Creating Characters and Why Emmeline Devereux Drove Me Nuts by Victoria Chatham

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I’ve been lucky in that all my characters have come to me unbidden. I have their images, their names and I know their place in history. Just as people are not perfect, nor should our characters be. In building a character we need more than the color of their physical attributes. We need to know what their strengths and weaknesses are and how they build on the one and overcome the other. We need to know their greatest fears and what caused these fears in order for them to grow and change, challenge themselves to feats of extraordinary courage or deal with the realization of their failures. We have to uncover how their flaws have shaped them, find the humanity in them and then expand that on the page.

In the first of Marie Force’s Gansett Island series, it’s Mac and Maddie’s vulnerabilities that shape them and draw the reader in. In Georgette Heyer’s Regency romp Frederica, it’s her determination to find a suitable match for her sister that drives her to deal with several setbacks. Watching movies is also a great way to understand how to build your characters. You only have to look at the Star Wars movies, or Elle in Legally Blonde, or any of the characters in The Holiday. We see the changes in them with each beat of the movie. We feel for them, laugh or cry with them and hopefully, we can imbue our own characters with that same depth of realism.  

When Emmeline Devereux, my heroine in His Dark Enchantress, first came to me she was soaking wet. Her Empire line muslin dress clung to her body and her long, black hair was plastered to her head. Definitely not a picture of your typical Regency young lady of quality. For as clearly as I could see her, her story just would not follow, and I had several false starts before Emmeline, now dry and more appropriately dressed, gave me something to work with. Here’s a snippet from the book:

“What in hell’s name possessed you to imagine you could drive my horses?” he demanded. His voice cracked with anger.

“Imagination did not enter into it,” Emmaline returned.

Lucius was so furious he missed the tremor in her voice. “You could have overturned the barouche and injured my horses. You, Juliana and Noble, could all be dead. Did you think of that?”

“No, I did not.” Emmaline stood up on the box. “And don’t shout. I am not deaf.”

Lucius paid her no heed as she scrambled down from the driving seat. “What if you had been recognized? How would it look for my team to be driven by a woman?”

“Is it your horses, your people or your reputation for which you are concerned, my Lord?” Emmaline quivered from head to toe as she looked up at him.

His grey eyes glinted with fury under drawn brows and he lifted his hands, fingers outstretched. She took an involuntary step back from him, but he caught her shoulders in a firm grip and shook her until her teeth rattled.

“I take my responsibilities more seriously than apparently do you,” he shot back at her. He released her as quickly as he had held her, and she staggered back against the wheel of the barouche, felt the hard rim press between her shoulder blades. “I do not hide behind a borrowed tricorn nor pad my shoulders with a rolled sheepskin.”

www.victoriachatham.com

http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/chatham-victoria-romance-historical/

Why My Novel Is The Number One Squirrel Hors D’oeuvre

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To Purchase On Amazon

To Purchase On Amazon

Why My Novel Is The Number One Squirrel Hors D’oeuvre

Who has ever read the classic ‘Winds of Change’ by Henry P. Samuels? The literary classic that has spanned the realm of the last century, won the Pulitzer prize, generated numerous spinoff series, made into movies and TV series, like ‘The Changing Winds,’ or ‘The Breeze Blows In Another Direction Today.’ The author wrote fifteen sequels, although none were as great as the original. That book alone has outsold all of the Harry Potter novels and made the author a net worth value of over four hundred million dollars. US or otherwise, doesn’t really matter in this universe or the alternate that Henry P. Samuels was published in.

            So you meekly ask; who the eff Is he talking about?

Well, in this world he gave up on himself and pitched that novel into the dumpster, took a job as an insurance agent, had three kids and liver failure at 58 due to drinking too much. His regrets in life: huge for giving up.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success

when they gave up.

Thomas Edison

Ask one of our great fiction writers, Stephen King. Those of you who regularly read this blog will already know this story, and with apologies to you for the repetition,  I am repeating myself because it is probably the best example of the word “perseverance” that I am aware of. The story goes that he gave up after “Carrie” came back from its umpteenth potential publisher with the usual standard letter that began “Thank you for your submission. However...” Thankfully his wife didn’t.  She took it out of the garbage can it had been unceremoniously pitched in and slammed it on his desk. “You tell me you’re a writer, now put it out there, again.” As you have probably guessed (or else this is not a very uplifting story) the very next publisher accepted it. That is why King fans everywhere now sleep with one eye open at night after reading one of his novels.  Thanks Stephen.

To be honest we’ll never know how many great literary classics have been pitched into rubbish bins, since they all became squirrel hors d’oeuvres or used as fuel to keep hands warm on the last camping trip of the summer (or maybe even toast the marshmallow for s’mores!).

So why do I continue to write?

Because it keeps firing the passion in my soul.

Just ask young nineteen year old Godwin’e M Luther living in Jinja Bugiri, Uganda.   He contacted me on Facebook, an orphan, no father, has nothing and asks for nothing, yet he continues to write, struggling to go to university. Has three novels written on notebooks, can’t afford a computer. His words evoke sheer eloquence. Ask him what fires his soul. And if so inclined, send him some money to support his authorship. Yes, this is a real person.

Some people are born storytellers.

I remember telling my son Rory bedtime stories. He’d give me two or three characters and off I’d go, usually leaving him in stitches laughing, instead of going to sleep. Maybe where some of my off the wall humour came from. 

“Come to the edge,” he said.

They said, “We are afraid.”

“Come to the edge,” he said.

They came.

He pushed them…

And they flew.

Guillaume Apollinaire

 

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You gain strength, courage and confidence

By every experience

In which you really stop to look fear in the face.

“I lived through this horror.

I can take the next thing that comes along.”

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

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Have You Played Pickleball? by J.Q. Rose

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Insiders Blog. My name is J.Q.Rose.

BWL Publishing released my latest mystery,Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, in December. I've been hopping around cyberspace introducing the book on my Blog Tour this winter. I enjoy visiting other bloggers and meeting their readers. The most-asked question I have received on this journey is,"What is pickleball?"

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard Winter Warm-Up
2018 Blog tour

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard takes place in Florida at a senior retirement community and golf resort. My main characters, Jim and Gloria Hart, participate in the fun winter activities that take place at the community like golfing, swimming, dancing, game-playing such as horseshoes, shuffleboard, tennis, and pickleball.

Several readers were not familiar with the game, Pickleball. It's similar to tennis, but played on a smaller court usually laid out within a tennis court. Pickleball can also be played indoors, but there are different balls for indoor and outdoor. Both are plastic balls with holes in them like a “nerf” ball.The rackets are basically ping pong paddles on steroids.

The game caught on with seniors because it’s a bit slower than playing tennis and less area to cover. But now, even young folks are playing and enjoying the game.

Take a peek at the video below to see how the game is played. 


Youtube VIDEO: Pickleball Rules | The Definitive Beginner's Resource to How to Play Pickleball from Playpickleball.com

How to Play Pickleball Video

Have you heard of Pickleball? Have you tried your hand at playing the game?  Let us know about your experience with Pickleball in a comment below.

BWL Author J.Q. Rose

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose at her blog, Focused on Story.  

The Smell of Romance by Stuart R. West

Something smells very, VERY funny. Click to explore that scent.

“The Smell of Romance.” Hmm…

Let’s consider that for a moment. Doesn’t really evoke love, does it?

Yet as a writer, I stubbornly—stupidly?—keep striving to incorporate all five senses into my tales while my characters grapple and rassle in the name of romance. 

Sight? Easy-peezy, lemon-squeezy. Sound? Sure: heavy breathing, groans, moans, and hands ruffling over corsets and what have you. Taste and touch I’ll leave to the erotica writers.

But the sense of smell’s a curious quandary, a puzzle for this writer. Generally (and without trying to sound sexist, gotta be careful these days), women writers are more successful in describing the scent of love than men, I think. Yet—and I see this constantly—most female writers who dare to venture into olfactory romantic territory, tend to comment on the male partner’s scent of “musk.”

Well, I dunno from “musk,” but I’ve been in more than my fair share of men’s locker rooms and the only scent that comes to mind would be dirty socks (and that’s putting it politely). I looked up the definition of “musk.” Ms. Google says “musk is a pungent and greasy secretion from a gland in the male musk deer.”

Go figure. Even if men could secrete such an odor, I wouldn’t think it’d be an attractive one. I don’t see a lot of musk-scented air fresheners hanging in cars. Yet I read about this masculine scent... All. The. TIME.

Sometimes I even see men’s odors described in books as “musty.” Again, my assistant, Ms. Google helped me out. “Must” is even worse than “musk.” The definition reads “having a stale, moldy, or damp smell.” Ever so eloquent, Urban Dictionary goes on to add “the smell of armpits.” Clearly, you ladies don’t like the smell of us men. (Psst…you would be right).

Male writers, on the other hand, stumble around, attempting to describe how female characters smell. A lack of male vision keeps the scents narrowed to two options: some kinda floral arrangement or food. Which says A LOT about where men are coming from: their stomachs. I’m guilty of it, too. “She smelled of vanilla, touched with a dash of cinnamon.” (Apparently my character's ready to eat the female character. Just toss in some fava beans and a nice chianti and we're set.)

So, class, the takeaway from this lecture is men smell like armpits and women smell like food. There’s gotta be more to it than that. And as a writer, I vow to go on olfactory high alert until I’ve upset the cliché cart and created some new scents.

In Peculiar County, everything smells fishy...

Flash Back February by Nancy M Bell

Laurel's Quest (click title for buy link) is my very first published novel. Originally published in 2010 under the title Laurel's Miracle and then re-released in 2014 under Laurel's Quest by my current publisher, BWL Publishing. This is how it came about:

A riding accident in 2005, forced me into early retirement, but I'm not one to stay still for long. The enforced curtailment of my career outside the home enabled her to take up her first love. In 2010 her first YA novel, Laurel’s Miracle was released, it was followed by the second book in her Cornwall Adventures series, A Step Sideways in 2011 which was a finalist in the OKRWA IDA awards. This title is now A Step Beyond. The third novel in the series is Go Gently. Nancy’s first romance novel, Christmas Storm was released in 2012 and the novel was a finalist in the 2012 OKWRA IDA awards. This is now Storm's Refuge with some additional story added.
Research for the novels takes up a great deal of her time. The Cornwall series is Urban Fantasy. The underlying structure of the plot rests on the influence the earth energy lines play in the story line. Earth Energy Lines are not to be confused with Ley Lines. While the two are related, they are very different in character. In September of 2013 my husband and I travelled to Cornwall, UK and had the opportunity to dowse the spot where the Earth Energy Lines enter Cornwall and form a node at Carn les Boel. The spot is a high rocky promontory which in unremarkable unless one is sensitive to the energy. This is the start of the now famous Michael and Mary lines discovered by John Michel late in the 20th century that cross SW England from Cornwall to East Anglia. In the process of the research, Nancy made many wonderful friends, one of which was Hamish Miller, a well-known dowser, speaker, and founding member of Parallel Community.

The story in a nutshell:

Join Laurel as she pursues for her quest amidst the magic of the Cornish countryside. She is aided by her new friends Coll, Gort, and Aisling and helped along in her quest by the creatures of legend and myth. Vear Du, the Selkie, Gwin Scawen, the Cornish Piskie, Belerion the fire salamander, Morgawr the flying sea serpent who does Vear Du a favour, and Cormoran, the last giant of Cornwall. They must battle the odds in the form of bullies and confusing clues. Will they emerge victorious? Will Laurel have the courage to solve the riddle and fulfill her quest a reality?

For you enjoyment here are some pictures from Cornwall, the most magical of lands. Arthur's Land.

Until next month, be well, be happy