The Pain of Being My Characters - Take Two

Quote of the Day:

I would never write about a character who is not at the end of his rope.
~ Stanley Elkin

Okay dear readers, this week I am madly trying to get my almost-so-close-but-not-quite-WIP finished. Basically, it is done minus a couple transition scenes and the very end - and typing it of course :D I've got about 20k of it typed and the goal is to finish it this week. So, I hope you will forgive me, but I have delved into my archives and pulled out a couple favorite posts from my Blog Chain. As most of you joined me long after these were written, hopefully this is new stuff for you to read :)

Leah Clifford had picked this particular topic, and it is one I have been thinking about lately as my crit buddies have begun to sink their pens into my new book. Sometimes I have a hard time being mean to my characters - but this time around, I really tried to be the big, mean author :)

Leah asked: What do you do to amp up the conflict? What pins do you stick in the little voodoo dolls? How do you torture your characters???

Okay, when I first read this topic, I thought, “Oooo, yeah, I torture my characters all the time! This will be easy!”

Upon thinking about it more, I don’t think I do this on purpose (most of the time). But it tends to be the drama, the conflict, that drives a story…and you just can’t get that if your characters get everything they want and are happy all the time.

So how do I amp up the conflict, torture my characters? Well, in Treasured Lies, my main character Minuette falls in love, thinks her love might be a horrible criminal, watches her love get shot and thinks he bleeds to death, suffers a miscarriage, is told her love didn’t really love her and because of what has happened, believes it and gets her heart broken, and then just when things start looking up, the crazy villain comes and kidnaps her, beats her, and tries to kill and rape her. Is that torture enough? :D

A wise friend of mine once told me that if I ever get stuck (writer’s block) to just shoot someone. I laughed. And then realized that shooting someone was the perfect answer to the problem I had created for myself. I had written myself into a corner. All conflicts had been resolved and I had nowhere to go and I still had half a book left to write. So someone got shot – instant conflict, instant torture for several characters – instant end to writer’s block.

Looking at the quote of the day by Stanley Elkin, it is such a great piece of advice…a person at the end of their rope has no where to go but up….but there is always the threat of crashing down…and that makes a great story. If your characters never go through any kind of conflict or “torture,” then you have a story in which nothing happens. A happy person who has everything they want, and continues to be happy with everything they want…Where is the story in that?

Ernest Hemingway said that a writer should…“find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement.”

I LOVE that quote. And it made me think, “What is it that gave me emotion? What gave me excitement?” Sure, I am happy when a character gets the guy at the end, or finds the treasure, or gets to live in the big pretty castle and lives happily ever after. But that isn’t what keeps me reading the story. What keeps me reading, what gives me goosebumps and makes my heart pound, is when the heroine cradles her dying husband in her arms…when she is on the back of a thundering horse, shooting a gun over her shoulder at the villain chasing her….when she made some stupid mistake and screwed up the good thing she had going….THAT kind of stuff makes me want to turn the page.

Did the husband really die? Will she get away? (Or will the retort of the gun knock her on her butt?…because that is always fun) :D Will she be able to fix her mistake and get the good thing going again, or has she just completely screwed up her life?

So, that is what I do to my characters. I try to give the reader a reason to turn the page, by giving my characters a reason to keep going, giving them something to fix, to resolve, to get over and move past. Death, pain, despair, torture, emotion, threat, danger….these all get the blood pumping, the tears pouring…and make that happy ending all the happier for the mess they had to go through to get there.

Blog Chain - Isn't It Romantic?

This round it was Sandra's turn to pick the topic, and she chose one that, as someone who writes a lot of romance, should have been easy for me. For some reason, it wasn't :) Be sure to head to Sandra's blog if you want to start the chain from the beginning. Christine posted before me and Elana is up next! Here are my thoughts on Sandra's question:

Do you write romantic relationships in your books? If so, what do you do to show the attraction between your characters? What problems do your characters encounter? What qualities do you think make a romantic relationship work in fiction? If you wish, feel free to include examples of your favorite couples.

I'm going to break it down and take each question one at a time....

Do you write romantic relationships in your books?

Yep, can’t help myself. Honestly, I’ve never tried to write a book that didn’t have romance in it – everything I’ve done so far has been specifically written as a romance something (a couple historical romances, a YA paranormal romance, a YA Urban Fantasy with strong romance elements). But I have a feeling anything I will write is going to have some romance in there somewhere.

If so, what do you do to show the attraction between your characters?

I try to just show the things we all experience when we are attracted to someone. I write YAs, and Christine pointed out how teenagers have that sort of obsessive/intense sort of romance. I may be getting older :D but I can still remember what it felt like when I was 16 and in love for the first time. That pounding heart, the total head rush when your love interest smiles at you or touches your hand. Even simple things like that, especially when you are in the first rush of a new love, can cause sparks to fly. I try to show that between my characters.


What problems do your characters encounter?

Well, for the paranormals and fantasies, they get to experience more interesting problems than just the normal, everyday type thing – so it can get fun. My couples also tend to be the good girl/bad boy type – so there are always problems when you have that kind of thing going on. I also try to just show real life type of issues that everyone can relate to. Maybe their families don’t get along, or the friends don’t approve, they come from opposite sides of the track, or maybe one of them is already attached.

The odd misunderstanding is always handy, though I try not to do that too often, because, really, while this does happen a lot in real life, it drives me a little nuts sometimes if the “misunderstanding” is too obviously contrived or just…well…stupid. I’m all for something like seeing your significant other locking lips with their ex (anyone watch Ugly Betty? The scene with Betty and Henry on the season finale that Betty’s boyfriend Matt witnesses. For those of you that didn’t see it, Betty meets up with her old boyfriend, her first love – they still love each other and always will, but she is in love with Matt and is happy with him. So they say goodbye – and they do kiss, but they are saying goodbye to each other forever…that kind of thing. But Matt sees it…and Betty chooses not to tell him about it. So, he understandably feels betrayed and that he can’t trust her and he breaks up with her.) That is a great conflict starter, a good misunderstanding where you can see both sides of what happened.


What qualities do you think make a romantic relationship work in fiction?

I think the same types of qualities that make a romantic relationship work in real life. Genuine love, understanding, compromise, the willingness to work on your relationship, to give in when you need to or stay firm when necessary, the true desire to see your partner happy and healthy, attraction for each other, laughter, at least one common interest :) You can stretch things sometimes in fiction, but at the end of the day, if it isn’t believable, it’s not going to work, no matter how odd or strange your storyworld or characters are. Your readers have to be able to connect to your characters and their relationships on some level.


If you wish, feel free to include examples of your favorite couples.

Oooo, there are so, so many – here are a few of mine:

Jamie and Claire Fraser from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.

Jocelyn and Trent from one of my favorite historical romances, The Braeswood Tapestry by Robyn Carr

Alex and Raine from the Wild Swan series by Celeste de Blasis

Westley and Buttercup from The Princess Bride

How about you? How do you add romance to your books? Or do you? And who are your favorite couples?

Friday Funnies

First of all, congratulations to my stepson Matt!!!! He graduates from high school today! We are so proud of you Matt!


K, on to the funnies for the day :)

Quote of the Day:

The profession of book-writing makes horse racing
seem like a solid, stable business.
~John Steinbeck

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
~Ring Lardner

A dramatist is a congenital eavesdropper with the
instincts of a Peeping Tom.
~Kenneth Tynan

If anyone needs any genre help, be sure to head over to The Literary Lab. They spent the entire week posting some truly awesome break downs of some difficult genres and I am a guest blogger today with my genre list from this week. Go check it out!!! It's a wonderful site with tons of helpful info.

Write What You Know

I posted this on another blog a few months ago, but this is a phrase that I've been running across again lately, so I thought I'd re-post it :)

“Write what you know” is one of the most often heard phrases in the writing world. When I began seriously writing, my first reaction to this bit of advice was, “Oh heck no. No one is going to tell me what to write!” I didn’t want to write what I knew. That would be boring. I wanted to explore new worlds and dive into old ones.

It didn’t make any sense to me because I was hearing it very literally. I kept thinking, “Well, if writers only wrote what they knew, we’d have no fantasy or scifi or historical novels.” I mean, unless people were out there falling in love with vampires or having their home planets overrun by meat-eating aliens, it just wasn’t possible to always write what you know.

What I finally realized was that the best writers really do write what they know. Now, does that mean Stephenie Meyer has recently run into a family of vegetarian, sparkling vampires? Or that J.K. Rowling once stumbled upon a whole community of magical kids running around undetected by all the muggles somewhere in Britain? Of course not! (Well, not that I’m aware of in any case).

So how do writers write what they know? They infuse their stories with all of the emotions, knowledge, and life that they’ve experienced and use all of it to build their characters and storyworlds into incredible books that suck their readers into a new reality. I’m willing to bet that Ms. Meyer has, at some point in her life, experienced fear and loss and that total exhilaration of first love. J.K. Rowling was certainly never a magical teenage boy fighting a weird, snake-looking wizard…but she probably knows what it feels like to be terrified, excited, helpless, alone…to find friends who love you, fight for something you want, and maybe have things turn out great in the end.

To write what you know, you need to write about something you care about, something that touches you. That connection you have to your subject will come through in your work.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut sums it up perfectly in our Quote for the Day:

Find a subject you care about and which in your heart you feel others should care about. It is the genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

Agent Rachelle Gardner had a great post about writing what you know last year. In her opinion:

Write what you know means write with authenticity about thoughts, feelings, experiences of life. Be honest. Write from a deep place. Don't write from the surface. Whether you're writing about parenthood or cancer or anything else... be real.

Don't reflect what you know from other people or the media... write what you know from your own inner life.

There is a more literal approach to the “write what you know” statement as well. It really is necessary to be familiar with your genre and the world of which you are writing. There are little quirks and “rules” to every genre – what works for a romance might not always work for a thriller.

Agent Scott Eagan posted about this in his blog a few months ago. He stated:

It is crucial for you to write in the niche that you know the best. By doing so, you understand the twists and turns to that genre that others might not get. More importantly, you understand the voice that is commonly associated with that genre.

This can also be an area when a little research can come in handy. If you are writing a book set in Ancient Greece, it is necessary for you to do enough research that you really know what you are talking about. Otherwise, you will never be able to truly transport your readers into the world you are trying to describe. Mary wrote a wonderful post about how familiarity breeds authenticity. You may not be able to personally experience the day Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii, or what it is like to live beneath the ocean, but you can familiarize yourself enough with the pertinent details that you can convince your readers that your characters are living through those experiences.

This applies to the worlds you create yourself as well. Fantasy and science fiction writers create their own worlds, true. But there are certain rules even within the realms of fictional worlds. Maybe in your world, women have supernatural powers and men don’t. Or maybe blondes can see the future and brunettes can fly. You can make whatever rules you’d like for your universe, but you have to stick to them. And you have to have enough knowledge of that world to convince your reader that the experiences and emotions of your characters are authentic and appropriate for the world in which they live.

When you write a book, you want to suck your reader into your world – whether that world is set in the past, the present, the future, or on some other planet or reality…you need to know enough about that world, your characters, and the things they will feel and experience to draw your readers in. Using your own emotions and experiences, and your own specialized knowledge about the world you are creating, will help you craft an amazing story.

In other words, my dear writers…write what you know ;-)

WIP Wednesday and a Book List Update

Ah, this week was a good week! Though it didn't seem like it. But once I started adding up numbers and chapters, it really was productive :D That's always fun to report.

Non-fiction - 2.5 chapters written for a total of 4.5/25 = 18% done

I also started querying, very slowly. Just sent out a few queries, but have received one request so far, so doing well there.

Fiction - did awesome today! In fact, probably 90% of my wordage this week came from today's haul. It helps when the hubby takes the kids out of the house for a couple hours :D So, the stats are:

Notebook pages = 162 front and back, 1 front only

Pens drained = still only 5!!!

I'm telling you, #6 is hanging on for dear life. But I took it apart tonight just to see how much I've got left, and it really shouldn't be too much longer. I think they may have put more ink in this pen than in the others...it's the only explanation I can think of.....

Approximate total wordage = 48,750/60,000 = 81% done!!

I think I might actually start typing up the manuscript in a few days also. I might write one more scene in my notebooks, but I've sort of gotten to where most of the scenes are written except for the very end and a few in betweens - only I've jumped around so much I'm not sure where the holes are that need to be filled. So, I'm going to write one more scene that I'm sure needs to be in there, and then type the whole thing up. Then I will see what my actual word count is and I can start filling out some scenes where necessary and patch the holes :) I am very excited I am so close!

And for the Reading List Update (yep, I actually managed to read a book this week!)


#20 So Still the Night by Kim Lenox - this is book 2 in her Shadow Guards series and I enjoyed it every bit as much as book 1. I highly recommend them!

How is everyone doing on their WIPs? Getting any reading or writing done?

How to Define a Genre

Quote of the Day:

Respect the genre you're writing in. In an effort to put your own stamp on it, don't ignore the established conventions of that genre - or you'll alienate your core audience of loyal buyers. ~Kathleen Krull

I wrote this for another blog but I spent a lot of time researching and didn't want to lose the info, so here it is for anyone who is having trouble defining those pesky genres :)


Genre – basic definition – a literary term used to describe a group of works with similar characteristics such as characters, themes, and setting.

There are more genres than you can shake a stick at – really. So this list nowhere near completes the possibilities, but these are the most common.

Action/Adventure: Often, though not always, aimed at a male audience. Contains elements of physical action, violence, danger (physical, global, etc), hazards, travel to exotic locations (jungles, deserts, tropical islands). Storylines often contain use of weapons, technology, martial arts. Can and often do contain elements of humor. Examples include the James Bond films, Indiana Jones, the Die Hard movies, the Rush Hour movies, The Mummy movies.

Chick-Lit: geared toward women, often urban settings, includes elements of romance, humor, professional struggles, relationships. Examples include Bridget Jones’s Diary and Sex and the City.

Contemporary: Mostly used to denote the setting. If you have a mystery that is set in present time, on this planet, etc, you could call it a Contemporary Mystery.

Experimental: Usually edgy in style or content. Pulp Fiction would be a good example.

Fantasy: Fantasy stories are set on other worlds or in other realities. You can have vampires or werewolves or fairies, but in general, fantasy creatures tend to be more…fantastic, mythological – dragons, gryphons, three-headed dog beasts. Magic is a huge element of fantasy stories. Here is a little test: if you can take away the “weird” in the story (i.e. the beasts, the magic) and the world you are left with is still not the normal, everyday world you know, it’s a fantasy story. Lord of the Rings is a fantasy.

--Urban Fantasy – this genre is actually closer to a paranormal than a fantasy. These stories deal with magical or paranormal elements in a real world, contemporary (or urban) setting. Many paranormal books could also be classified as Urban Fantasy, including Twilight, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series, and The Dresden Files.

General: This is kind of a blanket genre for anything that doesn’t fit in any of the other categories. On Golden Pond is an example of general fiction.

Historical: Portrays fictionalized accounts of real life historical events or people. In non-fiction and fiction, a story set in the 1940s or 1950s could be considered historical, and definitely anything set early than that. Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Sister and Anchee Min’s The Last Emperor are examples of historical fiction. This does not apply to Historical Romance. For Romance, anything after 1910 is still contemporary (for now…this may change the farther into the 2000s we get).

Horror: The plot usually contains threats to the main characters that include things like death, mutilation and torture. Horror stories try to create a sense of horror, terror, and revulsion in its readers and have a tendency to be gory. The hero doesn’t always make it out alive in a horror story. Stephen King's The Shining is a great example. Well, any of Stephen King’s books.

Humor/Comedy: The purpose of this genre, as you can probably guess, is to make the reader laugh. Often combined with other elements such as romance and action/adventure. Fletch, Men In Black and Get Smart are examples of humor.

Inspirational: Mostly Christian-based storylines, though points of view of other religions are becoming more popular. Stories contain elements of faith and religion; working through life problems with a focus on a character’s beliefs and religion. An example of inspirational fiction is Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly series.

Literary: This one can be hard to define. Nathan Bransford has an excellent post about this. Literary fiction tends to be more geared to the characters, the inner workings of their minds and hearts. It does need to have a plot, but as Nathan states, the plot is often beneath the surface, whereas in commercial fiction, the plot is on the surface. Examples would be Out of Africa and Gilead.

Middle Grade: Geared toward preteens. Often have a moral message or lesson; the character learn about self-esteem, confidence, friendship, etc. Charlotte’s Web and Nim’s Island are examples.

Mystery: The plot is geared toward the solving of a problem, often, but not always, murder. Subplots are fine (many have a romantic element), but the “problem” (i.e. the mystery) presented at the beginning must be resolved. The Sherlock Holmes stories are an example.

Niche: This type of book will only appeal to a certain niche of reader. For example, if I wrote a fiction book about frogs that lived in Texas, and that was all the book was about, it would only appeal to those that liked frogs or the state of Texas. So, I would query my hypothetical book Frogs of Texas as Niche Fiction.

Paranormal: Paranormal stories are set in the real world, the world as we know it…with a little extra thrown in. Vampires, shapeshifters, fairies, elves, witches, demons, gargoyles, ghosts, psychics, mediums, telepaths, time travelers…these all belong in the paranormal world. Use the same test as we used for the fantasy worlds…if you can take away the “weird” factors and you are left with our everyday world = paranormal. For example, if you take away the sparkling, gorgeous vampire, or vengeful ghost, or the time portal the main characters travel through, and you are left with everyday Earth – your story is paranormal fiction. Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse vampire books are examples of paranormal fiction.

Romance: The plot of a romance centers around a couple that fall in love and have a “happily ever after” ending. This is a must; there are no exceptions. If your couple is not happily in love and together at the end of your book, it’s not a romance. It might be a love story (in which case, it would go under women’s fiction) but a romance has to have a HEA. You can have subplots, but the main plotline must be about the couple’s romance. Now, there are so many subgenres to the Romance genre (many totally unique to romance) that I will do a separate post on these next week, so stay tuned.

Science-Fiction: This one is actually pretty self-explanatory. It’s fiction about science. The plot usually has something to do with science or technology and has to be within the realm of possibility. Stories are often set in the future or on other planets. Star Wars, Stargate and Star Trek fall in this category, as do I, Robot, Starship Troopers, Dune, Ender’s Game, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, A Wrinkle in Time, and Jurassic Park.

Suspense: While often lumped together, suspense novels are generally not as intense as thrillers. The threat is often directed at the main character. Can include many elements but often includes mystery, murder, a little romance, danger, action.

Thriller: More intense than suspense; the threat is often against a larger group than just the main character (threats against the community, a city, a country, the world). Usually about life and death situations where ordinary heroes are up against mastermind villains. Generally lots of action and plot twists. The Da Vinci Code, The Hunt for Red October and Enemy of the State are examples.

Western: These are generally set in the Western United States before 1900. There are also contemporary westerns. An example of a Western is The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

Women's: There are several different sub-genres, but in general this genre is geared toward women; a woman is the main character and her development, life, experiences, etc, are the backbone of the story. Think Fried Green Tomatoes or The First Wives Club.

Young Adult: These books can include any genre but the main character should be the same age as the readers the story is geared toward (teens, 13-18). There can be romance but this element is usually on the tame side. Examples are the Harry Potter books, Twilight, Vampire Academy, and Wicked Lovely.

Once you have your genre down, you can pick your subgenres if necessary. However, do not list your book with more than three genres. If at all possible, keep it to two. You have to be able to narrow your book down. What shelf should it be on in a bookstore? You might have six different elements in your book, but stick to the main two.

Really the only two instances three genres might be necessary is for historicals and Young Adults. One because it tells the time period and the other because it tells the age the book is geared toward. My current book is YA Urban Fantasy. This isn’t overboard, but querying your book as a Mystery Thriller Urban Women’s fiction with romantic and science fiction elements is a bit much. Your book may contain all of those but you don’t need to give it all away.

My Music Muse

Quote of the Day:

Music is what feelings sound like. ~Anonymous

Music has always inspired me, always brought incredible scenes to my mind, kicked my creative muse into gear. I'm one of those people that will sit and listen to a beautiful song with tears running down my face (while non-musical hubby looks on in confusion and disdain), or will listen to a song over and over and over just because I don't want to stop feeling the way it's making me feel.

I suppose it makes sense then that I'd be the type of writer that makes playlists for my projects. And it got me curious as to how many other writers do this. So this is what I want to know - do you listen to music while you write? Before you write? Do you have actual playlists or just a specific song on repeat?

For my current book, I've been listening to a lot of E.S. Posthumus, specifically the songs Nala and Nineveh (which I liked so much, I'm naming a character after the title of the song) - and a song called River Flows in You by Yiruma that is so beautiful I bought the piano music (though my sorry version doesn't sound anything as wonderful as the original) :)

Apocalyptica (especially their songs, Bittersweet and Romance) and Evanescence are always major players on my soundtracks. And the Twilight soundtrack is almost on constant repeat - it's just got some great songs! Rob Dougan is another favorite of mine (wow, that man's voice makes my toes curl!) And for the more upbeat, funny scenes, I listen to just about anything...well, upbeat :) Lady Gaga is a current favorite (fun to dance to), Sweet Home Alabama is a favorite song, as well as Everybody Got Their Something by Nikka Costa.

How about you? What songs are on your lists?