Hello, Readers!

I apologize to all my readers for being away so long. I was buried in finishing the second book in what I'm calling The Dragon Stone Trilogy. The first book is called Call of the Dragon, and I've finally name the second book The Puzzle Box. Right now, I'm still without a title for the third book. It is the final installment in a story where the dragon stone is passed back to the dragons and life in the Valley of the Dragons becomes settled once and for all. The evil sorcerer is finally put to rest and the boy of the third book finds out he is a dragon rider and a prince in the Kingdom of Mar.

So much for what my last few weeks have been like. One thing I've learned about during this writing bonanza is the use of description. Especially how we need to pay attention to forward motion in our stories. When we are creating physical description for a character, for example, there is no greater motion-stopper than immobile chunks of physical description. A head to toe assessment of a character that we hardly know is at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. We need to get to know the characters as we read, so chunks of description don't stop the flow of the story.

I went back through the last two books (the Dragon Stone Trilogy books) and checked for heavy chunks of description. Correcting that flaw helped my stories flow and seem better paced as we got to know the protagonists and antagonist in the stories.

How do you introduce your characters? Do you have a special idea for each character and then show your character a little at a time?

Are You Writing A Breakout Novel?

While I've been working on my new story, The Puzzle Box, which is the second installment in my series about dragons, kings and a little bit of magic (as in time travel), I've come across an interesting workbook that I thought I'd tell you about.

The workbook is Writing The Breakout Novel Workbook, by Donald Maass. I bought my workbook from Amazon.com. I'm stressing workbook, because he also wrote a book by the title: Writing The Breakout Novel. I didn't have the money to by both books, so I chose the workbook because it has exercises with each lesson and I wanted to be able to take the lesson and use it. The workbook also has all the writing exercises that Mr. Maass leads in his workshops by the same name.

In this book it tells you how to read a novel like a writer, understanding the technique and motivation behind every choice an author makes. You will find help making your characters more memorable, adding layers of plot and weaving them together, discovering themes hidden in your work, using time and place more effectively and more.

Sound like a sales pitch yet? I hope not, because this book isn't for everyone. If you don't have the time to sit down and do the exercises, which require some application, then you won't get to the gold in this book. And that comes from you. When you learn from your own writing, as you push out those exercises.

Here's an example:

Adjusting the Volume

Step 1: At random in the middle of your manuscript, pick anything at all than your protagonist thinks, says, or does. Heighten it. Make it bigger, funnier, more shocking, more vulgar, more out of bounds, more over the top, more violent, more insightful, more wildly romantic, more active, more anything. Make the change in your manuscript.

Step 2: Take that same action, thought, or line of dialogue, and make it smaller. Tone it down; understate it; make it quieter, more internal, more personal, more ironic, more offhand, less impassioned, barely noticeable. Make the change in your manuscript.

Follow-up work: Select twenty-four more points in the story where you can heighten or diminish something that your protagonist does, says, or thinks.

Conclusion: Larger-than-life characters powerfully attract us. Why? They are surprising, vital, and alive. They do not let life slip by. Every moment counts. Every day has meaning. How can you give that kind of life force to your protagonist? Turn up the volume on what she says, thinks, and does.

(From: Page 35, Heightening Larger-Than-Life Qualities) 

What are you reading? Does it help with your current project?

Reasons For Rejection

The Insecure Writer's Support Group, which posts on the first Wednesday of the month, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, can be found by clicking HERE. You can see other members and what they are writing about, or join up yourself.

I want to pass on some interesting reasons for rejection when you are ready to submit a manuscript to a publisher or an agent. These are things that you can investigate in your own writing and see if you need to do some editing. Please remember that there are a gazillion reasons why an agent or publisher might not use your work. It might be as simple as the wrong genre for that agent or publisher. But investigating them beforehand is always prudent and will keep you from having to waste time submitting and waiting to hear back.

Here are some other reasons:

• An opening image doesn't work.
• Opened with a rhetorical question(s).
• The first line's hook didn't work, because it wasn't tied to the plot or the conflict of the opening scene.
• The first line's hook didn't work, because it was an image, rather than something that was happening in the scene.
• Took too long for anything to happen; the story taking its time to warm up.
• Not enough happens on page 1.
• The opening sounded like an ad for the book or a recap of the pitch, rather than getting the reader into the story.
• The opening starts with phrases, "My name is..." and /or "My age is..."
• The opening contained the phrase, "This can't be happening."
• The opening contained the phrase or implication, "And then I woke up."
• The opening contained too much jargon.
• The opening contained one or more cliched phrases.
• The opening contained one or more cliched pieces of material. For example: a character's long red or blonde hair.
• The opening had a character do something that characters only do in books. For example: a character shakes their head to clear an image, or "clearing the cobwebs."

Do you know of other reasons why agents or publishers reject manuscripts? Can you add to this list?

Comments about writing: I believe that whether or not you choose to follow the current flow of what's acceptable in writing, is up to you. You are the author and as long as you can present your material masterfully and creatively, then if you want to take ten pages to "warm up" your story that's great. It might not be received as enthusiastically by this generation of readers, but you have to write what's in your heart and not sell out to commercialism.

Interesting Facts About Authors

I recently came upon Lena Sledge's Blog and wanted to share part of her Monday, December 12, 2011 post with you. You might be as fascinated as I was!


Here Are Some Interesting Facts About Authors:

• In the book, Les Miserable by Victor Hugo there is one sentence that is 823 words long.
• In the United States, people buy an average of 57 books per second.
• It took Noah Webster thirty-six years to write his first dictionary.
• One out of every eight letters you read is the letter 'e'.
• Gadsby was written by Ernest Vincent Wright in 1939. The 50,000 word novel doesn't contain the letter 'e'.
• J.K. Rowling had difficulty getting published. Finally, Bloomsburry Press agreed to publish it but only published 500 copies for fear they wouldn't sell. They also requested she use initials so she wouldn't be recognized as a female writer. She has no middle name, so she chose the letter K for Kathleen.
• Before The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown was a pop singer and song writer. His second solo album was titled, Angels and Demons.
• Sidney Sheldon didn't start writing novels until he was in his fifties. Before then he was creating television hit shows like I Dream of Jeannie and The Patty Duke Show.
• The largest book in the world is "The Klencke Atlas" at 1.75 meters tall (about 5 feet 9 inches) and 1.90 meters wide (about 6 feet 3 inches when open).
• The world's most expensive book ever purchased was bought by Bill Gates at auction for $30.8 million dollars. The title of the book is Codex Leicester by Leonard da Vinci.
• The longest novel available to read is Marienbad My Love by Mark Leach at 17 million words. You can actually read this novel by going to Marienbadmylove.com
• The most expensive book is The Task by Tomas Alexander Hartmann. It has a value by the author for 153 million euros. That's about 213 million U.S. dollars. And the kicker, it's only 13 pages long.

Have you got any interesting facts to share with us? Please share them!

Excerpt: The Puzzle Box

Now that I have my outline to The Puzzle Box finished, I'm beginning to fill in the details of the chapters. It has been an exciting adventure to write a book this way. Now I'd like to share a portion of the text from chapter one. I hope you enjoy it. By the way... I didn't start at the beginning.

Excerpt from: The Puzzle Box

Ari found the well before Julian finished climbing over the broken-down stone wall at the edge of the ruins. He pulled off the cover and stared down into the hole.

“I’m not going down there, no matter how much the Hermit wants to pay me.”

“Why don’t you check over by the ruins of that house, while I see if there’s anything in here.” Julian smiled as he lowered himself into the dry well. “It still looks damp around the edges. I might find something.”

Ari didn’t answer because he was busy digging around in the ruins of a house near the well. He found a few Saint John’s Wort, but before he was leaving, he slipped on some loose stones and went crashing through the rotted floorboards. Beneath was a cellar that hadn’t been touched in decades. Ari could smell the dank mold and sneezed from the unsettled dust. He crawled up from the ground and began searching around in the dim light.

Ari stopped. A faint humming from under a pile of rocks caught his attention. He poked at the mound with a broken stick. When nothing jumped out at him and he knew it was safe, he removed the stones, one by one. Soon Ari was staring at the source of the humming. A dusty box sat among the stones and debris, its curious hum drawing him closer. He reached out and gingerly touched its edge. Dust and dirt fell away at his touch, and Ari could see part of a white tiled square. He licked his finger and dusted off another place and saw part of a red square, with filigree designs on it. Finally, he started to pick up the entire box, when a noise from behind startled him. He dropped the box and jumped back. Whipping around, he glared, breathless.

“Julian! Geez! You scared me!”

“Sorry. I thought you got hurt when you fell in.”

Ari turned around to face the box. “Naw, but I found something.”

“What is it?” Julian tried to see around Ari, but because it was so dim, he had to step up next to him.

Ari bent down and picked up the box, holding it in a protective cradle. At the same time, Julian reached out to touch it, but Ari pulled away.

“No!”

“I want to see it, too!”

“Let’s go out in the light so we can get a better look at it,” Ari turned his back on Julian, looking for a way out of the cellar.

Julian walked towards the wall and bumped into a stone staircase. “Over here!”

They climbed up the set of stone steps that ran up one wall and out of the old cellar, into the bright sunlight. Both young men squinted and shaded their eyes, trying to get a better look at Ari’s find. Ari sat on the edge of the broken stone wall and held the box in front of him. He let Julian pull off chunks of mud from the corners. After dusting off the dirt and gravel bits from the box, they saw it was made up of square tiles, decorated in delicate designs. Each side had a different color dragon on one tile, a cloaked man with a sword on another, and a robed magician on a third. The rest of the tiles were designs and odd writing. Ari and Julian shook their heads at each other, neither one knowing what they were looking at.

“Maybe we should try to open it,” Julian suggested.

Ari shook his head back and forth. “No. Let’s take it to the Hermit. He knows about the history of this place. Maybe he can tell us what it is.”

Outlining Your Next Novel

I'm raising my head from working on my new book, which is still in the outlining stage, so I can tell you about an excellent book on outlining. K. M. Weiland, author of Outlining Your Novel - Map Your Way To Success, offers a detailed approach to your outlining project. You can also find her at her blog, Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors, HERE.

Not only does she offer suggestions on how to begin your outline, she offers in depth questions on characterization and theme. Since I have been following her ideas, I've found the process long and involved, but worthwhile. That's because when you do character studies and development of the inciting event, you will create many pages of notes for your story ahead of the actual writing. Besides character sketches, she explores backstory, character interviews and setting.

Ms. Weiland offers two kinds of outlines of explore; the extended outline or the abbreviated outline. By choosing what works for you, you can draw your own road map to success. She walks you through each kind with examples from other authors.

One feature I like about this book is after each chapter she has a section called Asking the Authors. Each chapter has a different author she has interviewed about outlining and they give candid answers about their own feelings about outlining and the different topics. I found some of the answers sparked with humor and alacrity.

If you are serious about learning how to make a working outline for your next book, this is an excellent tool to begin with. I bought my copy from Amazon for my Kindle reader and the only disadvantage to having it on ebook was I couldn't make notes in the margins. I found myself writing on any scrap of paper that was handy. I did finally put it all in a three ring binder so I could move pages of the outline around.

I'm excited about the outline I'm working on. I can see the story developing on paper as well as in my head. By the time I get to write this book, it will flow out of my creative side and I won't have to worry about the mechanics, since they will be mapped out in the outline.

Do you outline? What's your process for getting it down? Can you recommend any books?

How Well Do You Know Your Main Character?

Most books start out defining the main character in bits and pieces, giving the reader just what he needs to know to see how he fits into the story. I had a fun time exploring my main character, Ari, as I was outlining my new book. I wrote a character survey on him, defining all factions of his life, including a history of his past. This left me aching to include all kinds of extraneous details as I began filling in my story.

How much is too much?

Sometimes I want to explain my characters so the reader will understand the whys behind the action. But recently I read a comment that stopped me dead in my tracks.

If you have to explain your character, you've killed him.

In other words, if the reader doesn't see, by your character's actions, why he's acting the way he is, then you haven't built a strong enough history on your character. You need to prepare for your character's sudden change in direction. If your character is going to save the bad guy from sure destruction, the reader needs to be savvy about it and not sitting there scratching his head, asking why?

I'm learning how to present a character in a story and how to build on the information given. Here is the beginning of my new story The Puzzle Box:

“Ari! You let the fire die again! How often do I have to tell you to keep this fire hot?”

Ari’s father threw a piece of wood on the fire and fanned the bellows to re-light the coals. After the coals were glowing, he jabbed an iron bar in the fire, waited until it became white hot and pulled it out. Then, with the hammer he held in his right hand, he pounded on the sizzling hot metal.

Ari watched his father with a dismal frown. He hated iron work. Even though his father was a master sword maker for the King, he’d rather be in the forest studying his magic tricks or gathering plants for the Hermit.

So what did this beginning tell us about Ari? He's unhappy at what he does and wishes to be doing something else. Of course, he gets his adventure when he finds the puzzle box and tries to open it. To me, writing is an adventure and I get to travel with all my characters to unexplored places. Learning about characterization is an adventure of its own and creating a character out of bits and pieces is a challenge I invite you to continue on with. Have a great adventure!