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.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
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.
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.
“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 1st 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/
Visit her website:
http://www.julietwaldron.com
Her blog:
http://yesterrdayrevisitedhere.blogspot.com/
Sunday, October 13, 2013
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.
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.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
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!
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
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
Facebook: rita.karnopp@facebook.com
LinkedIn: rita karnopp
Blog: http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Contact her at: ritakarnopp@bresnan.net
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
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.
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
Monday, October 7, 2013
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.
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.
Labels:
books we love,
Indian,
MT Romance Writer's Conference,
Native American,
Rita Karnopp,
RWA,
suspense,
Thunder
I would say writing is my passion . . . I see a story in just about every situation. I love Native American history and all the lessons it has to offer.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
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.
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
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