LouShy's Blog

This made me laugh and I thought I'd share the joy.

I’ve finished my WIP and it’s being read by my critique partners and beta reader. Advantage of a beta reader is she hasn’t seen the morphing bits and pieces that the critique partners have and has a fairly fresh pair of eyes.

While they are doing that I wrote the synopsis and a query letter and I’m letting it all sit for awhile so I can come back and revise with(desperately thinking of a different way to say this, crud, oh well) a fresh pair of eyes.

So what to work on next? Life is definitely busy. We are finalizing the plans for Murder in the Grove. I’m beta reading for a friend. The summer is packed full of writers retreats, weddings and family functions. Plus summer movies are a big draw for me. So plenty to do but… what to write next.

        Here’s a short story I wrote. Enjoy

My husband Eric travels a great deal for his job. Which I expected, I mean the man speaks four languages fluently.

It has its draw backs. I miss him when he’s gone. But a bonus is when our schedules line up and I can go with him. Then we always manage to squeeze in a few days after business meetings to go sightseeing.

I’ve seen most of Europe and last time we went to Australia.

Eric didn’t want me to come this time. “Kelly, you know how different their culture is. You wouldn’t be able to hold my hand in public and imagine if you actually kissed me on the street.”

Okay so I’m expressive. So what. If you had a gorgeous husband like Eric, with beautiful eyes and strong hands…well, when my love for him builds I can’t not touch him. But please, it’s not like I maul him or even grab his cute ass. Unless we are alone and in the kitchen then all bets are off.

“Besides. It’s really hot there.”

I hate the heat. Skiing, fireplaces, warm fuzzy socks, these are a few of my favorite things.

“I’d behave. I know the dangers and-“

“Babe, you wouldn’t be the only one who’d have to constantly be on guard.” He wrapped his arms around my stomach and pulled me down to the bed next to the open suit case. I rubbed my chin against his smooth cheek and sniffed his after shave.

We’ve been together for almost eight years and married for five. I figured at some point we’d grow out of the holding-hands-in-public, lighting-up-the-room-with-our-smiles stage. But it feels far off in the future, if at all.

Eric said, “I’d get pissed the first time you reached for me and then flinched away as you remembered. That would drive me ape shit.” He sighed.

I didn’t want him to feel bad.

Where do Eric and Kelly live? Where are they afraid to go? While you ponder that, we’ll have an intermission.

I’ve been trying to remember my first creative endeavor, writing wise. I know quite a few authors that have been writing since they could read. Angie Abderhalden wrote Star Trek fan fiction in grade school. My own seven year old wrote a seven page mystery involving Ruff Ruffman and Scooby Do. I wrote a short story for Freshman speech class that finaled in some obscure local contest but I realized the other day that there was something earlier.

In eighth grade English I read my first Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. My favorite play is Henry the Fifth. We were given the assignment to rewrite a scene in modern language. I’m sure it was to help us learn the meanings and rhythm of Shakespeare English but I thought that was boring and worst, everyone would pick the balcony scene and have street slang.

 

Back to the story

“Maybe we can go in a few years once the political unrest settles.” I rubbed Eric’s arms and leaned back to kiss his cheek. “But I’m totally holding you to taking me to Spain over Christmas.”

“Babe, if I thought it was safe-“

“Eric. I’m okay. Yeah, I’ve always wanted to go to America….

Last intermission: Are they Muslim or Hindu? Do they think people will treat them differently because of the way they look?

I picked the wedding scene. I set it in the Deep South in 1940 and Romeo was black and Juliet was white. I got an A. I’m sure my teacher was astounded by my sensitivity at such a young age. But to me, no big deal. My sister married a black man in 1989 and there was still prejudice and controversy and concern. My dad was a cop and my mom was tolerant of all the strays he would bring home. I was raised to believe that all people are basically good, that you can’t tell anything by appearance and it’s not our place to judge. I’d like to think I listened to their example.

 

 And if you were going to San Francisco or Boston, I’d make you take me but…It’ll be fine.”

“You’re the best husband in the world,” Eric said.

“Ah, aren’t you the sweet talker. Come kiss your man.”

 

Nope. Eric and his husband Kelly live in Denmark, where Gay marriage has been legal since 1989. Gay: the new black.

With Character Development we hear that heroes and heroines need to be flawed, deep, 3d, larger than life, and yet realistic.

There is no wrong way to create a character and everyone does it differently. The following is a way to check your characters out. 3d is a dimensional reference.

2^nd Dimension: What they do and where they live. My biggest tip here is to not stop at this level. Jules Cassidy in not just an FBI agent that lives in Boston. You are not just a writer that lives in the Northwest. And best of all. This is the ‘face’ we show the world and the underbelly of the beast is often such a contrast. Mysterious characters and secondary characters don’t usually go past this level. We see glimpses of Ranger’s other dimensions but part of his allure is the mystery.

3^rd Dimension: This is background story and only needed on main characters. Do not give us a third dimension on the waiter. In a lot of ways it’s often the 3^rd dimension that explains the contrast between the 1^st and 2^nd. Stephanie Plum’s aversion to guns. Belle’s (Beauty and the Beast) addiction to books. Again the little details make this real to the reader but one or two sharp details in a brief explanation is plenty.

4^th Dimension: Texture. His flaws or insecurities or fears. Make them extreme and then torture them by making them face that fear, overcome that flaw.

5^th Dimension: Substance. Is your hero macho? Was he raised by a house full of women? Is he a devote Christian? This level is only needed for the hero and heroine.

Have you ever played a RPG? Role Playing Game? And no, cheerleader and football star doesn’t count. In RPGs you pick your character’s moral Alignment. Are you a bad guy or good guy? A white-hatter? But the best RPGs go into greater detail and have more ‘grey’ options.

Principled – Superman, Captain America (no lying, killing or torture). Scrupulous – Dirty Harry, Dare Devil (good guy that breaks the rules when he has to). Unprincipled – The X-man Gambit, Average Joe (looks out for self and avoids getting involved). Anarchist – Raphael from The Ninja Turtles (Dislikes authority figures, doesn’t work well with a group). Aberrant – Wolverine (isn’t above doing wrong to get what he thinks is right, torture for information, has his own code of honor). Diabolic – Dr. Octopus from Spiderman (Megalomaniacs, trusts no one). Miscreant – The tongue flicking creepy dude in silence of the lambs, Hannibal Lector (kill for pleasure).

Want to hear a group of geeks fight? Tell them you think Wolverine is Scrupulous and the Hulk is Aberrant and sit back to watch the fur fly.

So 5^th Dimensional characters. Hmm. I’m off to make a good-looking, construction worker, that was jilted at the altar, has an aversion to blood, and whose scrupulous behavior has gotten her in trouble. Again.

I’ve been reading Donald Maas’s Writing the Breakout Novel. And its Character section got me thinking. Often writing instructors or how-to articles talk in generalities about aspects of writing. Lately the RWR has been full of such articles. How do you create a page turner? Use fast pacing, hooks and cliff hangers. And of course several authors describe or give opinions on the subject matter. Which assures the reader that it’s just as confusing to them as it is to the rest of us. But the techniques, the actual bolts and tools we can use to alter the pace of a passage? Forget about it.

With Character Development we hear that heroes and heroines need to be flawed, deep, 3d, larger than life, and yet realistic. Maas’s section, though skimming the surface, had some great ideas.

There is no wrong way to create a character and everyone does it differently. The following is a way to check your characters out. 3d is a dimensional reference. One dimensional items are flat. Imagine looking at a line. This represents the surface of your character. His looks. The assumptions others make based on these looks. He’s blonde and we assume a certain IQ level.

The second dimension is still flat. Imagine looking at the top of a box, all you see is a square. This is life details of your character. Where he lives, what she does for a living. Still surface stuff but not what a stranger would know.

The third dimension. You now realize that the square has sides, is a box, forms a cube. We now see the overall picture. This is the first level of depth and contains background, backstory.

Then we add shading. The shadows, yes but also the texture. This is where the infamous flaws lie.

If you think were done then you’re wrong. What is the cube made of? Wood? Rubber? This is important to know to describe how outside forces will affect the inside. This is the needed contrast required to tell the characters apart. Hopefully you only have one wooden cube. Perhaps the rest of your characters are rubber balls and cones made of twine. Okay I’m smirking big time at the comparisons. And all my generalities.

1^st Dimension: What do they look like? Describe them through your other characters. Do not use mirrors, unless extreme vanity is one of his shadows. Do not internally muse about their looks. If you have to wait to describe them until another character’s pov, then wait. Or don’t describe them at all. At least blatantly. If a hot chick, who won’t give anyone else the time of day, stops and stares at your hero then we know he’s really something to look at. So technique number one, use other characters pov or actions to describe the main character physically.

You want the reader to imagine your character in their minds? Leave something for their imaginations. If you do all the work, provide every detail, physically describe until there could be no doubt on exactly how many pores he has, then the reader won’t remember him. We don’t need to. It’s all there in the book. Use instead a few strong descriptive words. The other edge of this deadly sword is harping on a single trait. He has blue eyes, his eyes are the color of sky, his powerful aqua eyes….blah, and yawn but after a few more purple references to his eyes we’re ready to puke or way worse, we’re ready to put the book down and not pick it back up. Janet Evanovich’s Ranger. Robert Crais’s Joe Pike. Suzanne Brockmann’s Jules Cassidy. Short, decisive descriptions.

I'll post the rest of this article tomorrow. What are some of your favorite characters and how are they described?

What's up with getting rejections in the mail on Fridays? About two weeks ago I got a lovely, 'no thank you' from Leah Hultenschmidt from Dorchester. Then today I got a hand written note from Laura Bradford of the Bradford Literary Agency. Pretty cool that it's hand written and this is what she had to say:

Dear Amberly,
Thanks so much for sending me a sample of Bravery Not Included. Unfortunately, after careful consideration I have decided to pass on the project. You've got a great premise here and the writing is solid, but I found I had a hard time getting hooked by the story at the outset. I wish you all the best of luck!
Laura

Leah also commented on the interesting and intriguing plot. Time to research hooks.

If anyone is interested I'd be willing to post my query letter that I used for both of them. Let me know.

From Publishers Lunch
Cooking
Writers of double James Beard award winner (and 2007 IACP Julia Child Award) THE LEE BROS. SOUTHERN COOKBOOK, Ted Lee and Matt Lee's next two books, to Pam Krauss at Clarkson Potter, in a major deal, at auction, by David McCormick at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency.

"major deal" $500,000 and up

See I need to be writing cook books. Except I can't cook. Do a little baking now and again but nothing worth a blue ribbon or a 'major deal'.

In a former life I played World of Warcraft. I had to give it up for the writing. Oh, the sacrifices we make. This might not make a whole lot of since to those who don't play computer games but I wanted to share. My husband reads this comic and we both got a laugh out of it.

Real Life Comics - Patch Day

If you could redesign your own life what changes would you make on Patch Day?

I have odd taste in music. It's not that I listen to both punk and country, which I do. It's that they all tend to be things you can sing to and that tells a story. Hell Yeah by Montgomery Gentry has plenty of attitude and you can't tell me that Eminem isn't a musical story teller. My fav is Lose Yourself. And we all know how addicted to Fiction I am.

I listen to the local 100.3 the X. I have to roll my eyes at the immature dj's and flip channels on occasion but a new song caught my attention and stuck in my head until I tracked it down. No, I'm not saying how much time I waisted. <See previous post about page total and understand my lack of guilt.>

Then I found it. Addicted by Saving Abel. This is their first album and though the songs aren't complex, and other songs on the album are more story-heavy, there is just something about this song that really gets me going.

Here are some of the lyrics. Yeah, I've got issues.

I’m so addicted to
All the things you do
When you’re going down on me
In between the sheets
All the sounds you make
With every breath you take
It’s unlike anything
When you’re loving me

It’s actually saying he wants more to a relationship then the sex. That it needs to mean something for them to survive all the effort required to stick it out.

Saving Abel has some live YouTube videos up which are absolute crap. The quality of sound is just terrible and doesn’t do them justice. So I posted my own and added some pretty pics to look at. A little eye candy for guys and girls. They don’t have anything to do with the song and everyone has clothes on. I’ve been researching skaters and skate boarding for my WIP so some of that is in there as well as my odd sense of humor. The last picture is a depiction of what it takes to turn men and women on.

Here's the link
 

We've got to celebrate! Not only am I this close (holds up thumb and forefinger) to being done with RNR, my WIP, but I wrote eleven pages yesterday and twelve today. Hot Dang!

Also, in the April issue of the RWR, Romance Writers Report, there was a four page article on Fanfiction. The author of the article had interviewed several authors that have fanfiction forum on their web pages or dedicated fanfiction sites about their characters. Meg Cabot, J.D. Robb's In Death series, and Sherilyn Kenyon. She also talked about her early writing of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. Jane Austen! Why? *shrug* to each her own.

But I did pick up a new Fanfic term. Mary Sue story: where the author inserts themselves in the fanfiction. Living out a dream on paper. The corresponding male term is Marty Stu.

From the New York Times.
"Robert S. Miller, the founding publisher of Hyperion, the adult books division of the Walt Disney Company, would leave his post of 17 years to lead this new, as yet unnamed entity."

Low to no advances but 50/50 split on the profit? Hmmm. It'll be interesting to see how he does.

The full article is here.


I'll have to post something soon that doesn't require a lot of thought process.

*off to find more eye candy*

Buy Local.

This article in the Boise Weekly talks about the writer's hunt for a good book store. Great stats and history in the article about national trends on independent books stores.

Boise Weekly - Idaho's Only Alternative: Features: Feature: Home for Bookworms

A bit long but worth the read. I like the sarcastic vernacular the Boise Weekly uses for it’s articles.

High Points especially for fellow Boiseans.

Angie Abderhalden works with me on the Popular Fiction Association Board. I went to her author signing and have been to other author events at Rediscovered Bookshop. The clerks there are great. Ross is a non-fiction, political science buff and is great for those types of recommendations. Kelly is their Romance book guru. All of them are helpful but if you get a kindred spirit to talk Fantasy books with or YA, double cool.

I’ve noticed that most Indie stores have specialties. Vista Book Gallery is predominately Mysteries and Rediscovered, since Bruce and Laura are such big fans, is heavy in the Science Fiction/Fantasy.

The largest independent bookstore, actually the largest bookstore period, I’ve ever been in was Powell’s in Portland. You get a map as you go in or you’ll get lost, no joke. Neat store but woefully understocked in Genre fiction, having only a single bookshelf for romance novels and little more for Science Fiction books. But you want physics or art books? Holy Cow!

One thing that Boise Weekly didn’t cover was that Rediscovered buys and sells new and used books. For those of us with Fiction Addiction it’s nice to exchange our books for a discount on future purchases.

What are your favorite ways to buy books?

Two male artist with very different focus. Both extremely talented. Luis Royo does fantasy and Sci Fi art. He has a general theme of beauty and the beast running through most of his subject mater. The other artist Michael Breyette delves into a totally different fantasy. His theme is natural beauty and grace. I did not provide links to either because they are both very explicit. VERY. But the two pics behind the cut are safe

I’ve been working on a character concept, as yet untitled. I’m not taking notes or searching book indexes or anything like that. I’m pacing, and mumbling and reading and, on occasion, I laugh at myself and start over. We all know how we work without actually creating new words or revising old. That mental process of creating. Essential, even if we are the only ones that understand its importance. But this isn’t about working methods.

I struggle making my characters believe different things. They look different, have unique backstories, different mannerisms and speech patterns and even their fears and internal conflicts – different. But they believe what I believe. Racism is wrong. Education is important. All the same as each other and all me. And the Villains? They believe the opposite. They are racists and bigots and think women are less. They all tend to be arrogant and they believe very strongly that what they are doing is the best/right thing. The last is just fine but how realistic is the rest?

Some great fiction I’ve read recently had no villains or external conflict. It was two people trying to fall in love that believed different things strongly and yet both of them were right. Or rather, neither of them were wrong. Heck, though I understood both sides I didn’t agree with either one. And it so totally rocked.

So the vague rolling concept is how do I outfit my characters with beliefs that are different from each other and different from me without feeling the need that they must overcome this belief/outlook? And in the process I’ve realized I’m a big concept and generalities kind of person and others are method and details. Surprised? Not so much.

People are given knowledge. We are told by people we trust basic ‘truths’ that we absorb as fact. You think that thing you’re wearing over your chest is a shirt because as some point someone told you it was. So I can create a staunch, conservative, republican that is methodical and detail oriented as long as those things are fundamentals of their backstories. But when I’m writing them -- their POV’s – I’ve got to work on keeping it straight forward, no meandering. Make it sound like them. Not me writing them. Hmm.

And the most powerful villains are the ones that lead us astray. We believe in them because they are realistic and right and good, except that they kill and mutilate. Or for the non-psychotics, they are people who believe they are doing right, and may not realize the damage they are causing. Like mother-in-laws.

What do you think? Got any thoughts that might help me hammer this out? Could you recommend a how to book that might help?

 

kemcco posted a comment to my exposition series that I’ve been thinking about ever since. Here it is:

 

Great series. My only problem is that I have never read any of the novels you use as examples. Sometimes that makes me wonder what's going on. Perhaps I'm the only one on Earth who has never read a Harry Potter novel. ;)