Good Links, August Edition

Puttering around on the Internet this month…okay, actually, I have to admit, most of these links were sent to me by other aspiring writers. Here they are:

Looking for the right word? Try this thesaurus. While I couldn’t get it to load up on my computer, and therefore found myself promptly distracted from the task, others have found it to be an amazing tool.

Looking to fix up your dialogue? Michael Stearns has a great article on the Upstart Crow Literary website that discusses how to improve that dialogue. Click on ‘Dialogue, Some Basics’.

Dang it! Rejected again? Check out this list of reasons for getting your work rejected. Maybe you can identify your ‘issue’ and get your work ‘accepted’.

Thinking about the money in books? Maybe you have an agent, or are talking with an agent/editor and thinking, ‘hey, maybe I can quit my day job’. Well, not so fast, according to Jeaniene Frost.

Have an agent? Negotiating your author-agent contract? Check out this list put together over on Writer’s Digest. While some of the tips may be familiar, #4 got me thinking.

Published? Pub date coming up? Check out this blog post over on The Blood-Red Pencil talking about blog tours. It has some great ideas on how to ensure your tours don’t get stale or repetitive.

How about a publicist for that book you’ve got, hot off the press? Do you need one? Check out this blog post by Bookends Literary.

And lastly, for fun…who are you? Type in your name and see what it comes up with. (Good for checking out possible pen names as well.)

Enjoy!

Book Review: Northern Lights

Book Review: Northern Lights
By: Nora Roberts

I have to admit, this is the first Nora Roberts I’ve read, and it’s a big, fat one.

Take one depressed Outsider cop from the lower 48 and toss him into a secluded Alaskan town named Lunacy. He’s the first chief of police they’ve ever had. Take one tough, supremely independent woman who owns Alaska’s a$$. Add in the discovery of a 16-year-old murder. Stir in a bunch of grumpy locals who all seem to have motives and means, and at the same time, don’t.  Voila, you have a rocket full of conflict ready to blast off.

I found it interesting how the character’s changed in this story. There was a definite arc as the cop regained the ground beneath his feet, found his purpose and grew stronger and more determined. On the other hand, the gal starts out tough as nails and slowly allows her softer side to make appearances. It was well played out. And yes, of course the officer got his man (and girl).

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Book Review: Eat, Pray, Love

Book Review: Eat, Pray, Love
By: Elizabeth Gilbert

This is the memoir of writer Elizabeth Gilbert as she spends a year trying to get her life back on track. Having broken up her marriage and burdened by a mountain’s weight of guilt and depression, she takes off on a journey around the world to heal herself.

She divides her year between Italy (where she learns pleasure through pasta and stellar pizza (eat) as well as rolling her tongue over the rich sounds of Italian), India (where she learns to ground herself, slow her thoughts and be kind of herself through months of mediation in an Ashram(pray)), and Indonesia (where she learns balance (love)–smile in your liver).

This is a an interesting memoir in that you can feel Liz transform through her writing. In the beginning of the memoir, there are times where the passages skip around and jump like her twitchy mind. You can feel her issues–the ones she seeks to heal through her journeys. One passage will have you peeing your pants laughing and the next one will have you thinking, ‘Wow, this is dark and deep. Where did this come from?’ It is a wild ride. And while there were some sections that made me want to put the story down and wander off, I am glad I kept with it as it was satisfying watching and feeling her transform herself as I turned each page. Plus, there is a lesson in her work for everyone, you just need to open your eyes, your heart and watch for it.

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Book Review: My Sister’s Keeper

Book Review: My Sister’s Keeper
By: Jodi Picoult

Wow. Talk about a story where there is no ‘right’ and no ‘wrong’. Picoult does a fabulous side of showing both sides of a difficult situation within a struggling family.

A family has a young son and daughter. At a very early age the daughter forms a rare type of cancer. She needs donors, but they need to be a very specific match. Nobody in the family is a match. Desperate to keep their daughter alive, the parents decide to create a designer baby. Nine months later, a baby girl is born and the blood from the umbilical cord is used to save her older daughter’s life. And thus begins the slippery slope of sacrificing one daughter for the other.

Things continue along the cycle of remission and flare ups until the younger daughter, Anna, reaches 15. Then everything goes to hell in a hand basket. Trust me when I say I’d like to tell you about it. Also trust me when I say, I don’t want to spoil any of the many twists by revealing anything. Seriously, go in blind and let yourself be shocked, wowed and gripped. I think I’m a Picoult fan!

I haven’t seen the movie, so I am unable to compare the two. However, I have heard that the sobs in the theater near the end of the movie make it difficult to hear what is going on. Maybe rent it. And keep the tissue handy. I know I will.

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Book Review: Unfeeling

Book Review: Unfeeling
By: Ian Holding

This literary novel is set in Africa. While this story is fictional, it speaks truths and is based around true events.

White, 16-year-old Davey witnesses his family being murdered by a Black militia who has come to reclaim the land his family has farmed for several generations. Davey, who survives the attacks by hiding, is taken in by the nearby farmers who have always acted as a second family to Davey. After a few weeks, he is sent back to boarding school where he is expected to heal. He doesn’t. Instead, he forms a plan to reclaim his family farm and runs away from school. Days later, sunburned, dehydrated and beaten, he is finally able to put his violent plan into play.

Then comes the cover up for his actions. Or is he too late? (I won’t reveal the twists.)

While this book covers difficult topics and has brutal scenes (how could it not?), the way Holding portrays the story and the characters, the reader is far enough removed that the ensuing brutality becomes thought provoking, but not so disturbing that one has to put the book down. For example, I didn’t have to put it down. And I’m a big sissy pants.

Holding does an amazing job of creating a tight timeline that jumps forwards and backwards, withholding facts until the reader absolutely needs them, and in all, creating an incredible story.

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This Week is…Book Review Week

I’ve read a couple of books in the past few weeks and I plan to make this book review week and post 4 reviews. There’s a memoir, a ‘popular’ mainstream book that has been made into a movie, a romance/mystery and hmmmm…what was that third books again?

Stay tuned!

P.S. If you’ve read something good lately, or have a book coming out soon, feel free to mention it in the comments section. I’m down with shameless self-promotion as well as the promotion of friends.

Writing Tips From Literary Consultant, Jeffrey Moores

Last Wednesday night Jeffrey Moores, former literary agent and current literary consultant, critiqued AgentQuery Connect members’ passages from their manuscripts over in the AQ chat room. He dispensed a ton of advice and tips, and 17 of those sweet writing tidbits I will share here.

1. If you can, skip using ‘first’ and ‘then’ to introduce action. It’s filler. Example: First she stood up, then she whirled around.

2. Instead of using two or three descriptor words, find one ‘good’ word that encompasses it all. His example: Instead of “sudden dead stop”, try “jerked to a stop”.

3. On adverbs (those words that end with ‘ly’): “Adverbs are usually weaker constructions that you could replace with more active verbs.” My example: He quickly ran to the store. He bolted to the store.

4. Use your verb choice to show your character. As Jeff asked, “how would grandma move across the room?” Wheel? Shuffle? Jeffrey added: “These are what I call “COMPOUND DETAILS”; those which show us an aspect of character development or theme or scene, while moving us forward at the same time.”

5. Don’t stuff a lot of details into one sentence. Do you have details you want to highlight for the reader? Focus on one per sentence and relate them to a theme or the character’s mood, etc. Justify why you are focusing on that detail. Save your details for the right moment.

6. When creating a scene, be careful how many images you throw at your reader. Allow time for them to sink in. Start with what is most pressing/important or sets the scene the best. What detail do you want to be the strongest? Give it the attention.

7. Delving into a character’s history needs to be warranted. There needs to be a reason for breaking the action in order to give some history.

8. When using words from another language or technical words that your reader may not know, add contextual clues so the reader can guess the exact meaning. Either that or use a narrator to explain what it is.

9. Hook your reader by putting the action first, then once you have them seeing a scene and wondering how your character ended up in this situation, move into telling, background, etc. to fill in the facts they need to know.

10. On other kinds of action… Actions causes reaction. Start by showing the action that propels the character and then move into the reaction. Show us what they see, then show us how they react. If something makes the main character yelp, show why they are yelping before they yelp.

11. Want to up the action? Speed things up? (Say you have a murder scene or a fight scene where you want to bring your reader to the edge of their seat and things to be happening one right after another.) Skip the ‘and’s linking those actions together. For example, instead of setting it up so this happened then that and this and this. Go for the jugular. This happened. That. This. That.

12. Early on, decide what your character’s level of smarts will be and what kind of things they will notice and in how much detail. Word choice and detail awareness create a character. For example, do they see erratic zigzags or 1 inch slices at regular intervals? Base the reaction and detail awareness on the character who is noticing the details.

13. Read aloud to hear the rhythms of you word choices, sentence lengths, etc. Anywhere you run out of breath or stumble, the reader will as well.

14. ‘Show’ when you can. Don’t tell the reader he was shocked or the mutilation was savage. Give us the details, let us draw the conclusion that this character is shocked and this is a savage mutilation.

15. Ensure your comparisons are equal. Don’t compare a cut to the bone to a papercut.

16. If you are using both second and third person point of view in your novel, break them apart so they are in different ‘scenes’.

17. You can start your novel with dialogue, just ensure that it isn’t between too many people and the scene and setting is immediately recognizable so you don’t lose your reader.

Chat and Critique with Literary Consultant, Jeffrey Moores Tonight

Hear ye, hear ye…

We are going to make you the best darned writer this side of the Mississippi tonight. Yes, that’s right, we’ve got Jeffrey Moores (former literary agent and current literary consultant) coming to chat with us on Agent Query tonight. Not only has he agreed to spend an hour and a half with us, he has 8 passages from our charming, intelligent and good looking AQ members. He will not only juggle these flaming passages, but he will catch them in his teeth, while dazzling us with his jokes.

As we enjoy our second cup of coffee/tea/gin of the morning, he is slaving over these 8 passages. He is editing, critiquing, and writing down comments to share with us tonight. He WILL make us sparkle and shine, folks.

So, what do you have to do to have this knowledge siphoned into your juicy brain? Join us! 8pm Eastern in the AQ chat room. This is the link. Click on it. At 8pm, hit ‘join’. You may have to refresh your browser if you get there before it is open. (You also need to be a member, but that is free and only takes 30 seconds.)

Here’s the plan:

I (the moderator) will introduce Jeff and go over the chat rules, etc. I will then paste one of the eight passages into the chat, followed by Jeff’s edits, comments, etc. Then there will be a chance for comments, questions, etc.. Jeff is willing to answer specific questions in regards to that piece and his comments/edits. Then, we’ll move on to the next passage. At the end of the chat, Jeff will have a general question and answer session. This is where members can ask general questions or specific-to-them questions that don’t have to do with the critiquing of the submitted passages.

Jeff is being very generous with his time and we are very lucky to have him helping us out, giving us that inner sanctum eye and showing us what kind of edits can make our work sing.

See you there!

Please note: Only the pre-selected 8 passages will be critiqued and commented upon during this chat. If you were not selected and would like feedback on your work, please contact Jeff at www.jeffreymoores.com to set up an appointment.