Tag Archives: books

August 20, 2014 · 6:24 am

Journaling or Noveling

As summer ends and fall approaches, those of us who are regular NaNoWriMo writers begin to plan for our month of committed writing. We are jotting down ideas as they come to us, and making notes to help springboard ourselves into November with all our guns a blazing.

People who have never heard of NaNoWriMo are always surprised that it is not only people who want to be published authors who use this month to create 50,000 word manuscripts. Family historians, dedicated diarists, people working on their PhD–anyone who wants or needs a month dedicated to getting a particular thing written will do so in November. More people do this during November than you would think–about half of our WriMos in my regional area are journaling or writing their theses. The support of the group really helps the graduate students stay focused, and it also bolsters those who are diarists and encourages them to write more about their thoughts and philosophies.

I’ve been asked many times what I see as the differences between journaling and noveling. (Sorry, word-nazis–I know, I know! I just invented that word but hey, why not loosen up a bit and have a little fun with language? Willie Shakespeare did it all time!)

Anyway, journaling is keeping a diary. You do this on a daily basis, or at least frequently. According to Tiny Buddha “Journaling can help with personal growth and development. By regularly recording your thoughts you will gain insight into your behaviors and moods.” You start where you are in life at that moment, and for ten or fifteen minutes a day, you write stream of consciousness. This is an awesome way to jump-start your brain.

Noveling is telling lies, keeping them straight, and making the world believe it until the last page. Again, William Shakespeare was awesome at this, and he put his work into the form of plays and sonnets, which were the most accessible media of the time for the common people.

How many words did William Shakespeare invent? According to Shakespeare Online Dot Com: “The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original. … For a more in-depth look at Shakespeare’s coined words, please click here.”

Whether you are journaling or noveling, the important thing is to do it every day. Write for as long as you can when you can, and that will build your ‘writing’ muscles. If I dedicated 3 hours a day to just writing stream of conscious, I will chunk out 2500 to 3000 words–about half of which are mis-keyed and misspelled, but hey, no one is perfect. Some words I invent–and some words invent me, but either way, I love words.

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Tagged as books, Buddha, fantasy, fiction, humor, Journaling, literature, Monkeys at Typewriters, NaNoWriMo, Noveling, Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, Willie Shakespeare, writing, writing craft

August 11, 2014 · 8:47 am

Yes, but how do you really feel?

I love writing and I love my characters, but they are so stubborn about some things. Of course, many of them have ‘Y’ chromosomes, but still…. It’s frustrating because they don’t want to to talk about how they’re feeling.

Oh, for the love of Tolstoy–don’t they get it? I’m a woman. I need you people to talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your imaginary head.

It’s difficult to show the characters’ emotions and thought processes when it’s so much easier to just say he felt, or she was some emotion. These thoughts and feelings are central to making our characters feel real. But describing them from a distance, as an author must do, may disconnect the reader from that character.

Sometimes, descriptions don’t allow the reader to experience the moment with the character. Instead, the author is telling them how the character feels.What we must ensure is that our readers remain immersed in the narrative, that no ‘speed-bumps’ come along to knock them out of it.

One of the best at this is Carlie M.A. Cullen, whose urban fantasy series Heart Search featuring a coven of vampires is gaining in popularity. I think her books are so compelling because of her ability to draw a reader into the character without going over the top. So, how does she do it?

The opening line of chapter one of Heart Search Book 1, Lost reads like this: The sun, a ferocious golden orb, burnt into his skin as Joshua wandered aimlessly through the country park.

She could have just written The sun was hot and Joshua was killing time in a park.

But she didn’t, and the story is better for it–AND she showed you both the scene and Joshua’s mood in that one sentence.

So what can we learn from reading our favorite authors? We can see how they craft their tales, and we can learn those skills. Painters do this all the time, and we paint with words.

Let’s pretend we’re writing a fantasy novel. We can go over the top, like a painting by Herbert Gustave Schmalz, or we can find a happy medium between too much and too little. There is no need to sink into overly sentimental and exaggerated pathos in order to inject feeling into our work.

Here we have a character who is on the run from a creature of some sort. 1. He was afraid. He was terrified to look back.

Example one tells the reader how the character feels. We might write this in our first draft when we are just trying to get the story out of our heads. An unskilled writer would consider it just fine the way it is, as it expresses his thoughts perfectly.

However, it tells the reader how to feel, and readers really don’t like being told what to do.

2. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand, fear from his narrow escape coursing through his veins. Heart pounding, he leaned against the wall, listening for any sounds that shouldn’t be there before chancing a glance around the corner.

Personally, I would read book number two over book number one, because it’s more interesting and makes me want to know more about this character and his problems. We need to use physical symptoms a character might experience combined with their actions, but we need to describe them in such a way that it is a natural part of the scene.

John slid down the wall, sitting in the mud, his breaths coming in hard, ragged gasps. Something trickled down his cheek, and wiping it, his hand came away with blood.

Another example:

Lord Deccan’s fist hit the table. “Wine now, you miserable worm–or I’ll cut off your other ear!”

The one-eared innkeeper scuttled to the cellar. He quickly searched the shelves filled with dusty jars of cheap wine, settling at last on a vintage he thought might suffice.

Baldric’s guests normally drank from wooden tankards, but he knew that wouldn’t suit. There was a goblet, one he’d come by in a peculiar way, but it was a fine cup and would do well enough to stave off a tantrum of the lordly variety.

His shoulders hunched in anticipation of trouble, he approached the angry lord’s table. Setting the only goblet before the nobleman, he left the bottle and stepped away, bowing with feigned obeisance. Baldric had survived the war with all but his left ear intact, and intended to remain that way.

What we are doing here is exactly like interpreting what our loved one is telling us, when he/she refuses to use their words. Seeing them sitting slouched in the chair, clicker in hand and numbly flipping through channels is a good indication of their mood. So we must picture the scene and describe it .

We must show the emotions as they are reflected by the physical cues our characters give us, but don’t tell them–a difficult trick to master but one we must all do if we want our work to engage the reader.

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Tagged as adventure, Art, blogging, books, character, characters, Connie J Jasperson, fantasy, fiction, Herbert Gustave Schmalz, humor, Schmalz, show don't tell, The Girl With the Tolstoy Tattoo, Tolstoy, writing, writing craft

August 4, 2014 · 6:06 am

Don’t dump it-deploy it

Most of my work takes place in a world I invented, right down to the religion. Because my world is very different, whenever I sit down to write, I have the most incredible urge to spew background information. I want my reader to understand the world I’ve created, so I want to give them information. Lot’s and lots of information. OMG, do I have information for you.

But is the information for you as the reader, or for me as the author? There you have it–writing it down cements the world in my head. Now my info-dumps are cut and kept in a file that contains all my background information. I need that info to write the story, but the reader only needs enough bare bones to fire his imagination.

So how shall I do this? A prologue? Well, I’m leaning away from prologues nowadays, although it can be done–David Eddings did it really well in The Belgariad, and Anne McCaffrey also did in her Pern novels. In some cases a prologue sets the stage. But in online writing groups I frequently see that a large number of folks don’t bother to read prologues, preferring to get directly to the story. If folks aren’t going to bother reading it, why should I waste my time writing it?

The key to describing the fantasy setting and the social structure of that world is to let the story do it naturally. Deploy the info in small increments as the characters go through their daily life.

Let’s pretend we’re writing a detective novel:

Joe Stone stood, illuminated by the harsh light of the fridge, staring at the six-pack of beer that represented the sum total of his groceries. Grabbing one, he twisted the cap off, and took a long, desperately needed pull.

A sour smell rose from his sink as he peered through the broken blinds, more concerned with the dead body in his rundown tool shed than the shabby state of his kitchen. He wondered who the stiff was, and how the dead man pertained to the divorce case he was investigating.

Most importantly, he wondered how he could avoid taking the rap for it.

That he was being deliberately set up was a given, but by who? Pulling his phone from his pocket, Joe scrolled through his contacts. He had one last friendly ear at the police department, his old partner, Mike Copper. The question was, would Mike believe him or would he leap to the conclusion that Joe had snapped again?

So, now you have a picture of Joe Stone. He’s probably single, a private investigator, his home is in disrepair, his empty fridge tells us doesn’t eat at home very often, and he may drink more than is good for him.

Joe is an ex cop, possibly fired for use of excessive force, as he fears he has only one sympathetic ear there. He’s involved in a nasty private investigation, the corpse in the shed tells us that.

There’s no need for an info dump to aid the reader in forming a picture of Joe. All that information was deployed by his actions, and while reading the events of the next 72 hours, more snippets will come out, and this complicated man and his world will become more clear to the reader.

Settings make no difference. Writing fantasy novels is the same thing as writing novels set in the real world. Assume your world is real and slip the info in the natural places.

Belnek knelt by the low fire in front of his hut, pulling the turnips out of the coals, brushing the burnt flakes away. His mouth watered, and he wished there had been meat to roast, but once again, when he checked his snares, they had been empty.

Realizing what he had just thought, he gasped, fearing the god would interpret his thoughts as ingratitude and would make the harvest scant too. He raised his eyes to the east where the shining towers of the gods were said to be. Closing his eyes he, said a prayer to Osin, thanking him for the turnips, asking his blessing on the meal.

Now you see a man who is not rich, but who has a hut and a fire, and has turnips to roast. Prayers come as naturally to him as breathing–he is a devout man, sure his god is all-knowing, and concerned that he is seen as a devoted, grateful man. His snares are apparently empty quite often, so game has become scarce, and it concerns him.

We have the basics of his world, low-tech, agrarian. In that small scene, intimate details of Belnek’s life is shown and in that way the reader has enough info to begin to picture the world outside Belnek’s hut. There is no need to dump a huge amount of information, because it will come out as his story unfolds.

For me the real trick is to rein it in, because I love every last little detail about my imaginary worlds. But that doesn’t mean my readers will love them. Most readers only need the skeleton of the world so that they can visualize it themselves. The hard part is finding that magic moment where you have given them exactly the right amount of details to involve the reader, but not so much they become bored.

Listen to your beta readers, and make adjustments accordingly. If they feel they can be honest with you, they will point out where you need to tighten the narrative, or expand a bit more on the details.

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Tagged as Anne McCaffrey, avoiding info dumps, background information, books, crafting a novel, David Eddings, fantasy, fiction, humor, info dump, literature, Pern, The Belgariad, the Dragon Riders of Pern, writing

July 26, 2014 · 10:23 am

The Flâneur ~ the 4th POV

In a literary fiction seminar I attended at a recent convention in Seattle, University of Washington professor, Scott Driscoll, discussed a fourth point of view I had heard of in college, that of the detached observer. I had forgotten about it, and Driscoll gave it a name I’d never heard of: the Flâneur (idler, lounger, loiterer.) Many of you have heard of it as third-person objective or third-person dramatic. I see it as a completely separate way to show a story.

Writing in 1962, Cornelia Otis Skinner said that there is no English equivalent of the term, flâneur, “just as there is no Anglo-Saxon counterpart of that essentially Gallic individual, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city”.

The French author, Charles Baudelaire, characterized the flâneur as a “gentleman stroller of city streets.” He saw the flâneur as having a key role in understanding, participating in and portraying the city. Thus, in the narrative, a flâneur plays a double role by existing as a present, but ignored, member of society who remains a detached observer of all that occurs within the story.

Having the option to use this point of view in the narrative of genre fiction opens up many possibilities for originality an author may not have considered:

he is NOT omniscient as in having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding of the fictional universe–he doesn’t know everything–but he does know what he sees.
he sees more than the individual characters do because his random travels take him all over town regularly, and he observes most of the tale as it unfolds.
Because he only knows what he sees, some information crucial to the resolution of the final events will be revealed to him at the last minute–a surprise to him too. When the last pieces of the puzzle are put together, his commentary summarizes the fall-out and final outcome of the characters involved.

It is a POV used in classic french modernist literature to describe the story of certain social scenes in the city, but I can see this as a useful way to relate the events on a space-station, or indeed in many traditional genre fiction social settings.

Now for the downside of using the flâneur as your vehicle to convey your narrative:

He is not reliable—he has his own personality, offering subtle judgments and unconscious opinions on the behavior of the characters. Therefore, just as in a first-person narrative, the reader cannot be sure he is telling the unbiased truth.
The narrator tells the story without describing any of the character’s thoughts, opinions, or feelings; so the reader can only guess at character motivations, and must assume the objective observer truly is objective and has told the truth in that regard.
It separates the reader from the intimacy of the action and slows the pace down.
It could become voyeuristic, if one writes graphic love scenes. {eeew.}

The POV of a flâneur is also a vehicle used in in art, and in street photography. Susan Sontag in her 1977 collection of essays, On Photography, describes how, since the development of hand-held cameras in the early 20th century, the camera has become the tool of the flâneur:

The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world “picturesque.”

—Susan Sontag, On Photography, pg. 55

I don’t see myself using this style of POV for an entire novel, but I can think of a thousand ways to use it in short-stories. Come November, when NaNoWriMo begins, I may give it a whirl, just for practice. Writing is a craft and I love finding different ways to express it. A fresh point of view to write from can only stretch my writing skills.

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Tagged as adventure, Art, books, Charles Baudelaire, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Ernest Hemingway, fantasy, fiction, flâneur, literature, point of view, POV, Scott Driscoll, Susan Sontag, writing

July 23, 2014 · 11:29 am

Crafting the scene

I often sit and stare out the window at some point or another during the day–a habit perhaps from the old days of being an ADD kid imprisoned in the basement classrooms of the old Michael T. Simmons Elementary school in 1965. Although that building has been long ago torn down and a new one now serves the community, I still remember sitting in Mrs. White’s overcrowded classroom, staring up at the small window, unable to concentrate on anything but the blue sky outside. She was my favorite teacher, because she knew I needed extra help with math, and in a class with 42 children, she found the time to give it to me.

I still stare out my windows when I am rolling a plot point over in my mind, and I sometimes notice what is happening in the neighborhood. The window is closed, so I can’t hear their words, but I often see the children.

At first it looks as if they are all happily playing. Then two of them stand up and from their posture you can see a quarrel is brewing. Suddenly one of them clouts the other on the head with a toy sword, and another child intervenes. The angry child leaves, and the others are left to console the sobbing child with the bump on his head.

We know that what we have witnessed is not the whole story–there is a whole novel surrounding that interaction. If what I witnessed from my window was a book, this event would read this way:

1. Deciding to meet and spending the day playing in the neighbor’s yard is a chapter in the much larger story of how a group of children in one neighborhood spent their summer

2. The quarrel and resulting bump on the head with the final moments of consolation are one complete scene within that chapter, setting the stage for the next scene–tattling on and achieving penalties for the aggressor, who then apologizes and seeks acceptance back into the group. These two separate scenes comprise the whole chapter, Playing at So-and-So’s Yard.

Most authors understand that there is an arc to the overall novel–the Story Arc, which consists of :

a. Exposition, where we introduce our characters and their situation.
b. Rising Action, where we introduce complications for the protagonist
c. Climax, the high point of the action, the turning point of the narrative
d. Falling Action, the regrouping and unfolding of events that will lead to the conclusion
e. Resolution, in which the problems encountered by the protagonist are resolved, providing closure for the reader.

However, within the larger story there are many smaller stories, all scenes created with this same arc, that come together to create this all-encompassing drama. The way these scenes unfold is what keeps our readers interested and invested in the narrative until the end of the book.

The main difference in the arc of the scene vs the overall arc of the novel is this: the end of the scene is the platform from which your next scene launches.

This means each scene begins at a slightly higher point on the novel’s Narrative Arc than the previous scene did, pushing the narrative toward the climax.

When you are structuring your novel, think of the way Gothic Cathedrals are constructed–smaller arcs of stone support the larger arcs until you have a structure that can withstand the centuries.

Like a Gothic cathedral, each small arc of the scene builds and strengthens the overall arc of the greater novel. By creating small arcs in each scene, we offer the reader the chance to experience the rise and fall of tension, a pulse which never completely falls but is always increasing toward the high point of the book, giving the reader small rewards of emotional satisfaction along the way to the big event, the grand climax.

At the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference this last weekend, I went to a presentation by University of Washington Professor Scott Driscoll, who is a highly acclaimed author of literary fiction. His book, Better You Go Home is a gripping tale of a man in search of his roots and something more. Scott spoke at length on the importance of creating an arc within each scene, small arcs that propel the plot forward and hook the interest of the reader. In Scott’s work, each scene sets that hook just a little bit deeper.

Some authors make each individual scene a chapter, and some group several scenes with a common theme together to create a chapter. It’s your book–do it however suits you best.

The important thing to remember is that each scene that comprises the framework of the overall narrative arc must have its own arc–the Arc of the Scene.

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Tagged as books, fantasy, fiction, Gothic Architecture, humor, literature, Milan Cathedral, Narrative Arc, Scott Driscoll, Story Arc, writing

July 17, 2014 · 5:33 am

Kicking off the annual PNWA writers conference

Well it’s that time of the year again–today is the first day of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference, held in Seattle, Washington. I’m a proud member of PNWA, and find incredible inspiration at these conventions. This year’s keynote speaker is James Rollins, the well-known master of magic, mayhem, and monsters. According to Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, “Rollins found the authors of the Doc Savage series inspirational as a youth and acquired an extensive collection of the popular 1930′s and 1940′s pulp magazine stories.”

Quite frankly, I too adored Doc Savage, and discovering that another author was influenced by that wonderful, lurid, misogynistic series is quite a treat. I’m looking forward to hearing him speak tonight.

Another person whose seminar I am looking forward to will be given by Lindsay Schopfer, author of The Beast Hunter. He will be talking on the subject of unlocking character motivation, and I am quite interested in hearing what he has to say on the subject, as he is an accomplished author, and his characters leap off the page.

It’s one thing to understand the mechanics of writing, the nuts and bolts of how to put together a coherent sentence and join it together with other sentences to make paragraphs. Most writers can do that. It’s quite another thing to write paragraphs that become stories other people will want to read. Attending writers conferences and seminars gives me insight into how successful authors whom I’ve admired over the years think, and helps me stay fired up about my own work.

I will reconnect with many local northwest authors who I’ve become friends with over the years, and of course I’ll be connecting with agents and editors from all over the country. This is a huge opportunity for me to absorb the mojo that happens whenever writers gather to talk shop. My next blog post will cover the events and hilarity of this one.

Last year I did learn one important thing–even the Hilton doesn’t have a clue when it comes to providing decent vegan entrees, no matter how the conference organizers claim they will offer them. Rather than starve as I did last year, this year I am commuting from home and bringing my own sack-lunch with plenty of snacks. It’s a bit of a drive, a little over 1 hour each way, but if the dinners provided are less than adequate, I’ll survive.

Today’s lunch will be an avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwich on whole-wheat. ♥ It doesn’t get any better than that!

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Tagged as adventure, books, Convention, Doc Savage, fantasy, fiction, humor, James Rollins, keynote speaker, LIndsay Schopfer, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, PNWA, self publishing, The Fount of All Knowledge, the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference, vegan lifestyle, Writers Conventions, writing

July 15, 2014 · 7:17 am

Pareidolia

So I was reading a rather badly crafted novel last night–one that was entirely forgettable other than this one word: pareidolia. I tried to get my kindle to find the meaning, and it was unable to answer that question too. But Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, came to the rescue:

Pareidolia (/pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-doh-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant, a form of apophenia. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.

The word comes from the Greek words para (παρά, “beside, alongside, instead”) in this context meaning something faulty, wrong, instead of; and the noun eidōlon (εἴδωλον “image, form, shape”) the diminutive of eidos. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, seeing patterns in random data.

Huh. Who knew? Apparently people have been suffering from pareidolia for thousands of years: seeing patterns in the stars and calling them constellations, faces and images in clouds, and seeing the face of the Virgin Mary in the patterns on their french toast. They also hear the Beatles implying “Paul is dead” when you play their songs backwards. The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia in an attempt to gain insight into a person’s mental state.

You aren’t crazy–you are extremely creative and able to visualize it pretty clearly. Even Leonardo Da Vinci understood the phenomenon–apparently he wrote of pareidolia as a device for painters, writing “if you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms.”

Well, it’s a word I most likely won’t use, but there it is — pareidolia — a new word in my vocabulary.

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Tagged as adventure, Art, books, fantasy, fiction, humor, Leonardo Da Vinci, Pareidolia, Paul is dead, Paul McCartney, Rorschach, Rorschach Inkblot Test, Words, writing

July 7, 2014 · 10:17 am

Purple Prose

Mmmm…everyone loves the lush feel of velvet, the way the texture imparts a depth to any color.

Black velvet feels cool, sophisticated and sexy, a little black dress and a vampire kind of cool.

Purple velvet, can feel royal, rich, but is frequently a bit too over-the-top for me.

Red velvet signifies something daring, just a bit risqué. This opulent fabric evokes emotion in us when we see and touch it.

In my mind, words are like velvet. They evoke feelings and memories, and can alter our mood just by the way they are used. When we craft our narrative we aim to please our readers, to make them want to read it again. To convey the atmosphere of our setting, we use descriptors. We also use descriptors to show our characters, to indicate they are long-haired, dark-eyed, or bearded.

Good prose contains a certain amount of descriptors, and like Goldilocks, we want to make it just right–not too little and not too much.

Too little, and the narrative is flat, uninvolving. To much and the reader finds themselves gagging. This heavy, cloying style of writing is called “Purple Prose.”

Like purple velvet, a little goes a LONG way. “But wait, ” you’re saying, “aren’t you being a little hypocritical? What about your love of all things Dickens? His work is rife with overblown, hyperdramatic descriptions.” Cool your jets, kids–that was the style when he was alive and rocking out the paranormal fiction. People wanted to spend an entire day savoring the well-crafted poem. That style of writing has a place, but not in the current culture of commercially viable novels.

If you want to sell books, you must walk the fine line between overblown prose and its antitheses, eviscerated, flat narrative

The Elements of Style calls “Purple Prose” “hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.” To be fair, purple prose is subjective and each reader has a different level of tolerance for it, but it is something we definitely don’t want.

Plain: He set the mug down. (my choice)
Somewhere in the middle: He eased the tankard onto the table.
Bleah: Without haste, the tall, blond barbarian set the immense, pewter, ale-filled cup with a wooden handle onto the stained surface of the rough, wooden table.

Spare me the ‘creamy-blue eyes as deep a shade of amethyst as the lush, purple, velvet drapes.”

There is a tipping point where good, descriptive prose becomes distracting and cloying to the modern reader. I opt for a lean style in the majority of my own work, because, while I adore Charles Dickens,most readers just want a good novel that will provide a small diversion from the everyday grind.

Purple Prose done wrong bullies the reader into seeing only what the author tells them to see, and leaves no room for imagination. Telling the reader what to think forces her to walk away rather than suffer a moment longer. That book goes into the recycling bin, or gets deleted from my Kindle.

What I, as the author, think is good and beautiful may be ugly to you, as the reader.

Author Stephen Swartz recently posted a great blogpost on this very subject–available at Deconstruction of the Sekuatean Empire. He loves the nuances of the english language as much as I do, but understands how to create lean narrative that allows a reader to see the scene, but leaves room for the imagination to fill in the gaps.

Right off the top of my head, I can think of many authors who manage to walk the line between purple and eviscerated prose, among them Ross M. Kitson, Shaun Allan, Neil Gaiman, and yes, you too, Stephen Swartz.

These authors give you the framework around which your imagination builds the image, and they place that framework in well-crafted sentences that tease you, inviting you to read more. Like that little black dress made of velvet, their work is lush, sleek, and sophisticated.

My advice is to read, read, read. If you like a certain style, write in such a way to evoke the feeling the author of that work raised in you. But never , never force the minute details of your vision on your readers. When you bludgeon your reader with the minutiae of your vision, you lose the beauty of story, and you lose your reader.

I think Neil Gaiman nails that fine distinction in this quote from “The Ocean at the End of the Lane:”

Creepy and to the point–and allows us to envision the shock the main character feels at the realization he knows nothing of his past, without beating us over the head with it.

My goal is to write with an economy of words, yet give enough description that my readers can build the environment in their own minds.

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Tagged as Best in Fantasy, Black velvet, books, creating good prose, Deconstruction of the Sekuatean Empire, fantasy, fiction, humor, little black dress, Neil Gaiman, purple prose, Purple velvet, Shaun Allan, Stephen Schwartz, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, writing

July 1, 2014 · 8:01 am

It may be rattlesnake, but it tastes like chicken

Writing the first draft of your novel is a lot of fun, but there are times when getting your phrasing right is confusing. Wrangling words is not for the faint of heart! Many frequently used words are what is called “homonyms” — soundalike words.

Yeah–you know that casserole contains rattlesnake surprise, but it tastes like chicken, so the kids haven’t a clue.

You as the author, do not always see the rattlesnakes among the chickens in your work.

You MUST NOT expect an editor to straighten out a mess that you can take of with a little attention on your part, so it is important to do your research, and learn your craft. Submitting a mess to an editor will result in rejection, as it is an expensive waste of time to try to teach a would-be author how to write a book.

At times, only a homonym, a word that sounds very much like another, can be used in a sentence. That similarity makes it hard to know which word is the correct word in a given circumstance, and when you are spewing the first draft of a manuscript, autocorrect may “help you” by inserting the wrong instance of those words. If their meaning is similar but not exactly the same, negotiating the chicken-yard of your manuscript in the second draft becomes quite tricky.

For instance, take this sentence from my current work in progress, where Friedr is explaining the events that led to Christoph’s sacrifice, speaking to Dane: “With Zan’s assistance, Edwin modified the parasite that will ensure no Bear Dogs can ever survive in Mal Evol ever again…”

Now I wasn’t sure that ensure was the correct word to express what I wanted to convey, because there are three words that could work and they sound alike, and have similar but different meanings. So I did my research:

Assure: promise, as in I assure you the house is clean.

Ensure: confirm, as in Ensure that you have set the burglar alarm before going on a long trip.

Insure: protect with an insurance policy, as in Insure your home for your peace of mind.

Hmmm. 2 of these words will convey an intent that would work, but I think I will stay with my original idea– Ensure as in Confirm.

Some other oft confused soundalikes are ( these are borrowed directly from the Purdue Online Writing Lab)

advise = verb that means to recommend, suggest, or counsel:

I advise you to be cautious.

advice = noun that means an opinion or recommendation about what could or should be done:

I’d like to ask for your advice on this matter.

advise = verb that means to recommend, suggest, or counsel:

I advise you to be cautious.

advice = noun that means an opinion or recommendation about what could or should be done:

I’d like to ask for your advice on this matter.

Conscious, Conscience

conscious= adjective meaning awake, perceiving:

Despite a head injury, the patient remained conscious.

conscience = noun meaning the sense of obligation to be good:

Chris wouldn’t cheat because his conscience wouldn’t let him.

Idea, Ideal

idea = noun meaning a thought, belief, or conception held in the mind, or a general notion or conception formed by generalization:

Jennifer had a brilliant idea—she’d go to the Writing Lab for help with her papers!

ideal = noun meaning something or someone who embodies perfection, or an ultimate object or endeavor:

Mickey was the ideal for tutors everywhere.

ideal = adjective meaning embodying an ultimate standard of excellence or perfection, or the best:

Jennifer was an ideal student.

Its, It’s

its = possessive adjective (possessive form of the
pronoun it):

The crab had an unusual growth on its shell.

it’s = contraction for it is or it has (in a verb phrase):

It’s still raining; it’s been raining for three days.

(Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)

Lead, Led

lead = noun referring to a dense metallic element:

The X-ray technician wore a vest lined with lead.

led = past-tense and past-participle form of the verb to lead, meaning to guide or direct:

The evidence led the jury to reach a unanimous decision.

Than, Then

Than	used in comparison statements: He is richer than I. used in statements of preference: I would rather dance than eat. used to suggest quantities beyond a specified amount: Read more than the first paragraph.
Then	a time other than now: He was younger then. She will start her new job then. next in time, space, or order: First we must study; then we can play. suggesting a logical conclusion: If you’ve studied hard, then the exam should be no problem.

Their, There, They’re

Their = possessive pronoun:

They got their books.

There = that place:

My house is over there.

(This is a place word, and so it contains the word here.)

They’re = contraction for they are:

They’re making dinner.

(Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)

To, Too, Two

To = preposition, or first part of the infinitive form of a verb:

They went to the lake to swim.

Too = very, also:

I was too tired to continue. I was hungry, too.

Two = the number 2:

Two students scored below passing on the exam.

Two, twelve, and between are all words related to the number 2, and all contain the letters tw.

Too can mean also or can be an intensifier, and you might say that it contains an extra o(“one too many”)

We’re, Where, Were

We’re = contraction for we are:

We’re glad to help.

(Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)

Where = location:

Where are you going?

(This is a place word, and so it contains the word here.)

Were = a past tense form of the verb be:

They were walking side by side.

Your, You’re

Your = possessive pronoun:

Your shoes are untied.

You’re = contraction for you are:

You’re walking around with your shoes untied.

(REMEMBER: Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)

Special thanks to the Purdue Online Writing Lab for posting these amazing hints, and SO much more information crucial to the craft of writing. If you go out to their website you will find it chock full of really good lessons for you to use to improve your skill at the craft of writing.

It seems like a no brainer when you are reading it, but when you’re in the throes of a writing binge these little no-no’s will pop up and confuse you the second draft. The problem is, you will see it as you intend it to be, not as it is written, so these are words you must pay attention to. Sometimes, doing a search will locate these little inconveniences.

Some are obviously wrong and stick out like sore thumbs, like improperly used they’re, their, and there but some like accept and except are so frequently confused and misused in our modern dialect that it is best to simply look it up to make sure you are using the right word for that context. If you search for these now, you will save your editor having to do this for you, and your edit will be much more productive.

Searching for these bloopers is what I like to think of as sorting the rattlesnakes out of the chicken yard, and is part of making your manuscript submission-ready.

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Tagged as books, Do you like my Tolstoy Tattoo, editing your manuscript, fantasy, fiction, grammar, homonyms, humor, oft confused words, possessive pronoun, Purdue Online Writing Lab, words that sound alike, Wrangling Rattlesnakes, writing

June 29, 2014 · 9:57 am

Nurturing the Muse

photo ©Leah Reindl 2014 used by permission

I come from a family whose creative muse is frequently expressed in music or in art. Musicians and artists dot the landscape of the old family tree. So far as I know, other than my daughter Leah, I am the only one who writes novels, but it may be that I am the only one who ever had the time to spend on such an endeavor.

When I watch children at play, I see the creativity that all musicians and artists know, that wonderful sense of “Ah ha! This is fun!” that comes with making something that exists only to bring pleasure to those who hear or see it. I see this sense of “I can do it!” in all the children, but by the time they are teenagers, much of that joy in creativity has been trained out of them. I wonder why and how it happens.

When I was young and working at dead-end jobs, I would come home and while my children did their homework or played, I would write, draw, or play the guitar. It was selfish, yes–in that it gave me pleasure. But it was not selfish, as it didn’t take me out of their world, and was something we could share. It taught them that they could take the time to be creative.

If there is any advice I would give young parents, it is to be creative in the presence of your children. You go to work every day, and by that you are teaching them that one must earn a living, yes, but the reward of earning that living is a life of love and creativity.

Some people will say bitterly that their job has burned all their energy and creativity from them. I say this is not necessarily so–you must take the time and energy you expend on hating your circumstances, and convert it into something creative. It’s amazing how many people I know who tell me they aren’t creative, but they doodle the most amazing little pictures on the handouts during those requisite boring meetings-to-nowhere that we all endure in Corporate America.

That is creativity trying to get out.

The reason children are so creative is that they don’t do it for other people, they are doing it solely for the fun of it. Get out the crayons and a blank sheet of paper for a child who hasn’t been to school yet, and watch what happens. Add old magazines, round-end scissors, and mix up some flour & water paste, and the possibilities are endless. But once that child gets into a social environment where he begins to feel less talented than the child next to him, he shuts that creativity down.

Inside every adult at the water cooler is kindergartner with a picture to draw, a song to sing, or a story to tell. Somewhere along the line, they began to fear they weren’t good enough and put it aside. Soon they have an “I can’t do it” attitude, because they fear failure and embarrassment. They have forgotten the joy of making a good, creative mess. They don’t remember how they learned as much from the failures as they did from the successes.

Don’t let the fact you have no money stand in your way. It takes very little money to draw a picture, or to write a story. You don’t need an expensive computer program–all you need is a pencil and paper. And music? You don’t need to play an instrument to sing. If you always wanted music lessons but couldn’t afford them, a great way to learn is to join a community choir. It’s free, and takes a little time away from your TV, but it is a way to jumpstart your joy of making music.

Our children are all artistic and creative in the most amazing (to me) ways, and I think that is because I never stopped making art or music. They all sing or play instruments, or create art. Our older son, Billy, and youngest daughter, Meg, are working musicians. Billy is a drummer in a band with my ex-husband and my brother. Meg is a young mother and a working musician with several mp3s to her credit. If you are curious, here is her Facebook page where you can hear her work: Meg is Singing.

Meg and Billy are both incredible musicians, playing the drums, the guitar, keyboards, and in Meg’s case, the flute. Music is their passion. Son Dan is a guitar virtuoso, but he plays for his own pleasure. He is an incredible sports photographer, and his work can be seen here: SpotKazu

Christy and Leah express their art in other ways. Christy is an engineer who deeply loves her craft, and brings her sense of beauty into her home, designing an environment that is both serene and filled with color. Leah is an artist, one of her pictures can be seen at the top of this page, and a hair-dresser. She loves her craft as much as Christy does hers. They go to work, and art is expressed in their daily lives, enriching the lives of their children.

This is why I am and have always been a happy person despite the bumps and hardships of life–I did what I had to do to put food on the table, but I played and sang and wrote poems and goofy stories in my free time. My children were my audience and my co-creators. My husband’s children were raised in the same sort of environment (he is a trumpet player and she is an actress) and all 5 of our kids are sheer genius to me. They far outstrip me with their talents and abilities, and with their drive and ambition.

Tower of Bones Trailer, Music by MEG