Characters Act and React by Janet Lane Walters

This may be something I remember from physics or it may not be since that is the only college course I failed to ace. I did not fail but nearly. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. For characters part of this may not be true though I'm not sure.

Just what is an action in fictional works. The action can be physical or verbal, usually. If someone slugs the hero or heroine with fists or with words, the hero or heroine is going to react. This reaction can tell you much about the character.

Since much of the way I develop my characters is by using a bit of Astrology, their reactions are usually geared to their signs. An Aries would hit back and usually not with words. A Scorpio wouldn't get mad but they would get even. These are just examples of reactions.

The kind of action the character chooses will also delineate their character. Are they upfront, subtle or some variation of these two. An action can be deliberate or unintentional. We all know people who open their mouth only to shove their foot inside. There are some people who will never act openly.

An action or reaction can come from outside the character or be an internal one. Think of how people operate during an emergency. Some panic and some take charge. Or when a value is challenged. Some may act in the open and some may do so in secret.

When developing your characters, imagine how they would react in a given situation and when putting them into action, think of how this particular character would act or react.

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Janet Lane Walters' recent release from BWL is Shattered Dreams, Moonchild Series, Book 1
Torn apart years ago by lies and threats, Rafe Marshall returns to town and confronts Manon Lockley. She has been told he died on the night he stood her up for their senior prom. When she faints, Rafe catches her and realizes he hasn’t stopped loving her.

Manon carries anger and now grief that wasn’t real. Rafe wants her in his life, but she doesn’t want to talk about what happened in the past. She can’t be sure if her father or someone else told lies about Rafe and she doesn’t want to know. Can Rafe persuade her to listen? Not without a battle.  

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPZT6K2

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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/ 

 

Fond Obsession by Lee Killough

      Every story happens somewhere. Sometimes we hunt a stage for our characters, and sometimes we design one. Other times a place calls out to be that stage. To paraphrase Tony Bennett, I lost my heart to San Francisco. From the first time my late husband and I puffed our way to the top of a hill and looked out over the stair-stepped buildings to the bay it’s been my all time favorite city. So when, in 1978, I began plotting my supernatural mystery Blood Hunt, San Francisco whispered: Here I am. Use me.

Oh, yeah. Memories cried out to become scenes in a story. The little greasy chopsticks eatery in Chinatown with grey smoke boiling out of the kitchen to coat the all-Chinese signs on the wall, but serving the best fried rice and egg rolls I’ve ever eaten. The exotic dancer who, while writhing in “passion” on a giant pillow, looked look down on a man at the bar surrounding the stage and said in a bored monotone: “Hi, honey. What’s your day been like?” With the villain of the book being a vampire, she belonged somewhere foggy. It didn’t matter that her hunting ground ended up being brightly lit...because where better than Broadway’s garish blocks of clubs for her to pick up vulnerable visiting businessmen. And after my detective tracked her through those same clubs...and came too close for comfort...the little dead-end alleys provided a perfect site for her to trap and try to kill him.

Try, but fail...turning him into a vampire, too. 

Yeah, a vampire cop. But it was a new idea a decade before Nick Knight came along.

The whole idea for the book grew out of a “what if” moment watching one of those B movies in which some poor schmuck is turned into a vampire and starts dragging around at night in a blood-hungry frenzy. I started wondering what it might really be like for someone to become a vampire. Does a vampire have to be evil? Aren’t good and evil choices? Would he have to sleep in a coffin? Would he have to drink human blood? Because my x-ray tech job at a veterinary school and volunteer stints at blood drives had shown me that student vets and even experienced nurses struggling to hit veins, I had to wonder: wouldn’t there be a learning curve for finding one with teeth? I considered how to explain why some vampires like poor Miss Lucy are almost zombies while other Undead, like Dracula, retain full mental faculties. A retro virus suggested itself as a practical solution. Receive a little vampire virus in saliva from a single bite and a healthy immune system disposes of it. Get drained or receive multiple doses and when the body’s defenses crash the virus takes over, but is potent enough only to reanimate the body. A big slug of virus, though, say received by drinking vampire blood, restores higher brain functions, too. Which explains why Dracula made Mina drink some of his blood when he wanted to make her his bride.

Because I love mysteries, and cop protagonists in particular, a police procedural seemed the idea structure for exploring “what if.” So were born Inspector Garreth Mikaelian and the beautiful but deadly Lane Barber.

After being brought across, Mikaelian not only had to carry on the investigation. He had to deal with what he had become, all the while hiding it from everyone else. He had to answer the above questions regarding good and evil and choices. San Francisco gave me a terrific landscape for it. The first despairing hours of self-realization drove Mikaelian to try killing himself by sitting at the foot of the cross on Mt. Davidson at dawn. Only to find that while oppressively miserable for him, daylight was not fatal. Bram Stoker’s Dracula sometimes went out in daylight, so my vampires can too. I discarded a few vampire “rules,” such as not reflecting in mirrors, but made sure to keep the prohibition against entering a dwelling uninvited because it is a huge handicap for a vampire cop. Which Mikaelian unfortunately discovered trying go in the back door of a suspect’s place while his partner went in the front...with tragic consequences. In a semi-comic scene he discovers there is a learning curve for biting accuracy...and his clumsy failure makes him resolve to never prey on another human.

Writing Blood Hunt and its sequel Bloodlinks — where Mikaelian becomes the quarry of a Van Helsing type — presented one problem, though: I live halfway across the country in Kansas, and my day job and budget didn’t allow for a research trip. So in those days before home computers and the Internet became ubiquitous, I turned to memory and the original search engine: books. I read everything in the library on San Francisco. Current travel guides proved especially helpful. They had not only city info but maps and pictures. Being a huge fan of Streets of San Francisco I had taped a number of episodes. I re-watched them, studying the background details when the background was clearly San Francisco and not a studio set. A fellow author lived in San Francisco at the time and when I ran into him at a convention I pumped him for city details. It all went into a background book that ended up as thick as a manuscript. But then, I’m a compulsive list maker and even work from a checklist in constructing story backgrounds.

That helped me preserve continuity twenty years later when I wrote Blood Games, the third in the series...where through no fault of his own Mikaelian may have created his own vampire offspring. And for further research, wow what a difference the Internet made! Guide books still remained a great resource, but the Internet was almost as good as a visit, and let me search out information any time of the day or night without leaving home. I discovered that most cities have web sites, and so do many police departments, all loaded with useful data. The SFPD’s site has maps showing its city divisions, pictures of the division station houses, lists of its bureaus, pictures of command personnel.

These days the Internet is definitely my research buddy. Killer Karma, another supernatural mystery, has the ghost of a murdered SFPD Burglary detective solving his own death. For it I turned up San Francisco web sites with pictures of many locations I wanted to use as Cole Dunavan learned how being a ghost worked — it unfortunately didn’t come with an instruction book — hunted his killer, and sorted out other personal and professional problems that kept his spirit on earth. Embarcadero Center, where he finds himself in the parking garage with no memory at first except of his murder. The Hall of Justice of course, Noe Valley, the Richmond, Union Square. Some sites carried satellite photos. Some had live cam shots...the next best thing to being there. Consulting the Chronicle/Examiner web site gave me weather patterns and timely news articles. And of course I was back checking the SFPD’s web site.

Google maps are almost as good as traveling to a location. Almost. They don’t take you inside buildings, though, or let you experience touching and hearing the location. I was lucky enough to have serendipity provide what the budget had not previously. In the midst of planning Killer Karma, I attended a science fiction convention in San Jose. While we were there, Denny and I rented a car and visited the cemetery town Colma, one of the locations appearing in the book. That was quite an experience...acres of cemeteries surrounding a town geared to a single purpose: serving the dead. And when Alan Beatts of San Francisco’s Borderlands Books kindly ferried some fellow writers and me up to his store for a signing, I spent the half day before the signing walking the hills and riding buses around the city and being given a tour of the Hall of Justice. Which Alan also arranged for me. Later when I had questions about other locations that the Internet couldn’t answer, Alan, bless him, went out, took pictures, and e-mailed them to me. He was an angel and I love digital technology.

A TV show from my childhood, Naked City, used the line: “There are a million stories in the naked city.” What’s true for New York is no less so for San Francisco, so it’s likely the city will keep waving its hand when I need a story background. And I’ll keep using it.

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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

 

Create a Backstory into your Novel by Rita Karnopp

My first thriller, Atonement, opens with a serial killer and his victim . . . letting the reader into his world and mind.

     He bent her fingers back . . . all the way back. It cracked loud and final.  He shuddered with excitement and anticipation.  She cried for forgiveness, but he duct tape muddled her words and screams.  He hated tears.  How useless.

     He slid the sharp, long, Bowie knife from the sheath on his belt.  A jolt of excitement shot through him. He preferred using a larger knife on bigger fingers.  How could he not enjoy the feel of the heavy righteous blade in his hand? The worn leather handle fit his palm. It was meant to be his.  Happiness filled him for the first time in weeks.

     Now he’d take his time.  He’d hold back and savor the moment.

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Who is this killer? What reasoning drives him to cut his victims fingers off? What has happened in his past that would give him fulfillment from such an act?  I won’t answer those questions in my opening pages. Why not? Because I want to reveal the answers in the backstory.

Backstory has been described as a set of events created for a plot, offered as preceding and leading up to that plot. It’s a literary device of a narrative history all chronologically earlier than the narrative of primary interest.

I think what they mean is it’s the ‘baggage’ of our life up to this point.  A backstory shares key elements— that may be depicted and revealed in a novel —affecting timing, reaction, input, support, and even shock value.

Backstory helps to corroborate the setting as well as events and makes the reader care about what happens to the characters.

But be careful: Backstory by definition takes the story backward and when you think about it – then it halts forward action.  No matter how careful you are – when that story screeches to a stop . . . your reader may decide to stop reading. 

Too Much, Too Soon -  Too much backstory in the opening pages can be the kiss of death.  I always resort to the comment, “No one waits for the action to begin.”  Writing  page after page of backstory at the beginning to set-up the story is not a good idea.  I know you’ve read them - you have to force yourself to keep reading – because you’re convinced the information must be important.  I will actually start skimming – waiting for the story to begin.  This is not a good thing to have happen in your story.

Then there are the books that get off to an exciting start and just when I’m totally invested . . . the story stops to feed me backstory.  What??  I’m frustrated and anxious to find out what happens…and you’re making me wait???  No!

Guess what, there is plenty of time throughout the book to feed in information the reader needs to know about your characters.  Keep that story moving forward – make the reader turn those pages.

If you find yourself typing backstory and it seems to be going slow . . . guess what . . . it feels the same way to your reader.  A good rule is sneak background in a little at a time without halting the flow of the story. 

 

Timing Is Everything – So how do we sneak that backstory into the novel?  As I mentioned– it must be weaved, dropped, or told a little at a time that best serves the story.

One of the best things I was told as a new writer was, “Remove the first chapter of your book.  This is where your book should start.  Is it exciting – filled with action and dialog?  If the answer is yes, start the book there – and weave the ‘backstory’ into the story as it evolves.”  That was some great writing advice.

As we develop our story – we explore what our characters are and what they want or are planning on doing.  But we need to get to know their past in order to know what their future holds.  That doesn’t mean the reader has to be told this ‘backstory’ all in the first chapter.  And remember – if the reader doesn’t know everything right away – you have the ability to keep them guessing - what is making him/her tick?

Ask yourself, what does my reader need to know?  Not everything in a person’s life is important to share with the reader.  If it doesn’t further the story or share something important about the characters personality – leave it out.

I read in an article once, “In almost all cases, if it’s backstory, it needs to be cut.”  I typed that up and posted it on my office board.  It’s a great reminder – don’t get caught up with information overload.

Wow – I guess that pretty much sums it up.  When you think about it - no matter where we begin our stories, there’s always something that came before. What does the reader need to know?  Hold details back as long as you can.  Give that backstory a little at a time and you’ll keep your reader in the present . . .  turning the pages for more!

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?

Atonement is FREE at Amazon through Oct. 22!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DL2R22/

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

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.