Just a quick note....

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

I do sincerely apologize for my absence. I wish I could give you some really great reasons for it, but, alas, much of my neglect can be summed up in one word: Life.

However, I wanted to say I plan to be more diligent with the blog. (Heck, I'm even going to write next week's entry tonight!) I also wanted to wish everyone a happy midsummer!

Blessings!

Nichole

Young Adult Books

Long before I started writing paranormal, I was reading paranormal books. Ray Bradbury was an early favorite, especially Something Wicked This Way Comes. As early as junior high I was reading Stephen King and Anne Rice. There was far less to choose from in the Young Adult section back then than there is now. I think it’s terrific that there is so much more for teenagers to read now and am completely shameless about enjoying some of these great YA reads even as a thirtysomething adult. Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series is a favorite of mine. Recently I read the first two books of the Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine. I’ve read the Twilight series, though in all honesty I wanted to hurl the fourth book across the room. Lili St. Crow’s Strange Angels series is great. You might wonder what got a grown woman into reading Young Adult-genre books. It’s a simple two word answer: Harry Potter.

It was several years into the Harry Potter phenomenon before I read the first book. I liked the first one well enough to read the second, but it was Prisoner Of Azkaban that really got me hooked. JK Rowling created such an amazing and thoroughly realized world, the more of it I read the more I wanted to step inside and wander around Diagon Alley. Take a ride on the Knight Bus. Order a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. Spend part of the summer at the Burrow with my friends the Weasleys. Every time I see a reference to the ongoing World Cup, I think of Quidditch. Reading about the new theme park in Florida, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, has made me want to borrow someone’s kid just so I have an excuse to go.

The generation of kids that grew up with Harry Potter are showing signs of holding on to the love of books they learned by following the adventures of The Boy Who Lived. I wonder if they’ll always love books with a fantasy bent, full of wondrous magic and terrifying monsters. Will it be something they come back to from time to time, and maybe even teach their own kids? Can you remember what books you read as kid that helped to shape your reading habits for life?

An excerpt...

Hi, everyone.Since I'm using every spare second to get Wait for the Wind ready by deadline, I'm going to throw myself on your mercy and post an excerpt this week. 

From To Take Up the Sword (Elemental Magic Book Two) by Brynna Curry

Coming in September from Lyrical Press, Inc.

* * * *

      “Where did you get this?”
      “Serena gave it to me before she was murdered. She said if she didn't or couldn't come back for it, I was to give it to you and only you. Otherwise, mum's the word.”
      She watched as Gabriel laid the statue on the kitchen table and got the meat mallet out of a drawer by the sink. The garishly painted face was in pieces before Lea realized what he was
going to do.
      “You broke it! I know it was ugly, but…”
      He pulled a velvet pouch through an opening at the bottom and shook the contents out on the table.
      “My God.” She hissed in a breath. “Are those…”
      “Yes, the missing diamonds.” He turned toward her. “The last of Gueraldi's men went free because of these. You had them all along. I could charge you with withholding evidence.”
     “Not if I didn't know about them, and I can promise you I didn't.”
     “Ms. O'Neil.” Gabe cocked his eyebrow. “You've got to be kidding me. She had to have told you.”
     “Leannan, but you should probably call me Lea, seeing we've become so well acquainted. And no. She didn't. I knew something was bothering her, but she wouldn't talk about it. Just that she couldn't involve Jack. I never guessed she'd hidden something inside the statue. How could she have done that anyway?”
     “Ever seen Romancing the Stone?”
     “Only a million times. It was Serena's favorite… Oh.”
     “Exactly.”
     A loud crack interrupted the conversation. Glass shattered from the window behind him. Lea screamed. They'd found her. “Did I forget to mention them?”

* * * * 

Character origins

Once or twice I've been asked about the origins of my characters, and if they're based on people I know in real life. The answer is mostly no, with a little bit of yes.

Sometimes I feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein when I first start to put together a new character. Some little something about Person X will capture my attention and make it's way into a character. Some attribute or quality that's either endearing or irksome. A funny story from Person Y's bad day at work, and maybe there's a Person Z with a quirky habit. The character won't be based on any of these various people, but I think  taking little pieces from real life can help keep characters grounded and make them more believable.

When it comes to a character's appearance, I have a strict policy of never basing a character on a person I know in real life. To be honest, it gets confusing to me if I start to put a "real life" face on a character. What happens if that character starts acting like the real person, instead of remaining a fictional character? If a character takes on too many attributes and qualities of someone who might by chance read the story, that get could awkward fast. To avoid this, in addition to the Frankenstein method I have a folder saved on my laptop labeled "central casting." That's where I save various pictures I come across online of people that could be used as potential "models" for character appearance. Here's some examples: for a character that's something of a bohemian type, unconventional and even a bit otherworldly, just the right picture of Johnny Depp might be perfect. A picture of Christian Bale would be good for a dark, intense, and brooding character. I've got several pictures of Henry Cavill saved if I ever decide I want to write werewolf smut, er, paranormal romance. That central casting folder comes in handy, plus it's fun.

This covers only how I start out a new character. Friends who play role playing games have suggested I use character sheets that have you fill out all sorts of details and minutiae to get to know them better. I've tried it but it's never worked for me.  I don't really get to know a character fully until I get deep into the writing. They will reveal themselves to me, and frequently surprise me. They'll whisper secrets to me, secrets that sometimes don't even make it onto the page. It's a strange, organic process that I don't fully understand. Getting to know a new character can be frustrating when it seems like I can't figure out how to coax them into talking to me. But then once they do, it can really kick a story into overdrive and send it into new and exciting places. More than once I've liked a character so much that I wished I did know someone like them in real life.*

Do you have a particular method of creating characters? Do they arrive in your head fully formed, or do you have to get to know them over the course of writing the story?

*This remark is not at all  in reference to any possible Henry Cavill werewolf smut, I swear. 

Where to begin?

Some immortal opening lines exist. One of my favourites is from Stephen King’s The Gunslinger: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the riverbank, and of having nothing to do…

Or Douglas Adams, from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency: This time there would be no witnesses.

Like it or not, the opening line of a novel is often critical to its success. A strong opening line makes readers sit up and pay attention. Now what? they’re likely to ask. Speaking as an editor, I am often highly critical of how an author opens her novel, looking not only at the impact of the opening line, but also where in the story an author decides to draw us in.

Stop and think about the person who’s going to read your book. In epublishing you usually get to choose an excerpt from somewhere in the novel where something exciting happens, and the excerpt is usually what potential readers look at on a website before they buy. But if you’re holding a book in your hand, at a bookshop or in a library, for instance, many potential readers will look at the cover then look at the blurb on the back. If they’re still interested after that, chances are good they’ll read the first few paragraphs of the novel to see if they’ll gel with it.

This is make or break. If a novel doesn’t grab a reader there, chances are good they’ll put it back on the shelf. I know I’m like that. Likewise, when I’m reading submissions while wearing my editor’s hat, I want an author to grab me from the start. I want to see a protagonist who’s busy doing something.

Most often an author will lose me at a number of points if their opening isn’t good enough. Bear in mind this is often after I’ve given the author the benefit of the doubt after plodding through a poorly written query letter and synopsis, so if I reach the actual submission and the author’s done a hash job there, these are the most common reasons I’ll say “Thanks, but no thanks”.

Prologues.

Prologues must die. In 99 percent of the instances I’ve encountered prologues they’ve either given away key plot bunnies or they’re a thinly veiled attempt at squeezing in back-story. The mark of a good prologue is a short piece of writing with a high degree of tension that acts almost as an advertisement enticing readers to plunge into the story. If you want some good lessons on how to write prologues, go take a look at the big-name authors out there and really analyse how they do it. In most cases, I’ll suggest my authors lose their prologues and a novel is often much stronger for it.

Exposition.

Yes. I agree. There are some big-name authors out there who get away with writing in reams and reams of exposition when opening a novel. I’ve also seen some big-name authors fail miserably (yes, I’m looking at you, Anne Rice). Until you are the next Stephen King, do yourself a humungous favour and resist the temptation of starting your epic saga with exposition. If you simply must share the information, find inventive ways to weave it in later, in small doses, when the need for the reader to have the information is relevant. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had a point when he said “Less is more” and apart from applying this to architecture, it works well for fiction. Don’t bombard your readers with facts right at the start of the novel. Trust me, after reading hundreds of similar-starting submissions, my eyes glaze over within the first two paragraphs.

A character waking.

I’ve lost track of how many submissions I’ve read starting where a character wakes. You know what, this is a really boring way to start a novel. It’s so boring, I’m not going to bore you further by going on about it.

A character involved in some mundane task.

Although not as plentiful as instances of a character waking, I’ve often encountered novels that start with a character engaged in some mundane task, usually at his/her place of work. I usually read a little further, usually a paragraph or three more than I would have with the “waking in the morning” scenario but when things don’t get any better soon, I stop reading. Enough said.

A nebulous he/she.

There is nothing more annoying when a novel starts describing the inner thoughts and physical doings of a nebulous he or she. Kick off with a character in a setting and jump in with chapter one. People like to know fairly soon how old a character is and some juicy bits, but please also refrain from resorting to the “character admiring his/herself in the mirror routine”. That’s a lazy way to introduce character attributes in chapter one and should be avoided at all costs. It’s so cliché I don’t even point and laugh any more.

So, what must you do? Find that opening line that excites you and makes you want to read further. Then introduce your main character doing something exciting. If she’s a bug collector who’ll later go onto collecting an alien, show her stalking and perhaps not capturing a rare butterfly. This will set the tone later for when she’s facing that ravening, face-hugging alien. Is your character a werewolf who can’t shift when he’s under stress? Bring him into the story at a point where his being able to shift is the only thing saving him from certain disaster.

See what I’m getting at? Now go out and write exciting stories!

Getting to know a character

I'm trying to get started on a new novel and the going is a bit rocky. Actually, very rocky. I've always been more of a pantser than a plotter but since I was having so much trouble I thought I would try outlining a plot for a change. To start off with I tried using the snowflake method but it requires you to know a whole lot more about your story than I do at this point. Next I tried asking Google about novel outlining methods, but didn't find anything that helped me. Then I realized I was going about this all wrong and started over. I don't need an outline for a plot. Well, I do, but first I need something else - I need to know who my main character is. Since I currently write paranormal fiction I decided to try a tarot card reading to see what I could discover about him. Then I remembered I can't read tarot cards for crap and just flipped through the cards and my handy Tarot For Idjits book. Since the story involves a man embarking on a new phase in his life and the beginning of an adventure, The Fool seemed a likely card. As I sat and stared at this depiction of an oblivious person - who frankly always looks a little high to me, I mean, really, what's in that bag? - who is about to walk right off a cliff into who knows what, I began to wonder if the card was a more accurate depiction of my character, or of me. So I threw my hands in the air, put the cards back in their box, and went back to the first form of magic I ever believed in - music. Fair or not, nothing tells me quicker or more succinctly who a person is than finding out what kind of music they listen to. Same goes with the characters I create. I don't know why I didn't  try this method first. Chalk it up to nerves, maybe. I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself concerning this new project and that never helps. Finally I went through my music and I think I've found him. That is, found what he listens to. Admittedly, that doesn't give me much to work with in the grand scheme of trying to write a novel, but it tells me something about who my main character is, a little about how he thinks and how he'll move through the world I'm attempting to create. Every writer has different methods for getting to know their characters. This one has usually worked for me pretty well so I'm hopeful it will help kick-start these opening scenes I'm working on. I'd be curious to know what methods other writers use.

A point on the third

AS an author and editor, I’m pretty diverse. I don’t have an absolute preference for first- or third-person points of view in fiction. I’ll happily write a first-person, present tense urban fantasy drama one day and, the next, fall into third-person, past tense during the next. All I ask is that I am immersed in a character and that I can see, taste, touch, hear and feel what the character is doing.

This is what is known as a deep point of view.

Let’s consider the following passage:

Tommy crossed the field, hurrying in the direction of the big red barn. Here he discovered what remained of the brown hen, the wereweasel’s tracks clear around the mangled remains.

Sure, it tells a passable story from a third-person point of view but, you know what? I see dozens of authors whose writing is this lack lustre. As an editor, I’ll pass on this one because a) I’m not engaging with the character and b) the story is very “telly”. Nothing really happens to motivate me, as a reader to want to read more.

Now, consider the same story written in a deep third-person point of view:

Tommy felt the first stirrings of unease as he crossed the field, the dew clinging to the long autumn-browned grass dampening the legs of his jeans. Ahead, the bright red of the barn’s painted wooden walls screamed an obscenity against the sky and he quickened his pace. The interior of the building was dim, smelling of musty straw, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light. The scraggly heap of bones and feathers in the centre of the floor was all that remained of the brown hen. Tracks as large as his own, but with longer toes and the obvious marks of talons, circled the remains. Tommy swallowed hard. The wereweasel had struck again.

Okay, so which version of the story did you prefer reading?

Unless you have the pulse of a lump of rock, you most likely engaged more with the second version, which gave a better idea of Tommy’s world, allowing readers to experience sensually from his point of view.

Writing a story is not just about putting words down. It’s about capturing your readers’ imaginations, about transporting them to a world where they can be a cool vampire police detective or a werewolf with a vendetta. People want to feel that, for a short while, they can forget about the world around them, about the bills that need paying, the annoying landlady or the mother-in-law who meddles.

As a writer you’re in the business of creating worlds for other people to enjoy. Granted, yes, part of what you do is for yourself, to please yourself while writing. But if you’re serious about getting published, you’re going to have to make damn sure your prose sings.

Make editors, agents and readers fall in love with your world by showing it to them, not just telling it to them.