E.B. Roshan's Blog: This, That and the Other, page 22

Displaced

While the heartbreaks and losses the displaced Tur people of Sevia must endure are of course fictional, in our real world, millions of people have lost their homes due to conflict, and have been forced to flee their home countries.

Here are a few statistics from the UNHCR website:

As of 2019, at least 79.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Of these, a staggering 26 million have become refugees. Half of them are children under the age of 18.

The majority of the world’s refugees come from just three countries—Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan, and not surprisingly, the top three refugee-hosting countries are currently Turkey, Colombia and Pakistan.

Many refugees spend years waiting in camps or temporary villages for displaced people, others travel in hopes of a better chance, but all struggle to find the support they need to restart their lives.

For an article with great ideas for how you can help your local refugee community, visit: https://ideas.ted.com/8-practical-ways-to-help-refugees/

Random Writing Tip #5: Begin at the Beginning

If you want readers to want to read past the beginning of your story, it’s important to put some thought into those opening lines or paragraphs (for a short story) or opening chapter (for a longer one.) It’s not hard to do, but you can’t expect to just start throwing words at the page and hoping they’ll stick. You need to answer five basic questions, the five “Ws”, Who? What? When? Where? Why?

Or, to simplify things even further, look at it this way. The beginning of any good story does three things:

It sets the scene in a vivid and interesting way–the “where” and “when” of your story.It introduces the main character or characters in a way that makes us want to read more about them. We should learn “who” the story is about. This doesn’t mean you can’t introduce important or surprising characters later, but we should meet the main character right away.It hints at complications or trouble to come. This is where the “what” and “why” of the story are at least hinted at, if not fully explained. After all, if all was bliss and ease in the world of the story, most readers would soon lose interest. People want lots of bliss and ease in their actual lives, considerably less in the stories they read.

The Trials of Being Ordinary

When I write a story and begin to imagine a character, I quickly develop a mental image of what he or she looks like–height, weight, hair color, preferred clothing style, etc. They often look like someone I’ve seen before. The problem is, none of my characters look much of anything like the beautiful models who make up the vast majority of images available on stock photography sites. Like the vast majority of us, they just look ordinary.–the kind of people you’d see while shopping, or hanging out at the park.

Finding photos to represent my characters proved to be the greatest challenge in my cover design adventure. In my first book, I described my hero as looking sullen and unattractive, and the one in my current story is a bit (or maybe more than a bit) overweight. One of my heroines shaves her head at the beginning of the story. Another has pink highlights. But until I can come up with a really great story about tall blonde beauties with flowing locks, the search for the perfect character image will go on.

Book Spotlight: Ruby Moon

I found the story of one eventful year in the life of the young half-French, half Ojibwe woman Jenay, to be a vivid and memorable one. At seventeen, Jenay faces troubles many older women would be floored by, and overcomes them with courage and grace.

Her elderly aunt, an Ojibwe woman named Maang-ikwe, besides being an important supportive figure in Jenay’s life, is an interesting character in her own right, with her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants, and her love for God’s creation.

At first, I didn’t like the way the author jumped from date to date in the distant and more recent past, and switched back and forth between first and third person narration while telling Jenay’s story, but in the end I decided that for this story, it works, because so much of the story is about Jenay’s struggle to deal with the consequences of an event she doesn’t fully remember, and the guilt of being caught in a strange and confusing situation.

While the story has its slower parts, and the writing, in particular the dialogue, at times seems a little stilted, overall, Ruby Moon is a fine tale, and would be enjoyed by anyone who loves Christian historical fiction.

Reviewer’s Note: I received a free copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

(Dreaming up Sevia) Book Three

As I begin work on the third book in my series, a love story that unexpectedly brings together two minor characters from the earlier books, I find myself wanting to slow down a bit, to savor the writing process. After all, there’s nothing but “The End” at the finish line. Also, I’m getting a little nervous, because when I finish this one, I’ll be Halfway Through. All the couples will be together, more or less happily married. All the important minor characters will have been introduced. The stage of Sevia will be set.

And then it will be time to start writing the second half of the series. While the first three books in the Shards of Sevia series introduce the couples and show how they got together, the second three are intended to show how each new couple’s relationship grows and matures, how the romance–and the excitement and uncertainty–doesn’t end when the girl says, “Yes.”

In some ways, I look forward to writing Books 4, 5, and 6, but in others, I find it a little intimidating–after all, the driving force of a romance story is getting the two main characters together. Once they’re “happily married ever after,” how does the romance continue? What happens next? Will anybody want to read a romance where the two main characters are already together?

Stick with me, and we’ll see how this goes…

Book Three

As I begin work on the third book in my series, a love story that unexpectedly brings together two minor characters from the earlier books, I find myself wanting to slow down a bit, to savor the writing process. After all, there’s nothing but “The End” at the finish line. Also, I’m getting a little nervous, because when I finish this one, I’ll be Halfway Through. All the couples will be together, more or less happily married. All the important minor characters will have been introduced. The stage of Sevia will be set.

And then it will be time to start writing the second half of the series. While the first three books in the Shards of Sevia series introduce the couples and show how they got together, the second three are intended to show how each new couple’s relationship grows and matures, how the romance–and the excitement and uncertainty–doesn’t end when the girl says, “Yes.”

In some ways, I look forward to writing Books 4, 5, and 6, but in others, I find it a little intimidating–after all, the driving force of a romance story is getting the two main characters together. Once they’re “happily married ever after,” how does the romance continue? What happens next? Will anybody want to read a romance where the two main characters are already together?

Stick with me, and we’ll see how this goes…

(Dreaming up Sevia) Book Promotion Sites

Websites showcasing free or discounted books abound, and they can be a good way to gain publicity for books. However, many of them charge a substantial submission fee. After extensive combing of the Internet, I found quite a few book promotion sites that allow authors to submit their books for free, though listings are no guaranteed.

Here are a few that have graciously featured my books:

http://www.readfree.ly/

https://itswritenow.com/

https://fictionhideaway.com/

https://discountbookman.com/

https://www.goodebooks.net/

https://bookoftheday.org/

Book Promotion Sites

Websites showcasing free or discounted books abound, and they can be a good way to gain publicity for books. However, many of them charge a substantial submission fee. After extensive combing of the Internet, I found quite a few book promotion sites that allow authors to submit their books for free, though listings are no guaranteed.

Here are a few that have graciously featured my books:

http://www.readfree.ly/

https://itswritenow.com/

https://fictionhideaway.com/

https://discountbookman.com/

https://www.goodebooks.net/

https://bookoftheday.org/

(Dreaming up Sevia) Author Interview

I had the privilege of sharing my writing/publishing success story on the Book Whisperer's blog here:

https://mybookwhisperer.org/2020/07/2...

Go check it out, and submit a success story of your own!

(Dreaming up Sevia) Random Writing Tip #4: Point of View

If a story is being told, obviously, someone is telling it. Is that person you, the writer, or someone else? Several different points of view are possible. We’ll look briefly at the three most popular.

First Person:

If you’re writing a story about yourself, this is the voice/point of view that you will likely use. Of course, when writing fiction, it’s also popular to choose an imaginary character and tell the story through his eyes. When writing this point of view (POV) you will use the pronoun “I,” and you’ll only be able to convey information through the eyes of this character. If he didn’t see an event happen, or hasn’t somehow been informed of it, he can’t know about it. He also can’t know the inner thoughts of other characters in the story.

“Yesterday, when I went to the grocery store to pick up a dozen eggs, I saw a man wearing a Darth Vader mask. Who knows why? Perhaps he thinks it will scare off the germs.”

Third Person (Limited)

This point of view is similar to the one above, in that you can only convey information through the point of view of one character at a time, though of course your story could have more than one POV character. However, instead of using the pronoun “I,” you’ll use “he/she” and the person’s name, of course.

“Yesterday Damaris went to the grocery store to pick up a dozen eggs. She saw a man wearing a Darth Vader mask and wondered why. Perhaps it will scare off the germs, she thought.”

Third Person (Omniscient)

If you’re writing a story with a lot of characters, or a very complex story, this may be your POV of choice. Many fantasy or adventure stories are written this way. This POV is written as if the author is sitting on high, observing all the actions and thoughts of all the characters. He’s able to move into any character’s inner thoughts, or focus on any important scene happening anywhere in the story’s world. In the past, many stories were written this way, but if you read more modern stories, you will see that the Third Person Omniscient point of view has become less common.

“Damaris went to the grocery store to pick up a dozen eggs and met a man in a Darth Vader mask. He’d decided to test its efficacy at repelling germs.”