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I’m taking part in the Mistletoe Madness Blog hop. The hop is a huge one, involving oodles of authors, and goes from 16 – 23 Dec. Plenty of time for you to explore new-to-you author websites.
What am I giving away? How do you enter?
I’m going to pick four names from all the people who answer my question below. International entries are welcome. The books I’ll be giving away are:
1 x Lessons in Seduction by Sandra Hyatt (This is my friend Sandra’s last book. Sadly, she passed away earlier in the year.)
1 x Reclaiming His Pregnant Widow by Tessa Radley (Another NZ writer friend. These ones are autographed)
1 x Summer in the City of Sails by Shelley Munro
1 x Sex Idol by Shelley Munro
A few months ago I wrote this post on heroines for Savvy Authors. I’m going to reprint it below, but as a quick aside, if you’re a writer, either pre-published or a more experienced one, do go and check out Savvy Authors. You can join for free or if you’d like to take advantage of more of their resources go for the premium membership of $30. They run workshops, have chats and agent/editor pitches and are an excellent community. I highly recommend them for writers at all stages of their career. Right! Back to business. Heroines. One of my heroines wrote me a letter, and this is what she said…
Dear Author,
I realize your job isn’t the easiest one. You sit in front of a computer hour after hour, day after day creating me, along with my hero and the cast of characters who populate your stories. You spin a plot as you write the first draft, then you spend even longer polishing the story until it’s ready for submission to publishers. Without you, I wouldn’t exist.
Mostly, you do a great job, but I’d like to remind you of a few things pertaining to writing a good heroine:
1. I know popular opinion says heroines are slender and pretty, but how about making me stand out from the crowd? Make me sexy–sure. I like sexy as much as the next girl, but I can be sexy and an average size. Give me a few curves. Don’t you know I enjoy food? Oh, and if you give me curves, don’t go on and on about my size. I’m happy this way, really I am.
2. Don’t make me go down to the basement when there is a killer on the loose. Credit me with a little common sense and help me do something intelligent. I don’t want readers to snigger at me and call me Too Stupid To Live. I deserve more than that, don’t you think?
3. Don’t foist a stereotype on me. I’m not a hooker with a big heart. I’m not an ice princess. I’m not a geeky librarian. I’m a combination of a lot of different things. Give me individuality.
4. I like alpha men–really, I do, but give me a spine so I can stand up to them. Readers don’t like wimps who can’t handle their man. Let me best him now and then. It’s good for his ego if he doesn’t get his own way all the time.
5. I’m not perfect. I know that, but do you realize it too? Give me some flaws and balance them with some of the good stuff. Make me human because readers will like me better that way.
6. Give me a snarky voice. I’m cool with that, but don’t make me snark all the way through the book. Readers won’t like me if I do that. They might call me a bitch, you know, and wonder what the hero sees in me.
7. Likewise, if my hero is going to be a bastard, let him fall off his high horse at some stage. Make him see the error of his ways or at least let me use my knee in his private parts. It might hurt him, but it would make me feel better after all the verbal abuse.
8. If you want me to behave badly, give me proper motivation. Dig into my past history, exploit my emotional baggage and make the readers want to cheer for me. Believe me, I’ll forgive you if I end up with Mr. Spunky plus a diamond ring on my finger.
9. Match my personality with my actions. Make me act consistently…unless you have a damn good reason to make me look stupid.
10. And finally, if you’re into kink and want to paint me the same way—authors look away if you’re easily offended—if you’re gonna make me have anal sex, please, please, please give me lots of lube.
Yours faithfully,
A Heroine.
Now dear visitor, you’re welcome to add your fifty cents to the above letter, but what I’d really like to know is this…
If a hero wrote a letter to you what would he say? Finish this sentence and go into a draw to win one of the above books. Dear Author, you do a good job with me but remember that a hero…….
With summer almost here in New Zealand hubby decided it was time to get Bella’s swimming pool out for those warmer days when she needs a swim to cool down. She had a ball tonight chasing the bubbles while he was filling it with the hose. I was cooking dinner and turned around to find puppy Bella sitting on the mat outside the kitchen, water dripping off her onto the carpet. Cue one screechy cook! I shouted and waggled my finger. Hubby has also put new sand in Bella’s sandpit so that should keep her busy and out of mischief for a few days.
This year I’ve been in a bit of a writing funk. It’s true that my jaunts overseas didn’t help much, interupting my flow. This week it finally feels as if I’m back in my groove. I’m working on something new and added 2100 words today.
I have a release date for Christmas is Coming. Look for my new contemporary on 9 December from Ellora’s Cave.
Last week on the Marketing for Romance Writers Yahoo list we had a special guest telling us about author signatures and critiquing the signatures of a few brave volunteers. I volunteered my signature. This is the one I’ve been using recently:
Some writers include details of their recent releases, their blog, Twitter and Facebook links in their signatures. My personal preference is to keep things brief. There’s nothing worse than scrolling through heaps of signature when I’m trying to read my email. I’d be interested to hear how you do your email signatures and what your preferences are – long or short?
One good suggestion was to use WiseStamp to do email signatures. I thought this looked promising, and I intend to explore it more this weekend. It’s on my to-do list!
How is your writing going? What is your preference for email signatures? Do you change your email signatures on a regular basis?
I’ve been working on polishing a manuscript for the last two weeks. While my favorite part of writing is working on the first draft, I’ve come to enjoy the editing/polishing stage too. There’s the fine-tuning, the cutting and rewriting, and the smoothing of rough spots. It’s very rewarding.
Here are six things I checked with my current manuscript:
1. Timeline. I did a timeline and added a few days here and there to make sure my plot works properly. It’s very easy to make it appear as if a plot occurs during a compressed time period. Make sure your plot works with the time you’ve allocated your characters.
2. Overused words. During the draft stage I just write without much censoring. I tend to overuse words such as so, that, just, all to mention a few. Different manuscripts have different overused words, which means I need to keep on my toes!
3. Plot strands all tied up. In this particular story, I’d left a couple of subplots dangling, and I fixed them so my readers weren’t left dangling.
4. Check for echoes i.e. the same word used several times on the same page or in the same paragraph and also for overused body language. In my first draft my characters laugh, smile and grin a lot. It’s something I always need to work on during my edit/polish stage.
5. The opening chapter – I check I’ve opened my story in the right place and that I haven’t used too much back story at the beginning. If the story makes sense without a snippet of back story, then I hit delete.
6. Exposition – I trim the narrative and look for places where I can add dialogue instead. This helps quicken the pace.
The last thing I do before I hit send on any manuscript is a spell check. I’ll check on my spelling throughout the polishing process, but I always do a final spell check.
What do you check during a final edit/polish of a manuscript?
Recently someone told me the hero in my story wasn’t heroic and didn’t behave like a hero. He was unsympathetic. Instead of panicking or becoming defensive, I took another look at my hero and, to my horror, found the criticism was justified. While I still liked my character, I definitely needed to do something to make him more likeable to readers.
Most of us want to read about characters that have the qualities we see in our friends and family—the same qualities we like to think we possess. We want to connect with characters and be able to relate to them.
So how do we do this?
In his book, Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass says we should start showing the reader that our character has heroic qualities right from the first page of our book. Even if our character is an average person, in an ordinary job, we need to demonstrate a special quality in them. At the start of a book, it will most likely be something small. They might help an elderly woman cross the road or rescue the next-door neighbor’s cat from a tree, but it will make us, the reader, sit up and pay attention. This is a character we would like as a friend, and we want to follow them through the course of the book, during the ups and downs, to the happy ending.
In my case, I looked at my character’s interactions with other characters. My hero snapped and snarled quite a bit, so I softened his language and the way he interacted with the other characters. I added some extra scenes, which I hope show my hero in a favorable light. I also looked at the inner conflict and checked I’d done everything I needed to in this area.
Fixing unsympathetic characters isn’t easy, and I hope I’ve managed to get the job done. I’m awaiting the verdict at present.
Do you have any hints for changing unsympathetic characters to ones that readers will love? And do you agree with Donald Maass—that we should see the hero/heroine doing something heroic almost as soon as we meet them in the story?
Writer’s block happens when a writer can’t write. The ideas won’t come and nothing seems to work when the writer tries to get rid of the block. They just can’t seem to write. Writer’s block can go on for days, months or years.
Procrastination is where the writer puts off writing and does everything in their power to escape adding words to their story. Even the housework looks attractive compared to the idea of sitting their butt on a chair and putting hand to keyboard. The reasons can be many and varied, but the end result is the same—the writing doesn’t happen.
Personally, I don’t believe in writer’s block. I might come to a stop in my writing and not be sure what to write next, but that’s because I’m a pantser. Usually all this means is I need to deepen my character conflict, or I need to go for a walk and think about my plot.
I think it’s important to look at the reasons behind the lack of writing. Is it because you’re physically or mentally tired and need to take a break? Have you made a wrong turn in your writing and your instincts are shouting at you to take another direction, but you’re ignoring them? Be honest with yourself about the lack of writing progress because only then will you be able to move forward.
Procrastination, now that’s another story. Today I needed to work on some edits. I’m dragging my feet a little on these edits. Every half an hour or so, I checked my email. I decided I needed a cup of tea, and the puppy needed a cuddle. Oh, and then it was time for lunch. And so my day continued.
It’s obvious I needed some strategies to get writing again. Here are some you can use.
1. Do timed writing sessions.
Set your oven timer or egg timer for half an hour. Sit down and write until the timer goes off. Repeat throughout the day until your target number of words is completed.
2. Do timed writing sessions with other writers.
Call a friend and do a time writing session at the same time as them. If you belong to a group like Savvy Authors or Romance Divas pop into their chat rooms and do some sprint writing with other writers.
3. Give yourself a deadline/target.
Then sit down and write. Kick your deadline’s butt. I try to write 2000 words most days. If I’m having a tough time keeping my butt in my seat, I’ll break down my target words into 500 word blocks.
4. Earn a treat.
Make a deal with yourself. If you sit down and write the required number of words within a specified time, you’ll receive a treat. The treat can be something like watching a movie or taking time out to read a book.
5. Try working on a new scene that comes later in the book.
Sometimes we need a change of pace to get the words flowing.
6. Just do it.
Sometimes, we need to grit it out and force ourselves to write. The output mightn’t be the greatest, but remember that at least we’re putting words to paper. We can always fix them later during the polishing stage.
Do you believe in writer’s block? Are you guilty of procrastinating when it comes to your writing? How do you get past the procrastination to actually write?
Kat Duncan is my special guest today. Kat likes to write and teach. She also likes to write about teaching and teach about writing. Today she’s giving us a few hints about finding foster homes for orphan sentences.
Have you ever tried the writing technique called layering? It works like this: you draft out your basic scene with “he said” and “she said” or “he did” then “she did”. After you’ve got that bare bones framework you go back and add details such as where they are, what they look like, the weather, the room they are in, how they feel, etc.
The trouble with this technique is that it often results in disjointed scenes. Just when the dialogue gets going, the author throws in a scenery detail or stops to have the character focus on something other than the person she’s talking to. The worst blooper of this kind happens when one character asks a question and the other character goes off into a paragraph of thinking before answering.
So what’s the solution? You don’t want to skimp on these important details, so you really need to keep them. But you have to give these poor orphans a home. Make them feel part of the family. You will want to learn how to blend dialogue, action and scenery for best effect. One easy way to do this is to give your character a reason for observing the scenery, or for moving about in the scene. Linking the scene to the character’s emotions is the most direct way of doing this.
Let’s take an example and see the progression. Here’s a snippet of conversation:
“Say what you mean, Anna.”
“Okay, I will. You can’t just barge back into my life after so long and expect to pick up where you left off.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“It’s not about how long. It’s about assuming that you leaving had no effect on me.”
“So, you missed me?”
“I missed you, yes. And then I got over you.”
Now that I’ve got the basic dialogue, I want to add some dialogue tags and maybe some emotions, scenery and action. I’ll layer it on all at once:
“Say what you mean, Anna,” he said.
“Okay, I will. You can’t just barge back into my life after so long and expect to pick up where you left off.” She glanced out the window at a pigeon pecking crumbs on the windowsill.
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“It’s not about how long,” she said, lifting her head to stare into his dark eyes. “It’s about assuming that you leaving had no effect on me.”
“So, you missed me?” His voice dropped to that familiar seductiveness and he reached for her.
She stepped away from his outstretched hand. “I missed you. Yes. And then I got over you.”
Can you pick out the orphan sentence? It’s the one with the pigeon. I tried to give a sense of where they were while they were talking. Mentioning “out the window” tells you they are indoors. The pigeon on the windowsill tells you they are probably in an urban setting, perhaps a few stories above ground.
But…
It doesn’t fit the scene. It’s an orphan because it doesn’t connect properly with what came before it or after it. I also tried to give a sense of discomfort for Anna. Suddenly looking away at something ordinary during a conversation indicates unease and uncertainty. But the sentence isn’t working the way I intended. Let’s see if I can make this orphan sentence part of the scene’s family:
“Say what you mean, Anna,” he said.
“Okay, I will.” She edged away from him and faced the window. “You can’t just barge back into my life after so long and expect to pick up where you left off.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“It’s not about how long,” she said, waving a hand to shoo the pigeon pecking on the windowsill. “It’s about assuming that you leaving had no effect on me.”
“So, you missed me?” His voice dropped to that familiar seductiveness and he reached for her.
She folded her arms against her body and stared out at the cold cityscape. “I missed you. Yes. And then I got over you.”
Better, don’t you think?
Layering can work well. Just watch for those orphan sentences when you’re re-reading and be sure to give them a good home. For more examples of how to blend action, scenery and emotional details, check out my year-long novel writing course at Savvy Authors beginning in May, 2011. You can also find me on the web at http://www.katduncan.net
I recently did a self-editing course with Angela James from Carina Press. One of the first things she tells course participants to do is read your work aloud. I’ve done this a little bit in the past and always felt a little stupid talking to myself. But the thing is when you read your work aloud, you listen to the flow of the words and hear any little stutters or awkward phrasing.
If you don’t like reading try Natural Soft. It’s a free text to speech software. Check it out.
Another idea I came across while doing the self-editing course is Wordle, which is a word cloud. Use this with your manuscripts to highlight overused words. A note with this one–I couldn’t get it to work for a long time. The problem was my Java, which was out of date. If you have problems go to Java and do an update.
And a final note–if you have a chance to do Angela’s self-editing course jump at it. I learned a lot and found the course very helpful.
Exciting news! I received an email from Whipped Cream Reviews letting me know that House of the Cat has been nominated for Best Book of 2010.
Voting opens on Mon 14 February.
I’d like to share some excellent writing articles from the Women on Writing website.
I’ll often pick up a writing craft book at the library. Recently I picked up a copy of Bullies, Bastards And Bitches: How To Write The Bad Guys Of Fiction by Jessica Page Morrell. I’ve found it fascinating and definitely helpful in writing villains. The author has included a list of characteristics of villains, which is very appropriate for this time of the year. Villains abound at Halloween, right?
Thirteen Characteristics of Villains
1. Villains are consistently bad. Their behavior isn’t random or a one-off act of nastiness.
2. They have a defining event in their background that set them on their path of bad behavior.
3. They often have secrets they’re desperate to hide from others.
4. They’re not usually afraid of confrontation.
5. Villains are complicated and multi-dimensional.
6. They’re unpredictable.
7. Viallains sacrifice victims to achieve their own ends.
8. Villains often have an aspect of narcissism in their personality makeup.
9. They like to take extreme risks.
10. They’re usually alpha males or females and have underlings who defer to them.
11. Villains like to obsess about details and their plan of attack.
12. A villain controls others by using guilt and loyalty.
13. A villain plays head games and is very good at playing them.
As you can see, a hero might possess some of the above characteristics. The villain and the hero are often two parts of the same coin.
My guest today is Bonnie Dee, one of Carina Press’s launch authors. Bonnie’s story really caught my attention because, not only is it a historical and inspired by the story of Tarzan, but it’s set in Congo Free State. Several years ago now, my husband and I did an overland trip through Africa and we spent some time in Zaire, as it was known then. We also visited the gorillas in Rwanda so Bonnie had me from the start. I’ve purchased her book but edits keep getting in the way! Anyhow, over to Bonnie…
Bonnie Dee here, author of JUNGLE HEAT, a m/m historical now available at Carina Press. Below is the blurb…
Congo Free State, 1888
On a mission deep in the jungle, Oxford anthropologist James Litchfield comes face-to-face with a local legend: a wild man who wanders with mountain gorillas and lives as one of their own.
The chance encounter with the savage, whom James calls Michael, leads to a game of observation and exploration. Their mutual curiosity turns to an attraction; one that Michael has never experienced and James is desperate to deny.
When members of the expedition unearth James’s secret discovery, a living specimen of man at his most primitive, Michael becomes a pawn in their quest for fame.
As their relationship deepens, James is compelled to protect Michael from the academics who would treat him as nothing more than a scientific acquisition and London society, which threatens to destroy their passionate bond.
1. Did you always want to be a writer or did the need to write creep up on you?
When I was a child I wanted to be a writer, I still have a story about a ghost, a witch and a talking cat on a yellow legal tablet which I wrote in second grade. I read all the time and just knew I’d be a writer some day. But by the time I’d finished college the dream had dimmed and reality set in. I had to have a money-earning job and I soon had a family that required lots of time and attention. It wasn’t until 2000 that I began writing again. I dabbled in fanfiction for a while, a really great place to practice and grow as a writer. After a couple of years of playing in the sandbox, I decided I was ready to try to give my own characters voices and stories. I co-wrote my first book with a friend because I didn’t feel confident enough to tackle an entire novel alone. After discovering the world of e-publishing, I never stopped writing and now have over twenty published novellas and novels. So becoming a published author was a slow process that took many years. I wouldn’t have been ready until recently to have the strength and determination to take rejection and keep soldiering on.
2. Jungle Heat, your latest release was inspired by the Legend of Tarzan. Tell us a little about your story and how you came up with the idea.
My inspiration for Jungle Heat was not so much Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original story as the 80’s movie Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan. Let me start off by saying my hero is NOT named Tarzan. The name’s got too much cheese-factor for me. And because this is a male/male romance, my hero’s not Jane but James. I got a kick out of keeping the name as similar as possible.
Why a gay romance you ask? Because it provides a unique and refreshing way of telling the story. There’s an intriguing symmetry in the two men’s experience. Both feel like outsiders in the society in which they live. Both are lonely men who yearn for something just beyond reach, a missing part of themselves. The discovery and acceptance of that missing part makes for a great romance.
3. Jungle Heat is set in Congo Free State in the year 1888 – it’s not a common setting. How did you go about researching for your story?
Internet search. Most of the info came from Wikipedia, a writer’s best friend. Also checked out some books at the library including Stanley’s travelogue about his experiences. Travel times were a bit problematic. Any expedition took many, many months. At one point, I wanted to get my protagonists from Africa back to England fast so I could resume the story there. Then I realized I could make use of that travel time. During the steam ship voyage was a great time for my hero and hero to get closer, and for Michael to improve his understanding of English and the new culture he was about to enter.
I read about gorillas, their diet and habits. One evening I was channel surfing and came across Gorillas in the Mist, which I hadn’t seen in years. I watched that and found it very useful too.
4. Writer’s Block – fact or fallacy? Do you ever suffer from writing blockages?
There’s always a block. With every book I reach a point where I can’t see the movie in my head anymore. It’s like someone turned off the projector and I’m feeling along in the dark. I used to panic about this, afraid I’d have to abandon a manuscript three quarters of the way through. But now I understand that for some reason it’s part of my process: I hit a wall, I think I’ve painted myself into a corner, I can’t see any way to weave all the loose threads. Sometimes I put the story aside completely and come back to it weeks or months later, edit from the beginning and when I reach the stuck point again, I can navigate through it. Other times, I simply go to bed and wake up in the morning with fresh insight. The hour just before I get up, when I’m dozing and allowing my subconscious to drift is when most of the bugs get worked out. And sometimes, when all else fails, I just start writing and then a character says something or asks something and it triggers what needs to happen next.
5. What advice would you give to an aspiring writer wanting to write historical romance?
Don’t fret about being caught in a mistake. It’s hard to get every detail perfectly correct no matter how much research you do or how careful you try to be. And there are those who will be actively searching for mistakes in your story. If you can find a critique partner who knows her shit about the time period your story’s set in, you’ve struck gold.
Excerpt:
Congo Free State, 1888
Odd One watched, as still as the tree trunk by which he stood, not moving more than his eyes as Old Grunt had taught him. His pale, furless skin caked with river mud was nearly the same gray-brown as the tree. His light hair was also matted with mud and his face smeared so only the whites of his strange blue eyes might give his position away. He could never hide in plain sight like the Others, but he did the best he could.
Something was moving loudly through the underbrush—a foolish animal without enough sense to slip quietly between the leaves or to step lightly on the ground. The footsteps were different from any creature he’d ever heard, a heavy tread. It sounded as if there were more than one. He judged that the approaching animals had the weight of a leopard but not the stealthily padded paws.
Excitement tingled through him, making the hair rise on his nape. He clenched the sharpened stick in his fist, pressed his back against the rough bark and waited for whatever was coming.
One of the creatures made a sound as it came closer. Not a screech or cry, not a groan, hoot or whimper, but a noise unlike anything he’d heard before yet strangely familiar. A dim memory struggled to float up in his mind. He reached for it, and it was gone.
His heart pounded and he breathed faster as he glimpsed one of the creatures between the leaves. It walked upright on two legs just as he did and like the Others did some of the time. He wanted to leap forward, to see all of it at once instead of flashes through the undergrowth.
There were two of them, one walking behind the other. The pair communicated back and forth with their strange calls. He caught his breath. These were like the sounds he sometimes made when he was all alone in the forest, the noises his throat and tongue made that none of the Others could duplicate.
The pair moved into the clearing in front of him where they stopped and stood looking around. His heart raced even faster. The two creatures looked like him, or what he’d seen of himself reflected in still water. Their faces and hands were naked like his with the same prominent noses and fully formed lips. Hair grew on the lower part of their faces. Their bodies were covered with something that was neither fur, skin nor scales but something completely foreign.
One of them took a thing off the top of his head and ran a hand through sweat-flattened hair—hair like his, not fur as most animals had—and white like the streaks in Old Grunt’s ruff. These animals were his kind. There were more in the world like him. He wasn’t alone.
He turned his attention to the other one, studying the face closely. The creature’s brows drew together in a frown as he communicated with his partner, using hand motions to emphasize the sounds coming from his mouth. His hair was brown. He was younger than his companion. Odd One couldn’t take his gaze from the creature’s eyes, the way they blinked and moved and squinted when his mouth widened to show his teeth. Baring teeth meant aggression to the Others, but the stranger didn’t appear angry. He seemed pleased. His eyes crinkled at the corners and lines grooved his cheeks. A quiet chuckling sound rumbled from his chest and came out his mouth.
A warm feeling rushed through Odd One. He found himself mimicking the stranger’s expression, his lips lifting at the corners, his teeth showing. What would the strange animals do if he came toward them now? He would drop his sharp stick on the ground and come with his head lowered, his eyes down-turned to show his intention wasn’t to harm. Would they make their noises at him and welcome him as one of them? But he wasn’t of their clan so maybe they would drive him away. Better he stay still until they’d moved on, then follow and learn more about the invaders in his world.
He waited and watched. After the two bent down to look at something on the ground, they rose and headed back in the direction from which they’d come. Odd One followed, slipping silently over the forest floor without rustling a single branch.
, Donald Maass says we should start showing the reader that our character has heroic qualities right from the first page of our book. Even if our character is an average person, in an ordinary job, we need to demonstrate a special quality in them. At the start of a book, it will most likely be something small. They might help an elderly woman cross the road or rescue the next-door neighbor’s cat from a tree, but it will make us, the reader, sit up and pay attention. This is a character we would like as a friend, and we want to follow them through the course of the book, during the ups and downs, to the happy ending.
Exciting news! I received an email from Whipped Cream Reviews letting me know that House of the Cat has been nominated for Best Book of 2010.
by Jessica Page Morrell. I’ve found it fascinating and definitely helpful in writing villains. The author has included a list of characteristics of villains, which is very appropriate for this time of the year. Villains abound at Halloween, right?
