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Show and Tell, OCCRWA’s May Online Class with Shannon Donnelly

April 27, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , ,

Shannon Donnelly is with us today to talk about her upcoming OCCRWA online class, Show and Tell, an Interactive Workshop. Take it away, Shannon!

Thanks Alina. We’ve all heard “show, don’t tell” and there is value in that advice. If all you do is tell a story, how does the reader participate with his or her imagination? However, a book is not a movie. While a movie requires everything to be shown (or an often awkward voice-over to be added if it’s not showing enough), a book has the luxury of being able to use narrative. And that’s where I usually get folks who are utterly confused.

Narrative seems to have gone out of fashion. It doesn’t seem to be taught, and no one seems to really get what it is. So let’s make it easy.

Merriam-Webster gives us the root for narrative/narrating as the “Latin narratus,past participle of narrare, from Latin gnarus knowing; akin to Latin gnoscere, noscere to know.”

This means it’s basically the author telling the reader the information the author knows, which the reader also needs to know. And now, you ask, what does the reader need to know, and when does the reader need it, and how much does the reader need. This is where narrative becomes an art.

This means any writer of fiction needs not only showing but telling as well. What’s the secret in knowing when to show and when to tell? This is something I’ll be covering in the May workshop, but here are a few tips:

WHAT TO TELL:

– Where are we? (Place and world – the reader needs to be placed into the scene, otherwise it’s confusing to the reader. Do not throw your readers into the deep end without giving them some help.)

– When are we? (What’s the era, the time of the year, the month, the day, the hour? We need everything that helps the reader settle into the scene as if this moment in time really exists.)

– Who is here?(An introduction to the characters, particularly to the main characters for that scene, and for the story.)

– Why are we were? (This doesn’t have to be greatly detailed information, but you need enough details to make a reader care. Think of it this way—too little and you starve the reader’s imagination; too much and the reader quickly fills up and drops the book down.)

All this needs to be woven together, stitched in with careful threads, not dumped on the reader in big clumps. Or, to put it another way, feed the reader your telling—your narrative—with a teaspoon, not a soup bowl.

WHAT TO SHOW:

– Your characters in action—scenes are always stronger when you show a character expressing emotion with physical reactions.

– The world through a character’s senses—we all lean too much on sights and showing what a character sees, but go beyond this to show smells, tastes, touches, and sounds. Use all a character’s senses to not only make the world more vivid for the reader but to also show what your character notices.

– Your character’s emotions through words. Dialogue should never just be there to advance the plot or you end up with a character that seems stiff on the page. Just as you want to show emotions through actions, you also want to show emotion through words—this includes what someone avoids talking about, too.

Showing and telling do not have to be absolutes; mix show, use more show than tell, or use more tell than show; part of the choice is your style, and part is the effect you want to have on the reader.
 
Alina again here.
Thanks Shannon for giving us a taste of your upcoming lessons. This four-week class starts May 12, 2014 and registration is now open here.   
About Shannon Donnelly:
Shannon Donnelly’s writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the “Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer” contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA’s Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: “simply superb”…”wonderfully uplifting”….and “beautifully written.”

Her Regency Historical Romance, Paths of Desire, can be found as an ebooks on Kindle, Nook and at Smashwords, along with her Regency romances.

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Winter Trees

April 24, 2014 by in category Archives

Spring is a fickle and flirtatious season, luring us with the promise of warmth, rebirth and new beginnings.  But for everything you gain, there is always an element of loss.

And while the sight of new buds and flowers is lovely, I love winter trees.  I treasure their beauty and mourn the loss, the elegance, the sculptural beauty, each as unique as a fingerprint, etched against the sky…soon to be all covered up by a mass of green fuzz.

Yes, I know I am lacking in the formatting department, but below are some winter trees to enjoy before they disappear….

 

Happy Spring!

And remember, no matter how fabulous the covering is, it’s the structure & the bones underneath that deliver throughout the year…

Isabel Swift

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Ten Things NEVER TO DO When Writing a Book

April 16, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as
10. Never Stop Reading: After a long day of reading your own work the last thing you want to do is pick up someone else’s, but do it! You will stay motivated and learn something, too.
9. Never Rely on Inspiration: The best moments in writing a book come when inspiration finds you working. Sit down, get to work, and inspiration will come calling.
8. Never Neglect Genre: It’s tempting to walk in between genres. What would be better than a science fiction, erotic, mystery right? But remember, if you want to find passionate and engaged readers, you should find the genre that you want to write and stick with it.
7. Never Get Bored: If you’re bored writing your book, chances are that your readers will be bored reading it. If you find yourself becoming bored, or your main character is skating through the plot with ease, throw some roadblocks in the way. Conflict moves stories.
6. Never Rely on Pretty People: Men don’t always have to be fearless and women don’t always have to be sexy. Your readers will spend a lot of time with your characters so make sure there is something going on in their heads and their hearts. Readers love characters for their imperfections and their shortcomings just as much as their looks.
5. Never Lose the Through Line:Remember what story you’re writing. Be careful of veering off the path because that’s the surest way to lose your readers.
4. Never Be Afraid to Cut: Cut close to the bone. Slice away. Make the tough choices even if it means taking out things you really love. They may be great- maybe just not great that book. Know the difference.
3. Never Throw in the Towel: Too many people have unfinished books floating around on their hard drives. The easiest thing in the world is starting a book; the hardest thing is finishing one. 

2. Never Let your Characters Off Easy:   Just because you love your characters doesn’t mean you have to go easy on them. A reader wants to see characters struggle and sometimes fail. Give them a goal to work towards, make it hard to get, and you can’t go wrong.
1. Never Beat Yourself Up: The book isn’t shaping up the way you wanted it to? Someone read a chapter and didn’t care for it? Feel like jumping off a cliff? That’s fine. Those days happen. Every day that you’re thinking, “woe is me,” is another day that you could be spent finishing a chapter or polishing a plot point. You can spend your time beating yourself up, or beating your characters up. I do a lot of the former but I am trying to stop.
Happy Writing.
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My Results Using Ads and Specials by Kitty Bucholtz

April 10, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , ,

Most writers are curious about what is and isn’t working for other writers when it comes to selling books. I’m grateful for what others have been willing to share, so it’s only fair to share in return. Even though my results are a bit embarrassing.

I’ve only bought ads three times. I bought an ad last year with The Wordsmith Journal Magazine (online) for Little Miss Lovesick. After one month, I had zero new sales. Ouch.

In August, while Unexpected Superhero was enrolled in the KDP Select program (meaning it was only for sale on Amazon for the first 90 days), I took advantage of the program’s free days option and made the book free for five days in a row at the end of a conference I was attending. I also bought an ad from BookBub that appeared on the first day of the promotion.

There were a whopping 17,561 free downloads during those five days! Over 10,000 copies were downloaded the first day, which I attribute primarily to the BookBub ad. During the next two weeks, I sold only 24 more copies when the book went off sale (back to $3.99). Then the sales dropped back to the 0-3 per week average that has been more common for my books so far.

A month or two ago, I dropped the price of Unexpected Superhero from $3.99 to $2.99 to see if I could see a change in sales. There might have been a slight increase. At 0-3 sales per week, it’s a bit hard to say. 🙂

My third promotion-with-paid-advertisement was last week. I dropped the price on Little Miss Lovesick and promoted it with 19 other lovely romance authors and their books last Friday. I also took out a then-free ad from eBookSoda, a newer email list like BookBub that advertises free and reduced-price books. (The ads were free, then $5, and I’m sure they’ll keep increasing in price as they grow their list. The problem with this ad is that I don’t know if it went to 100 people, 1000, or 20,000.)

I dropped the price from $2.99 to 99 cents a week before the promo with Smashwords so it would be 99 cents at the other outlets by the day of the promo. I decreased the price on Amazon two days before, and it went into effect the day before. I saw that I sold one copy on Amazon a day or two before the promotion, then two more copies total during the weekend of the promotion and ad.

That’s it – 3 sales. At the high end of “usual” for me.

Little Miss Lovesick got a new (second) cover a few months ago, but it’s barely changed the sales. Unexpected Superhero got a new (second) cover at the end of March, too early to tell if it has affected sales yet. I took out another eBookSoda ad (the free ad that went to $5 when I did it this time) for Sunday, May 4 (my third choice date, Fantasy category, same as last year’s BookBub ad). I’ll leave Superhero at its current $2.99 price and see if anything happens when it’s not on sale but advertised.

And that’s about all I know so far. My second superhero book was to be ready next week for WonderCon, and which I expected to help sales of the first book. But my husband’s motorcycle accident and injuries trumped anything and everything that used to be on my To Do list. 🙂

I’ll keep you updated so you get a well-rounded view of self-publishing and advertising. (It’s less embarrassing to write about your successes, so there are a lot more of those stories out there.) It would appear that my experience underscores what other successful writers have said about success coming after you have several books out. Unfortunately, “life” has thrown a wrench in making that happen soon, but as the Brits (used to) say, Keep Calm and Carry On.

And keep writing! 🙂

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this summer.

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Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

April 6, 2014 by in category Events, Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as , , ,

by Linda O. Johnston

I’m sorry to say I won’t be at the OCC meeting this month.  But I’m happy to say that the reason is an event I really enjoy: the L.A. Times Festival of Books.

 
The LATFOB is a two-day event.  This year, those two days are Saturday, April 12, and Sunday, April 13.  I’ll be there both days, which means no OCC meeting, and, as it turns out, no Los Angeles Romance Authors meeting either, since it was changed to the second Sunday of the month rather than its usual third Sunday, which this month happens to be Easter.
 

I often try to schedule everything I want to do at the LATFOB on the same day, but that didn’t work out this year.  I’ll be signing at two mystery booths and helping to staff the Mystery Writers of America booth, and the schedule worked best for me to do some on Saturday and some on Sunday. 
 

Fortunately, I live not far from a Metro stop, so I can take the subway and train to the USC campus, where the festival is now held.  It was at the UCLA campus for many years but that changed a few years ago.

 

I keep hoping for more of a romance presence there, too, but sponsoring booths is expensive.  Harlequin had a presence last year but I don’t see them on the list of exhibitors this year.  I know there was some talk of a bunch of us contributing to sponsor a booth, but I don’t think that materialized, at least not this year.

 

Even if you’ll be at OCC this month, come to the USC campus on Sunday and say hi and check out the many wonderful booths.  There are also speakers, although you generally have to sign up in advance for those programs.  But why not plan ahead?  And, yes, there is a romance panel on Saturday that includes some OCC members!
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