Samantha Blair's Blog, page 2

Interview with Indie BookSpot

Indie BookSpot was kind enough to include me in their author interviews series. You can read the article here: http://indiebookspot.com/2012/04/04/interview-with-generational-sins-author-samantha-blair/

I thought it was a really great set of questions ranging from censorship issues to the writing process. It was a lot of fun to be a part of the process. Go check it out! And while you're there, read some of their other stories. I've found them to be fun, relevant, and inspirational.

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing

There was an article entitled "25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing (Right Fucking Now)" by Chuck Windig passed around on the Internet this week, and I felt that it deserved a reposting.

In this terribly honest and straight forward account we gain such wisdom as:

9. Stop Treating Your Body Like A Dumpster

12. Stop the Shame

21. Stop Listening to What Won't Sell

(Those are my personal favorites.)

It's good advice, not only for writers, but for human beings in general.

You can read it here: 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing

100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language

I came across this list today, via a fellow writer, and I wanted to pass it along because there are some really great words that I wish we would use more often.

100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language

Do you have a personal favorite word? I've always been fond of ostentatious. My hubby's favorite is archaeopteryx, but I think he only likes it because it's hard to spell.

Protectors

My new erotic romance "Protectors" is now available from Siren-Bookstrand Publishing. Order Here!

Fleeing from her dangerous and persistent ex-boyfriend, Sara quite literally runs into ranchers Tyler and Gage. Believing them to be gay, she goes home with the two smoking hot cowboys who vow to keep her safe. After patching her up, the men realize that something has been missing from their relationship… a beautiful brunette. Together, they conspire to seduce Sara by showing her exactly how delightful it is to be shared.

Tyler and Gage serve as the ultimate protectors while Sara's ex comes after her with a vengeance, but when the danger is gone, will the men be able to convince her to stay?

Protectors is packed with steamy erotic scenes that include a couple of dirty-talking cowboys who love to pleasure each other and the woman they share.

Visit http://www.bookstrand.com/protectors to check it out.

Generational Sins

About the Novel

Title: Generational Sins

Word Count: 84,500

Genres: Fiction, Romance, BDSM, Abuse

Warnings: The novel contains very adult content including explicit sexual scenes, violence, and non-consensual sex.

Story Summary: David's father, a successful doctor and pillar of the community, has a darker side at home. For years he has abused his wife and son physically, sexually, and emotionally. When David leaves for college he takes with him his father's lessons about using and abusing women. His whole world is shattered by Katlyn, a stunning classmate who is his intellectual equal and emotional savior. She challenges everything that he thinks he knows about relationships.

Told in two parallel time lines, we witness the devastating effects of domestic abuse and the slow process of learning to love through the pain.

Read the First 4 Chapters of Generational Sins

Purchase the eBook for only $0.99



Buy the Kindle Edition on Amazon


Buy on Smashwords Smashwords formats include HTML, JavaScript, .mobi, Epub,

PDF, RTF, LRF, Palm Doc (PDB), and Plain Text.

Triple Threat

After producing "The Rape Diet" as a stand alone short story for Kindle, I decided that it might be better off in a short collection, so I dug up a few of my old stories and created "Triple Threat". These three stories are very short glimpses into the lives of some unusual and extraordinary people.

If you purchased "The Rape Diet" and would like a copy of the whole collection, please email me at info@samanthablair.com or comment on this post. I'd be happy to give you a copy of the new extended version.




Norton Cart has always played the violin as he drifts from town to town, but never did he expect a day like today.

This story was originally published in a college literary magazine called Facets 2002. It has since been updated.

Word Count: 1837




A creepy twist on Alice and her Hatter.

Word Count: 722

With the terror of a traumatic rape nipping at her heels …she runs.

All of her life Karen has been told that her obesity is the cause of all of her problems, so when two boys in the locker room at school rape her, it seems natural to blame the fat. Obsessed with weight loss, she struggles to out run the past and the present.




This short story, written in a post-modern minimalist style, is an expression of the fear that many young people experience as a result of poor school security, distant parents, and an unhealthy self-image.



Word Count: 4895



Get Triple Threat on Amazon!

Fantastic Paranormal Romance Series

Dear Readers,

I stumbled on a paranormal romance author this week that I just can't put down, and I thought you might enjoy her books as much as I have. Evangeline Anderson has written a wide variety of books, but my favorites so far are in the Brides of the Kindred series. The two books that are currently available in the series are:

Claimed (Brides of the Kindred) and Hunted (Brides of the Kindred)

The premise for the series is a simple one. The earth is in trouble; an evil alien race threatens to destroy the planet, but our salvation comes in the form of a second alien race made up of Kindred warriors. The warriors are an incredibly sexy and almost exclusively male race. As payment for our rescue, the Kindred require human brides to help offset their genetic predisposition toward male offspring.

It's not the story line that makes these books good though, it's the depth of character development. She could have made a big scary race of warriors into a bunch of goons, but instead she had crafted a family of men that are both powerful and vulnerable at the same time. Beam me up! This is one spaceship that I can't wait to get on board. I hope she writes more for this series quickly.

Happy Mother's Day!

Samantha

Protectors Available for Pre-Order

Protectors is now available for pre-order through Siren Bookstrand at a 10% discount! The book will be available Wednesday, April 27th, and the 10% discount is offered for one week. Sign-up Here!

Can I also just say that you guys (all of you who read my blog) are amazing. I've gotten so many wonderful supporting emails around the release of this book, and I just can't express my gratitude enough. Thank you so much for your continued support in this endeavor.

Official Release Date for Protectors

We're ahead of schedule!

Protectors by Samantha Blair will be available from Siren Publishing next Wednesday, April 27, 2011.

[Erotic Cowboy Ménage a Trois Romance, M/M/F] While fleeing from her dangerous ex-boyfriend, Sara runs right into Tyler and Gage, two hot cowboys whom she believes to be gay. The men promise to protect her, but they also want to share their forbidden pleasures with her. When the danger is gone, can the men convince her to stay?

Visit www.sirenpublishing.com/comingsoon/ for this and other great titles.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Head Hopping

Up until about a month ago, I had never even heard the term "head hopping," but upon receiving my first set of edits from a professional fiction editor, I was suddenly made aware of an elite writer's term that made little sense to me, even when applied to my own writing.

Odds are good, if you're familiar with the term, that it was described to you like this: head hopping occurs when an author changes the point of view among multiple characters within a single scene. That's the standard definition, which seems straightforward enough. Where it gets confusing, though, is that head hopping only applies to 3rd person point of view, and 3rd person is, by definition, narrated. So how can you be jumping from one character's point of view to another, when the entire thing is really from the point of view of the author/narrator?

An Example of Head Hopping

Brian watched Kyra's car back out of the drive, an expression of sadness on his face. A deep pain settled in his chest as he watched the love of his life drive away. Kyra was going to miss him terribly, but she needed to follow her dream.

The Anti Head Hopping Argument

Writing purists will tell you these things about this paragraph:

1. If Brian is watching the car, he can't possibly see the expression of sadness on his own face.

2. If Kyra is watching Brian's face, then she can't see her own car.

3. Only Brian can feel the pain described in the second sentence.

4. Only Kyra can do the missing described in the last sentence.

As a result of those four truths, those against head hopping would define the "point of view" like this

Brian watched Kyra's car back out of the drive, an expression of sadness on his face. A deep pain settled in his chest as he watched the love of his life drive away. Kyra was going to miss him terribly, but she needed to follow her dream.

The blue text is Brian's point of view and the red is Kyra's.

The Other Side

Those who don't believe in head hopping will tell you that the entire paragraph is from the point of view of the narrator. The narrator can watch both the car and the facial expressions of two people at once. The narrator can also understand the emotions of two people at once. Therefore the color coding is invalid because there is no character point of view.

So who's right?

Well, in my personal opinion, they both are. I think that this is actually a case of poor precision of language more than anything else. There is only one point of view, and unless you are writing in first person, there will always be a narrator. The problem lies not in the concept, but in the poor use of the term "point of view."

In my experience, (which admittedly has only been a month's worth of research) there are three main causes of head hopping, so forget anything dealing with point of view and focus instead on the three concepts of character bias, organization, and narrator omniscience.

Character Bias - Sometimes, in order to help the readers relate to a character, an author may choose to write portions of a story with words that they would not use otherwise. For example, if there are two characters in the novel, one who is extremely well educated and one who is barely literate, the author will use large, flowery words to describe the first character's emotions and much simpler terms for the second.

This is also true of character naming conventions. If the characters use nicknames, the name that a character calls himself may be different from what others call him. For example, when Edward is thinking about himself the narrator will call him Edward. When Mike is thinking about Edward, the narrator will call him Ed.

Using these techniques helps the reader to get "inside the head" of a character, and doing it poorly can be confusing to the audience.

Organization – Sometimes "head hopping" is the result of poor organization. It makes sense, in most cases, to express fully one character's thoughts before moving on to the next. Failing to do so can also be disorienting to a reader. Some editors believe that these expressions should correspond with a change in scene.

We could rewrite the example above like this

Brian watched Kyra's car back out of the drive. A deep pain settled in his chest as he watched the love of his life drive away.

* * * * *

Kyra turned the corner. She hadn't missed the expression of sadness on Brian's face as she pulled away. Kyra realized that she was going to miss him terribly, but she needed to follow her dream.

This gives us all of Brian's thoughts in one scene and all of Kyra's in another.

Narrator Omniscience – The final piece of the head hopping puzzle is determining what a narrator should or should not know. By nature, the author is all knowing. An author knows the end of the story, the emotions of every character, and even things about the setting that have no effect on the characters whatsoever. So how much should the narrator tell?

Some editors believe that if a tree falls in the woods, and there isn't a character there to see it, you're not allowed to write about it. In other words, if the characters aren't informed, then the audience should also be ignorant. This is especially true of mysteries. If the narrator knows who the killer is, then why don't we as an audience get to know? The author needs to limit her knowledge to that of the detective or risk giving away the ending.

Where I personally disagree with this idea is in the transition between scenes. For example "While the lovers drifted to sleep together under a warm comforter, a dark figure sat in a rusty truck on the outskirts of town." This type of movement from one location to another requires omniscience. No one character can know both of those things, but I think that it's an effective way to move a reader from one set of ideas to another. The counter argument is that it is distancing for the reader. For this one sentence, we fail to relate to any specific character (other than the narrator). I'm okay with that, but those truly against head hopping will tell you that it's not allowed.

Additional Articles on Head Hopping

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/headhop.shtml

http://www.sirenpublishing.com/submissions/headhopping.htm

http://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2004/12/an_executive_ed.html

http://community.eharlequin.com/content/switching-point-view-v-head-hopping

Have something to add to the discussion? Please comment below.

Until next time,

Samantha