Eden Winters's Blog, page 55

Should Authors Respond to Reviewers? This One Does

You may rememember a few weeks ago that I said I'd stop responding to reviews due to blogs I'd read stating that authors should never do that. Due to an overwhelming vote of "Don't stop" from readers, I've continued the practice.

As part of their "Back to School" series, Chicks & Dicks asked me to guest post, stating my point of view for their followers. You can read the results here.��

Should Authors Respond to Reviews? This One Does

You may rememember a few weeks ago that I said I'd stop responding to reviews due to blogs I'd read stating that authors should never to that. Due to an overwhelming vote of "Don't stop" from readers, I've continued the practice.

As part of their "Back to School" series, Chicks & Dicks asked me to guest post, stating my point of view for their followers. You can read the results here.

What's in a Word? -- Reminders

Last week I ranted explained my dislike of the word "walk" to describe a character's mobility. Today I'm still singling out that word, but taking things a step further, using synonyms for not only adding description and ambiance to a scene, but also to allow readers to remember a critical piece of the story they may have forgotten. Once more I'm picking on Lucky from Diversion and the upcoming Collusion. He's fun to pick on.

Readers put books down. They read two or three at a time. They read in fifteen minute intervals on breaks at work. Therefore, they forget details every now and then, at least, I know I do. Readers may wonder, "Why doesn't Lucky simply run away from the bad guy?" forgetting that he suffered a leg injury on page sixty in Collusion. It doesn't require a repeat of the injury scene, or droning on about "My poor leg!" All the reminder requires is one word, or rather, one of several handy words.

"Lucky hobbled across the parking lot." Even though a reader may wonder at first why he's hobbling, they'll remember the injury. "Lucky hobbled across the parking lot, his crutches more hindrance then help" also serves a reminder.

While Lucky's injury needs only be portrayed for one third of a book, Noah, in The Angel of 13th Street suffered an old injury that still affects him. When he's tired or worked too hard, the leg hurts, and he can't run very well. So occasionally you'll see Noah limp, hop, shuffle, or stumble.  Not only do these words better describe his odd gait, but they serve as reminders of an infirmity.

But while Noah refuses to show weakness to his young partner, Jeremy, you can bet Lucky is not above milking his broken foot for all the sympathy and home cooked meals he can get from Bo.

Early Literary Influences - A Guest Post by Feliz Faber

Welcome to another installment of Early Literary Influences.  When I first began this series I had no idea where it would lead, I merely wanted to pay some respect to books that influenced writers and set them on the path to creating their own characters and worlds. I received an interesting surprise: not only did the books themselves shape lives, but the people behind them--a librarian in the case of one guest poster, and today, author Karl May. 

Today's guest post is by Feliz Faber, and in reading her rememberances of May's works, I believe I'd have loved them too. 

Eden

****

I came across my first Karl May book when I was ten. Back in the day, my world was strictly separated into girl's things and boy's things—Barbie dolls vs. Matchbox cars, skirts vs. pants, helping Mum with the cooking vs. helping Dad in the garage, and of course girl's books and boy's books. Much to our parent's consternation, though, both my brother and I turned out little rebels in that regard. I used to nick my brother's toy cars and dogged my dad whenever he went near his motorbike, my skirts turning up torn and stained with grease until I was allowed my first pair of jeans at the age of eight, while my brother stole my dolls and endlessly pestered Mum with peeking into pots and pans until she gave in and taught him how to cook (AND he's notorious for wearing utilikilts at any given opportunity—but I digress)

Anyhow, needless to say I wasn't keen on Heidi & Co., either, appropriating my brother's books instead. Now THAT was right up my alley. Exotic places, exciting adventures, glorious heroes and vicious villains, shootouts and fistfights, true friendship till death and HORSES! (in that regard, I was all girl, going through my horsey phase all right). I laughed, I cried, I devoured book by book (no shortage here, as Karl May wrote about eighty, all in all), and I read and reread my favorites until I almost knew them by heart.

Generations of German boys (and girls, as it is) grew up with Karl May's characters, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar, Captain Kaiman, The Blue-Red Methusala, to name only a few. I think Karl May is the most popular German  "YA" author of the 20th century, although in his time, nobody would've known the term YA. He was born in 1842, and his books are mostly set during the 1870ies and 1880ies. Their locations include the Middle East, the American West, South America, China, India, North Africa, the South Seas and many other countries, including the Europe of Karl May's time. His narrative pattern is always the same: there's a first person narrator, most often a German by the name of Karl, who travels to some foreign country, makes fast friends with a native, and they ride out to miraculous adventures. The first-person narrator usually has larger than life intellectual and physical abilities, speaks dozens of languages and invokes strong emotions in anybody he meets, be they friends or foes. The native companion can be a superhuman being too, like Winnetou, the ideal noble savage, or he is a servant-turned-friend like Hadschi Halef Omar, who's more of a Sancho Pansa to Kara Ben Nemsi's Don Quixote rather than a hero in his own right. One thing in common, there's always a deep bond between "Karl" and his native companion, a faithful devotion that in some cases, borders on love.

Much has been said of the homoerotic subtext in Karl May's work, and in my opinion, there is no denying its presence, if you but look a little closer. It's most obvious with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, but the first person narrator meets many other men during his travels whose "male beauty" sends him into rapture. Of course, when I was a child I didn't notice any of this, but I read and reread  Karl May's books again and again over the years and still sometimes do. (I still have the Winnetou trilogy on my bookshelf). It's subtle, and the boundaries are often blurry between friendship and erotic attraction, but that's something that has undeniably influenced my own writing, too.          

What made Karl May such a great writer was his boundless imagination, combined with an incredible amount of painstaking research. He wrote all his stories without ever having left Germany, and still the descriptions of his hero's travels were so accurate that a bunch of afficionados could actually use his books as travel guides in the 1930s. (and to think he achieved that without Internet research, let alone Google Earth!) And he was the master of scurrility. His supportive characters are often unforgettably quirky types with a knack for getting into bizarre troubles from which the superman heroes have to save them afterwards. I've always loved the humor in Karl May's books, and I must admit that in my own writing, supportive characters tend to be descendants of Karl May's Sir David Lindsay or Sam Hawkins.

From a present-day perspective, Karl May's writing style is rather sententious, his characters are over-the-top, his stories often overly melodramatic and brimming with violence, racism and stereotypes. And still, people continue to read his books, and he's continuing to make new fans even though he's been dead for almost a century now. All colonial arrogance of Karl May's time aside, his books are permeated with a deep sympathy for the subdued, for the underdogs, the colonized nations; some of his views must have struck his contemporaries as downright radical. His books made me curious in the history of Native Americans as well as the truth behind "Lawrence of Arabia", behind Kipling's "Kim" and many other popular books and movies.

If nothing else, Karl May made me curious about the world and what makes it turn.     
****

Thank you, Feliz, for visiting the site and sharing your remembrances of Karl May's stories. 

Feliz is the author of deeply moving short story, Desert Falcon, and the absolutely fascinating, City Falcon. (I love that cover!) The covers link to these wonderful stories at Dreamspinner Press; the title links take you to my reviews of these stories on Goodreads. While Desert Falcon is bittersweet, I loved it nonetheless, and got the HEA I'd hoped for in City Falcon. 







Find Feliz at On Letters and Life

The Return of Bo and Lucky

I'm thrilled to announce that I've finished drafting and revising Collusion, the sequel to Diversion, and the manuscript is now in the hands of betas. The crisis has passed, and now the guys are settling in, establishing themselves as both coworkers and lovers, while keeping the "lovers" part under wraps.

As usual, Lucky can't do things the easy way...

Look for Collusion to publish in the spring of 2013.

Book Announcement

It's hard to believe that it's been two years, but Duet, my historical/paranormal/contemporary romance, starring a Scottish Highlander and a shy English teacher, has aged out of contract. Though it's always sad when a book goes out of print, this is a golden opportunity for me to correct the issues I've found since I wrote it and, due to commenters' requests, there's now an epilogue of Aillil and Malcolm together in the modern world. I don't have an exact date for republication, but look for Duet, 2nd Edition sometime in January.

A short story has also served its purpose: Summer Boys, written to raise money for It Gets Better. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with the story, but more than likely it'll be enhanced before republication. Due to a maximum word count for the campaign, I'd had to cut a few details that I'd like to put back in. So though I don't have a date, my guys from Summer Boys will be walking the shores of Oahu again soon.

GayRomLit Kick-Off Contest at The Novel Approach

Avid reader and reviewer Lisa Horan is hosting a GayRomLit Kick-Off at her site, The Novel Approach, meaning gifts for readers! I'm thrilled that my book, Diversion, is part of the opening ceremony. Enter to win a copy. All you have to do is leave a comment on her post at The Novel Approach. 



Lisa was also kind enough to announce that Bo and Lucky will be back in the sequel, Collusion, which should be publishing in the spring of 2013.

What's in a Word?

I'm not an expert writer, my betas and editors will attest to that, probably with a roll of the eyes for good measure. However, I also beta for other authors, have done a bit of coaching, am an avid reader, and have learned a few things over the years. One thing folks I've worked with will tell you is that I've developed a  personal vendetta against certain words. If they don't pull their weight in a story, they need to be out of a job.

Today's word is "walked", or how a character gets from point A to point B. I'm going to pick on Lucky  from Diversion for an example of why this word annoys me.

Number one: it tells me next to nothing. "Lucky walked across the floor." All I leaned from this sentence is that the character moved from where he was. Nothing wrong with that, right? And yet: "Lucky crept across the floor" tells me more. Ah! Now I've got a bit more information without having to add one single word. Lucky's being sneaky, so he must be undercover and creeping up on a bad guy, or maybe he's going to play a prank on his nemesis coworker, Keith.

How about "Lucky sauntered across the floor"? Or maybe he swaggered. He's in full asshole mode now, isn't he? And "Lucky dashed across the floor" brings to mind an entirely different image than "Lucky moseyed across the floor", right? How about "Lucky charged across the floor"? Oh my, maybe he's about to tackle a bad guy, or his partner, Bo.

With a simple word change you can tell your audience so much more about the situation, or your character's personality or mood. "Lucky trudged across the floor." Hmm...is he tired? Maybe he did something wrong (again) and has been summoned to his boss's office, with "trudged" showing his reluctance. See the difference a single word can make?

And unlike "smile" which I have a hard time finding synonyms for, there are so many beautifully descriptive words you can use to move characters from one place to another: ambled, sashayed, darted, shuffled, strolled, marched, hiked, paced, toddled, staggered, and they each add something that "walked" doesn't. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes "walked" is the best term to use when nothing else is going on in the scene, but why not get all the mileage you can out of word choices?

After all that walking, ambling, strolling, and sauntering, Lucky says he's tired and going to bed now. Right. Like Bo's not waiting there wearing assless chaps.

New Logo

You've heard me sing Jared Rackler's praises many times, as friend, banner maker, beta, and cover artist. Take a look at the logo he made for me! I love it!


What do ya'll think?

Early Literary Influences - The Bremen Town Musicians

I first heard The Bremen Town Musicians as a bedtime story, and loved the idea of the animals running away together and how they won the day through teamwork. I can still sing some of the lyrics from the animated version of the tale. As a bonus, I was living in Germany at the time and became convinced the musicians were in the next town over.

I recalled the story fondly, and reread while writing this post to refresh my memory. Oh my! I see the story from a completely different point of view now. The animals didn't run away for a better life or great adventure, like I'd believed as a child. In the original telling they were all about to be killed by their owners after years of loyal service because they could no longer earn their keep! Yeah, I grew up on a farm, but our old animals simply went into retirement, and I didn't recall that particular aspect of the story. I suppose that's par for the course for The Brother's Grimm.


I'm going to try to forget I reread the story today, finding darkness in the familiar words that my younger self didn't comprehend. I choose to remember from a child's perspective, not the farmers' cruelty, but how loyal freinds can conquer any odds, and recall the statue erected in honor of this fable in Bremen, Germany.

In my past posts I've revisited childhood stories and loved them anew, however, The Bremen Town Musicians leaves me with mixed feelings.