KL Wagoner

Blog Archives

Writer’s Remorse

Posted on March 22, 2016 by

by Olive Balla

It’s a cousin to Buyer’s Remorse, which my friend and constant companion Google defines as an emotional response to a purchase. Feelings like regret, fear, depression, or anxiety. You know—the letdown that grabs the buyer by the throat immediately after he’s spent a pile of money on something he just knew he wanted more than anything.

But the feelings accompanying what I’ve dubbed Writer’s Remorse go beyond those just mentioned. Although depression is definitely part of it, the feeling is more of—as Peggy Lee crooned in the golden oldie of the same name—Is that all there is?

Regardless of what it’s called, I’ve been suffering from it.

After working for six years on my novel—six years, during which I thought about it constantly, jotted down snippets of overheard conversations to pepper into the dialogue, basically lived, breathed, and showered with it—the thing is suddenly finished. I’ve polished, rewritten, edited, and re-edited, and then found a beta reader who was a professional editor in a past life. It’s the best I can do.

But just as with the sudden cessation of any other perpetual activity, the completion of my novel left a void. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

So I checked in with my online chat group of writers. I told them of the unexpected feelings of loss that have accompanied my novel’s completion. I poured out all my writer angst, certain that what I was going through was an anomaly. And a little fearful for my sanity. (Okay, maybe a bit melodramatic, but I was concerned.) I wondered if Stephen King had ever struggled with letting go of one of his twisted babies.

The responses that came pouring in from my colleagues boosted my morale. One savvy writer said that I have a case of what is basically empty-nest syndrome. She said I’m missing my characters. That they became an integral part of my life, and now I’m grieving their loss. And that feels about right.

Having raised three actual children, I must admit that the feelings I was experiencing were akin to those of giving birth, raising the child, and then watching her walk away to seek her fortune in the world without so much as a backward glance. The whole process was accompanied with the bittersweet knowledge that it’s all part of the beat of life—that once you’ve done your job, your services will no longer be required.

After all, I spent over half a decade scheduling my life around my writing time. I’d waken early, hurry to eat breakfast, and then happily lock myself away into my writing space—what author Elizabeth Sims calls getting into garret mode. I closed myself off to the here-and-now, completely immersed myself in a different dimension, and then for the next couple of hours I alternately dug through the darkness and marveled at the brilliant nobility of our human nature.

And then I was stricken with an energy-sucking ennui. I walked aimlessly around the house in search of something—I didn’t know quite what. Judging by the way my husband took to surreptitiously watching me out of the corner of his eye, I suspected my behavior verged on something clinical.

So I again approached my writer friends—much cheaper and less time consuming than therapy.

Within minutes, commiserations flew back across the ether and into my waiting arms. I wasn’t alone. Other writers had suffered the same feelings.

Several of them told me to get back on the horse and start another novel. Others said I should take a break and do something totally un-writer-like for several weeks before rolling up my sleeves and giving myself over to the birthing pangs of a new story.

I decided to do both. First, with unwavering determination, I powered down every piece of computer hardware in my house that could even remotely be used for word processing. And then, with an unexpected sense of freedom, I accompanied my husband on a road trip to Mount Rushmore.

The glorious scenery that flew past our car windows, the rest stops where I overheard people speaking about everything from ingrown toenails to saving wild horses, all sparked dozens of ideas, which I verbalized into the tiny digital recorder I’d snuck into my bag. I know, I know, I cheated. But the change of scenery was like a cool drink of water on my parched writer’s tongue, and I was overcome with a renewed joy in my chosen field of endeavor.

Once home, I replayed and then transcribed my recorded observations and comments. What if… and Yes, and then… cavorted and tumbled elbows over arse through my electrified imagination. I made more notes.

But I still didn’t have the heart to begin a new novel. At least, not until this morning.

Today I awakened to my Protagonist’s index finger tapping me on the forehead. She was yammering away about a woman who just moved from South Dakota and into the house across the street.

“She’s having trouble sleeping because of weird noises coming from her basement,” said my Protagonist around a mouthful of leftover welcome-to-the-neighborhood brownies.

“Aha,” I said. “Weird noises coming from her basement? That’s good. Then what if…”

And we’re off.

Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the March 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

The Writing Life: Juggling Priorities

Posted on March 15, 2016 by

by Sherri Burr

Recently, I read T.D. Jakes’ book Instinct and was startled by the chapter on juggling priorities. The author discussed juggling as “giving each object just enough of a push so that all items remain suspended and none falls out of sequence.” I thought of my efforts to make time for my writing life while working full time, attending to family obligations, volunteering to help others, practicing a healthy lifestyle, and looking after my home. In short, like the readers of this column, I have a lot of balls in the air.

As writers, we type stories, edit material, shepherd work through the publishing process, market and promote the work. Depending on how many projects writers have on their desks, they could be juggling all of these. Each takes time, and yet are required to manage a successful writing career.

Writers need sustained work time. Scheduling thirty, sixty, or ninety-minute blocks to put words on paper can be helpful. If I get on a roll, I hit the timer to add another block. When I have a passion project, I can’t wait to read and write about my subject.

So how does one decide to accept other opportunities that take time away from writing and other necessary priorities related to family, work, and home? Do you say “Yes” and add another item to juggle? How do you know when your schedule has reached its saturation point?

I know I have reached schedule saturation when even the thought of taking on another commitment causes stress. Ultimately we have to say “No” to people when a “Yes” could bring all the balls crashing down.

Adding one more meeting means less time to write, and the occasion divides the day. This can lead to missed deadlines and the inability to do any work at all because of the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Within two months this year, I received four offers to join not-for-profit boards. One group met twice a month and that was a non-starter. As I contemplated another offer from a board that met once a month, I looked at my calendar and noticed that their board meeting date conflicted with a previous obligation. Even though the group offered to move the time of their meeting, I just couldn’t see how I could add another monthly commitment to my calendar. For a third board, the executive director said they met bi-monthly and communicated by email in between. That felt worse as I often struggle to read all the email that currently descends into my box. One recruiter mentioned the seriousness of the board work. As the guardian of a brother in a coma, I already make solemn decisions. Just the mere mention of the word ‘serious’ made me want to run.

I finally decided to decline all four board offers until I finished other volunteer projects or freed up time from my university job.

I believe there has to be a good reason to nod an acceptance.

I recommend writers consider saying “Yes” to those offers that bring joy, pleasure, and peace into your life. Writers must intersperse fun activities between obligations. Fun activities and passion projects feed your soul. They make life pleasurable so you can endure the serious and take delight from the prestigious.

For example, after taking several sets of golf lessons, I finally play with enough confidence to make it enjoyable. Fortunately in New Mexico many golf courses substantially discount their fees to encourage late afternoon play. With over 300 sunny days a year, I have become enthralled by the mountain views and gorgeous New Mexico skies. If given a choice between attending additional meetings and playing golf several times a week, guess which one I’ll choose.

At the end of each day, I review what I did that was gratifying. Did I type pages for my next book? Did I help someone? Did I golf in a nice surrounding? Did I see a comedy movie or watch a fascinating television show like How to Get Away with Murder?

There are things that we have to do, and then there are those we want to do. A balanced life requires juggling between both sets of undertakings. So off I go. Today’s writing is done and nine holes are calling my name.

Sherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Robin Perini

Posted on March 10, 2016 by

RITA® finalist, international bestselling and award-winning author Robin Perini is devoted to giving her readers fast-paced, high-stakes adventures with a love story sure to melt their hearts. She sold fourteen titles to publishers in less than two years after winning the prestigious Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® award in 2011. An analyst for an advanced technology corporation, she is also a nationally acclaimed writing instructor and enjoys competitive small-bore rifle silhouette shooting. She makes her home in the American Southwest and loves to hear from readers. Game of Fear is the third novel in her Montgomery Justice series. Visit her website at RobinPerini.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Game of Fear?
“Brilliant kids from all over the country are disappearing—but no one knows why. Until now.” You can watch the book trailer here.

What sparked the story idea for the book?
Two separate elements came together. One, after reading the story of a female Army Helicopter pilot and her heroism, I knew I had to tell her story. I also knew that she needed a reason to quit a job she loved, so I gave her a mission that was doomed from the start and a sister who needed her. When this pilot leaves the military, she not only leaves her military family, but a distance is created between herself and her father and brothers who are deployed. When the heroine meets the hero—and his family—it’s a reminder of what she has lost. I was able to meet with several military pilots and get some fantastic insights in flying helicopters in combat situations. Amazing bravery, and they don’t get the credit they should. Though, of course, they would never ask for any.

And two, with the help of my literary agent and some amazing critique partners, we came up with a crazy premise: Brilliant kids who master the hottest new video game on the market vanish …and no one really notices. Why? Because those who disappear are the kids who hang in the basement, who no one understands, who seem to fade into the woodwork unless they have a controller in their hands. The farewell notes left behind seem to make sense. These kids run away, want to make it on their own. The kids are misunderstood—and forgotten. Except for one girl. One brilliant girl with a sister who doesn’t buy the smokescreen. Deb Lansing’s little sister has been in trouble before now. She hacked into the National Security Agency’s computer system. She got caught.

Here is where I must digress. I plotted my book, and as I was writing the story, within a few months Edward Snowden happened. Weird, huh. I kept writing. My plot started down an interesting path that used the internet and webcams and such to spy. Within a few months, the cell phone spying story broke. A little weirder. I kept writing…with trepidation. A member of Congress was spied upon in my novel. Gulp. It happened in the real world. The web of deceit made its way across the globe. To Russia. To Afghanistan. Sound familiar, newsworthy even? I finished the book. Thank goodness. It’s enough to make a writer pause. But then again, sometimes fiction is the means by which the truth can be heard. I spent several months writing about events that made headlines just weeks later. Gave me chills.

Tell us about your main protagonists, their flaws and strengths, and what they’re facing in the story. Will those who know you recognize you in your characters?
Gabe Montgomery is the youngest of the Montgomery brothers, but he’s been featured in the other two novels in the series, In Her Sights and Behind the Lies. Deb Lansing was briefly featured in Behind the Lies as well.

As for Game of Fear … Former SWAT Team Member, Gabe Montgomery, was almost killed in the line of duty through the betrayal of his best friend. Determined to rebuild his life, ferret out the corruption in the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office, and protect his family, Gabe now runs a cop bar as a cover for a dangerous game of less-than-legal investigations into those who abuse their power. His faith in others shaken to its core, the last thing he can afford is to become distracted or involved with someone else’s problems…he could get them both killed.

Named after Deborah Samson—the first known woman to impersonate a man in order to join the Revolutionary army and take part in combat—Deb Lansing grew up believing in heroism, honor and truth. Her family has served in the military since the Civil War. As one of the few female military helicopter pilots, she took pride in her heritage. Until she failed on a critical mission. To redeem herself, she flaunts death on Search and Rescue Operations. She will NEVER leave anyone behind. Not again. So when her sister vanishes, Deb will move heaven and earth to find her. No matter what it takes.

One way in which these characters are like me is how much they love their family and would do practically anything for them.

Which point of view did you enjoy writing the most?
In this book I actually dipped into several points of view, but the one I most enjoyed was the POV of the kidnap victim, the heroine’s sixteen-year-old sister. She has her own journey of discovery and her challenges complement the main story in a way I hadn’t expected. I also found it interesting to give this section of the book a bit of a young-adult feel. She was an amazing character to get to know.

Deborah Samson

Did you discover anything that surprised you while doing research for this book?
To prepare to write Game of Fear I researched women in the military. My heroine didn’t have a name until I came across Deborah Samson. You may not have heard of her. Not surprising. Her story isn’t well known.

Taller than average, rigorous farm work broadened Deborah Samson’s shoulders and strengthened her muscles. From Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1781 Deborah enlisted in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment under the name of her deceased brother, Robert Shurtliff. She became a seasoned combat veteran and served for seventeen months during the Revolutionary War where she was wounded twice in raids along the Hudson. She even cut a musket ball out of her own thigh so no one would discover her deceit. Finally, a doctor discovered her true identity after she came down with a severe fever. Despite her deception, she received an honorable discharge and later became America’s “first woman lecturer.”

What first inspired you to become a writer?
I’ve been writing forever, but it’s storytelling that grabbed my interest first. I lost my heart to storytelling when I was a child, sitting at the knee of my great-aunt. She mesmerized me with her tales of “The Little Match Girl” and “How the Tiger Got its Tail.” She wrenched my heart, made me laugh and cry. She fed my love of reading and learning. Perhaps it was inevitable that I followed in her footsteps. My love of writing was her gift as well. When I was eight, I attended a Camp Fire Girls’ camp for a week—it seemed like a month. I wrote tear-stained letters to my great-aunt, and after I returned home she told me I had a gift for writing. That my letters evoked pictures in her mind. My great-aunt has long since passed away, but I look up and smile sometimes. My inner fire for storytelling and writing was her gift to me. I pray I do her justice.

What is your writing routine like?
I’m actually one of those irritating morning people. I write from 5:30 am-7:00 am weekdays before the day job. Mostly to get the adrenaline pumping because I thrive on deadlines—and being panicked! If you only have an hour and a half, you have to make the most of every second. Also, I write in sprints. Twenty minutes of writing and a 10-minute break. This idea was introduced to me by my fellow writer Angi Morgan, and it really works for me. If nothing else, my body doesn’t go numb from sitting in the chair. In fact, every twenty minutes we meet in a free chat room and report how many words we’ve written (you can get chat rooms at chatzy.com). For ten minutes we brainstorm, discuss, whine, stretch, whatever. It’s a great way to keep pushing through. On Saturdays, I write for about five hours in the morning, and on Sundays I write for three hours. I’m a secondary caregiver for my mother, who has Alzheimer’s, so this time has to be agile. I try to write 16-20 hours per week if at all possible.

What is your writing process like?
I call myself a planner…not quite a plotter, not quite a pantster. Before I start writing I develop my stories from the characters out, using a method called Discovering Story Magic which I developed with author Laura Baker.

I might start with a basic plot idea, a location, a news story or a character. Whatever I start with, however, I first identify a character that will work with that idea. I then explore my character’s strengths, weaknesses and deep character. From those emotional elements, I create the plot. I start with turning points, then fill in the rest of the scenes. I try very hard to ensure that the plot of my story forces my character to face his or her greatest fear and flaw, and that each character has the strength to help the other. I’ve learned over time that I MUST clearly understand the emotional arc of my characters before I start my story. I’ve spent a lot of time studying human behavior and what makes people behave the way they do, so hopefully this authenticity comes across in my stories.

After I work through the plot, I write the synopsis. This allows me to test the logic and drama of the story. It’s also easier to write the synopsis when I don’t know everything that’s going to happen. Finally, I write the book, which is always surprising. Secondary characters and scenes and even subplots come out of nowhere. Just because I plan a book, doesn’t mean I don’t relish in the discovery. I write in fast-draft form which usually includes basic dialogue, blocking and some emotion. It takes between 5-7 weeks for me to complete the draft, which is about 75% of the final word count. I then revise. It takes somewhere between 5-10 hours per chapter to revise the book. I go through a few more rounds of edits before I turn the story into my editor (hopefully).

I should add that everyone’s process is different. There are as many ways to write as there are writers, so whatever works for you, stick to it, but don’t be afraid to try something new either. Play to your strengths and use tools to diminish or overcome your craft weaknesses. Learning is a life-long process that doesn’t end. And that makes writing so much fun. Okay, that’s not quite true. I prefer having writ to actually writing. And I prefer both to revising.

Who are your favorite authors and what do you admire most about their writing?
I have so many authors who have brought me incredible joy since I was a child. In fact, on my website I have included pages listing many of my all-time favorite books and authors. Those books typically evoke deep emotions within me. They are my window into pain, joy, insight, and wisdom. One of my favorite authors is Sharon Sala. This New York Times Bestselling Author has written novels that twist my heart through a painful journey, but end in hope. Her ability to touch my soul makes me go back to her stories again and again. Even more than that, Sharon Sala is a mentor to me. She read my first published novel, In Her Sights, several years ago. She believed in me and my book at a time when it was hard to believe in myself. I’m not sure I would be here today without her encouragement. She is an amazing writer, of course, but an even more amazing person. I’d like to be her when I grow up.

Do you have a message or a theme that recurs in your writing?
In general I have two basic themes that recur in my writing. They include the concept of wearing masks—hiding your true self beneath a mask. The other theme is the idea that it’s not your past or your family that determines your future or your value, but your actions in the here and now. Both of these themes resonate with me emotionally and give authenticity to the emotions in my writing.

What are your strengths as a writer? After completing ten novels, is there anything you still struggle with in your writing?
I believe I have a good sense of drama and the ability to create characters that people connect with. I also really enjoy creating interesting villains. If I believe my reviews, I write page-turning romantic suspense that readers can’t put down (I can live with that!). What do I struggle with? Oh, where should I begin… in short, revision. Hands down. Because once I complete my fast-draft and have the bare bones of the story, then I go through an agonizingly iterative process where I hope to tease out the heart and soul of the story, activate the scenes, develop deep point of view and so much more. I probably add another 25% to the word count after my fast-draft is completed over at least three to six iterations. I think it was Jack Bickham, the noted writing instructor, who said, “Good novels aren’t written. They’re rewritten and revised.” That may not be true for everyone, but it’s definitely true for me!

What advice do you have for beginning or discouraged writers?
1. Study the craft…always. This may seem obvious, but life can interfere with writing and learning, as I’m sure many of you know. Over the last decade I’ve worked full time, gone to school at night for my Master’s degree, survived a serious illness, and am a secondary caregiver to my mother. The most important thing I’ve done for my writing, however, is study the craft of writing and storytelling. I was lucky enough to teach an amazing online class with author Laura Baker called Discovering Story Magic. The class required me to analyze other writers’ stories. One of the best ways to learn is to teach. I highly recommend developing workshops that require you to understand the craft. It’s been a blessing to me. This advice goes hand-in-hand with a second bit of advice. Never stop learning and growing as a writer.

2. Trust yourself. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder how I’ve fooled everyone for so long. Don’t do the same thing! Trust your instincts. Believe in yourself. Listen to your gut. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I had to really decide who I wanted to be as a writer. I tried writing numerous books in numerous subgenres. But I finally discovered the kind of stories I really want to tell. I love optimistic stories of suspense. I love heroes and heroines who grow and change and win. I love poignant love stories. That’s what I do. My readers step into the crossfire with heart-stopping suspense and heart-wrenching romance. That’s a Robin Perini book. Know who you are as a writer. It will help when you doubt yourself.

3. Persistence. Get a motto: Mine is: “Never give up, never surrender.” My theme song could be Tubthumping – “I get knocked down, and I get up again.” Don’t get me wrong, there are times I almost quit, but for better or worse, I am a writer. If you want something badly enough, don’t let the setbacks stop you. Learn more, grow more, find your path, find yourself. You’ll be glad you stuck with it. I know I am.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I’ve just completed the edits for my July 19, 2016 release, Forgotten Secrets, which is book one of my new Singing River Legacy series. Forgotten Secrets is a very special project for me. I mentioned earlier that my mother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. I will be donating 10% of the royalties I receive from this book to the Alzheimer’s Association, an organization that has helped my family in more ways than I can count. Here’s a brief blurb of the new story.

For Riley Lambert, being an FBI profiler isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. At the age of ten, she witnessed her twelve-year-old sister’s abduction from her bedroom. Fifteen years later and still searching for her sister, Riley has been called to another kidnapping, this time in the small Wyoming town of Singing River, to save a doctor snatched in the light of day. To complicate matters, her only witness, the woman’s grandmother, is afflicted with Alzheimer’s.

Battling against few leads and little time, Riley delves into a small town’s secrets with help from the missing woman’s brother, Navy SEAL and Acting Deputy Sheriff Thayne Blackwood. Can Riley decipher enough evidence to save Thayne’s sister, even as her past and his present collide in a shocking revelation no one could expect?

My current work in progress is called Rodeo Justice, and is the 8th Carder Texas Connections novel. I will be completing this story on April 1.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
First off, I want to thank you for taking a chance on a new writer, for taking a chance each time you open a book in the hopes that the story will mean something to you. If I could give any advice, it would be to keep reading and share your love of reading with others so that the world of stories and books expands and grows and remains strong.

Secondly, in today’s world, reviews help other readers find books they might enjoy. If you enjoyed a book (or even if you didn’t), consider leaving a review on the retail site(s) of your choice and/or Goodreads.

Finally, there’s nothing more I love than connecting with readers. You can read excerpts, read reviews, sign up for my quarterly newsletter or mailing list, check out my book trailers and even request trading cards or an Authorgraph on my website. I’m also on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and Pinterest. And, if you enjoy my stories, you may want to consider being part of the Rockin’ Robins, my street team. There are lots of special giveaways and more. In fact, you might get a sneak peek at Forgotten Secrets if you join in the next few weeks!

RobinPerini_32_crop150 This has been so much fun. I really enjoyed sharing a few factoids about me and my writing. So… you learned something about me today, I’d love to learn about you. In the comments, I’d love to know one unusual fact about you, or what type of stories you like to read, who your favorite author and/or book is… pick your poison. Comment and you will be entered in a random GIVEAWAY of an e-book of your choice from my backlist.

Still wondering if you should enter? Below is an excerpt from Game of Fear.

EXCERPT FROM Game of Fear

The whirr of the circling Bell 212 helicopter rotors echoed through the cockpit. New Mexico’s Wheeler Peak, barely visible in the dusk, loomed just east, its thirteen-thousand-foot summit laden with snow. Deborah Lansing leaned forward, the seat belt straps pulling at her shoulders.

Far, far to the west, the sun was just a sliver in the sky.

“It’s almost dark, Deb. We have to land,” Gene Russo, her local Search and Rescue contact, insisted.

“The moon is bright enough right now that I can still see a little, and we have the spotlight. Those kids have got to be here somewhere!”

Deb squinted against the setting sun; her eyes burned with fatigue. They’d been at it for hours, but she couldn’t give up. Not yet.

“All the other choppers have landed, Deb. This is too dangerous. Besides, do you really think your spotlight’s going to find a snow-covered bus on the side of the mountain with all these trees?”

“Five more minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

A metallic glint pierced through a thick carpet of snowpacked spruce.

“There! I saw something.” Deb’s adrenaline raced as she shoved the steering bar to the right and down, using the foot pedals to maintain control.

“Holy crap, Lansing. What are you doing?” Gene shouted, holding on to his seat harness. “You trying to get us killed?”

He didn’t understand. The bird knew exactly what Deb wanted, and she didn’t leave people behind to die. Not after Afghanistan. She had enough ghosts on her conscience. She tilted the chopper forward and came around again, sidling near the road toward Taos Ski Valley where the church bus had been headed before it had vanished….

KLWagoner150_2 KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.

Writing Fiction: The Promise of the First Chapter

Posted on March 8, 2016 by

by Chris Eboch

Your opening makes a promise about the rest of the story, article, or book. It tells readers what to expect, setting the stage for the rest of the story to unfold—and hopefully hooking their interest.

Genre
The first scene should identify your story’s genre. This can be trickier than it sounds. Say it’s a romance, but the main character doesn’t meet the love interest until later. Can you at least suggest her loneliness or desire for romance? (And get that love interest in there as soon as possible!)

Maybe you’re writing a story involving magic, time travel, ghosts, or a step into another dimension, but you want to show the normal world before you shift into fantasy. That’s fine, but if we start reading about a realistic modern setting and then halfway through magic comes out of nowhere, you’ll surprise your reader—and not in a good way. Your story will feel like two different stories clumsily stitched together.

If you’re going to start “normal” and later introduce an element like magic or aliens, try to hint at what’s to come. Maybe the main character is wishing that magic existed—that’s enough to prepare the reader. In my novel The Ghost on the Stairs, we don’t find out that the narrator’s sister has seen a ghost until the end of chapter 2. But on the opening page, she comments that the hotel “looks haunted” and is “spooky.” Those words suggest that a ghost story may be coming. That’s enough to prep the reader. (The title doesn’t hurt either.)

Setting
Your opening should also identify the story’s setting. This includes when and where we are, if it’s historical or set in another country or world. Once again, you don’t want your reader to assume a modern story and then discover halfway through that it’s actually a historical setting. They’ll blame you for their confusion. In a contemporary story, you may not identify a specific city, but the reader should have a feel for whether this is inner-city, small-town, suburban, or whatever.

Who and What’s Up
Your opening pages should focus on your main character. You may find exceptions to this rule, but your readers will assume that whoever is prominent in the opening pages is the MC. Switching can cause confusion. You should also establish your point of view early. If you’ll be switching points of view, don’t wait too long to make the first switch. In novels, typically you want to show your alternate point of view in the second chapter and then switch back and forth with some kind of regular rhythm.

And of course, you want some kind of challenge or conflict in your opening. This doesn’t have to be the main plot problem—you may need additional setup before your main character takes on that challenge or even knows about it. But try to make sure that your opening problem relates to the main problem. It may even lead to it.

In The Ghost on the Stairs, Tania faints at the end of chapter 1. Jon does not yet know why, but this opening problem leads to the main problem—she’d seen a ghost. If I’d used an entirely different opening problem, say stress with their new stepfather, that would have suggested a family drama, not a paranormal adventure.

The Fast Start
So an opening introduces many elements of the story. Yet you can’t take too long to set the scene, or your readers may lose interest. You want to start in a moment of action, where something is changing, and cut the background. But don’t rush things—take a little time to set up the situation, so it makes sense and we care about the characters and what’s happening to them.

Fast, but not too fast. How do you find the balance?
You can test your opening by seeing how much you can cut. What if you delete the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page? Does the story still make sense? Does it get off to a faster start? For a novel, what if you cut the whole first chapter, or several chapters? If you can’t cut, can you condense?

On the other hand, if your beginning feels confusing or rushed, you might want to start earlier in the story. Try setting up a small problem that grabs the reader’s attention, luring them in until you can get to the main problem. In my novel, The Well of Sacrifice, the Maya are dealing with famine, disease, and marauders in the early chapters, even before the king dies and an evil high priest tries to take over. That gives readers time to understand these characters and their unusual world.

Don’t stress about the opening during your early drafts, but do make sure you fix it later. Keep in mind that fixing it may involve throwing it out altogether and replacing it with something else or simply starting later in the story. In the end, you’ll have the beginning you need.

Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published in the October 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Revising Fiction: Character Viewpoint

Posted on March 1, 2016 by

by Kirt Hickman

Every scene must be shown from the viewpoint of one of your characters. In general, you should show the events from your hero’s point of view. The more you show from her viewpoint, the better your reader will get to know her and the more your reader will care about what happens to her. Choose an alternate viewpoint character when:

Your hero isn’t in the scene.
Another character is in the hot seat. Show the scene from the viewpoint of the character who has the most to lose if events go badly.
You must convey some overwhelmingly important piece of information your hero doesn’t know.

Viewpoint Violations
Make sure your scenes don’t express something your viewpoint character wouldn’t know, like what’s happening someplace else or the cause of a phenomenon he doesn’t understand. Don’t express the thoughts, emotions, or motivations of other characters, except as they are interpreted by your viewpoint character.

When you must convey pure information, include only facts being observed, heard, or considered by your viewpoint character. Doing so makes the information immediate and important. If you provide information your viewpoint character is not experiencing, it creates either a viewpoint violation or a digression. Your reader will recognize both.

Viewpoint, however, is not just about what your character knows or doesn’t know. Your character’s viewpoint must permeate every aspect of your writing, from the portrayal of her thoughts and emotions, to setting descriptions, level of detail and specificity, narrative tone, and even your word choices.

To do this, you must know your character’s likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests, attitude, age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic circumstances, and background. The more you know about your character, the more real she will be to you and to your reader.

Setting
Describe your setting in a way that reveals your viewpoint character’s attitude and emotional state. Is the room cramped, or cozy? Is it cluttered, or lived in? Consider this passage:

General Chang reclined in the womb of his stronghold with his feet propped on the conference table.

What does the word womb tell you about how Chang feels when he’s in the control room of his stronghold? Later I describe this room from the perspective of my hero, who has been brought there as a prisoner. He’s not going to think of it as a womb. Your word choice must reveal the attitude and emotional state of your viewpoint character.

Let character viewpoint define how many and which details to include in your descriptions. A character who’s interested in architecture would drive down a street and notice the buildings. A character who’s more interested in cars would notice those. A cop looking for a suspect or informant would focus on the people.

When Chase, an accident investigator in my science fiction novel Worlds Asunder, approaches a crash site, he has time to take in the details that are important to his case:

Chase’s first view of the Phoenix was a mere glint of sunlight on the horizon. As he drew closer, the fuselage came into view, jutting skyward from the flat terrain like a solitary tombstone in a field of glittering metal. The effect gave a surreal beauty to the desolate scene.

The pod came to a stop at the boundary of the debris field. The ship was close now. The fuselage, largely intact, rested at an odd angle at the end of a long scar in the landscape. A debris field stretched out to the northwest. Dents and cracks that marred the hull suggested that the ship had tumbled into its final resting place. The aft section, the cargo hold, was mangled.

Chase not only notices the details but also assesses what they tell him about the crash. Contrast this with the following passage, which takes place during a gunfight inside the enemy stronghold:

Two terrorists moved before them as they wound their way through the labyrinthine passages. The defenders stopped at each intersection to fire a few odd rounds, which slowed Chase and his party, but the men never stayed in one place for long. Twice the terrorists fired through a window to bring down isolation doors and seal off part of the complex.

Here you get only a vague sense of passages, windows, and pressure doors. I left out the details because Chase has neither the time nor the inclination to notice them.

Vocabulary
Character viewpoint should also determine the language you use. People from different age groups, regions, countries, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, levels of education, time periods, and even genders speak differently. Write your narrative in your viewpoint character’s natural voice.

Kirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the July 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author C. Joseph Greaves

Posted on February 25, 2016 by

Twenty-five years of experience as a trial lawyer has given C. Joseph Greaves an edge in creating gritty true crime/historical fiction. Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo), his second standalone novel from Bloomsbury Publishing, was named one of the best books of 2015 by The Wall Street Journal. Writing under the pen name of Chuck Greaves, he’s also authored the Jack MacTaggart detective series (Minotaur Books). You can find him on Facebook and LinkedIn, and at his website ChuckGreaves.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Tom & Lucky?
My short pitch is: Boardwalk Empire meets House of Cards. My longer pitch, from the book flap, is: The year is 1936. Lucky Luciano is the most powerful mobster in America. Thomas E. Dewey is an ambitious young prosecutor determined to bring him down, and Cokey Flo Brown—grifter, heroin addict, and sometimes prostitute—is the witness who claims she can do it. Only a courtly Long Island defense attorney named George Morton Levy stands between Lucky and a life behind bars; between Dewey and the New York governor’s mansion. This is their story.

What inspired you to write the book? What made you choose to focus on the trial of gangster Lucky Luciano and expand on the lives of those involved?
In 1999, I was having lunch with a friend whose father, George Morton Levy, had been one of the most successful New York trial lawyers of the Depression era. My friend casually mentioned that after her father died in 1977, her family packed up all of his office files and stored them in a barn in upstate New York. Intrigued, I flew to New York, rented a car, and drove to that barn where, as advertised, I found fifteen or so rusting file drawers under a moldering tarp. I spent the better part of a day rummaging the drawers until I found what I was looking for—Levy’s file entitled “People v. Charles Luciano.”

I didn’t retire from law practice until 2006, but I knew if the writing thing ever clicked, I’d someday tackle the Luciano vice case, which was one of the more colorful and controversial criminal trials in American history. I finally did so with my fifth novel, Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo). Bloomsbury agreed it would make for great historical/true crime fiction, and I hope that its recent selection as one of The Wall Street Journal’s “Best Books of 2015” repaid that faith.

Tell us about your main characters, including which point of view you enjoyed writing the most.
The four main characters are based on real people. Two of them—Dewey and Luciano—are household names, while the other two—Levy and Cokey Flo—are not. What Dewey and Luciano had in common, I believe, was the naked ambition to succeed at their chosen careers, whatever the costs might be. Because volumes had already been written about both of them, I was somewhat constricted in my fictionalization of their lives. The relative obscurity of Levy and Cokey Flo, on the other hand, left ample room for creativity, but always with the self-imposed limitation that the actual details of their lives, where known, must be respected.

It’s appropriate you mention point of view, because it plays a major role in the novel. In an effort to impose structure on the material, I decided to give voice to each of the four main characters in alternating chapters starting in 1914 and continuing through the trial in 1936. In order to make their voices unique, I wrote all the Luciano chapters in the present tense (the rest are past tense), and all the Cokey Flo chapters in the first person (the rest are third person). My favorite character to write, hands down, was Cokey Flo, and so I was pleased when several reviewers singled her out as their favorite.

Is there a scene in the book you’d love to see play out in a movie?
Structurally speaking, the book is naturally cinematic because it’s written in such a way that each chapter reads as a stand-alone scene. In his review, Tom Nolan of The Wall Street Journal noted that the book has “the wild energy of a 1930s Warner Bros. crime-movie,” and that is no accident. Because the cast of characters, both major and minor, is straight out of Damon Runyon—over forty madams and prostitutes testified for the prosecution—any chapter would hold its own on screen. But if forced to do so, I guess I would choose the chapter in which Lucky Luciano, in 1931, engineers the execution of Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria during a card game in a Coney Island restaurant. Each man had come to the restaurant expecting to witness the other’s murder, but Lucky outsmarts and outmaneuvers his rival, whose elimination paves the way for Lucky to gain control of the New York underworld.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
Writing the novel involved a ton of research, not just into the underlying events and characters, but also into the clothes, language, customs, settings, and attitudes of the era. The biggest challenge in writing Tom & Lucky was finding a new and compelling way to tell a story that had already been told in at least a dozen previous works of nonfiction. Also, to do so in a way that cut through the myth that’s grown up around Lucky Luciano and expose the man behind the legend. There’s a line in the book’s afterword to the effect that “Luciano’s was a life lived mostly in secret, and chronicled mostly in hindsight.” I knew part of the book’s audience would be organized-crime aficionados and, believe me, they will not suffer even the smallest of inaccuracies. If you think gun experts are tough on crime writers, you haven’t lived.

Tell us more about Tom & Lucky and how it came together.
I knew Levy’s files contained historical documents and information that had never been made public. (Some of those documents can be viewed on my website: ChuckGreaves.com.) I almost felt a moral responsibility to use those documents to explode the accepted narrative of Tom Dewey as the incorruptible special prosecutor and Lucky Luciano as the sinister whoremonger. (Remember, it was the Luciano prosecution that launched a political career that nearly carried Dewey to the White House.) The truth, you see, was a lot more nuanced, and if my readers come away with that understanding, then I will have succeeded in my mission.

I started researching the book in earnest in mid-2013, after finishing The Last Heir, my third Jack MacTaggart mystery for Minotaur. I spent six months or so doing pure research, then another year writing the book, which came in at around 120,000 words, making it my longest to date. The editing required was minimal—just copyediting, really. I also wrote a couple of feature-length articles in advance of the book’s publication; one for the ABA Journal, the monthly magazine of the American Bar Association, and one for Informer, the preeminent magazine for organized-crime buffs. After that, it was up to Bloomsbury.

Why did you decide to use a pen name for your true crime novels?
It wasn’t my idea, believe me. By the time I finally landed an agent (after winning the SWW Storyteller Award in 2010), I had written both a mystery novel (Hush Money) and a literary/historical/true-crime novel (Hard Twisted). We sold the mystery to Minotaur, which generally doesn’t publish literary fiction, and then the historical to Bloomsbury, which generally doesn’t publish mystery. To avoid reader confusion, Bloomsbury wanted me to use a pen name, since Hush Money was such a different novel than Hard Twisted, was ahead of Hard Twisted in the pipeline, and would appear under the name Chuck Greaves. I, however, didn’t want to spend the rest of my life writing as Mildred Pfefferman if, in fact, the mystery novels failed and the historical novels succeeded. We finally settled on variants of my real name, which is Charles Joseph Greaves.

What are the hardest kinds of scenes for you to write?
This is a great question, and one that every writer should confront at some point in his or her career. I’ve concluded, after five published novels, that my greatest weakness as a writer is a reluctance to drill down into my characters’ inner emotions. When I read authors who can do that credibly and seemingly without effort, I am in awe. It’s something I’m always working on.

Being an experienced trial lawyer has allowed you to write realistic courtroom scenes. What other ways has your former profession affected your writing or your journey to publication?
I’ve observed that there are three professions which are overrepresented in the universe of successful authors: journalism, law, and advertising. The reason, I believe, is that all three involve a reductive writing process—the art of making the complex simpler, whether it’s a news story, a fact pattern, or a product. The twenty-five years I spent as a lawyer, and the innumerable briefs and motions that I wrote along the way, were of enormous benefit in teaching me to tell a succinct story in a compelling way.

You have three novels in your Jack MacTaggart series published by Minotaur Books (Hush Money, Green-Eyed Lady, and The Last Heir). What are the challenges in writing a series? Would those who know you recognize you in the main character?
Jack MacTaggart is handsome, funny, smart, and fearless, so there’s no chance in hell anybody would ever recognize me. As for writing a series, I think it’s wonderful for as long as you, the author, still enjoy your characters’ company. One piece of advice I give to new authors is: be sure to choose as your subject matter a story you’re prepared to live with, every waking hour, for a year or longer. Or, in the case of a series, for many years to come.

Have you considered indie publishing for future projects?
Funny you should ask. I’m currently working on two projects, one of which may end up as my first indie venture, in that we’re writing purely on spec. I say “we” because my dear friend Deborah Coonts and I decided, after a few too many glasses of wine, that it was high time our respective series characters (her Lucky O’Toole and my Jack MacTaggart) finally met. We’re in the midst of writing a madcap caper novel involving baseball, Las Vegas, and hit men. God knows where it will end up, but I can assure you we’re having a blast getting there.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
It was Dorothy Parker who said, “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” These are words to live by.

The Writing Life: In Defiance of the Norm

Posted on February 23, 2016 by

by Olive Balla

Here’s the commonly accepted drill in the quest for publication:

Take a few creative writing classes.
Buy a library full of treatises on how to write the great American novel.
Write a great 60,000-word to 100,000-word story that’s equal parts plot- and character-driven.
Re-write and edit.
Give your novel a unique and intriguing title.
Develop an impressively bulging platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other of the hundreds of social networking sites you can access.
Re-write and edit again.
Create, pay someone else to create, or have your nephew create a brilliant website upon which you regularly write witty and pithy blog posts.
Take a class on guerilla marketing strategies, since you’ll be required to market your own book.
Re-write and edit some more.
Brush up on the art of contract negotiations, or hire a literary attorney to represent you in negotiations with Big Publishing.
Craft a succinct yet compelling Query, Synopsis, and Pitch.
Re-write and edit yet again.
Find the one-in-a-thousand agent who represents your genre, and more importantly, who is willing to be queried by the as-yet-unpublished.
Be prepared to give copies of your book to bloggers, Goodreads reviewers, and friends and family.
Eschew indie or self-publishing as the last resort of those lost souls doomed to forever wander in the wilderness of literary untouchables.

But wait. Apparently the wonderful world of technology is in the process of rendering all the above so much balderdash.

Ever heard of Hugh Howey? According to Forbes, thousands of copies of this 37-year-old man’s science fiction novel are selling on two continents at this very moment. How did he do it?

Howey carefully and slavishly stuck to the accepted blueprint for publishing success, right? Wrong. Howey’s path to household word-dom bears little resemblance to the standardized version drilled into our heads by agents, authors of publishing how-to books, and guest speakers at writers’ conferences.

Well then, Howey certainly must have spent at least 10,000 hours honing his writing skills—the number of hours Dr. Anders Ericsson’s research on expertise indicates is necessary to become really good at anything. (That would be 1,250 eight-hour days doing nothing but writing.) Wrong again. Evidently, Mr. Howey spent most of his years adventuring on his boat, rather than practicing his writing.

So how did Hugh Howey attain his position in the rarefied stratum of Consistent Best Sellers? Let’s compare and contrast, as my college English professor used to say, the universally accepted means to achieve publication with Howey’s path—the path currently being sneered at by the mentally-concretized literati:

Howey must have given his novel a brilliant title, right? Um, no. He named his series Wool. Could have just as easily been Cotton or Crepe for all the excitement his title elicits.
He must have a ponderous platform, with thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers. No again. At the time of the Forbes article, he didn’t even have a website or blog. Instead, his time and creative energies were fully focused on writing his novels.
He must at least be a radio or television star with untold numbers of fans avidly awaiting his book. Wrong. Until he published his own book on Amazon, his name was basically known only to friends and family.
Once Howey self-published, no self-respecting Big Publisher or agent would look twice at him. Wrong yet again. Not only has he been picked up by Simon & Schuster, but he’s now dickering for movie and television series rights—both foreign and domestic.

Howey’s self-published success is most assuredly not the norm. And although his prose is top-notch, there are lots of self-published novels that, even to my bourgeois palate, seem less than stellar. In fact, there are some offerings out there that scream “first draft.” (Even at that, many of them are bestsellers—go figure.)

The point is that the times they are a-changing. Remember that old story about the buggy whip manufacturer who adamantly refused to change with the times? The company’s upper management asserted that the automobile was just a meteoric fad. And the same was said about computers.

We writers are faced with the same kind of choice. We can either take the standard, recommended path to publication (and I’m not denigrating that), or we can throw ourselves headlong into the mega-trend that’s building momentum in ePublishing and self-publishing.

In a conference I recently attended we were given the chance to question a panel made up of four literary agents (one from Santa Fe, three from New York), and an ePublishing guru. An attendee asked the panel what her chances of attracting an agent would be if she first chose to go the self-published route. The agents semi-sternly admonished her against taking the self-pub road less traveled. But the ePublisher expounded on the joys of doing your own thing, at your own pace, and reaping all your rewards as opposed to sharing with Big Pub and an agent. While even the ePublisher warned against using a vanity press, every other do-it-yourself avenue seems to be fair game.

My caveat: make sure your novel is as polished, edited, and tight as you can make it before sending it to the printers or out into the ether. Unlike with software and hi-tech gadgets that are commonly marketed before being completely debugged, the public will not help you clean up your novel. They’ll find someone else’s story to read, and word-of-mouth can torpedo your lazy booty right out of the water.

So, you can work for months or years on a novel, and then wait more months or years while trying to find an agent who may or may not be able to sell your “baby,” or you can do it all yourself.

It boils down to how ready and willing you are to take a chance. Roulette anyone?

This article was originally published in the January 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

The Writing Life: Finding the Fight and the Fun in Your Work

Posted on February 16, 2016 by

by Sherri Burr

Recently, fortune blessed me with the opportunity to watch live tennis at a high-level tournament in Ohio. As I observed tennis star Serena Williams fight back after losing the first set to win the next two sets and claim the match, I thought about how much we writers can learn from her determination to succeed.

Just as tennis players face the constant threat of losing points, games, sets and matches, we writers often confront rejection. Author Gregg Levoy (This Business of Writing) once told a SouthWest Writers audience that if you are not constantly receiving rejection letters, you are operating too far into your comfort zone. I initially thought this harsh as no one wants to receive rejection letters. But his larger point resonated. If you constantly put out work that gets accepted, perhaps you are not challenging yourself to go to the next level. Are there higher levels of publications that you have not submitted to for fear of rejection? This is like the tennis player who only plays players who are worse than they are. Where’s the test? Where’s the opportunity?

By daring ourselves to query top book and magazine publishers, we increase our risk of rejection but we potentially set ourselves up for great rewards. Tennis players know that if they want to win the big tournaments, the Grand Slam events, they have to constantly improve their games. This requires honest assessments of weaknesses and strengths. Do they have an accurate serve, which allows them to claim free points? Or a weak serve that leads to double faults? Do they have a lightning-accurate forehand, or one that constantly sails long? Is their backhand hit with power, or does it soft-land on the other side of the net and permit the opponent to hit a punishing return?

For writers, do we write articles with humor, or do our attempts fall flat? To predict an audience’s reaction requires test driving the material. This is where critique groups that require writers to read their submissions can be absolutely critical to writer success. As you deliver your words out loud, you can obtain an instant reaction as to whether the material is hitting the intended emotional cues. If your critique group members react by laughing out loud or crying, then you know you are hitting the right level. If there is no reaction, then you know you have to go back to the drawing board.

This is why I prefer critique groups whose members read the material compared to those who pre-send the material by email and then discuss it when the group meets. In the former, you can instantly see the reaction. In the latter, the person might tell you they found something funny but you won’t know how funny. Were they falling out of their seat with laughter or did a bemused look cross their brow?

Similarly in tennis, a speed gun measures the serve. Players don’t have to guess how fast a serve was, they know. After Croatian player Marin Cilic won the 2014 US Open, he was interviewed about his suspension for four months during 2013 for having a banned substance in his urine tests. Cilic used the time to practice his serve and to work on finding the enjoyment in his game. Others might have spent the four months in “woe is me” mode. Instead, Cilic used it as an opportunity to improve.

When life gives an opportunity to remove ourselves from the normal and reassess, take it as a golden opportunity to improve. Examine weaknesses and strengths. Find the fun in your work. That’s where long-run success lies. That’s where the willingness to fight in difficult moments arises. At the Ohio tournament, Serena Williams battled from a set down to win the semi-final match against Caroline Wozniacki. She won her next match in straight sets and the U.S. Open for the sixth time by beating the same opponent in the finals. Williams took note of her earlier struggles and improved her game.

For writers, progress can come from reading and writing daily, as well as signing up for writing courses. When writing is fun, abandoning your life’s work never enters your mind. You commit to fight until the last letter is struck on your keyboard. Writers don’t retire; the ideas keep flowing until they take their last breath. Challenge yourself to submit to different publishers. The successes may surprise and amaze you.

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Corrales Writing Group: On Group Structure and Indie Publishing

Posted on February 11, 2016 by

Corrales Writing Group is a closed group of six members who encourage each other in their individual writing journeys and together produce an annual anthology of essays and short pieces of fiction and memoir. The current group is made up of authors Christina Allen, Maureen Cooke, Sandi Hoover, Thomas Neiman, Jim Tritten, and Patricia Walkow. Their third anthology, Currents, was published in 2015. You can visit Corrales Writing Group on Facebook. For part two of this interview, go to “On Writing.”

If you were pitching your anthology to an agent, how would you describe Currents?
Currents is an anthology to which six writers have contributed. All contributors live in the Village of Corrales, on the western flank of the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The members of the group share a love for New Mexico, and in particular, a love for the Village. Currents is the third anthology the group has produced, and over time, the constant flow of ideas and critically valuable suggestions has enriched not only our writing, but also our lives.

It’s typical for works in an anthology to share a common theme, but this isn’t true of your anthologies. Why did you decide not to write to a theme?
While it is true most anthologies share a common theme, the only common theme in ours is the place where the writers live—Corrales. One of the benefits to this approach is that the anthology may offer something for everyone. Another is that the book’s targeted audience does not expect a single-topic theme.

The members of your group do all the work necessary to bring your books to market. What kind of learning curve did you go through to accomplish this? What was your most helpful resource?
Although all members of the group are comfortable using a computer, there are varying degrees of computer literacy within the group. Three of the members spent many years working with computers and applications in their chosen professions. These were the first editors, and they found the process quite straightforward, without specific training needed. The other members of the group are learning from their experience, as the first three editors have prepared guidelines and processes for the subsequent editors to follow. We explored various independent publishing options and selected CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing based upon ease of use. Frankly, anyone can master their templates.

Each year your group rotates the duties necessary to publish your books. Why did you decide to do this?
We decided to rotate the duties so that: (1) every member of the group gains the knowledge necessary to do each task required to publish a book, and (2) the same task does not fall on one or two people all the time. Editing is quite time-consuming and involves not only the technicalities of grammar and punctuation, but also the layout of the book, developing back and front cover options, the assignment of work, and the development and management of a schedule with a publication date at the end. The editor manages the work to meet the scheduled publication date. The members of the group meet their due dates on their tasks. It’s a project, and the editor is the project manager.

How long does it take to put the anthologies together after the stories are complete? What is your typical editing/publishing timeline?
The writing and review process for the coming year’s anthology begins in December, right after the current year’s anthology is published in November. So the timeframe to write all the pieces and review them runs from December of one year through mid-July/early August of the following year. The editing process begins in August, and involves not only the editor, but each member of the group who is given specific editing assignments managed by the editor.

Each piece in the anthology will be critiqued a minimum of two times within the group before the piece is considered for publication in the anthology. During the creation of the book itself, each submission is reviewed probably another four times to include thorough reviews for formatting, grammar, and consistency with other chapters.

Usually at the end of all the editing, proof copies are produced and another round of editing is done. A second proof is always produced, and sometimes a third. Kindle editions are not produced until the final paper version is ready. Proofs for Kindle editions are handled online. Members share the responsibility of reviewing the final product in all the different Kindle platforms offered. The final paper version is not published until the Kindle edition is approved since we have learned that many formatting issues are not seen until reviewers look at the various Kindle platforms.

What marketing strategies have brought your anthologies the most success?
Our business plan was to establish an LLC (Limited Liability Company). We market our products through Amazon, Kindle, local retail sales, Facebook, Goodreads, newspapers, local media and launch parties. Since we have remained financially solvent every year, the group’s plan is to continue independently publishing our books (paperback and Ebooks) into the future.

What are the goals of your writing group? How do you ensure potential members are a good fit?
Individual members of the group have their own goals, but as a cohesive entity, the group seeks to achieve recognition in the writing community, as well as win awards; awards, however, are not the primary focus. Developing our craft of writing is very important to our members. In addition, in order to continue operations, the group needs to maintain fiscal solvency. Costs are constrained to permit continued annual self-sustained publication within realistic expectations of annual sales.

We have learned it is best to have potential members of the group attend a meeting and decide if what we do and how we do it is something they might be willing to commit to, long-term. Commitment is a key success factor for our group. We review each other’s work before a meeting, come prepared with each piece critiqued and commented. On the rare occasion members can’t attend a meeting, they’re still expected to send their comments to the writer. Common computer literacy is another requirement of being a part of the group. It includes the use of Microsoft Word not only to write, but also review and critique. Electronic file organization is required as is the ability to effectively use websites, such as CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing. Although reviews are done face-to-face at our meetings, the actual comments and critiques are sent to each other electronically.

We are a closed group and no longer accept beginning writers. As a group we have come far from those early days, and we’ve learned it’s not productive for our members to be teaching a new writer all the time. Nor is it fair or healthy for a prospective writer to be overwhelmed. However, we do encourage new writers to form a group of their own, and will help them with what we have learned along the way. We have taught writing classes in New Mexico at the Corrales and Meadowlark Senior Centers.

Take us through a typical group meeting. How are your meetings structured?
We meet every two weeks, usually at a restaurant. Sometimes we rotate our meetings in members’ homes. One person is the facilitator of each meeting. Another person is the scribe who keeps the notes. We start by doing our reviews of new and 2nd review work. Usually we do about three to four reviews at each meeting. We use a structured process we adopted with the assistance of Rachel Hillier (associated with Central New Mexico Community College), who the original group hired to help with some aspects of writing. From our six weeks with Rachel, we have a set of standard questions we consider each time we review a piece. Writers are free to have each reviewer answer additional questions, also. Once the reviews are completed, we begin the business meeting. The Corrales Writing Group is an LLC, and we review old business and discuss new business. We assign dates for people to present their work and make any other assignments necessary for the group to function.

What makes a good critique group member?
Adhering to our process is a great help to the writer. We expect our members to use our standard critique questions. Not that those questions stop a reviewer from making other comments. The reviewer needs to critique the writer’s work in a way that makes it clear what is working well in the story, as well as what is unclear or repetitive, and to let the writer know what the reviewer thinks the story really is all about. The objective is not to tear anyone down, but to build up the writer. The writer always retains the right to make or not make changes based on the critiques. In general, if two or three reviewers find the same problem, the writer really should pay attention to it.

For those who might want to organize their own writing group with the goal of publishing, what steps do you suggest they take?
Hire or consult with someone who leaves you with a viable critique process. Make sure everyone understands being a member of the group is a commitment. Learn from those who have already independently published. Consider hiring a publishing entity, if necessary.

One of the strengths of your group is how well you get along—you even socialize and travel together. What do you attribute this to?
The members of the group respect our different backgrounds, opinions and experiences. It is key to our getting along…along with wine and lots of laughter. The process we use helps. Nothing is personal—it’s about the writing. We know each other’s strengths and use them effectively.

The Challenges of Writing Historical Fiction

Posted on February 9, 2016 by

by Chris Eboch

Hot trends may come and go, but for some writers and readers, nothing takes the place of great historical fiction. So in honor of Black History Month (February) and Women’s History Month (March) let’s look at this enduring genre. It can explore any period, from ancient—even prehistoric—times, to recent decades (that’s right, your childhood is now historical). The best books let readers explore a fascinating time in the past, through a character who appeals to modern tastes.

Research
Regardless of the time period, historical fiction requires heavy research, in books, online, at museums and through interviews. D. Anne Love has published seven historical novels for young people, including The Puppeteer’s Apprentice and Semiprecious. “Although the former is set in medieval England and the latter in Oklahoma and Texas in 1960, my research process for both books was similar. I read as many primary sources (diaries, letters, journals) as possible, and followed up with other books on the topic. I conducted much of my research online, but I also used libraries for hard to find materials. For Three Against the Tide, a Civil War novel set in Charleston, South Carolina, I visited the area five times, taking photos, notes, and visiting local libraries and historical societies.”

With all this research, authors must be organized. Albuquerque author Lois Ruby (Shanghai Shadows), says, “I take extensive notes, each fact on a separate index card, all arranged by detailed subject. I do about two years of research before I even begin writing, then recheck for details after the writing is underway.”

By nature, historical fiction writers love research and the minutia of the past. But resist the urge to include every fascinating detail. Patricia Curtis Pfitsch, author of Riding the Flume, says, “I read my work aloud and I tune my ear to anything that sounds too ‘teacherly.’ I keep reminding myself that it’s not nonfiction. It’s okay if the readers don’t learn everything I learned.”

Mary Ann Rodman, author of Yankee Girl, agrees. “Sometimes it’s hard to keep from showing off all that research you did! For me, a detail only works if it adds to the story in some significant way. If I am unsure, I ask myself ‘Would I include a comparable detail, if this were a contemporary story?’”

The People of the Past
Character is key in bringing stories to life, and in making the past appeal to today’s readers. Love notes that, “I try to show young readers that although we may be separated by hundreds of years from the characters in books, their emotions, goals, struggles, and dreams are very much like our own.”

Historical characters must be appealing, yet believable for their time. “I have to watch myself carefully for ‘thought anachronisms,’” Rodman says. “I like strong, feisty female characters, but if you are going to have one in a book that takes place in the pre-feminist world, you better have a good reason for her behavior.” Changing social standards produce another challenge. Rodman adds, “It is really hard to write characters who have what are today considered racist or sexist beliefs (but were widely accepted in their time) and make them likable…or at least not villains. I hope that my books show the complexity of events that shaped the way we live in twenty-first-century America.”

Character authenticity is one of the big challenges of historical fiction, but authors risk confusing readers if the language is too authentic. Doris Gwaltney suggests, “In some instances, as in my Elizabethan novel, Shakespeare’s Sister, the language had to be altered a bit for today’s readers.” She kept the basic language clear, and then “I threw in a few words of the period to create the flavor of the time.”

To Market
Like the authors who write it, the editors who publish historical fiction tend to love the genre. Dianne Hess, Executive Editor at Scholastic Press, says, “We learn from the past. History repeats itself when we are unaware of it. I also feel that we appreciate the value of life when we see it as a continuum.” However, she notes, “As an editor, I’m charged with publishing books that will make money. We need to find books that will have a significant readership.”

An unusual setting may attract attention, but the story comes first. According to Jennifer Wingertzahn, Editor at Clarion Books, “More important than time period or location, I feel, is a fresh and unique story. It’s not enough to simply set a story against an exciting historical backdrop—readers want depth, layering, texture, and vivid characterizations.”

The path to great historical fiction is clear: A spark of inspiration, months of research, carefully chosen details to bring the setting to life, and a dynamic character who appeals to today’s readers, while expressing the differences of her time. With a little luck, the end result is a book that will last long beyond modern trends.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published as “The Stories of History” in the February 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.