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The Write Way (because there is no ‘right’ way)….

April 18, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as The Write Way

I really hate writing a synopsis. Most writers do. And those that do love writing the darn things??… let’s just say we will never be close personal friends! We wouldn’t be able to bond over the misery of trying to cram a 2-400 page book into a handful of pages.

A synopsis is all important when you’re going for that elusive contract. When you need to show an agent or an editor that yes, your story does actually contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. You need to make that synopsis sing–to entice your readers with the brilliance of your plot line and keep it all under ten pages, if you don’t mind!

This is not easy. Especially if you haven’t figured out exactly how you want your book to go yet. Still, the synopsis must be written…so you jump in with both feet and hope for the best. Here are a couple of tips. I’m not saying this is the only way to write a synopsis, only that it’s worked for me for almost one hundred books………….

1. Don’t clutter the synopsis with a million names. It will only be confusing. Get the hero, the heroine and if you have to, their children. Name the villain, of course, but leave out quirky Aunt Edna or the garage mechanic Edwardo who’s sleeping with the Mayor’s wife, Delilah Nogood.

2. If you’re going to include backstory, to provide motivation, then label it as backstory. Keep it to no more than two pages. Then have a scene break, and type, The Story:

3. Hit the high points. Pretend you’re telling your best friend what your book is about. This is a sure fire way to get the basic story in without a lot of detail that will no doubt be brilliant in the book, but in the synopsis stage is just clutter.

4. Don’t have snippets of dialogue. It slows things down. Besides, the editor/agent will be reading your pages and the dialogue will make much more sense over there!

5. Tie up loose ends. Never leave the mystery unsolved or the murderer un-revealed. (is that a word?)

6. Show your characters’ growth arcs. That’s simple enough if you do one paragraph from the hero’s POV and then switch to the heroine’s. In a synopsis, don’t worry so much about head hopping. With those continual shifts, showing how your characters are responding to what’s happening, the editor/agent will see that you actually have a plan for those people!

That’s about it, I think. Of course, as soon as I hit ‘publish’, I’ll think of something else! If I do, I’ll come back and add it in.

The main thing to remember is that you want your synopsis to catch the imagination of those who read it. You want it to make them need to read your book. But no pressure!

Maureen Child is the author of more than ninety romance novels and novellas. A five time Rita nominee, she’s seen one of her books made into a CBS-TV movie and would love to have that experience again! Her June release from NAL, More Than Fiends, is a paranormal/urban fantasy/funny/first person romp filled with way too many characters that never cluttered the synopsis.

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Keeper Shelf

April 17, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Writing tagged as Gillian Doyle, Keeper Shelf

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by Gillian Doyle

LESSONS FROM A LIFETIME OF WRITING:
A Novelist Looks At His Craft

by David Morrell

“The difference between fiction writers and civilians is that we make it our life’s work to put our daydreams and day-nightmares on paper.” -David Morrell

As writers, we have all heard it said that we “write what we know” but David really brought it home to me that we consciously — and often unconsciously — write about our deepest fears, weaving them into our characters, good and bad.

On page 21 of his book– “. . . I’ve trained myself to pay attention to my daydreams/nightmares, to be aware of them as they’re happening, to wonder why certain imaginary situations are so insistent, and to use the most compelling of them as the inspiration of my novels. After the fact, I’ve learned to realize how the plots that attract me are metaphors for my psyche.”

My books have always come to me in the most vivid dreams unlike my other “normal” dreams. A time-travel romance was born of a dream I had experienced while sleeping aboard a replica of an 1830s hide-trading ship on the coast of California. Another book began after a dream of an 1890s boarding house where the little boy sitting next to me had dropped green peas on the red oriental carpet under his chair. Such details startle me in my dreams, and haunt my waking hours with an eerie feeling of having actually been there, physically, in the past.

What relief to read of someone else who experiences this “multisensory illusion”. I have written all of my stories based upon these peculiar guideposts. This is the reason why I have had such a hard time keeping on track with my writing career. I write what I must write. I write what pulls me into the story as if I am a child at the feet of a storyteller, mesmerized, enthralled. When I am asked by well-meaning writer-friends, “Why can’t you write for the market? If only you’d pay attention to what sells, you’d be a huge success.” But I don’t. I can’t. And for this reason, I have often gone months without writing, choosing instead to find my fulfillment in other ways. How sad, though. I could not seem to allow myself to finish books just for myself, even if they would never find a publisher.

And so I returned to writing once more. I write of daydreams and nightmares. I write what I need to write. If there is an editor out there who finds it compelling and wishes to publish it, I would be delighted but it will not make my life any better than it is right now at this moment. For I have been reminded by David that it is the writing itself that is the reward. (Read Lesson Number One and you will know what I mean.)

After reading LIFETIME, I was thrilled to meet David when he was our guest speaker last year. What a memorable day! After reading last year’s thriller, CREEPERS, I became an even bigger fan! I can’t wait to read his latest, SCAVENGER. (Click on the titles to go to video interviews with David about these novels.)

You can learn more about David at his website and his MySpace page

David Morrell with some of the members of the 2006 OCC/RWA Board

Top row, left to right:
Bobbie Cimo, Michelle Thorne, Sue (Gillian Doyle) Phillips, Michele Cwiertny, Marianne Donley
Bottom row, l-r:
Mindy Neff, David Morrell, Sandy (Sandra Paul) Chvostal

Gillian Doyle writes paranormal suspense. She invites you to drop by at her blog and say hello.

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Bookseller’s Corner

April 16, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Booksellers Corner

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I HATE BOOKS AND THE CALENDAR!!!
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By Michelle Thorne
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Two weeks a year I am allowed by the Book Gods to hate books.

Last week was the spring portion of our game. We had our semi-annual book sale last Saturday. Yes, I know it was the day before Easter. I had to have the postcards printed twice, because the original ones had the sale on Easter too. How did I miss this?

In 25 years this has never happened, Easter has never fallen on my book sale. I blame global warming. It somehow changed the moon cycle, as I’m now told that Easter depends on the first full moon after something…I really wasn’t listening, but NOBODY SENT ME THE MEMO.

Suffice to say, I didn’t look at the calendar very carefully, I just looked at the numbers of the first full weekend in April. Why, you might ask?

Good question! Well, I’ll tell you, because I was surrounded by books, they were everywhere, they were multiplying at night when I went home. I would shelve them only to find more. They were like dirty dishes, just when you think the kitchen is clean, you find one more glass to wash, don’t you hate that.

I’m allowed to HATE housework all the time. It never gets finished. I’d rather just move to a nice clean house about every three months, but I hate moving too. Now I feel much better, the rant is over.

I don’t hate books anymore, all the unsold over stock just left via the back door to the West Covina Friends of the Library where they will be on sale again this weekend, the store is neat and pretty much in alpha order and just the way I like it, and my week of book hating is over.

I’m reading a really great ARC by Susan Kearney called Kiss Me Deadly, that’s one of the perks of being a Bookseller and loving it 50 weeks of the year. Am I one lucky girl or what?

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Always,

Michelle

Michelle Thorne is the owner of Bearly Used Books…123, Home of A Great Read and OCC’s Media Director. For all your reading needs contact Michelle at:

Bearly Used Books…123
Home of A Great Read
123 So. First Street
La Puente, CA 91744
(626) 968-3700

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Writer on the Verge

April 13, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Writer on the Verge by Kate Carlisle tagged as Writer on the Verge

What’s Wrong With Me?

By Kate Carlisle

As I write this, I am temporarily blind in my left eye from a migraine headache.

Naturally, Iâ€™m wondering why I didnâ€™t simply shoot a quick email to let everyone know I wouldnâ€™t be able to blog today. But that seemed like the wimpâ€™s way out. I mean, Iâ€™ve been getting migraine headaches since I was a teenager, so if Iâ€™d cancelled every little thing over a stupid headache, I wouldâ€™ve missed out on a lot of my life. So I pop a migraine pill and keep going.

But right now the pain is forcing me to take a good, long look at myselfâ€”which I really hate to do most of the time, but this weakened state forces me to endure that tiny part of myself that occasionally insists on self-reflection. So I go ahead and ask myself, am I so tied to my image of being a writer that I canâ€™t pass up one opportunity to blog (i.e., blather about ME) in favor of taking better care of myself?

The short answer is clearly NO.

My need to show up for the Blog probably stems from that same part in me that is willing to persist in a business that does its best to reject me at every turn. Itâ€™s the same part that keeps me going year after year, the part that shrugs off the â€œRâ€™ word, the part that gets excited about a new idea, a new contest, a new literary agency, a new trend. Itâ€™s the part that studies Publishers Marketplace every day to see whatâ€™s hot, whatâ€™s new, whoâ€™s sold, and itâ€™s the part that keeps me sending my work out and keeps me at my desk, writing and re-writing and brainstorming and yes, blogging.

And Iâ€™m not the only one.

So why do we do it? Persistence? Patience? Insanity? All of the above?

It hurts to think about it too deeply right now, but whatever you call it, itâ€™s that thing that keeps us going, keeps us writing, submitting and yes, blogging. Through headaches and rejections, we just keep goingâ€¦and goingâ€¦and goingâ€¦

Hey, my headacheâ€™s gone!

Kate Carlisle is a Golden Heart Winner and American Title finalist who writes Romance, Mystery, and Young Adult fiction.

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Pop Culture Courtship

April 11, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Pop Culture

by Sara Black

So what does Pop Culture have to do with romance?

Unlike the heroines of my favorite novels by Austen and Heyer who were not allowed to have jobs, about four years ago I was lucky enough to work at a small post production house. Though I worked with many men, including a Frenchman and an Italian, there was very little romantic about the place. For starters, the Frenchmanâ€™s name was Igor.

One day my computer started acting up. The guy at my office who fixed these things emerged from his hiding place in the back room to sit in my chair and fuss with the electronics under my desk. We maintained an awkward silence, until a lull while he restarted lead him to discover an empty plastic sleeve for a comic book which Iâ€™d left sitting on my desk.

“What are you reading?” He asked.

“Sandman.” I said.

If our courtship had been more traditional we might have moved from comics to finer literature discussions, but us being us, we proceeded to discuss more comic books. I told him about the upcoming San Diego Comic Convention that I was going to attend. Simply put the San Diego convention center becomes a pop culture mecca filled with comic book readers, TV and movie watchers, artists, and geeks of all shapes and sizes. Finally, we discussed anime.

Rather than exchange missives we exchanged anime DVDs. He lent me the cyber thriller Ghost in the Shell and surreal coming-of-age FLCL, and I leant him the action packed Scryed. I even went and saw the low budget but well-made British horror film 28 Days Later, because he said it was good, and–trust me–that’s not a film I would normally see. Our first outing did have a co-worker as a chaperon, but instead of going to a museum, we saw Finding Nemo.

He was invited to my birthday, and my present was not a traditional teddy bear, but a Gloomy Bear, which proved to me we had a deep understanding. There was no waltzing at the party, but plenty of DDRing. I kicked his butt.

Then we stalled. Except for the birthday party and movie with the coworker we were still work friends only. The attraction was there but I was shy and he was acting shy and nothing passionate was going to happen at the office. I got up the courage to suggest that rather than just trading anime we actually hang out and watch something together, like at his place. He mentioned heâ€™d been meaning to get a group of friends together to watch the kung-fu historical Hero.

A group of friends? I wasnâ€™t looking for more chaperons.

I was deflated enough that it took a whole week before I tried again. This time I made it simpler. I asked him what he was doing that evening. That worked. Our first date was at a Shabu Shabu place. Our romance followed our courtship in style, and when we went out we went to Japanese pop culture stores like Giant Robot and when we stayed in we watched Sci-Fi channel shows like SG-1. Lest you think we live totally one dimensional lives I also introduced him to the six hour version of Pride and Prejudice, which he has sat through several times since.

The real end of the courtship phase didnâ€™t come with a declaration of love on bended knee, but Iâ€™ve never seen anyone more touched than he when I moved my computer to his place.

So, what does Pop Culture have to do with romance? Iâ€™m not sure, but it had a lot to do with mine.

Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. For someone who religiously stays out of the mainstream, she knows an awful lot about Pop Culture. This is the second in a series of posts on the subject.