rational for the situation. She's calm enough to realize this is ridiculous? holes. Uncle Locke grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from them.

“Let go of me!” I thrashed about in his grip. “Let go!”

“Kyrstin!”

I thrashed more, wanting to get back over to them. “I said, let go!”

“Kyrstin! Please, stop!”

Chest heaving, [I stopped long enough to realize] Feels a little distant. She won't be aware enough to know what she realized, she'll just think it. it wasn’t Uncle Locke calling my name but Sarah. [I realized that] same here. The rest of the line shows her realizing it. She doesn't have to say she does. Sarah was probably just as upset about this as I was.

“Yes, that is the address,” [Uncle Locke said into his cell phone which was pinned between his ear and his shoulder since he was holding onto me.] Awkward sentence. It's also odd that he grabbed her while he was on the phone, and Sarah was yelling. Perhaps clarify who is doing what in this section [“Sorry, but I have to talk to someone. Just get those vehicles here quickly please.”] He seems very calm about this. He hung up on the operator.

The questions:
Did I get her thoughts right?
I think the right ideas are here, but a lot of them feel a little distant to me, as if she's already experienced all this and it telling the story after the fact. That gives some of the lines a told feeling, which lessens the tension. I'd suggest tweaking and showing those same thoughts from her point of view. You know what happens, so what would she think and feel? For example:

Chest heaving, I stopped long enough to realize it wasn’t Uncle Locke calling my name but Sarah. I realized that Sarah was probably just as upset about this as I was.

This tells me what she's figuring out and how people feel, but there's nothing that shows the details she sees to figure it out. So it feels more detached. Try something like...

Sarah's voice, not Uncle Locke's. Chest heaving, I turned. Tears poured down her cheeks, her eyes red, her face swollen. Grief, horror, fear--everything that was also tearing me apart.

Your voice of course, but think about what Krystin sees and feels and use those specific details to get the ideas across.

Is it the right reaction? If not, how can I fix her reaction?
Due to that distant tone, her reaction doesn't feel as strong as I'd expect it to be. She's too rational, observing things she'd probably not see or realize, too self aware of what's happening. Her world has just been torn apart, and I'd suspect her thoughts and emotions to be more raw and reactive. For example:

The lights flashed to life, and the most horrifying sight ever to be created was laid down on the floor in front of me. My stomach churned. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Not five feet away, my parents lay lifeless and bloody.

She's crying and her stomach is churning, but note how calmly she relays the other information. The first thing she says is how this is the most horrifying thing she's even seen. She even notes the distance between her and the bodies, and that her parents are lifeless. It's all very outside looking down, not inside looking out. She's be more likely to notice her parents were on the floor and not know why. Then see the blood, the carnage, and then react to it emotionally. I don't think she expects people to come in and kill her parents, right? And if she does, then her reaction would also likely be different. All she knows is that the lights have just gone off and now her parents are on the floor.

Getting more in her head will also fix this, since you'll show how she feels and her reactions will be hers as she has them, not her reflecting on it from a distance. You know how she feels, so it's just a matter of fleshing it out.

Is there enough voice?
I do hear your voice, but those same distant areas are hiding some of it. Everyone has their own views on voice, but for me, it shines through most in the POV's narrative and internalization. Those areas still feel a little "author describing what they knows is there." More internalization and specifics about what she sees and feels will allow your voice to come through better.

Did I write the stealthy killing okay?
It went by a little fast. One door, one grunt and that's all. I'd expect more sounds from two people being killed in this fashion. The sound of the knife cutting, a gasp or reaction from the parents, bodies hitting the floor, blood hitting anything close by. If Krystin is five feet away, it's possible she even feels the blood (arterial spray can really fly). If they were both killed at the same time, then sounds might be duplicated. If one was killed first, then the other, there'd likely be a bit of reaction from the second person since they're so close to each other.

Krystin won't know what the sounds are (unless she's familiar with how stabbing sounds) but she'll likely hear things. Depending on her emotional state and what she knows going into this scene will determine what she thinks they are (if she even does). If she's worried about killers sneaking in, she might instantly connect the noises to that. If she has no clue, then she'd likely have no idea what's going on.

Overall, I think this has the right pieces and you have a solid understanding of what's happening, so tweaking it to be more in her POV will be a pretty easy fix. The scene is blocked out, so try thinking about the specifics and looking out through Krystin's eyes when all this is happening. Think about what she'd hear/see/think, not what you as the author knows is happening.

Thanks to our brave volunteer for submitting this for me to play with. I hope they–and others–find it helpful. I don’t do a full critique on these, (just as it pertains to the questions) and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions of your own. Just remember that these pieces are works in progress, not polished drafts, so be nice and offer constructive feedback.

Revised Version:
I was about to hug Sarah good-bye when the lights went out in the house. Sarah screamed and once again glued herself to my leg.

Another power outage? Uncle Locke said he paid the bill. Then again, he says a lot of stuff.

A door, the back door by the screech it made, opened and closed very slowly. There was a cut off - scream? Laugh? Could be a good spot for her reaction. What does she think this means?

"Honey?" No way that was Uncle Locke. He lonely. "Baby, where are you?" Does she recognize the voice? The next line suggests Dad speaks here, and she's likely know his voice, right?

Mommy left? Probably to go get a flashlight. I mean, she's the entire reason Uncle Locke even has back up lighting.

“Whoever you are, leave this house at once! You have no right to be here!” Uncle Locke called into the darkness. Wait! Someone's here? That's great! [Let's - ew. What was that warm stuff on my face? And that clang? I know dropping a flashlight doesn't sound like that.] The right spot for something to happen, but her reactions feel off. If you got hit in the face with something warm and wet, you'd probably be shocked and a little freaked out.

The lights flashed to life. My stomach churned. Cold tears rolled down my cheeks. My legs turned to jelly. [Blood. Blood. Blood. Body. Body. Knife.] Interesting style here, but perhaps put this after the lights come on. Maybe have her blink or react to the sudden change, then see this. Then she can physically react to what she sees.

Mommy.

Daddy.

“What? What did they -? Who would -? No. No!"

I fell onto my knees beside my parent’s bodies. [I laid my head on my dad’s chest. The blood was gooey and warm, like that stuff that splattered against my face.] Don't think this is working. I can see her going to him, but not putting her face in his blood.

[Their blood hit me in the face. They were killed right in front of me. I did nothing to stop it. The cowards who killed them were too afraid to show themselves. I need them and... They're gone.] Don't thin you need. Her reaction in the next paragraph is much stronger.

I crushed their chests with my fists. I beat with my hands and beat with my hands and beat with my hands. An entirely new wave of tears washed out of me. Cold. Cold tears.

Beat! Beat! C'mon! Dang it just one simple pulse! I need them. I need my mom. I need my dad.

[I finally gave up] Feels a little distant. Maybe more with her realizing they're gone? and laid down between the two of them. The blood coated my hair. It soaked into my clothes. It was the fading heat of my parents. I just wanted to lay there forever. [But no.] Stronger without

Uncle Locke grabbed my shoulder and yanked me away from them.

“Let go of me!” I thrashed about in his biting grip. “Let go!”

“Kiki!"

I thrashed more, wanting to get back over to them. “I said, let go!”

“Kiki... Please?"

Chest heaving, I snapped around. [I was going to save my parents if it was the last thing I did. They. Have. A. Pulse.] She's already given up so I'd cut this. Or keep it and cut the part where she stops CPR and lays down between them

["Look, Un -"] Why is this cut off? Sarah's face. She wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't doing any of the things I was, but her red face, her sparkling eyes, the way she was holding herself - we were both falling apart. She's just better at it than me.

"Stop it! Stop it now!" He shouted at me. "Get some control! You weren't the only one who loved them! How do you think I feel? Sarah?" His eyes looked just like Sarah's. His face was turning red. He turned around. "Get my phone, Sarah." One tear fell from his face

Much, much better. I feel her pain, her reactions are good and the sense something horrible just happened is more real. Great job!

What's in it For You? Writer Goodies and Charity Auctions

2012-05-04T07:16:00.002-04:00

There are several charities I donate writer time to every year, and it's that time of year again. So if you're interested in a critique from me, and helping out a few amazing charities, here's where I'll be. And please note that I'm not the only one donating writer goodies, so even if you're not interested in a critique from me, pop on over and see what else these folks have to offer. Some of the offers are pretty amazing:

Brenda Novak's Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes
Novak's Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research has raised over $1.3 million (cumulatively) — and hopes to break $2 million in the near future. The auction is open now and runs through May 31st. There are so many amazing prizes up for auction here, from critiques to electronic gadgets to lunch with authors like Janet Evanovich.

What I Donated: 100-Page Novel Critique, Any Genre
Like all my critiques, there is a no time limit to submit. The auction is open now and you can bid on this until May 31st.

Pens for Paws Auction
This is to support Fat Kitty City, a no-kill, cage-free cat sanctuary that also rescues dogs. They welcome special needs cats, including those positive for feline AIDS, ferals, elderly kitties, and abandoned and abused animals. Many are adoptable, but some will live out their lives in their sanctuary or join their barn cat program. Volunteers stop by to make everything sparkling clean, or just to give them some love and attention. You can bid on everything from signed ARCS, to critiques, to book swag. The auction goes live on May 7th.
What I Donated: A three-chapter critique, any genre.
Again, no time limit to submit. The auction starts May 7th, though I don't know for sure what day my auction is posting. I'll let you know though.

Crits for Water
This is a wonderful charity that donates water (in the form of building wells and sanitation for fresh water) to developing countries. It runs from March 31 to June 30. It's in the non-fiction month right now, and come June, the YA/MG crits go live. Here's a full list of the critiques being offered.

What I Donated: Three critiques: one query critique, one synopsis critique, and a critique of three chapters (one winner for each critique type). No time limit of course. The auction for these is June 15th.

The writing community is such a generous and compassionate group, and I'm honored to be part if it. I hope everyone takes a few minutes to check these charities and auctions out.

Guest Author Jen Blood: 5 Ways to Build Suspense Like a Master

2012-05-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

Today wraps up my special extended guest author week, and I'm delighted to welcome Jen Blood to the blog. (And isn't that a great name for a mystery writer?) No matter what genre you write, keeping readers wanting to know what happens next is critical to giving them a satisfying read. Suspense is one element you don't want to slack off with. Lucky for us, Jen is here to share a few tips on how to add it to our stories.

Jen is a freelance writer and editor. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing/Popular Fiction, teaches seminars and workshops on writing, online marketing, and social media for authors, and runs a popular website for mystery writers and readers. She is author of the 5-star rated, Awesome Indies-selected mystery All the Blue-Eyed Angels, the first novel in the Erin Solomon series. The second novel in the series, Sins of the Father, will be available June 1st. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, or her website.

Take it away Jen...

It’s that thing that keeps us reading ‘til late in the night; the one that ensures we drag a book along with us everywhere we go, from the bathroom to the kitchen to the grocery store; the thing that makes us crash through a novel until the very final words on the very last page. What thing is that, exactly?

The fine folks at dictionary.com define it as: “a state or condition of mental uncertainty or excitement, as in awaiting a decision or outcome, usually accompanied by a degree of apprehension or anxiety.” That thing, in a word, is suspense. And whether you’re writing thrillers, horror, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, or even romance, there has to be some element of it to keep your readers coming back for more. But, what are the mechanics to actually creating a suspenseful scene, chapter, or novel? First, let’s take a look at an example from one of my favorite authors of suspense thrillers on the market today, Gregg Hurwitz. This is the opening two pages from his thriller, Trust No One:

I snapped awake at 2:18 A.M., the bloodshot numerals staring at me from the nightstand. For years on end, I woke up at this exact time every night, regardless of what time zone I was in. But after seventeen years I had just started sleeping through the night. I had finally outrun the old fears. Or so I had convinced myself.

Remote sirens warbled in the night. At first I figured they were in my head, the soundtrack to the dream. But the distant wail got louder instead of fading. I hadn’t awakened on my own.

I ran through what I remembered from the previous evening – the presidential debate had closed out prime time, and after the commentariat finished yammering, I’d fallen asleep watching a high-speed chase on the news. A guy in a beat-to-shit Jeep Cherokee, hauling ass down the 405, a legion of black-and-whites drawn behind him like a parachute.

I blinked hard, inhaled, and looked around. Same Lemon Pledge scent of my third-floor condo. My sweat imprint on the sheets and pillow. Breeze rattling palm fronds against my balcony in the next room.

And a watery blue light undulating across the bedroom ceiling.

I sat up.

The TV, across the room on the steamer trunk, was off. But the distant sirens continued.

And then, along with the light on the ceiling, the sirens abruptly stopped.

I threw off the sheets and padded across the carpet, stepping over a discarded Sports Illustrated and sloughed off dress shirts form the job I’d left a week ago. In my plaid pajama bottoms, I ventured into the all-purpose living room, heading for the balcony. The police lights had flickered through the locked sliding glass door. Halfway to it I froze.

A thick black nylon rope was dangling from the lip of the roof, its end coiled on my balcony. Motionless.

No longer groggy, I opened the sliding glass door and stepped silently out onto the balcony, rolling the screen shut behind me. My balcony with its Brady Bunch-orange tiles overlooked a narrow Santa Monica street populated by other generic apartment buildings. Streetlights were sporadic. I confronted the rope for a quiet moment, then looked around, expecting who knows what.

Bulky shadows of cars lined the gutters. An SUV was double-parked, blocking the street. No headlights, no dome light. Tinted windows. But a huff of smoke from the exhaust pipe. A sedan, dark and silent, wheeled around the turn and halted, idling behind the SUV.

Terror reached through seventeen years and set my nerves tingling.

I squinted to see if I could make out a police light bar mounted on either roof. In my peripheral vision, the tail of the rope twitched. The roof creaked. Before I had a chance to think, a spotlight blazed up from the SUV, blinding me. A zippering sound came from above, so piercing that my teeth vibrated. Then a dark form pendulumed down at me, two boots striking me in the chest.

Good, right? Chances are you were able to see just about every detail of that scene, and now that you’re left with the image of two boots striking our narrator in the chest, you’re left wondering what the hell happens next. Hurwitz is one of my favorites in the suspense genre, so using that excerpt, I’ve come up with five rules for building suspense guaranteed to keep your readers glued to the page and begging for more.

1. Use sensory details
Sights, sounds, a “Lemon Pledge scent,” the taste of ozone in the air, the feel of a cold hardwood floor under bare feet in the middle of the night... In moments of extreme fear, our senses are heightened to an almost painful degree–it’s a defense mechanism designed to aid in our natural fight or flight response. Whether we’re sticking around to duke it out or we’re running like hell, we need to have a complete picture of everything going on around us. Use sensory details to paint that picture.

2. Passive voice is for pansies
Avoid words like “felt” or “seemed”; be bold. Rather than saying “I felt scared,” Hurwitz writes, “Terror reached through seventeen years and set my nerves tingling.” Writing suspense in whatever genre you choose is no place to be timid; you can write technical manuals if you want to play it safe. Now’s the time to go out on that limb.

3. Use strong descriptors and vivid images
“Bloodshot numerals.” “…a watery blue light undulating across the bedroom ceiling.” “A thick black nylon rope… dangling from the lip of the roof.” Have a clear visual in your mind of everything you’re seeing, and be specific when conveying that visual to your reader.

4. Keep things moving
Though there is plenty of description in the above excerpt, if you look closely you’ll see that there’s also a lot of action and forward movement. In fact, nearly every paragraph advances the scene in some way: “I snapped awake.” “I ran through what I remembered from the previous evening.” “I blinked hard, inhaled, and looked around.” “I sat up.” “I threw off the sheets and padded across the carpet…” These are verbs, action sentences, things that the narrator is doing as he makes the transition from deep sleep to the discovery of something clearly amiss on his balcony. It’s great to use descriptions to paint evocative scenes, but look at your paragraphs closely to ensure that each one is more than just flowery language. Someone should always be doing something.

5. Let story tension influence sentence structure
Physical actions in life are typically choppy, abrupt, fluid. They move. Our minds, likewise, in moments of stress don’t process things in long, flowery passages. You can reflect the action in a scene by switching up the length and structure of your sentences in much the same way. Look at the final paragraph of the excerpt: “I squinted to see if I could make out a police light bar mounted on either roof.” And then: “In my peripheral vision, the tail of the rope twitched. The roof creaked.” Hurwitz uses shorter sentences and more action to convey this new development–a critical one, as it signals the turning point in the scene. As you’re writing, look closely at the sentence structure in your most suspenseful scenes. How much do they vary? As the tension rises for your characters, are you using longer sentences or shorter? Try switching it up and see how your changes affect the overall tone of the scene.

These are just a few of the tools I use to build tension and suspense for my readers. What about you? Are there lessons you’ve learned about building suspense that I haven’t talked about here? Which authors keep you glued to the edge of your seat?

About All the Blue-Eyed Angels

"On my tenth birthday, I am baptized by fire."

So begins Erin Solomon's story, on a remote island in Maine where the Payson Church and thirty-four of its members have just burned. When the smoke clears, only Erin and her father remain. The police rule the tragedy mass suicide, but Erin knows the truth: no one in the Church wanted to die. She just isn't sure how much her father had to do with their deaths.

More than twenty years later, Erin is an investigative journalist still burdened with her father's secrets. When she receives incontrovertible evidence that the Payson congregation was murdered, she can no longer hide from the truth. She returns to her hometown only to find an intricate conspiracy involving her parents, a haunted woman who sought refuge with the Paysons before the fire, and a disturbed boy who believed himself destined to lead the Payson Church to glory.

Now, isolated on the Maine coast with an old flame and a handsome newcomer with his own dark past, Erin will risk everything to uncover the secrets of Payson Isle–secrets someone will kill to keep buried.

Guest Author Donna Galanti: How to Stay Inspired and Keep Writing (Plus a Giveaway!)

2012-05-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

We're on a roll this week with guest authors, and I'd like to welcome Donna Galanti to the blog today. She fits in well with my ongoing "how to be more productive" series, and she's here to shares tips on how to stay inspired and keep writing.

Donna is the author of the dark novel A Human Element (Echelon Press). Donna has a B.A. in English and a background in marketing. She is a member of International Thriller Writers, The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and Pennwriters. She lives with her family in an old farmhouse in PA with lots of nooks, fireplaces, and stinkbugs. Visit her at: www.donnagalanti.com.

And bonus fun: Donna is giving away a copy of A Human Element to one lucky commenter. (in paperback or e-book format) Just leave a comment and the random generator gods will choose the winner on Friday, 7am EST.

Take it away Donna...

I broke through what stopped me from writing
I started my suspense novel fifteen years ago, wrote twelve pages and shelved it for more than a decade. I got bogged down in writing it and writing it well. Don’t write it well…at least the first time. I got so hung up in going back and editing the bit I just wrote that I couldn’t move forward. Keep moving forward. Put those words on paper. Do not stop when you pass go. Just GO. Until you pass THE END. Then go back and edit like crazy…again and again and again.

Frequent iStock Photo to purchase character photos
I find photos of my characters. iStock is great for this and fairly inexpensive, and you get some credits free just for signing up. Also, in finding one model I like I also found an entire portfolio of him in different poses and dress which helped me with different scenes in the story. I look at my character photos for inspiration in writing scenes and imagine their mannerisms. I use these in my blog posts too. For your own personal use you can locate any photos on the Internet for free.

Create theme songs for my characters and scenes
I search for theme songs for my characters. To feel close to them before writing I listen to the songs in the car and right before I sit down to write. And then I shut it off. But I hear the song in my head and it fuels the moment I’m in. I feel the character and their situation from the music and it drives me with passion to write.

My husband doesn’t like it. Why? Because I fell in love with Country a few years ago. (Gag, he says). But where else can you find fitting angst to inspire words on the page but from Country songs? Country has it all…lost love, out of work blues, hard times, no-good family and lots of drinking. Need inspiration? Check out the Top 100 Country Songs of All Time. Or check out Pandora’s Box to find music that fits your mood for your writing and build a soundtrack. I’m starting a new novel now and I can’t even listen to the music from my last novel. It confuses me about how I feel for my new characters.

I admit. I often sneak away to be with my fake people rather my real people and take their photos and songs with me. I think it must be the closest thing to being a child again with that imaginary friend. It’s so wonderful to sink into that again. I had an imaginary dog as a child (figures mine wouldn’t be a person I could actually talk to).

Write from grief
I was also inspired to write from grief. I started novel writing right after my mother died. I needed something to focus on to get through the days. It healed me. It comforted me. It made me feel like I was doing something for my mom.

One author I know who wrote from grief is Ann Hood. She lost her will to read and write after her 5 year old daughter died suddenly from virulent strep. She eventually took up knitting to comfort her. From her healing grew the tale The Knitting Circle about a woman who loses her 5 year old daughter to meningitis and how knitting comforted her during a time of terrible anguish.

It’s hard to think wonderful things can come from grief. I know. And there are many things we can grieve over–death, divorce, physical problems, loss of job, loss of friendship. Are you grieving in some way and can use that to create something positive from in your writing?

Just go for a walk
And finally, when stuck–go for a walk. It never fails. When I get stuck on a scene I go for a walk and figure it out. I then sprint back home to get it all down. I think the power of removing yourself from all distraction helps our brain work out solutions. I was thrilled to read in Stephen’s Kings book ‘On Writing’ that he does the same thing (a good kind of Stephen King thrill).

How are you inspired to write?

About A Human Element

One by one, Laura Armstrong’s friends and adoptive family members are being murdered, and despite her unique healing powers, she can do nothing to stop it. The savage killer haunts her dreams, tormenting her with the promise that she is next.

Determined to find the killer, she follows her visions to the site of a crashed meteorite–her hometown. There, she meets Ben Fieldstone, who seeks answers about his parents’ death the night the meteorite struck. In a race to stop a mad man, they unravel a frightening secret that binds them together. But the killer’s desire to destroy Laura face-to-face leads to a showdown that puts Laura and Ben’s emotional relationship and Laura’s pure spirit to the test.

With the killer closing in, Laura discovers her destiny is linked to his and she has two choices–redeem him or kill him.

Readers who devour paranormal books with a smidge of horror and steam will enjoy A HUMAN ELEMENT, the new novel about loss, redemption, and love.

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Purchase A HUMAN ELEMENT here:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/A-Human-Element-ebook/dp/B007IIIZUO/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_2

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-human-element-donna-galanti/1109435439?ean=2940013900530&itm=1&usri=donna+galanti

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/139981