Meredith Bond's Blog, page 21

Book Clubbing

To begin this week’s blog, I just want to say that my heart just goes out to those poor, poor parents, friends and families of those killed in the elementary school shooting in Connecticut. Such senseless killing just makes me sick and want to scream that, honestly, when Americans were given the right to bear arms, it was because we were at war trying to wrest this country from the rule of the British. It was necessary to allow our citizens to own a musket so that they could fight in the war. We haven’t been at war on our own soil since the Civil War, and I pray that we will never be. But that doesn’t mean that we need to allow every idiot the right to own a gun, not when too many of them are being turned on innocent people – children for God’s sake! We really need to reform our gun laws. And that is my rant. Back, now, to our regularly schedule blog:

Have you ever been in a book club? I have to say that I haven’t. I’ve never had the time to commit to reading a book and then discussing it with others. I’ve been dipping my toe into the book club water, recently however, with the new Washington Loves Romance book club now on Facebook. It’s been pretty interesting. I read both Rebecca York and Amanda Brice’s books last month, but then, strangely enough, had very little (ie nothing significant that I want to be made public) to say about them. I have to admit, I have not read Hope Tarr’s book for December — contemporary romance is fun every once in a while, but it’s really not a genre I read unless it’s very funny (Jenny Crusie) or paranormal (Sherilyn Kenyon or Kerilyn Sparks) or both (Katie MacAlister, Darynda Jones). The reason I’m thinking about this, of course, is because my book, Magic In The Storm, is going to be the other featured book at WLR this month.

I’m really excited about this, actually. I love hearing what other people have to say about my book, and my writing. I like to know what they enjoyed, and what they didn’t. And, happily, I’m pretty thick skinned when it comes to criticism. I take it as a suggestion of something I should work on (because I am, naturally, always trying to make my writing better).

Once, many years ago, one of my Regencies was discussed by a book club made up of women who live in my neighborhood. I really appreciated that they chose my book, and then was really thrilled when they invited me to join them in their discussion of it. It was a little awkward getting praised straight to my face (I’m much more comfortable getting criticism oddly enough) , but on the whole very enjoyable.

I have a feeling that participating in WLR is going to be a little like that, although it will be a bit easier since it’s all on-line and not yet in person (although it will be because there is the in-person aspect of it, which is absolutely fantastic: at some point, possibly February, we’re all going to get together, the authors who’ve been featured and the readers who’ve read the books — that I cannot wait for!).

So, what do you think? Have you ever either participated in a book club or had your book been read by one? How did it go? Was it fun? Would you do it again? I’m looking for advice here on what I should and shouldn’t do — any and all will be greatly appreciated!

Oooh, deep

Last week I wrote about the first three levels of POV discussed by Alicia Rasley in her fantastic book The Power of Point of View. Today, I’ll finish the last three levels, the deeper levels of point of view. These are the ones I really go for when writing. They bring the words alive for the reader, pulling them into the pov character’s mind, thoughts and emotions. Deeper levels of point of view allow the reader to truly live and become the point of view character in a story.

So, we begin today with “thought”.  This is the level where, according to Alicia, most scenes reside. This is the pov character thinking, acting and reacting to everything that’s going on in the scene. This is ordinary close pov. Remember, everything is seen through the character’s point of view, which means that they will bring their own unique perspective to everything that’s going on. Where they come from, their education, their socio-economic background, everything that makes them them.

Emotion, the next level, is just what it sounds like. Feelings. How does the character feel about everything that’s going on around them. We want not cerebral feeling — “what he said really hurt my feelings”, but actually emotion, “my hand twitched I wanted to hit him so bad for saying that about me”.

And finally, deep immersion is as deep a pov as you can get. You don’t need the words “he thought” because everything written is something he thought or he saw or he sensed in some way. This is essentially very deep first person point of view, whether it’s written in the first person or third, the pronouns are of little consequence here, the depth of the perception is the same. We, the reader, are the pov character. Everything they see, hear, think or feel is laid out for us and written from the perspective that it is us, the reader, who is experiencing it.

Now, here’s my trick that I promised you last week — to write really deep pov I use what is known as “method writing”. It’s just like Stanislavsky’s method acting, only it’s through writing. You shed your own self and become the character. Imagine yourself in their place, physically and emotionally. All that they are is what you are, all that they believe is what you believe, the way they look at the world is the way you look at the world. You really (mentally) become that person, and from there you begin to write (in the first person, it’s easier). Experience the scene (in your mind) and write down everything you see, hear, touch, and feel (and taste, and smell as appropriate). You will wind up with a very, very close scene. Quite possibly a very intense scene, especially if what is happening is emotional, and that’s why you want some scenes to be written this way – but not all.

It would be too much for a reader to have such a close experience for an entire story. But for an important scene here and there, this is a great way to make that scene really stand out. And don’t forget to change your pronouns if the rest of the book is written in the third person!

Good luck!

Wow, that’s… not deep: POV

thanks to thesparechangekitchen for use of the photo

Point of view has always fascinated me. I’ve read and reread Alicia Rasley’s The Power of Point of View as well as Orson Scott Card’s Characters & Point of View, and still every time I open either book I learn something new.

The other day I was skimming through my blog feeds and came across a great interview Margie Lawson did with Alicia Rasley. Once again, Alicia reminded me of something I’d heard and read before but am still trying to be sure I incorporate into my writing – the level of point of view.

Not all of a novel (or short story) is going to written at the same depth of point of view. It depends on what’s happening and how important it is that I get deep into the character’s mind and/or emotions. In her book, Alicia talks about there being six levels of depth (from most superficial to deepest): camera-eye or objective, action, perception, thought, emotion, and deep immersion.

Camera-eye or objective point of view is as far away from the POV character as we can get. We are like a fly on the wall. This is useful if we don’t want our reader to get emotionally involved in either the characters or the action. It can also be used effectively, as Alicia points out, when the character is going through something so painful that the only way to deal with it is to turn off all of emotions and deal with what is happening clinically, as if it didn’t matter at all (as I heard a nurse explain once, she dealt with her own child’s choking by turning off the “Mommy”, assisting the child to expel the food from his throat as if he were any choking victim, and then, only after the danger had passed, collapsing in a shaking heap, “Mommy” once more).

Intense action scenes, naturally, need to be written in the action depth of point of view. We are in the character’s mind, but only experiencing the action of the situation and the physical response the character is experiencing in response. There is no time for deep thought when one’s life is at stake. First the character has to get herself out of danger, then she can think about her loved ones and how they might react if she were to die (or whatever it was that she might think about). It is purely a physical point of view, no conscience thought.

Moving deeper, perception allows us to see through our characters eyes and experience the setting. We see only what that particular character would notice, and it is very specific to the character, otherwise it wouldn’t be authentic. When I walk into a room, I don’t notice if there’s a television, but I sure will notice if there are books. The color scheme doesn’t mean a lot to me, but if a sofa looks comfy I’ll be happy to take a seat. My husband, however, will notice the tv and the color scheme, these things are important to him, it’s just the way he is (he likes to watch tv and he’s artistic). Everyone brings their own personality into what they notice, your characters will too.

Next week, I’ll continue this with the hardest to write, most deep aspects of point of view and how I tackle these in my own writing.

Time To Go Shopping!

Has there ever been so much hype about Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday before? Yes? Well, ok, yes, maybe there has, but you’ve got to admit, it’s grown. Those advertisers are really pushing the sales at us this year. Probably to help out the economy because goodness knows it needs it! But this year something new has come up – indie books are on sale this year. Yes! I saw requests from three bloggers who were going to post blogs on nothing but indie-published books which were on sale this weekend. And All Romance ebooks had its own twitter hashtag for the books authors put on sale there (AREBLAST). So I did what any intelligent indie-author would do – yes, I put all of my books on sale, but only at ARe because they’re the only retailer who asked.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble have loads of books on sale by major publishers, but they didn’t contact their millions of independent authors to suggest that they put their books on sale – maybe because they didn’t want to advertise them. But All Romance ebooks did and gave me a hashtag where I could advertise them. They have a page dedicated to some of their Black Friday sale books (it’s really long, so find the link at their main website: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/). My books (and probably those of hundreds of other authors) didn’t make it on to that page.

Oddly enough neither Smashwords nor Kobo have any mention of Black Friday. Ok, Kobo, I will excuse, they’re a foreign company, but Smashwords? You’d think they’d do something. But no.

So, are you still looking to grab some of the fabulous discounts on books? No need to fear, you haven’t missed out yet!

My books are all available at 50% discount at ARe through Monday:

              Chapter One

              Magic In The Storm

             Tales From The Mist

 

Books by a couple of my friends  will be on sale there too:

By Debra Dunbar:

                      A Demon Bound 

                     Satan’s Sword

By Stacey Joy Netzel:

                     Mistletoe Mischief

                    Rising Above

And for more book sales check out these blogs:

Barbara Phinney:   http://barbphinney.blogspot.ca/

Kristine Cayne: http://kristinecayne.blogspot.com/

Killer Fiction: http://killerfictionwriters.blogspot.com/

 

Have fun shopping!

 

 

Thanksgiving

My grandparents, their parents, siblings and friends

Thanksgiving came out of nowhere for me this year. I’ve been so crazy-busy I haven’t even noticed the date,  or how time has just sped by. So when my daughter pointed out to me last week that Thanksgiving was next week,  well,  I nearly didn’t believe her. But a glance at the calendar confirmed it.  Aside from forcing me out to the supermarket to buy a turkey and all of its accompaniments,  I began to think about what Thanksgiving truly means to me -  time off!  Time to be with my family and friends. Time to slow down,  to take a break and worry about cooking a juicy turkey, and how many unnecessary things my husband is going to talk me into buying because the price is just incredible. Time for me to sit down with my son and have a better conversation than just what we can fit in in between his activities,  studies,  and friends on a Sunday afternoon over Skype. That,  to me is what Thanksgiving giving is all about -  oh,  and left-overs.

I’ve had a busy fall.  I’ve taught more classes than ever. I’ve done formatting for a number of people and helped publish an anthology. I’ve tried to do my own writing, but, unfortunately that got shoved aside too often.  Oh,  and there was the election which took up too much time. So,  yeah,  I’m ready for that break.  It’s not going to last long. I’ve already nearly over-committed myself for the next few weeks,  but for two,  maybe three days,  work will be forgotten,  family will come first -  and for that,  I am truly grateful.

I hope that your Thanksgiving is restful and filled with good food, good friends and your wonderful family. Enjoy!

The backbone of good writing — Editing

It’s editing time again, woohoo!  I’m both teaching the subject in my Craft of Writing class this week, and spent all of yesterday listening to the wonderful Margie Lawson teach her EDITS system and Empowering Your Writing. Which means that, yes, I’ve got a ton of work to do on my WIP.

The very first thing I’m going to be doing is the first thing Margie taught us yesterday, and perhaps the easiest thing to do – I’m going to be going through my story and circling all of the “power words” and seeing if I can’t reword sentences so that they come at the end. Power words are those that hold the most emotional impact in a sentence, and therefore what you want to leave your reader with – back-loading. And speaking of back-loading, I’ve got to get rid of all sentences ending with the words ‘it’, ‘that’ and ‘this’.  No, wait, I’ve got to backload that sentence to add more punch to it. Let’s try this: And speaking of back-loading, all sentences which end with the words ‘it’, ‘that’ and ‘this’ are soon to be gone. (Much better, no?)

There are so many other tasks involved in editing, though. Aside from the wonderful highlighting routine Margie teaches (I actually use my own version of highlighting which I figured out long before I’d ever even heard of Margie – sorry!), there are the fabulous suggestions I learned from Angela James when I took a class with her on editing. More circling! Adverbs. Garbage words (like that, suddenly, finally, very, and then, just). Adjectives (some are terrific, too many is not good — NG) and filter words (saw, heard, felt, thought). I highlight all clichés and similes (the later again is terrific, but too many are NG).

One of the most important tasks in editing is to know where your weaknesses lie – and then attack that. I’m terrible at description. I never remember to put in those five senses, and it makes my writing dull and lifeless. So one of the things I do is go through and highlight every time I do use five senses and put in a bright green star where I should have it. That way, when I go back through my manuscript to put in any changes that need to be made (such as rewriting those clichés that slipped in there the first time), I can make sure to add in that description where it’s needed.

So, what are your flaws? What are you really bad at? And what do you do to combat that weakness? Ah, and here’s another question to think about – when do you start editing? While you’re writing, before you’ve finished your WIP? Or do you wait and start after you’ve typed “The End”?

To Blog or Not To Blog

To blog or not to blog, that is the question that was recently up for discussion on a loop that I follow. I think it’s a really interesting question. What’s the benefit that we get from blogging? Is there a downside to it? So here are my thoughts on the issue, but I’d really love to hear yours as well.

First, the positive side: Blogging allows me to reach out to people.

I have my Facebook page, and that, I’ve found is the best way to actually have some interaction (because goodness knows, almost no one ever comments on my blog, but that’s ok, I know you’re out there and reading what I’m writing, and that’s ok). I post announcements on Twitter – never once have I had a conversation with anyone, it just doesn’t seem to be a friendly medium for that sort of interaction.

But blogging, well, it’s kind of like teaching. I get to lecture about what I want (or what others have asked me to “talk” about). I hope that others learn from what I write or find it interesting. I try and engage my readers (and students) in a dialogue, but it doesn’t always work – some people simply prefer to listen and not engage, that’s ok. But this is my box, and so I stand on it and tell people about what I know and what I think they might be interested in.

Now, the negative: Well, some people said that blogging takes up too much of their valuable time. Ok, I can see that if you try to blog a lot. I blog once a week, every week, on Sunday mornings or afternoons. Once I get an idea for what I want to write, it takes me about half an hour to pound it out, and fifteen minutes or so to upload it and get everything looking nice. Nope, not too much time.

I have mostly stopped my Fooding blog, which I’m sad about, but that’s not because it took up too much time, I’ve just run out of recipes! I’m pretty boring. I make the same things again and again, or I use recipes for which someone else has the copyright. So, when I do find or create a new recipe, I’ll post it. Otherwise, sorry…

Some people on the loop thought that they weren’t getting enough eyeballs on their blogs to make it worth the time and effort. You know… I don’t really care. I enjoy writing. I enjoy the thought that a few people are reading this. I’m not all that picky about how many that is, although I would certainly prefer to have lots of readers, I’m not going to stop writing if it isn’t in the hundreds. If I did, I would have stopped long ago.

So, what do you think? Do you blog? Why or why not? Is it worth it? Since you’re here, reading this, has this been a waste of your time or mine, or a thoughtful and/or learning experience? I truly would love to hear your thoughts – c’mon, be different, leave a comment, let me know you’re out there. J

Synopsis How-To

It’s pretty strange to have an article on how to write a synopsis when I’ve got a hurricane bearing down on me, but I promised to post this last week, and, hey, the storm’s not supposed to arrive until tonight anyway. So here it is, my “How to write a synopsis article”. Enjoy!

A synopsis should be the easiest thing in the world to write, no? I mean, what is it? Just a summary of the book you’ve already written (or are about to write). You know what the book’s about. You know every little detail of every character and everything that they do. So what’s so hard about writing a summary of it?

Well, the problem is that you know too much. You know all of those nitty-gritty little detail and YOU CAN’T PUT THEM INTO YOUR SYNOPSIS! What? Well, no, otherwise, you’d be writing the book all over again. The trick in writing a synopsis is what to leave out, and, I’m sorry, it’s going to be most of it.

All of those fabulous scenes filled with passion or tension or humor – they’ve all got to be left right where they are, in your manuscript. The synopsis is not the place for them. The only part of them that you need to include in your synopsis is the FEELING of them. How they make the reader feel, that you’ve got to include. So, if your book is funny, your synopsis should be funny. If your book is romantic, your synopsis should be romantic. And so on.

So, if you don’t include those great scenes, what do you put in there? Well, here it is broken in a very simple form.

You absolutely, positively must start with a great hook that will draw in your reader (an editor or agent who has forty-nine more of these to read today). If you don’t grab them right off with a compelling hook, they’re not going to take the time to read the rest of it, so grab them by their eyeballs and don’t let go. This is your first paragraph.

If you have a character driven story, at this point you want to include a paragraph about each of your major characters. If you’re writing a romance, you would have one about each your hero and your heroine and possibly one about your villain if you have one who plays a major role in your story. For these paragraphs, we want to know what their internal and external goal, motivation and conflicts are (see Deb Dixon’s book Goal, Motivation and Conflict for more on this). Just include this and nothing else unless it is vital to understanding your story. Also, be sure to keep these paragraphs short and sweet – that’s the whole goal here.

Now from here you can go one of two ways:

You can write an inductive synopsis (like a newspaper article) where you start out with the big picture and then work your way to the details. If you have a plot driven novel, this may be a good way to go. First you want to determine what your story question is – what are your characters trying to do or figure out throughout your story: Will Dorothy ever get home from the magical land of Oz? (The Wizard of Oz) Will Robert Landon be able to decipher the riddle left by the dead Louvre curator and the clues in the works of Leonardo DaVinci? (The DaVinci Code).

Now, notice that these are pretty specific questions. They are not “Will Mary ever find true love?” or “Will the detective ever find the killer?” You’ve got to include more story detail in your question.

So, in an inductive synopsis, in the next paragraph if you haven’t already done this in your first paragraph,  you ask your story question introducing your main character(s) who are going to be the one(s) finding the answer. The rest of the synopsis is the major events through which your characters will find the answer to the question.

Your second option is a deductive synopsis, that would be writing top-down, from the beginning of your story right through to the end. But you have to be careful here. You don’t want a laundry list of this happened and then that. That’s boring. You need to infuse these events with emotion and excitement without being wordy (that’s the trick).

Finally, you conclude your synopsis with, yes, the conclusion of your book. You give it all away, even if it’s a murder mystery you have to tell who did it. Editors and agents want to know how it ends. Do not leave them hanging.

 

Now the hardest part of all this is deciding what to include and what to leave out. To help do that, I usea handy-dandy outline which is a combination of a three act structure, a four part structure and Michael Hauge’s story structure. Remember, only the big turning points that you write down here are what should go into your synopsis. I don’t really have space to put it in here, but it’s in my book, Chapter One (available at Amazon and many other e-retailers).

Last, but certainly not least, there are some basic rules which all synopsis must follow:

-          Don’t make your synopsis too long. Ideal is 2-3 pages, fine is 5 pages, pushing it, but still ok is 10 pages. Any longer than that and you’ll probably lose your reader before they get to the end – these are busy people who don’t have a lot of time to spend reading just one synopsis!

-          Write in the present tense, no matter how your book is written.

-          Write in the third person.

-          Try to get the voice and flavor of your novel into your synopsis. If your story is dark, make the synopsis dark; if it’s light and funny, so should your synopsis be light and funny.

-          Don’t include secondary plots or too many characters. We only want the basics.

-          Don’t put in empty rhetorical questions, they’re useless and try your reader’s patience.

-          Make your first three paragraphs fabulous and enticing. Many editors and agents won’t read past the first three paragraphs (or the bottom of the first page), make yours so compelling they’re forced to read on.

-          Remember that this is a marketing tool. You are selling a book here. Write this in such a way that your reader can’t wait to read the whole manuscript.

 

Synopsis? What for?

I put out a call this week to my former (and present) students on my Chapter One Facebook page for suggestions  for what I should write about this week. Vivi Dumas asked that I go over how to write a synopsis. I thought that was a really interesting idea, not just because writing a synopsis can be tricky, but because Vivi has already self-published a couple of her books. So why does she need a refresher on how to write a synopsis? Why would any self-published author?

Well, because synopses are not only necessary to sell your book to a traditional publisher – although they certainly are an essential ingredient in that particular stew – they’re also a fantastic tool that many writers use when writing their books. When you sit down to write, if you are a plotter, you write out your character sheets and plot out your story. To do the latter, you may make a bullet list of all of the turning point scenes in your story or you could graph out your structure like a time-line with the line going up as life is good for your protagonist and down when it gets more difficult. But another option to consider is to write a synopsis of your story – basically a rough draft in miniature. It outlines the story and allows you to get a little more detailed in exactly what’s going to be happening at those all-important turning point scenes. And it allows you to take a broader view of your story as a whole – seeing the forest for the trees, if you will.

Many people who write without plotting first, may want to take a break about half-way through their novel in order to write their synopsis for that same broader view. It will help them to see the story as a whole – figure out what’s happened so far and where the story needs to go from that point forward (and ensure that they don’t have that awful sagging middle).

And finally, once your story is done, whether you’ve plotted it out before writing or not, looking at what you’ve got, reading through the entire manuscript once again in order to summarize your work and take that broader view can be an extremely helpful tool as you prepare to edit your work.

So, at every stage of the writing process, stopping to write a synopsis – whether it be to decide how you’re going to structure your book to begin with, ensure that you’re on the right track in the middle, or to see what you’ve got at the end – is an important tool in your writer’s tool-box.

Next week, I’ll get into the particulars of how to create your synopsis and how to structure it.

So, at which point do you write your synopsis, or do you skip it all together and only write one if you’re going to be selling your work to an agent or traditional publisher?

Tales From The Mist Blog Hop

This is it! This is the day! Welcome all newcomers to my blog and a great big welcome back to people who have been here before! Today is the day we officially launch Tales From The Mist onto the world, er, into the world.

So far, the book’s been out for review for two weeks and we have gotten the most amazing response! You know why, of course? Yup, because it’s filled with the fabulous and creepy stories. And can you think of a better way to get ready for Halloween than with a book of fun and scary stories in your hand? I can’t. So, without further ado, let me tell you about my small contribution to the collection.

You’ve all heard about Lilith, right? Oh, come on, you must have! There are societies dedicated to her. There are people who worship her. But it didn’t always used to be this way.

Lilith used to be seen as a an evil demon. Why? Because that’s what she was to men. She was a threat – to their masculinity, to their place in the world. Yes, Lilith was the very first “uppity woman”.

Lilith was created from the dust of the Earth right along with Adam and then had the “nerve” to want to be treated as an equal by him. When he didn’t treat her that way, when he insisted that he was the man and therefore somehow better than her, she left him. Yup. Just walked away from Adam and the Garden the Eden. I tell you, that woman had nerve!

The question is what happened to her after she left?

We know from written accounts that God sent three angels to the riverside to bring her back to the Garden, but she refused them. We know that she was well known for killing male babies – hence the beginning of circumcision within a boy’s first seven days of life (removing the foreskin commits the child to God making him off limits to Lilith).  We know that men who had wet dreams claimed that it wasn’t their fault, that Lilith came to them in the night and raped them. And we know that throughout history whenever a woman stood up for herself, tried to make herself more beautiful or slept with a man out of wedlock, she was said to have been possessed by Lilith who controlled the woman through her reflection.

But how did Lilith, the first woman ever created, get blamed for all these things? Exactly what happened to her after she left Adam? How much of what people have said about Lilith is true?

Read “In A Beginning” to learn Lilith’s “true” story – as told by Lilith herself. But, I warn you, it’s not always a very nice story, nor is Lilith always a nice person. Sometimes rumors are true.

Blog Hoppers: Somewhere on this page is a picture you’ll need in order to be entered in our raffle! Look around and try to find what doesn’t belong (it really shouldn’t be too hard!). Jot down what the picture is and where you found it and then follow the link to the next blog! Enjoy! And good luck!

Comment on this blog (here) and be entered to win an e-copy of my book Magic In The Storm – a Regency-set paranormal romance or a copy of Tales From The Mist (two winners to be announced on the 19th!).

Here is the list (links)  of all of the blogs participating in the hop:   Number 11 is the Beach Book Blast which is where you enter for the raffle — don’t forget each picture you find is worth one entry into the raffle!