Character Description: Working With Your Reader

Happy July, everyone!

I hope you enjoy this fun article that provides a different take on characterization. It can be found on Jennifer Stewart's Write101 site.

Character Description: Working With Your Reader

by Susan J. Letham

One hallmark of great writing is that it creates an intimate relationship between writer and reader. Your aim isn't just to tell the reader a story, but to share it with her, draw her in, allow her to use her own imagination as well as yours.
By helping your reader co-create her experience you hook her and keep her turning pages. So, how do you go about getting your reader to work with you this way?
You do it by mapping main points and leaving space for the reader to fill in the blanks, by drawing the outline and handing your reader a box of crayons. The easiest way to start putting this into practice is in connection with characterization.

Co-creation and Characterization

Stories are first and foremost about people. More precisely, stories deal with people who interact in certain ways with other people and situations.

Let's look to life to see what this means for your writing. Maybe you have a new writer in your circle, or your kid has a new teacher, or your partner a new boss.

Once you've got past the names, what do you want to know about these people?
You probably want to know what they are like--not just what they look like, but the kind of people they are. You want orientation so you know what to expect. You want to be able to predict their actions, so you can tailor your responses to fit.

That's the way your reader feels when she first walks into your story. She's looking for orientation so she can understand the events about to unfold. She wants to know what the characters are like so she can predict how they'll react in the story situations before you affirm her guesses by telling her. By giving your reader the information she wants, you make it easy for her to relax and enjoy the ride.
What does your reader need to know if she's to co-create your characters? Let's look and see how you can draw that outline for your reader to color in.

Focus on Qualities

Writers often introduce story characters through physical description. That's helpful if appearance is a central theme but, as in real life, looks seldom mean much in connection with personality. An approach that describes traits is more helpful. Instead of first describing what your character looks like, answer the "What's she like?" or the "What kind of person is she?" question instead.

The best way to learn this strategy is to try it out. Here are some examples to start you off. Choose a description that appeals to you and make notes about the character that comes to mind:

S/he's the kind of person who'd...:
- keep piranhas.
- take walks in a graveyard.
- read Rilke.
- marry a senator.
- wear a pocket protector.
- buy photo wallpaper.
- picket "Victoria's Secret."
- love to be in "Big Brother."
- make Machiavelli quake.

Note that the statements illustrate a 'type' and don't mean that the character actually does the things mentioned, only that she might.

Describe the character's appearance, what she does for a living, her home, her idea of a good night out. Write a scene that illustrates how your character lives the characteristic. How does a woman who'd make Machiavelli quake act in the office? What kind of office? What kind of character would she need as a lover, partner, business associate, adversary, friend? How did you do? Did you see images in your mind? I'd be extremely surprised if you didn't see vivid images in response to the activity. The point is that your reader, too, will start to color in the outline you give her. Your reader will work with you and save you the trouble of telling her absolutely everything.

Once you've established that "Sarah is the kind of woman who'd buy photo wallpaper," your reader won't bat an eyelid when Sarah also buys a baby pink stretch mini-skirt to wear to the church dance.

A good way to practice this skill is to characterize your family and friends. If you had to describe the personalities of people you know well to a stranger, how would you make them sound intriguing by using vivid images?

Try it out:

- My partner is the kind of person who'd...
- My daughter is the kind of person who'd...
- My son is the kind of person who'd...
- My boss is the kind of person who'd...
- My teacher is the kind of person who'd...
- My neighbor is the kind of person who'd...

Character Creation Technique

Work this approach into your stories. Hook your readers by introducing characteristics before you mention outward appearance. Readers will want to read on and learn what you mean by your enigmatic character statement.

Compare these examples:

"Think we got ourselves a cult or something?"
A cult? I looked at Bruce. He must be kidding, I thought, but the look on his face didn't seem to say so. He stood there, all five-eight and 200-pounds of him, running a hand over his blond crewcut, clearly waiting for me to give him an answer.

Does it matter what Bruce looks like at this point? Does it add to our image and understanding of the kind of person he is? Does it tell us about the relationship between the POV character and Bruce?

"Think we got ourselves a cult or something?"
A cult? I gave Bruce a 'don't be stupid' glare. The only man I knew who openly read supermarket tabloids, he'd been spouting aliens and government conspiracies since the day I took office. (Kate Gerard)

By telling us about Bruce's reading habits and the effects they have, the author of this second example paints a clear picture of his character and attitude. The example shows how the characters relate to each other.

Conclusion

Take some of your writing and practice this technique by rewriting the character introductions. Exactly how you word things will depend on the POV you're using. If you're using third person, you can have the narrator make the statement.If you're using a limited POV, you can put the statement into the limited character's thoughts. You can use dialogue to have a character make the statement out loud. Experiment until you feel you have something that works in each case.Your readers will love it!

© 2002, Susan J. Letham
Susan J. Letham is a British writer, multimedia author, andCreative Writing lecturer. Visit Inspired2Write and sign upfor quality writing classes and competent 1-on-1 coaching.
This article can be found at the Jennifer Stewart Write101.com site. http://www.write101.com/index.html

5 Off-The-Beaten-Path Ways to Promote Your Blog ...( or book :-)

I stumbled upon this blog while reading about great promotional ideas for authors. While the five tips mentioned in the article were originally intended to promote blogs, I think that they could be adapted very well for authors interested in promoting their books.

Here is the link to the article. I hope you find it useful!


5 Off-The-Beaten-Path Ways to Promote Your Blog

http://www.apollomediablog.com/5-off-the-beaten-path-ways-to-promote-your-blog/

Wheeze the juice! Daily writing prompts.

Writer's Digest online magazine has daily writing prompts - idea joggers - that are fun to check out. They might be just the thing to get those creative juices flowing again.

You can find them here:

http://www.writersdigest.com/WritingPrompts/

Wheeze the juice! *g*

Life, Passion... Deadline

Here is the conclusion of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series.
Thanks Holly! Parts I-V can be found in the May archives.

Life, Passion... Deadline
by Holly Lisle

You're ready to write the story of your life. You've put your heart and soul into it.

• Your themes resonate with you, and they're the core of the novel.

• You've hidden them so well you'll write a story, not a message.

• You're willing to write honestly, knowing you can't please everyone, but you'll reach the people who will understand YOU.

• You've layered your story with subthemes that will make plotting easier, and will make the tale you're telling richer.

• And you actually KNOW what you'll be writing about before you start writing.

You're golden.

Almost.

You have one huge obstacle ahead of you, one you haven't yet considered. It may not be a factor with your first book, it won't be a factor for the first book you SELL, but for every book thereafter, your passion, your creativity, and the soul of your story will be written against the background of a ticking clock.

You will face deadlines.

Everyone knows the rules for meeting deadlines. You break your story into daily bites, you write a certain number of words or a certain number of pages per day, you build padding into your schedule so that you can have a few bad days and not come in late, and you stick to your schedule. All great, it works, it's the way I've written a whole lot of books and hit a whole lot of deadlines.

But there's more to it than that. When the clock is ticking, you know you'll only have so many times you can fall down, lose your place, and make mistakes before you fall behind. And playing catch-up is hell on creativity--stress, anxiety, and the fear that this time you won't be able to write to the end of the book come crashing in on you, and make simply finishing an ordeal--never mind finishing on time.

Everyone hits those places sooner or later. But how do you keep from hitting them every time? And how do you hang on to all the richness and power and passion you built into your story when fear and worry make writing feel like rock climbing with no safety gear?

Follow these three steps, and you'll get through it.

• Believe in the power of your themes.

If you're writing stories that matter to you, you'll be able to lose yourself in them even when the pressure is on. I've been in some incredibly tight spots, with not just looming deadlines but a dwindling bank account---but because I'd taken the time to build the foundation for a story I wanted and NEEDED to write, once I sat down and put my fingers on the keyboard, I could slip away for a while from the real world and lose myself in my characters and their lives.

If you're "just cranking one out," you're going to have a much, much harder time shaking off the real world and getting your work done. And your quality will suffer, too. If you're telling a story you need to tell, your characters will drag you to the keyboard on days when you just don't think you can do it.

• Trust surprises...but not too much.

Be willing to explore story ideas that ADD TO and complement the themes you already have in place. Bringing in new events that can take your characters in different directions but still allow them to get back to the story you'd planned can make getting your daily quota of words or pages exciting---you're not entirely sure what is going to happen, but you're pretty sure it's going to be good.

Make sure, before chasing after a sudden hunch or enchanting new direction, that it DOES work in tandem with your story. Take a few minutes to see if you can daydream your way from the beginning of the tangent all the way through to the place where it connects back in to the big scenes and big events you've plotted out.

• Dance with the one who brought you.

Stress and deadlines have a way of shaking your confidence, in making you second-guess everything you planned, in pushing you to look for something that would be easier, simpler, quicker.

Don't do it.

The problem is, you might have what seems like a great surprise idea pop on you that promises to give you easier, simpler, quicker, but it can be hard to tell the difference between a nice surprise and a betrayal in waiting.

Stop yourself right away if you find yourself altering your story themes or your main direction because of this great new idea. The sure-fire way to kill the story you're writing is to hare off after what is, in fact, an entirely new story trying to disguise itself as something you can use right now.

If you're writing about a doctor who has lost faith in his profession and who walks away from medicine, only to discover how much he needs to help people---and you have a great idea to make him an archeologist---hit the brakes.
Let the archeologist idea simmer in the back of your mind while you finish the doctor book. If it's any good, it'll still be there when you're ready to write the next story.

Easier, simpler, quicker is nothing but a mirage when you're pushing toward a deadline. Faith in the strength of your story, a bit of daring, and focus on what you started with and what you intend to have when you're done, however, will give you what you need to get through.

You can do this.

And you'll have the best thing you've every written when you're done; a novel with a pulse, with muscle and sinew, with passion and meaning.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

Planning A Heart-Stopping Story

Welcome to part VII of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series.

Planning A Heart-Stopping Story
by Holly Lisle

Over the last six lessons, you've figured out your theme, and you've worked out at least one and possibly several subthemes. You've learned how to use blended scenes, intercuts, and cliffhangers to work both themes and subthemes into your work. You have great conflict waiting to happen. What do you do next?

All of our discussion of themes and subthemes comes down to this. It's time to figure out how your story is going to go.

After more than 17 years of writing novels as my full-time job, I've tried every method I could find for getting my stories into order without so overworking them during the outline process that I no longer wanted to write the book. This is the method I currently use, and am still refining. It's simple, it's quick, and it's flexible---all three advantages which make writing more fun, and keep your work fresher for you. This is going to seem like the strangest imaginable way to get a passionate, compelling, suspenseful story on the page...but it completely blows away waiting for your Muse to inspire you in terms of effectiveness.

I am a heavy user of plot cards---3x5 index cards or the software equivalent--upon which I write one single sentence for each scene. That sentence outlines the characters and the conflict that will occur in that scene.

(Don't understand scenes? The Scene Creation Workshop will help you get the hang of them. http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/scene-workshop.html )

To write your novel, you'll need to know:

• How many plot cards/ scenes you'll need for your book,
• Which theme or subtheme (or blend) you'll be dealing with for each scene,
• Which characters will be in each scene,
• Who the POV (Point Of View) character---the person through whose eyes the story is told---will be.

You'll start with basic arithmetic plus your themes and subthemes to do this to figure out how many scenes you'll need.
An average first novel in the current market is around 90,000 words long (if you're writing for the adult, not children's or YA markets).
• So we'll start with 90,000 words as our target length.

For this example, we're going to assume that you have one main theme and two subthemes that you've decided will each run the complete length of the book.

• Theme: HEROINE sets out to win a writing contest and prove to her dubious husband that her dream of being a writer is not a waste of time.

• Subtheme #1: HEROINE meets man at work who encourages her writing, and her pursuit of fulfillment, leading her to consider leaving her current relationship.

• Subtheme #2: HUSBAND watches his wife's life change as she pursues her dreams, and he starts wondering what happened to his own dreams.

Let's further say that you've decided your scenes will average a thousand words each, so you'll need about ninety of them to get a full-length novel. (In real life, the math is rarely this easy--mine scenes generally average 1500 to 1750 words each, but every book and every scene is different.)

• Target Length of Book ÷ Average Length of Scene = Number Of Scenes

• 90,000 ÷ 1000 = 90 scenes for the book (PLEASE NOTE: This is an APPROXIMATION. Books are not so cut and dried that you'll end up with exactly ninety scenes, nor will they each be a thousand words long.)

You want to give a lot of the story over to your main theme. We'll figure 50% because it's a nice, easy number, but it could just as easily be 60%. Or 73.8%, if you like to make things complicated. Let's not go there, though.

• 50% for the heroine's main story.

Then we'll divvy up the other half of the book between Subtheme #1 and Subtheme #2. Say you decide that you want the heroine to dump her husband for the man at work. You'll probably want to give #1 more time and space than #2. If you want her current relationship to grow stronger because her pursuit of her own dreams has inspired her husband to pursue his, then you'll want to put more work into #2. And if you want to keep the reader in suspense about which way she's going to jump, split them down the middle.

I think the suspense angle is interesting, so I'm going to give:
• Subtheme #1 25% of the book, and
• Subtheme #2 25% of the book.
Multiply 90 (Total Number Of Scenes) by .5 (50%--the percentage your main theme gets). You'll get 45.

• 90 x .5 = 45 Main Theme Scenes

Now multiply 90 (Total Number Of Scenes) by .25% (the subtheme percentage).
• 90 x .25 = 22.5

You'll get 22.5, which basically means you round up for one subtheme, and round down for the other one. Or write two short scenes. Or don't worry about the remainder, because this is just a rough technique to give you a quick picture of how you're going to break up your story.

I'll give subtheme #1 22 scenes, and subtheme #2 23 scenes, just because I've decided the husband reawakening his own dreams is a better story than the dude at work hitting on someone else's wife, and at the end of the suspense, I'm going to have the heroine stay with her husband.

• 22 Subtheme #1 Scenes
• 23 Subtheme #2 Scenes

Anyway, I now know I'll need 90 3x5 index cards on which to write out plot cards, and I'll have 45 of them for the heroine's pursuit of her dreams, 22 for her entanglement with the man from work, and 23 for her relationship with her husband.

NOTICE that nowhere in here have I addressed POV (Point Of View)---that is, which scenes are shown through which character's eyes. The theme and subthemes do not select POV for you. As you write out plot cards, you'll have to select the best POV based on what is happening in each scene. Let's do a few now, and I'll show you what I mean.

• Jenna, cleaning the attic on a rainy Saturday afternoon, discovers one of her journals from her teenage years in which she promised herself that she'd be a famous novelist by the time she was 25, and something stirs in her at the sudden, sharp memory of that dream. [POV-Jenna] (Main Theme)

• Kevin Hobart hears Jenna talking to a co-worker about her crazy desire to write a novel, and does a good job of faking casual as he invites her to a meeting of a writers' group to which he belongs. [POV-Kevin] (Subtheme #1)

• Mac watches Jenna reading through piles of books about writing, taking notes and writing things down, and tells her she's going to get her feelings hurt when she does all that work and no one wants what she's done. [POV could be either Mac or Jenna] (Subtheme #2)

• Jenna meets Kevin at her first meeting, and even though she brought something she wrote to read, is intimidated by the process and refuses to read when her turn comes around. [POV could be either Jenna or Kevin] (Blend of Main Theme and Subtheme #1)

You may not get all 90 scenes when you first start outlining. That's okay. You may not, in fact, get much beyond the first third of the book. That's fine, too.

You have a plan, and you can build and change things as you go. The greatest advantage of figuring out and using plot cards is that when you discover a better direction for your story, you can toss a 3x5 index card or two, and replace them with better, rather than tossing several thousand or more already-written words.

I realize it's unnerving to look at the mechanical processes behind creating edge-of-the-seat fiction. It's more romantic to imagine typing like a wild thing, writing without a plan, tossing balled-up pages in the wastebasket from across the room...and dressing all in black, and drinking espresso in a coffee house while lamenting being blocked, too. Passion is in what you put on the page, though, not in how artsy you look while you're doing it.

In the final installment of BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, "Life, Passion...Deadline," you'll learn how to hold on to your story and its heart while working to a deadline.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

Interweaving Your Novel's Themes And Subthemes

Here is part VI of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series. Parts I-V of the series can be found in the May archives. Enjoy!

Interweaving Your Novel's Themes And Subthemes
by Holly Lisle

When you're writing a book, you want every page to drag the reader to the next one, even if she's late for work, even if it's two o'clock in the morning and he needs to be up at six, even if the plane has landed and your weary traveller really must get bags in hand and get off the plane. You want what you're writing to be compelling. Enthralling. Un-put-down-able.

And that's where the themes and subthemes we've been working on come together.

First we'll put together an example where our main theme of rage against misused power, by now well disguised, becomes the story of a heroine who has been wrongfully accused of murder and must prove her innocence. We'll have a subtheme of unhappy divorce, wherein the heroine's two children are being told by her ex what a horrible person she is.

We could do an enormous number of things with these two storylines, and I know dozens of ways to meld themes and subthemes together and use them to play off of each other, but I'll give you my three favorite techniques here.

THE BLENDED SCENE

Start with the heroine discovering the body of a stranger in her basement. Since she and her husband split up, there hasn't been anyone down there but her and the two kids, who are five and eight years old. She carries a load of laundry down the stairs, trips over the the body, scatters laundry everywhere, and goes racing up the steps to call the police, just as her ex arrives to pick up the kids for the weekend. She's frantic, her husband first thinks she's joking, then thinks she's hysterical, and finally goes into the basement and comes out as she's calling the cops. He's not sympathetic---he wonders what's going on in that house since he left, what sort of atmosphere she's raising his kids in, and when the cops arrive, he gives a statement, then hustles the kids out of there fast, wondering aloud if she's had men in the place while his children were there.

• Locate the characters---other than the main character---who are involved in the theme and those involved in the subtheme. In this case, those characters are the police (theme), and the ex-husband and kids (subtheme).

• Decide how to create ties between theme and subtheme--in this case, the husband ties the police into his vision of his ex-wife as a bad mother by suggesting she's been entertaining strangers in the house with his kids present. The police, meanwhile, will tie the husband into the story as another suspect.

• Get elements of both theme and subtheme into one scene.

THE INTERCUT

Now we're going to play with time and space. We'll write four alternating scenes, two from the point of view (POV) of our heroine, and two from the POV of her ex. In each scene, we'll work either the theme or the subtheme, but not both.

First, we have the heroine being questioned at the kitchen table, denying any knowledge of the man in the basement or how he got there, honestly describing over and over how she found the body, and then we have a forensics guy telling the cop in the background that the man had a note in his pocket signed by someone with the same name as the woman, and they're going to need pre-existing handwriting samples.

Next, to the father driving the kids home, who's asking his kids who comes over to the house when they're there with mommy, and the kids saying no one, and the father asking if mommy told them to say that.

Third, back to the heroine, who is asked to go to the police station, and who is seated in an interrogation room, where, as soon as she's left alone, she gets up and starts pacing, trying to work through where the man could have gotten a note from her, who he might have been, how he ended up in her basement, why he was dead, and who was responsible for his death.

And back to the father, who gets the kids to admit that, once they're in bed, they don't know if anyone comes over, and yes, mommy does have music on sometimes, and maybe someone could have been there, and while they're at school, they don't know what she does. Except for laundry. They're very firm that she does lots of laundry.

• With intercuts, you want to show facets of who each character is, and how they're acting toward their own ends, whether those are good or bad.

• You have to create change, but you are only creating change toward the specific theme you're working on (at least visibly). The police don't ask the heroine about her ex, they don't visibly pursue interest in the ex. They want to know about her. Meanwhile, the father doesn't mention or worry about the police. His focus is on his kids, and on finding out what's going on over at their mother's house.

THE CLIFFHANGER

Finally, we're going to bring both of these themes into play again, as we have a scene involving the forensics folks. They've found a picture of both kids and the mother in the dead man's pocket, and the picture is signed on the back, "Love, Lisa" (the heroine's name). The signature matches the one on the note that was in his pocket. It's not proof she was involved with him, but it certainly doesn't look good for her. They call the police out of the interrogation room and let them know what they've found. The police go back into the room and ask her why the dead man had a picture of her and her kids in his pocket, signed by her, and she panics and starts crying, and can't---or won't---answer the question.

And that's where you leave that scene. The reader is forced to consider the possibility that the heroine might have been lying, that she might know the dead man, that she might even have killed him. The reader could also suspect the husband, who could have had possession of notes and pictures signed the way these have been. But if the scene closes with the heroine in deep trouble, panicked, and not talking, the reader will have a strong incentive to keep reading to find out what happens next.

• Use elements of both theme and subtheme in your cliffhanger (the mother and her connection to the dead man, and HIS possible connection to her and her kids)

• Leave either the most important character of the theme OR the subtheme in desperate straits (in this case, the main character of the theme is in trouble...you can save trouble for the ex in a later part of the story).

• Pick up the next scene with a character from one of your subthemes, and gradually work your way back to the character who was dangling over the cliff.
By carefully using blended scenes, intercuts, and cliffhangers, you can weave your theme and subthemes together in ways so exciting and compelling your reader will stay up late, miss his stop, be late for work. Cruel, yes, but it's the sort of cruelty readers will thank you for.

Next time, in BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, Part VII, Planning A Heart-Stopping Story, you'll learn how to outline the bones of your story using theme and subthemes to keep things moving.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

Dig Deeper With Your Novel's Subthemes

Here is part V of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series.

Dig Deeper With Your Novel's Subthemes
by Holly Lisle

By now, you have a solid grasp of the importance of having a theme for your story, of keeping it personal and hidden (to avoid writing the dreaded Message Book), and of hanging on to the courage of your convictions in writing it the way you need to, knowing that you cannot ever please everyone, nor should you try.
That's a good, solid foundation for writing a book that people will read, and then re-read, and then recommend to friends, and finally buy as presents for people they really like. Which is, after all, the writer's ultimate goal---to write a story readers love so much they'll share it with other people who will love it, too.
But you can still go deeper, and make the work richer and more compelling, by layering in subthemes.

[Brakes screech, and someone mutters, "Wait a minute. You finally sold me on themes. But SUBthemes? C'mon, already."]

Subthemes are one of the best friends novelists have. (They're far less useful for folks who write short stories, simply because subthemes add to the length and complexity of the story.)

Subthemes do three massively useful things for the writer crafting a novel---things a single theme alone cannot do.

1) They force the world of the story into three dimensions. If the book is focused on one theme---no matter how fascinating and wonderful that theme---and all the characters are focused on that one issue, and all the action revolves around that one issue, then, no matter how skilled the writer may be, the book will feel thin. Step beyond the borders of the main action, and no character has anything to do, or say, or think, or any reason to exist. Their lives are bordered by the main theme. By adding subthemes, you fill out your characters' lives with needs and events that are important to them outside of and separate from the main story's focus.

2) Subthemes add length and complexity. (I mentioned this above in the negative sense, but that which is the bane of the short story writer is in this case the boon of the novelist.) I receive the following question at least once a week from beginning and intermediate writers---"How do I make my story longer without padding it (and without trying to figure out more plot, because I'm out of ideas)?"

Subthemes by their very nature give you something extra to work into your plot---the unexpected pregnancy of the heroine adding complications while she is running for her life; the villain who in the midst of working mayhem discovers the mother he truly loves is dying; the harassment of the main character by the practical joker at work whose stupid jokes later become mixed up in the life or death issues already besieging the hero.

3) Subthemes allow you an extra opportunity to...um, for lack of a better word...vent. And get something good out of the bad things that have happened in your life. This is admittedly a strange side benefit, but just about every writer I know has SOME issue that repeatedly makes its way into his (or her) novels. The trick, always, is to keep YOUR issue out of the book, and make the issue really and truly related to the character, with different events and a different resolution.

So where do you find your subthemes?

1) Pick a subtheme that is distantly related to the issue driving your novel. If your theme is "Why do bad things happen to good people?", and your story is about a father who comes to terms with the lingering death of his oldest kid after the boy contracts some terrible disease, a related theme would be how the father finds ways to bring happiness to the kid's life (and his own) for whatever time they have left. Or how the kid makes a friend in the middle of his personal tragedy, or learns to do something he's always wanted to do. Or how the father makes one thing his son has always wanted come true for him.(Man, this would be a grim book.)

2) Pick an unrelated issue, and give it, in disguised form, to primary or secondary characters. Using the example above, an unrelated issue that could become a theme would be how the father hangs on to a job when he's both the sole provider (say the kid's mother died, or just left) and his kid's sole source of care and support; or how the kid sets out to win the science fair before he dies, and wins the respect of a teacher he previously hated.

3) Pick some train wreck in your personal life, THOROUGHLY disguise it, give it to people totally unlike the people who were involved in YOUR train wreck, change names, locales, and events... And then work though it the way you should have, or wish you could have, the first time. Using this method, the father could be going through your horrible divorce, but HE could find the good ending you didn't get. Or he could give up his fantastic career as a professional poker player to be with his son, and could find something good from that loss, rather than the constant regret you have from a similar situation.

In every case, your priorities in using subthemes are to:

* give yourself more story than what you'd get if you only focused on your theme,
* give your reader something extra, and different, to take away from the book.

You and your story will benefit in more ways than you can imagine.
In BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, Part VI, Interweaving Your Novel's Themes And Subthemes, you'll learn three of my favorite techniques for balancing themes and subthemes while writing your novel.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

Playing Chicken With Your Story

Welcome to part IV of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series. Wonderful food for thought here. Thanks Holly!

Lauren

Playing Chicken With Your Story
by Holly Lisle

And now we come to the hard bit. You've got your theme, and you've figured out how to bury it so that it's there for you, and SOMETHING meaningful is there for your reader. You've let go of the temptation to write a message book---always difficult---and have embraced telling your story for the sake of the story.

So you start to write. And you find yourself pulling back every time you get close to putting something on the page that might be controversial, that might offend someone, that might tick off a reader.

You're trying to write for everyone, and in doing this, you're going to end up writing for no one. You're killing the passion you feel for the story, the life it might have, the resonance you could bring to it, out of your fear. You are systematically ripping out the soul of your book.

Here are three things I've learned and that you'll need to make a part of your writing if you're going to keep your story alive.

1) You cannot write for everyone, and you must not try to.

It is impossible to have the whole world as your audience, and it is impossible to have everyone love you. In fact, on about a one-to-one ratio, the more people you have who passionately love your work, the more people there will be who passionately hate it. Some of these readers---on both ends of the spectrum---will then go on to transfer their feelings about your work to you.

This is part of the gig.

You can, therefore, either strive to write the books that will stir the passions of readers, and give some of them stories that will move them and change them and bring wonder and joy and hope to their lives...or you can gut your work of all feeling, all life, all rage and fury and glory, in the hopes that the pitiful rag you're left with will gain the admiration of the PC people, who live to have their feelings hurt.

Of the two, I'd rather have my audience among the people who are not offended by strong opinions and who are not afraid to have their own. So I'll shoot for writing books people can love, accepting that this means I'll have plenty of detractors, too.

2) If you do not have an opinion, you do not have a story.

Here's one for you. "All men are potential rapists." Have you ever heard anyone say that? Here's a secret. Every person who has ever said that is an idiot. A small percentage of men, and a small percentage of women, are potential rapists, and a smaller percentage of each are actual rapists, and the rest are people who have morals and ethics and who would not, under any circumstances, rape anyone.

That's an opinion, and you could write a good, powerful story by burying that opinion as a theme or a subtheme in your novel. It will give you heroes and villains, forward momentum, great conflict, struggles to prove innocence or guilt, moments of defeat and moments of triumph. It will give you something to care about, a reason to keep writing, and a reason for your reader to keep reading. The outcome will matter, because one side is right, and one side is wrong.

If you do not have an opinion, though, you do not have a story. The 'no opinion' stance means your hero will be no better (and no worse) than your villain---in fact, you'll have to slide to the weaker position of having a protagonist and an antagonist, and even then, neither you nor your reader can really like one better than the other. Nobody is good, nobody is evil, everyone is just misunderstood.

'No opinion' means that it doesn't matter whether someone wins in your story, or someone loses, because neither option is right, and neither option is wrong. You're stuck with the ultimately boring, helpless stance of having Fate decree one outcome over another, and having the reader not really care anyway. If you do not have an opinion that can carry the story forward, all you'll have is a long, tedious vignette in which nothing that matters happens, simply because nothing matters.

3) Every once in a while, people need to be offended.

Yes. I said it. Being offended can be good for the mind and the soul. It forces you to think. People who are easily offended are people who do not want to think, who do not have the courage of their convictions, who want to be fed pablum and sheltered from the hot spices of real life and real opinion and outcomes that matter. 'Don't offend me' is the whine of the coward who does not want to have to judge issues on their merits (what, you want me to pick sides? Why can't everybody be right?) and does not want anyone else to, either.

Well, everybody can't be right. Some people, some issues, some positions, are just flat-out wrong. Pretending otherwise does not change that truth.

This is life. Issues have real merits. Thought is necessary for survival. If you fight your way through to opinions that you have earned by judging issues on their merits, you will be able to write stories with real kick. And even though you're going to be burying those opinions in metaphor, the strength of your passion and the richness of your story's stakes will be able to wake up a few sleepers who have been following along through life, not challenging themselves, because no one ever challenged them first.

Dare to have the courage of your convictions. Dare to think hard, to earn your opinions, and then to write them into your work. Dare to write stories worth telling. Dare to pick sides, dare to write your truth. Dare to be meaningful.

The book you save will be your own.

In BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, Part V, Dig Deeper With Your Novel's Subthemes, you'll find out three ways to bring in more of your passions and fears, and use them to make your story richer, and add layers of surprise and meaning.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

Burying Your Novel's Message

Here is part III of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series

Burying Your Novel's Message
by Holly Lisle


In the first two articles, we've explored how essential it is to have a theme to give your novel direction, and how to find those themes that will resonate with you.
You'd think that once you have a theme, you could just sit down and write your book about that, and you'd bring powerful emotions and passionate storytelling and compelling, page-turning action to your tale---but it just ain't so.

If you just write your theme, what you'll have is a harangue. A message book. Something that will have the readers who agree with your precise point of view nodding along---whether it be "Global warming is going to destroy the planet" or "Global warming is a pile of cow-flops"---and readers who hold any other point of view bouncing your book of the nearest wall and never buying anything else by you, ever.

Bad.

So now you bury your theme. You write about something utterly unlike the theme you fought so hard to come up with in the first place.
One of you just went, "Waaaaaait a minute! If I write about something besides my theme, how are people going to get my message? How are they going to know that global warming is evil/ irrelevant/ actually the dawning of a new ice age? How will I convince them that I'm right?"

They won't know, and you won't convince them. It's as simple as that.

The theme is there for YOU. Your job as a novelist is to tell a story that entertains your reader, that makes him think, that haunts him long after he finishes the last page---maybe even that STILL haunts him long after he's read the whole thing for the fourth or tenth or twentieth time. I get letters and emails from readers who have done that, and it's great. They frequently tell me what they got out of the book, too, what hidden meanings they found, what they took away from the story.

Funny thing is, they never find what I put in there. That's okay. They found something that mattered to THEM, that changed the world for THEM. So I did my job.

If you want to send a message, buy an ad.

If you want to create resonance, you work your theme in. If you want to have people love your book and treasure it for what it meant to them, you bury that theme so deeply only you will ever know what it was.

Here's how.
1) Figure out the key elements of your theme.
I wrote one book the theme of which was "if the Democrats and Republicans don't recognize each other isn't the enemy and start working together toward a common cause, real enemies are going to destroy the country while those morons are bickering over pork and entitlements."
The key elements of that theme were:
* People who had more in common than they knew fighting over trivialities* Enemies disguised as friends bearing gifts

2) Plan your hiding place.
That book was not set in this time, in the US, or even in this world. It was a high fantasy novel set in another world, on an island nation about the size of England and about the location of Australia with the climate of Alaska through the Pacific Northwest of Canada and the US. The cultures were Iron Age plus highly developed magic, with levels of sophistication ranging from 18th-Century France to the nomadic hunter-gatherer-herdsmen of the Mongol Horde.

So figure out YOUR disguise. Your most meaningful themes are always going to be drawn from the here and now, from the events in your life that trouble you and frighten you and elate you---but those themes go into Westerns and SF and fantasy and mysteries and romances and hard-boiled detective tales and mainstream novels set in every possible time and place.

3) Create your metaphors.
In that novel, the Democrats became one nation, the Republicans the other. I made a point of locating the good and the bad in both parties, and giving the two nations those good and bad characteristics. I created the real villains from current events, too, (though not from obvious current events), and worked out a complex metaphor for them, too, creating their culture from elements of a handful of different cultures. My two protagonists were from warring nations, magic was the physics of the world, and the villain was disguised as a good guy for the first half of the novel.

4) Never even hint at what you're talking about underneath it all.
I didn't then write a story about how the politics of the warring nations and the outside world clashed. I didn't give a little nudge, nudge, wink, wink and call my nations Demos and Republis. I spent time developing deep cultures built not around my particular axe to grind, but around the needs of the story. And then I built three characters, one from each of the three cultures.

And the story I wrote was a love story set against the backdrop of war and peace.

I wrote about the characters, I didn't confine them to my metaphors, I didn't try to push any points or convince anyone of anything. I let my folks become who they were, good points and bad, and I told the story of their lives in that world, that place, and that time---and because I knew what underlay it, it meant a lot to me. And because SOMETHING underlay it, it meant a lot to a whole lot of readers.

With the possible exception of its sequel, it was the best book I've ever written.

That story remains a favorite for my readers, too---even though what they take from it is sometimes the exact opposite of what I put into it. They have found their own meaning in it, have felt the resonance of it being about something bigger than the story on the surface, and have taken it to heart.
And if you're a novelist, that is what you want them to do. (If you're still hung up on requiring that they get YOUR meaning from your book, you're in the wrong line of work.)

In BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, Part IV, Playing Chicken With Your Story, you'll learn how to take the personal risks in writing that will keep your readers glued to their seats turning pages.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

How To Find Your Novel's Pulse

Here is part 2 of the 8-part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series by Holly Lisle. Thanks Holly!
Enjoy!

How To Find Your Novel's Pulse
by Holly Lisle

The best novels you've ever read---the ones that stuck in your mind and kept you going back to re-read them, that made you think, that made you feel, maybe that scared your socks off---were not about what they were about.

Sound cryptic? It is, sort of. Novels that change the way you look at the world were written by novelists who had things going on underneath that they were working through on paper. Angry divorces, fights at work, health problems, fears for their kids, rage at politics and injustice, fear of war, loss of loved ones---the whole gamut of human trials and tribulations.

Some of these novelists knew they were burying their struggles in their books, some didn't. But while they were writing about running into elves in the deep woods or opening a door to find themselves looking down the barrel of a gun, they were telling two stories. The one you read, and the one they lived. While you were reading, you felt the second, hidden story. That's why you keep going back to the book, and why you can't get it out of your head. Your gut knows there's more in that book than meets the eye.

Do you want to write books that keep readers reading, that keep them thinking, that let them look at the world through different eyes? Do you want to find the stories beneath the stories in your own work, and make sure you put them in there on purpose, instead of accidentally hitting one just right, and never again knowing how you got there?

This is doable. It's not comfortable---few things worth doing ever are. But it is a repeatable process. And here's where you start. Read each step below, and write down your answers.

STEP ONE:

Plato had it right when he said, "Know thyself." You don't get to have a starry-eyed vision of yourself as this nearly-perfect person if you're going to write meaningful books. You have to dig deep.

* You have to figure out what YOU did wrong in every relationship that went south on you. (Innocent victimhood is worthless as a novel-writing perspective. You end up with passive main characters who do nothing, and books that bore readers to death. So accept the truth that you have been and done wrong in your life, and buy your characters some credibility.)

* You have to admit to moments when you lied, and not make excuses about why you did it.

* You have to recall the people you hurt.

* And admit the things you did that you should not have done.

* And face the things you did not do that you should have.

This is a no-excuses zone. You did what you did, you meant to do it, consequences resulted and those were your fault.

Is this process all negative? No. But you'll already remember all your greatest moments; saving a life, sacrificing to help someone else, opening doors for old ladies, teaching Seeing Eye dogs for the blind. Those are great. And your readers will believe your characters do those things when, and only when, you have first proved that your characters are human. Humans are not perfect. We all know this about each other, even if we don't like to admit it about ourselves. But we know a real character when we read one, and this is where you find real characters.

STEP TWO:

You've admitted who you are. Now discover who you need to be, what you need to have, and what you dread. Again, skip the Miss America "I want world peace and free healthcare and kittens and puppies for all the children in the world" routine. What do YOU want...for YOU? What do you NEED? Do you need to be loved and admired? Do you need to be rich, powerful, famous? Do you need to be safe? What drives you? What eats at you at night? What haunts your nightmares? When you look in the mirror and see something wrong, what is the first thing you fear? When you hear a bump in the attic, a scrap at the front door, what do you dread?

STEP THREE:

Who you are and what you need and fear are part of why you write. But writing fiction itself is a strange process that involves baring bits of you that you may not even realize you're baring to complete strangers. It involves creating characters who are the best of what you have in you, and it involves, if you're doing it right, creating characters who are the worst of what you have in you.

You are, while you're writing, your characters. You have to believe in them for readers to believe in them, and you have to find it in yourself to make them do evil as well as good---to do the things you would do IF YOU WERE THEM---knowing that if you make your characters real enough, you'll hit nerves, you'll hear from the readers you've shocked or scared as well as from the ones you've moved to joy and tears. So, why do you want to do that? What's in in for you?

When you've answered these questions, if you've answered them honestly, you have your themes. The things you had the hardest time admitting to, the hardest time writing down, the hardest time facing---those will be your best themes. Because if you can take characters built from your deepest flaws and your worst fears and bring them to transcendence, then, my friend, you will have written a book with a pulse---and a story that matters.

In BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Part III: Burying Your Novel's Message, you'll learn how to use the themes you've discovered without being preachy or obvious, and without writing a Message Book.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: www.Isnare.com

Does Your Novel Have A Heartbeat?

Hi all,

Beginning today I'm going to share with you Holly Lisle's terrific series of articles designed to help writers bring their novels to life! Thanks Holly!

The first article below is titled 'Does Your Novel Have A Heartbeat?'

Food for thought, non? :-) I hope that you enjoy the articles as much as I have, and check back for Part II!

Cheers, Lauren http://laurendela.tripod.com

Romance that knows one true thing. Love changes everything.

PART I of The 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series

Does Your Novel Have A Heartbeat?

by Holly Lisle

You've read through what you've written---your first few scenes, your first chapter, your completed novel---and you've discovered that your words don't move you. They don't make you want to keep reading. They don't make you laugh or cry. If writing is bleeding on the page, well, you might have scratched yourself, but you don't need a transfusion. And you don't know what went wrong.
When you started writing, did you know what story you were telling? This is trickier than it sounds. You might have known your characters, you might have known your world, and you might have known your plot...but even with this much planning done, it's entirely possible that you had not yet located your deep layer, the heart of your story, the engine that drove you to write it in the first place.

Odds are very good you did not know your theme.

Your theme is nothing more and nothing less than the heart of a novel. It is not a grade-school exercise in tedium, that single droning sentence you wrote that told your reader what you were going to tell him. In a novel, your theme is a living, vibrant, critical thing. It is your particular passion in this particular novel summed up in a handful of words. It is what you need to say.

Need. That's the critical thing in a theme. If you're writing novels, if you are doing something this complex and challenging, you're doing it because something in you needs to write. You have something to express, some particular point of view, some set of life experiences, some driven hunger that you must put down on paper. You NEED. And you need to say what you need.

Maybe it is: In spite of having survived heartbreak, I believe in true love. Or: I believe good can triumph over greater evil. Or: If I were King of Everything, this is the way the world would be.
Your plot is the map of your story. Your theme is the map of your soul, and it is where your characters will find their direction, their flaws, their hungers, and their own passions. They only breathe with your breath, and they only bleed with your blood. Your plot may be Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl, but your theme---your take on the world based on your life, your own hopes and aspirations, your own beliefs---might be Chubby Bald Guy Deserves the Love of a Wonderful Woman.
You have themes in you. You've built them from love and courage, but you've built them from anger and fear, too. You live with them every day, when you're muttering that argument you had with your spouse or colleague, designing better comebacks; when you're watching the boss cheat someone and you're getting furious about it; when you're watching a disaster and telling yourself, Someone could have prevented that; when you're hearing the latest political garbage and thinking, This is not the way the world should be.

I could do this better. I WOULD do this better.
And so you write.
You have rich, powerful, compelling, passionate themes boiling inside you. You have something worth saying. Now you just need to know how to figure out what it is, and how to get it on the page.

In Part II: How To Find Your Novel's Pulse, you'll learn how to identify your themes, and figure out which are worth pursuing.

About the Author
Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle's Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

Published At: http://www.isnare.com/

What European City Do You Belong In?

You Belong in London

You belong in London, but you belong in many cities... Hong Kong, San Francisco, Sidney. You fit in almost anywhere. And London is diverse and international enough to satisfy many of your tastes. From curry to Shakespeare, London (almost) has it all!

What European City Do You Belong In?

I could live in London. :-) I think there are probably a lot of European cities that I could live in. Or at least visit for an extended period of time. Dublin, anyone?

I've been interviewed by Rachelle.

I was interviewed by the lovely Rachelle for her wonderful and informative blog which featured author interviews all month long.
I've posted the text of the interview below.
Thank you, Rachelle, for inviting me to participate in the author interviews on your blog.
Lauren

Masquerade by Lauren Delaney

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lauren Delaney has always been an avid reader and writer of romance, especially paranormal romance and fantasy.
Lauren grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario and now lives in historic Kingston, Ontario. She has two beautiful daughters, a supportive husband and two cats that think they own the family. Two of Lauren’s short stories, The Fall of Lions, and Race Against the Dark, have been published in the Kingston Writers' Group anthology, Snapshots.
Lauren enjoys discussing romance stories and writing, and invites you to visit her website at: http://laurendelaneywriter.wordpress.com/home/.
Contact Lauren at: laurendela@gmail.com

ABOUT THE BOOK:
BLURB: Cressida Aylesworth - or Criss as her friends call her - is attending the gala masquerade ball sponsored by her employer, Maplethorpe Industries. Another predictable company function, or so she thinks, until she meets the mysterious and unusual Rafael Ambrose and her whole life is turned upside down in one magical night. The night has several unexpected surprises in store for Criss as she finds herself bonding with this man whose life is a secret. Can Rafe accept that she could love him as he is? Could Criss be the one to uncover the secret of his past? What will happen if they defy convention and consummate their love in a night of passion that neither will ever forget?
Criss is an independent woman who does not give her heart easily, but can she see beyond Rafe's appearance to the brave heart within the sexy and tormented man-beast?~ And can the moonstone that condemned Rafe, also save him?


EXCERPT from Masquerade:


“Trish, why did I let you talk me into this?”
The sound of running water and a little off-key humming was the only reply Cressida Aylesworth received to her question. She leaned her forehead against the bathroom door with a small thump, and sighed in frustration. She knew that her friend, Patricia Bennington, was only trying to improve Criss’s social life - but a Halloween masquerade ball? That was a little extreme, even for Trish. Criss would have preferred meeting someone new over coffee, thank you very much.
As Criss turned away from the door, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror that hung on the opposite wall of her bedroom. She moved toward it slowly, appraising her appearance with a critical eye. Her formal gown skimmed the lines of her body, accentuating both her slimness and the soft curves of hip and breast. The rich black velvet of the dress emphasized the creaminess of her skin and the unusual depth of color in her green eyes. Tightly fitted sleeves ended in points of fabric that rested against the back of her hands. Beneath the snug band of the gown’s empire waistline, the black velvet was split and a v-shaped panel of red velvet had been inserted into the front of the dress. The blood red color peeked out from the folds of black whenever she moved.Criss had decided to wear her chestnut hair down tonight, and it curled against her throat and rested on her bare shoulders. The costume was stunning and showed off her lithe figure to perfection. She turned slightly, admiring the effect. Maybe those kickboxing classes were worth the time and effort after all.
The click of the bathroom door latch opening interrupted her thoughts. Trish emerged from the bathroom wearing an old green bathrobe. She ruffled her damp hair with a towel. Criss stepped out of range of the flying water droplets.
“Did you say something?” Trish asked, as she peeked out from under the towel. “Oh wow! Look at you, Criss!”
“I said…Oh never mind.” Criss shrugged. It wasn’t as if she had anything else planned for tonight, and unless she could think of a doozy of an excuse, she knew her attendance at the ball was expected. The masquerade ball was a gala fundraising event sponsored by her employer, Maplethorpe Industries.
Earlier that evening she handed out candy to all of the little ghosts and goblins that came knocking at her door, and enjoyed the fun. But now that the candy bowl was empty and the porch light turned out, she had to admit that the rest of the evening stretched ahead emptier than a costume shop two weeks after Halloween. She faced her friend. “Honestly Trish, I don’t really feel like going. Why can’t we just stay in, watch a scary movie, and eat candy?"
“You promised!” Trish turned on the blow dryer and began vigorously brushing her honey colored hair. “Besides, it’ll be fun. How often do we get to dress up and play make believe?”
Everyday at work, Criss thought. The growing restlessness that she felt in her personal life was spilling over into her work. She knew that attending tonight’s ball was all part of Trish’s plan to get her back into the social scene after the tragic death of both of her parents last year in a car accident. She looked at her friend fondly and reached out to tuck in a few stray hairpins that protruded from Trish’s head at odd angles, as she sectioned and dried her hair.
Criss didn’t know what she would have done without Trish’s support and caring after the death of her parents. An only child, and without any other close family members nearby, Criss had felt bereft and very alone in the world. Trish had been there for her, just like always, and there wasn’t anything Criss wouldn’t do if Trish really needed her to and – a wry smile tilting her lips - she suspected Trish knew it.
Criss wasn’t ready to give in graciously just yet, though.“I feel like a princess waiting for the stroke of midnight, so I can turn back into a pumpkin, or scullery maid, or whatever it was Cinderella turned into.”
“La, la, la, I can’t hear you.” Trish turned the hair dryer up to the next setting and as the warm air roared out of it, she raised the volume of her own voice to match. “It’s such an exclusive party and how often do we get to go to the Embassy Hotel? I heard Maplethorpe Industries has invited artists and musicians and actors - ”
“- and their wives,” Criss pointed out. Trish stuck out her tongue and carried on as if she hadn’t heard Criss’s comment. Trish’s hearing was selective that way, Criss had noticed.
Both women were employees of Maplethorpe Industries. Trish worked as an executive secretary to the president, Darcy Maplethorpe III, and Criss was head of the Research and Development department. They had been fast friends ever since the day that Trish had plopped herself down beside Criss in the company cafeteria and asked her if she had noticed the handsome new guy from Marketing at the next table.
Trish shut off the hairdryer, satisfied that all the ends of her up swept hair were dry and in place. She moved back into the bathroom, and began to apply her makeup. A knock on the front door abruptly ended their conversation. Their eyes met for a moment in the bathroom mirror, and Criss looked both surprised and slightly annoyed.“Those kids are out late.” She walked towards the hallway.
“Mmph” Trish replied, as she carefully applied her lipstick.
Must be teenagers out trick and treating later than their younger counterparts, Criss thought, as she went to answer the door.
“I turned out the porch light and the candy bowl’s empty, you’d think they’d take the hint,” she called over her shoulder to Trish. Criss opened the door. “I’m sorry but the candy’s all gone…”
The man in the chauffeur’s uniform looked apologetic - and confused.
“The car is ready, Miss.” He gestured towards the darkened street where the longest limousine Criss had ever seen was parked. It gleamed under the streetlight.
“Thank you, Mr.…” Trish had walked up behind Criss and her voice faltered, as she found herself momentarily at a loss for words.
“Charles, Miss.” The man stood motionless, peaked cap in hand.
“Thank you, Charles. We’ll be out in a moment.” Trish swung the door closed and looked at Criss with an amused twinkle in her eye.
“A chauffer?” Criss’s voice was incredulous. “You didn’t say anything about a driver. Surely not everyone going to the masquerade ball tonight gets picked up in a limousine?”
“Not everyone. Just you, Cressida Aylesworth,” Trish reached for her wrap, “and me, because I’m going with you. Mr. Maplethorpe arranged it and told me to keep it hush, hush. I think you have a secret admirer.” Trish changed the subject hastily at the warning look in her best friend’s eye. “Let’s get a move on. We don’t want to keep Charles waiting.”
Criss admitted defeat. “You win.”She picked up her mask from the hall table and linked arms with her friend. Trish glowed in a white full-length chiffon gown, fine gold braid wound through the swirls of her upswept hair. They looked at each other from behind their sequined and feathered half-masks, like a pair of exotic birds - one dark and one light - and laughed as they walked towards the waiting limousine.

~ excerpt from Masquerade by Lauren Delaney

INTERVIEW:
Why did you become a writer? Was it a dream of yours since you were younger or did the desire to write happen later in your life?

I’ve always been a writer and a storyteller, but for many years I focused on the visual arts and it has only been in the past four or five years that I have sought publication for my writing. I currently have several stories in print - a paranormal romance Masquerade, and two stories - a police procedural and a fantasy - that were included in an anthology sold as a fund-raiser in support of a local hospital. I am currently in the process of polishing and editing a novel and a novella for submission.

What do you love about being an author? Is there anything you dislike?

I love capturing the stories that are in my head and putting them down on paper. The characters become your closest friends for a time and you become swept up in their adventures. Writing is solitary work, however, and it is wonderful to have the support of friends, family and fellow writers - and of course, the readers!

How do you balance your personal and writing time?

Ah, * the * question! It’s always difficult to find the balance between work and family time – but if writing is your work and you love it, then you will find the time for it. Having a regularly scheduled time for writing – morning works best for me – helps a lot.

How do you write? Do your characters come to you first or the plot or the world of the story?

Sometimes it’s the place - a sudden flash of a specific time and place – that comes first, and I find the characters standing there, waiting to tell me why they are there, and what is happening to them. It’s a little startling at first but also exciting, and you can’t wait to tell their story and share it with your readers.

What genre(s) do you write? Why do you write the stories that you write?

I enjoy writing in different genres. I have written police procedural, historical fantasy romance, and paranormal romance stories – and each genre offers a chance to visit a new world with your characters. I enjoy writing character-driven stories with elements of adventure, so that in the end, no matter what circumstances they may find themselves in, they are characters that you care about and want to succeed.

Do you tend to base your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?

I think that all good characters have elements of real people in them –personality quirks that one sees in the course of everyday living, even though you may have forgotten from whom or where.

Out of all the characters that you've written, who is your favorite and why?

I love them all, but at the moment I would have to say Cressida and Rafe, the heroine and hero of my paranormal romance story, Masquerade.
Cressida has just come through a difficult time after the loss of her parents but she has an open and brave heart. Rafe has been scorned and hurt so many times in the past that he has almost come to expect that is how others will treat him, yet somehow he finds the courage to trust again.
Someday there may be a little more to their story – they tell me that it has only just begun.

What would you want readers to take away from your books?

I would hope that readers might take away from my books a feeling of hope, and know that despite place and circumstance, there is truth in the knowledge that love changes everything.

Do you have any advice for beginning writers in regards to writing a book?

Don’t be afraid to try and fail. It’s your story to tell and so make yourself sit down and tell it. It is a fact that your twentieth story will be much better than your first, simply because you will have learned so much through the act of writing and honing your craft – and so go ahead and tell the story that is inside of you. You may surprise yourself.

What are you reading right now?

Neil Gaiman, mostly. After reading American Gods and Anansi Boys, I’ve begun Neverwhere. In between, I’ve also enjoyed the historical romance Lion’s Lady by Suzanne Barclay as well as the paranormal romance Master of Swords by Angela Knight. I have a very long TBR list.

If you could be anyone or anything that you wanted, who or what would you be?

I think that I am at a place in my life where I’m doing what I love to do and - despite the same daily concerns that everyone faces - happy to be who I am, and so I don’t think I would trade places with anyone else right now.



Cheers, Lauren
Love changes everything. tm

Masquerade by Lauren Delaney now available as an ebook at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V1282C
– and in multi-formats at Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/51162

http://laurendelaneywriter.wordpress.com/
Interview posted by Rachelle at 3:32 PM July 13 http://www.zyphe.blogspot.com/

Hi all,

I wanted to share this article with you from writer Regina Paul.
It is available from the Wordpreneur Article Bank. http://wordpreneur.blogspot.com/2007/05/6-free-book-marketing-techniques.html
It has six great marketing tips that you may find useful.

Are there any tips that you have found effective, that you can share?

All the best,
Lauren
Love that knows one true thing. Love changes evrything.tm
http://laurendela.tripod.com

6 Free Book Marketing Techniques Guaranteed to Get You Book Sales
By Regina Paul

As an author I spent years looking for free marketing techniques which would help me to sell my books. As a struggling beginning author, I had no idea at first how to even get started. Almost 2 years after the publication of my first book I can say with confidence I have found six techniques which have garnered me book sales, and will work for you too. I'll even let you in on a technique that I found garnered me no sales at all!

1. Offer a monthly newsletter that has useful content besides just information about your books. I have found that having a newsletter that offers something to both potential readers, and either aspiring or already published authors has increased my newsletter membership and sold more of my books.

2. Offer free reads. There is one thing that as both a reader and an author will make me stand up and pay attention; offer me something useful for free. People love getting something for free! My only piece of advice regarding this is just make certain that what you are offering is high quality. If you offer a story you wrote 10 years ago that does not reflect your current polished writing style, this is not going to get you book sales for your current books. Either write something new, or do polish up something you have already written, so it reflects your current style.

3. Have at least one of your free reads available through your publisher. Some publishers give writers the option of offering stories for free. Potential fans and readers do scan book catalogs for free reads, and sometimes publishers will advertise the free reads as well. If someone reads the free read you made available through your publisher, and they liked it, they are going to be much more likely to come back and purchase the books you have for sale.

4. As further incentive for someone to sign up for your free monthly newsletter, offer at least one free read (Or do like I did and offer two or three!), either a serial where you post a chapter a month (I've found this to be very helpful when it came to making sales!), or a novella. I started out checking my member list every day for new members and then sending them my freebies via e-mail, that is until I found the Files section in my yahoo group! Now I have all of my freebies in the Files section and all new members can just go there and download all my freebies to their computer. This saves time for you, and your new subscribers.

5. Write articles similar to this one on different aspects of being a writer, and the publication industry. Once you have done so, publish them in a few free high profile article directories. Because of the danger of duplication within the search engines I don't suggest publishing duplicate articles at more than two places at a time.

6. Get your books reviewed. I can't stress this one enough as it is one of the most important ways to get the word out about your books. There are many places online you can have your books reviewed for free. Do not pay someone to review your book! There are some very reputable organizations out there such as Coffee Time Romance (who incidentally review all different genres and even non-fiction; not just romance) and The Romance Studio to name two. Strangely, the one technique which did not garner me many book sales that I am aware of, and which many beginning authors try is sending bookmarks with information about their books to book conferences. I've even heard some horror stories about authors who had friends that were at the conference talking about how they saw the other person's bookmarks laying on the floor, or in the trash. If you can afford to have pens, or calendars or other more original/different items that are more likely to be picked up and taken home made, then by all means do so and send these items. From what I've heard though, bookmarks aren't getting picked up anymore.

If you follow the six techniques I've listed here, you will find your book sales do increase, and you will have many happy new readers as well!

Regina Paul is a full-time author. She has four books available, Getting Out Alive, a science fiction romance, Illara's First Christmas, a holiday novella which is a continuation of Getting Out Alive, The Mark of the Guardian, a free fantasy romance novella, and Destiny's Choices, a romantic suspense recently released from Amira Press.
To find out more about Regina and her books you can visit her website. http://www.reginapaul.com