Diane Chamberlain's Blog, page 39

One Paragraph, Three Drafts

I write many, many drafts as I work on a book. Recently, someone on Facebook asked writers to share different drafts of a single paragraph. I thought this would be an interesting exercise for me to share with you, my blog readers. I want to give credit to the Facebooker who suggested this, but I don't recall who it was, so I hope that person will read this post and step forward. Until then, here are three drafts of the same paragraph of my work-in-progress, currently titled The Lies We Told. We are in Maya's point of view here. I hope that seeing the first draft will encourage those of you who think you have to write something perfectly the first time!

Early Draft:

A guy walked into the restaurant. She noticed him the second he walked in. there was something about him. the way he scanned the restaurant. unsmiling. a flare to his nostrils that reminded her of ___. His eyes came to rest on the two men at the table next to her and Adam's he walked toward the table with a deliberate stride, and she watched him pull a gun from his jacket pocket and before she could scream or duck or even widen her eyes, he'd shot the man at the table in the head. Everyone screamed then. She had a lot of company.

--------------

Middle Draft:

Adam said something to Brent and Rebecca, but I didn't hear him. My gaze was on a man who had just walked into the restaurant. He was dark-haired, wearing a white t-shirt and beige pants and he stood in front of the door, looking from table to table. There was something about him that sent a shiver through me.

He started walking toward us--or at least, I thought he was heading toward us. Then I saw that his gaze--his ice-blue eyes--was on the two men at the table adjacent to ours. Adam said something that must have been funny, because Brent and Rebecca both laughed, but I'd set down my fork and was beginning to tremble, my heart thudding beneath my breastbone.

I knew how quickly these things could happen. He reached behind his back, then whipped his arm out straight, the gun a gray blur, and I saw the small symbol tattooed on his finger as as he pressed the trigger.

--------------

Final Draft:

Adam said something in response, but I didn't hear him. I was watching a man who had just walked into the restaurant. He was Caucasian, dark-haired, wearing a white t-shirt and beige pants, and he stood in front of the door, shifting his gaze quickly from table to table. Something about him sent a shiver through me.

He started walking toward us--or at least, I thought he was heading toward our table. His stride was deliberate, his nostrils flared. Then I saw that his eyes--his ice-blue eyes--were locked on the two men at the table in front of ours. Adam said something that must have been funny, because Brent and Rebecca both laughed, but I'd set down my spoon and was gripping the corner of the table, my heart thudding beneath my breastbone.

I knew better than anyone how quickly these things could happen. He reached behind his back with his right hand, then whipped his arm out straight, the gun a gray blur as it cut through the air, and I saw the tattoo of a black star on his index finger as he pressed the trigger.

--------------

Even as I look at the final draft of this paragraph, I see things I want to change. Imagine 400 pages of this! No wonder I'm so tired. My deadline is next week, so soon I'll have to stop tinkering and send the finished product to my editor. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my world.

Sneak Peek at Breaking the Silence Cover

Breaking the Silence will be reissued in December, and I thought you might like a sneak peek at the cover my publisher is working on for it. There's a lot going on in this story, as there usually is in my books: a mute little girl, an old woman with memory loss, a man and his hot air balloon, the CIA mind control experiments that took place in the fifties, and the woman who ties them all together! What more could you want?

Please visit my blog to see the new cover!
http://dianechamberlain.com/blog/2009...

Naming Characters and Coffee Shops

Someone on Facebook recently asked me when I planned to auction off another character name, which made me realize that I forgot to auction one off for my work-in-progress, The Lies We Told. Life got a little crazy during this book! It's too late now, unfortunately, but I will definitely remember for the next book. Meanwhile, I thought I'd tell you about some of the names I've had the challenge of using in the past.

First, an explanation. When I auction off a character name, that means I will use the winner's name--but not his or her personality or likeness--in the novel on which I'm currently working. The winner must agree to have his or her name used for a secondary character, for good or evil. The purpose of the auction is to have fun and to make money for a charitable organization.

The first time I auctioned a name was for my church in Virginia. I had in mind, as I usually do, both a male or female character that I could name after the winner. However, I didn't count on the winner being Moto Sato. I mean, what were the odds? The book I was working on at the time was Kiss River, and I had to somehow fit a Japanese man into the Outer Banks of North Carolina during the second World War. Okay, I could have used the name for one of the modern day characters, but I like a good challenge. As I began thinking about it, I came up with a perfect subplot involving Mr Sato. Writing is often that way. What seems like a dilemma turns into an opportunity, just as in life.

The second auction, also for my church, was won by a gentleman with the perfectly sane name Jim Price. I've always been grateful to Mr Price for this! He became a lovely character in Her Mother's Shadow.

Next came The Bay at Midnight. I knew which character I needed a name for. He was a thug. A real brute. And who won? Bruno Walker. The name was too perfect. How could I name a brute Bruno without the reader groaning? But I did, and it worked out well.

Unless I'm forgetting, which is very possible, I don't think I auctioned a character name for The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. I was writing that book the year I moved from Virginia to North Carolina, so a) I was moving away from my church community and its auctions and b) I was frazzled.

When I became involved with the North Carolina Writers' Network, though, I raffled off a name at their conference. I was writing Before the Storm at the time, and I had a fairly good idea what character I needed a name for. I'd forgotten my usual luck at this auctioning-off-names thing, though. The person who won? Jabeen Akhtar. Sigh. I played around with the name for weeks, trying to figure out where she would fit into the story without simply taking over the book. Such a great name! I had a coffee shop in the book, and it came to me one sleepless night: Jabeen's Java Bean. Jabeen's is practically a character in the book, and since the coffee shop is also in the sequel, my current release Secrets She Left Behind, I think I've done my duty by Jabeen.

So I will do this again with my next book (which I'll be starting in September! No rest for the weary). I'm not sure yet, but I may use the Internet to help me auction off the name this time. That way, I can increase my chances of getting a name that keeps me awake at night as I try to figure out how to use it.

What are You So Afraid Of?

In the past twenty plus years of writing fiction, I've had plenty of time to ponder why I write about particular topics and revisit particular themes. I grew up a fearful person, something I'll post about at greater length one of these days. I think I've conquered most of my fears (with the exception of wide open spaces--shudder), but I find that I continually write about characters who struggle with their fears and who, by the book's end, have finally managed to lay them to rest.

That's certainly the case with my work-in-progress, The Lies We Told, in which Maya, a doctor, has been afraid for her physical well being ever since witnessing the murder of her parents when she was fourteen. It's also the case with Keith in my current novel, Secrets She Left Behind. Keith has always had a fear of heights, but ever since he was burned in a fire, he's feared fire as well. Of course, I put him to the test on both fronts during the course of the story.

Back in my days as a therapist, I was trained to view fear as a primary emotion, with other negative emotions being secondary to that fear. Anger is a perfect example. Think of the last time you were angry and dig deep into that emotion to learn what was really going on inside you. I bet you'll discover that fear was the underlying emotion. A good example is the woman who loses sight of her child in a grocery store. When she finds that child, she shakes him and yells, "Don't you ever do that again!" She looks angry, but she's actually terrified. Fear operates under many guises.

I think authors tend to write about the things they need to gain control over, whether that's loss, anger, betrayal, inadequacy, or simply a tendency to have one unsatisfying relationship after another (all of which, in my opinion, can be tied back to fear). In our stories, we strive to have our characters overcome the things we struggle with ourselves. I love that vicarious thrill of having my characters triumph over their demons.

If you were a writer, what demons would you be trying to lay to rest?

Secrets She Left Behind

Diane McCrone (aka Little Zan)

I've wanted to write this post for a long time. Some of you might find it macabre and weird. Others will totally understand. Either reaction is just fine.

I'm one of those people who hates to lose touch with old friends. I Google people I cared about from my past. I 'friend' people I went to kindergarten with on Facebook. I don't live in the past, but I do hold on tight to treasured memories.

There is a significant person from my past who cannot be found via Google or on Facebook, because she died when she was 29, before most of us had even heard of the Internet. She was, for many years, my best friend, and I'm writing this post because I want her to be "findable".

I met Diane in our 7th grade French class, and already she was more intriguing than anyone I knew. Our French teacher's pronunciation of "Diane" sounded something like "Zan" to us, and we began calling each other by that name. Since I was taller, I was Big Zan and she became Little Zan.

Zan didn't have an easy life. Her parents were divorced and she lived with her grandmother and aunt in a neighborhood that was not the best. She was extremely smart, loyal and very loving. She was also a little wild and irresponsible, skipping school, sneaking the occasional beer, and smoking more than the occasional cigarette. My parents, while they fell in love with her as most people did, were afraid some of her worst traits would rub off on me. I was praying they would, because while I tried hard to be cool, she was cool without trying.

I lost her a long time ago, but I doubt there is a day that goes by that I don't think of her. During the past few days, I've thought of her a good deal, and here's why: my office is a wreck as I near deadline. It's piled with papers and research books everywhere. It's hot and there's a hint of panic in the air. It reminds me so much of the last week of our senior year of high school. Zan and I had plans to spend the summer together at the Jersey Shore, working as waitresses on the boardwalk, renting a hovel, and living for two whole months without parental supervision. (I still can't believe my parents agreed to this!). At the eleventh hour, though, we learned that Zan wasn't going to graduate because she hadn't bothered to write five or six essay papers and needed to attend summer school. Our plans for a summer of freedom were doomed. So, we came up with a different plan: Zan moved into my house for that last week of school (thanks to my amazing parents, again), and together we wrote her papers (and the one I had left to write). My room was piled high with papers, research books and the air had more than a hint of panic. We took turns at the old Smith Corona (dating myself here!), typing until our fingertips were raw, and we pulled it off. She graduated, and we spent the summer doing truly decadent things down the shore and becoming even closer friends.

We spent our first two years of college together at Glassboro State in New Jersey, each of us dropping out after our sophomore year and moving to different parts of the country. We stayed in touch, though not as often as I wish we had. A few days before she died, we had a four hour phone conversation and I have always been glad for that extra time with her. She was about to finish her degree in Geography from the University of South Florida, and she sounded happier than I'd ever heard her. A few days later, she was murdered by an intruder. It's still unbearable to think about.

I love this picture of her, taken by our Glassboro State suitemate, Jody Pfeiffer. It's a sad picture, but it captures what I loved best about Zan: her sensitivity, her pensive nature and her beautiful eyes.

So now Diane Mary McCrone is "findable" on the Internet. That may not mean anything to anyone else, but it means something to me. Thank you for letting me share her with you.

The Backtrack List

Since my novels usually involve twists and turns, readers often ask me if I think all those plot points in advance. The answer is: I wish. What usually happens is that, despite my carefully plotted outlines, new ideas come to me once I really get into the writing. Sometimes it feels as though the characters are shaking the boat. Sometimes it's Diane, the writer, doing the shaking. The outcome is the same: I get to chapter five or twenty-seven or forty-two and something happens in the story that I wasn't expecting. That twist to the story, more often than not, requires me to make changes to previous chapters. Thus, the creation of my backtrack list.

With every draft of the book (I usually write between four and six drafts), I maintain such a list. It will have many small things on it. For example, the list to the left, which I'm now maintaining as I write a late draft of my work-in-progress, has a few items such as "plant chicken" and "Becca." I decided late in the game to give some of my characters a chicken coop, which means I need to go back and show the chickens from time to time. And Becca? My character, Maya, started calling her sister, Rebecca, "Becca" around chapter twenty of this draft (don't ask me why! I'm only the author), and I liked it, so I will have to go back and make sure Maya calls her Becca in the chapters I've already written. There are many other, larger, examples on this list that I won't share with you, because they'll give away too much of the story.

I love my backtrack list. It helps me keep order in an otherwise disorderly process. It allows me to move forward, knowing I can give my characters and myself free reign, because I can always amend what I've already set in place. Think about that when you encounter twists and turns in the next novel you read. You can bet the author had his or her own version of a backtrack list.

Lady Alice is Quite a Lady Alice

When I work on a manuscript, I take shortcuts. For example, one of my characters in my work-in-progress is named Rebecca, so I have my Word software set so that when I type "reb", it actually types Rebecca. The same with my character Dorothea. I type "doro" and Word types Dorothea.

(On a side note: my ex-husband once set up his poor secretary, Joan's, Word program so that every time she typed the word "the", it would show up as "Ouch, Joanie! Not so hard!")

Anyhow, I have a character in my current work-in-progress whom I love. She's this tiny African American woman named Lady Alice. I have my Word software set up so that every time I type the word "lady" it types "Lady Alice." This is causing me problems. I never realized how often I type the word "lady" in other documents and email. "The lady at the drugstore" becomes "The Lady Alice at the drugstore." "First Lady Michelle Obama" becomes "FIrst Lady Alice Michelle Obama." You get the idea.

Needless to say, I'm proofreading everything!

Revising Fiction and the Challenge of Alternating Points of View

How would you like to face this mess every day?

I'm in the revision process (on a page like this, the "rewriting process" is a more accurate term.) Every day, I go through a few chapters and scribble all over them, as you can see here. Then I start typing the changes into the document. It's arduous, though as usual, I must add it's not as arduous as fighting fires or teaching junior high. Still, with deadline looming (and a few other stressors in my life, which I won't go into here. . . Good stressors, for the most part), a page like this one really gives me the willies.

Here's a tidbit about this book and how I'm writing it: It has two points of view--sisters Maya and Rebecca, who are both doctors. I'm alternating Maya's first person POV with Rebecca's third person POV, but that confusion I'll save for another post. What I'd like to discuss here is the fact that their stories are wildly different from one another. Therein lies the challenge. Rebecca is working with hurricane evacuees in the closed environment of an airport. Maya is trapped in the backwoods with strangers. I found it impossible to work on their stories simultaneously--that is, shifting back and forth from a Maya chapter to a Rebecca chapter, etc. So, as I've done with other books that have a similar structure, I wrote all Maya's chapters first. Then, all of Rebecca's. Once I completed the rough draft of their chapters, I worked out the timeline to make sure what was happening to Maya matched the date of what was happening to Rebecca in the next chapter. (Ha! Easier said than done). Now as I revise, I'm doing the same thing all over again. I've revised all of Maya's chapters and am now working on Rebecca's. Then I'll once again be sure they flow well together. I will probably have to turn the book in at that point, although I know it will need more polishing, but it will be time to see what revisions my editor wants. After that, I can make it pretty. Right now, it's kinda ugly. But I love the story. Love it! I usually hate what I'm writing around this time in the process, so I'm not sure if loving it is a good sign or not. We'll see!

I just noticed it's already 7PM, so I'm going to grab a slice of pizza, take one of Rebecca's chapters out to the porch, and make a mess of it as I did with Maya's above. Wish me luck!

P.S. Remember, your comments on any of my blog posts give you a chance to win the cute tote bag in my current contest!

Vacations, Beach Books, and a Summertime Contest

I love having a new book out in time for summer! My readers and friends have been sending me pictures of themselves reading my books on the beach, and nothing could make me happier. I write for many reasons (I don't think I could stop, for one), but my primary reason is to entertain, so I love knowing that I'm part of my readers' down time.

Yesterday, I signed books for three hours at Quarter Moon Books on Topsail Island, the setting for Before the Storm and Secrets She Left Behind. Here I am with Quarter Moon Books owner Lori Fisher, who did a fantastic job of getting many of my titles for her customers. I met wonderful, new-to-me readers as well as people who've been reading me for years (including a gentleman who's read all my books. A guy! Gotta love him). They all had one thing in common: they were on vacation! They swept into the store on the delicious scent of sunscreen, wearing sandals and rosy tans. It made me realize how long it's been since I had a beach vacation. Oh, I go to the beach often to write, but to relax? I think it's been at least twenty years, since that's how long I've been published. It's both the writer's joy and curse to be able to carry her work with her everywhere she goes in her imagination.

So, how about you? I hope all of you are getting some time to relax this summer. Where are you going? What do you plan to do? Do you find it hard to relax? And most importantly, will you be reading?

Speaking of relaxing, I have a new contest on my website to help you enjoy your leisure time. Pop over and see what you can win!

One of My Favorite Authors, Emilie Richards

I miss Emilie! When I lived in Virginia, we got together regularly to talk and laugh, eat wonderful food (which Emilie usually made; she's an amazing cook), and most importantly, brainstorm our works-in-progress. We knew each other's books almost as well as we did our own. I left Virginia for North Carolina four years ago, and although Emilie and I are no longer able to break bread together on a regular basis, we stay in close touch via email and, of course, we read each other's books. People often ask me something like "Help! I've read all your books! What author should I read while waiting for your next book to come out?" Invariably, I suggest Emilie, and not just because she's my bud. You'll see from my interview questions and her answers just how similar we are, both as writers and as women.

Like me, Emilie has an active blog. She's inventive at coming up with contests and here's something you're going to love: Mira Books, the publisher we both write for, is offering a coupon for $1.50 off Emilie's new release, Happiness Key. In addition, you have a chance to win a copy of Sister's Choice, Emilie's 2008 release, simply by commenting on this post. I'll pick one of your comments at random on July 5th. In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy getting to know Emilie!

1. I believe that our books are similar in many ways and that readers who love my books will also love yours. I know I can't wait to get my hands on your new novel, Happiness Key. Can you tell my readers a bit about it?



I've always wanted to write a friendship novel. Characters in other books I've written have had important friends, of course, but I'd never written a novel that focuses on the way women find and support each other, sometimes under the unlikeliest conditions. Happiness Key is the story of four very different women thrown together in the same shabby beachfront community, then thrown even closer together to solve the mystery of an old man who died in the fifth house in their tiny "development." Each of them is confronting something momentous in her personal life and convinced that she is alone with her problem. Those bleakest of moments, of course, are where friendship comes in, both in novels and in real life.



2. What would you say is the central theme in Happiness Key? Do most of your books share the same thematic elements?


Happiness Key is about preconceptions and the way we let them guide us when they shouldn't. The women of Happiness Key--which is the name of the development--are determined not to like each other, and there are other people in their lives that they've discounted or even accepted without question when they shouldn't have. Although this isn't a new theme--Iron Lace, one of my first single titles, explored prejudice over a century in New Orleans--I'd say the major theme of most of my novels is family secrets and the way they infect and affect us until we acknowledge and deal with them. Of course Happiness Key has a strong thread of this, as well.


3. The role of friendship between women plays an important part of the story in Happiness Key, and I feel very fortunate to count you among my friends. Can you talk about the importance of friendship in your own life and how it influences your writing?


I feel fortunate to count you among my friends, as well, and fortunate, too, to have other writers who are important to me. Sharing hopes and defeats with someone who really understands is a huge gift. But it's also been extremely valuable in another way. Most of the friends I make in my church or neighborhood have similar attitudes and beliefs about the things that are important to me. But my writer friends are all over the map on those issues, and that's been eye-opening and broadening. Like the characters in my story, it's helped me learn what to really value and what to discount.

4. What were the special challenges in writing about four women who are so different from one another? Do you relate to one of these women more than the others? Did you find it difficult to write from the point of view of the Indian character, Janya, since she comes from a culture so unlike your own?

Having very different characters and points of view is challenging, but it's never boring. I decided early in the book to give three of the major characters a point of view. For a variety of reasons Alice, the fourth, is seen through the eyes of the others. Although Janya is from India, I found I empathized with her struggles the most, so found her easiest to write. My daughter is Indian and because of that, we've always had more than a casual interest in her country of birth. That said, writing about a different culture is always a challenge. At some point you have to let go of your fears and remember you're writing about one person, not an entire country, race or religion.

Although I expected Wanda, whose opinions are the most different from my own, to be the hardest, she was such a hoot I looked forward to her scenes the most. Tracy, whose pampered life was probably the most foreign to me, turned out to be the most complex and in some ways the most interesting. We were a match made in heaven. She needed to grow and I was more than happy to help her.

For fun I put together a Facebook quiz that anybody can take to find out which character in Happiness Key they are most like. I've taken it twice with two different answers, (Janya and Alice) which just goes to show that there's always a little of the author in every character she writes.


5. Was it difficult to tear yourself away from Virginia to Florida in creating a setting for Happiness Key? What research, other than setting, did you need to do while writing this new book?


I don't feel the Shenandoah Album series is complete, so it was tough at first to move to Florida--where I actually grew up. But once I "moved" there, I had a ball. There was indeed--as you know from your books--a ton of research, from detailing Florida laws on everything from conservation to driver's licenses, research on India, Hinduism, arranged marriages, strokes, the Miami-Dade police force, shuffleboard and many etcs. Luckily research is a little like solving a mystery and fun because of it.


6. You've written five books in the extremely popular Shenandoah Album series, inspired by your love of quilting. Are you starting a new series of linked books with Happiness Key? If there are readers who wish you would continue the Shenandoah Album series, can you reassure them that they'll find happiness in Happiness Key?


I hope to write a sixth book in the Shenandoah Album series someday, but that will depend on my publisher, who is very committed right now to Happiness Key and to Fortunate Harbor, the sequel, which I'm working on now. In the meantime, though, I truly believe my Shenandoah Album readers will enjoy this new series, too, just the way I enjoyed writing it. In the end, it's an Emilie Richards novel, and if they like my writing, they'll like these novels.


7. You are incredibly prolific! Somehow, you manage to find time to write an entirely different series of books--mysteries--while working on your women's fiction. Can you tell my readers a little about your Ministry is Murder mysteries, the most recent of which is A Lie for a Lie? Do you need to wear a different hat depending on the type of book you're writing?


Writing the Ministry is Murder mysteries came down to giving into the voices in my head. Aggie Sloan-Wilcox, an unconventional minister's wife in a small Ohio town, just appeared one day and would not shut up. After several years of trying to tune her out, I finally gave in. Aggie is an unwilling sleuth, but she just can't stay out of trouble--thank goodness. I don't find writing two books a year easy, but I love the variety, love the traditional mystery, and love Aggie and her world. Sinking back into life in Emerald Springs each time is like hanging out with old friends. And though Aggie's novels are a bit lighter and funnier than my women's fiction, the change is such a delight, that it's a plus, not a minus to write them.

8. I know that your marriage to a minister certainly influences your mystery series, but I wonder if it's had an impact on your other fiction as well?


I wonder, too. Our church is very accepting of diversity with very few lines drawn in the sand, so exploring values and not preaching specifics seems natural and right to me. My work is not "inspirational" in the sense that the word is sometimes used in conjunction with novels, but I think it's inspirational in a broader sense. You can't live with a minister all these years, not be an integral part of churches and the lives of parishioners, and not think about life's biggest issues and passages.


9. You've written more than sixty novels, an accomplishment I can't even imagine. How do you think your writing has changed over the course of your career?

In the past decade I've been given freer rein to explore the subjects and themes that matter most to me, but even when I go back and read my older novels, so much is still the same. The way I express myself, the issues I tackle. Starting with say the sixth romance I wrote, I'm always pleasantly surprised that my name is on the cover. One thing's for sure, it hasn't gotten any easier.

10. There are some exciting things happening for you right now. Your Shenandoah Album series has been released on audio this year, and a couple of your older books have been made into films in Germany. What is it like to see your books receive new life in this way?

It's interesting. I've learned to enjoy the process, and keep my expectations in check. I've yet to see the movies, but I'm glad so many people in Germany enjoyed them. I'm thrilled to have my novels in audio because so many people have requested them over the years. Personally I'm a huge fan of audiobooks and listen to them when I walk, drive and quilt.


11. What can we expect next from you? Do you have something in the works right now?

I'm working hard on Fortunate Harbor, then I'll start A Truth for a Truth, my next mystery. In between I'll be taking some time off to read, think and relax. That's part of the writing process, too.

12. I know that, like me, you enjoy speaking to book clubs. Can you tell my readers how they can arrange to have you visit them, either in person or by speakerphone?

There's a sign-up page on my website or they can email me to make the arrangements. I look forward to these sessions.

Thanks, Diane, for the chance to tell you and your faithful followers about Happiness Key. You know how much I love your blog, and now I can say I've loved being here.