Debra Dier's Blog, page 4

A Writer’s Dilemma

Last year I was faced with a perplexing dilemma, one that caused me to lose sleep and debate with friends and family about which way I should proceed. Last year I obtained the rights to all of my books. The day after I received those rights a New York publisher contacted me with the proposal to buy the rights to publish all of the books as they originally were published. They would have allowed me to do light editing, but they wanted the books and they wanted to publish them in pretty much the same form as they had originally been published.  Since I had been away from my desk for a while and the books would essentially have a new audience, I decided to take a look at all of the books before I allowed them to go back out into the world. The work of a writer pretty much defines that writer in the minds of readers. It is important to me to represent myself with only works I feel strongly about. Enter the dilemma: publish the books as they originally were published, or publish the books as I would have written them if I were writing the books today. The publisher offered a very lucrative proposal, but I felt I really needed to publish the new versions as I would have written them today, regardless of how much money they threw at me. I slept better after I made that decision.

Why did I re-write Beyond Forever? When I read the book with an eye to publishing an updated version I made a rather startling discover: I did not like the hero. I understood why he was harsh. I just didn’t care for him. Originally I intended to show the change of a harsh man into a caring individual, a man who had lost his belief in women into a man who accepted a woman under unbelievable circumstances. The heroine worked that change in him. Unfortunately, the way the original story was structured led to a constant battle between the hero and the heroine. I think I was just trying something different at the time I wrote it. You write enough in a short period of time and you start exploring different ideas in characters and story. It is not to say people didn’t like Beyond Forever. It sold well. I had many people say they enjoyed it. One of my closest friends was horrified to learn I intended to re-write her favorite book. The trouble came when I realized I would not write the book the same way today as I had when it was originally published. In fact, I actually did not like the book as it was written. I loved the concept, I just didn’t love the way it was originally executed. Yes, I am being brutally honest. I’m made that way.

I loved the concept of Beyond Forever: a love that transcends time, a man who sacrifices heaven for a chance to save his son from beyond the grave. This time when I approached the novel I made several different choices. It is amazing the impact a different perspective can have on a story. This time the hero and heroine work together to solve the mysteries in the story. This time I love the hero. Gavin MacKinnon became one of my favorite heroes in any book. He is strong and kind, compassionate, a little shy, but he still manages to be commanding. He is a champion for the weak and abused. He is a man who truly deserves to be called a hero.

A Twist of Fate shares a nodding acquaintance to Beyond Forever. I lightly edited the first seven chapters of the book. The rest of the book has been dramatically altered. The middle and the end do not resemble the original. I know there will be readers unhappy about the fact I did not choose to publish the old version. To them I can only say the original still lives in the original paperbacks and I hope you can find a place in your hearts for the new version. For all of my new readers, I hope you like A Twist of Fate. You can read the first few chapters on the site. Read an excerpt.

Available November 2013

Creating Chemistry in a Romance

Chemistry is that hard to define sizzle between a man and a woman. It’s like bringing together the exposed ends of two live electrical wires and watching the sparks fly. The key to creating and sustaining chemistry is in bringing together the right characters in the right circumstances.

I always strive to create characters who live in a reader’s mind. In my romances, since there is always a promise of happily ever after, the reader must first believe these characters are worthy of an everlasting love. It’s also important for the reader to believe the hero and heroine deserve one another. In some way I must demonstrate both are worthy individuals, with qualities that complement each other. When creating the hero and heroine, I often think of two halves seeking to become whole. Even if it isn’t clear to the characters that they are meant for one another, the reader must think they are perfect for one another. Think of an invisible tether, connecting one to the other. The hero and heroine may fight against the pull, but we hope they won’t win. Slowly, over the course of the book, they are drawn to one another.

Bring together two sympathetic characters who in another time and place would fall instantly into each other’s arms, add a conflict strong enough to build barriers between them, watch how they manage to overcome those barriers, and you have the ingredients for a chemical reaction. In Miss Emily’s Scoundrel, I brought together a woman terrified of being humiliated again by a fortune hunter, and a man who presents himself as an opportunist after money and position. The heroine, Emily, is confronted with the man of her dreams only to discover he is her worst nightmare. At least on the surface he is. Still, in spite of her best efforts to despise him, she sees in him qualities she admires in a man, and she cannot deny an overwhelming attraction to him. The hero, of course is not what he appears. He is indeed an admirable man, a secret agent working to unmask a traitor who just might be her father—conflict in all directions. Yet they manage to forge a path to happily ever after.

For readers to care about a character they must understand the character’s motivations and goals. A writer must know everything that shaped the character into the person the reader meets in the book. The reader must understand the characters, know their flaws, their strengths, their weaknesses. For Emily in Miss Emily’s Scoundrel, she had once been engaged to a man who turned out to be a real fortune hunter. It colored her feelings toward the hero and strengthened the conflict.

The readers must also see admirable qualities in the hero and the heroine. In some way the characters must earn the sympathy of the readers. For chemistry to work, a reader must care about what happens to your characters. In A Twist of Fate, the readers learn why Julia is reluctant to help Gavin in the beginning because she takes her responsibilities for her young niece seriously. We also learn of her insecurities and why she lacks confidence in her own abilities. We see how devoted Gavin was to his son. His love for his son has caused him to linger on earth, trapped as a lonely spirit until his chance for a miracle appears in the form of Julia. In the past we see Gavin’s nobility through his actions when he protects Julia and when he acts as champion to an abused young woman.

Conflict is an important factor in creating chemistry in a romance. Basically conflict is created by obstacles that stand between these two people finding happiness with one another. The conflict can be internal, meaning something in a character’s thoughts or value system has erected a defense against the other person. It can be external, with pressure from outside the characters.  Both internal and external conflicts can exist in the story.

Tension is important in sustaining chemistry. Will the hero and heroine ever come together? The tension draws one toward the other. In any of my stories, I want the reader to think the joining of hero and heroine is inevitable. My hero and heroine in a romance eventually must succumb to the attraction simmering between them. They cannot break the tether binding one to the other. Their union is destined. Fate cannot be denied. True chemistry is forged when the reader feels the hero and heroine belong to one another. Only to one another.

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies 
Debra Dier

2 ¼ cups unsifted unbleached all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

½ cup real butter, softened

½ cup Crisco shortening

1 TBS. water

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 tsp. pure vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Using a wire whisk, mix dry ingredients thoroughly, set aside.  In a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer beat sugar, brown sugar, butter, shortening, water, and vanilla until creamy.  Beat in eggs.  Add dry ingredients 1/3 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Turn mixer to high and beat for 30 seconds.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets, placing two inches apart.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Immediately transfer from hot cookie sheet.

 

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies Debra Dier2 ¼ cups u...

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies 
Debra Dier

2 ¼ cups unsifted unbleached all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

½ cup real butter, softened

½ cup Crisco shortening

1 TBS. water

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 tsp. pure vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Using a wire whisk, mix dry ingredients thoroughly, set aside.  In a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer beat sugar, brown sugar, butter, shortening, water, and vanilla until creamy.  Beat in eggs.  Add dry ingredients 1/3 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Turn mixer to high and beat for 30 seconds.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets, placing two inches apart.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Immediately transfer from hot cookie sheet.

 

My...

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies 
Debra Dier

2 ¼ cups unsifted unbleached all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

½ cup real butter, softened

½ cup Crisco shortening

1 TBS. water

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 tsp. pure vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Using a wire whisk, mix dry ingredients thoroughly, set aside.  In a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer beat sugar, brown sugar, butter, shortening, water, and vanilla until creamy.  Beat in eggs.  Add dry ingredients 1/3 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Turn mixer to high and beat for 30 seconds.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets, placing two inches apart.  Bake 8-10 minutes.  Immediately transfer from hot cookie sheet.

 

Story Ideas

Where do you get your ideas for a book? I have been asked this question many times. At times I get the idea for a book from a question I might ask myself, or a movie, or a television show, or a photograph, or…. The truth is ideas can come from everywhere.

In A Twist of Fate I had this question in mind: what would you do if someone told you it was possible to go back in time and prevent a tragedy? That one question spurred many more questions. How would a miracle be granted? What type of tragedy? How would I send someone back in time? How would I get them back to their own time? Would they succeed? What happens if you were able to change an event in the past? What connections would exist between the past and the present? What if two people were soul mates, but one of them had lingered as a ghost? Once I started finding answers to those questions, I started to flesh out the story for the book.

Sometimes the ideas come from movies or television shows. I based my book Miss Emily’s Scoundrel on the television show Remington Steele. In Scoundrel a woman invents a husband and a man walks into her life and pretends to be that husband. After I had the initial idea, I started asking questions. Why would she invent a husband? How would he have learned the truth? Why can’t she tell the world he is a fraud? How will she deal with him? Why is he pretending to be her husband?

No matter where you get your idea, you need to explore all the facets of that idea. Ask yourself questions. The answers will help you shape the idea into a story. As you write the book, you will come across other questions that need answered.

All of my books are character driven. Once I have an idea of the story, I always flesh out the characters. I need to know everything I can about them.  As a writer you need to know how each character would react in any given circumstance. You need to know what shaped that character and why they make the choices they make. Nothing is arbitrary. If a woman doesn’t’ trust men, something happened to make her feel that way. If a character is afraid of heights, find out what happened to make that person afraid of heights.

The more you know about your story idea and the characters who will bring that story to life before you begin, the better writer you will be.

5 Reasons You Need The X Theme

X is not your grandmother’s WordPress theme, and we want to prove it to you. Here are the top 5 reasons you need to buy X today!

Stacks, Stacks, & More Stacks

Instead of being stuck with one design for your next project, X is a gift that keeps on giving. Built with our custom Stacks, X is the most versatile premium WordPress theme on the market today. Think of Stacks like full site designs built into the theme with each one giving a totally unique look and feel. There are currently three Stacks to chose from: Integrity, Renew, and Icon.

Point & Click

X is not only one of the most cutting edge themes on the market today, it’s incredibly easy to customize using the latest innovation from WordPress: the Theme Customizer. Instead of clicking through pages and pages of an admin panel only to have to click back and forth between the dashboard and your live site, with X you can change every aspect of your site while viewing it through the Customizer. See in real time how every color, layout, and pixel will look then click “Save” and you’re done. Customizing a theme has never been so easy.

Built By Experts

We weren’t satisfied with just making “another” WordPress theme…so we decided to do something different. We reached out to many of the top business and internet marketing minds of today to ask them about things like conversion, copywriting, layouts, squeeze pages, SEO, and more. X is the culmination of over a dozen of the smartest marketers on the planet who shared their expertise to build into this truly ultimate theme. You can learn more about the experts who contributed in our features section.

Future Proof

HTML5. CSS3. Fully Responsive, and more! X is not only built to be the most beautiful and powerful WordPress Theme of 2013, it is ready for the future. With a sharp development team that stays on the cutting edge of all that WordPress has to offer, you can rest assured that any site using X will be steps ahead of the pack employing the high-end functionality your site demands.

Simply The Best

Don’t just take our word for it. See for yourself. First time users frequently report how fun and easy it is to customize X exactly to their likings. Whether that’s boxed or full width, dark or light, multi colors or minimal, large fonts or small — X is like nothing you have ever seen!

Standard Post With Shortcode Goodies

With several dozen of the best looking Shortcodes around, we wanted to give you a sample of the many high-end Shortcodes built into X. We’ve grouped some together so this isn’t a super long post, however for a complete list with demos and examples of each, be sure to head over to our Shortcodes page.

Image Frame, Tooltips, Popovers & 3D Button
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You Can Even Add Popovers and Tooltips to Me!
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Table of Contents & Icon List
Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. More Information 3. Even More Information

The Table of Contents shortcode available in X offers up some incredible SEO benefits to your standard posts and pages. It’s easy enough to paginate individual posts or pages in WordPress using the  code in the editor, but it doesn’t provide any real engaging way for your visitors to know what they’re in for as they click through to the next post. That’s where the Table of Contents shortcode comes in.

Simply add this to each of your “pages” after your  breaks and input the titles of each section in your article. What you’re left with is a thoroughly engaging, easy to navigate post structure that has been proven to increase visitor retention and keep their attention (all things Google loves).

You can easily add the Table of Contents shortcode to the left or right of your post content, or have it go full width, which is great for placing at the bottom of your posts to remind visitors of what sections are left. Click through on the table of contents shortcode above to go through to the next page and see the shortcode in action!

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Chose from over 300 icons.

Responsive Visibility, Pricing Tables, Content Bands, & Entry Share

With responsive visibility, you can easily show or hide various pieces of information with different groups of visitors viewing your site on a wide array of devices. Want to put a video on desktop but only text on tablet and mobile? No problem. Go ahead and resize your browser window to see how different messages are displayed below for different screen sizes (Note: We also used another one of our Shortcodes, Responsive Video, to make the video look great and respond for the desktop message).

Desktop MessageI’m only for the larger screens. Since there’s more room, I can take a little more space. Resize me!


[x_video style="margin-bottom: 0;" embed='']


Tablet MessageI’m only for the medium sized screens. There a little less room here, so try and shorten things up a bit, but don’t worry, you don’t have to fret too much over the length of your message just yet.


Phone MessageI’m only for the smallest screens. Try and keep things short and sweet here.


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Cool Headline

Great for a call to action or important information, these Content Bands will help you be truly creative with how your content is presented.

Cool Headline

Great for a call to action or important information, these Content Bands will help you be truly creative with how your content is presented.

Cool Headline

Great for a call to action or important information, these Content Bands will help you be truly creative with how your content is presented.

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Over Three Dozen Shortcodes Included When You Buy X Today

While just a sample, hopefully this give you a small window into how we think about Shortcodes. Instead of just creating the basic ones (which we did and you have access to them as well), we wanted to take it a step further by providing some really useful business and marketing oriented solutions like Table of Contents and Responsive Visibility. As a customer of X, you not only get instant access to our entire Shortcode library, you’ll also have access to all future Shortcodes we develop for future releases.

Image Post

This is a great way to showcase cool individual images in a quick and easy way. While writing your post: select the image format, add your featured image, then click Publish!

Little Red Riding Hood (Embedded Video)

Looking to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or any of the other popular video sites? No problem at all. Simply take the embed video code, add it to the video settings, and you’re done.