Writing Process Blog Tour – My Part!

Many thanks to my friend and fellow fictioneer, Jerilyn Dufresne, author of the charming and funny Sam Darling mystery series. She tagged me in her recent blog post (Read it here). Thanks, Jer! I enjoyed the challenge.

What are you working on now?

Lately, I’ve been emulating a scattergun – I’m working on four books. In addition to researching and writing the sequel and prequel to Memory’s Child, I’m also updating and revamping a mystery/suspense novel (Dying to Meet You) and a romance/adventure novel (Trial Run). Both of the latter are set in Florida.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Well, how many books do you know of that were generated by a can of tuna? Seriously, I found myself in a small, neighborhood grocery store one day, staring at an entire shelf section packed with cans of tuna. I thought about all the grocery stores in my city and all the cans of tuna they stocked, then all the stores in the country and so on. The idea of all those dead fish was staggering, and I wondered how long the ocean could continue to pro
duce so much fish if the population keeps growing.  You see where that kind of thinking is likely to go.

Memory’s Child is more than a cautionary or post-apocalyptic tale about humanity outgrowing the resources of this planet, though. The idea of prejudice as a fundamental part of humans’ makeup is another of the book’s premises, and it’s an important one, I think. In Memory’s Child, the circumstances of the past have changed the focus of prejudice. As Shelana, the protagonist says, humans no longer have “distinctions of color or collar or cash,” but have replaced that with another kind of prejudice – against intellect. “Hate what you do not comprehend, wage war on what you fear, and destroy what you cannot have. Prejudice is as old as mankind,” she says. I thought that idea was unique enough to explore.

Why do I write what I do?

Good question, and I have no idea. Much of the story in Memory’s Child simply erupted shortly after the tuna incident. I was not planning a novel, had not thought about this story, and had no idea it lurked in my pen, waiting to attach itself to paper. I wrote the word “aberration” on a blank page in my notebook, and from that point forward, I just went along for the ride. If you can imagine trying to write, longhand, every word of a book as it is read to you, that’s what it was like getting Memory’s Child on paper. I wrote as fast as the pen would move, terrified that I would miss something important, eager to read what would happen next.

Over the course of about four days, I learned the story as it appeared on the page. I only stopped writing when I fell asleep, pen in hand. I still have the original manuscript with odd little squiggles marking the page. My husband, Randy, brought me food and made sure nobody bothered me with visits or phone calls.

Those were among the very best days of my life. Later, typing the manuscript from those handwritten pages, I added descriptions and other details that weren’t in the original narrative. The story came first, the details later.

How does my writing process work?

Sadly, no other stories have flowed from my pen the way Memory’s Child did. Writing would be so much easier if they did! Instead, I write more than I should, adding and subtracting scenes as I go, until I find what works. I still write longhand and I do not outline as many authors do. Once I tell the story, I’m done, and an outline is, to my odd brain, the same as telling the story. The book would never get past the outlining stage. Instead, I start at the beginning and just keep going to the end. When the story is written, I add in transitions and descriptions (I prefer dialogue and action to writing description). This is my first edit. The whole thing is put away for at least a month to let the story steep. Then I pull it out and edit, edit, edit until I’m happy with it, which can take months. I still itch to edit Memory’s Child as ideas continue to occur to me.

What are my writing plans for the future?

Once the prequel and sequel are finished, I plan to complete the rewrite of Dying to Meet You, then Trial Run. I have a couple more novels in the very-rough-draft stage: Fair Warning and Katie Enigma. My goal is to finish at least the first four this year, if recent health issues allow. After that, I’d like to take my time on Fair Warning, especially, since the plot of that one is quite intricate.

I haven’t warned them, but I’d like to tag Allyson K. Abbott, author of the Mack’s Bar mysteries, a unique new series, and Lauren Clark, author of Dancing Naked in Dixie, Stay Tuned and Stardust Summer.

Writing Process Blog Tour

My friend, Jerilyn Dufresne, author of the wonderful new mysteries featuring the inimitable Sam Darling, posted an interesting description of her writing process. Check it out, and check back here tomorrow morning when I’ll be posting my own experience in response to Jer’s tagging me. Enjoy.

Murder on the Rocks by Allyson K. Abbott

Murder on the Rocks by Allyson K. Abbott. #Kindle #Amazon #murder #mystery http://ow.ly/nG1z4

Description

It’s a badly-kept secret that I prefer writing dialogue to writing description.To me, description should be brief but substantial, so that it delivers plenty of information to the mind’s eye without blathering on and on about the color of someone’s shirt or going into painfully explicit detail about the way the setting sun strikes the forest floor through the tree canopy.

The sunlight is dappled, okay? I don’t need to know that the light is pale lemon yellow as it stabs through the pine needles, or dark and rusty looking as it weaves its way from the sky to the scattered carpet of brown and crispy oak leaves on the forest floor. I really, honestly don’t care. The sunlight is dappled. That’s enough for my mind’s eye to conjure up a crisp carpet of leaves below and a lush canopy above.

I once spent weeks studying character descriptions in novels. I didn’t look at descriptions of the main characters, because those should occur frequently throughout the book.

What I found was that in nearly every case, the author used around 100 words of description when introducing other characters that may or may not reappear in the story, and around 50 words to describe a character’s clothing, gestures and facial expressions if they did reappear. Secondary characters sometimes required more detail than lesser characters, especially if they were doing something like washing a car or firing a weapon as a chapter opened.

That’s what I learned from studying books that I liked to read. It’s not a formula, but I do use that information as a guideline when I write. Many times, trying to write a good description succinctly has forced me to work harder at using that small block of text to its greatest advantage.

My informal research also turned up the fact that, other than character descriptions, detailed descriptions of setting and action sequences such as gunfights and autopsies could go on for pages. I understand that describing the pathologist’s movements and the tools he uses in dissecting a corpse lends authenticity to the book (and thus, the author), but books I love give me a vivid snapshot without showing me the whole movie. Please stop describing Stryker saws to me every other chapter. I already know more about them than I ever wanted or needed to. There’s that dappled sunlight, again.

I force myself to write description, because although I know what everything looks like, the audience does not. However, I skim or skip overly long, descriptive passages when I read other peoples’ work. Too many novels have more description than story. It’s like wearing full arctic gear in Miami in June.

If you condensed all that narrative, you might wind up with a lovely, highly readable short story or a novella. With the minute details of descriptive passages gone, most readers will conjure up their own visions.

Why don’t authors trust readers to employ their own imaginations anymore? I’d read every word of a book with less description, because it would be jam-packed with the important stuff. The story.

Royalties from Memory’s Child sales to be donated

Royalties from all February sales of Memory’s Child go to All About Animals. Read a book, save a life. Priceless! Plz RT http://ow.ly/hWmVR

Kids Corner Interview: Author of 5-Star YA Mystery, Vickie Johnstone, Talks About Kids Corner Book of The Week, Her Love For Ronald Dahl & Never Giving Up Her Dream of Writing | Kindle Kids’ Corner

Read the interview and check out this book.  It looks like a winner!

Kids Corner Interview: Author of 5-Star YA Mystery, Vickie Johnstone, Talks About Kids Corner Book of The Week, Her Love For Ronald Dahl & Never Giving Up Her Dream of Writing | Kindle Kids’ Corner

Guest Post: Top 10 Tips for a Stellar First Chapter

Today’s post is a gift from author Lauren Clark, whose book, Dancing Naked in Dixie, I reviewed earlier this week. The advice she offers here is the kind of “thank you” we writers can all appreciate.

Click on the book image to read my review of DANCING NAKED IN DIXIE

If you’re a writer … in any stage of the game … you’ve likely stressed out about that ominous and all-important first chapter. It’s easy to get stuck on page one, but these tips should help get you thinking and planning your way through it. With some effort, you’ll soon be on your way to chapter two, then three, and beyond.

Here goes:

1. Open with action – Have your character doing something that matters (not drinking tea, taking a shower, or doing the dishes!)

2. What’s the problem? – Your hero or heroine should have a dilemma right away. It can be something that he or she created, an issue that someone else incites (revenge, grief, hate. love, obsession, etc.) an accident, or even a natural disaster.

3. Why should I care? – The main character’s problem should matter, in a small sense or a large one. The hero doesn’t have to be saving the world, but the crisis or issue at hand should be enough to upset the balance of life as he or she knows it.

4. Inject some empathy – Make certain that you show your character (on the premise that your hero is not a serial killer) demonstrates caring for others. It doesn’t have to be rescuing a baby from a burning building, but even a small act of kindness goes a long way with readers identifying with your protagonist.

5. Don’t overload the chapter with secondary characters – When you meet someone new, it’s tough enough to remember that person’s name. Don’t throw a dozen characters at your reader right away. It’s too confusing.

6. Light on the description – Don’t weigh the story down with too many details about the setting, every blade of grass, or the character’s eye color – there’s plenty of time for that later.

7. Skip the back story – Readers don’t need to know everything about the character right away. Save the details for why and how for at least a few more chapters — and later in the story if you can manage it. Remember, offer ‘crumbs’ along the way…don’t throw down the entire loaf of bread!

8. This is my personal preference, but keep the first chapter between five and ten pages (double-spaced in a Word document). Much more than that and you chance losing a reader.

9. Leave the reader hanging at the end of the chapter. Don’t explain everything. Ask a question. Pose another dilemma. Put someone in danger. Give the reader a reason to turn the page and go to chapter two.

 10. Put chapter one away for a day or two. Get it back out, re-read it. Make notes, do some light revisions. Let a trusted friend read it. Let a book-loving acquaintance read it. Make more notes, do more revisions as needed. IMPORTANT: Go on to chapter two. Write the rest of the manuscript.  Then, Go back to # 1 on this list and double-check that you’ve included everything needed for that stellar first chapter.

Looking for examples of stellar first chapters? Pick up a few of your favorite books. Try answering the questions above using those novels. What makes them special?

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lauren Clark

 Lauren Clark is the author of Stay Tuned and Dancing Naked in Dixie. She writes contemporary novels set in the Deep South; stories sprinkled with sunshine, suspense, and secrets.

A former TV news anchor, Lauren adores flavored coffee, local bookstores, and anywhere she can stick her toes in the sand. Her big loves are her family, paying it forward, and true-blue friends. Check out her website at www.laurenclarkbooks.com.

 

 

Smart, Sassy Fiction with a Southern Twist

 Dancing Naked in Dixie for Kindle

Dancing Naked in Paperback

Dancing Naked for Nook

Dancing Naked for iTunes, iPad, iPhone

Stay Tuned

Lauren Clark Books Website

Let’s all ‘Dance Naked in Dixie’

Even if you aren’t a fan of contemporary women’s fiction, or “chick-lit,” Dancing is a good read.

Before I write my review of Lauren Clark’s Dancing Naked in Dixie, a couple of notes. First, I am pleased to call Lauren Clark a friend, though we’ve never met. She’s been friendly, incredibly helpful and a joy to converse with via Facebook and e-mail.

Second, I received an advance reader’s copy of Dancing, but the author did not ask me to review the book in return.  She did ask for a very brief blurb later, which I provided.

Okay, with all that out of the way, here’s what I think: read it.

Lauren Clark’s first offering was Stay Tuned, set in the town where I live, so it caught my interest right away. Plus, the setting was a television news station. I have a (very) little experience with television news and three decades of experience with print journalism. I enjoyed the book and appreciated the spot-on setting and characterizations, though contemporary women’s fiction isn’t the genre I normally choose to read.

Some authors write book after book with about the same level of skill, and some authors can never quite produce anything as good as their first books.

Some, like Clark, improve with experience. While Stay Tuned was a fun read and I certainly don’t resent spending my time on it, Dancing is a leap forward. Clark seems to be fine-tuning a native skill for storytelling.

Dancing starts off funny and fast, then proceeds to send the reader off on a roller coaster ride of romance and adventure, sprinkled with more humor. You might even shed a tear or two, though I won’t say why.

Here’s the synopsis from the product page on Amazon:

Travel writer Julia Sullivan lives life in fast-forward. She jet sets to Europe and the Caribbean with barely a moment to blink or sleep. But too many mishaps and missed deadlines have Julia on the verge of being fired.

With a stern warning, and unemployment looming, she’s offered one last chance to rescue her career. Julia embarks on an unlikely journey to the ‘Heart of Dixie’—Eufaula, Alabama—home to magnificent mansions, sweet tea, and the annual Pilgrimage.

Julia arrives, soon charmed by the lovely city and her handsome host, but her stay is marred by a shocking discovery. Can Julia’s story save her career, Eufaula, and the annual Pilgrimage?

I grew up about 30 miles from Eufaula, Alabama. In addition to camping, fishing and one truly foible-filled 4th of July picnic, I once worked at the newspaper there. I know Eufaula, and when you read Dancing, you will get to know it, too, because Clark shows the town to you with exquisite accuracy.

You can almost taste the sweet tea and hear the slow drawl as the characters interact. Clark is careful to include all the senses, gifting the reader with the sights, sounds and scents of this lovely old Southern town and its people. I laughed out loud when Clark revealed that one of the characters is named Shug Jordan, after the famous Auburn football coach. She even explains the correct pronunciation: JERR-dan. Now that’s nailing it!

While I’m not as familiar with New York City, I suspect Clark, a former television newsperson herself and thus accustomed to extensive research, nailed that city’s “personality” as well.

The pacing is well done. The characters are distinct and generally well-defined. You don’t get handed everything – some subtleties may dawn on you a page or two later. I like that.

Dancing is interesting. As a writer, I read books not just for story but for craft, and Clark has a good grasp of both. I expect we will see her writing career grow exponentially, and I’m looking forward to her next book.

While I received the reader’s copy free from the author, I bought the Kindle edition as soon as it was released. Why? Because I wanted to read the final, polished version, and because I firmly believe in supporting good authors as much as possible.

Click on the image of the book cover to go to the product page on Amazon. Dancing Naked in Dixie is available in e-book and paperback form.

Honoring My Father

That’s my dad with the notebook in his lap, doing what he did best: reporting.

Memory’s Child is free to download on Amazon today.

I hope some readers will take a moment to write a short review once they finish the book.

I didn’t make MC free for that, though.

Today, my father would have turned 97 years old. That’s him in the lower left of the photo above, writing in a notebook. Looks like he’s interviewing the fellow sitting nearby.

My dad was a career journalist, though most of his career was as an Army journalist in the Public Affairs Office. He wrote speeches, too, for generals and the High Commander of Okinawa when we were stationed there. He had something to do with the old documentary series, “The Big Picture,” though I don’t have personal memories of that. He moonlighted as long as I can remember, serving as copy editor and editor of various civilian newspapers near the Army posts where we lived.

He also served as editor of two post-war newspapers, one in Germany and the ComZ Cadence in France. I didn’t come along until Dad and the family were transferred back to the States.

Dad used to take me along with him sometimes to cover stories, when he needed a kid in a photo, or just to ride around and yak.

He said most reporters would be better at their jobs if they forgot half of what they learned in college. He meant they would be better at writing creatively to fulfill the five Ws without boring the reader. A news report is just a cold, lifeless body — the quality of the writing gives it warmth and a heartbeat, turns it into a story. He loved story.

He was usually serious when he talked about writing, but he had a puckish, irreverent side, too, and a great sense of humor. The photo at the right is more representative of his personality. I  have the original artwork on my wall near my desk to remind me that  you can’t always be serious or you’ll miss the thready pulse of a great tale inside the body of the who-what-when-where-why.

I learned a lot from my dad in the short time I had him. He died of a heart attack while at work in 1968, exactly two weeks before my 14th birthday. We didn’t have access to video cameras and camera phones — in fact, cassette tapes were fairly new back then! I don’t have much more than photos of my dad, the cute drawing of him, plus a rather large collection of newspaper clippings and entire newspapers dating back to World War II. He wasn’t much for writing letters, unfortunately. Not only do I have a good portion of his body of work, but I have plenty of memories. Not all perfect and pristine – he was human, after all – but mainly good ones.

As soon as I was old enough, I followed my dad into the newspaper business, and found myself working in some of the same places he had worked. People remembered him, and to me, that was a great honor.

He confided in me once that he was writing a novel. He showed me the typed pages that were in his dresser drawer, though he didn’t want me to read them. Adult stuff, I assume, like war or some other grownup-type strife. I respected his wishes, but oh, how I wish I hadn’t. The unfinished manuscript disappeared after his death. I don’t know what happened to it, though I suspect it was tossed in the trash.

As I write this post, Memory’s Child is ranked #1 in Amazon’s top science fiction list, and #25 in the Top 100 Free eBooks list. More than 7,000 potential readers have downloaded the book since it went free on Sunday.

I hope that everyone who reads the book will like it, even though they don’t know the free download is my gift to them, passed on from my father, for the love of story.

Happy birthday, Dad, and thanks for the gift.

Let it Flow, Let it Flow, Let it Flow

Do you outline your novels? Do you write synopses of the chapters before you write them or make lists of pivotal scenes for each chapter?

Although most of the zillion books on writing that I have read insist that you must outline or in some way plan the course of your story, I don’t do it.

I like surprises, but only in books and in writing fiction. I like to go with the flow, wherever the story takes me, rather than drag the story to some predetermined finish line whether it wants to go there or not. Too heavy. Too much trouble.

Besides, I know me better than the authors of those how-to-write-well books do. If I write an outline, detailed or bare bones, or synopsize the book chapter by chapter, I will never write the darned thing. Once I’ve told the story in any fashion, it’s told. The fun has been had and the party is over.

That is also why I rarely tell anyone what my work-in-progress is about. I may talk about a troublesome scene or even chapter, but never the whole storyline. Partly because I don’t know the whole story myself, yet, and partly because, as I said, once the story is told, it’s told.

I have used Cyn Mobley’s go-to plot points system in her BAM: Book A Month ebook, but mostly for problem areas that have me stumped, like a pivotal scene that refuses to pivot. That is when planning comes in most handy for me. I stress that because your experiences may be (and often should be) wildly different.

For me, outlining and short chapter-by-chapter synopses were most helpful when working on a query letter to an agent or publisher. Since I’m deeply in love with indie publishing, the outline/synopsis helps most with writing blurbs.

I usually have a pretty good idea of the story I want to tell before I begin writing.  Nothing specific or concrete, just an idea that has germinated and begun to grow.  Memory’s Child was an exception – I not only had no plan for the plot, I didn’t know what was going to happen until it flowed out of my pen. I had no inkling that the story was there, lurking in my brain’s creative half. I wanted to write romances!

If outlining works for you, hooray. If it doesn’t, hooray. Forcing yourself in either direction will only make you miserable and the writing more difficult. Whatever it takes to help your writing flow more easily, do that, no matter what the how-to books say.