Jim Devitt's Blog, page 11

Character Arc and Stories That Stay With You

Great characters can make or break a novel. That is why authors work hard to develop these players. Big time authors get a lot of mileage out of one good character. Rowling certainly did that with Harry Potter, Nelson DeMille created John Corey and has had long string of bestselling books. One of my favorites is Doc Ford in the Randy Wayne White series set in Sanibel Island, Florida.  
Back in April, JD Mader posted an article in Indies Unlimited on character development and descriptions. He did a great job of breaking down character development of both physical and psychological traits. Today, I want to take his post a step further and discuss character arc. Character arc is essential to story success.
So what is character arc?
It’s the growth of your character whether through a single novel or an entire series. It’s how the character learns as a result of their experiences. In my opinion, it’s HOW your character APPLIES that learning to the future conflicts and experiences that they must overcome.
When you’ve created a great character arc, the story doesn’t just end, it stays with you.
How do we go about creating a character arc? Should this be an intentional process? 
Well, you can decide if you are a pantser or planner, but in order to achieve an impactful character arc, you might want to know where they started and where they are going.
What kind of inner demons does your character hide, what are their shortcomings and faults? What does the character need to learn throughout the evolution of the story? If you are writing a series, does your character figure everything out in one book? No way. Each book in the series should be an open and shut story, but, the overall character arc keeps the series growing from book to book.
This doesn’t mean that the character arc is your main theme of the story, although sometimes it is. An effective character arc can serve as a sub-plot to your overall theme. Will they fall in love, will find the gold, will they live or die, win the game or any dramatic question—that’s what defines the sub-plot.
Combine character arc with a great sub-plot and BAM, you’ve got yourself a winner. If your main character has inadequacies and weaknesses that prevent them from achieving their ultimate goal, that leads to the backstory. The backstory is where you can share those ugly inner demons that give your hero their chinks in their armor.
Character Arc = Meaning and SoulIt doesn’t always have to be inner demons, it could be a coming of age story. In a general sense, sub-plot may concern the ability of your hero to engage in a mission in a life or death situation. It could be a love interest. It could be how your hero handles an addiction while running for a national election. If your main plot is a love story, maybe your sub-plot may concern how the hero handles a Ponzi scheme dealing brother-in-law.
In my debut novel, The Card , the plot centers on the main character, Van Stone, and the mystery behind a baseball card. However, the sub-plot surrounds the growth of Van as he handles some very adult situations. Van evolves throughout the story, as does his character arc.


The culminating scene where Van is fighting for his life is a part of the main plot. It could be one of hundreds of scenes in hundreds of books. If you picked it up at that point and started reading, you might just write it off as another action scene. You don’t have any skin in the game. You have no reason to care for the hero—heck, you might even be rooting for the bad guy?

However, if you’ve uncovered Van’s inner demons and the obstacles he’s had to surmount—now you’ve got something. There’s a reason for wanting to see him win. You want to cheer on the hero. You want to find out if he solves the mystery or gets the girl. When the main plot and sub-plot come together, you have magic. When the character arc intertwines each of these—you have meaning and soul.
It important to know the differences between main plot, sub-plot and character arc and then become expert in them all. A strong character arc intertwined into the plot components of your story will help your reader identify and ultimately root for your hero. It will give meaning to the mission. It will turn readers into raving fans.
*     *     *     *     *The post appeared in Indies Unlimited at an early date. Jim Devitt is a Contributing Author for Indies Unlimited and the author of the #1 Kindle Bestselling novel, THE CARD, and can be found out here. 

New Five Start Review of The Card

Exciting news, just the other day, a new five start review showed up on Amazon and Goodreads. The reader and apparently fan of The Card, had this to say ...

Wow, couldn't have said it better myself!
He goes on to say ... 
"... Jim Devitt displays a strong behind-the-scenes knowledge of a major league baseball clubhouse, though the focus of the story goes far beyond these inner workings. The book is a quick read and has enough suspense to make it difficult to put down.... "
Thanks a ton to Brian Beam, I realize it takes time to write a few words about the books you read. I really appreciate the review.
For those of you out there who have not left your review, "Please do!" 
Reviews are a big part of what gives our books exposure. It doesn't have to be lengthy or full of prose. A couple of sentences about why you liked or didn't like the book can go a long way.
Jim Devitt is a contributing author of Indies Unlimited and The Card is his debut novel. Look for more toward the end of 2012.

A Little Help for a Great Place

It was a hot one on Saturday as we set up shop at the Gold Coast RR Museum. In the shade of the world's largest blimp base, the decent sized crowd enjoyed the exhibits and entertainment on the Free First Saturday event. 
The GCRM is an unique place housing a collection of trains and other memorabilia. In addition, they offer train rides and even has a giant room with train tables for the kids. 
The museum sits on the old Richmond Naval Air Station, where in 1942, Blimp Patrol Squadron ZP-21 arrived to provide anti-submarine patrol, rescue and escort over the waters off Florida. 
Ferdinand Magellan Presidential CarOne of the greatest treasures of the museum is the Presidential Pullman "Ferdinand Magellan" that was used by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. This armored train was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

Great conversation and some books were sold throughout the day, with one dollar out of the sale of each book donated to the GCRM.
 A big thank you to Michael Hall, Executive Director, for helping us make this event happen.

Jim Devitt is the #1 Kindle Bestselling Author of The Card. 

Book Signing at the Gold Coast RR Museum

I'll be out at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum on Saturday, August 4th, for a book signing. 

Every first Saturday of the month the Gold Coast Railroad Museum is offering free admission from 11:00am to 5:00pm. Once again the popular Food Truck Rodeo will return offering a variety of food choices.


Come out to pick up your copy of THE CARD and ride some trains! Kids will love the bounce houses and mini golf as well.


Jim Devitt is the #1 bestselling author of the Van Stone series, THE CARD and contributing author for Indies Unlimited.

Department of Justice upholds "Final Judgment" in Antitrust Case against Publishers

A few months ago, the Department of Justice (DoJ) investigated and ruled on an Antitrust case against Apple, Inc, Hachette Book Group, Inc, HarperCollins Publishers, Holtzbinck Publishers d/b/a MacMillan Group, The Penguin Group, and Simon and Schuster, Inc. You can read more about the case and its implications in two earlier blog posts that I wrote for Indies Unlimited HERE and HERE.
The DoJ has determined that the proposed “final judgment” provides “an appropriate and effective remedy” for the antitrust violations. They are quoted as saying that the comments to dismiss the case were being submitted “by those who have an interest in seeing consumers pay more for e-books…”
The DoJ showed little interest in the comments from some of the big players in the industry, including Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and the Authors Guild. The go further to say that arguments that Amazon will eventually monopolize the e-book industry as “highly speculative at best.”
The DoJ also noted that not all authors objected to the settlement. Apparently, many mainstream or traditionally published authors were against the settlement. The largest group in favor of the settlement was self-published authors. In one comment by a group of self-published authors, the traditional publishers and literary agents were described as “… all kinds of middlemen which have gone from being indispensable to optional … “
The purpose of the Final Judgment is to 1) end the current collusion (price fixing); 2) restore competition eliminated by that collusion; and 3) ensure compliance. Specifically, the settlement enforces the following: A) Refrain for two years from entering into contracts containing retail price restrictions and price commitment mechanisms; B) stop communicating competitively sensitive information to competitors; C) not retaliate against retailers that exercise discounting authority; and D) agree not to fix terms or prices with competitors for the provision of e-books.
The final judgment does not impose a business model on the e-book industry. However, for two years, Settling Defendants cannot prohibit retailers from discounting e-books.
There’s much more in this 66 page document from the Department of Justice. I hope that I have picked out the key points to help us understand what it means and how it will affect us. For more information you can view the decision at http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f285300/285315.pdf

*    *    *     *    * Jim Devitt is the author of the #1 Kindle bestselling novel, The Card, and a weekly contributor to the indie writing and publishing resource, Indies Unlimited.

Space exploration and writing - An Analysis of two similar paths

On this forty-third anniversary of the man first stepping foot on the moon, I thought I’d go space with my blog.
If you’re like me, writing is really important. I want to make a career of writing. I want to leave an imprint with my writing. I want to make people laugh, cry, think and dream. I’m not saying that I do—it’s what I strive to do. This past week I started to think about writing in the grand scheme of things. Get a load of this for a sec:     

Let’s say that we look at recorded history and squeeze it into a fifty year equivalent time-span. For the first forty years of our shrunken recorded time-line, we know very little.
This means that we’ve only been writing for 10% of our entire existence as humans on this planet. The printing press was only discovered this past year (remember, this is in the equivalent time span of 50,000 years.) Imagine—printed books have only been around for 2% of the time. Other notable events in our condensed timeline—the steam engine was invented two months ago. Just last month, electric lights, phones and cars showed up. How about television, oh, that was last week. In this shortened time-line, the eReader and Ebooks showed up around midnight last night.

Wondering where I’m going? Yeah, me too. I guess what I’m getting at is that eBooks are really, really new. We agonize over time to write, to market, to sell and to meet the reading public. Yet, this is just a blip on the radar screen of time. We need to put it all in perspective. 
Long-term really isn’t so long-term, is it? If five years from now I have five to seven books on the market—that would be really cool. I don’t have to pound out books every four months to be “successful.” I look at others with 15 or more books out there and wish I were there now. Sheesh, The Card , only came out a year ago. 
We have to realize that we are on the cutting edge of an industry that didn’t exist a couple of years ago. Ten years from now, we’ll be looked at just like the tens of thousands of scientists that put a man on the moon forty years ago. Okay, maybe not the same way, but sort of. We are leading the way in a changing technological society. We may not be the first to send man to a place that is dominated by the pull of something other than earth’s gravity, but we are testing the waters, experimenting with technologies, and nurturing new businesses that didn’t exist a few years ago. I’m not talking about our book writing businesses, but the creation of millions of jobs that are an offshoot of these new technologies and platforms—jobs that support our creative endeavors.
Think about that for a moment. We are part of the process that adds jobs to the economy. With writers in particular, there is camaraderie and a willingness to help each other that is not restricted by borders. The space race to the moon was born out of necessity to secure the defensive position of the United States. It was in direct competition with other the USSR. Last week, people visited my blog from Russia, United Kingdom, China, Canada, Australia and Pakistan.     
We are a part of something really big. We need to embrace it and love every moment of it. I’ll end with this analogy. Since I’m on a space kick today, let’s relate our writing career to that.
A deep space probe relies on rockets to escape the gravitational pull of the earth. Lots of juice in a short time, kinda like when our newest release hits the bookshelves and websites. We hit it hard, telling the world about our latest creation. 
Once our probe is in space, it only takes a few puffs from the guidance systems or a small burn to refine the spacecrafts trajectory. It is not a random flight path, but a planned and controlled sequence of events to keep the nose cone pointed in the right direction. Our marketing plan should be similar to that, little bursts of activity and the occasional “slow burn” that is calculated and planned in the over-all scheme of things. 
In between the firing of those small engines, the spacecraft just coasts. It spends long stretches where nothing is happening but the inertial result of earlier work. In writing terms, this is where you write. The spacecraft coasting is analogous to getting back to what you want to do—creating your next masterpiece.  
The minds behind the spacecraft must take into account every single source of gravity along the way, including asteroids, planets, moons and comets. Each one of these things affects the path of the probe as it comes within the gravitational pull of each mass. As writers, we must take into account our own “Newtonian trajectory” and make adjustments based on our sources of “gravity” from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and more, including things yet to be discovered (remember Pinterest four months ago?) 
Finally, our space probes are speeding off to faraway galaxies accompanied by a plate engraved with a male and female body and other symbols and words to let other forms of life know what we are about and where we are located. In our writing world, this is our legacy—leaving a lasting impression for other generations to experience. In the cosmos, we’ve only sent out a very few probes into the infinite realms of the universe. Talk about hit or miss! 
Let’s not do that with our writing. Let’s get back to the basics and get our work published. If we send out enough probes, we’ll get noticed. The number of times you’re on Twitter and Facebook won’t affect the long-term lasting impression you will leave in society. That manuscript that isn’t finished, that first draft that you don’t have time for, are your personal space probes that will leave your mark on our civilization.
What are you still doing here? Go write.
 *     *     *     *     *
Jim Devitt is a Contributing Author for Indies Unlimited and an Apollo son who grew up in the shadow of man’s quest of the moon and beyond. He’s a little more grounded with his freelance work and his #1 Kindle Bestselling novel, THE CARD. 
A version of this post was originally published by Jim Devitt for Indies Unlimited.

New Review for The Card

I just received a new review for THE CARD, posted on Amazon and Hide and Read a review blog site. She rated it at three stars, which I'm really okay with because of the excellent comments. Every reviewer has their own process and scale in which to rate books.
Take a moment and check out the review, I especially liked this opinion straight from the review:
 "...This novel takes us inside the world of baseball, or specifically, that of bat boys, with the introduction of Van's new job. For young sports fans, this may present a point of interest, especially as it is told through the eyes of a neophyte who is both awed and enthralled by each new experience. This "insider look" is one of the high points of the novel and ... "
A big thank you to Hide and Read for taking the time to read and post a review.

Stop the Insanity - Using the Right Words in the Right Places

I’m not big on posting boring lists, but today, I’ll make an exception.

It's RBI not RBI'sWe all run across words, phrases and issues from time to time, that don’t make a lot of sense. Okay, I’ll come right out and say it, they are flat out WRONG. I don’t consider myself an expert on grammar or proper use of words so I’ve kept an ongoing list of the top pet peeves/mistakes I’ve made in the past. Here we go and, hopefully I hope, you’ll find a couple that will help.

Let’s start off with my biggest offender in the early days. My first manuscript, THE CARD, was full of this one.

1. Hopefully. Hopefully means in a hopeful manner. “I hope to finish this manuscript,” is usually what is meant which is very different from, “Hopefully, I’ll finish this manuscript.” (which is saying you’ll finish the manuscript, with a hopeful attitude.)
Nine times out of ten, we really mean, “I hope.”

2. Literally. Literally means “actually” so if you say, “I literally laughed my head off,” then your head should be lying on the ground, which it would be hard to imagine that you would be laughing. What you probably meant to say was, “I laughed my head off.” An acceptable illustration as to how hard you laughed.

3. Comprised of. Comprises means includes. When you are trying to use the word, substitute “includes of” and see if it works (of course it won’t.) “A list of my favorite things to do in the summer includes of swimming, barbequing and drinking! Comprises is the correct word, but all good things to do in the summer!

4. Merge together. AAAHHHHHH. Sorry for the scream. There are many examples of redundant phrases like this that drive me crazy. You really mean “merge”, once—one time, not merge merge. Want more? Free gift—it wouldn’t be a gift if it weren’t free. Absolute necessity—puhlease. The best, “a pair of twins” *sigh* unless of course you are my friends David and Kat Whiteley who actually have two sets of twins, we refer to them as a four-pack.

5. That/Who. This is a good one, have you ever said/wrote, “A person that works hard, plays hard.” Nope, wrong. Humans are always—who. “A person who works hard, plays hard.” Here’s the catch, everything else is a “that” including animals, except in the case of our resident hero, Mr. Pish, that dog is definitely human.

6. Lay/Lie. I know, you’ve heard this one before. It’s never, “I want to lay down.” It’s, “I want to lie down.” The words are not interchangeable,  LAY requires an object, “I want to lay my head down.”

7. RBI’s. For you baseball fans out there—this one’s for you. One of my biggest pet peeves. RBI stands for Runs Batted In, a statistic used in baseball referring to how many people have scored based on a players at bat. Notice the first word, RUNS, with an S. It can’t be listed as Runs Batted In’s. That’s just plain wrong. It should be like this, “Jesus Montero recorded four RBI for the Seattle Mariners in the 21 to 8 walloping of the Texas Rangers last night.”

That’s all for now, if I get wiggity about this in the future maybe I’ll dish out a few others. Do you have any that bug you? Leave us a few choice ones in the comments below.

*     *     *     *     * This post was originally published on Indies Unlimited by Jim Devitt on June 2nd, 2012

The Devitt Clan has expanded

I'm back!

After a brief hiatus here on the blog, I have returned to the blogosphere with a new addition to the family. My wife and I recently brought Jovie Taylor into the world. This little bundle of joy was born on June 4th, 2012.


Her four-year old brother Gavin loves having a new sister!

I'll be back to regular submissions now that we've gotten through the first month. Stay tuned for some cool and informative articles.

Illuminating Blogger Award

Woo Hoo!

So here I am, minding my own business (okay everybody's business, I was on Twitter) when I see a Tweet that I was nominated for the Illuminating Blogger Award. Where did that come from??

I am honored and humbled by the recognition and I must send out props to KD Rush from The Rush Room for the nomination. The Illuminating Blogger Award is bestowed upon individuals or groups with informative content or blogging techniques or personalities. I have to think most of the content that has garnered this attention is through the Indies Unlimited Site that I contribute to on a weekly basis. While I do separate the content from this blog to IU, I tend to provide the more "how to" stuff over at IU.

Please visit the site for the award "givers" here.



The Rules
1. The nominee should visit the award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/) and leave a comment indicating that they have been nominated and by whom. (This step is so important because it’s the only way that we can create a blogroll of award winners).
2. The Nominee should thank the person that nominated them by posting & including a link to their blog.
3. Share one random thing about yourself in your blog post.
4. Select at least five other bloggers that you enjoy reading their illuminating, informative posts and nominate them for the award.
5. Notify your  nominees by leaving a comment on their blog, including a link to the award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/).

Random Fact
I was a member of the College All-American Marching Band and performed at the Statue of Liberty Centennial celebration in New York City.

Five Blogs
1. Storyfix  Author Larry Brooks, Story Engineering
2. Book Dads  Author Chris Singer
3. A Newbies Guide to Publishing    Author JA Konrath - Hugely influential
4. Amanda Hocking's Blog Author Amanda Hocking - Hugely influential in the early days
5. Full Moon Bites - Author Holly - She posted my first review ever!

These are five blogs that have changed my life. I don't say that lightly.