Michelle Scott's Blog, page 28
January 31, 2013
I found a picture of this lovely chandelier on Wikipedi...
I found a picture of this lovely chandelier on Wikipedia. It’s called a five-tiered wedding cake chandelier because it looks like an upside-down wedding cake.
I’ve always loved chandeliers, and In my WIP, there’s a very special crystal, chandelier.
January 30, 2013
Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exc...
Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings. – Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
January 29, 2013
St. Anne De Detroit Catholic Church…a location inspirat...
St. Anne De Detroit Catholic Church…a location inspiration for my next book. I love Gothic architecture!
January 24, 2013
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
April 4, 2011
I Love Good Reviews!
Blood Sisters, a YA vampire romance
Today, my YA vampire romance, Blood Sisters is being reviewed over at Mystic Thoughts. Mary says, "I really loved this book, its sarcasm, bonds and adventures." Thanks, Mary!
April 1, 2011
Fool for Books Giveaway
I have three great giveaways! The grand prize is an autographed copy of my new fantasy novel, An Anthem for the Battle Lands. First prize is an e-copy of my YA fantasy novel, Uncommon Magic. Third prize is a $10.00 Amazon gift card. (Please note, that while I can only ship prizes only to residents of the U.S. and Canada, anyone may win the e-copy of my novel.) Awards will be selected at random.
It’s easy to enter! Just visit my blog and fill out the form. Winners will be notified by e-mail.
March 31, 2011
I Knit, Therefore I Am
I spend so much time either reading or writing that it's nice to do something different once in a while. That's why I knit. I love working with my hands, and I also hate just sitting and watching TV with nothing to do.
The other day, my daughter was admiring a purse that her friend's grandma had made, and she asked me to make her one. I took a pattern for a small bag, enlarged it, and came up with this. She picked out the colors (which I love), and the pattern strikes me as Scandinavian.
I knitted this project in under a month!
The really wonderful part is that I have enough yarn leftover to make myself one as well!
Fool for Books Giveaway Hop
Are you a fool for books? Join the bookhop!
On April 1 and 2, I'm giving away free books! And that's no fooling!
This blog hop was sponsored by The Reading Writer and The Bookish Snob, and contains over 200 stops along the way. We're all linked together, so you can easily move from my blog onwards.
I have three great giveaways! The grand prize is an autographed copy of my new fantasy novel, An Anthem for the Battle Lands. First prize is an e-copy of my YA fantasy novel, Uncommon Magic. Third prize is a $10.00 Amazon gift card. (Please note, that while I can only ship prizes only to residents of the U.S. and Canada, anyone may win the e-copy of my novel.) Awards will be selected at random.
It's easy to enter! Just fill out the form below. Winners will be notified by e-mail.
The Fool for Books Bog Hop and Giveaway has ended. Thank you to all who participated!
Now…how about hopping on to the next blog? Here's the list…
March 28, 2011
Hating Main Characters
A great character with a dark heart
One of the very first bits of wisdom handed down to me as a new writer was that I should make my main characters likable. I was told that if I make my character sympathetic, my readers would care about what happened to them and read on.
But since then, I've found this isn't always true.
Take Tony Soprano.
For years, my sister had been after me to watch The Sopranos, but because I'm not a fan of mob movies, I never gave it a try. But finally, late one night when there was nothing else on TV, I caught a re-run of the show. And I was hooked!
Tony Soprano is the antitheses of a likable protagonist. He's a mob boss, for starters, and a cold-blooded killer. He lies, cheats on his wife, and terrorizes nearly everyone he meets. He's self-indulgent, smarmy, greedy, and cruel. If, for just a moment, a little humanity shines through and you begin to sympathize with him, he's sure to stab you in the back during the very next scene. But, despite all this, he kept me watching, episode after episode.
Another terrible character who recently got under my skin was Cass Neary from Elizabeth Hand's novel, Generation Loss. Cass is a kleptomaniac, a drug abuser and an alcoholic. She sows havoc wherever she can. She photographs the dead and dying, never once caring about their plight. Yet, somehow, I was tied to the character. Despite her craziness, I wanted her to survive.
Good characters are wonderful to be sure. But there's something to be said for main characters with dark hearts. While they don't exactly get sympathy from the audience, they draw us, like hostages, into a story and keep us there until they're ready to let us go.
March 25, 2011
From Moby Dick to The Shining
Moby Dick
I keep a copy of Herman Melville's enormous novel Moby Dick by my bedside. I'm on page 143 (out of 582), and have been there for the past three years. Whenever I can't get to sleep, I open the book to the chapter entitled 'Cetology' and begin to read:
"Though this fish, whose loud, sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among…" (At this point, I'm asleep.)
It's not that I don't like wordy books. In fact, I'm known as a pretty tolerant reader. Over the years, I've wrangled my way through many Russian novels including Anna Karenina and (most of) The Gulag Archipelago. I've also read English author A. S. Byatt's Posession, and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (including all those songs). I can even read Joyce Carroll Oates' books past the point where most of my friends have already given up.
What's interesting to me is how much fiction has changed over the years. Books like the Grapes of Wrath, with its intercalary chapters were popular when they were written, but they make modern readers want to move on to something else.
Recently, my teen-aged daughter told me that the Stephen King novel she was reading, Desperation, was boring.
"Boring?!" I said. "How can Stephen King be boring?" When I was her age, I'd been so terrified by The Shining that I hadn't dared leave my bed to use the bathroom and had spent the entire night with an overly full bladder.
"I don't know," she said. "It's just that nothing happens. It drags on." She acted like she was being forced to read Camus in the original French.
I don't want to be one of those people who sit around complaining about how times have changed for the worse and kids today don't know anything, but I have to admit that the shift to faster-paced books is getting a little out of control. A year ago, I sent a query to an agent, and the agent responded that my book started out too slow and wasn't 'kicky' enough. I guess she never got to the school shooting on page two.
I like books that take a little time for the reader to get to know them. I like a few sidetracks here and there to add color. I don't mind waiting on for well-crafted plot to get moving. I appreciate character development.
But on the other hand, I doubt that I'll ever get past the Melville's chapter on cetology.
