Do Your Characters Advance Your Plot? One Excellent Example.

Don't know which pulls me into a story more. Different, Interesting characters or a fast-paced plot with loads of suspense. Then, there are the books that give you both. White Fire, featuring their FBI Special Agent Pendergast, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child does just that.

Pendergast has landed in my to-read pile several times. Have always enjoyed the fast moving plots. But this time around, I noticed something different: how Preston and Child used their characters to squeeze the most out of their plot.

The book proceeds in a linear fashion, using very short chapters to feature each bit of action. More important, the chapters are told from different viewpoints. Not only do the chapters present important information within the action sequences, but they also flesh out both main and secondary characters. The reader not only gets to know who they are but sympathize for their problems too.

My favorite example in this book was Pendergast's encounter with a survivalist who has his whole community scared of him. Pendergast goes to his cabin deep into the high mountains of Colorado in spite of all the advice to the contrary, and then, squeezes the information out of the gun nut in a tense show down. The readers already know Pendergast has nerves of titanium but must wonder if a stronger metaphor is needed.

Another 5***** rating, for general, edge-of-the-chair excellence. Oh, the growth of Pendergast's somewhat clueless protege also deserves kudos.
 

~~#~~

Absolute Write Water Cooler has been one of my favorite go-to places for information about the publishing world. Next on my list is Writer Beware, now written by Victoria Strauss and connected with the SFWA for years. The Writer Beware blog recently discussed a troll campaign against the Cooler -- mostly because commentators tend to be a little rough when they think someone isn't being quite honest or isn't a good bet to effectively deliver on the services the offer.Take a look at Strauss' blog: Haters Gonna Hate.

I've read the forums for years, mostly as a lurker because I don't think I have much expertise to offer. In my readings, I've thought the most of the comments are right on. If a discussion starts chasing its tails over the same ground, the moderator has usually stepped in to calm things down.

My biggest piece of wisdom from the forums: Give a new publisher a couple years to prove they know what they're doing before you trust your manuscript to them. They tend to go belly-up for many reasons -- even though their prinicpals have the noblest of intentions when they start their publishing enterprise. It's not just publishing. All start-ups fail at astonishing rates.

~~#~~

Crossings: A Tale of Andor

is now #free

[at least until 15 Sep 2014]

You can download the enovella at Amazon, Nook, KOBO, and Smashwords.

It's also up on the iBookstore, but I couldn't find where they hid the price.

Special review exchange offer: 

If you download and review #Crossings, let me know. [You can contact me at mkkaytheod-at-yahoo-dot-com.] I'll return the favor if you send me a PDF or code for a free copy. Just be warned, I'll give three star ratings if your formatting, grammar, and spelling are off. I'll also say if you don't hold my interest. Whatever, I'll share my comments before I post them if the rating is less than four-star, and you can decide whether they go public or not. Think of this as being a one-time critique partner.

Guess you could also comment here if your book/story is a free download. It might give you a little publicity.

Digging for Something to Read

The Reads ...

With all the books laying around my house, unread, you'd think finding something to read would be a cinch.  Duh.  The first two books I picked up got tossed on the trade pile within 10 pages. 

One was a Harlequin romance I'd bought used because it had such a neat cover and promo blurp.  It also mentioned demons when I was deep into the gargoyles.  By page 10, my internal editor was screaming so loud I was twitching.   I fear the book will end with the Friends of the Library since the used bookstores don't do Harlequins.

So, I reread Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract, a romance about a marriage of convenience that turned into a happily-ever-after.  Heyer took the romantic infatuation so common in romances and juxtaposed it with a mundane marriage which turned out to be the HEA.  The writing?  Well, it tells ... and tells ... and tells the story some more, ie. very little dramatization.  The paragraphs are long and involved.  Sometimes, there are two viewpoints on the same page.  Still, the characters are multi-dimensional and compelling, making you care about even the secondary characters. 

What I was looking for was the new Theodosia book from the family lending library.  I knew I had seen it, but it was buried in a box under a pile of books and papers behind another box.  But, I found it.

Still reading Nick Bunker's Making Haste from Babylon.  Again, the reading is heavy going, but interesting how the "implementers" of the Puritan movement in Calvinism defy Queen Elizabeth's national church.  Yeah, I'm still reading the back story in northeastern England that caused the Puritans to be.  Very little was "national" at the time even though Elizabeth I and James I ruled. 

Interesting how the various regions of England had their own customs and beliefs yet consider themselves "Englishmen".  As I read Bunker, my mind kept popping to the words "Tea Party" and wondering what the stocks would feel like.  I don't think I'd like them, ... but enough to keep my mouth shut?  [Mouthy women were anathema to the Puritans.]

Web Stuff ...

Last Friday, I discovered Fiction Groupie thanks to a writing friend, Patti Struble, who has a funny blog called "The Writer's Bump".  In Friday's blog Fiction Groupie discusses how the website she reluctantly put up helped her get an agent.  I found the comments soothing since I still in the middle of getting the Half-Elven site set up.

More embarrassing.  Judith Laik discusses the importance of have a decent photo for your website and other promotions on 1st Turning Point.   Frankly, I strongly suggest you follow 1st Turning Point if you are any where near to marketing your WIP -- whether to agents or publishers.  --  If I can figure how to put it up, I'll shock you with the writer picture I'm hiding in My Photos.

One last thing.  A newbie to the Absolute Write Water Cooler put up a YouTube Video on the benefits of the forum.  I thought it was a clean, simple format ... that anyone with computer skills should be able to do.  [That doesn't include me though]  Whatever, you might check out the AW Water Cooler forum on your own.  You might even find me there.

Progress ...

Took it lazy for the weekend.  Actually, I spent a lot of time playing regular solitaire and spider solitaire ... as I tried to think of a problem for Mariah to solve in the next Renna's Tale.  My false starts are filling my "bits and pieces" files as I dump all the backstory and infodumps.  Who'd ever want to know that the Marches are divided into three parts and why? 

Also dinked with my agents list ... after I goofed on sending a query to an unlikely agent.  [Form rejection, to be landing in the inbox soon unless ignored.]

Did a little clean up for my platform building.  I'm sort of resolving to post on Twitter every day ... but I usually don't have anything to say.  I do follow some interesting people though [who don't follow me.]

Trivia ...

Did I say I didn't do much of anything?  

But, I did find this interesting tidbit on Facebook from the Huffington Post, courtesy Writer Beware. How many of these "must read" books have you read?  [These are the books people say they've read to impress others, but usually haven't.]  

I was surprised to find I had read 6 out of 13.  Really.  Including Chaucer's Tales ...  a couple in old English, but the whole thing in a modernized version.

What's Your Ending?

Let's give thanks to the Irish

the post-Roman Irish who copied every book they could find so

ancient knowledge didn't end when the Romans imploded.

Without them, we wouldn't be writing what we write.

(Thanks to a New York Times opinion piece by Thomas Cahill for reminding me.)

  
The Read:  The ending didn't disappoint me, actually ... but Cinda Williams Chima's The Warrior Heir finished just about like I expected.  The great battle happens and the rules of the Wier change to treat the modalities -- wizards, sorcerors, enchanters, and warriors -- more equally.  The fact that the wizards killed off most of the warriors in the tournaments (the event which supplied the climax) added a little poignancy.  The MC opponent in the tournament was also telegraphed, but the writing overall carried the predictability forward to the end.

The next book in the series is The Wizard Heir, I think.  (I'm not going downstairs to check.)  I'm debating whether or not I'll read it even though the first chapter develops an intriguing character.  I have a Diana Wynn Jones waiting to be read.  Then, I discovered that Karen Marie Moning's Faefever is out in paperback.  While the series is called "delectably dark and sexy", I'm glued to the development of the MC from sunny Southern belle (a Georgia peach?) to a hero who can give the Unseelie court headaches.  As much as I admire Moning's writing, I missed this when it came out in mass paperback last year.

Blog Comments:  Discovered a wonderful resource ... for romance writers, The Passionate Pen from reading The Turning Point today.  [Jenna Petersen's website which she updates about once a month: http://www.passionatepen.com/]  Lists of publishers, lists of agents, the experiences of published writers -- what's there not to like even if you don't have a romantic bone in your body.  [Like me.]  I'm green with envy.  There may be such a site for fantasy writers, but as far as I can tell, the same info is scattered over many sites.

If you're interested in fantasy writer blogs, you can check AW Water Cooler's Fantasy and Science Fiction section for a list.  Read all the postings since people are listing their blogs there.  (Yes, they included mine, thank you.)

Progress:  I think I've muddled my way out of the first three chapters of Maren.  They've gone from an outline ... to a chapter ... to actually several chapters where I tried to decide where to start.  While I'm a "seat-of-my-pants" writer, I have to know where my characters are starting from and who they are.  All sorts of people are starting to pop out of the woodwork.  --  Some I never guessed at when Maren nagged me to get on with her story.

Biggest revelation:  I needed a reasonable way to allow Maren, as a pseudo-American teen, to travel all over the county she landed in.  Guess what?  Her guardian/foster mother decided to run for county commissioner (in a backward county).  All I have to do is not be too specific about election law, and I've got it made.  I used to be active in politics.  Don't know a pinch about police procedure, but I know something about people and the stupidities of politics.

Trivia:  It's Saint Patrick's Day, and I'm not wearing green.

Coming Up for Air ...

As far as I'm concerned ... 

Christmas is over (except for the easy part --
eating, and talking ... and revising???).  

Now, it's on to Los Reyos and more seasonal excess.
Happy Solstice, by the way.

Lessons from My Reading:  I'm slogging through Kim Harrison's White Witch, Black Curse, as a part of my best seller read-a-thon.  It's as dense as chewing taffy with dentures.  Of course, I'm jumping into book seven in a series, but I get a little annoyed when Harrison mentions a bunch of characters and proceeds with the action without giving me an idea of where she's going.  I started the first chapter at least three times.  I'm now 200 pages into the book.  It's a nice complicated story with several plot threads twining around each other.  --  But I think the editors should be on alert that not all readers of a single book ... have read all the other books in the series.

Guess I should define "dense".  Like on page one, Harrison mentions three characters -- Kisten, Ford, and Edden plus the narrator/MC Rachel Morgan.  You get an idea of who Ford is by the action in the next two pages.  You get an idea of who Rachel is by her first person viewpoint of the events.  Kisten's murder is mentioned, but not who he? or she? was.  Edden is just a name in the middle of a sentence.  Having reached the middle of the book, I now know that all these people were/are important continuing characters.  A simple tag (like what she used to describe "... Ivy, my roomate and business partner," on page 2) would have made following the text much easier.


Compare this to my current gold standard (along with Lee Child), Carol O'Connell.  On page 1 of Bone by Bone, she sets up one character the M/C Oren Hobbs.  On the second page, O'Connell introduces the secondary M/C, Hannah, around which the two related mysteries in the book intertwine.  She also begins defining the structure of the relationship between the two people mentioned.  --  In comparison, Harrison was still confusing me on page 3.

In plain English, I'm complaining about Harrison's handling the back story of the series.

Progress:  Emma.  The revision progresses.  Actually, I've almost finished going through it once.  But ... I'm thinking after I transfer my corrections to the confuser, I need to reprint it and revise again.  I may get a friend to read it to see if its a bunch of  *^#%*^@*.  Only, I don't have friends who read fantasy.  Or, I may see if I can find someone willing to read a full novel at the AW Water Cooler.   First, I have to decide whether I want to read a full novel in exchange.  Decisions.  (Or, is that just more work?)

Critiquing.  Finally got my obligations done.  Must say I like seeing stories getting fleshed out chapter by chapter.

Demons/Gargoyles.  Haven't heard a peep or seen an ejection. 

Trivia:  I'm baking pies for Christmas dinner ... for which we have to drive down to Brighton (CO).  We'll be picking up the NYC son ... so I probably won't be blogging much until the New Year.  Hopefully, I'll soon be able to get this thing whipped into shape.

Have a safe and comfortable Christmas.

Impersonal Mentoring

Trivia:  I've decided my life is boring.  I like it that way.

'Tis the Season of the Stuffing -- of the gobblers sitting around the table.

Lessons from My Reading:  Went to the Northern Colorado Writers coffee this morning.  Since they are local, I won't talk about them.  But, I came away with a flaming insight -- I get craft input from more than the books I read.  Online peer group forums are a great way to learn your writing craft and industry scuttlebutt.   My favorite is Absolute Write Water Cooler (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/).  And not just because it's free.

Writers of all skill levels gather at the "cooler".  You can lurk (just read).  You can post.  I do a bit of both.  I think I've posted less than 200 times in the two years I've belonged.  Others have posted thousands.  Whatever, one of their forums is Bewares and Background Checks (or something similar) where there are lots of threads on agents and publishers.  Another name for the forum might be Avoiding Scams 101.


Can't resist talking more about NCW. (http://www.northerncoloradowriters.com/)  It's a great place to talk with writers who understand what you are trying to do -- even if you don't accomplish it.  The director had us bring a writing question we wanted answered.  Mine was 'which paranormal ability would would like to have?'.  

Most responses wanted to control time in some way -- probably useless when trying to appeal to teens.   But then, the participants were at or near retirement age.  Guess I have to go crawling online to get out of my mind-rut.  Why is this pertinent?  I'm doodling with my next book (Maren) and need some abilities for my secondary characters.  Age-specific characteristics.


Progress:  Emma is resting before I start revising.


Blog.  I'm thinking of upgrading this in some way, but will worry about it after the holidays.  After doing it a while, I think I can sustain frequent input here ... even if I'm talking to myself.  

(I do that very well.  I even answer.  Worse, I enjoy the more than talking with some real people.)


Maren.  I'm gathering binder pages and file input (computer file, that is).  All sorts of things are free-associating.  Who knows what will appear in the manuscript.  At the moment, I'm strengthening my villain's organization.


Gargoyles.  Yeah.  It's the manuscript I thought was ready for agent submission.  Got a couple bites for a partial.  No fulls.  --   So, I dumped the prologue full of back story.
  
At the moment, I'm half way through editing it -- eliminating typos, passives, replacing phrases with single verbs, chopping redundencies, etc.  etc.  Then, I'll send it out to agents again.  There're still gobs of them I haven't submitted to.

 

  

I lied...

Trivia:  when I said I was watching old episodes of the Dresden Files instead of reading.  Am in the process of pruning my overgrown bookshelves and took books to be traded.  Then, I discovered the Castle spin-off novel, Heat Wave.  Took a vacation yesterday and read it.  (One of the benefits of having no kids at home and being retired.)


The book, itself, is well written.  Good plot, well-rounded characters, if somewhat superficial.  To me it felt more like a well-done TV episode ... which may be a clue to who ghostwrote the book.  I know there's a discussion at the Absolute Write Water Cooler about who wrote it.  Think I'll be following the thread to see if anyone discovers something.


Oh.  ...  Gave up on the Dresden episode last night.  I just couldn't take the way the characters were being bended to fit into production guidelines.  Re-watched Pride and Prejudice instead.


Progress:  Said I took a vacation.  Still, got my chapters out to my critiquing partners though.  (One had to remind me I hadn't sent it yet.)


Emma:  ?  I'm trying to see if I can get her to hug her grandmother in the final chapter.  Don't think it'll go with the flow.