Masquerade now available as an ebook at Amazon and Smashwords

Welcome to my new blog! There's something about the smell of fresh new paper and a beautiful new pen to write with, isn't there? I enjoy reading and writing urban fantasy and romance stories, especially paranormal romance, and I'm always pleased to meet readers and writers alike.
I hope you'll check out my story Masquerade, a passionate and unusual love story now available as an ebook at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V1282C

– and and in multi-formats at Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/51162
More updates will be posted here soon. Drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers,
Lauren Delaney ~ Characters whose love rises from the ashes to reach for redemption.

Love changes everything. (tm)
http://laurendelaneywriter.wordpress.com/


 

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