Betty Crocker Rides Again

Betty Crocker Rides Again

I'm looking for stealthy healthy recipes to fulfill #7 on my Personal 9 Month Bucket List~ Cook a healthy meal the DH can't tell is healthy. Please join me with your recipes at www.miamarlowe.blogspot.com !

Red Pencil Thursday with Darcy Carson

Please welcome Darcy Carson, my critique partner from Seattle. Even when I moved away from Seattle, she stuck with me, e-critiquing and giving me appropriate kicks in the rear when I needed it. I can honestly say without the help and encouragement of this fantastic woman, I would not be published. And I'm not the only writer she's helped. NYTimes Bestseller Elizabeth Boyle has sat at Darcy's kitchen table and Darcy was the founder of Eastside RWA, the chapter that really set my feet on the right writing path.

Darcy and I are used to tough love from each other and she knows that this is a smorgasbord. She'll take what she likes and leave the rest. My comments on Darcy's paranormal are in red. Her responses are in purple. Please add yours at the end. ;-)

ALL ABOUT MAGIC
I like this title because it fits the story well. Since Darcy's been my crit partner, I know a little more about where it's going. Her heroine is a witch sent by a magic policing organization to investigate the hero, who may or may not be dabbling in weather magic. It's an inventive premise and sets Darcy's characters in conflict even as they are drawn to each other.

Chapter One

Was he causing this terrible storm?
I'd love to see a stronger first sentence. Asking a direct question is a gamble because the reader doesn't know enough to care about the answer yet. We don't yet know who he is or why he thinks he might be powerful enough to cause a storm. Maybe a little involuntary dialogue from the hero when lightning strikes near him?
I like the idea of internal dialogue. Maybe something along the lines of: He hated his weather WynnCasts. They might be accurate predications, but he couldn’t control them.
I didn't mean internal. I meant involuntary, like Brax swearing at the weather or something.

The answer frightened Braxton Wynn, lead meteorologist for KIDU TV on Channel 3.
Yesterday on the evening news, when he’d delivered his WynnCast predicting torrential rainfall, Brax had known they didn’t always hold true. But the compulsion to forecast always proved so overwhelming, he couldn’t resist. He never could.
Ok, I've said several times not to start with the weather unless the hero is a meteorologist, but by golly, that's what Darcy has here. So in this case, a weather beginning can work. You've given us a hint that he has a special skill when it comes to weather by mentioning the compulsion he feels when he forecasts. However, I really don't want the first thing I learn about my hero to be that he's afraid. Could he feel something else?
I’ve heard the ‘rule’ not to start with weather, but wasn’t sure how to overcome that problem. At least I didn’t start with ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. I agree about the ‘afraid’ bit. Deep down Brax is probably angry that it has happened again.
Since your hero is a meterologist, you have a free pass on the no weather beginning rule! ;-)

And the rains came.

Now, another urge—stranger, stronger, more compelling—rose within him as he listened to the breaking news of serious flooding south of Seattle. He had to see the damage with his own eyes.
I know sometimes people are looky-loos when it comes to disasters, but I've never thought it seemed like a smart thing to do. Can we give him a better motivation than curiosity? Maybe if he thought he caused it, he might be able to stop it? That would be walking the hero's path.
Dang, Emily, you hit the nail on the head here. My little pea brain didn’t follow through. He drove to Orting to see if he could stop the storm by being in the middle of it.

Three-quarters of an hour later, he turned his truck off the interstate toward Orting, a little town tucked beneath the shadow of Mt. Rainer. For several miles, he followed signs for the designated lahar evacuation route, in case the mountain erupted and a lava or mud flow inundated the valley. At last he reached Orting where the worst of the flooding was being reported.
What's lahar? Is it something most people know that I don't? We've got a bit of a problem because Brax is by himself with no one to talk to. Could he have the radio on and hear a recording of his own voice giving his WynnCast? And then maybe tell himself to shut up or something? I'd like to see dialogue of some kind here. Listening to someone talk is a great to get to know them and we want to know Brax.
A lahar is an Indian word and is actually printed on the evacuation signs. I do like the idea of the radio being on. And I need dialogue much sooner than I currently have. That will solve the problem.
When we were in Seattle, we lived right downtown. We didn't drive all that much then, so I guess I missed those signs. Is the word capitalized on them?

Clouds gave way as he drove the two blocks to the end of town before realizing he’d missed his turn. He pulled a U-turn and looked at the sky that had been behind him; pockets of blue sky taunted him from above. Within minutes the storm had vanished, leaving a soggy disaster in its wake.
Pockets of blue sky. Very fresh. So did he actually cause the storm to dissipate? Or think he may have? It would be ok to let us have a peek inside his head here.
Actually we are in the eye of the storm, but you don’t learn that until later through the heroine’s POV.

Driving over a two-lane bridge, he glanced out the truck’s window at the Puyallup River, filled with raging water, dirty foam, and uprooted trees.
Very clear imagery.
Yeah, I got something right!
You get a lot right, Darcy!

A dorsal fin split the torrent. That couldn’t be a dolphin.

Braxton shook his head to clear his vision. The image didn’t change. A sleek, gray, bullet-shaped animal dipped and swam in the strong current.

Impossible. River dolphins didn’t exist in Washington.
I know what the dolphin signifies because I've seen parts of this story before. I'm trying to read it as if I don't know and this passage comes across as a little confusing. A reader wouldn't be able to puzzle out why it's there or what it means. I'd drop it for now.
Not sure I agree with you on this, Emily. Gotta think about it.
That's ok. This is what I mean when I say RPT is a smorgasbord. What I share is only one person's opinion. The author is the only one who can tell her story, and ultimately is the only one who can decide how it should be told.

He felt that strange compulsion again, that same impulse to drive here. At the far end of bridge he pulled over and parked on the shoulder. Even as he watched, water spilled over an elevated levy and began to surround an old white house nestled next to the bridge, just below him.
Can his compulsion have a physical manifestation? A twinge in his shoulder or a tingle of some sort? Maybe a soft humming when he gets where he's supposed to be? If he's being led by magic of some sort, I'd like it to have a magical feel.
Oh, I like this suggestion, especially the humming that reminds him of a chant.

Brax spotted a lone woman in a bright yellow rain jacket, looking like a Gloucester fisherman, running along the jagged top of the levy. One of her rubber boots stuck in the gooey muck between the rocks. He jumped out of his truck just as she lost her balance on the slick rocks, her arms flailing like a windmill. With a sharp scream that carried over the thunder of millions of gallons of debris-filled water, she fell and disappeared from sight.
Ok, this is where it gets exciting. We've got another person for Brax to interact with. This needs to come sooner. If you start the story with him already in the truck driving through the slanting rain, he could get here much quicker.

A quick word about tightening your prose. Angela James, editor for Carina Press says not every noun deserves an adjective. Jacket has 8 words to support it in your text.
Instead of:
Brax spotted a lone woman in a bright yellow rain jacket, looking like a Gloucester fisherman, running along the jagged top of the levy.
How about:
Brax spotted a woman in a Gloucester fisherman jacket running along the top of the levy.

When action is high, word count should be low. Shorter sentences read faster and communicate urgency.

“Hang on,” he cried. Could she even hear him?
I'd cut Could she even hear him? It's not necessary.
Great editing, Emily. Wish I had thought of this myself.

Racing down the driveway, he leaped a toppled lawn chair and double-timed between scattered trash cans. Pale hands clung to the boulders as unrelenting water twisted and pulled her body. He snagged the hapless woman below the wrist.
Love the action here, especially double-timed. The author's goal is always to surprise and delight our readers with our word choices. A fresh way to express what's happening will keep readers reading.
I agree with you about word choices. Sometimes the words are something we hear everyday and sometimes they just pop into our heads.

“Wynn?” cried Katrina Bishop, KIDU’s newest assistant producer.
Since he knows her, instead of giving us her name in a dialogue tag, why not have it explode out Brax's mouth? That way you show us he's shocked to find her here instead of telling us.
Good point. And an easy fix.

“In the flesh.” He was shocked to find a co-worker here, and how cold and wet her skin felt. His hand began to slip and he lost his grip. Scrambling, he caught her again.
If there's a way to move this action to the beginning of the story, I think you'll have a stronger start. The hero's trying to do something heroic and we like him for it.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, Emily.
It's been a while since I saw any of MAGIC. Thanks for letting me take a crack at it, my friend.

Darcy's bio---Darcy Carson is published in romantic comedy. She founded RWA's Eastside Romance Writers and is on the the board of Pacific Northwest Writers Association where she chairs the annual literary contest. She writes high fantasy with dragons trying to re-establish themselves on a planet where they'd been destroyed thousands of years before and paranormal contemporary with witches who work for the magic police.

Website: http://www.darcycarson.com/

Now it's your turn to add your voice to the critique group. What suggestions or encouragements do you have for Darcy?

The Makings of a Wall-Banger

You know what I mean. Some books are just destined to become projectiles. But what is it that makes us want to hurl a book across a room?

For me, it's a blatant historical error. Now, no one is perfect, and I'm sure I've committed a few faux pas in my body of work. But getting the history right is something I always aspire to. Research is what I do for fun, so I may set a rather high bar of expectation for other historical writers and for the most part, I'm not disappointed. Historical writers are meticulous because we have to be. Our readership is probably the most knowledgable, most sophisticated of all the romance sub-genres.

That's why I was shocked to my curled toes to find a glaring error in the novel I started yesterday. Nothing will induce me to name the author, but she is a well-known NYTimes Bestseller with plenty of experience under her belt. You would recognize her name. I'll bet you've read her books.

But within the first few pages of this story set in 1824, she reveals that her heroine was adopted.

Impossible. Adoption was not practiced in the UK until well into the 20th century. Fostering, yes. Taking on a ward, absolutely. But no one adopted anyone legally because there were no laws dealing with it. It simply wasn't "the done thing."

Now this NYTimes Bestseller gives her readers the feel of the period. She uses all the right slang--phaetons driving neck-for-nothing and rakes trying to "turn the girls up sweet." She knows how to properly address a duchess. The fashions and food are all there in appropriate measure.

But underlying it all, there's something terribly important from history that's missing. How the people thought about themselves. The reason there was no adoption at the time is because bloodlines were everything to the upper crust. A man was born to a certain station and that was pretty much that. If he had a privileged birth, he expected lesser mortals to give way. It had nothing whatever to do with which of them was the better man. The higher ranking one was assumed to be.

In one of Jo Beverley's books (and she's someone whose historical accuracy I trust implicitly!), when her titled hero finds himself without shoes, he demands and gets the shoes off the feet of the man who just freed him from a rather nasty place of confinement. The other fellow--a stranger to the hero--doesn't hesitate for a blink. The man of rank is the one who, by right of birth, ought to have his shoes. How they perceived themselves dictated their actions.

History is more than the stuff people surrounded themselves with. It's what they read and thought about and believed about themselves and their world. That's what motivates their actions in a way that the mere outward trappings can't. I get excited when a writer gives me something more than a costume drama. I love to climb inside someone else's life and try it on, odd old ideas and all.

And no, I didn't really hurl the NYTimes Bestseller's book across the room. (The only one I've ever really done that to is Nicholas Sparks' Message in a Bottle because he resorted to making his hero an imbecile who did something completely out of character rather than have a happy ending and therefore be guilty of penning a real romance!) Once my hackles settled this time, I decided the bit of fluff Ms. NTTimes writes never hurt anyone and the story is charming.

But my sense of suspended disbelief is gone. I'm waiting for the next nasty little mole of historical inaccuracy to pop up its pointed litttle head.

How about you? Do you have any pet peeves about books? What will yank you so far out of the story there's no going back?

Branding and Platform and Point of Difference, Oh My!

Hello! I'm blogging at MiaMarlowe.blogspot.com today and my topic is developing a web presence. It's about how authors come across online. If you have a suggestion or opinion, I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks so much to everyone who popped by Brava Authors yesterday for my first blog on that site. It was such fun to see you there!

Improper Thoughts at Brava Authors

Today is my first time to blog as Mia Marlowe on the Brava Author's group blog and since it's a holiday, I'm afraid I'll hear plenty of crickets chirping. If you have a minute, please click over to BravaAuthors.com and share your favorite silly bit of "purple prose."

You'll also get to see my fabulous new cover for TOUCH OF A THIEF (May 2011).

Happy Labor Day from a working man's daughter!

Odds and Ends Friday

First we have some winners from previous days to announce:

Barbara Monajem's winner: Sherrie Hansen

Jade Lee's winner: Daz

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on those days and made my guests feel so welcome! Please contact me, ladies, through my website with your snailmail info and I'll see that the authors receive your information.

Next I want to share that I'm blogging at my Mia Marlowe site today with an update on my 9 Month Bucket List progress, whether my DH's job is safe in the coming merger of his company and a tease about my virgin Brava Authors blog. Hope you'll pop in for a bit at http://www.miamarlowe.blogspot.com/ and if you haven't clicked to follow me there, I hope you'll consider doing so.

Have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend and stay out of Earl's way!

Red Pencil Thursday with Anna Bowling

Our volunteer today is Anna Bowling, author of postapocalyptic medieval romances (try saying that three times fast!) She's a hard worker who gets excited about good rejections--a perfect candidate for Red Pencil Thursday. A writer needs a teachable spirit and a willingness to try different options.

My comments are in red. Anna's responses are in purple. Please add your comments and suggestions as well.


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DRAPERWOOD

The point of a title is to give the reader a hint about what's to come. A draper was a cloth merchant/weaver and the term first surfaced in the 14th century, so it has a medieval feel. However, if this a postapocalyptic story, this title doesn't convey any sense of danger or "other-ness." I wonder if anyone has a suggestion that will juice the title up a bit?
Title suggestions are very much welcome. This is a road story, with Draperwood being the name of a haven that may or may not exist.
Maybe something with Quest in it or Return or Finding

CHAPTER ONE
England, 1361

John de Warre needed nobody and nobody needed him. That fact gave him some measure of comfort, enough to keep him moving through one day after the next. He rode toward the town, or the remains of the town, weary in body and soul and with absolutely no illusions that it would afford him the rest he needed. For too many days, he’d ridden beneath the elements, his packs and stomach far from full. If it weren't for the horse, he would have stopped and in time, death would find him.


John de Warre--terrific name. You've introduces us to an archetypal hero--The Loner. We like John because even though he "needed nobody" he has a care for his horse.

I’m glad John’s name works. Finding the right name for a character lets me grab onto them. He is a loner, but he’s not beyond hope if he’s considering the horse’s needs.

He did not fear death for himself. He would not seek it, but he would not flee it either. A moment's ignorance could do it. A sudden storm if there were no shelter. Or running afoul of bandits who might be anywhere, even more desperate for the little he carried than he was himself. Starvation could do it, or thirst, or sheer exhaustion blinding him to a wrong step that could lead to a fatal fall. He'd seen death come even quicker than that, a second’s inattention in battle, or a single boil heralding a fever that could empty a house or a town in less than a week.

Things like that could empty a life as well. They had emptied his. No use whining about that. All he could count on were his own strong arm, keen eye and enough intelligence to know that those were valuable tools.


Ok. Now I'm depressed. There are a few too many ways to die enumerated here and none of them mean much to John except the fever. That's the only one we need to know about, because it impacted our hero.

Good point. Establishing a bleak atmosphere is one thing; depressing readers is another. Sticking to what matters most keeps the focus where it belongs. The death list goes.

His dry tongue rasped and stuck against the roof of his mouth. He didn’t regret giving the horse the last of his water, even if it meant his own thirst.


Have you ever been truly thirsty? In addition to the symptoms you listed here, a person's esophagus dries out, making it almost impossible to swallow. Fatigue, muscle cramps, headache, nausea, increased heart rate, the list goes on. He just touted his own intelligence. Giving the horse the last of his water doesn't demonstate it. Even though he likes his horse, he'd regret it, I promise you.

Smacking myself in the head here. I have had experience with dehydration (heat stroke, oh so fun) so this is a good chance to draw on that. John might still end up giving the horse the water, but he would regret it.

A compassionate gesture, some might call it, but for John it was a practical one. A dead horse would attract bandits, and once they were done picking the carcass clean, they would follow his trail, better nourished and better equipped than a lone man on foot. Death by bandits would be his last choice. There were better ways.

There's a logic problem here. If they butcher the horse, the bandits would be there a while. Long enough for John to reach the town even on foot... provided dehydration doesn't get him.

That sounds a lot more logical, and more John-like. He might take into consideration that the bandits would need time to butcher the horse, and they can’t do that and chase him, but how far would he get without water?

Starvation and disease would require the least effort on his part, and he’d seen their effectiveness. Trouble was, they took too long and he’d had enough of the pain and desperation either would bring. His knife had a long, sharp blade, good for hunting and dressing the meat. He’d heated it over a fire and cauterized his own wounds with it. If he had no other options, he could draw it across his own throat and be done with it all, but unless he had no other choice, he wouldn’t take his own life outside a city, or the remains of one.

I'm afraid you're spending too long on ways to die. I'd rather know more about why John is considering it in such minute detail. The best hook a writer can set is an emotional one. John is indifferent about death. If he doesn't care, we won't either. Give us a hint of what's driving him forward and we'll follow.

The death list definitely gets cut. His preoccupation with death comes from a desire to be with his wife and their child again, having lost his family in the plague, which wars with his sense of honor and his faith that tells him actively taking his own life is wrong. Which would be much more interesting than listing ways death might find him.
Now you have my complete attention. We love wounded heroes. And a hero who has loved deeply can love again, if he lets himself. The journey back to a full life can mirror his journey to Draperwood.

His eyes scanned the horizon for signs of life, his ears pricked for any hints of sounds of the living. Voices, maybe, or turning wheels. A dog’s bark. The cluck of chickens. Anything that wasn’t the wind. Then he heard the bell.

Good sensory details. When you write historicals, purists will ding you for using words that sound too modern. Scanned leaped out at me, so I checked with the Etymology Dictionary. It was in use during the 14th century, but it meant to "mark off by foot" not to look at intently. It was another 100 years before it meant that. So you're close here, but to my ears it still sounds too modern for a medieval. How about "His gaze swept..."? Notice I changed the eyes to gaze because I have a thing about roaming body parts. We don't want his eyes going anywhere.
Thanks much. His eyes stay in his head and his gaze can do the sweeping. Will add the Etymology Dictionary to my resources.

The bell! Aline dropped her mending and whirled to grab her shawl from the peg by the door.

You have a gift for selecting evocative details, but because your hero is alone, we're left only with internal dialogue and no conflict.

I'd like to suggest that you've started this story in the wrong place. As it stands, we have John by himself, ruminating over ways to die. However, the bell signals something is about to happen. That's were the story should start since I suspect John and Aline are shortly going to meet because of the bell. That's where you should begin. There will be dialogue and conflicting goals between the two characters.
That’s definitely something to consider. John and Aline do meet shortly after the bell sounds, and its sounding indicates something other than what Aline thinks it does.

This is a common problem. I chopped 12 pages from the beginning of ERINSONG, my second novel. It was like I was clearing my throat trying to get the story started. But nothing is ever wasted on a writer. Because you've written this, you know a lot about John's state of mind. However, the author always needs to know more than she shares. When he meets Aline, there will be opportunity to pepper in how he's feeling about life and death.
Very good point. Not everything we know about a character needs to go in the actual story, and choosing the right bits to use when introducing the character can make a big difference.

Thanks for letting me take a look at DRAPERWOOD.

Thank you for the opportunity. Now I’m even more excited about digging in and revising.

The whole point of a critique is to find new ways to think about our work, new directions our story might take, fresh ways of presenting our ideas. If I gave you something to think about, I'm delighted.

My bio: Anna Carrasco Bowling has finally found a way to make the voices in her head pay rent. Currently living with her real life hero in the Northeast US, she spends her days plotting world domination...okay, time travel and historical romance that takes the dark road to happily ever after.

Anna's blog: annacbowling.blogspot.com

Ok, it's time for you to add your suggestions and encouragement for Anna. I look forward to reading your comments.