Terry Odell's Blog, page 264

What's Cooking Wednesday - Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Thanks to those who are stepping forward with recipes. I'm always looking for more!



Today there's a double treat at What's Cooking Wednesday. My guest for today is Janet Rudolph, who's sharing a recipe for chocolate-dipped strawberries. In addition, I was a guest at her blog with my recipe for Apricot Brandy Balls. Be sure to check that one out, too.



Welcome, Janet.



I'm a chocoholic, and to fulfill my addiction, every day I post a recipe, review or news about chocolate. I'm all about easy and delicious. One of my favorite recipes is for Chocolate Covered Strawberries. They're simple to make, and they always look fabulous. You can stuff them or drizzle them, but fresh strawberries dunked in good quality chocolate is the key.







CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES TO DIE FOR!



INGREDIENTS:

1 quart fresh large fresh strawberries, with tops

1 cup Dark Chocolate 60-65% cacao, broken or chopped

1/2 cup Dark Chocolate 72-85% cacao, broken or chopped

3 Tbsp. heavy cream

White chocolate, melted for Drizzle




DIRECTIONS:

Rinse strawberries and dry thoroughly, keeping tops on. In top of double boiler or a stainless steel bowl atop a pot of simmering water, combine chocolate and heavy cream. Stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.

Dip strawberries 1/2-3/4 way up in chocolate mixture and place on wax paper or parchment lined cookie sheet to allow chocolate to harden.

When hardened, drizzle with melted white chocolate.



Hints:

Wash strawberries and pat dry with paper towels; set aside. Make sure the strawberries are completely dry. A drop of water in melted chocolate can cause it to "seize" and turn the entire mixture into a mess. How to smooth out the chocolate: I just saw a chef add a tiny bit of honey and stirred. It worked!



How to dip:

Grasp stem of strawberry and dip into chocolate, swirling to partially cover with chocolate. Give the strawberry a small shake as you pull it out of the chocolate. When strawberry is completely out of chocolate, swirl it in quick, clockwise motion to let excess chocolate drip off. Place on cookie sheet lined with waxed paper or parchment. Repeat with the rest of the strawberries.



Want to get a bit fancier? Here are links to Chocolate Covered Stuffed Strawberries.



Chocolate Covered Stuffed Strawberries



Strawberries Stuffed with Chocolate Cream



Janet Rudolph is the editor of the Mystery Readers Journal, and creative director/writer at Murder on the Menu and TeamBuilding Unlimited. She blogs daily at Mystery Fanfare and DyingforChocolate.com, facilitates a weekly mystery bookgroup, hosts literary salons with mystery authors, and has been a committee member on numerous mystery conventions. A long time contributor to the mystery genre, she received her Ph.D. in religious mystery fiction. She lives in the Berkeley/Oakland (CA) hills with her husband, a golden retriever, a Siamese cat and a Ragdoll cat. She is also a judge at Chocolate Salons. Someone has to do it! Her websites are: www.mysteryreaders.org, www.murderonthemenu.com, www.teambuilding-unlimited.com and Blogs: Mystery Fanfare www.mysteryfanfare.com and DyingforChocolate www.dyingforchocolate.com



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How Many Drafts Does It Take To Make a Loaf of Bread?

First, to those celebrating, I wish you a very happy first night of Hanukkah.



Today my guest is editor Brittiany Koren. I had the pleasure of working with her when she was assigned as my editor for my first two Blackthorne, Inc. novels. In addition to editing for Tekno Books, she collaborated on five anthologies for DAW Books. She also created the White House Gardener series with author, Dorothy St. James, for Berkley Prime Crime. She recently started her own editorial business, Written Dreams.



Thank you so much, Terry, for inviting me to be your guest. I'm excited to be here!

Most writers, in my opinion, submit their manuscript too early to publishers, perhaps thinking editors at publishing houses will help them with needed revisions. Unfortunately, in today's marketplace editors don't have that luxury, and a manuscript rejected because it is not well-written. Revising is an important part of the writing process. Here's my recipe for a well-revised manuscript…

So, you just finished your first draft. Congratulations! Finally, after months of hard work it's time to submit to a publisher. Wrong. Your manuscript has only the broad strokes at this point. It's time for your first draft revision.

Think of your manuscript as a simple recipe of white bread. You have flour (characters), yeast (plot), salt (climax) and water (setting) combined in a ceramic bowl. That's your first draft.

What's a good period of time to let your manuscript rise? A week to a month. As a writer, you need time away to distance yourself, and forget. This gives you an objective point of view to do the next stage in the writing process. Revision.


No matter what type of writer you are, you may leave out important little details in that first draft that will more than likely come easily when revising the second draft. Using the bread recipe, these little details are like spices flavoring your basic white bread. Specific details added in about setting, characterization, plot, dialogue, tension, conflict, and timing are so very important in making a stereotypical character live and breathe in a world readers can relate to.

Okay, you've just finished your second draft, reading all the way through it, adding in great details that even you didn't realize about the main character. You also added in wonderful details on setting, and maybe fixed a plot hole you didn't see before. What's next? Submission? Not yet.

This time take a minimum of 48 hours away from your manuscript. Your bread has had time to rise. Punch it down gently so it can begin to rise fully. In your third draft, be critical of the grammar, punctuation, transitions from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and chapter to chapter. Be critical every word your characters say is in their own voice. Be aware of how you're "showing" and not "telling" the story to your readers. And be sure to spend the same amount of time on the middle and ending as you do on the hook and the first three chapters. Now, it's time to bake.

Is it time? Close. Your first batch of bread has baked in the oven. It's time to taste-test it to see if it's any good. Your manuscript is ready to send out to your trusty First Readers, writers in their own right, who will give you an honest opinion. They may catch a few things you missed in earlier revisions. That's great! But give yourself some credit. You got the manuscript this far.

Weigh your First Readers' edits/questions carefully keeping in mind their own success in the field before changing anything dramatic in your manuscript. Thank them for their help. Now, it's off to fix those pesky typos you missed, and bake another batch of bread.

Your recipe has been perfected as best you can make it. It looks great and tastes even better. You've spent countless hours on it, perfecting it, making it your own, and adding in your own blend of flavor. You feel confident you've given it your all. You have engaging characters, an interesting storyline, and a great conflict. The ending will give your readers pure enjoyment.

Yes, now it is time to submit your manuscript to a publisher. So submit it and forget it. It'll be a while before you receive a response. But don't sweat it. You've written a wonderful story. You've made the bread you've set out to bake, and someone out there should like it. Hopefully.

And if they don't, that's okay. Just try a new recipe. Perhaps with a different brand of flour or a little less yeast this time. Sometimes it takes a few tries before a recipe is successful.

Good luck!

Brittiany will answer any questions as soon as possible related to the blog post. You may contact her directly at Brittiany@writtendreams.com with any editorial questions not related to this blog post.



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Making the Formula Work

What I'm reading: Pirate King, by Laurie R. King

Thanks to those who have already signed up for my newsletter, liked and followed the blog, and shared recipes. I'm waiting for pictures. I still have books to give away, including an ARC of ROOTED IN DANGER. And my newsletter survey is still open. Check the sidebar.

My recent reading has made me think about those who discount genre"fiction, or commercial fiction, or anything else not classified as literary fiction as predictable and formulaic.



This may be true in a sense. After all, in a mystery, the detective solves the crime, in a thriller, someone saves the world, and in a romance, the hero and heroine will get together in the end. (And probably have sex on page 191.)



However, it's not the destination but the journey that's important. And a skilled writer can make a reader forget that it's all going to work out in the end. Or at least have them wondering how, or if this might be the one book where things don't work out.



In a short story, the author had my heart pounding as her hero was in danger of drowning. Intellectually, I knew he'd be all right. He was one of the author's recurring characters, after all. So why was I trapped in the read the way the hero was trapped in the ocean?




Maybe it's because I have some deep-rooted fear of being helpless in the water that heightened the tension, but I was reading the story as my "fall asleep" read, and there was no way I was going to get to sleep after reading it. This is what good writing can do. It can make a reader forget the formula, not be sure the predictable outcome will actually happen. And even when the reader is aware of it, while they're reading, they're caught up enough not to care.



Another book I'm reading involves the clash of the Amish and "English" worlds. Given that it's a romance, I know the hero and heroine will get together. But the author does an excellent job of keeping the reader from being sure which way it will go until very near the end of the book. Which will make the drastic lifestyle change a relationship would require? And that's enough to keep the reader turning pages.



How can you avoid having your book appear formulaic? (And I don't like the term. I much prefer reader expectations.)



For me, it's making sure you've created characters your readers care about. The reader has to want the protagonist to save the world, solve the crime, or fall in love for that "happily ever after." After all, we read genre fiction to escape, and knowing that everything will work out in the end makes us look at our own lives through different eyes, if only for a little while. They want to believe there are people like that in the world, and they want to be able to join them solving the crime, saving the world, or falling in love.



It's not where you end up, it's how you get there. 



Tomorrow, my guest is editor Brittiany Koren. She's going to compare writing to baking bread. Be sure to come back.



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Author Newsletter Survey

Thanks to those who have already responded to my 1 question survey about author newsletters. There's still time to chime in.



Click here to take the survey.



 

And I'm giving away an ARC of ROOTED IN DANGER to one subscriber. Details on the Deals & Steals tab.

Friday Field Trip - Tucson

Several years ago, I attended an Adult Literacy conference in Tucson, Arizona. I had time for a little picture taking. I shared some of them in a May, 2010 post, but since nobody else has stepped forward with pictures, there are bound to be some repeats. (Yes, that's a hint...and sharing pictures gets you another entry in my big giveaway)


















































Don't forget -- if you sign up for my newsletter, you can enter a drawing for an ARC of ROOTED IN DANGER. Details in Thursday's post, along with a request to take a simple 1 question survey about newsletters.



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Author Newsletters? Help Wanted

What I'm reading: Mama Does Time, by Deborah Sharp (Nook); V is for Vengeance, by Sue Grafton (print)

A few months ago, I decided to undertake a formal quarterly newsletter rather than random emails. Now, it's time for me to start thinking about what to include, and since you're the folks who read these things (or at least glance at them), I would love your opinion on what you want.



Of course, this assumes you actually subscribe to newsletters. The way my life goes, they're probably out of fashion, but I'm going to hang in there for at least a year.



Here are some things I've noticed from other newsletters.



1. New releases

2. What's in the works, with some behind the scenes peeks at the process

3. Excerpts

4. Photographs

5. Puzzles and/or games

6. Contests

7. Recipes

8. A more "personal" look at the author's non-writing life.



As I read the list, I realize I have a lot of this on my blog, but not everyone who would get my newsletter reads my blog. I really would appreciate your answers. You can either respond in the comments with your choices, or respond via my 1 question survey.



Click here to take survey







And, as a thank-you bonus: If you sign up for my newsletter, you can enter a drawing for an ARC of my next release, ROOTED IN DANGER. The drawing is open to "old" subscribers as well. To enter, whether you're a new or previous subscriber, email me at contest @ terryodell.com (remove spaces) with 'NEWSLETTER CONTEST' in the subject line.



The signup form for my newsletter is on my website home page. Be aware that it's a 2 step process. After you submit your form, you will get a confirmation email, and you have to click through on that one or you're not added to the list. This might seem a hassle, but it prevents spammers from signing people up. (And if you don't get the confirmation, please check your own spam filter—sometimes they end up there.)



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What's Cooking Wednesday - Rugelach

First, I'm a guest blogger over at Crime Scene Collective . I hope you'll pop over and say hello.



For this week's recipe, I thought I'd share one of our family traditional cookie recipies. They're not 'officially' connected to Hanukkah, although we've made them at our house for decades. They're great for assembly line preparation with kids. And enough work so that they're a definite 'occasion' treat. You can also make the dough well ahead of time, which is another plus in my book.



(Sorry I don't have a real photo--I'm not actually making these until next week.)







Rugelach



Pastry:

2 sticks butter

8 oz. cream cheese

½ t salt

2 c flour



Filling:

½ c + 2 T sugar

1 T cinnamon

3 T melted butter (you might need more)

¾ c. dried currants (or raisins, but chop them down to currant size first)

1 ¼ c finely chopped walnuts.

(rumor has it mini chocolate chips are good here, too!)


Instructions



Pastry

In a large bowl of electric mixer, cream butter & cream cheese until

completely blended & smooth. Beat in the salt and gradually add flour on

low speed. Wrap and refrigerate overnight. (I've even frozen the dough for weeks in advance.)



Take a third of the dough and stick the rest back in the fridge.

Place 1 ball of dough on floured surface (I use a Tupperware pastry sheet). Roll into a circle about ⅛ inch thick.



Filling:

Combine everything except the butter.



Assembly:



Brush pastry with melted butter. Sprinkle with filling. Roll filling gently into pastry with rolling pin. Cut into wedges (I can usually get 16 from each circle of dough.)Roll each wedge, jelly roll fashion, rolling from the outside toward the point.



Then place each little roll, with the point down, 1 inch apart on a cookie

sheet. Curve them slightly - they're supposed to be horn or crescent

shaped.



Pastries may be glazed with a mixture of 1 egg yolk and 1 tsp water before

baking. You can also sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, until golden.



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Trains, Planes, and Automobiles: Plays, Screenplays, Novels

Today my guest is author Jacqueline Corcoran. She was born to Irish and Welsh parents in England, but has lived in various parts of the U.S. for most of her life. She is a social worker, psychotherapist and professor with ten textbooks and a self-help book to her name, but her true love is fiction.



What is the difference between writing plays, screenplays, and novels? I have written all three, and, in one instance, I wrote the same story in all three formats, so I have learned some important lessons along the way.



Creating A MONTH OF SUNDAYS was a years-long process. I began writing novels when I was 20 (actually 17, but I didn't finish that first one). But after 10 unpublished novels, I decided to switch modes. Screenplays were a good fit for me because I write dialogue-heavy anyway. I joined screenwriting groups (one in Austin and one in Richmond, Virginia when I moved there) and learned the craft. But in between, when I lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (an unglamorous town in the middle called Euless), a colleague told me about a playwright's group, and I decided to try my hand at plays.

This was a fairly professional group that had a dramaturg and staged readings attached to it. Having a staged reading was a tremendously gratifying experience. I loved hearing my lines re-enacted (and finding out which ones got laughs) and seeing the physical personification of my characters The director was an older, Irish man, who claimed to be classically trained, and he was always screaming at the actors during rehearsals. We were all terrified of him. The person who played the protagonist was older and frumpier than I had envisioned, but I suppose it fit everyone's stereotype of a social worker. The actress mentioned to me that she had a difficult time asking so many questions in dialogue, but when trying to solve a murder, there naturally has to be a lot of questions asked. I loved the person the director chose to play the victim – she had long, red hair and wore a skimpy top under her overalls (yes, overalls were in style then).


What have I learned from writing screenplays (I have about half a dozen in total), plays (I went on to write two more after this), and novels (mainly what I write)? What is different and what is the same?



Basically, a play has to be scaled down to only a few characters. The action should be small (no chase scenes, for instance) and contained to a few defined locations (because of the difficulties of set changes). Dialogue plays a heavy role and character change is often a central focus rather than plot events.

A screenplay is where all the big action can happen; it can scale several locations and have a panorama of characters. If dialogue is the center of a play, action is the center of a screenplay, although you also have to be comfortable with writing dialogue as it is one of the mainstays of the form. A screenplay is the epitome of "show not tell" because you can't write about a character's inner motivations and feelings. A screenplay is almost an outline of a novel as it is short (120 to 200 pages), and, indeed, many screenplays, for this reason, are based on short stories. The formatting, however is very strict (as it is in plays). If you're going to write a screenplay, it is worth investing in scriptwriting software because of the challenges in formatting otherwise.

In novels, everything (characters, plot, dialogue, inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations, description, setting) has to be fleshed out. You have more freedom because the structures of the form aren't as strict, but that means you are also responsible for filling in all the details as well. To sum up it, writing is not easy, no matter the form!



Jacqueline's mystery, A MONTH OF SUNDAYS, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com and Whimsical Publications. Jacqueline's website is http://www.jacquelinecorcoran.com/ where she blogs about book-in-a-month writing challenges.



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Reviewers and Genres

What I'm reading: Angle of Investigation by Michael Connelly (Nook); A Simple Winter, by Rosalind Lauer (bike)

I know some of you read my post last week at Jenny Milchman's blog about writing outside the box, or at least outside some of the genre conventions proscribed by the print publishing industry. If you haven't read it, you might want to pop over, as today's post is related to that one.



I got an email from the publisher of my upcoming Blackthorne, Inc. novel, ROOTED IN DANGER, that my ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) were being shipped. These are the final galleys, printed in trade paperback format. It's the last chance to read the book for any errors, and these are strictly errors of the typographical kind.



But what raised my concerns was the spreadsheet she sent of the reviewers that the publisher has sent ARCs to. (Or, to whom/which the publisher has sent ARCs if you're not into ending a sentence with a preposition.)






A little history: Last year, Five Star discontinued its Expressions line, which published romance. My first two Blackthorne, Inc. books were under that imprint. However, they said they would also look at romantic suspense under their mystery line, so I sent them ROOTED IN DANGER, which they bought.



Their target market is libraries, and as such, reviews are the biggest selling point for library acquisitions. Without a review by one of the major review publications (Library Journal, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, or Booklist, many (I might say most) libraries won't buy the book.





Now, although the publisher is sending ARCs of ROOTED IN DANGER to these publications, they're now sending them to the Mystery reviewers, not the romance reviewers. Also, the reviewers are by no means obligated to read, much less review, the books they receive. Most will go by the blurb to see if it catches their interest.



ROOTED IN DANGER is clearly a romance much more than a mystery. The quality of the writing (at least I hope) is as good or better than the first two Blackthorne, Inc. books. That's part of growing as an author. But will the reviews reflect this? Will the be fair in that the reviewers are going to be looking at the book with their mystery filter in place. Even though readers may love the book, if it's not in front of the right people, it's not going to matter.



Should the publisher have sent this book to the same reviewers she sent the other one? I don't know. But it's another example of how a label influences opinion. If I'm reading a romance, I want a romance. If I'm reading a mystery, I want a mystery. If I'm reading romantic suspense, I expect both…but if my job was to review mysteries and someone sent me a romantic suspense, I'm not sure whether I'd pick that book out of a stack of "pure" mysteries.



Just as readers have expectations, so do reviewers.



I questioned the publisher. We'll see how they respond. It does neither of us any good if the book isn't read and reviewed by the people who have the influence to get it out on the shelves.



Tomorrow, my guest is Jacqueline Corcoran, who's going to explore the differences between screenplays, plays, and novels. Don't miss it.

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Weekend Update

(If you were curious about the birds in yesterday's post, Hubster has identified them in the comments there.)





My Giveaway Contest is still going on. I have too many books on my shelves. Some brand new, some gently read. Some autographed.



Five ways to enter, five chance to win.



1. Follow this blog on Google (I know they're going to be changing it, but I think it'll still work for Blogger sites. Either way, I'd love to see the numbers climb, even if they're going to disappear)



2. "Like" this blog: click the icon in the sidebar.



3. Send photos for my Friday Field Trips



4. Send a recipe for "What's Cooking Wednesday"



5. Sign up for my newsletter. Form is on my website.



How to enter: Click the Deals & Steals tab above for instructions.







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