Reading is a participatory sport - Writing tip

When the character is first mentioned, you will need a quick image that the reader can build on and imagine the rest.

Describing a character feature by feature can get to sound like a catalog. The key thing is to describe them when they are first mentioned, before the reader’s imagination kicks in. Because even if you say nothing more than "Mrs. Goodbody, the housekeeper," the reader's imagination will create a picture to go with the name. Reading is a participatory sport. The reader is always actively involved in creating the characters from your words.

Here’s an example of how to do this from my mystery FINAL EXIT. It contains the first description of my brother and sister team, police Detective Jon Abercrombie and his psychic sister, Jillian, who are at the theater.

Jill leaned closer. “That woman over there thinks we’re twins.” She nodded toward a woman in large improbable pearls who surveyed them through opera glasses.

Actually, Jon knew they looked alike. Same dark eyes, same straight nose, same generous mouth. But his hair was dark where Jill’s was fair, and his jaw was square while Jill’s pointed chin gave her face a heart shape.

My example is by no means perfect, but I believe it gives the reader enough of an outline that they can imagine the rest.

Character-Driven Plot - Writing tip

Which comes first, the character or the plot?

Plot is "What happens?" The character is "who it happens to."

What happens is important, but the character should drive the action. If the character is an individual, then the action will happen in an individual kind of way. Writers call that Character-Driven plot

Stories where plot comes out of character, rather than the opposite are usually the best and the ones that remain with you. There are writers who think of really ingenious plot lines (Donald Westlake and Agatha Christie come to mind) and write entertaining books or stories, but the main characters in those stories are often sort of “cardboard.”

Dortmunder is always Dortmunder in the same way that John Wayne is John Wayne. Other than the fact he has terrible luck, we don’t know (or care) a lot about Dortmunder. What outlandish ploy he’ll think of next and what disaster will result, is the important thing. Poirot is always Poirot with his little mostache and his “little gray cells” but, again, we don’t much care about him as a man. Solving the murder is the thing.

Contrast Poirot or Dortmunder with Sharyn McCrumb’s psychic, wise, mountain woman, Nora Bonesteel. Nora is a character I’m always willing to spend time with. In a book like She Walks These Hills, Nora is equally as important as the plot, and a year after reading it you may have forgotten the plot, but you will remember Nora. Anyone who writes character-driven stories is doubly blessed.

Still Working on Payroll

All the data is entered, now for the spreadsheets that will show me whom to pay. Hope it's you.
And me.

All Romance E-books adds feature

In addition to being the genre bookstore that pays higher royalties to publishers and authors, at the request of their readers www.allromanceebooks.com has added a series search feature at both their sites -- All Romance, and Omnilit.

As for me, I'm still doing data entry. Lots of venues is a GOOD thing, but it sure makes the data collection and collation process longer. One day, when sales get higher, I'll opt for an automated check-writing program, but not quite yet.

Tell Don't Show - Narrative Writing tip

Yes, all the writing teachers say it the other way around. But there is a place for narrative.

They always tell us in the beginning to write in scenes and "show don't tell" and narration is "telling." But you can't show everything in the space allowed. So my advice is to narrate the mundane, the background information, and the action in scenes that don't move the story forward. Basically your story scenes should be like shining jewels and the narration like the silver wire that strings them together. Most writing texts don't get into how to do narration and it was years before I figured it out.

It's pretty simple. Show the good parts. Tell the boring parts. :D

More on Hooks - Writing tip

I usually find my own first line/hook on page 5, then all I have to do is move it up.

As an exercise, pick any 10 books off your shelf and read just the first line. Can you identify the hooks?

With an article, once you find the lead, the rest of the piece will "write itself." When I worked at the newspaper, my own best lead of all time was, "Carl Tauber died three times on Christmas Even and lived to tell about it." The article was about the new city paramedic service and pointed out that had Carl lived 300 yards farther down the road in the county, he'd have died once and stayed that way.

A writer who does unfailingly good transitions and hooks is Dick Francis. My all time favorite opening paragraph of his reads: "I inherited my brother's life. I inherited his gadgets, his business, his mistress...I inherited my brother's life, and it almost killed me."

Now we know it didn't kill him, because he's right there telling the story in first person. But right away we want to know what happened. We are hooked.

Today begins...

Today I started collecting all the sales data from our distribution sites so I can collate all the spreadsheets and begin the quarterly process of payment. You probably won't hear much from me until that long and complicated process is complete.

Please be patient during this time. I do pay everyone who has money due, every quarter, though many publishers have gone to a once-a-year payment schedule.

Please remember, too, that different venues withhold funds for different payment periods. Write Words, of course, will pay for the last quarter of 2009, as we have all the data for books sold on our own site. But sales reported from other venues may be six months old, or more.

We do pay you as soon after the money arrives as possible, but please remember payments can take up to 9 months to arrive from other venues. Remember, too, that we make about the same as you do. None of us are getting rich doing this, but it gives us all a place to sell our books and a place for customers to look for them.

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