Adventures in Writing

Years ago, when the INDIANA JONES movies were so wildly popular, a publisher created an action book series with the pace of the opening scene of the original INDIANA JONES where disaster builds upon disaster upon disaster with no real stopping for breath.

I read the first book, and it was bloody awful because the action became boring and silly at such a lunatic pace, and there was so little personality to the main character or any of the other characters I didn't give a damn one way or the other what happened.

EXAMPLE: A bear chases the hero up a tree, he thinks the tree is safe, but it's rotten, and the bear begins to shove it over, the tree lands in the river, but it's infested with alligators, and there are bad guys on the other side of the river, and a bear on this side. He out swims the gators to a bridge and begins to climb up a vine growing up its side, but, ooops, there's a large poisonous snake right above him, and....

Needless to say, that series vanished without a trace after a few books.

Pace isn’t just violent act after violent act, or the characters moving from one place to another. It’s mixing characterization and elements that move the emotional and action plot forward. It’s giving the reader continual questions about the characters and what’s happening and answering a few of those questions as you move along.

It’s having a quiet moment of introspection or a brief comic moment in the heat of a long battle that reminds the reader why they’re reading the story or why they like these characters.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Links of Interest

WHAT PAGES AN AUTHOR WEBSITE NEEDS:

http://www.authormedia.com/standard-pages-for-a-fiction-website

CREATING A STRONG ANTAGONIST:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/07/10-traits-of-strong-antagonist.html

LETTING YOUR CHARACTERS GO:

http://writerunboxed.com/2013/08/01/letting-your-characters-go

WHAT A SUBMISSION SHOULD SHOW AN AGENT OR EDITOR:

http://scotteagan.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-should-submission-show-us.html

USING ENSEMBLES (LOTS OF DIFFERENT CHARACTERS):

http://www.lbgale.com/2013/08/02/writing-tip-using-fractured-ensembles-to-craft-compelling-narratives

MARKETING, AUTHORS AND READER COMMUNITIES:

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/08/marketing-101-authors-and-reading-communities/

AN OPTION FOR AUDIO BOOKS IF YOU ARE SELF-PUBLISHED:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2013/08/another-update-on-acx-and-my-thoughts.html

BACK COVER BLURBS ANALYZED:

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2013/08/analyzing-book-description-copy.html

THE BEST PLACES TO PUT DESCRIPTION:

http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/2013/05/placing-setting-details-for-best-effect.html

WRITER TRICKS ABOUT THE PROCESS OF WRITING, (POTTY MOUTH ALERT), (READ THE COMMENTS FOR EVEN MORE USEFUL TRICKS):

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/05/ten-stupid-writer-tricks-that-might-actually-work/

SEVEN REASONS TO BE ON TWITTER:

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/7-reasons-every-writer-needs-to-be-on-twitter/

WHAT DEPTH ISN’T:

http://scotteagan.blogspot.com/2013/08/adding-depth-is-not-writing-play-by.html

TIPS FOR LEARNING YOUR CHARACTERS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/08/a-quick-tip-for-getting-to-know-your.html

TIPS ABOUT WRITING:

http://www.magicalwords.net/david-b-coe/lessons-learned-while-preparing-for-a-writers-workshop

USING EMOTION TO CREATE DRAMA:

http://writetodone.com/2013/06/20/how-to-correctly-use-emotion-to-create-drama-and-set-the-pace/

CREATING KEYWORDS AND CATEGORIES FOR A KINDLE BOOK:

http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-writing/kindle-ebook-categories

USING METADATA TO SELL BOOKS:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/selling-books-online-with-clever-metadata/

PROMOTION GROUPS FOR SELF-PUBS:

http://cateartios.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/indie-author-orgs/

USING A TIMELINE WHILE PLOTTING YOUR NOVEL:

http://www.darcypattison.com/plot/timelines-plotting/

HOW TO BUILD A FAN BASE:

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/new-author-series/new-author-series-how-do-you-build-a-fan-base-anyway/

THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWING OUR AUDIENCE AND OUR GENRE:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-importance-of-knowing-our-audience.html

BOOK BUYER PERCENTAGES ACCORDING TO NEW BOWKER STUDY:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/women-accounted-for-58-of-book-spending-in-2012_b75513

CREATING A VISCERAL RESPONSE IN YOUR POV CHARACTER:

http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/margie-test/

GIVING YOUR WRITING PIZZAZ:

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/08/moving-from-prosaic-to-spectacular/

USING WATTPAD TO BUILD AN AUDIENCE (NOT SURE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA):

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/guest-posts/how-to-win-followers-and-influence-readers-on-wattpad/

Monday, August 5, 2013

Pushing Humor Too Far

The mystery series was a cozy with a light tone and humorous moments, but the third book in the series started with the murder of one of the heroine’s closest friends and moved through the next days with sleuthing as well as the process of grieving for and burying someone you love.

I imagine most would agree that this situation is not a comedy waiting to happen. Unfortunately, the writer was so desperate to bring the light tone in that she proceeded to add slapstick moments.

At the family visitation, the heroine’s best friend pretends to knee the heroine’s boyfriend, her heel breaks, and she really kicks him in the jewels.

The heroine receives a threatening phone call, then her bedroom door knob jiggles. She slips as she reaches for a Taser and bangs her head, then, before she realizes it’s a cop friend, she shoots him as he enters her room and he slips banging his head. They end up concussed together on the bed where her best friend discovers them the next morning and has a fun time wondering what went on between the not-a-couple.

I could only shake my head during these scenes that so desperately tried to add humor to a situation that wasn’t funny. Not only was the over-the-top-to-the-point-of-ridiculous humor displaced, it tried so hard that the book fell apart.

Moments like this are what trusted critique partners, beta readers, and good editors are all about. They should have told the writer that sometimes a light tone just doesn’t fit the situation, and that poor taste and slapstick have no place in certain situations.

How can you judge this with your own writing? Think of your novel as a movie. If you are writing a mystery movie full of dark atmosphere and duplicitous suspects, a scene from DUMB AND DUMBER just won’t fit, will it? A light moment of character revelation or a funny story about a victim would.

Stay true to the tone that’s needed and listen to your early readers. That’s more important than trying to maintain the tone of the series. If not staying true bothers you, then find another plot will fit that tone.

MARILYNN’S MOVIE RULE: If a movie trailer has some guy hit in the groin for comic effect, it’s probably not a movie I’d enjoy. If the same guy or more guys get hit in the groin more than once, it’s a movie no one wants to see because the material and humor are so thin.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Links of Interest

LEVELS OF CONFLICT IN A NOVEL:

http://writerunboxed.com/2013/07/25/levels-of-conflict

GETTING YOUR RIGHTS BACK FROM A PUBLISHER:

http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/getting-your-rights-back-from-the-publisher/

HOW TO ADD A TWITTER WIDGET TO A SIDEBAR:

http://www.authormedia.com/how-to-add-a-twitter-widget-to-your-sidebar/

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/07/what-you-really-want-to-know-about-self.html

CREATING A GREAT BOOK COVER:

http://www.publishingtalk.eu/self-publishing/four-steps-to-create-a-great-book-cover/

EDITING TO MAKE YOUR BOOK SHINE:

http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/2013/07/simple-tricks-for-editing-your.html

SIX TIPS TO CREATING CHARACTERS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2010/08/shes-such-character.html

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A SCENE:

http://marcykennedy.com/2013/07/how-to-make-the-most-of-a-scene

CHARACTER BACKSTORY IN MYSTERY:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2013/07/character-and-series-backstory-and.html

HOW MUCH BACKSTORY:

http://plotwhisperer.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-much-backstory-in-beginning-is-too.html

ADDING MOMENTUM TO A SLOWING PLOT:

http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com/2013/07/an-important-technique-for-adding.html

NOTE: My website is back up! Yeah!

Monday, July 29, 2013

Cue the Sunlight and the Golden Retrievers

One of my guilty pleasures is reality ghost shows like GHOST HUNTERS and MY GHOST STORY. Saturday night, A&E had a marathon of a show I’ve never seen called AMERICAN HAUNTING.

In each episode, some poor family has the show’s cameras put all over their house to record ghostly happenings, various experts like mediums and researchers are brought in, the violence ratchets up to the point that they realize something a lot meaner than an annoyed and dead former owner is around, then an exorcist, priest, or psychic exorcist comes in and kicks out the evil thing.

Most of these shows are filmed in the darkness and even the filming in daylight tends to be in dark tones, but after the evil whatever has been removed and the miasma on dark nastiness is lifted, the outside and inside of the house are shown in much brighter light.

At the end of one show, the family is sent away while the psychic exorcist is at work, then they return. As expected, the sun is bright, and the house is filled with light, but very unexpected was the presence of two golden retrievers waiting for their family to come home.

Since there had been no golden retrievers present during the filming, I was flummoxed. Other episodes had cats wandering around and an occasional small dog as well as dogs in outside pens. Why hadn’t they shown the golden retrievers?

I thought about it for a while and realized that it’s hard to think of evil in the presence of golden retrievers, the dog equivalent of dolphins or friendly angels, so the producers of this show had them removed from the house during the filming.

This got me thinking about writing and how most writers fail to use images and metaphors that offer such a visceral reaction. Even when a writer thinks about creating dark images during the unhappy times in the story, she may fail to offer light images when the unhappiness has been banished.

Sure, some images like sunlight and golden retrievers are a bit cliched, but that’s because they are honest images that convey emotion.

Consider this the next time you are rewriting those scenes after things change for the better or worse.

For more information on how to use images, I suggest my article on archetypes.

NOTE: My website is still down. Curse you, Dotster!