Marian Allen's Blog, page 472

Help Wanted

How do writers get ideas for stories? Well, sometimes they ask.

Imma write a story to submit to an anthology. Must be a mystery. Must relate to promotion/marketing/queries etc. Must be 3,000 to 5,000 words long.

Okay, there's the first step in this project. I know the genre, one element of the story, and the general length. Now I need to hang some stuff on it.

How about characters? Hmmm…. I have a series of light cozy mysteries in the works set on Spadena Street, a Storybook Style neighborhood I invented. I already wrote one short story set in that "world": "The Spirit of Spadena Street", which appeared in Wolfmont Press' THE GIFT OF MURDER anthology. That one featured LeJune and her mother, June Rose. It's tempting to feature them again, because they're so much fun to write, but maybe I ought to give somebody else a chance for the spotlight.

Buck Leatherbury, ex-cop? He lives just down the street. Maybe Buck can be writing his memoirs. Oh! Oh! An ex-cop writing his memoirs is just asking for a crime!

My Big Girl Hat

I'm putting my big-girl hat on and being a writer! The plot thickens! The game's afoot! Hoo-hoo–I'm on the job!

So I know my setting, my protagonist, his goal and — yeah, I just got the plot. I just totally flashed on the plot. Hot dang.

Never mind that thing I said about asking for ideas.

WRITING PROMPT: Pick somebody in your neighborhood, now or a previous neighborhood, and imagine a basic storyline around him or her.

MA

p.s. Join me tomorrow, when fantasy writer A. J. Walker and I trade blogs, each writing about Landscape as Character.

Sample Sunday – Free Mermaid Story

Mermaid, mermayd — "Same thing, only different," as my Grandpa used to say. "Line of Descent" is a short story set in the world of EEL'S REVERENCE, but in the sea culture of the mermayds. It's all about sex. Of course, it's all about mermayd sex, which is more like fish than people, so it isn't … you know … sexy sex. But still.

Here's a sample, and a free PDF download of the entire story. This is not part of the sexy bit. I mean, it is Sunday. Just sayin'.

"Line of Descent" excerpt:

He stuck his head above the surface, letting the wild waves take him for a swooping, directionless ride, while more water fell from above to join the sea.

Deafened by the racket of rain and wave, he didn't hear the two-tails's shell approaching, didn't see it until it was almost upon him. He wriggled away with a few powerful strokes of his tail and, turning head-down, rushed back into the serenity of deeper water.

His heart thudded. The shell had come so close! He could almost have touched it. He wished he had. Still, he would have a fine boast to make to his peers, and it would be gratifying to compare his experience with those of the few others in the pod–all much older than he–who had also seen the shells pass.

With a crash he could hear, deep as he was, a two-tails plunged toward him. It wasn't swimming with purpose, though; it was thrashing the way the old folks said two-tails do when they're dying. Bubbles poured up from it as the weird thing flailed and fought the water. Its skin was loose and it had two scalps, one on top of its head and one under its mouth, both covered in thick black hair. Its loose skin sloughed off in pieces, and Goby realized it was artificial skin made out of something else, intended to protect the two-tails' real skin. He wondered who had made the artificial skin and put it on the creature.

He had to admire its courage. How it struggled against its death! It got its head turned upwards and its tails downwards. It flicked its tails separately and worked its way back toward the surface.

Maybe this one wasn't sick. Maybe this one fell out of the shell by accident–flung out by the storm waves. Maybe the shell would come back for it, if it could stay where the other two-tails could see it.

Drawn by curiosity and an urge he couldn't explain, an urge that had to do with helping life continue, he followed the two-tails up into the storm.

The creature flickered its tails and swept the water with its arms, trying to keep its head above the water. Waves washed over it, and it heaved its chest, making odd rasping sounds that seemed to push the water out.

Suddenly, Goby understood. The two-tails were like whales and dolphins: They needed air or they would die. They didn't die in the water because they were sick or old, but because they couldn't breathe in it!

Impulsively, he grasped the animal around the waist and, undulating his tail, hoisted the two-tails farther out of the water. It jerked and cried out and stared at him with eyes unprotected from the spray by a nictating membrane, as his own were. It was a clever creature, though, and understood he wanted to help it. It put an arm around his shoulders and waved the other hand–a hand with no webbing between the fingers!–over its head, pushing a cry of distress out of its mouth that went, "Hi! Hi! Heer! Heer!"

The storm swept over them, and then was past. They watched it wash over the ocean until it was out of sight, carrying the shell with it. The shell didn't return.

And now what did he do with the thing? If he were right, and it needed air, he couldn't take it home with him. It would be unkind to leave it to sink, and he could hardly stay with it.

Free PDF download of \"Line of Descent\"

"Line of Descent" is also available at Smashwords in multiple formats. EEL'S REVERENCE is available for a mere $2.99 at the Kindle store, the Nook store or in multiple formats at OmniLit.

WRITING PROMPT: How does your main character feel about family? What would make him/her change that feeling? What would intensify it?

MA

Birthday Fun For All

I met my friend Jane in Louisville to celebrate her birthday. Jane and I have been friends since the summer between Junior and Senior High School. Since we're both about 28 ~cough cough~ that isn't so long ago. Yeah, my oldest grandson is 18, so I may be a little off on my timeline.

Anyway, the nice thing about taking somebody out for a birthday is that, no matter who's paying, you both get a good lunch. We went to The [image error]Irish Rover on Frankfort Avenue. The Rover has great food and a wide variety of beer, stout and ale. The server recommended a Bell's wheat beer with orange slices squeezed into it. That's a little frou-frou for us, but we went with it, and it was very good, especially with the fish-and-chips and blue cheesecake we shared. Blue cheesecake is a savory cheesecake made out of — guess what? — now, let's not always see the same hands — that's right, blue cheese.

Then we staggered down to the Java Brewing Company — that's COFFEE brewing, thank you — for coffee and to eat the flourless Guinness chocolate cake we got to go from The Rover.

One of the many things we talked about is how invaluable a gift real friendship is. It can stand the test of time, of irritation, of need, of absence, and of truth.

Happy birthday, Jane!

WRITING PROMPT: Have a character meet someone he/she knew a long time ago. Is there a friendship there? Did your character know it all along, or just realize it upon this reunion?

MA

Friday Recommends 5-13-2011

Web sites worth visiting are everywhere these days! The creativity and honesty that go into them are astonishing. Here are a few I recommend:

Pat Bean's Blog (Travels with Maggie) – Pat and her cocker spaniel, Maggie, live in a small RV and travel the highways and byways, with Pat taking notes and gorgeous photographs which she shares on the blog. It's my home page, so I can start every day with Pat and Maggie.

I may have recommended Leslie R. Lee's photoblog already, but it bears repeating. I actually have four sites set up as my home page, and this is one. I stumbled upon him when he was doing a 365-day photo-a-day challenge. That challenge is over, but he posts new pictures frequently and they're always beautiful or striking or amusing or quirky, and sometimes all of the above.

Another of my home pages is The Breast Cancer Site's Click To Give page. One click helps fund mammograms for women who couldn't otherwise afford them. While I'm there, I click on the other sites: for Veterans, for Literacy, for Child Health, for Rainforests, for Animal Rescue and for Hunger–which is where I first found World Wide Recipes, as a matter of fact.

My fourth home page is Google. I love it when they have their logo all fancied up.

WRITING PROMPT: Describe a place your main character lived briefly.

MA

Jean Henry Mead Heads Down the Interstate

Jean Henry Mead is a mystery/suspense and western historical novelist. She's also an award-winning photojournalist. One of her fortes is interviewing writers, actors, politicians, artists and ordinary people who have accomplished extraordinary things. She began her writing career as a California news reporter/editor/photographer, first in Central California and later in San Diego. Mead transferred to Casper, Wyoming, to serve as a staff writer for the statewide newspaper. While there she served as editor of In Wyoming Magazine and two small presses. She also freelanced for other publications, both domestic and abroad, among them the Denver Post's Empire Magazine. Her first book was published in 1982.

Jean Henry Mead's new book is Murder on the Interstate.

Two feisty 60-year old women sleuths encounter murder, homegrown terrorism, kidnapping and disasters as they travel Arizona in their motorhome. The third novel in the Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, Murder on the Interstate will leave you breathless.

I asked Jean to talk about writing about older protagonists who are amateur sleuths. Here's what she had to say:

[image error]When I first conceived my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, I named my characters Shirley Lock and Dora Holmes and titled the series Shirl Lock & Holmes. My first publisher closed its doors shortly after publication and I resold the series to another, so the names were changed to Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. My two 60-year-old protagonists become a little feistier and adventurous in the second novel when they sell their houses in the San Joaquin Valley and buy a motorhome.

My novels are somewhat autobiographical and I used my own experience driving a motorhome along northern Arizona's mountainous Interstate 40 to begin third my novel, Murder on the Interstate. Listening and talking to truckers along the way on my CB radio not only taught me their language, which can be quite humorous, but the problems faced along the road, which I incorporated into the book.

My purpose in writing about older women sleuths is to belie the conception that mature women are somewhat helpless. While I was growing up, sixty was considered old and ready for permanent rocking chair occupancy. Now that I've reached the dreaded age myself, I'm still capable of doing all the things I ever did, with the possible exception of roller skating—because I don't want to risk a serious fall. That fear arose from tripping over my dog and hitting a stone wall, which resulted in a broken arm. That seems to happen to many seniors. As a result, I had to write one-handed for months.

When writing about seniors—or in this case "boomers" eligible for senior discounts, you don't dwell on aches and pains or disabilities unless your protagonist happens to be disabled and in a wheel chair. Dana and Sarah joke about menopause and general crankiness but overall they're as active as much younger sleuths.

And speaking of baby boomers, there are an estimated 78 million of them reaching retirement age, some 8,000 a day. Many of them like to read about characters their own ages. What better age group to write for?

Most older women readers dislike graphic sex and language. But that doesn't stop writers from exploring current social problems such as homegrown terrorism, which I feature in Murder on the Interstate. Older women sleuths usually don't have the addiction problems of some of the younger male protagonists, or the sexual distractions of younger women. So their wisdom and experience serve them well when solving mysteries. That leaves plenty of room for humor, which I include in all my books, including nonfiction and my children's mysteries. Sometimes it's subtle and occasionally slapstick, depending on my writing mood. I even had Dana and Sarah cracking jokes in the midst of a flash flood.

I also include light romance, which can also be humorous, as in the first novel of the series, A Village Shattered, where a love starved widow falls in love with a redneck Casanova.  Writing for seniors can be fun as long as we laugh with them and not at them.

Please visit Jean Henry Mead.

Visit her website

And her blog sites:

Mysterious Writers

Writers of the West

Murderous Musings

Make Mine Mystery

WRITING PROMPT: Think of five situations in which an amateur sleuth might run into multiple mysteries/murders without falling into the Jessica Fletcher syndrome.

MA

Food for a Party

Food. Party. They go together like eggs and bacon. Or, if you're a vegan, like nuts and beans.

My new pitch-in dish is corn pudding (Corn Soufflé, if it's a fancy party). I got the recipe from the World Wide Recipes PLUS edition pen pal forum (Thanks, Donna!), so I'll call it that here.

CORN BREAD SOUFFLÉ

In a 2-quart casserole dish mix the following

1 can creamed corn

image from the Jiffy Mix site

1 can undrained whole kernel corn
1 stuck melted butter or margarine
4 eggs
1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix

Bake at 350F for 1 hour.

NOTE: Jiffy is specified because it's sweet cornbread. If you want to substitute another brand, use 8.5 oz (240 g) of mix. If you want to make your own mix, use the dry ingredients to make 6-8 muffins or an 8″ square pan full. If I want to make a half-recipe, I use 8 oz (226 g) cans of corn and creamed corn and half the box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix.

In other news: Please join me tomorrow, when Jean Henry Mead is my guest, talking about her terrific new book featuring two mature female amateur sleuths who run into trouble in their RV, MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE.

WRITING PROMPT: A character decides to make an untried recipe to take to a party, and it ends up making WAY more than intended.

MA

Out and About

I'm all over the place today.

Chris Redding has a new excerpt from EEL'S REVERENCE over at her blog today.

I posted at Fatal Foodies, as I do every Tuesday. Today's post is about the killer party our 10-year-old grandson cooked up.

My post at Savvy Authors on the topic of Book Kits went live. (Much thanks to Jen Wylie of Echelon Press for the bulk of the material.)

Meanwhile, I've been busy detickifying the dog. Natural tick killers and repellents? They don't work. You gots to get CHEMICAL with the nasty li'l barskets.

WRITING PROMPT: Have a busy professional take time out to perform a homely and unpleasant task. Not involving children, 'cause that's too easy.

MA

Writers' Tools – Voice

What is your voice; your social voice, the one you use with other people? It's how you sound when you talk; what you say and how you say it. Your personal VOICE is how you sound when you talk inside your head, where nobody can hear you. (And then, out loud, I said….) Your fictional VOICE is the sound of your story telling itself.

The biggest stumbling block most people have to finding and using an authentic fictional VOICE is: What if I give myself away and the reader doesn't like me?

The answer to that is: What if they don't? How many of you have read at least one Stephen King book? Do you believe you know him and all the secrets of his soul? He hasn't given himself away; what he's done is find and face in himself a love of creepiness, which he uses to create a VOICE that is basically the same, but slightly different from book to book. This variability is a third VOICE, your book's; which is the way your story sounds when it tells itself. The same event, involving the same people and the same dialog, will sound different, depending on the tone of voice in which it is told.

Do you ever flip through cable channels, catch three seconds of something, and say, "Oh, that's M*A*S*H," or, "That's DRAGNET," or "That's TWILIGHT ZONE". Well, just as you can spot a M*A*S*H or a DRAGNET or a TWILIGHT ZONE in three seconds, you know a scary book when you read it. You know a tough-guy book. You know a light-hearted comedy. You know it by the tone.

No matter how unpleasant or how silly the story you choose to write, you must do these two things: Take your voice seriously, and use it honestly.

Click here for PDFs of examples: Hammett and Bradbury and two vampire scenes.

Elements of Voice

I)Point-of-view

1)Who is telling the story? First, second, third person; objective or subjective?

2)What part does he/she/it play – passive or active?

3)How is story told? What is narrator's attitude? What attitude should the reader have toward the story – and toward the narrator? – The "unreliable narrator" is one who doesn't present an accurate picture of what is going on or of him/herself. Sometimes the reader doesn't realize that the narrator is unreliable until the twist ending, and sometimes the reader knows all along and laughs or shudders at the gap between reality and the narrator's presentation of it.

II)Details – Few or vague details will result in a broader, more objective tone. More or explicit details will be more intimate.

The details themselves have style. The names you give your characters have style.

Your details should have purpose. They should help support the plot, the atmosphere, the character, the setting, the theme.

III)Pace

Nancy Kress, in "Writer's Digest," says that there are two kinds of Pace:

1)How quickly events come along in the course of the story

2)How quickly new bits of information are revealed in a line or paragraph

You want the two to balance each other off. If you have a lot of action, a lot of scene shifts, you don't want to load each line with information – unless you want to burn the reader out by the end of the first page. If your story unfolds slowly, you need to load each line with interesting detail or information. Ex: Henry James – slow action, much detail. The first paragraph of Ruth Rendell's THE FACE OF TRESPASS is packed with details that forshadow the rest of the book. Lois Duncan does this beautifully, too.

There is a third kind of pace: How quickly new sentences come along. Short, simple sentences, short paragraphs using simple words create a tone of tension, action, quick pace. Longer, more complicated sentences, longer words in longer paragraphs will slow down the pace. Of course, you'll have a mix of longer and shorter sentences, just for variety and sound.

IV)Let's mention Dialog as tone-setter

A young man says, "Will you marry me?" His girl says, "Oh, my dearest love, I can't. I can't even tell you why. There's a secret that isn't mine to tell." Or, she says, "We're grown people. Let's not pretend I have a choice. No, I won't marry you. How could I?" Or, she says, "Why, you two-timing baboon, I wouldn't marry you if you came with a free set of dishes." All the women said no, but they did it in different tones. Different characters in different situations in different kinds of books will say the same sort of thing differently.

V)Characters

The kind of people you invent will contribute to the tone of your book. Ed McBain peoples his 87th Precinct books with ruthless predators that wouldn't do for Georgette Heyer.

VI)Results of actions

In P. G. Wodehouse's comic story "Goodbye To All Cats", a young man catches a cat on the shirt he has laid out. He picks up the cat and throws it out the window, where it lands on the back of an elderly gentleman's neck. The elderly gentleman says, "Hell!" and the cat streaks off. Neither is any the worse for the experience. If the cat had mauled the man's neck, or the man had murdered the cat, we would have a different kind of book. The only result of the young man's action is to earn himself a reputation as an odd character, contributing to the buildup of comic incident.

VII)Word choice and use

Remember what Mark Twain said: "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and lightning-bug."

This has only scratched the surface of Voice/Tone, but I hope it's served as an introduction and a starting point. Think of these things as you write–and as you read.

WRITING PROMPT: Write three paragraphs, one in which an elderly woman is referred to as "hag", one in which she's referred to as "grandmother" and one in which she's referred to as "Sugar".

MA

Sample Sunday – High Stakes

Because Leslie R. Lee posted a five-star review of it on Amazon this week, I want to do another sample from LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL. In honor of yesterday's Kentucky Derby ("the greatest two minutes in horse racing"), I'll give you a sample of "High Stakes".

First, the review, for which much thanks:

"Lonnie, Me and the Hound of Hell by Marian Allen is a fun and interesting series of short stories. Some are set in the present day, some in some other world. All have great characters and compelling plots. Many of the protagonists have interesting points of view. I bought it to read on my iPhone saving each story for when I needed something interesting to read. It was difficult not to rush through each story in one sitting. If I did that though, I'd be without reading material. I recommend this great read. Check out her novel, Eel's Reverence."

–Leslie R. Lee

Written in as close as I can come to the style of Damon Runyon, "High Stakes" is from the point of view of Miss Garnet Satin, a vampire ordered by Vlad the Roumanian to go to Kentucky and find out why his winning horses have suddenly started losing.

I open the folder and find a round-trip plane ticket to Lafayetteville, Kentucky, the date on them being two days away, and the return date being one week after.

"The Fall Meet—" he says, "—the set of races in which my horses are now running—is over in a week and two days. If you finish sooner than this, enjoy a little vacation at my expense."

"And if this Jasper Caufmann and I cannot solve the problem?"

"Cash in the ticket and consider it a small start on a new life—a new and very brief life. But this is speculation." Vlad the Roumanian puts one of his claw-like hands over my wrist. He does not tighten his grip. He does not need to; I cannot move. "I have great faith in you, Garnet. I see you in that film about the Wiccan that figures out who offs the nun. I know you cannot play this part so well if you do not really have the know-how to detect." I try to explain about the acting process, but he says, very firmly, "Do not disappoint me."

He snaps his fingers again, and his other bodyguard hands me an envelope containing a hotel confirmation and five thousand dollars in cash.

"Buy some nice clothes," says Vlad the Roumanian, with a scornful look at my bell-bottom blue-jeans and tie-died tank top. (I become One of Us in 1935, and keep up with the fashions until the sixties, when I get tired of it and stop where I am.) "Remember," says my new employer, "you may have to go out during the day, and the sun is supposed to shine bright down there."

"I will go up like a strip of magnesium in a cheesy magician's act!" I protest.

"Take care." He turns and walks out.

LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL is $1.49 – cheap at the price – and is available at the Amazon Kindle store, at B&N's Nook store and at Smashwords in various electronic formats. Click here to read excerpts from all the stories.

WRITING PROMPT: Who could intimidate your main character? If the answer is "nobody", invent somebody who would.

MA

It's Derby Day! Got Small Plans Today!

photo from the Churchill Downs website

Today is the Kentucky Derby, the big horse race at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Time was, Derby Day meant a big party for us, but no more. I remember a Derby party with the house stuffed full, when my husband did such a spirited Russian dance (none of us are Russian or of Russian descent) my grandparents' practically comatose dog jumped up and bit him. Ah, memories, memories.

Several things have mitigated (if that is the word I want) against our parties:

My grandparents have passed on, and so has their fascist dog.
The grandkids cry if they don't win the Derby betting pot (and so do I, if I don't).
My mother isn't supposed to eat chocolate, which nixes the Derby Pie®.
A horse broke a leg coming to the finish and had to be put down, and that made us all queasy about watching any subsequent race.
Charlie can't do the Russian dance any more.

For these reasons and more, the Derby Party this year will consist of my mother, my husband and myself getting gently tiddly on Mint Juleps. Mom has a cold, so it may just be Charlie and me, which means no party at all.

Alas.

WRITING PROMPT: Your character goes to a party which is either raucous or is a shadow of former celebrations.

MA