Characters and Revision by Janet Lane Walters

For draft writers, you don't have to do these revisions in order but here's a start. That's looking at your characters to make sure they're fully developed. Characters are what makes a reader want to continue writing. Part of a writer's job is to mane the characters appealing whether they be heroes, heroines or villains. Even those characters who have a small role unless they're walk-ons need to have something to draw the reader to them.

For me developing a character means becoming the character. This can sometimes cause people to look at you strangely, especially when you're walking not in your own shoes but those of the character. What are some of the points to consider. This will be an overview today and in weeks to come will look at specifics.

Completeness -- this doesn't mean putting in every event in the character's life but in giving the reader enough information to make the character come to life.

Believability -- this means that the character acts in ways that go along with their personalities and not doing things that seem to be out of character.

Consistency -- there's nothing more disturbing that a character who constantly shifts from acting one way in a situation and a totally different way in a similar same situation.

Distinctiveness -- this looks at individuality and at what makes your character different from the hundred other characters who may be facing a similar story.

Function in the story -- what is the character's role and does he fulfill it or skirt around the edges. This is particularly important for secondary characters.

Stereotype -- unless you really need a cardboard character in the book making a character look like a cookie-cut one will make the reader yawn.

So during the rewriting phase making characters vivid and real is important.

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Janet Lane Walters' latest release from BWL is Healwoman

Born under a dark moon, Norna has to battle rumors that she is tainted by evil and unworthy of being anything more than a servant. Discarded by her mother, she runs away from her aunt, a priestess who wants her to enter the temple. 

Instead, Norna chooses to be a Healwoman, and a chance encounter with a novice hoping to be a priest helps her discover she has talents of water, air and fire at her disposal. With these gifts she is called on to battle treachery and attempts to prevent the promised prophecy of the god and goddess. As she battles evil powers, she loses her heart to Shandor, the man she met when her journey first began. She must come to grips with Britha who plots against her. Shandor has his own enemy Vorgan. When the pair of foes unite, the battles begin.

Previously published as Dark Moon Healwoman

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FUANVTC

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Janet Lane Walters has been writing and published since the days of the typewriter. She has 30 plus novels and seven novellas plus four non-fiction books published. Janet lives in the scenic Hudson River valley with her husband, a psychiatrist who has no desire to cure her obsession with writing.

She is the mother of four and the grandmother of five with two children expected to arrive soon from China. Janet writes in a number of genres - Romance from sweet to sensual and from contemporary to fantasy and paranormal. She has published cozy mysteries and medical suspense. She also has a number of YA fantasies published. Visit her Blog:
   

http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/ 

 

Senses, Showing and Smelling by Ginger Simpson

I just finished Juliet's post on Word Building and was impressed.  I can identify with her assessment of bad sells, since I worked with International Students coming from third world countries where water is not as plentiful and bathing ranks on the bottom of their "to do" list.  I was reminded that the things we take for granted are not as readily available in other places.  Of course, I was quick to help them acclimate to a new environment where water and soap are at their disposal.  :)

I wanted to acknowledge the importance of touching the reader's senses by letting them visualize, smell, feel, taste, touch the story and your characters.  Diane Scott Lewis has been a mentor and critique partner of mine, and thanks to her continual critique notes, "what does it smell like?" I've learned to include that sense in my stories.  I'd forgotten how important smell is to identifying with the setting, more so to some than others, but a good author writes to the needs of the masses.  Readers want to smell that apple pie baking in the oven...they want to sniff the aroma of wild flowers drifting on the breeze as they bounce across the prairie in a buckboard.  If the author does a good job, the reader slips into the character's shoes and feels every jarring bump and catches a whiff of the horses' sweat. How often do you read a description of how the hero smells...like wood smoke and sweat or a spicy aftershave?  Other smells are equally as important and I've noted it's usually a sense that is most overlooked in writing.

My very first editor summed it up for me when she said..."you've told a beautiful story, now lets work on 'showing' it to the reader."  That's the secret to writing a novel.  A story doesn't really connect the reader to action in the story....tells them, rather than puts them in the moment.  If you want people to truly enjoy your work, involve their senses and give them a role.  It works every time.

World Building by Juliet Waldron

There are probably as many approaches to novel writing as there are writers. Some have a tendency to see things as a screenplay—action and dialogue. Others see characters and relationships first, and find that dialogue and action grow from that. Some plot carefully and make a comprehensive outline. Others just begin when a voice begins to speak irresistibly in their mind and their novel grows organically.

Others begin with the world in which the characters will move. Science Fiction and fantasy writers often begin this way. Historical novelists may become intrigued by a particular era, and this fascination leads to the creation of characters who will exist in a “period” world.

These writers probably have the easiest time with what I call “world building,” because setting/or period, or that “Other Land” plays a large part in the imaginary kick that got them writing in the first place.  There are plenty of examples of science fiction, fantasy and historical novels which find their inception in the author’s vision.

In most writing courses you’ll find discussion of using the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, and all of them need to be engaged—not all the time, of course, or nothing else would ever happen—but if your couple are seated side by side at a Regency dining table—even if they are thinking only of each other—either loving each other or hating, as the case may be—they will be surrounded by other people talking, servants coming and going, and a great deal of food. There will be ambiance a-plenty and the sensations will be coming from all combined senses.

In the last 30 years, people have become more than a little distracted from reality—not only by television, but by hand held games, cell phones, not to mention the artificial A/C world we inhabit during hot summers. As a result, we don’t really spend a lot of time paying much attention to where we actually are—and what signals are coming from our environment.

If you are walking down a street in a 3rd World Country—or on some far off planet, or London in Shakespeare’s day--there will be unfamiliar smells as well as unfamiliar sights. For instance, I went to school in the West Indies back in the 60’s, and rode the bus to the central market daily, and then walked up to the school through the narrow city streets. There was gray wash water running in slimy green gutters, the occasional furtive rat; there were fruit rinds and big greasy mango seeds scattered around as well as bottles.

 As well as sight, I experienced unfamiliar smells too. In the long ago West Indies, there was the smell of people who didn’t have facilities for washing other than the a central pump in whatever village they’d come from, of starch filled school uniforms and office clothes and the beginning of the day’s sweat. There was market refuse, discarded fruit and animal manure ripening in the sun, the smell of a hard-worked donkey as he clopped by, the heavy odor of the goats that rode the bus with you. Have you ever imagined what a werewolf or a vampire would actually smell like?  I’m not a fan of these fantasy creatures, so in my imagination—they’d smell like nothing good!

Is your character a temp, facing a vacated desk in a modern office? What’s the desk and keyboard like—are they sticky with coke, covered with ashes? Are they dusty, or spotlessly clean? How does your character deal with this temporary workspace? Does she first head for the washroom and paper towels? Does she bring a can of Lysol with her to work with which she first sprays down everything, especially the phone?

As you can see, this is not only “setting,” it also helps your characters express themselves. How do they react to the environment in which you’ve placed them? Details like this breathe life into character.

As for sound/hearing, we moderns are drowning in it. The environment has never been so distracting or noisy—thanks especially to the internal combustion engine—which roars away on every street and in every yard. Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, trucks, cars and a Saturday parade of loud pipe HD’s coming through town are sonic assaults our ears endure daily. My husband calls it “turning gasoline into noise”. We can’t lift a finger anymore unless it has a motor attached. We live in a theme park town, and know what it’s like to put up with amplified concerts all summer, and an enormous volume of traffic. There are radios and televisions screaming at us in every place we go, from restaurants to doctor’s waiting rooms.   

Conversely, if you are writing about the past, none of this existed. Cities used to be noisy with people and animals, and later, with trains and trolleys, but the countryside remained relatively quiet until the last fifty years. When night came down on the farm, people went to sleep. Two hundred years ago, a candle was an expensive item, and only the rich could afford to illuminate their world after dark. Likewise, music—an orchestra was for the rich, music provided by gifted individuals who were barely an inch more important than the rest of the servants. That used to be the draw of a parade—the fact that you’d have a band playing. Even when I was a kid, people often made music at home. At our house we had a piano and a song book, and we all sometimes sang and played together in the evenings for fun.

In the countryside, you’d hear wind in the trees, or blowing across wheat fields or rustling through a stand of corn. You’d hear songbirds—and there were more of them 100 years ago--and crickets and cicadas and wild geese. The first Europeans to arrive here remarked upon all our wildlife—and especially upon hearing it at night. In their world, they’d eaten just about everything that moved and cut down most of the trees and put everything into cultivation, and so the place they came from was already picked clean of wildlife and therefore relatively quiet. Here, before they got a foothold, nature was thriving. If your characters are in undeveloped setting, like a 1600’s American forest, you might hear a panther scream or a wolf howl.

Finally, we get to taste. Taste and smell are strongly related, as we all have experienced losing some of this sense when we have a bad head cold.  This sense, which we take for granted, is key to our well-being. One of my aunts, now deceased, lost her sense of taste during her eighties. I remember when she was younger, she’d had to be careful about what she ate, for like so many of us, her thirties and forties were spent fighting the battle of the bulge. Now, with this vital sense lost, she was less and less interested in eating, and ended her life weighing 75 pounds.

So, if we return to that Regency banquet, what do we taste—or are we so excited and overwhelmed by the presence of handsome young and very eligible Lord Brimstone Marley seated to our right that we can barely swallow? If we’re on Planet X, how would you describe the taste of Silonian Sea Slug in Ggarian sauce? Was the dish carefully prepared, succulent and fragrant, or has it tough, reheated too many times in the kitchen of a grungy space port diner? 

Romance writers imagine the sense of touch frequently; it’s their stock in trade, but all writers need to reference thist. If you are shopping for clothes, you will certainly run your fingers over the fabric, see if you like the feel of what you are about to put next to your skin. If you are handling a gun, besides the weight, you will be in contact with the material of handle or stock, the cool touch of metal, the slight oily feeling of bullets as you drop them into the chamber of a .38, or push them into a recalcitrant .22 clip.

Fantasy or s/f writers-- you know you’ve got setting work to do which is far beyond the average writer of a contemporary novel. If you are on a distant planet, your special world will need an almost total re-imagining, because nothing would be familiar. This leaves a lot of scope for exercising your imagination, but you’ve got to be careful to construct an environment that’s inwardly consistent.  If you’ve got a lot of distinct and unusual plants and animals, and/or geological anomalies, magical spells, etc. you might want to write a crib sheet for yourself, so that you don’t become tangled up in the richness of your own creation.

Another way of attacking the business of creating a setting is what I call the “day in a life” exercise. That is, from the moment you get up in the morning until your head hits the pillow at night, spend one day really examining all the little routines you and/or others have, no matter how mundane — from brushing teeth to shining shoes, ironing, running errands, shopping, cooking, taking care of pets or organizing children, commuting to work etc. At work, we all develop routines which fill out the day in every office, hospital, factory or wherever. It’s easy to see that these slices of daily life are fodder for a writer of contemporary stories, but they can also provide a taking-off place.

This Day In The Life exercise works directly with contemporary novels of any kind. People have to have occupations, at least nominally, and this will form a background to which the reader can quickly relate. 

 Notice that I call this an “exercise,” because what you are doing is sharpening your perception for all the little tasks that are part of life. These details may not go into your story—if you are writing The Other Boleyn Girl or Shane, they won’t be directly applicable, but they will show you how much goes on, and all the devices that are used, in an “ordinary” day.

I’m going to use the example of historical novels, because that’s what I’m most familiar with. As for Day in a Life--well, what does your character do every day?

Do they work for a living?  Or are they privileged lords and ladies? If they are 16th century, do they brush their teeth—and if so, with what? If a character is a servant in a great house, or an American Indian, or if they are the very eligible Lord Brimstone-Marley—how exactly do they spend their days?

Is a maid permitted to look up from scrubbing the floor when her mistress passes by? Where does dinner come from?  Who serves/prepares it? What food is available in that particular time period? If your character goes to the kitchen, what’s it look like? What utensils and tools are there? Where does the water come from? How often do these characters take a bath and what is required in order to obtain one?

It’s obvious that you better be well-grounded in the period even before you begin. If you aren’t—you will have to pause in your writing, do a little research, and you will instantly find how much easier creating the story becomes.

Learn about the rules of behavior of different genders and social classes, about medicine and food and even a bit about politics. You really should do that research—or you won’t have a leg to stand on because even casual readers watch History &  Discovery Channels and are becoming more sophisticated. For an example of how this has changed, I read a romance back in the 80’s in which a hero and heroine make love “on top” of an upright at Stonehenge. This took more suspension of belief than I could muster—although it had passed by an editor. I don’t think this would pass with many of today’s readers either.

Science Fiction and fantasy writers frequently create their worlds from the bottom up. This gives your imagination—and all your senses free rein. The major pitfall here is that your newly created world needs to be consistent. If you make a world like Tolkien’s Middle Earth with a race of people who are 3 feet tall as well as Elves, Dwarves and men, a backstory is a necessity. Your reader may not need to know it all, but you, the writer, do need to have all this firmly fixed in your head, from social hierarchies to the artifacts of material culture.  

This, needless to say, is a lot work and “imagineering.” Tolkien spent a lifetime creating Middle Earth.  Part of the fascination for the reader of those books is the easy feel of this “other” reality.

A dystopian s/f future can be a little easier to create, because you can use elements of the today’s world, but these too have to adhere to internal rules. In stories like “The Road” there must be a plausible trigger precipitating the downfall of life-as-we-know-it. The resulting world order should be based upon what we already believe about society and/or mankind. Imagine your setting like a game of Jenga or pick-up-sticks. Writers like Philip K. Dick like to just remove a keystone of the structure, and then describe the patterns in which the remaining pieces fall.  Look at: Ubik, Clans of the Alphane Moon, or Blade Runner to see what I mean.

Juliet Waldron's latest BWL release is Roan Rose

More like a gangland war for turf and loot than chivalry, the War of Roses disrupted the life of the English commoners for hundreds of years. Roan Rose is the story of one of these, a girl born on the Yorkshire dales. When the Countess of Warwick, decides to take sturdy, gentle Rose to Middleham Castle to be companion and bed-time poppet for her youngest daughter, her fate is changed forever.

Rose bonds strongly with Anne Neville, her young mistress. She also meets a royal boy enduring his knightly training—Richard of Gloucester, King Edward’s little brother. The noble children have illness and accidents as they grow, but Rose remains a constant, always there to nurse and serve.

Rose bears intimate witness to the passions, betrayals, battles and all the reversals of fortune which will shape her lady’s life—and her own. Anne Neville will briefly become a Queen, and Richard, Rose’s secret love, will become a King, one whose name has become synonymous with evil. When the King is betrayed and slain at Bosworth Field, Rose returns to a peasant’s hard life. She has one final service to perform.

…a beautiful story of love and loyalty set during the tumultuous reign of Richard III...

…I loved the strength of this woman…

…Powerful Sense of Time and Place…

…Waldron certainly knows her history…Yet despite its accuracy … Roan Rose is ultimately a book about character.

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FKKAN98

“Not all who wander are lost.” Juliet Waldron earned a B. A. in English, but has worked at jobs ranging from artist’s model to brokerage. Twenty years ago, after raising her children, she dropped out of 9-5 and began to researching her way into The Past. Three of the resulting thirteen historical novels are now published. Mozart’s Wife won the 1^st Independent e-Book Award. Genesee won the 2003 Epic Award for Best Historical. She enjoys putting what she has learned about people, places, and relationships into her stories. 

Visit her website:
http://www.julietwaldron.com

Her blog:
http://yesterrdayrevisitedhere.blogspot.com/

 

Reputations and Bad Apples

I came across a very interesting article on Forbes.com  and decided to share some of the more pertinent info included.  I urge you to go and read the remaining text as you may be surprised to which levels some authors will go to promote themselves.

Indeed, many authors will recognize the phenomenon of the malicious one-star review designed to sabotage their books.  Although Amazon prohibits "spiteful remarks" it is difficult to get such reviews removed.  There's absolutely no doubt that some of these reviews are coming from other authors who see self-publishing as a zero sum game in which if they lose out if another author does well.  Other may come from an author's fans to see anyone else's success as a threat to their idol, or from griefers and trolls who just get off on attacking strangers in public.

According to Mark Corker from Smashwords:  It's a flaw in the system that negativity can become so amplified.  You can have a string of four and five star reviews, and then you get a string of one star reviews and it will torpedo your sales because people will see those most recent reviews and it's a warning sign to the potential readers...  If there's a reviewer that only leaves on star reviews, or they've left nothing but a single negative review, they're a carpet bomber.

Explanation:  Carpet-bombers do not leave negative reviews in order to help readers avoid a bad book, they do it to undermine the reader's confidence in positive reviews, damage the book's ranking in Amazon and thus that author's sales.  They are like fake positive reviews, designed to game the system, 

Author Robert Kroese says:  The effect of a bad review goes far beyond the impact that it has on the author's ego, however.  The prominence of a book on Amazon.com is determined primarily by two factors:  how well the book has sold and how positive its reviews are.  More highly rated books are displayed more prominently, which leads to more sales.  Increased sales lead to even more prominent displays which leads to still more sales.  Through the miracle of the positive snowball effect, a few hundred rave reviews can transfer an otherwise unremarkable book into a worldwide bestseller.

Ginger's Comments:  As someone who has a whole lot less than a few hundred reviews, I'm deeply concerned that these hit and run reviewers are damaging my credibility as an author.  I'm very thankful that we are willing to read and review each other's work to help overcome the stigma. Although there were rumors that author reviews were being removed, I haven't seen any of mine disappear.  We can only hope that despite being authors, we are also serious readers with opinions that matter.

Let your characters guide you - by Rita Karnopp

Before we begin typing that first word - we always (or most times) have the ending in mind.  There are a couple books I had an idea of what I wanted my end result to be – how I got there was something of a mystery. My point - we don’t always end up where we think we will. 

You must be willing to adapt . . . make changes, be aware of the flow of your story.  Never . . . never . . . never . . . cling to your synopsis because it was how the ‘story was supposed to go.’  Really???  I believe a story never goes the way I planned – I have to be open for my characters to surprise me.  And boy – do they surprise me!

Make your really good story idea great by a willingness to adapt as the story unfolds.  Each character develops as he/she unfolds in your story.  You can’t force a character’s behavior.  Always allow him/her the ability to act/react in a natural way.

Be open minded while writing - Keep in mind – what works for one book won’t always work for the next.  Characters in each book are different and you must always let them lead you through each scene.  Listen to them  . . . and give them free rein!

How exciting when your character demands something different – something you never thought of!  Allow your characters to add atmosphere and excitement.  Think of it this way – as your characters develop . . . the story unfolds into places you never imagined. 

Release the control. You know you’re a talented writer. That doesn’t mean you’re instantly good at letting go – giving your character permission to be him/herself.

Never start writing a book with ideas set in stone.  Guidelines will keep you from writing yourself into a corner, but don’t be so controlling you won’t allow something unexpected to happen. 

Allow your characters to laugh, cry, have highs and definitely lows.  Make them feel . . . and the reader will respond.  By allowing your character a ‘voice’  - the dialog will flow with ease and belief.  Step in because you don’t like the direction and your reader will be jerked out of the scene – maybe forever.

Believe in your characters. As I said at the beginning, we don’t always end up where we think we will.  That’s the good news!  When your character surprises you while you’re writing – it surprises the reader.  Some of my greatest scenes were created by my characters; their personality, reaction, and drive or direction leads them to places only they can imagine.  Trust them – you’ll love where it takes you!

Books We Love just released Rita’s fifteenth book, Thunder

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FM1IO0U

The world of professional wresting is a volatile, exciting, and action-packed world and even more so behind the scenes. Keme (Thunder), a Blackfeet fan favorite wrestler at the top of his game, is found hanging from the rafters of his training facility.  Is it murder . . . or suicide?

Find Rita at:

Website: http://ritakarnopp.com
Facebook: rita.karnopp@facebook.com
LinkedIn: rita karnopp
Blog: http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Contact her at:  ritakarnopp@bresnan.net

Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Shirley Martin

    

In her excellent how-to book, Debra Dixon refers to Goal, Motivation, and Conflict as the building blocks of fiction. What does your protagonist want? (Goal.) Why does she want it? (Motivation.) What prevents her from attaining her goal? (Conflict.) In planning a novel or novella, its a good idea to flesh out your characters, create well-rounded people with an outer and inner GMC. 

   
 My historical romance, "Forbidden Love," centers around an actual event, the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892. My heroine, Lisa, is an only child of well-to-do parents, living in an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. When Lisa's father dies, he leaves his widow and daughter with many debts, on the verge of poverty. This circumstance leads to Lisa's outer GMC.  

Goal: (What does she want?) To pay off their debts, work for a living if she must.

Motivation: (Why?) To save her widowed mother from poverty

Conflict: What keeps her from attaining her goal?) Lisa lacks ready skills. Her mother is irresponsible and doesn't realize their dire situation. She is disdainful of Lisa's frugality and fearful of neighbors' opinions if Lisa must earn a living.

    
When William, a wealthy stockbroker, offers Lisa marriage, she accepts, even though she doesn't love him. She sees the marriage as a means to save her mother from poverty, else it would be necessary to sell the family home.

    
Now we see Lisa's inner GMC. As the name implies, an inner GMC is emotional, from deep inside.

Goal: To learn to love William.

Motivation: She wants children, wants to have a happy marriage.

Conflict: William is a philanderer and spurns her efforts.

   
Lisa belongs to a literary club, and there she meets Owen. Immediately drawn to him, she fights her attraction, still hoping she will come to love William and hoping to achieve a happy marriage. But William continues to spurn her advances, apparently satisfied with a loveless marriage and needing Lisa only as a trophy wife.

    
Here we see that a protagonist's goals can change throughout one's story. Indeed, your hero/heroine may have more than one goal.

Trapped in a loveless marriage and falling in love with Owen, Lisa's outer GMC changes. 

Goal: To be free of her marriage.

Motivation: Lisa is deeply in love with Owen, and William has become a heartless husband.

Conflict: William won't grant her a divorce.

    

Now what about Owen?  He's a steelworker, literally from the wrong side of the tracks. He lives in Homestead, a dirty steel town across the river from Pittsburgh. Owen has aspirations; he wants to better himself, the reason why he joined the literary club. What does his outer GMC look like?

Goal: To get out of the steel business. He wants to attend the university and become a civil engineer.

Motivation: He wants to escape the brutality of the steel mill, where the temperature can reach 130 degrees, and the noise can drive a man crazy.
Conflict: College is expensive and money is tight. He knows that a strike is imminent at the Homestead mill and will lead to a further depletion of his savings.

    
Deeply attracted to Lisa, he realizes she's a married lady and far above his station. With no way of knowing otherwise, he assumes she's happily married and that her husband loves her very much. So what is his inner GMC?

Goal: To forget his love for Lisa, drive her from his mind.

Motivation: Because she's married to another man.

Conflict: He can't drive her from his mind. He loves her too deeply.

    

Throughout "Forbidden Love" Lisa's and Owen's relationship develops and grows, their love becoming more intense. Owen learns of William's perfidies, his failure to take Lisa as a true wife. Now Owen's outer GMC matches Lisa's. 

Goal: To make Lisa his wife.

Motivation: He can no longer fight his love for her.

Conflict: William refuses to release Lisa from their marriage.

   
Before you begin a novel/novella, it's a good idea to create GMC charts, outer and inner, for your protagonists. And make sure you have plenty of conflict!

"Historical romance at its finest," Julie Bonello at eCataRomance

"Nothing less than a masterpiece", 5 Angels at Fallen Angel Reviews

http://amzn.com/B007EZF6S0

To find more of Shirley Martin's romance novels, please go to  
http://bookswelove.net/martin.php

Montana Writer's Conference a Success by Rita Karnopp

The Montana Romance Writer’s Conference in Billings, Montana, was another success.  This was the second year the MT RWA put on a writing conference, something that’s scarce in Montana.

I was excited to be there – representing Books We Love (BWL) with my books in print for the signing and with information readers need to find and connect with the wonderful authors at BWL.

A division between published and self-published authors became apparent and definitely unexpected.  Published authors made it known they’ve paid their dues in order to be accepted as an author for a reputable publisher.

Published authors voiced their concerns and encouraged self-publishing authors to study the art of writing.  Equally important they should hire an experienced editor before even considering releasing their self-published ebook.

A common thread of fear – poorly written ebooks could flood the market, hurting both published and self-published authors.

No doubt we hear a lot about readers who just refuse to accept the electronic reading choices available to them – they still want to hold a book in their hands.  As time goes on, it’s obvious printed books will be in less demand.  Ebooks are taking the market by storm, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

Please check out my newly released book, Thunder.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FM1IO0U

 

The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is a volatile, exciting, and action-packed world and even more so behind the scenes.   Keme (Thunder), a Blackfeet fan favorite wrestler at the top of his game, is found hanging from the rafters of his training facility.  Is it murder . . . or suicide?

Thunder’s fiancé and undercover FBI agent, Chloe Evans has been posing as an employee selling memorabilia at WWE events - looking for evidence of blood diamonds.  And now Thunder is dead and his daughter is missing.  She has no choice but to work with his prejudiced and stubborn brother, Mingan, to save Nuttah and expose the truth about Thunder’s death. 

Mingan (Gray Wolf) is certain his twin brother wouldn’t commit suicide.  Entering the world of professional wrestling and fulfilling Thunder’s obligations, Mingan begins by scrutinizing everything around Thunder’s life, starting with the beautiful and haunting Chloe.  As hard as he tries to keep her at a distance, he is pulled to her like adrenaline on a choke hold.  If they find his niece, they will find his brother’s killer . . . or will they uncover something more sinister going on? 

Afloat on an Iceberg: Creating Background by Lee Killough

Say “world-building” and most writers think “alien planets.” But every story happens somewhere and that “somewhere” needs building...not just for science fiction and fantasy but mysteries, westerns, spy thrillers, Regency romances, and the Great American Novel. Historical settings must be researched. So does any contemporary location not well known to the author. A real place a thousand miles away or a decade in the past can be as “alien” as another planet. If the plot uses supernatural elements — elves, magic, ghosts, psychics, vampires, werewolves — it needs a background allowing them to exist. And of course any fictional setting, even one close to the author’s Here and Now, needs to be developed. Take the example of a small town. No two are alike. Fast food franchises differ from area to area. So do supermarket and department store chains. A farming or ranching community will have different stores than a college town. Yearly rhythms are affected by harvest, working cattle, or the college schedule. In the latter case, depending on the number of town residents connected to the college, even the beginning and end of the grade and high school year may be determined by the college semesters. Towns in areas with tourist traffic or seasonal sports are likewise shaped by catering to the tourists and sports. Working out those details is world-building.

And I love it...whether creating a planet and aliens, building a fictional town, or checking out the history and present-day aspects of a real place on Earth. Reading about it, studying maps, talking to people who know it, traveling there if possible. If I cannot go there personally...thank you for the Internet and Google maps, where in many cities a street scene option lets me pick an address and virtually stand at pavement level where I can turn 360 degrees to see what the area looks like. The next best thing to being there. Constructing background is like putting together a puzzle...figuring out all the little details...the clothes, the food, the houses, local transportation, local amusements, local slang. It is making up the rules for a ghost, as I did in my book Killer Karma, determining out how he would move around, how he could become visible to people. It is making up rules for a vampire in Blood Hunt, Bloodlinks and Blood Games. Deciding that yes, he will have a reflection but no, he cannot enter a dwelling uninvited, because that presents a dramatic obstacle for a vampire who is also a cop. It is creating werewolves for Wilding Nights who do not have to worry what happens to their clothes in shifting to wolf form. For me, world-building is half the fun of writing the book. Never mind that most of the information I work out will never appear in the novel.

A waste? Not at all. Think of background as an iceberg. Only a small portion shows, those details necessary for the story, but the unseen bulk is equally important. Not only has it often suggested plot twists I might never have considered in the context of my own Here and Now, it is crucial support for what does appear in the story. When I read a novel, I want to feel as though I’m living in Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, or Tony Hillerman’s Navaho country, or the ancient China of Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee. So I want my own books to give readers the same kind of experience. Which I can’t do without knowing novel’s world so thoroughly I am immersed in it as I write. I don’t want to end up with something like a romance I read years ago...and always remember as a warning to myself. Though set in South Africa, it had so little sense of place that the characters seemed to speak their lines in front of a blank backdrop.

Memorable characters might have saved the book for me, someone more than the stock naive protagonist, the Heathcliff-like love interest, and the catty other woman. Because while landscape sets mood and sometimes becomes a character in the story — what would Wuthering Heights and The Hound of the Baskervilles be without the brooding moors? — it doesn’t drive the story. Characters do that...and what makes them interesting and uniquely who they are is their background.

A big part of what we’re doing in world-building, then, is really culture-building. Culture envelops each of us from the moment of birth...permeating our lives, influencing us at fundamental but unconscious levels to shape our attitudes, our prejudices, our reactions. We know it is Harry Potter’s fate to fight Voldemort, but I think that because he was deprived of friends and a sense of belonging while living with the Dursleys, part of what drives his courage is the desire to protect the world of magic where he has found friends and a sense of belonging. Judge Dee believes in spirits because his ancient China does. In his time it was also considered acceptable to use torture in questioning criminal suspects, and because he is a man of his time, Dee uses torture. In Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are both Navaho policemen. But in Leaphorn’s boyhood, Indian children were taken from their families to boarding schools, where their own language and culture were forbidden in a government effort to assimilate the Navahoes into American society. As a result Leaphorn lacks emotional connection to traditional Navaho beliefs and looks on many of them as superstition. Jim Chee grew up on the reservation. He embraces his culture, and feels so strongly about it that he wants to be a shaman. The difference in their boyhoods affects how the two think and how they approach their police work. The traditional fear of the chindi, an evil spirit left after a person’s death, makes Chee reluctant to touch a corpse. Leaphorn has no such qualms. I want my characters, too, behaving in accordance with their own personalities and background, not mine. My werewolves in Wilding Nights are a separate species from humans who by passing as human have survived the extinction suffered by other hominids such as the Neanderthals. So while they live among humans, they wear masks, hiding their non-human attitudes, rituals, customs. Taking the wolf form uses massive amounts of energy so they have equally massive appetites that astonish the unknowing humans they work with. Their homes are built with walk-in restaurant-style refrigerators.

Like writing itself, there are as many ways to go about world-building as there are authors. All of them correct when they work. It is only wrong to skip doing it. You risk ending up with that the South African romance...or a Star Trek novel I read, where the Vulcans came across as American Suburbanites. Culture is so much a part of us that we tend to be unaware of its influence, and if a story’s background has not been fully worked out, our subconscious will likely fill the gaps with the only culture it knows...our own. Which, as in the Star Trek book, may not work. Or we can make erroneous assumptions. The Colt Peacemaker and the Old West seem synonymous, but if we have a Civil War veteran heading west in 1866 packing the Colt, Western fans will flay us. They know the Colt wasn’t manufactured until 1873.

Being a compulsive — some would say anal — organizer, I world-build by working through a checklist of fifty-plus culture-related categories. A checklist I developed by reading a slew of anthropological studies and seeing what criteria the pros use to describe a culture. Though I type my notes on a computer — up to a page or so per category, using as many categories as necessary (fewer being necessary the closer I am to my own Here and Now) — I print it out along with character biographies and make up a loose-leaf binder for easy reference while writing. The binder also contains maps, sometimes floor plans of relevant buildings, often pictures of story locations if it has a real-life setting, and pictures of vehicles the characters drive. In the case of an alien planet, I do sketches of animals and the aliens themselves.

It works well for me, but while other writers like and use my checklist, we agree that the tome I produce can be all wrong for another writer. Leafing through one of my background books, science fiction writer Jack Williamson confided that when he tried something similar in his early writing days, by the time he finished putting so much effort into the background, he had no creative energy left for the book itself and never wrote it. That is not a result we want. Mystery writer Charlaine Harris awes me because she keeps the worlds and characters of her Sookie Stackhouse, Aurora Teagarden, and Harper Connelly series in her head. I know other writers who do, too. More power to them. They all amaze me. Still other writers, for whom the writing process is one of discovering the story, say they make up background as they go along. One told me that if she knew all about the book before she started, the story would be told and no longer interesting enough for her to write down. I wonder, though, if the subconscious of such writers isn’t at work madly hammering that background together beneath their awareness. In any case, the method works for them...perhaps because they have the experience and skill to pull it off.

Books written that way by young writers too often tend to read like the authors made it up as they went along. Which may have been the case with the Star Trek novel. I feel that at least in the beginning, a writer should consciously work out details about their story background. Which does not have to be as involved or time consuming as my tomes. Some note cards or a computer file equivalent may be sufficient. Whatever it takes to help the author make his setting feel real and complete.

World-building does have a couple of pitfalls to watch out for. Such as killing a book by becoming so engrossed in creating the background that it turns from a tool to an end in itself. I always watch to make sure I’m not tinkering with background beyond alterations necessary to make the plot and characters work. After doing extensive background research on a subject, say San Francisco’s 1906 Great Quake and Fire, it is a huge temptation to cram all those fascinating facts into the story and not “waste” them. Which is why I have a picture of an iceberg prominently displayed on my bulletin board, reminding me to use only what the story needs.

Because the story is the point of it all, and world-building, however important, whether a game or labor, accomplished by whatever method, must in the end do just one thing...provide the characters with a solid and suitable place for telling their tale.

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Killer Karma

Inspector Cole Dunavan finds himself in the middle of a parking garage with no memory except of his murder. After remembering who he is and accepting that he is now a ghost, he has more problems. He is a ghost with no idea how being a ghost works. No one sees or hears him. He cannot move objects and initially cannot move through closed doors. He learns to his horror that his body has not been found, and everyone thinks he has run off with a woman who is actually an informant. A woman whose life he may have put in danger. He must save her, find his killer, and show his wife he has remained faithful.

"Killough keeps the action driving forward, but does not neglect character development. We get to know our protagonist's loved ones, and to care about them. We begin to understand why the antagonists do what they do. Will there be any justice? Will anyone find out what happened to him, or will they believe the false report circulating? And if they do find out, what then? Killough does not give us easy answers. The climax of Killer Karma is a marvelous crescendo, both complex and poignant." ~ Sherwood Smith

"Killough has created more than a paranormal police procedural here. This is a novel about love and redemption, about friendship and possibility. Any reader who enjoys a good mystery with strong psychological elements, compelling characters, and a fascinating storyline will relish this one. I highly recommend it." ~ Pari Noskin Taichert, Fresh Fiction web site

 

http://amzn.com/B0042RV8MQ

 

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Lee Killough has been storytelling since the age of four or five, when she started making up her own bedtime stories, then later, her own episodes of her favorite radio and TV shows. So of course when she discovered science fiction and mysteries about age eleven, she began writing her own science fiction and mysteries. It took a husband, though, years later, to convince her to try selling her work. Her first published stories were science fiction and one short story, "Symphony For a Lost Traveler", was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1985.

She used to joke that she wrote SF because she dealt with non-humans every day...spending twenty-seven years as chief technologist in the Radiology Department at Kansas State University's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. At the same time, she also used to train horses. She has lived most of her life in Kansas, but when her late husband was in the Air Force at the end of the sixties, they lived two unforgettable years in Washington D.C. During which she witnessed the hippie invasion of Georgetown, the Poor People's march on D.C., urban riots that set fires in neighborhoods close to theirs, and their neighborhood crawling with police and FBI for a day while law enforcement tracked two men who gunned down an FBI agent a few blocks from their home.

Because she loves both SF and mysteries, her work combines the two genres. Although published as SF, most of her novels are actually mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference--thanks to a childhood hooked on TV cop shows--for cop protagonists. She has set her procedurals in the future, on alien words, and in the country of dark fantasy. Her best known detective is vampire cop Garreth Mikaelian, of Blood Hunt and Bloodlinks, reprinted together in an omnibus edition BloodWalk. She is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters In Crime.

http://bookswelove.net/leekillough.php