Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 31

Updates on What I’m Working On

Before I dive into this, I want to mention a couple to things:

Larson Book List is Finally Here!

I finally got a “Larson Books” list composed on this blog. It’s in the menu bar at the top. This list tells you which Larson character is in which book, and I do give it in chronological order. I’ll be updating the list as I add more Larson books to my catalogue.

I wedged the Marriage by Design Series in between Book 1 and Book 2 of the Marriage by Design Series. This is why.

I also created a chronological list of the Regency books I’ve done. You see, in The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife, I introduced Lilly Lowell and Mr. Morris. Though I made it clear the two ended up together in the epilogue, I had a couple of people mention an interest in reading HOW the two ended up together. I held off on writing it until I had the perfect plot for their story. I never want to write a story unless I have the right plot for the right characters. Well, that finally all fell into place last year.

The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife takes place in 1813. A Most Unsuitable Earl takes place in 1815. The epilogue of The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife where Lilly and Mr. Morris are married takes place in 1814. So I had to wedge Breaking the Rules between The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife and A Most Unsuitable Earl.

While writing Breaking the Rules, I got interested in two of Lilly’s friends that I’m going to write. So Nobody’s Fool and A Deceptive Wager also fit between The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife and A Most Unsuitable Earl.

I updated covers for the Marriage by Scandal Series.

After saving my money for half a year, I was finally able to afford new covers that I feel are more visually appealing to the eye.

Here are the old covers:

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Here are the new covers:

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I realize this drives some people nuts that I go through and update old covers, but I didn’t like the look of the old covers. They were bugging me for the past four years. I just had to save up enough money in order to get the new ones. My next goal is to update the covers in the South Dakota Series because those are bugging me, too.

I like all of my other covers, so I don’t plan to make changes on those, at least not in the near future.

With that aside, here’s what I accomplished in the writing area:

Breaking the Rules (Marriage by Design Series: Book 1)

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I am still going through edits on this one, but my goal is to have it available at the end of next month.

The Rancher’s Bride (Wyoming Series: Book 2)

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I just finished the first draft of this one yesterday. I’m going to put this out in April. I need enough time to go through edits, but I switched my original plan to get The Duke’s Secluded Bride out before this book because the events in this book are closely tied to what happened at the end of The Outlaw’s Bride, which is Book 1 in this series.

The Duke’s Secluded Bride (Marriage by Fairytale Series: Book 5)

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I finished the first draft in the middle of last week! This will end the Marriage by Fairytale Series. I plan to have this out in June.

Books I’m going to work on next:

Nobody’s Fool

I ended up getting stuck for a few weeks on The Duke’s Secluded Bride, so I broke down and started Nobody’s Fool because I was wasting time staring at the computer and getting nowhere while I had scheduled time for The Duke’s Secluded Bride. I figured it was better to work on something than spin my wheels and getting nowhere.

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This is Book 2 in the Marriage by Design Series. It takes place right after Breaking the Rules.

Because I ran into that road block in The Duke’s Secluded Bride that lasted for over a month, I am going to keep three books in my “writing” list. I’m not going to restrict myself to two. Even with homeschooling, I do manage to get in a couple of hours a day for writing. After trial and error from the end of August to the end of November, I have finally worked out a good time management system to balance writing with homeschooling. I’m also lucky enough to have a kid who’s old enough to do some independent learning. I can give him assignments and have him do those in another room.

I’ll be starting these two books after February 1.

I have scheduled time off from writing for the next two weeks to give myself a break. This helps to avoid burnout. I’ll be getting back to Nobody’s Fool. I’ll also get to these:

The Fugitive’s Bride (Wyoming Series: Book 3)

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This is going to be Wade’s book.

I don’t know if there will be a Book 4 or not. I’ll have to see how this story goes. But I will be tying up a crucial loose end in Wade’s story.

Perfectly Matched (Husbands for the Larson Sisters: Book 2)

I have no cover for this yet.

This is going to be Patricia Larson’s story. She is Tom and Jessica’s second daughter. Remember Jim in Nelly’s Mail Order Husband who was Val’s good friend? Well, he didn’t end up marrying the woman Val thought he did. It turns out, he hopped the first train to Omaha and gave up the family fortune, thinking that Val’s sisters-in-law are all going to be rich because Val was too embarrassed to tell Jim the truth.

This is going to be a comedy.  I expect Patricia and Erin to initially fight over who gets to marry him. From there, I’ll see how things go. I know he ends up with Patricia because I already know who Erin will end up with. I gave a hint to that in Nelly’s story.  As for Daisy, she’s still too young to marry anyone. So it has to be Patricia. I have an idea of how things go from their wedding, but things can still shift around. Until I work on a book, it’s impossible to tell how things will go.

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That wraps up everything writing related going on at the moment.

Financial Independence (A Money Post)

This is a more general post, but it’s a topic I’m interested in because my dream is to get to the point where I can write books without having to worry if they’ll sell or not. This post is applicable to writers who would rather write for passion than try to write something you don’t like because it’ll sell. (There are times an author’s passion is what will sell, but that’s not always the case, and I’m focusing more on the authors whose passion doesn’t lead to sales.)

This post can also benefit anyone who would like to reach the point in their life where they can have enough money in order to 1.) not do a job they hate or 2.) trade the job they’re at for the thing that gives them passion. If you can work at something you are passionate about, that’s the ideal equation, but not everyone can obtain that balance.

So for those of you interested in this topic, I plan to do more posts like this in the future. My focus on this blog will still be what I’m writing because writing is my main passion, but I’ll be popping in from time to time with stuff I’m learning as I study the subject of financial independence. I figure there’s no point in investing so much of my time and energy into exploring this topic if I can’t at least pass on what I’m learning. It might be that someone might benefit from these posts, and if so, then that’s all the better. I love being able to help others whenever I can.

Alright, that aside, here we go with the initial post on the topic of financial independence.

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1. I think it’s important to define why money has value. (This is picking your reason for wanting to achieve financial independence in the first place.)

Money doesn’t have value because it’s money. The reason money has value is because money buys you freedom to pursue the kind of life you want. If you have enough money, you can afford to pursue what most makes you happy. So really, the more money you have, the more freedom you have to do what you want with your time.

You don’t have to be a millionaire to be happy. I’ve seen a lot of videos where the main goal for people who want to reach financial independence is to reach that coveted millionaire status. These remind me of the authors who keep saying that if you want to be a successful writer, you must make that magical six-figure income. Otherwise, you haven’t “made it”. This thinking, of course, just isn’t true. A successful writer is different for everyone. Some authors live a very frugal lifestyle and manage just fine with $20,000 to $30,000 a year. They’re making a living at their work, but they won’t get any pats on the back from authors who only acknowledge that coveted “six-figure income”.

But success in writing doesn’t always boil down to money. To me, being a successful writer is writing the kinds of books I feel will give God glory because this life is much more than me; this life is ultimately about Him. If I spend my time writing books that I would be ashamed to show Him when I die, then I have failed, regardless of how much money those books made. When others are entertained by what I write, then it’s icing on the cake. But no, my real goal is not money. However, I do need to pay bills and eat, and because of that, I need a plan to get to where I want to be.

Money is a bridge that allows you to do what is most in your heart. Think about what excites you. What is it that would make you want to jump out of bed first thing in the morning because you can’t wait to do it? That thing that most inspires you is the real purpose in reaching financial independence. I think if you keep your eye on the prize, it’ll make the journey a lot easier.

2. Now that you have a goal, the next thing to do is to create a plan.

I haven’t gotten far into this one yet, but just from my experience as a writer, I know that it’s a lot easier to reach a goal if you specify what it is you want to achieve and then break things up into smaller steps in order to get there.

I currently have a total of 92 books out. Back in 2009, my goal was write 100 books. I took that big goal that seemed like this big mountain at the time, and I broke that goal down into smaller, more obtainable ones. I started with the goal of 10 books. Back then, I wrote one chapter in the story each day that I sat down to write. When I hit 10 books, my goal went to 20 books. By the time I got to 20 books, I realized I tend to write books that are in the 50,000 to 70,000 word range. I began to figure out how many words I typically wrote in a day, and from there, I was able to get an idea of when a book would be ready for publication based on my average total word count for a book. So instead of writing a chapter, I would focus on reaching a certain word count each writing day. As I continued writing books, I discovered better ways of breaking things down into smaller goals.

The reason I rambled on about all of this is because finding the smaller steps to your big goal is going to take time. You’ll have to experiment with the small steps you come up with in order to see if they are realistic to your situation. For example, I have a husband who spends more than I do. I would do just fine with a bed, a desk, a computer, and cardboard boxes for everything else. This is how I was living before we got married. I did have a small TV and VCR for entertainment, but that was it. I didn’t need a lot of things. Even today, I prefer to minimize the things around me. My husband, on the other hand, likes to have more things. So we have to have work on compromising in order to be satisfied, and these compromises have taken a while to figure out. If it’s just you in the equation, you’ll get to your goal a lot faster. If you have others in the equation, it’s going to take longer if that person doesn’t see things the same way you do.

Also, when you’re looking at the smaller steps, you have to decide what little luxuries you value the most. I don’t believe in the “sacrifice it all” method, though some people have successfully done this. My mindset is that real change takes time, and if you deprive yourself of something you love, the temptation to give up is going to be greater. You’ll be giving up some things as  you go on your journey to financial independence, but you don’t have to give up everything. You can factor in a modest amount of wants. Figure out what you’re main “wants” are and eliminate the rest. For example, some people love to travel. It’s their big enjoyment in life. Other people would rather have expensive clothes than travel. And some people would be willing to give up travel and expensive clothes if they could eat out instead. If you can reward yourself for taking effective small steps to the big goal, I think progress will be smoother. This doesn’t mean you won’t have some setbacks. There will probably be setbacks. But those are easier to overcome if you have something to look forward to while you’re on your way to financial independence. Don’t be afraid of experimenting and finding new ways that work best for you.

3. So what should your big goal be? (This is your financial independence number.)

What I’ve learned so far in researching this topic is that you have to start with a list of your monthly expenses. This list mainly takes into account survival expenses, rather than everything you actually buy in a month, but you can adjust these numbers to include the “high value wants” you purchase in a month.

When you figure out how much you need a month, the next thing you do is look at what how much money you’ll need to satisfy one year’s worth of expenses. This is the stage where you are at Financial Security according the You Tube video I’m going to share below. It’s called “10 Levels of Financial Independence and Early Retirement” AKA “How to Escape the Rat Race”.

The explanation of Financial Security is at the 5 minute mark. The next stage is Financial Flexibility, and that is taking the annual income you need to survive and multiplying that number by 12.5. (The explanation for that is at the 6 minute mark.) The stage after this is Financial Independence, and that is taking the annual income you need to survive and multiplying that by 25. (You can find this starting around the 6:50 minute mark in the video.)

Now, I don’t think your “Financial Independence” number has to be 1 million dollars. If you live a modest lifestyle, you can easily get away with less than that much. I know I don’t need that much.

What you have to factor in is how much money you can spend and how much money you can save. That’s why the “Financial Independence” number will be different for everyone. Everyone’s situation is going to be different. I suggest sitting down and playing with the numbers. Start tracking your expenses for a couple of months. Find areas where you can cut back. Find areas where you want to keep spending. And remember to include your spouse and children into this equation (if you have them). Be realistic about this, and plan accordingly.

As a final note, I just want to emphasize that the goal in achieving financial independence isn’t to sit at home all day and do nothing. You don’t have to be scared about spending every single penny you have. Just be smart about how you spend your money. We’ll get more into this in the future, but for now, think of the kind of life you’d like to live that would give you the greatest satisfaction.

Since this post is a little over 1700 words, I’ll stop it here.

Other People (Another Writing for Passion Post)

Skip this post if you don’t want to hear me do another “writing for passion” post. (I received feedback a while back that someone was tired of reading these types of posts. So I figured I’d give the heads up in case this isn’t your cup of tea.)

His Redeeming Bride Trivia

Today I thought I’d give some trivia about this book…

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1. This was the last book I submitted to a publisher when I was thinking of going the traditional publishing route. (Eye of the Beholder was the first book I submitted.) The publisher didn’t like the fact that Neil and Sarah got along so early in the story. They wanted me rewrite the story to give them more angst and then resubmit it. I didn’t like that idea. I wanted the story to stay the way it was. I never rewrote it.

2. I did a lot of praying about the direction I should go with publishing during the 2008-2009 time frame. Did I self-publish or go with a traditional publisher? Everyone in my writing circle told me I should go the traditional route because self-publishing wasn’t for “real” authors. It was difficult to go against the crowd mindset. Deep down, I wanted to self-publish because I didn’t want a publisher coming in and changing my vision for my stories. So really, I was looking for a reason to self-publish, but it had to be a compelling one. I ended up going to God about it. I prayed to God that if He wanted me to go the traditional route, the publisher would accept the story as it was, but if He wanted me to self-publish, the publisher would reject the book or want me to change it. When the publisher wrote back and told me to change the story, I knew God was okay with me self-publishing. As long as God is fine with me doing something, I don’t pay attention to what others have to say.

3. Sarah Donner’s first husband is based off of one of my ex-boyfriends. He was very legalistic in his religious beliefs. There was no room for things like mercy and grace. Looking back, I can see that he had an unforgiving mindset, and he was actually cold to be around. There was a superficial level of affection, but there was nothing real behind it. I didn’t realize how things really were with him until I was with my husband.

4. The church Sarah was going to in the beginning of the story is based off a church I went to. This was years after the ex-boyfriend thing. The church was very legalistic, and the husband had 100% of the decision-making responsibilities. Wives had to do whatever the husband wanted. For example, I once asked the pastor, “What if my husband is making decisions that will end up running the family into bankruptcy? Are you saying that I should just let him do that?” The pastor said, “Yes. He is the head of the house.” Needless to say, I didn’t return to the church, but there are some denominations in the Christian faith that actually teach this kind of nonsense. Wives aren’t to blindly accept stupid decisions their husbands are making, and I get frustrated with pastors warping what the Bible says regarding this issue.

5. Preacher Amos represents legalism in the church. Preacher Peters represents mercy and grace.

6. I named Preacher Peters after the Apostle Peter in the New Testament of the Bible. Peter was the one who denied Jesus Christ three times before Jesus was crucified, and after Jesus’ resurrection, he received Jesus’ forgiveness. Peter went on to be a steadfast apostle, and historical records say he was crucified for his faith. I always thought of Peter as evidence that God extends second chances. To me, Peter is the best example of mercy and forgiveness in the Christian faith. This was what Neil Craftsman needed most, and it was Preacher Peters who offered him a second chance.

7. This was the first book I ever plotted in advance of writing it. This was based off of the advice of the leader in the writing group I was in at the time who loved to plot. I don’t have a copy of the outline since I lost a lot of files when my computer crashed, but I remember that the outline was based on the standard formula for romance books. The formula for romances that traditional publishers look for is simply this: there needs to be some kind of angst and frustration between the hero and heroine through most of the book. So in the outline, Neil and Sarah were supposed to be at odds with each other for 90% of the book. Well, Neil and Sarah started getting along at Chapter Six, and I spent some time trying to get them to NOT get along but kept ending up stalling out in the story. I finally ditched the outline and just went with the flow of the story, and I love the way it turned out. This book is a lot better. This book showed me that I’m just not a standard formula romance writer. In fact, some argue that my books really aren’t romances, and if you’re comparing my books to the average romance book out there, you would be right. But I still label them as romance because I feel the love between the two main characters are still front and center stage of all the other things that are going on around them.

8. Sarah wore a lot of dull colors in the beginning because an author friend of mind swore up and down that women did not wear any bright colors back in the 1800s.

9. Emily’s mother was not meant to show up in this book when I outlined it. Emily was supposed to continue to think her mother loved her until Isaac’s Decision. My original idea for Isaac’s Decision was for Emily to run off to see her mother and then realize her mother never loved her.

10. I came up with the idea for writing Loving Eliza when I was writing the scene where Neil at the saloon talking with Dan. Eliza had been planted in order to hurt Neil’s legal case in the custody battle he had with Emily’s mother. When Eliza told him, “Neil, I’m sorry.  They threatened to tell my son the truth about his birth. I gave him up for adoption twelve years ago, and I don’t want him to know about me.” I knew then and there that I’d write her story.

11. I intentionally kept Sarah’s thoughts closed off to the reader while writing the scene where Sarah “left” Neil after the scene at the saloon. This was when she went with Beatrice Donner. I also hid her thoughts when Neil was pounding on the door of Beatrice’s home in hopes of talking to her. I did this because I didn’t want people to know what she was planning. I wanted people to think she was really leaving him. I can’t remember ever closing off a character’s thoughts in any other book.

12. I felt so sorry for Neil during the scene early on in the book when Sarah gave birth to Luke and he was watching how happy she was to be a mother. He thought back to how Emily never received her mother’s love and wished things had been different. It was the loneliest moment he’d ever experienced in his entire life. He wanted so much to have a family like the one Dave and Mary had, but that never played out with Cassie. When it came time to end the story, I gave the birth of Elizabeth from Neil’s point of view. He was no longer an outsider to the good things happening around him. He was now a part of it. This completed his story that really started at the end of Eye of the Beholder.

People I Have NOT Heard From About The Stagecoach Bride (If you’re on this list, check your spam folder.)

This is the only post I’m going to make regarding this. I don’t want to keep cluttering up my blog trying to get in touch with people who have a copy of The Stagecoach Bride. So this is the only time I’m going to post this.

These are the people I still have NOT heard back from.

Gillian

Heather

Rebecca

Lisa

Iris

Rosalie

Shayna

Dawn (I need you to fill out the form on this blog post because I need an email address in order to contact you directly, unless you want to post the email in the comments below)

Linda (Five minutes ago, I got a message in my inbox telling me my email could not be sent to your email address. I’m not sure how to reach you.)

If your name is on this list, please check your email. It’s likely that my email ended up in your spam folder. The subject will read: Re: [Ruth Ann Nordin’s Author Blog] If you read The Stagecoach Bride, please fill out the form below.

This is the last time I’m going to try to round up people who have The Stagecoach Bride. We’ll be going back to my regular blog posts now.

 

 

Eye of the Beholder Trivia

Quick note about The Stagecoach Bride: Before I get into the trivia part, I want to send out a quick reminder to anyone who has read The Stagecoach Bride and filled out the form. I sent an email out to quite a few people, and while most have gotten back to me, several have not. Please check your spam folder just in case the email ended up there. The subject heading will read, “Re: [Ruth Ann Nordin’s Author Blog] If you read The Stagecoach Bride, please fill out the form below.” As a side note, if you have The Stagecoach Bride and would like to fill out the form, here’s the post to do that.

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I enjoy reading through trivia that goes with the making of movies, and today I thought it’d be fun to offer some trivia about what went into the writing of some of my books.

Trivia for Eye of the Beholder

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1. Neil Craftsman was originally given the role of the hero. He was supposed to be Neil Larson. I also had come up with the brothers, namely Tom and Joel, who were supposed to look at Mary and only see what was on the surface. I got halfway into Chapter Two where Neil was on his way to meet Mary at the train station when this question popped up in my mind: “What if Neil rejects her?” I spent a couple of days weighing the pros and cons of making the Neil the antagonist, and in the end, I created Dave Larson and gave Neil the last name Craftsman.

2. This book was submitted to Harlequin and Wild Rose Press back in 2008-2009 when I was on the fence about self-publishing or traditional publishing. Feedback from both places expressed an interest in the story. One wanted me to give more “angst” between Dave and Mary, and I didn’t want to change their relationship to what I felt was too much of a romance trope of endless friction between the hero and heroine. The other wanted me to add more description, which I wasn’t interested in doing. So I ended up picking the self-publishing option, even though it was a very unpopular option back then.

3. The miscarriage scene was inspired by my own miscarriage during my first pregnancy. Mary’s experience was pretty much mine.

4. Isaac Larson has the same birthday as my firstborn son, which is August 7.

5. My original plan was to write Eye of the Beholder as a standalone book. While writing the scene where Jessica tells Mary why she married Tom, I knew I would end up writing Tom and Jessica’s story. That was beginning of me writing a story for each Larson sibling. It’s also why the books were written out of chronological order. Back then, I didn’t even think about writing a series in order.

6. I had originally planned to put Neil in prison after he abducted Mary. He was supposed to take Mary to a remote cabin, and she was supposed to swim to get away from him. (This was why I had Dave teach her how to swim.) But when I saw the way Neil was with Emily even though she wasn’t his child, I realized Neil was redeemable. I ended up keeping Mary’s abduction to the train and giving Neil a change of heart.

7. Dave’s threat to Neil that Mary never heard was that if Neil touched Mary again, Dave would kill him. And Dave was serious.

8. I knew Isaac and Emily would end up together when Mary and Cassie (both pregnant at the time) were talking on the front porch at Connie’s house. This was the scene where Cassie and Gwendolyn guilt trip Mary into making clothes for Cassie’s baby. Cassie felt the baby kick, and I thought, “There’s a connection between Emily and Isaac.” At that moment, I knew I’d be writing their book.

9. The book was set in Omaha, Nebraska because I lived in that area at the time and had easy research at the local attractions. I’m not much of a book reader when it comes to research. I prefer to be there in person and learn the history by seeing what people wore, how they lived, etc. Though, for the sod house, I went to Minnesota because there were no sod houses I was aware of in the Omaha area. I’m sure South Dakota or Iowa had them, but my in-laws happened to be in the area at the time, so that’s why I went there.

10. Before I wrote this book, I was mostly writing fantasies and YA thrillers. I had written Falling In Love With Her Husband, An Inconvenient Marriage, An Unlikely Place for Love, The Cold Wife, and Romancing Adrienne before I wrote Eye of the Beholder. My plan was to go back to writing the other genres when I was done with Eye of the Beholder, but, as you can see above, Eye of the Beholder inspired more romances.  Eye of the Beholder is why I ended up falling in love with writing the historical western romance genre.

11. The reason I started the book with Neil’s mail order bride ad was because I had recently read a romance that started off with an ad, and that hooked me in right away to that story. Writers in my critique group didn’t like that as a way to start the book, but I’m happy I did it.

12. The idea for this story came after I read a lot of romances and noticed that every single heroine was thin and gorgeous. I also noticed that movies and TV shows feature these types of women a lot. I wanted to write about a heroine who wasn’t society’s definition of perfect. I wanted a hero who could look past the superficial, and in doing so, he shows others around him what real beauty is. Cassie wasn’t in the original plan of the story since I had marked Neil down to be the hero, but after I put Dave in, I created Cassie, too. Cassie turned out to be a big part of the story, and without her, the story isn’t nearly as effective.

If you read The Stagecoach Bride, please fill out the form below.

I already heard from two people, but I suspect there’s more who have this book:

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If  you have this book that I co-wrote with Stephannie Beman, fill out this form.

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If you don’t want to fill out that form, leave your email and name in the comment section of this blog post.

Updates on What I’m Doing

I finally had a chance to sit down and figure out my publishing schedule for 2020. I had to go to working on two books at a time instead of three (due to the time spent homeschooling). I also have to publish a book every other month to help pace myself so I don’t get overwhelmed. I love homeschooling and plan to keep homeschooling until he graduates high school. He’s in the 8th grade right now, so we’re looking at four more years.

For the moment, I have had to drop the Larson sister series. That is the series featuring Tom and Jessica Larson’s daughters. I expect to get back to that when I finish the Wyoming Series.

Okay, so here’s what you can expect for 2020.

Things That Drive Me Crazy As a Reader

Disclaimer: These are my opinions. I do not represent every reader out there.

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1. Too much description.

As a reader, I don’t like to dwell too much on the world that is around the characters. I like to focus in on the characters. I want to know what they’re doing, what they’re saying, and what they’re feeling. I like enough description to get a picture of the setting the characters are in, but I don’t want to be weighed down by so much description that I know every detail on a character’s clothes, exactly how a room looks, or how many blades of grass are in the field. Okay, the thing about the blades of grass are an exaggeration. No author I’ve read has ever said how many blades of grass are in a field, but for all of the heavy description they use to make sure I can see everything in that scene, they might as well have.

I also find it distracting that when characters are having a conversation, the author will insert random thing that doesn’t add to the scene. If characters are discussing a necklace, then yes, describe the necklace. But if the characters are discussing a necklace, why go into the color of the chair across the room or the sound a bird is making from outside? That has no bearing on the conversation, and all it does is pull me out of the story. I know why authors do this. It’s because they’re told to include all “five senses” into every single scene. Even I fell victim to this terrible technique after going to a critique group, so I understand the author’s plight. As a writer, you want to make a book that fully engages the reader.

But from personal experience, it’s much better to keep the reader’s attention on what is  happening to the characters. Fiction is a story seen through the eyes of the character. If a character is having a serious conversation, would they really care about the design on an antique lamp in the corner of the room that has no bearing on the conversation? No. They would be worried about what the other character is telling them. Always keep the focus on the what matters most to the character when you’re writing a scene.

2. Character Info Dumps

There have been books I’ve read where I’m pretty much told everything about a character right away.  I don’t want to know everything about a character as soon as I start the book. I’m not sure why some authors do this. It’s almost like they decided to do a character bio in order to learn who the character is and then forgot to remove it when they published the book. Instead of being told who the character is, I, as a reader, want to learn who the character is as I read the book.

Storytelling is about layers. Those layers are uncovered a little at a time as the story progresses. Information comes about by the character’s actions, thoughts, and feelings. Just as we don’t get to know everything about a person when we meet them in real life, we shouldn’t know everything about a character as soon as meet them, either.

Also, reading is a subjective activity, so it should be up to the reader to decide whether or not they like a character. The author shouldn’t come in and say, “This is the person you’re rooting for, and this is the person you should hate.” Let me, as a reader, decide that for myself. The ability to allow a reader to make their own judgments on a character is one of the most effective storytelling tools in a writer’s arsenal. If a writer can make a reader feel strongly about a character (whether good or bad), then that, in my opinion, is the sign of an excellent storyteller. I’ve read plenty of “meh” books, but those that made me feel strongly for a character are the books that have stuck with me for years.

3. Useless repetition.

Repetition can be a powerful storytelling technique when done right. If it adds to the tension in a story, it’s good, and it should be used. For example, there was a short story I read where the main character killed a person, and during the story, he’s worried he’ll get caught, so he is in a cycle of repeating the same thoughts to himself over and over. He ends up breaking down and screaming that he did the crime when a police officer is ready to leave. He would have gotten away with the crime if he had just kept his mouth shut, but by use of repetition, we see how his conscience ended up getting the best of him.

I am not opposed to repetition. What I’m opposed to is repetition that has no point to the story. Its only purpose seems to be to fill up the pages because the author wanted to increase their word count. Or, perhaps, an author worries that the reader won’t understand what the theme of the book is or that the reader won’t know this is the character’s love interest unless the reader is told this repeatedly.

Every scene in a book has to contribute to the overall story. And breaking this down, I also think every sentence in the book should contribute to the story, too. If there’s a sentence that doesn’t need to be there, throw it out. There’s no point in making the reader groan by adding stuff that doesn’t need to be there. All you’ll end up with is a reader who skims the book. And sadly, I’ve skimmed a lot of books over the years.

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Since I almost hit the 1,000 word mark, I’ll stop here.

What about you? Are there things that drive you crazy when you read books? If so, I’d love to hear them. Please don’t say the author or the name of the book. I want to keep this focus on a storytelling technique gone wrong.

You Can’t Have It All

The phrase “You can’t have it all” has been going around and around in my head for the past couple of weeks. My mother used to say it when I was a child. I haven’t really thought much about it, but as I realized how much I was juggling, it occurred to me that this phrase sums up why I’ve been feeling overwhelmed for the past month.

I’ve been trying to have it all. I’ve been trying to spend sufficient time with my family and homeschool my youngest because those are priorities. Then I’ve been trying to manage the writing aspect of my life, and that includes the business side of things like record keeping of expenses and social networking. Add on that just the basic running of a home and other things that inevitably pop up in life, and I was hurling toward another round of burnout. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to embrace my limitations.

Over the past week, I’ve been working through a list of what I need to keep and in what order those things fit. Then I started crossing off the stuff that needs to go. So this is the new plan, which I hope will help me find the proper balance.

The first thing I’m doing is cutting back on writing. I’m not going to stress a daily word count anymore. I’m going to give myself a set time to write early in the mornings. When that time is up, I will go to homeschooling. I was trying to sneak in writing between breaks in the homeschool day, but I really need to stop that because it’s left me feeling frazzled.

Non-writing tasks will have to be done on days I don’t schedule to write. I will still be making these blog posts because I love blogging. Facebook, MeWe, and emails, however, will be sporadic. I dropped everything else. I know the changes I’m making will upset some people, but I’ve been stretching myself too thin. If I don’t scale back, I’m going to crash and burn. Then I won’t be writing at all because it’s impossible for me to write during burnout.

I want to keep writing because that has always brought me joy. I’m not sure what my output will look like for next year. I have no idea what books will be out and when. I’m just going to take each book as it comes and do the best I can to tell a good story. I want to have fun with what I’m writing. I’m a firm believer that a story that a writer loves writing is the very best possible story it can be, and I want to honor everyone by giving you my best.