Making My Point

Jennifer laments her lack of speaking skills...

I’ve spent the past week writing and rewriting something I think I want to say at a meeting I’m attending. With the amount of time I’ve taken, you’d think it was some long speech that I have to make, when in truth, it’s maybe four sentences. But I’ve agonized over these four sentences every single day.

One reason is that I am going on record and rebuking someone and I’m trying to balance on the fine line of giving my opinion while still sounding rational and not intentionally hurting anyone.

The biggest reason, however, is that I’m speaking it, not writing it. I hate public speaking. I’m the stereotypical introverted writer. I’d much rather speak to my characters in my head than to a roomful of people.

In my head, everything works out fine and I have the exact words available at the perfect time. My retorts are perfect too. But I know that if I rely on what’s in my head, when the time comes, I’ll forget what I want to say, how I want to say it, and lose my point in the morass.

That’s why writing is so great. I can write and revise to my heart’s content. I can bend and shape the words until I get across the exact point I want to make. I can give my characters the perfect response, when in reality, I wouldn’t think of the perfect response for hours or days after the fact, long after the opportunity had passed.

Public speakers are taught how to speak, to make eye contact and to use gestures to make their point. But I’m weak at public speaking, and my point is too important to get lost. So I’m going to rely on my writing skills—such as they may be—to make my point.

And hope that my words are enough.

Falling in love with love again

Ana finds a long lost love story. 

Two weeks ago, I obtained a new used copy of a most-favorite book I loaned out many years ago. Naturally, I started reading it right away, eager to revisit the characters I remembered so fondly.

The book is Darkmage, written in 1986 by Barbara Hambly, a prolific science fiction / fantasy writer. I was struck by the complexity of her sentence structure--something I did not notice back in the early 1990's. Something that texting and sound bites have chased out of town.

When I got to page 169, I found the passage where the heroine, a nerdy computer programmer realizes she is in love with the wizard hero. I wish I could write like this:

       For a long time their eyes held.

       She thought, with a curious sense of shock that was not a complete surprise, I expected it to be different than this. For a time it seemed to her that neither of them breathed--that it was impossible that the only point of contact between their two bodies was where her petticoats brushed against his booted ankle in a froth of voile. Part of her mind  was saying in its usual cool and practical tones, This is ridiculous. I don't do things like this-while another part said, I want him. 

     For a time the sooty-gray shadows of the empty drawing room were like completely still water, fathoms deep and silent but for the distant chatter of birds outside. The smell of the woods, of grass damp from last night's rain and of the far-off acrid smoke of the burning kilns, came to her through the open windows, mixed with the faint scent of soap from bis flesh and hair. he stood so still that one facet of the crystal earring her wore held a gleam of the last light from outside like a tiny mirror, steely and unmoving in the deepening gloom; the only thing that stirred was the white rim of light on the ruffles of his shirt with the rise and fall of his chest. 

      Everything seemed incredibly clear to her, but without pattern. It had nothing in common with her encounters with Gary and her nervous weighing and reweighing of pro and con. She only knew that she wanted him and knew, looking up into the wide, black pupils of his eyes, that he wanted her.

      He turned abruptly, almost angrily, away and walked from the windows into the twilight cavern if the room. "I will not do this," he said softly. She could hear the faint tremor of his deep  voice. "You are dependent on me and under my protection in this world. I won't take advantage of that."

      His back was to her, the diffuse whiteness of the fading day putting a sheen like pewter on the velvet of his shoulders. She knew well enough that he was conscious of her eyes upon his back. She was aware of her own feelings less clearly, shocked and appalled, not by them, but by their strength. Nothing she had ever experienced with Gary, not even sex, came anywhere near this need--not to have, but to give.

      After a moment he turned and walked silently from the room. 

Secondary Characters

Debra shares what she learned from Kristan Higgins about secondary characters.

I love secondary characters. My first book had two important ones that eventually became the heroes of their own books. A secondary cast of characters definitely rounds out your story. At Spring Fling a couple weekends ago, I attended a workshop given by one of our headliners, Kristan Higgins. Here are some of the highlights I took away from the sectional.

Secondary characters can get away with things the main character(s) can't.

They might demonstrate the attributes and flaws of the main character(s).

There are several types of secondary characters:
mentor
nemesis
best friend
These types of characters need to matter to the story and shouldn't just be shoved in.

You need to know when to amp up their role (prop up a sagging middle, a break from the main plotline, bring in a new set of problems) in the story and/or when to kill them (all hope must be lost, bad guy needs more power, tender-hearted drama, shock value).

There are dos and don'ts when creating them:
Don't let them over-shadow the main character(s).
Do let them balance the main character(s).
Do give them oppositional goals.
Do make them multi-dimensional.
Do make them memorable.
Limit their numbers.

Secondary plotlines need to reflect the overall theme of the book. They don't have to be tied up with a bow. They should resolve before the main plotline is wrapped up. In a series they become a hint for the next book.

When writing a series, don't put characters in just because you intend to write their book 'someday'. Don't give them scenes just so readers can revisit main characters from other books. Do give them scenes that are important to the story.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Should we use coincidences in our novels?

Paula ponders the use of coincidence in novels

Have you ever read a novel where there seemed to be too many coincidences? The heroine meets the man of her dreams but, for whatever reason, fails to exchange contact details with him, and since she is leaving town, she doesn’t think she will ever see him again. But then, of course, he ‘just happens’ to have the seat next to hers on the plane the next day. And it turns out not only that his father ‘just happens’ to be the sworn enemy of her father, but also that he fathered a child in the past who has been adopted by the heroine’s sister.

Okay, I made all that up, but I have read some novels where the coincidences pile up one on top of another in a similar way.

Of course, coincidences do happen in real life. I’m sure you can think of examples in your own life. I recall running into a friend’s son on 44th Street in New York – we only lived about half a mile away from him at home, so it really did seem strange to be talking to him on a NYC street! Several years later, after my friend had moved to Scotland, she called me to say she had met another friend of mine, who lived in the same Scottish village. This other friend was actually someone I had once stayed with when she lived in Brussels!

More recently i.e. last weekend, I was searching online for some information. On one site, I saw a photo of a man and immediately knew he looked just as I imagine the hero in my current ‘work in progress’. Out of interest, I read the short biography about him, and you can imagine my amazement when it dawned on me he was the son (now in his early 40s) of someone I had a serious crush on when I was in my teens – and no, he doesn’t actually look like his father, whom I’ve not seen or even heard of for over 50 years anyway!

However, it made start to wonder about coincidences. Even the best writers have used them e.g.in Pride and Prejudice, Mr Collins ‘just happens’ to be the clergyman who is under the patronage of Darcy’s aunt, and Elizabeth’s aunt, Mrs Gardiner, ‘just happens’ to live near to Darcy’s Pemberley estate.

So can we use coincidences in our novels or should we avoid them?

The novelist John Braine said, “The reading public expects one coincidence and is cheated if it isn’t given one, but scorns two.”

I would add that any coincidence should be realistic so as not to stretch the reader’s credulity too far. Using coincidences to move the plot forward may appear too ‘contrived’ for the reader to stomach, and certainly the happy ending should not be the result of a convenient coincidence, unless you want your reader to feel cheated out of seeing the characters earn their happy ending through their own efforts.

It's true that coincidences happen in real life, but it seems the reader is less likely to accept them in fiction.

Balancing Act

Jennifer looks at motivation.

Things that sap my writing energy:

Too many late nights in a row

Emotional turmoil

Stress

Insecurity

Things that renew my writing energy:

Encouragement

Critique partners

Emails from editors

Reading good books

Wishing you all positive writing energy this week!

Review Trolls

Continuing last week's discussion about Amazon and reviews, Ana posts (with permission) Deep Story Instructor Carol Hughes' comments about Review Trolls. 

I love that term - "review trolls"!

Besides the fact that everyone is entitled to their opinion - there is another point to keep in mind - there are a lot of stupid people in the world. And a great many of them seem to have nothing better to do than spend their time confirming their stupidity to the world at large via the Internet.

Stupid and mean people each have their own reason for demonstrating their personal failings to the rest of us. To them their actions make sense. To the rest of us - all we can do is scratch our heads and wonder how truly miserable their lives must be that they feel the need to taint the waters around them like they do.

Every time I see a nasty review I'm fascinated - both by the person who wrote the review and the work of art they are trashing. In fact, my curiosity is such that I usually buy the book because I want to understand how a person cannot respect the hard work an author puts into turning out his or her book.

Every single time I have done this - I've fallen in love with that author and their work.

So I love the trolls for introducing me to so many great authors I more than likely would have missed without them directing my attention to the object that the troll feel compelled to trash.

But about the trolls themselves - I find them really interesting because they make me wonder about what is driving them to spend their time trying to destroy another person instead of trying to do something constructive and worthwhile with their own lives.

Now, that is not to say that their reaction to a particular book is not valid - for them. Because, maybe it is. But then again, maybe it isn't. Maybe there is something else entirely at work concerning.

It is that mystery that interests me in their action.

There's nothing wrong with not liking a particular book - for whatever reason exists that makes you not particularly like a book. But to spend your time and energies trashing another person's hard work - what in the world do you gain by doing something like that? You ending only hurting yourself more than you hurt that other person.

I'll give you a good personal example. When the Deep Story book came out it quickly became the leading crafting book worldwide - according to the lovely note that the folks at Amazon sent to me after its release. Now the reason that they sent me that note was due to the fact that they had been so kind to hold my hand all the way through the entire process of releasing my first book. And they just wanted to encourage me to tackle my stack of pending projects.

That was a really nice thing for everyone on the team to do - especially given the number of authors they work with on a daily basis.

That whole incident was something I never mentioned to anyone before. However, about a month after the book's release I was at one of my chapter meetings and someone mentioned that the book was then on the best sellers list and they were kidding me because I hadn't even told them that I'd released the book yet.

Later during the meeting one of the really big name writers in the group, whom I am in awe of due to her incredible talent at a writer, and who had always been very friendly to me for years, suddenly started to really trash me to the folks around her. And, of course, I overheard all of her incredibly vicious comments.

To say I was surprised by her actions is an understatement. But, instead of being hurt by her comments, I was curious about what had triggered such a vicious, unprovoked attack by her. Especially in light of the fact that we had always been on very friendly terms for a number of years.

Now it turns out that we are in several chapters together, so this behavior of hers played out for months at every single chapter meeting. Despite her nastiness I never altered my behavior towards her in any manner. And when numerous chapter members commented to me about the situation, my response never wavered from "I have absolutely no idea what in the world set her off." And, "Maybe she's going through a bad time and just needed to vent on someone.

With each passing month her behavior became more and more vicious and open - to the point that at an annual retreat she walked up to the guest speaker after the event and made a complete fool out of herself in public. Our guest speaker and her husband and I were having coffee when this writer arrived and interrupted us to talk to the speaker and her husband. Now all four of us had always been very good friends - and the speaker and her husband had moved out of the state, so they were completely unaware of what had been going on for more than 6 months when this occurred.

They were so stunned by the woman's rudeness towards me that they literally sat there with their mouths hanging open in shock. And after she walked away to get herself a cup of coffee - the speaker demanded to know "what in the hell is going on here?"

When I explained that I was as clueless as she was about our friend's behavior - naturally she wanted to go charging into the store and drag her out by her ear and make her apology for her rudeness. Then she got mad at me for not being hurt by what was going on with our friend.

I ended up having to calm her down and explain that I found the whole situation to be very interesting because I could not figure out why the woman had turned on me like she had. And since she insisted that she hadn't done or say anything nasty about me when I had initially attempted to ask what she was upset about - that left me with a mystery on my hands. And since I happen to love mysteries - I was finding the entire situation to be "interesting”.

This behavior pattern went on for almost 12 months. Then at one of the chapter meetings she was forced to actually speak to me about chapter business. Now, keep in mind that I had never altered my behavior towards her no matter how nasty she became.

In the middle of being forced to speak directly to me she finally revealed the source of her problem.

This incredible and highly successful writer - had been unceremoniously dropped by her New York publisher after more than 10 years of turning out top-notch books. Despite the fact that she had sold more than 1,000,000 books for this publisher - they called her up out of the blue and told her that they had decided to drop her completely. And they gave her no explanation whatsoever for their decision. [Later, I was able to help her understand that it was due to the fact that they had decided to replace her with a "cheaper" writer. Due to her success, she was earning more than what it would cost them to replace her with a newer writer who could not command the same percentage she was getting.]

Because she had just been dropped by her publisher a few days before the chapter meeting where she learned that my very first book had made it to the best seller list - all of her anger, hurt, and rage over her situation found an outlet. By attacking me, she could vent all of those negative feelings.

Now understand, she didn't sit down and lay this all out for me. Nor did she even apologize for her behavior. Instead, as she was being forced to speak to me about the chapter's business she suddenly demanded to know why I was "always so decent towards her"?

My response was simply - "Because I have always considered you to be a friend. And I remain in awe of your writing talents."

That broke the dam for her. "But my publisher dropped me and you made it to the best seller list on your first book!"

She was so hurt by their betrayal that all she could focus on was that another writer, in a completely different genre than her, seemed to be better off than her. She had worked very, very hard for her success and it seemed to have disappeared overnight, in her mind.

When she finally revealed the cause of her strange behavior, it never occurred to her that at that point she had signed up with 3 new publishers and had multiple book deals in three new genres for her. All she could focus on was the pain of her former publisher's betrayal.

So, when I see the review trolls on line - all I can do, and urge you to do, is not waste your time or energy on being angry or hurt by their actions. Because, believe me, you are better served by focusing on your next story.

Carol

Right Where I Belong

Debra is content with her career.

I participated in the book signing at my writers' conference last weekend. I didn't sell any books and was thoroughly discouraged at the time. The author next to me sold and signed four or five, and attendees were standing in line to check out with their arms full of books. None of them mine. As I chatted with my table neighbor, she was telling me about her multi-book contracts. I have to admit a little green monster took a bite out of me.

But it's been almost a week, and I've had time to consider the state of my career.

I am not a full-time writer. I have a day job/career that I love. A multi-book contract sounds like a dream come true, but for my life and my reality, it isn't really a possibility. I can't write several books in a year. And I'm okay with that.

I write for a small press. This also is the perfect fit. They know me. I know them. When I have a book to submit my editor is always excited to hear from me, but there's no pressure. I write on my own time-frame, sans any outside deadlines. Another bonus of writing for a small press is I wrote a series published by them. I wrote and sold the first book six years ago. In January the third book of the series came out. Readers can still find the other books in the series in print, brand new...they aren't out of print, and I just renewed my contracts on them for another five years, so they won't be for a good, long while. With a so called 'larger press', books are available for a short span of time (a few months at most) and then disappear to be found only in limited quantities at various secondary sources.

I am living my dream. I always wanted to write romance novels. And I am. In the past six years I've published four full-length novels and three novellas. I have another full-length coming later this year. Not too shabby for someone who writes in her spare time for a hobby. Seeing my name on a book is a thrill that never gets old.

Do I have millions of adoring readers and fans? No. But my family and friends are proud of me and supportive, and that means a whole lot. And there are 'strangers' out there reading my stories. My books. And that's pretty cool. And I've made some really great friends on-line here at this blog and other places.

Yep. I'm content.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com