Ending a Novel Series: Calling it Quits by Janet Elizabeth Lynn
September 3, 2019 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as hardboiled mysteries, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, Series novels, The Skylar Drake Murder Mystery Series, Will Zeilinger
My husband, Will Zeilinger and I co-write the Skylar Drake Mysteries, a hard-boiled detective series that takes the reader to 1950s Los Angeles and other areas of the west. Our new book, GAME TOWN, is set in Hollywood and exposes a scandal that rocks the toy industry in Los Angeles. GAME TOWN is the fifth and final book of the series.
Ending the Skylar Drake Mystery series was a heartbreaking decision for us. After all, the series has been in our lives for five years. It was difficult to end the relationship not only with Sky but his partner Casey Dolan, FBI Special Agent Olivia Jahns, and their secretary Lory Carrington. However, the time was right to let them find their own way.
So, the question we had to face was do we do a sequel or spin-off?
Doing a sequel would bring back the characters and more glimpses of 1950s Hollywood. Spin offs, re-orienting the characters we fell in love with and the villains who pushed the twists and turns of each book are still possible. I think it’s important that as writers and creators we assure our readers that everything turned out okay for the characters and they moved on.
For now, we have no plans for a sequel or spin off.
Some series can standalone. Others may be ruined by a sequel because the readers wanted to remember the characters the way they were.
Whatever the future holds for those in the Skylar Drake Mystery series it’s been fun creating great characters, clever plots, fun subplots and making up the twists and turns, and devious red herrings too.
What’s in the future for us? We’ll be writing more books, short stories, and more separately and together.
For now, we are a little depressed. We understand that this is par for the course when ending a series. And the best cure for the depression, they tell me is to move on and keep writing. So, stay tuned…there is more to come.
GAME TOWN is the fifth in the series and yes . . . we are still married!
Website: Janet Elizabeth Lynn
Website: Will Zeilinger
The Skylar Drake Mystery Series
Chatting with Nikki Prince by Jann Ryan
September 2, 2019 by Jann Ryan in category Jann says . . . tagged as career, Family, Nikki Prince, reading, University, writing
Today, I’m happy to be chatting with author, Nikki Prince. Nikki is a mother of two, who always had a dream to be a published author. Her passion lies in raising her children, gaming, reading and writing. She has two Masters, one in English and the other in Creative Writing concentration in fiction.
Nikki’s a multi-published author with several publishing houses. She loves to write Interracial romances in all genres but wants to let everyone know to not box her in because there is always room for growth. Nikki believes that love should truly be color blind and for all.
Nikki’s a member of Romance Writers of America National, DARA, and several online chapters.
Author Links
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Bakersfield Romance Writers Links
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Website: coming soon
Jann Ryan: Since 2012, you have published seventeen books, earned a BA and MA in English and Creative Writing, active in several Romance Writers of America chapters, moved twice all while raising two wonderful children. Wow—how did you do it all?
Nikki Prince: It’s actually about 25 books and I earned another Masters in Literature during this time frame. My two teens have been a great help as well as inspiration for me because I want them to know that anything is possible in their life as long as they go for it.
I went back to school in 2014 and garnered the BA, and two MA’s in a 3-year span and have maintained a 3.9 GPA. I’ve been wanting to write since I was 11 years old. I finally made that dream a reality when I turned 43 and realized it is never too late to do what you’ve always wanted to do. Writing and reading has been a passion for since I first found romance books at age 11. Before finding my grandmother’s romances, and Johanna Lindsey on my father’s dresser I hated to read.
Reading helped me in so many ways, you see I had a learning disability. However, once I found romance books and started reading that all changed for me and the only inkling of a disability that I still have is in math which is another part of the brain. Reading and writing saved my life in so many ways and knowing that I can bring joy to someone else from reading the worlds and characters that I build is so satisfyingly wonderful. Another shining part in my writing and real life is belonging to RWA it is a wonderful community where writers of like minds can be together to nurture one another.
Jann Ryan: It’s Complicated debut in April of 2018. A reviewer declared it was a “steamy, intriguing romance.” Another said it was “friends with benefits until it goes sideways.” You have two great characters, Ashton Locke and Keiko Jarrett. For our readers who may not have found this incredible book tell us about it.
Nikki Prince: I’ve had this thought of creating a bunch of friends for who all intents and purposes are the best of girlfriends with great guy friends. Three sets of friends and the desire to be together and yet there is something holding them back. Ashton and Keiko’s love story has a few twists along the way to get to the HEA, because everyone deserves a happy ever after.
Jann Ryan: When can we read the next Nikki Prince novel?
Nikki Prince: The last story that I had come out is a short called Blurred Lines, and it came out June 2019. I am working on edits for the second book in the Undeniable Series with Áine Reid and Darian Tisdale in a story called “It’s Work” and following that the next story which is Emmerson Collins and Royce Hanson’s story called, “It’s Real.” Beyond that I have a lot of stories still left in me to write. Stories that may be paranormal, contemporary and love between the same gender, opposite gender, interracial mix or same racial mix as I believe everyone’s story should be told.
Jann Ryan: Have you ever suffered writer’s block? If so, how did/do you get past it?
Nikki Prince: Indeed, I have. I know there are some that say that writer’s block is imaginary. In some ways I think that is true because there is inspiration to write everywhere. However, there are times when the brain doesn’t want to function and let you put out the stories as you have before. Because let’s face it, life can be messy it is one of the reasons most of us read romance is because it lets us get out of our own heads, our own lives and for a moment in time live a life of beauty.
How I get past it is I game (I play World of Warcraft have since 2006), I spend time with my children, Travel somewhere different , read something else and sometimes a nap will rejuvenate the mind and spirit. When I moved to Dallas last year in 2018 it was hard to get a chance to write and for me that was a block, however if it is in you to write and to create it never goes away so here I am.
Jann Ryan: What are you doing now between writing and life?
Right now I am working on putting together a writing community here in Bakersfield, California. I knew when I moved here that RWA wasn’t represented here and I want to change that. So far I have about 7 other people within the group. I hope to gain more so that I can apply for Bakersfield Romance Writers to be a full chapter of the Romance Writers of America. I am also in grad school for a third Masters. This is a Masters in Marketing and Social Media. I’m taking my time with this MA as I already have two and there is no rush, besides I have plenty of stories within me that I want to share with the world.
Jann Ryan: What’s your writing day like?
My writing day really depends. Between having two teens in High School, being in grad school and looking for a full-time job here in Bakersfield (I’ve only been here since June), I write wherever and whenever I can. That has always been the way of it since 2012. I love writing and creating so I will write at night, in the afternoon, and in the morning. Whatever it takes to get the stories done, I’ll do it. One of the ways to do that is I love to do National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo) every November so that I can just immerse myself in my stories for a whole month.
A Few Books by Nikki Prince
Dear Extra Squeeze Team, What’s an Info Dump, and How Do I Avoid Them?
August 31, 2019 by A Slice of Orange in category The Extra Squeeze by The Extra Squeeze Team tagged as Contests, description, info dumps, Telling, writing
Dear Extra Squeeze Team, I just got back my contest scores and two judges talk about info dumps? What’s an info dump and how do I avoid doing that again?
Rebecca Forster
USA Today Bestselling author of 35 books, including the Witness series and the new Finn O’Brien series.
What I imagine the judge was talking about is the tendency to give the reader every last bit of information about a character or situation, going on for pages and pages without moving the story forward. Remember, you have at least 50,000 and at most 100,000 words with which to create your fictional world. You are not laying tile; you are weaving an intricate tapestry with your words. A bit of discovery here and a reveal there, adds up to a rich story; an information dump is a mud field in which a reader gets bogged down.
Robin Blakely
PR/Business Development coach for writers and artists; CEO, Creative Center of America; member, Forbes Coaches Council.
There’s an old joke that illustrates the act of info dumping. A small child asks her mom: “where do babies come from?” The mom, a passionate teacher, sits down and patiently explains all aspects of biology from conception to birth, mixed with elements of the family’s faith. After ten minutes, the child is overwhelmed with details. She holds up her tiny hand to interrupt her mom’s lengthy explanation and says: “So the part I really want to know is…it’s the hospital, right? Babies come from the hospital?” In writing, don’t be the parent who is trying to share details from the beginning of time with a child who only wants to know a fraction of the info. Be a good curator of info for your readers. If you try to convey a huge quantity of backstory or a massive chunk of background info in one quick dump of detail, you are not doing your job. In real life and in writing, info dumping is overwhelming and distracting. Your knowledge of details may be interesting to you when you are collecting info, but when you share the details, the reader just wants to know the part that directly connects to the story.
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Jenny Jensen
Developmental editor who has worked for twenty plus years with new and established authors of both fiction and non-fiction, traditional and indie.
An info dump is a wet blanket, a damper, a downer, a drag. It can consist of a long list of items or events, or an overlong description of a character’s backstory. An info dump can be an overly detailed explanation (often happens with techie things), a showy discourse on the history of a setting, a detailed definition of something only tangentially related to the plot.
Every story has a plot, characters have arcs. The building, then cresting and the resolution of the dramatic arcs are shown in the narrative flow, and that flow is what keeps the reader reading. An unnecessary distraction from the flow – a dump of information that is often tangential, breaks the story and the reader’s rhythm; it’s confusing and (worst of all) often boring. Info dumps have no emotional connection.
An info dump can contain information that is vital to the plot or enriches the story but it is given all at once – it’s a blatant telling dump on the reader – either in narrative or dialog – dampening the story. Every scene has action that is happening in the moment and an info dump is recognizable as narrative that is happening outside the moment of that scene. When Lady Hilda is poised, crystal snow globe in hand, on the landing above Lord Angst it is not the time for a description of Hilda’s life long history of tormenting living creatures with heavy valuable baubles. Just send the damn snow globe crashing down on his bald pate. When Inspector Earnestly digs into the mysterious death he can learn of Hilda’s gruesome past in tidbits and tales from the servants, her friends and family. The reader learns the same information but in a way that emotionally engages them and adds to the dramatic arc.
Info dumps are common and necessary in most drafts. After all, “that’s just you telling yourself the story” (N. Gaiman). When reading over your draft spot those big chunks of information and ask yourself two questions: how much of this info is useful to the story, and how can this info be sprinkled throughout to provide more engagement, emotion and drama? Delete the extraneous stuff even if it is obscure data you would love to share. If it doesn’t move the story forward or improve the tone or feel, it has to go. If it is vital plot info then there absolutely will be a better way to reveal it within the context of appropriate scenes.
Coming into Focus by Dianna Sinovic
August 30, 2019 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic tagged as description, descriptive writing, details, scenes, writing
The devil is in the details—not only when moving forward with any plan—or with life, but also when working to make a novel, short story, or even narrative nonfiction come to life for the reader.
In the following examples—selected randomly from my bookshelves—the specificity of the details pulls you right into each scene.
The slick black road became narrower, windier, became the single-lane track I remembered from my childhood, became packed earth and knobbly, bone-like flints.— from The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
His eyes had the bluish gray color of a razor blade, the same polished shine, and as he peered up at me I felt a strange sharpness, almost painful, a cutting sensation, as if his gaze were somehow slicing me open. — from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Her clothes can stay behind—her humble pale-print dresses, her floppy hat. The last library book can remain on the table under the sagebrush picture. It can remain there, accumulating fines. — from “The Jack Randa Hotel” in Open Secrets by Alice Munro
With just a few precise details, the authors do more than describe; they weave their tale. The road in Gaiman’s story speaks of the character’s childhood, perhaps a rough one, based on the bumpy flints. The razor-like stare of the man in O’Brien’s scene lets us know the main character has met someone from whom it may not be easy to disengage. And while we know that Munro’s character visits the library, the urgency of her departure makes an overdue book seem trivial.
So, details, yes, but only the right ones. That’s something I struggle with in my writing. As a former journalist, I was taught to focus on the who-what-when-how, so I’m prone to put in too much information.
Earlier this summer I was fortunate to hear Colum McCann speak at the Rutgers Writers Conference in New Jersey. I loved his Let the Great World Spin, and I wasn’t disappointed by what he had to say. In his keynote, he told us of his travels across America when he first arrived in the U.S. from Ireland. All interesting, entertaining stuff, especially when told in his lilting accent, but what really resonated with me was what he called “the beauty of the extreme detail.”
It’s finding the one bit of description to insert in the scene that makes your reader believe that what you’ve described is true. How do you find that one perfect bit? Through your research, of course, whether the research of human experience, through interviews, or by Internet searches.
McCann offered for his example his research into the world of ballet while working on Dancer. After spending hours of time hanging out with a ballet de corps, learning the terminology, the joys and frustrations, the daily life of a dancer, he took his young daughter to see their production of The Nutcracker. He later shared with the dancers his daughter’s hands-down favorite scene: the Waltz of the Snowflakes, with the snow drifting down. It was, the daughter said, magical.
Instead of agreeing with him, the dancers groaned: That scene was their least favorite. The “snow” that fell was swept up after every performance and set aside to let loose at the next one, without filtering out any of the dirt and debris that might have been on the stage. The dancers told McCann that the only thing they could think of when the “snow” began falling was that they would need to wash their hair.
He said that nugget of detail gave him more cred among dancers who read his book than if he had used other, more mundane descriptions of the corps.
I can’t say that I no longer struggle with the details in my WIPs, but they don’t devil me quite as much.
How do you decide which details to include in your writing?
Creating A Page Turner by Kat Martin
August 29, 2019 by A Slice of Orange in category Guest Posts tagged as Best Seller, Kat Martin, must read, new release, romantic suspense, The Deception
“I couldn’t put it down!” Those words are some of the most satisfying comments an author can receive. Nothing pleases me more than a note from someone grumbling about staying up late to finish one of my books.
It’s music to my ears.
There are lots of ways to earn those precious words. Writing a fast-paced novel is one of them. It is certainly my goal every time I start a new book.
My latest, THE DECEPTION, was no different. I knew I would be writing Hawk Maddox’s story. Hawk had been on my mind since he first appeared in a previous novel, BEYOND DANGER. I knew what he was like—strong, determined, tough as boot leather, and at six-foot-four, two-hundred-twenty pounds, a total beefcake hunk.
He was also a bounty hunter, which made him an interesting character with an interesting job. I always try to find the hero’s perfect match, and Kate Gallagher was just right for Hawk. Tall, blonde, and curvy, she loved country music and drinking tequila at the Sagebrush Saloon.
But that was her secret side. She also owned her own business consulting firm, so she was smart and hard-working.
I like to read books that draw me in and won’t let go, books I can’t wait to pick up again to find out what’s going to happen next.
There are lots of ways to do it. Pairing down description makes the story move faster—or as Elmore Leonard once said, “I try to leave out the parts people skip.”
A Hollywood movie trick is to jump right into the scene. Leave out the the Hello, how are you? I’m fine, how are you? and just start talking.
I try to use hooks at the beginning and end of chapter, though some authors end a chapter in the middle of the action to keep you turning the pages.
I’ve found I do a lot of characterization by showing how the hero, heroine, and sub characters react in a situation, rather than telling about their past. For instance, I don’t mention what the heroine did in high school unless it’s important to how she’ll solve the problem she’s facing.
These are a few of my techniques, though every author has his own style and there is nothing wrong with any of them as long as they work.
In THE DECEPTION, Kate Gallagher is devastated when she learns her sister has been murdered. Determined to find Chrissy’s killer, Kate hires lethal bounty hunter, Hawk Maddox. Working together, they follow a trail of clues that lead them deep into the city’s underbelly. Though Hawk warns Kate of the danger, nothing he says can convince Kate to walk away.
I hope you’ll watch for THE DECEPTION and that you find it a fast-paced, high-action page-turner.
Until next time, all best wishes and happy reading, Kat
New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara where she majored in Anthropology and also studied History. Currently residing in Missoula, Montana with her Western-author husband, L. J. Martin, Kat has written sixty-five Historical and Contemporary Romantic Suspense novels. More than sixteen million copies of her books are in print and she has been published in twenty foreign countries. Kat is currently at work on her next Romantic Suspense.
Books by Kat Martin
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