Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

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.

How to Trim the Fat from Your Manuscript

Recovering From Injury: Bouncing Back From a Rejection

Get Your Marketing Plan in Shape

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.

Who is your favorite fictional villain?

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.

Purchase Jungle Heat from Carina Press, Amazon Kindle, or All Romance Ebooks.

You can visit Bonnie at her website.

This article is reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com.

Note from Shelley – I highly recommend subscribing to their newsletter. I always find something interesting in each issue.

In publishing, you never know. Such was the case with Richard Hooker’s MASH, the novel that spawned an award-winning movie and a TV series that seemed to run forever. It took the author eleven years to write and the literary agent eight years to sell it. When the novel was submitted to me I was an editor at William Morrow. I later learned it had been shown to something like 32 publishers. I did not know there were that many publishing houses and that I was so low on the publishing food chain.

I read it over a weekend and roared and gave it to a colleague who had served as a Marine during the war (WW II) and had landed and invaded several islands in the Pacific and managed to survive. He laughed too. Instead of having a committee of readers consider it, which I believe had been the novel’s undoing, I decided to make a princely offer of $5,000. It was eagerly accepted, considering the novel’s history.

I sent it to Ring Lardner Jr. who read it, loved it and gave the book a great quote although he said he is not in the business of writing blurbs for a living – but he did write for the movies and eventually wrote the movie script. The novel was then sent by the William Morris Agency to Ingo Preminger who decided it was high time for him to compete with his brother Otto, a successful movie director, who hired Robert Altman to direct it. The TV series followed with Alan Alda playing Hawkeye Pierce, a character based on the author’s experiences in Korea. I always wanted to meet Alda and tell him he owed me one.

The novel’s timing went against all the rules of sensible publishing. It appeared at the tail end of the Vietnam war, which had become an immensely unpopular conflict and was set during the Korean War, which everyone wanted to forget. The author, a thoracic surgeon, received relatively little money for the movie rights. However, when it was made into a TV series, each time it was aired he received a residual equivalent to the money he earned for a surgical operation. The author’s actual name was H. Richard Hornberger, MD. His pseudonym, Richard Hooker, was named after his prowess as a golfer.

The moral: More often than not book publishing is totally unpredictable, like participating in a lottery. So keep pounding those computer keys if you are a writer. You never know.

Tip submitted by Hillel Black, free lance editor of over 20 NY Times best sellers and member of the Consulting Editors Alliance. Visit http://www.hillelblack.com/.

I’m a huge fan of Gail Carriger and her Parasol Protectorate Series. The books are a combination of Victorian history, paranormal vampires and werewolves and comedy. I read and loved the first book Soulless and have the second book, Changeless on the top of my reading pile. It will be a reward read for when I finish my next round of edits, due to arrive in two days.

Raelene Gorlinsky has a wonderful interview with Ms. Carriger about her world building and how she came up with the idea for her series. Here’s the link to World Building with Gail Carriger

Here’s a very thought-provoking article from marketing specialist, Rob Eager about social networking. It might seem free, but is it really? – The Hidden Costs of Social Networking

The article appears on Chip MacGregor’s blog.

“If a scene just isn’t working, and yet it’s critical to the storyline, try writing it from the point of view of one of the other characters. You might be surprised at the difference it makes!”

Visit Nalini Singh’s website
Purchase Nalini’s latest release, Archangel’s Kiss

“GET HOOKED!

What does that mean? Simply, we must write stories that grab readers at page one and never let them go. It’s not as easy as it seems. To start with, a stellar beginning/opening is vital these days, especially for aspiring authors if we want that coveted publishing contract.

According to statistics, editors/agents reject manuscripts before they’ve finished reading the first few pages. I wanted to know why. So I studied many books on the craft of writing and took several creative writing classes that addressed that very issue. I also read and researched multi-published authors’ books, trying to get the feel of what set them apart. Then I practiced, rewrote and practiced again hoping to get the words right.

Here’s a stellar ‘Get Hooked’ opening from Carved In Stone by Vickie Taylor (Berkley Sensation): Nothing reminded Nathan Cross he wasn’t human so much as an attractive woman watching his every move from across a crowded room.

Now doesn’t that make you want to read more? It does me. The book continues to be stellar throughout and never lets the reader down all the way to the end.

Our first goal as an author is to evoke an emotional response that hooks the reader. Les Edgerton, leading authority on writing stellar hooks says, “If you are able to capture the right beginning, you’ve written a small version of the whole story right there.”

How can we go wrong with that? The best advice I can give about hooking editors, agents and ultimately readers, is to write a stellar opening and then make sure the rest of your story lives up to that fabulous beginning.”

Kaye Manro
www.kayemanro.com

Kaye Manro’s science fiction romance FORBIDDEN LOVE releases at Red Rose Publishing on May 20, 2010.