Jacqui Murray's Blog, page 205

Asking for the Sale Without P****** People Off

Nathan Bransford, self-pub'd writer, former literary agent with Curtis Brown Ltd., San Francisco resident, blogger–umm, pretty good writer BTW–posted a 'Pledge Drive' on his blog to drum up business for his YA book. A humorous approach to the self-promotion we-all must do as authors, it received mixed reviews. He pulled the post down to reconsider, reconsidered and re-posted it.

Drop over to his blog. What do you think? Think about it before you read any further and get my take.

Click to play this YouTube of Jeopardy's signature music. Make sure you're sound's on

OK. My take is: Why not? How are readers supposed to know about his book if he doesn't tell us? In fact, I didn't know until he brought it to my attention. Why can PBS do it and individuals can't? And America–where's your sense of humor? He posted a follow-up with his thinking. Erudite.

Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: blogs, marketing Tagged: bransford, marketing, self-pub

I Want to Build a Village

I've decided to participate in a blogging community. I haven't ever done this before, but I'm eager to meet a group of like-minded people who love writing and supporting each other's writing. It's through Rach Writes. If you are a social blogger, you might want to check her blog for the next iteration (this one closes August 31st).

It's impossible to be a writer these days without stepping into the unknown. I'll tell you how it goes.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: bloggers resources, blogs, marketing, writers resources Tagged: bloggers, social networks

Book Review: Anything But Beige

Learn how to date around the world

I read a lot of books. Some are part of my Amazon Vine gig. Some are research for whatever my current WIP. Some are just for fun.

Sometimes I stumble onto a real gem. That's what I found in aspiring new author, Catherine Larose's new memoir (or 'femoir' as Cat calls it)  Any Color But Beige (2011). This 216-page romp through the  international world of singles is the essential how-to book on dating after a divorce. Told with her fresh, delightful and humorous voice, Cat fills the pages with fast-paced intercontinental action interleaved with the sage advice of a well-grounded hard-working businesswoman raised by a large Italian family and nurtured by a life filled with good friends. You'll want to curl into an easy chair with this book, a cup of tea at your elbow, as you clatter through the eccentric experiences that shape Cat into that girl friend you always wanted around because you never knew what she would do.

Cat learned growing up that it was always smart to approach every experience with an open mind, embrace whatever life threw at her, and believe that as long as she was alive, she was never quite done. The challenges start when she finds herself in a marriage that can only be described as the round hole of her creative, clever brain in the square peg of a man who valued conformity, rules and predictability. She attempts to make it work, trying to convince herself that life is meant to be dull, drab and predictable (think beige), but finally throws her hands up in defeat and begins an exotic life filled with jet-setting experiences you and I only dream of living (think awash in color–her favorite being red). This change is enabled when Cat takes a job as an international color-marketing consultant. You know those little paint chips in hardware stores? Cat markets those. As she travels the world, schooling clients in color strategies, giving the reader hints about  how to decorate their lives ('paint your room like your man', and 'most people dress the colors of their house'). she meets an international banquet of single men.

That is the meat of the book–Cat's dating experiences across national lines, across continents, across cultures as she redecorates her world in the vibrant tones of Italy, France, South Africa–wherever her job takes her–with an international boyfriend in every port.

I caught a glimpse of the boy and the man he became, the culture that formed him and continues to shape him…

As Cat zips through worldwide relationships, always up-beat, often throwing in touches of French to make the story more effervescent, the reader sprints along at her side. In the words of one close friend:

You're a real woman, with a real job, and you live in the real world… If you didn't exist, I'd have to invent you.

When you finish the book, you can follow Cat's real-time experiences on her blog, Cafe Girl Chronicles where she posts 'mostly true stories of life, love, lust and longing'. Here, she shares the excitement of whatever international city she happens to be in at the moment. Since I 'met' Cat, I feel like a world traveler with the insider knowledge to prove it. My question for Cat is: When's the sequel? Do you marry any of the amazing men you date?

Filed under: book reviews Tagged: book review, books, dating, divorce

Tech Tip for Writers #18: Ten Best MS Word Tips–How Did You Survive Without Them

Here are the most popular. The ones with links are from my Tech Tip Tuesday series. Go ahead and click them for more detail. The others–they're coming up. Sign up so you won't miss any (see below).

How to Undelete–push Ctrl+Z
How to Show the Entire Drop Down Menu at once instead of clicking the menu item, clicking the double arrows at the bottom of the drop down list just to find your choice
If your screen freezes, check around your workspace before you declare it frozen. There's probably a dialog box that needs to be handled
Turn an Address into a Link: Push the space bar after pasting in an internet address–that activates it
The (Horrid Annoying) Drawing Canvas–get rid of it
What's Today's Date–use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Alt+D in MS Word
Menu command is grayed out–push escape four times (you're probably in something but you don't know you are). This works 90% of the time
Show all your tools on the Standard and Formatting toolbars–not just a few (click the double arrow at the end of the toolbar; select Show buttons on two rows)
How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program–I love this one because I'm always in a hurry
Typing over your text, rather than in front of it? Push the insert key

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: tech tips for writers, writers tips Tagged: MS Word, tech tips, word tips, writers tips

Writers Tip #74: Exposition Tips From Chuck

Great tips for soon-to-be great writers

When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can't quite put your finger on it, but you know you've done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer's tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.

These tips are from Chuck Wendig, a thirty-something agented-novelist, screenwriter, short story writer, freelance penmonkey, game designer with a sense of humor. His writing is a tad rough–not the way I talk–but deep down inside the me that has been smoothed and shined by the world, there must be a bit of 'Chuck' in me because these tips speak to my writer side.

Whatever the reason, he has some great ideas about writing. Here are 25 of them from Chuck's outstanding blog post, 25 Ways to Make Exposition Your B****:

Like most easily-digestible protein-nuggets of writing advice, Show-Don't-Tell is one that ends up confusing. After all, what we do is called storytelling, and then in the next breath we're chided for telling and not showing. And yet, the advice remains true just the same. Exposition is often the biggest customer in terms of telling-above-showing, and it reeks of amateur hour karaoke. Here's an example: consider the difference of you telling me "John is an assassin," and you showing me the act of John stalking and killing a dude on the job. The former is dull: a narrative name-tag, a Facebook profile. The latter is engaging: action and example. This is the key to exposition always, always, always: stop telling, start showing.
Leave yourself no room for exposition. Start the story as late into the plot as you can; extract yourself at first opportunity. You can't eat ice cream that ain't in the freezer. And by "ice cream" I mean "dead stripper."
Everybody tells stories, and everybody's had that moment where they start to lose the audience sitting in front of them. "C'mon," they'll say, making some kind of impatient gesture because, uhh, hello, the season finale of The Bachelor is on? You greedy asshole? God forbid you don't get your reality TV fix, you mongrels. … uhh, sorry. Point is, when that happens you gotta ramp it up. You gotta get to the point. Imagine when writing your story — script, novel, short fiction, whatever — that the audience is sitting there, making that gesture. Even better: imagine them slapping billy clubs against their open palms. In other words: cut the shit and hurry it up. A guy's got things to do. Like bury that "ice cream" in the Mojave desert.
Fuck it. Write a zero draft with as much exposition as you can fit in your fool mouth. Vomit forth great globs of word sauce 'til it hardens. On subsequent drafts, chop and whittle any exposition to a toothpick point.
Open up a separate document from script or manuscript. Lock it away in its own cage. When parts need to come out and play, let them. Gas the rest with a nerve agent. Cover it with dirt.
You can't cure exposition unless you know how to spot it. Learn what it is. Learn to mark its footprints, its scat-tracks. Two characters talking about shit they should already know? One character descending into a bizarre, out-of-place soliloquy? Giant cinder block paragraphs that fall from the sky and crush the audience beneath them? Identify exposition where it lives, fucks, and eats. Then prepare the orbital laser.
Dramatic action is — a-duh — action infused with drama, like vodka infused with elderberries and/or the screams of my enemies. As action unfolds, it reveals data you want the audience to have. Instead of putting forth a scene where characters plan a heist, get right to the heist — the heist reveals the plan. That's not to say you can't make a heist-planning scene evocative and with its own dramatic action and tension, but only serves to show that action needn't be — and perhaps shouldn't be — separate from exposition.
Listen, if you have to institute exposition to convey critical information, then you at least should do it with style, putting it in a voice that is not only readable, but compelling. I would read a fucking diner menu were it written by a writer with a great voice (say, Joe Lansdale) — so, if you're going to take time out to foist information upon a reader's head, then at least make it snappy.
Chatterkitty almost sounds like an Indian curry dish, doesn't it? "I'll take two samosas, and one vegetable chatterkitty. Medium spice, please." Anyway, point is, characters can reveal backstory through dialogue — but it has to be done right. Like I said, two characters sharing data they should already know is a clear sign, as are long-winded monologues. An info-dump is still a steaming pile whether it comes from your ass or the mouth of a character. Characters shouldn't ever give up great heaps of information — they should resist it. Revelation should be done with tension; a villain doesn't want to give up his plan but must under torture.
A war-torn city. A shattered hill-top. A modern megalopolis. A garden protected by angels. The details of setting show the wounds and scars of history. Environment reveals exposition.
 Further, the world offers up artifacts — newspapers, blogs, e-mails, epitaphs, relics, holo-discs, etc. — that convey expository detail. Characters can find these and learn them at the same time as the audience.
Whenever you encounter the urge to info-dump, pause. Take a deep breath. Then ask: what does the audience need to know? Like, what information here is so bloody critical that without it the story loses its way, like an old person in a shopping mall? Separate "need" from "want" — I don't care what details youwant the audience to have. Determine only what is required to move forward. Everything else gets the knife.
Limit exposition to between one and three sentences per page. And lean sentences, too — don't think you can get away with an overturned bucket of commas and dependent clauses poured over your word count. I can smell your chicanery the way a shark smells baby-farts. (Isn't that what they smell? I might be getting that wrong. Wait, it's blood? Blood? Are you sure? I think it's baby-farts. I've heard it both ways.)
Sting taught us all about Tantric sex, wherein you contain your orgasm in some kind of lust-caked mental hell-prison until you release it eight hours later, amplifying your delight. I am afraid of doing this as I fear it will send a hardened shiv of semen into my cerebral cortex. Regardless, it's a good lesson for using exposition in storytelling: resist it as long as you can. You think, "Ohh, the audience really needs details right here," but stave off that inclination. Do not pop your narrative cookies. Contain the exposition and reveal it late in the game until it can be restrained no longer.
Another way to sex up your man(uscript): use exposition to break tension. You're amping up the suspense, you're ratcheting action, it's all escalation escalation escalation, and then — wham. You pull back from the action, and give a pause with a scene of exposition. Not so much where it overwhelms and frustrates, but enough where it creates that sense of narrative blue balls where you sharpen the audience's need.
Exposition can serve as explanation. It's all in the arrangement. If you present a question in the reader's mind — "How exactly did Doctor Super-Claw lose his eye? And why does Satrap Fuck-Fang the Splendid want to kill him? Shit, there's gotta be a good story there." Indeed. Make them want the exposition so that, when you give it, it answers questions they already possess.
If the character needs the exposition for her arc and the plot to move forward, then the audience needs it — and thereby, it becomes more rewarding. Just assume the character is like the Space Sphere from Portal 2. The character needs the tricksy backstory, precious. We needs it. It's also good if the character risks something to get at these details, thus revealing how critical it is and how it has earned a place in the narrative. "I had to fight my way through an infinity of ninjas to get you this information, sir."
Frame exposition not merely as details, not purely as data, but as a story. A micro-story within the larger narrative that abides by all those same rules: beginning, middle, end, tension, conflict, character.
Exposition doesn't need to be dry and dull as a saltine cracker in a dead lizard's vagina — turn backstory into a scene by invoking the Ancient Pagan Law of Flashback. Fuck having the character recite details as if off a menu. Force her to relive it in flashback form. Don't talk about the moment when she was thrown out of an air-lock by her mad Space King father. Time travel to that moment. Let us all see it as it happens.
Another form of time travel — go back into your own story and rip out the need for exposition. Originally it's all like, "Way back in the year of Fourteen-Splangly-Doo, in the Year of Dog's Butler, the Dolphin Council of Krang suffered a cataclysmic failure to rule when they couldn't agree on blippity-bloppity-snood…" Hell with that. Gut that history. If you need it, bring it to the foreground. Have it be happeningright now. That way, it's active, it's present, and characters are discovering it at roughly the same rate as the audience.
Exposition is easier to swallow when it has a declarative purpose: in effect, a thesis sentence. Opening a page of text or some dialogue with, "The city hasn't been the same since the unicorns took over," gives you the opportunity to describe what that means. The audience is prepared to receive that information and, thus, the exposition fulfills the promise of its premise. Bonus points: violent conquistador unicorns.
Like I've said before, the character is the vehicle for the story. They're our way through; we ride them as monkeys on their backs. (Or, if you've read ZOO CITY, like Sloth on the back of Zinzi December.) What the character knows, we can know, too — and so you as the narrator are free to crack open the character's skull like a coconut, allowing the audience access to the fragrant water within. The character's perspective on information is still expository, but it's tinted and warped through the lens of their experience, which means the exposition does double-duty. It both grants us details we need and also offers us a longer look at the character.
A nice, trippy, totally fucked-up way of revealing backstory is through usage of dreams and visions. I did this in BLACKBIRDS and it was a fun way for me to convey creepy exposition without blurting it out like a kid high on the sugar from 14 bowls of Fruity Pebbles. Fun to write and, ideally, fun to read.
Again, if you have to have to have to use exposition, make sure it sings for its supper and does more than just convey raw data. Let it communicate character, convey theme, move the plot forward (and backward), engage description, utilize compelling language, establish mood, and so on. The more work it does, the more it earns its place in your story.
Go back through your work and find all the backstory, highlight all the info-dumps, and kill 'em. Just fucking murder it. Let stuff just hang out without any explanation — you'd be surprised how much of it will fly. Look to film in particular to see how many details are never explained and, further, how little that matters. That scene in DIE HARD where the two Aryan brothers are racing against each other to cut through… I dunno, "phone pipes?" I don't know what they fuck they're even doing there. Or why it's a race. When you saw the first STAR WARS, did the film stop and explain what the hell the Clone Wars were? No! (And if only it had stayed that way.) Most of the things you think need to be explained don't. They just don't. So, fuck exposition right in its ear. If you go back through a subsequent draft and say, "Okay, I need a little something-something here," fine, consult the rest of this list and see how you can make it your bitch.Because if exposition is on the menu, then by god, you better know how to serve it right and make it tasty.

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Jacqui Murray  is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of  Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an  Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for  Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything  and  Technology in Education . Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office  or her tech lab,  Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: characters, communication, writers tips Tagged: chuck wendig, exposition, pen monkey, writers tips

Some Scientist Stole My Storyline

My day job is teaching tech at a K-8 school. My night job is writing–everything. I write, blogs, book reviews, Amazon Vine Voice reviews, columns for ezines…

And books. My first book was on the paleo-life of Homo habilis. It shared my educated guess on what life was like for man when Nature ruled and we just hung on for dear life. I called it Evolution: A Biography. I started the sequel (Born in a Treacherous Time) about the paleo-life of Homo habilis' successor, Homo erectus. By this time in man's history, we'd acquired tools, rudimentary problem-solving and a small amount of control over our lives. I read a library of books to learn what I needed to know to create these worlds, many of them reviewed for you here.

I still love paleo-history, but a publisher I was trying to convince to publish my paleo-histories, suggested I bring my stories into modern time to widen their appeal. OK. I didn't mind trying that. I decided to create stories where the sizzle of science and the brilliance of our big brains created the plot's drama, crises, climaxes and resolutions. I wrote my first thriller about a brilliant scientist, a former Navy SEAL, a quirky almost-human AI named Otto (you see the palindrome?) and how they saved the world. It involved some intriguing science about magnetic signatures and artificial intelligence. I called it To Hunt a Sub.

Then, my daughter joined the Navy, was stationed on a cruiser, and I fell in love with America's warships–cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and submarines. They are beautiful in their power, efficiency and ability to do so much on so many fronts. If you don't know about the Aegis Combat System, now the backbone of our destroyers and cruisers, you don't know jack about the Navy. They inspired me to think beyond our current defense to what comes next and I wrote the military thriller, Twenty Four Days. The story's brilliant. Literally. Everyone uses their brains to create problems and solve others. I kept the brilliant scientist, the former Navy SEAL, and the quirky AI named Otto, and involved them in the search for hijacked submarines and terrorists bent on destroying the Western way of life. Then I did that Star-Trek thing where you take an existing science and stretch it to a conceivable conclusion that doesn't yet exist. In this case, I used metamaterials–tiny man-made particles that are the current rage in scientific development. I've written several articles about them over the past several years. In my story, they're used to make submarines invisible to sonar.

Imagine my distress when I read this article:

Acoustic Invisibility Cloak Makes Objects Unhearable
Could shield ships from sonar, create better concert halls
A new acoustic invisibility cloak made of a plastic metamaterial makes objects invisible to sound waves, researchers say. It could be used to shield ships from sonar, or build better soundproof walls for concert halls and other spaces. We've seen this idea before, but now Duke University researchers have actually built it.
Invisibility cloaks work by bending light waves in ways that would not normally be possible, through the use of man-made materials called metamaterials. This cloak uses many of the same principles to bend sound waves, so a ship made of this material would render sonar useless, because the sound waves would not bounce back.This device consists of stacked sheets of plastic peppered with holes, whose arrangement and size redirects sound waves, BBC News reports. The device resonates at frequencies that either absorb or reflect sound waves, so it both blocks and contains them — anything underneath the stack would not hear sound, and sound waves could not be used to locate something coated with the stack. It works in air for audible frequencies between one and four kilohertz, which corresponds to two octaves on the higher half of a piano, BBC says.Researchers led by Steven Cummer of Duke University tested the stacked sheets on a flat surface, placing a 4-inch block of wood underneath it. The block of wood could not "hear" the sound — there were no sound waves passing through — and "attempts to locate the object using sound waves would not find it," BBC reports. (read on…)
I better finish my book and get it out there before it's nothing but old news.
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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , an ISTE article reviewer, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education . Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: research, Scientific fiction, writing Tagged: plot devices, plots, writing

Free Writing Books on Kindle

Just heard from my efriend, Cheryl Rainfield about three new writing books available for free on Kindle.

Portable MFA in Creative Writing (New York Writers Workshop)
Robert's Rules of Writing by Robert Masello
Grammatically Correct by Anne Stilman

I don't yet own a Kindle, so when I selected my free book, I had to first download Kindle for PC, then register it (all without problems). Within seconds, the books I purchased for $0 appeared on my Kindle bookshelves:

My current Kindle bookshelves. I'm looking for more free books

Now they're there, ready references should I require them.

BTW, the bottom three came for free when I installed the Kindle. I've read all three, but I might check them out again.

Update: Apparently the Free sale has ended it. According to a reader, they're now 1/2 price. Rats.

Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: Amazon, digital books, writers resources Tagged: ebooks, kindle, writers resources

Tech Tip For Writers #16: Email That Document

Tech tips for curious writers

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I'll share one of those with you. They're always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I want my home/business/classroom to be as paperless as possible. What's a good first step?

A: Do you make fliers or announcements in Publisher, then print them? Don't do that. Use the email tool on the toolbar:

Create your flier. Make sure its perfect
Click on the email tool on the toolbar
Fill in To, Subject, as you normally would on an email


The flier appears as the body of the email.

This can also be done in MS Word.

Questions you want answered? Leave a comment here and I'll answer it within the next thirty days.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Filed under: tech tips for writers Tagged: email, tech tips, writers tips

Writer's Tip #73: Tips From Cliff

Great tips for soon-to-be great writers

When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can't quite put your finger on it, but you know you've done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer's tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.

This list is from Cliff. As far as I can tell, Cliff is like you and me–a writer, enjoying himself, sharing his knowledge–although he has almost 2 million hits on his website which is decidedly unlike me. His Twitter profile reads:

Dr. Cliff Pickover, author of 40 books, science, science fiction, technology, strange reality, futurism, innovation, mathematics, future of publishing

He's written a variety of books on diverse subjects and put together a nice website of all sorts of suggestions. I copied these because some of them are hit me as exactly what I was doing wrong. Read through them. See if you get that feeling:

1. Show Not Tell

It's better to show through a character's actions than "tell" by having the narrator describe. Please do not "tell."

Example 1: "Garth became nervous" is "telling." It is better to "show" with: "Garth's hands trembled."

Example 2: "Garth did not want to go down the hall with the Major" is "telling." It is better to "show" with: "What?" Garth said, "There's no way in hell I'm going with you!"

Body Movement

Occasional reference to body movement and scene interaction is important so that characters are not disembodied talking heads. It's also important to occasionally use body movement before a person talks, in order to establish who is talking.

 Example:

"When are you going to leave for France?" John asked.

could be cast as:

John took a slow breath. "When are you going to leave for France?"

(Many times beginning authors make it hard to figure out who is talking, but a quick reference to body movement before the speaker speaks makes it all clear.)

Short Better Than Long

In real life, people often talk in short sentences and phrases, rather than in long drawn-out sentences with big words. Another dialog tip: use contractions often. For example, a character may be more apt to say "I'll" than "I will."

Break the Dialog

Always insert a "he said" or "she said" as early as possible into a line of dialog (if a "he said" is even needed at all).

Example:

Never do: "Yes, I will kill him, but not until you buy the peaches for dinner," he said.

Instead do:

"Yes," he said, "I will kill him, but not until you buy the peaches for dinner."

Use Active Voice

Don't say: "The paper was placed on the wall by the doctor." Use active voice: "The doctor placed the paper on the wall."

Avoid Omniscient Narrator

Books have more immediacy if you stay within one character's head and therefore the narrator does not have knowledge of what other people are thinking. For example, if you are in Jake's head, we are in Jake's head for most of the book. We can't suddenly know how Melinda is feeling. Jake doesn't read her mind. We can suggest how she feels through Jake's opinions and what he sees and hears, and what she says and does. (Some people use an omniscient narrator, but the best books avoid it.)

Don't Rush The Scene

If a scene sounds rushed, with too little attention to detail and texture, then more words are needed to draw out the action and suspense.

Natural Dialog

If you are unsure if the dialog sounds natural, read it out loud to yourself. This is a great way to make sure the dialog is natural.

Involve All Senses

To really get the reader involved, try to stimulate more of the reader's senses. For example, if you've gone ten pages without stimulating the reader (and character in the book) with an odor, or tactile feeling, sound, or taste, the book will have less immediacy.

Use "Said"

I notice some beginning writers seem to dislike using "said" and try to replace the word "said" with words like commanded, remarked, uttered, began, etc. Perhaps they feel that too many "saids" stick out. However, you don't have to be afraid of using too many "saids." In fact, it is much worse to try substitutions. The best writers use "said" almost all the time and let the dialog convey the meaning. For example,

 "Get out of here now!" he commanded.

is much worse than

"Get out of here now!" he said.

The word "commanded" is an unnecessary distraction. In any case, it's obvious the sentence is a command. When readers read "said", their eyes barely pause. The "said" goes almost unnoticed. This is what you want. Replacement words, such as "remarked", stick out obtrusively, which is what you don't want. For these reasons, some authors don't even use "he asked" for questions; rather they do: "Where is it?" he said.

     11. Don't Begin To

Don't have your characters "begin to do something," "try to do something," and so forth. Just have them do it. Example: "Mary began to skip down the block." Change to "Mary skipped down the block."

Avoid "as he"

Avoid excessive "as he" constructs. Example: "Mary turned on the TV as she thought all the time about Joe." Change to: "Mary turned on the TV, thinking all the time about Joe." Or, better yet: "Mary turned on the TV and thought about Joe."

Provide Character Reactions

Example: When something is said or done to a character that is out of the ordinary, have the character respond. New writers often forget to show the responses of characters before moving on with the plot.

Which or That?

Use "which" with a comma when the phrase seems as if it could easily be set off with parentheses and make sense. Examples with "that" and "which": 1) I like dogs that bark. 2) I like the German Shepherd species, which has pointed ears, a tan coat, and teeth that rip.

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Jacqui Murray  is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of  Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an  Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for  Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything  and  Technology in Education . Currently, she's working on a techno-thriller that should be ready this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office  or her tech lab,  Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Book Review: Shut Your Eyes Tight

Shut Your Eyes Tight

by John Verdon

Note: This review written as part of my Amazon Vine Voice series

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I recently had the pleasure of reading John Verdon's new mystery thriller "Shut your Eyes Tight". This is the first work of Mr. Verdon's I have read, but it will by no means be the last. Mr. Verdon has written a previous bestseller entitled "Think of a Number", it is now high on my reading list.

Mr. Verdon's most recent work carries the same characters into a new and most decidedly gruesome adventure. The main character, retired NYPD detective Dave Gurney is contacted to look into and provide much needed direction to a vicious cold blooded murder. A newly-wed bride is found decapitated at her wedding reception. The groom is a well respected psychiatrist whose practice revolves around sexual deviance. The bride was also a victim of sexual abuse and in what is all so typical of victims is they grow up to be abusers themselves. The bride and her husband met at a private school that specializes in the treatment of these children. Dave unravels the puzzle but not without a lot of false starts provided by terrific characters throughout the novel.

This is a well constructed and highly believable page turner with a wild unpredictable ending. I look forward to reading much more of John Verdon.

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