Don't Waste Your Words by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE

I suspect all authors have had those wonderful moments of pure inspiration. That brilliant phrase that jolts you awake at 3 am, or a line of dialogue sparkling with wit or characters so real you can feel them. You write as fast as you can to transcribe the images into words on the page. But what words do you use?

My word usage depends very much not only on the characters themselves but in what period I have set them. Contemporary settings require the use of very different words to those I would use in a historical setting. When I build a character, I consider what their family was like and what education they received, whether formal or not. Is my character a 19^th century Lord or Lady? Or is he a cowboy? Two sets of characters but requiring totally different words to describe them. The skill here is to pick the right words and only constant practice can serve, both from reading and extending your own vocabulary as you read.

We all know the devil is in the details, especially if you do not want a one-dimensional character. Picking a detail and embellishing it to paint a word picture takes time and balance. In my first ever attempt at a romance novel, a contemporary set in England, I wrote that ‘rain fell on London like a dirty sheet’. However, my critique partner pointed out that a dirty sheet was hardly romantic. The same applied to ‘sunshine slid down the wall like melting butter’. My critiquer’s comment? Ugh, messy imagery. And just so you know, both phrases were deleted.

So, what you as the writer might think descriptive, may actually convey something entirely different to your reader.  Choosing the right words to convey what you see is the art and skill of writing. However, there is the danger of going too far and boring or confusing your reader if you have tried to be too clever.  

Tools I use for choosing words are Marc McCutcheon’s excellent book ‘Building Believable Characters’ which includes forty-eight words for describing noses. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have penned several books together beginning with ‘The Emotion Thesaurus’. Both books offer lists of words if you find yourself coming up short on a character’s details. If I feel I am coming close to repeating myself, I look for synonyms. Is there another word I can use without being a lazy writer? By that, I mean the buzzwords and phrases that crop up time and again particularly in romance novels.

In one book I read by a very well known NYT best-selling author, the heroine ‘shattered’ so many times I thought the poor girl, like Humpty Dumpty, could never be put together again. ‘Going over the edge’ and ‘her toes curled in her slippers’ are also done to death clichés. There are times when a cliché is the exact right combination of words to use, at others less so.

As writers we have vivid imaginations, it’s where a story comes from. But then comes the task of putting those stories into words and making the most of what tools we have to string them together in a way that best entertains our readers.

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You Know Nothing, Jon Snow...by Jamie Hill

The popular TV show Game of Thrones has a fan favorite character (just look at his face and you'll understand why!) named Jon Snow. Jon had a love interest for a while, and when they verbally sparred she would often tell him, "You know nothing, Jon Snow." Without posting spoilers I will say that Jon knew more than Ygritte gave him credit for, but perhaps his vision was clouded by love.

Their exchange often reminds me of the old adage, "Write what you know." I'm guilty of breaking this rule, and perhaps my vision is clouded as well. I'm going to lay out my defense and see if you agree or disagree with my methods.

When I write romantic suspense I include police, FBI Agents and US Marshals in my work. Now, I can count on one hand the number of policemen I know in real life and make that a big Zero for FBI and US Marshals. Therefore, I do a lot of research, sifting through what's out there on the internet and choosing the best tidbits to include. What guns they use, types of body armor, typical schedules, ranks, and the like can usually be found online. For me personally, that's good enough to write a realistic character.

Setting is another area where I rely on the internet. I've lived a fairly sheltered life, born and raised in the same small, Midwestern community, married to one man for almost thirty-five years, my extended family all nearby. I've traveled to about half of the fifty states but mostly to the ones closest to me, and one memorable journey into southern Canada. I don't set most of my stories in my town for a couple of reasons. Yes, it's what I know, but my friends all know it, too. If there's one sporting goods store in town, and I want to have a scene in that store, I don't want people thinking I'm writing about them or their establishment. Likewise, if the criminal works at the store, that could be very messy if someone thinks I'm writing about a real person. So for smaller towns I invent fictional places, then I have the liberty of creating whatever I want in that town.

In bigger cities it's easier to fudge. I've written about Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita, throwing in a street or neighborhood name, but never giving a real address or using an actual business. Yes, I might mention something in passing, but none of the real action will ever take place in an actual place in a real town. I'll create my own businesses so I can do what I want with them.

I like to set stories in places I've visited. After a trip to Seattle, I gained just enough information that I could reasonably set a story there. I knew what it felt like to ride an elevator to the top of the Space Needle. I saw the souvenir shops surrounding the Needle. I got lost trying to get to the Needle due to the way the streets are marked and barricaded to prevent people from turning around just anywhere.

It's fun to add a new locale to my repertoire. This fall I visited Chicago with a friend and we did all the touristy stuff. We rode to the top of the John Hancock building and the Sears Tower. Yes, it's technically called the Willis Tower now, for one more year. Then it will most likely change names again. And everyone who lives in Chicago still calls it the Sears Tower. (See what good info I picked up?) I rode in an Uber down the confusing, multi-level Wacker Drive and floated on a couple of different boats, an architectural river cruise through the town, and a lake shore cruise around the Navy Pier. And, we ran into a group of Chicago PD bike cops who were so nice and let us take their picture. I feel like I have lots of fodder to set a novel in Chicago, now. I'll continue to make up businesses, but also throw in some real place names just for fun.

That's how I get around writing what I know. Some things I do know are about people and relationships, and what causes their problems and how it makes them feel. That stuff I can confidently say I know, and try to weave the tension and conflict through my stories before everyone gets their happily-ever-after ending. Because I also know, that's what readers want. I do, too.

So what do you think? Are my reasons for breaking the rule justified, or, like my man Jon Snow, do I really just know nothing? Leave a comment with your email address and you'll be entered in Books We Love's October Blog Comment Giveaway. One winner will receive a festive holiday basket like the one pictured on the sidebar, plus the BWL title of their choice.

Find my latest novel, co-written with Books We Love's Jude Pittman, here. 

https://www.amazon.com/New-Directions-McWinter-Confidential-Book-ebook/dp/B01H2ZSN4A/

Find all my titles here:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/hill-jamie/


Thanks for visiting! 

Taking the Art of Writing Outdoors

Summer is here and the weather is great - for the most part!
Do you use those lazy days to do things you love to do or are you busy running kids from activity to activity to keep them busy the entire summer? Whatever your plans, be sure to bring a book.

Personally, I love summer. I love the lazy mornings (my "real" job doesn't start until afternoons) and try to spend that time either writing or reading. BWL has so many great authors with so many books I'm still working my way through the list! Both my reading and writing habits have changed over the years, and sometimes they change from season to season. Summer screams for lighter, fluffier books. Books that my brain doesn't have to work hard to read. Brain candy.

Writing in the summer has its advantages as well. It's much easier to grab a pen and pad of paper and go to the park, or the beach. Sometimes a change in venue can give you a fresh perspective and some new ideas.

Writing less in isolation and more around other people, can give you new character ideas and situations. I had the pleasure of hanging around a teenage girl yesterday I would love to use as a base for a new character. Spunky and outspoken, she started off a little abrasive, but we quickly connected and discovered commonality despite the age difference. I've had the same experience at a writing retreat near a river in a little house that resembles a lighthouse.

Writing in new settings can give you more detail into your own stories. The grit of the beach beneath your body, the hot sun on your skin, the irritating buzz of a mosquito, the squawk of a seagull who really wants your bag of potato chips... At your writing desk, you need to delve into your imagination for those minute details. Out in the real world, they attack you from all sides and you have a veritable buffet of stimuli to choose from.

An author's work takes on a different tone when they are relaxed and "in the flow." Words flow from the pen (or keyboard) at an amazing rate and seem to magically create scenes we normally couldn't write if we were forced. The mind tends to wander more and bring back many more "what if's" for us to use.

Writer or reader, take the time to bring a book outside.
Read in nature.
Write in nature.
Enjoy all the opportunities summer brings and find the time to enjoy a good book!

By Diane Bator

http://bookswelove.net/authors/bator-diane/

Circumstantial Evidence by Gail Roughton

A writer’s done a good day’s work when the characters have gotten themselves into or out of some sort of convoluted situation, whether humorous, dangerous, nightmarish, or ridiculous. It’s what we do. 

     We create worlds of action, adventure, and danger. We plop our characters squarely in the middle of it and watch them squirm their way out of situations we’d love or hate to get ourselves into and out of but never will. And why not? We’re safe at our little keyboards; there aren’t any repercussions for us. Or are there? Because our most valuable tool, the one essential thing modern writers can’t function without—could be our Judas. Our betrayer. Think about it. Over the past years, how many trials have featured the defendant’s computer as one of the star witnesses? 

Unless you’re a computer whiz yourself, you don’t know how to wipe your computer’s memory, now do you? I don’t mean clear out the recent browsing history - occasionally even I remember to do that.  I mean clear the “innards” of your computer, where, the experts tell us, our entire online life is recorded. Forever. Unless you’ve got one of those wiping devices from the CIA, of course.  I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have a lot of those high tech luxuries on my shelf and I’m pretty sure they have folks who could backtrack it through the servers anyway.

What I do have is a browsing history guaranteed to send me away for life were I the suspect in an horrendous crime being prosecuted by any fairly competent District Attorney. And if somebody wanted to frame me—well, they’d just have a field day. In the course of building the backgrounds of my books, in creating that believability that grabs a reader and makes them believe the unbelievable, I’ve set myself up. Big-time. Especially if anything ever happens to my husband.

Even a cursory glance at my browser shows that I know how to obtain a marriage license 24/7 in Vegas, and where to go to use it. I know where prostitution’s legal in Nevada, and where it isn’t. And it isn’t legal in Las Vegas, who’d have thought? 

I’ve got a general knowledge of Voodoo and its hierarchy of spirits, as well as Hoodoo (which isn’t the same thing, by the way). I’ve checked out the quality, weight, and street value of various controlled substances, and the styles and types of different handguns and the damages each can inflict. 

I know the Temple of Isis at Pompeii (yes, Pompeii, not Egypt) was excavated in 1764. I know golems are creatures made of sand, from Jewish mythology, who carry out their makers’ bidding.

I mean, any prosecutor could convince a jury I offed my husband by means of a golem armed with a .357 Magnum and powered by astral projection, hid his body in a mausoleum, ran away to Vegas, opened a brothel, and founded a black magic coven.

Or maybe they’d say I ran away to Daytona Bike Week with an outlaw biker, and currently serve as second-in-command for a big sprawling drug cartel. Or—well, there’s just no end to it. If you’d like to see the results of all this web-crawling, hop on over to my web-blog, http://gailroughton.blogspot.com where you can view the final results of all this incriminating research. None of my books would have been possible without it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go make sure my husband took his vitamins. I do believe it might be in my best interests to keep him healthy. 

CHARACTER OVERLOAD

I recently reviewed a book by an indie author who was a gifted natural story-teller. Her book centered upon a true, long-ago tragedy in a small, tight-knit backwoods town.  Unfortunately, I found the story difficult to follow, because of frequent POV shifts, sometimes as often as every few paragraphs.

 

There was usually a double drop between these shifts, but she also had a habit of changing voice. Sometimes the new POV was first person, sometimes third. Occasionally, I found myself stumbling from first person to third person subjective, followed by bursts of the venerable 18^th Century third person omnipresent. Many of her narrators were unreliable, and there were many, many characters, almost an entire town. Few were well fleshed out. However, each one, Rashomon-like, had a unique piece of information about the pivotal event.

 

As compelling as the story was, I’d have to say "thumbs down." Her tale was interesting and important—and probably remains inflammatory, even years later. People probably still remember where they were on the terrible day when a labor dispute went terribly wrong and police waded into strikers and killed someone.

 

POV shifts are tricky business, even in the hands of more more skillful writers. If I’d been her editor, I know our discussions would have been difficult, because she clearly had problems making a choice about who the main characters were. Although it might have created other difficulties in telling the story, the loss of focus that resulted from all that switching around made my job as a reader far more difficult than any author has a right to ask.  

 

My diagnosis? The story hadn’t jelled when she began to write. In her rush to get the inspiration down, to cover all the bases, she created a huge maze of information and very nearly couldn’t unravel it herself. A novel, (which is, after all, an artificial creation and not reality) needs a core character(s) and a core point of view, a place for a reader to stand among whatever whirligigs of narrative and event the author can contrive. 

 

So, if you are thinking of finally writing “that book,” definitely work out who/what/where/when before you get going. Laying the groundwork, pouring the foundation, you might say, is the place where a writer really ought to start.

 

 

 

 

 

Juliet Waldron

See all my historical novels:

 

http://www.julietwaldron.com

http://bookswelove.net/julietwaldron.php